Kakashi fic: Moments Gone (for artsatalex
Title: “Moments Gone”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG-13 (for a couple of characters’ deaths)
Summary: He has lost far too much, yet he isn’t ready to die yet. Snippets of Kakashi’s life that made him who he is. [mildly hinted Kakashi/Sakura] Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Some quotes taken from Kakashi Gaiden and chapters 176, 177, 234. Lyrics from Asleep by Takida; Believe by Staind; My Sacrifice by Creed; When Angels Fly Away by Cold.
A/N: Let’s pretend the latest chapters are over and the battle against Madara and Sasuke is already in progress. That’s the least I can do to make myself believe Kakashi is alive.
Dedication: Happy Birthday, artsatalex! I know I’m freaking late, but blame it on all those bitches that wouldn’t let me get to finish this in time! You are WIN, sweetheart! Uhm... hope you like this little thing. >_<
MOMENTS GONE
Eight
My pain is yours to keep inside…
Little does he remember anything about his father. He remembers his face all right and he knows (even without having been told countless times) that he bears a striking resemblance to that man. He recalls the name and even somewhat (vaguely) the sound of voice: a little husky, gentle but firm, much like his own these days. Whenever he thinks about it, he wonders if every following generation unwittingly copies their predecessors.
He doesn’t remember any details, though. Did his father hold him once or twice? Did he kiss him or even touch him? Did he make any promises, impossible to keep? Did he say: ‘I will always be there for you’ or ‘You’ll never be alone’? Kakashi would be surprised if he did.
The White Fang simply wasn’t that kind of a man. Kakashi remembers imprecisely the way he smelled (of earth and some old cologne - they don’t even sell that label anymore) and the way his unruly mane of hair billowed in the wind like streaks of silver. His dark and wary eyes would look upon everything with estranged neutrality, but there was a burst of pride and affection whenever he would catch the sight of his son. Nothing could disguise it.
The last thing Kakashi remembers is a dark pool of blood beneath the white flaps of a ceremonial attire. Blood is smeared thickly over the floor. His father is sitting before a ritual plate, his body tilted unnaturally, lifeless, as if he has somehow leaned forth and frozen in midmotion. Kakashi walks round him; his breath hitches and his heart skips a beat - a fraction of a second, barely registerable. His father’s fingers lie stiffly upon the hilt of the katana, its blade buried inside the man’s belly. Soft light streaming from the window makes the scene all the more surreal.
Colours - bright and bleak, scorching and soothing, screaming and inexpressive - weigh the boy down. He finds himself unable to move, cry, call for help. He just stands there, rationalizing weakly that help will not be needed. Some things are not so easy to set right.
There are splashes of blood on the painted sliding doors as well as on the hangings of Japanese Foukousas with their gilded embroidery upon emerald silk. Even this final act defies rules: his father chose to die alone without seconds to assist him and used his battle sword instead of a ritual tantou.
Somewhere deep inside, even deeper than his heart where the ice slowly forms and freezes his senses so that they would not spill out in a fountain of tears and screams, Kakashi hates them. All of them - because he knows exactly why his father did it. And he chooses to be exactly like them, so that no one would ever have to suffer should he break any rule. There are no more rules to break - and no more rules to set.
He is stronger than his father.
Thirteen
Believe in me,
I know you’ve waited for so long…
To that day, it was a universal truth for Kakashi that Obito was the most obnoxious, loud, insolent and useless person he had ever met. All he could do was boast and brag and come up with lame excuses for being constantly late. All he would talk about was the awakening of his Sharingan that couldn’t come too soon - yet to Kakashi it seemed this thing would never happen. Like any Uchiha, Obito was conceited and self-absorbed and proud and annoying.
A funeral is being held at the Uchiha Compound. Team Yellow Flash are the only outsiders present beside the Third Hokage. Kakashi is numb like his throat is filled with lead, and suddenly it flashes in his mind: ‘What am I doing here?’
He realizes that he can find no words to describe what Obito was like. No one asks him to speak, of course; there are plenty of others who may say something, starting with Obito’s inconsolable parents. He finds himself dwelling on what he might have said throughout the ceremony and keeps replaying random memories of Obito in his head.
