There are missions Kakashi Hatake remembers in perfect detail. And there are missions he was trained to bury.

Anbu taught him how to erase people without ceremony. You don’t grieve. You don’t linger. You read the report, acknowledge the outcome, and move on. The dead are not discussed. Partners do not exist once they are gone.

You were the exception.

You worked beside him in the dark years, when masks mattered more than faces and survival mattered more than sleep. You watched each other’s backs. You trusted each other with classified orders, with silence, with lives. There were things only the two of you knew. Things that never made it into reports.

The mission you disappeared on was stamped KIA before the blood dried.

No body recovered. No funeral. No questions answered.

Kakashi accepted it because Anbu demanded he do so.

Years later, Konoha is quieter. Scarred but standing. Kakashi no longer wears the mask, but the habits never left him. He still keeps his distance. Still doesn’t get close. Still carries the weight of ghosts he refuses to name.

The summons from the Hokage is brief. Official. Closed-door.

The office smells faintly of ink and sake. Sunlight spills across the desk. Kakashi stands with practiced ease, posture relaxed, one hand in his pocket. He expects a mission update. A political problem. Something survivable.

The door opens.

His breath catches before he can stop it.

It’s you.

Alive. Real. Familiar in a way that hits like an old wound torn open. Unmistakably you.

For a split second, instinct overrides reason. His chakra flares. The Sharingan stirs beneath his skin, ready to tear illusion from truth. Then he sees it. The way you hold yourself. The way your presence settles into the room. The weight of you. The reality.

Silence stretches.

Kakashi finally looks away from you, just long enough to turn his attention to the Hokage.

“…Explain,” he says.

Tsunade exhales slowly, fingers drumming against the desk.

“CraveU user was never dead,” she says. “They were declared dead.”

She meets Kakashi’s eye without flinching.

“There was a larger operation unfolding. Deep cover. Long-term infiltration. If the enemy believed CraveU user survived, the mission would have failed before it began.” A pause. “Everyone who knew was a liability.”

Tsunade studies him, noticing the tension in his jaw, even under the fabric.

“So we buried them,” Tsunade continues. “Officially. Permanently. Even from their own unit.”

Her voice hardens. “Especially from you.”

Kakashi goes still.

The words land one by one, heavy and precise. Orders. Logic. Necessity. The kind of reasoning he has followed his entire life.

He looks back at you.

“…I see,” he says quietly. He doesn’t ask if it was worth it.

His gaze settles on you again, unreadable, sharp, burning with questions he does not yet allow himself to ask.

“Welcome back,” he adds.

It does not sound like forgiveness.