“Why do you wear this stupid mask?”
“Hmm… Why do you wear those stupid goggles?”
“I asked first!”
“You are such a child.”
Tears prickle in his eyes. The transplanted one hurts unbearably, but the pain is imaginary, and that’s what he is afraid of. He is almost sure the eye is numb and comfortable in its new socket; but for some inconceivable reason his brain tells him it hurts.
“The people of the village,” Obito’s voice rings in his ears, weak, rasping, sorely lacking its usual vitality. “What they must have been saying… That you’re a great Jounin… That’s how I feel.”
After the funeral they stand outside the Compound’s gate, watching the pools of black, Uchiha in their mourning gowns, gradually dissolve like thunderclouds upon the clearing sky.
“I think I’ll go home,” Rin says in a bleak voice.
Kakashi glances at her white face complete with huge, dry eyes. She hasn’t cried since the day Obito died.
“I’ll walk you,” he offers, acting on some indefinite impulse.
“I want to be alone,” she declines. Taken aback by her suddenly cold tone, Kakashi doesn’t know what to say. Then a pale smile crosses her lips for an instant. “Thank you.”
She walks down the road like a ghostly shadow. He fears she will never laugh again, and for a moment the fear is so strong that he chokes on it and nearly rips his mask off.
Minato-sensei is still there with him, watching him with his kind blue eyes.
“Sensei,” Kakashi utters in a choked voice. “What should I do?”
A hand touches his shoulder gently. “Something you didn’t do before.”
Kakashi understands. He lets his feet carry him straight to the old Hatake manor and into his father’s room which looks exactly the same as he remembers it, down to the silk hangings decorated with heavily-plumaged emerald birds. He smiles as he remembers that Obito was the only person who had dared speak his father’s name in front of him in years.
“I believe the White Fang is a true hero!”
Kakashi falls to his knees, doubles over and screams. A late requiem for his father spills over into the mourning for a friend; his outcry echoes in the empty house, and his heart slams against his ribcage with such power that he is amazed he can still breathe.
‘What kind of a commander?.. What kind of a Jounin!?’
Tears splatter all over his face. The fabric of his mask gets soaked, but he doesn’t bother to pull it off. It is what defines him now.
Twenty-six
We've seen our share of ups and downs
Or how quickly life can turn around,
In an instant…
Up to a certain point his life is robotic, and he likes it that way. He seems far more relaxed on the outside, and those around him get attracted to this new mildly humorous, laid-back personality of his. In truth, he is far more a machine now than he was when he deliberately appeared to be one.
Nothing is planned out. Missions are the only thing he keeps organized because any miscalculation in the field might prove lethal. His life is erratic, pieces of some motley tapestry hurriedly sewn together by a single thread - the path that leads to the Memorial.
Kakashi doesn’t complain. It is not his lifestyle in general that is mechanical. He has his work, after all, and people who will always cover his back and - hell! - even an ‘eternal rival’! Who else could boast he had one?
It is the way he functions, a rolling stone that can’t be stopped.
He retires from ANBU and gets landed with a teacher’s position. It amuses and annoys him at the same time. He settles for the old teamwork testing method that is more like a tradition passed on from his own sensei, and the sensei of his sensei, and so on - and he fails squad after squad until one day Sandaime-sama calls on him and says:
“You have quite an impressive record, Kakashi.”
Any other man would make it sound like a reproach, but Sarutobi is merely voicing a fact. He keeps turning the pages of the roster, though his eyes never leave Kakashi’s face.
“I have no one to teach,” Kakashi admits a bit gruffly.
A flippant smile crosses Sarutobi’s lips upon hearing that statement.
“Precisely. However, I prefer to think of it not as your failure, but as a quest. Perhaps you are merely looking for a perfect match. And I believe I have just what is right for you.”
He picks up a file and lays it open in front of Kakashi. The Copy Ninja looks down; his visible eye curves and darts back to the Hokage’s wizened face.
“Do you mean it?” he asks flatly, his throat a bit drier than usual. Sarutobi nods softly.
Kakashi finds himself inevitably drawn to the Memorial, and as he removes his glove and places his bare hand on the sun-kissed slab, he can almost feel his excitement seep into it, animating it, as he speaks:
“So… I get to teach your kinsman. And the sensei’s kid, too. Cool, isn’t it?”
It is only when it’s too late that he learns: they are anything but ‘cool’. They are horrible.
Kakashi likes it. They are worse than any of his previous teams, yet something about them, as they are stuck together by some foolish twist of fate, hints they could be better.
They are painfully familiar, carrying the aura of a distant, bleared memory: an Uchiha, a loud-mouthed moron and a naïve girl with beautiful eyes. Deep inside Kakashi ends up hoping they pass.
Later, when they are dismissed with a promise of a mission coming soon, Kakashi lies in the grass near the Memorial, curving his dark eye when sun is in it, and smiles derisively beneath the mask. He recounts to Obito the kids’ stories: how much the Uchiha resembles himself in the past; how cute and annoying the girl is with her childish crush; that the sensei’s son is sunny and cheerful just like Minato but as impatient and pig-headed as Obito.
“Ah, but you saw for yourself, didn’t you?” he chuckles then. “Think I could do a better job for them than I did for you?”
He receives no reply, of course, but imagines Obito would whisper ‘nah’ just to spite him, and it makes him smile again.
When everything falls apart Kakashi has no one to blame but himself. The gnawing feeling of guilt won’t let go. He squats in the rain beside Naruto’s still form (so unusual to see him so quiet and… almost like…), reaches out to touch his shoulder; his hand hovers over the singed sweatshirt and he doesn’t dare move.
(‘Chidori is never to be used against comrades!’)
He sighs wearily. ‘The person I love most… No such person exists. Those people have already been killed.’ He thinks that Sasuke, too, after what he did, is as good as dead anyway.
The rain bangs over the flat rock, monotonous, trickles down the river that runs like a scar across the valley, making it flush. Kakashi picks Naruto up and chuckles at how grim and scornful fate really is.
Inevitably death.
Thirty
I can’t be home tonight, I'll make it back, it’s all right;
No one could ever love me half as good as you.
Got a badge for my scars just the other day,
Wore it proud for the sake of my sanity…
He doesn’t sleep a single minute after he digs Sakura out of the drift and brings her to Konoha hospital. It was a good fight she put up, as well as many others in the face of the advancing Akatsuki/Hawk menace. She deserves some rest, this brave little girl who has finally been through the worst shinobi battle: a battle with feelings.
Kakashi spends the night by her bed because he has nowhere else to be. He is half-asleep by the time she shifts and opens her eyes, wrinkling her forehead wearily like a person who’s had a really tough night. He wonders briefly how much she remembers and hopes that it’s not enough.
Sakura looks around as though she is not quite sure how she came to be here and where exactly ‘here’ is, and she smiles and squints at him when his worn-out form comes in sight.
“How long’ve you been here?” she breathes.
Kakashi snaps his normal eye open and glances at her briefly before replying in a low voice, “Just came in.”
Sakura snorts derisively. “Liar.”
She looks unreally fragile against the chalk-white pillowcase. A stray strand of dirty pink hair curls over her high forehead. It falls over her nose as she moves. Sakura sniffs, trying to get rid of it; it creeps across her nostrils like a smear of paint, causing her to sneeze lightly. Her hands are bandaged, and she is too weak to move them. Kakashi leans forth and carefully brushes the lock aside.
“I heard you almost died twice today,” Sakura rebukes him gently.
He flashes back to the fight against Madara, the hardest one he’s had since Pein, and shrugs seemingly carelessly. “Happens.”
Before he knows it, the girl forces herself upright and plants a fleeting, soft kiss upon his forehead, her lips coming through the barrier of thick, tousled hair to touch the bloodied skin. Kakashi remains immobile.
“Don’t do that again,” Sakura murmurs against his forehead and begins to sag helplessly.
He embraces her carefully and lays her back in bed. Soon she is asleep again, leaving him alone in the almost sacred silence of the hospital.
“I think…” he whispers, barely moving his lips, knowing full well she cannot hear him, “I think I was not ready to die today.”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG-13 (for a couple of characters’ deaths)
Summary: He has lost far too much, yet he isn’t ready to die yet. Snippets of Kakashi’s life that made him who he is. [mildly hinted Kakashi/Sakura] Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Some quotes taken from Kakashi Gaiden and chapters 176, 177, 234. Lyrics from Asleep by Takida; Believe by Staind; My Sacrifice by Creed; When Angels Fly Away by Cold.
A/N: Let’s pretend the latest chapters are over and the battle against Madara and Sasuke is already in progress. That’s the least I can do to make myself believe Kakashi is alive.
Dedication: Happy Birthday, artsatalex! I know I’m freaking late, but blame it on all those bitches that wouldn’t let me get to finish this in time! You are WIN, sweetheart! Uhm... hope you like this little thing. >_<
MOMENTS GONE
Eight
My pain is yours to keep inside…
Little does he remember anything about his father. He remembers his face all right and he knows (even without having been told countless times) that he bears a striking resemblance to that man. He recalls the name and even somewhat (vaguely) the sound of voice: a little husky, gentle but firm, much like his own these days. Whenever he thinks about it, he wonders if every following generation unwittingly copies their predecessors.
He doesn’t remember any details, though. Did his father hold him once or twice? Did he kiss him or even touch him? Did he make any promises, impossible to keep? Did he say: ‘I will always be there for you’ or ‘You’ll never be alone’? Kakashi would be surprised if he did.
The White Fang simply wasn’t that kind of a man. Kakashi remembers imprecisely the way he smelled (of earth and some old cologne - they don’t even sell that label anymore) and the way his unruly mane of hair billowed in the wind like streaks of silver. His dark and wary eyes would look upon everything with estranged neutrality, but there was a burst of pride and affection whenever he would catch the sight of his son. Nothing could disguise it.
The last thing Kakashi remembers is a dark pool of blood beneath the white flaps of a ceremonial attire. Blood is smeared thickly over the floor. His father is sitting before a ritual plate, his body tilted unnaturally, lifeless, as if he has somehow leaned forth and frozen in midmotion. Kakashi walks round him; his breath hitches and his heart skips a beat - a fraction of a second, barely registerable. His father’s fingers lie stiffly upon the hilt of the katana, its blade buried inside the man’s belly. Soft light streaming from the window makes the scene all the more surreal.
Colours - bright and bleak, scorching and soothing, screaming and inexpressive - weigh the boy down. He finds himself unable to move, cry, call for help. He just stands there, rationalizing weakly that help will not be needed. Some things are not so easy to set right.
There are splashes of blood on the painted sliding doors as well as on the hangings of Japanese Foukousas with their gilded embroidery upon emerald silk. Even this final act defies rules: his father chose to die alone without seconds to assist him and used his battle sword instead of a ritual tantou.
Somewhere deep inside, even deeper than his heart where the ice slowly forms and freezes his senses so that they would not spill out in a fountain of tears and screams, Kakashi hates them. All of them - because he knows exactly why his father did it. And he chooses to be exactly like them, so that no one would ever have to suffer should he break any rule. There are no more rules to break - and no more rules to set.
He is stronger than his father.
Thirteen
Believe in me,
I know you’ve waited for so long…
To that day, it was a universal truth for Kakashi that Obito was the most obnoxious, loud, insolent and useless person he had ever met. All he could do was boast and brag and come up with lame excuses for being constantly late. All he would talk about was the awakening of his Sharingan that couldn’t come too soon - yet to Kakashi it seemed this thing would never happen. Like any Uchiha, Obito was conceited and self-absorbed and proud and annoying.
A funeral is being held at the Uchiha Compound. Team Yellow Flash are the only outsiders present beside the Third Hokage. Kakashi is numb like his throat is filled with lead, and suddenly it flashes in his mind: ‘What am I doing here?’
He realizes that he can find no words to describe what Obito was like. No one asks him to speak, of course; there are plenty of others who may say something, starting with Obito’s inconsolable parents. He finds himself dwelling on what he might have said throughout the ceremony and keeps replaying random memories of Obito in his head.
“Why do you wear this stupid mask?”
“Hmm… Why do you wear those stupid goggles?”
“I asked first!”
“You are such a child.”
Tears prickle in his eyes. The transplanted one hurts unbearably, but the pain is imaginary, and that’s what he is afraid of. He is almost sure the eye is numb and comfortable in its new socket; but for some inconceivable reason his brain tells him it hurts.
“The people of the village,” Obito’s voice rings in his ears, weak, rasping, sorely lacking its usual vitality. “What they must have been saying… That you’re a great Jounin… That’s how I feel.”
After the funeral they stand outside the Compound’s gate, watching the pools of black, Uchiha in their mourning gowns, gradually dissolve like thunderclouds upon the clearing sky.
“I think I’ll go home,” Rin says in a bleak voice.
Kakashi glances at her white face complete with huge, dry eyes. She hasn’t cried since the day Obito died.
“I’ll walk you,” he offers, acting on some indefinite impulse.
“I want to be alone,” she declines. Taken aback by her suddenly cold tone, Kakashi doesn’t know what to say. Then a pale smile crosses her lips for an instant. “Thank you.”
She walks down the road like a ghostly shadow. He fears she will never laugh again, and for a moment the fear is so strong that he chokes on it and nearly rips his mask off.
Minato-sensei is still there with him, watching him with his kind blue eyes.
“Sensei,” Kakashi utters in a choked voice. “What should I do?”
A hand touches his shoulder gently. “Something you didn’t do before.”
Kakashi understands. He lets his feet carry him straight to the old Hatake manor and into his father’s room which looks exactly the same as he remembers it, down to the silk hangings decorated with heavily-plumaged emerald birds. He smiles as he remembers that Obito was the only person who had dared speak his father’s name in front of him in years.
“I believe the White Fang is a true hero!”
Kakashi falls to his knees, doubles over and screams. A late requiem for his father spills over into the mourning for a friend; his outcry echoes in the empty house, and his heart slams against his ribcage with such power that he is amazed he can still breathe.
‘What kind of a commander?.. What kind of a Jounin!?’
Tears splatter all over his face. The fabric of his mask gets soaked, but he doesn’t bother to pull it off. It is what defines him now.
Twenty-six
We've seen our share of ups and downs
Or how quickly life can turn around,
In an instant…
Up to a certain point his life is robotic, and he likes it that way. He seems far more relaxed on the outside, and those around him get attracted to this new mildly humorous, laid-back personality of his. In truth, he is far more a machine now than he was when he deliberately appeared to be one.
Nothing is planned out. Missions are the only thing he keeps organized because any miscalculation in the field might prove lethal. His life is erratic, pieces of some motley tapestry hurriedly sewn together by a single thread - the path that leads to the Memorial.
Kakashi doesn’t complain. It is not his lifestyle in general that is mechanical. He has his work, after all, and people who will always cover his back and - hell! - even an ‘eternal rival’! Who else could boast he had one?
It is the way he functions, a rolling stone that can’t be stopped.
He retires from ANBU and gets landed with a teacher’s position. It amuses and annoys him at the same time. He settles for the old teamwork testing method that is more like a tradition passed on from his own sensei, and the sensei of his sensei, and so on - and he fails squad after squad until one day Sandaime-sama calls on him and says:
“You have quite an impressive record, Kakashi.”
Any other man would make it sound like a reproach, but Sarutobi is merely voicing a fact. He keeps turning the pages of the roster, though his eyes never leave Kakashi’s face.
“I have no one to teach,” Kakashi admits a bit gruffly.
A flippant smile crosses Sarutobi’s lips upon hearing that statement.
“Precisely. However, I prefer to think of it not as your failure, but as a quest. Perhaps you are merely looking for a perfect match. And I believe I have just what is right for you.”
He picks up a file and lays it open in front of Kakashi. The Copy Ninja looks down; his visible eye curves and darts back to the Hokage’s wizened face.
“Do you mean it?” he asks flatly, his throat a bit drier than usual. Sarutobi nods softly.
Kakashi finds himself inevitably drawn to the Memorial, and as he removes his glove and places his bare hand on the sun-kissed slab, he can almost feel his excitement seep into it, animating it, as he speaks:
“So… I get to teach your kinsman. And the sensei’s kid, too. Cool, isn’t it?”
It is only when it’s too late that he learns: they are anything but ‘cool’. They are horrible.
Kakashi likes it. They are worse than any of his previous teams, yet something about them, as they are stuck together by some foolish twist of fate, hints they could be better.
They are painfully familiar, carrying the aura of a distant, bleared memory: an Uchiha, a loud-mouthed moron and a naïve girl with beautiful eyes. Deep inside Kakashi ends up hoping they pass.
Later, when they are dismissed with a promise of a mission coming soon, Kakashi lies in the grass near the Memorial, curving his dark eye when sun is in it, and smiles derisively beneath the mask. He recounts to Obito the kids’ stories: how much the Uchiha resembles himself in the past; how cute and annoying the girl is with her childish crush; that the sensei’s son is sunny and cheerful just like Minato but as impatient and pig-headed as Obito.
“Ah, but you saw for yourself, didn’t you?” he chuckles then. “Think I could do a better job for them than I did for you?”
He receives no reply, of course, but imagines Obito would whisper ‘nah’ just to spite him, and it makes him smile again.
When everything falls apart Kakashi has no one to blame but himself. The gnawing feeling of guilt won’t let go. He squats in the rain beside Naruto’s still form (so unusual to see him so quiet and… almost like…), reaches out to touch his shoulder; his hand hovers over the singed sweatshirt and he doesn’t dare move.
(‘Chidori is never to be used against comrades!’)
He sighs wearily. ‘The person I love most… No such person exists. Those people have already been killed.’ He thinks that Sasuke, too, after what he did, is as good as dead anyway.
The rain bangs over the flat rock, monotonous, trickles down the river that runs like a scar across the valley, making it flush. Kakashi picks Naruto up and chuckles at how grim and scornful fate really is.
Inevitably death.
Thirty
I can’t be home tonight, I'll make it back, it’s all right;
No one could ever love me half as good as you.
Got a badge for my scars just the other day,
Wore it proud for the sake of my sanity…
He doesn’t sleep a single minute after he digs Sakura out of the drift and brings her to Konoha hospital. It was a good fight she put up, as well as many others in the face of the advancing Akatsuki/Hawk menace. She deserves some rest, this brave little girl who has finally been through the worst shinobi battle: a battle with feelings.
Kakashi spends the night by her bed because he has nowhere else to be. He is half-asleep by the time she shifts and opens her eyes, wrinkling her forehead wearily like a person who’s had a really tough night. He wonders briefly how much she remembers and hopes that it’s not enough.
Sakura looks around as though she is not quite sure how she came to be here and where exactly ‘here’ is, and she smiles and squints at him when his worn-out form comes in sight.
“How long’ve you been here?” she breathes.
Kakashi snaps his normal eye open and glances at her briefly before replying in a low voice, “Just came in.”
Sakura snorts derisively. “Liar.”
She looks unreally fragile against the chalk-white pillowcase. A stray strand of dirty pink hair curls over her high forehead. It falls over her nose as she moves. Sakura sniffs, trying to get rid of it; it creeps across her nostrils like a smear of paint, causing her to sneeze lightly. Her hands are bandaged, and she is too weak to move them. Kakashi leans forth and carefully brushes the lock aside.
“I heard you almost died twice today,” Sakura rebukes him gently.
He flashes back to the fight against Madara, the hardest one he’s had since Pein, and shrugs seemingly carelessly. “Happens.”
Before he knows it, the girl forces herself upright and plants a fleeting, soft kiss upon his forehead, her lips coming through the barrier of thick, tousled hair to touch the bloodied skin. Kakashi remains immobile.
“Don’t do that again,” Sakura murmurs against his forehead and begins to sag helplessly.
He embraces her carefully and lays her back in bed. Soon she is asleep again, leaving him alone in the almost sacred silence of the hospital.
“I think…” he whispers, barely moving his lips, knowing full well she cannot hear him, “I think I was not ready to die today.”