"The Post War Dream"
by CNGB
Though I'm entirely sure that they will never read it, this one-shot was written in remembrance to the family that lost their two daughters during the Christmas fire near the trailer my family was living in all those years ago.
Special thanks to:
Masashi Kishimoto and his staff, who drew and wrote Naruto.
Edgar Allan Poe, for creating "The Bells."
Pink Floyd, for creating the song "The Post War Dream," which is quite obviously what this one-shot was named after.
deathisthenextgreatadventure and GryffindorByHeart7 for favoriting "The Protector."
And to you, who is reading this.
Word count: 4,107
Rating: T
Warnings: Swearing; mentions of suicide and homicide; a potentially out-of-character character.
Categories: Angst; Hurt/Comfort
Legal junk: I do not own Naruto; I do not own "The Bells"; the title is also the title of a song by Pink Floyd.
Listening to: The Final Cut by Pink Floyd
It is important to note that this one-shot was inspired by part three of Edgar Allan Poe's terrific poem, "The Bells" (which is provided right below this). Because of that, there will be one more separate one-shot—which will not be in the Naruto universe (or Harry Potter fandom, for that matter). The first and second one-shots have already been published, entitled (in order) "Falling Snow" and "The Protector," both of which star characters from Harry Potter. The third part of "The Bells" seems to speak of war to me, and thus, this one-shot is the product of my imagery.
Hear the loud alarum bells—
Brazen bells!
What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now—now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet, the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—
Of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells,
In the clamour and the clangour of the bells!
He was alone.
That wasn't abnormal, though.
Like always, a sense of despair enveloped him.
Kakashi had been ordered to attend what he had heard some of the other, more experienced and hardened Konoha ninja call the "Hotaka Battle." The name certainly did fit, that was for sure. Not only were they at Hotaka City itself, but they were completely surrounded by tall, yellow grain.
An explosion from the south caught Kakashi's attention. Why had he allowed his mind to wander on the battlefield—he was not some insolent genin! He knew better! This was war, not a little kid's game, so why in the world had he been thinking about bull shit? Then, with a sudden "revelation"—if you could even call it that—Kakashi realized that he was still thinking about bull shit. He shook himself and closed his eyes, tried to clear his mind of all useless thoughts for the time being.
Kakashi needed to focus. Focus! Focus . . . focus . . . . He opened his eyes, and was startled to see an enemy ninja charging at him.
You see, this is what you get for being an idiot! Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Kakashi had to dodge five of the opponent's attacks before he got an actual glimpse of what the older man—around thirty?—looked like. What he saw nearly set him into a damn panic attack—and a panic attack would not be good out on the battlefield. The man was tall, and had all the general air about him of an Uchiha. Pale skin with black, spiky hair? Dark eyes that had once showed so much warmth?
"Obito . . . ." Kakashi's voice came out in a strangled, desperate sound that did not sound like him at all, as he was forced to kick the other's small sword out of Obito's hands. "You . . . ."
But Obito payed no attention to what Kakashi was saying. Hell, he didn't even seem to care that the only weapon he seemed to possess had been kicked out of his hands. Instead, Obito focused his energy on trying to take Kakashi down with his bare hands—no chakra, no jutsu, no weapons, just in a completely barbaric style. And Kakashi, in his shocked and weakened state, failed to fight back with enough strength. Obito jumped forward onto Kakashi, and the former's weight sent them both crashing to the ground. Obito's hands wrapped themselves firmly around Kakashi's throat. He knew that all attempts to pry his dead teammate's hands were futile—he had lost too much blood and chakra within only fifteen minutes. Kakashi could already feel the suffocating grip of death coming upon him as the pain in his chest increased—
Kakashi gasped, breathing in as much welcomed air as he could. Obito's weight had vanished from on top of him, and as he sat there coughing, he looked to the sides to try to find Obito, but could see no one.
After a few minutes of sitting there, trying to catch his breath, and being completely ignored by the other shinobi on the field, ally and enemy alike, he stood up. Kakashi did not know why, but he had an incredible urgency to go forward. It may have been stupid, but he didn't care. Putting one step in front of the other (Kakashi was still warn-out from Obito's assault), he started running forward. To what, he did not know. To whom, he did not know. Where and why were also questions he should later ask himself.
As he ran, he passed many disturbing sights. At first, all he could see was Konoha and Kusa ninja battling it out between themselves. However, as he went further and further down, he seen Kusa ninja killing one another, and Konoha ninja killing one another, and when he went even further, he seen naked children—no older than seven or eight—beheading each other, stabbing each other, fatally wounding each other . . . . Kakashi had about had enough, and was about to stop his marathon to break up a lethal battle between two boys, one with silver hair, and the other with dark, when he seen who he had been looking for.
"Sensei! Sensei, who authorized this?" Vaguely, in the depths of his mind, Kakashi was aware that his question didn't make total sense. Authorized what, exactly? But, in the conscious part of his brain, he knew that he was referring to all of the enraged children.
Minato Namikaze merely smiled in a knowing way at Kakashi before turning around and walking away from the bloody, war-torn scene. Kakashi, however, sensed that Minato-sensei wanted him to follow, and so he did.
Minato-sensei kept walking for what seemed like forever. In fact, he walked so long and so far that they had by-passed all of the children killing one another. Kakashi felt that they were no longer even in Kusagakure territory, but instead were in—
"Kannabi Bridge . . . you know of this place, don't you, Kakashi?"
Minato-sensei had turned around and was smiling at him, as if it was a simple question about what was for dinner. Kakashi felt anger rise from the pits of his core—why had Minato-sensei brought him here, of all places?
But then, the sight of Kannabi Bridge, completely unharmed, triggered a memory.
"Minato-sensei, Obito is alive!"
"I know that, Kakashi . . ." he said, as if he were talking to an extremely slow person who had just realized that two plus three equals five. But then, the smile finally vanished, and a worried gaze penetrated Kakashi's soul. "Kakashi, are you feeling all right?"
"W-What?"
"Rin never died. Are you sure you're feeling all right?"
It felt to Kakashi as though someone had plunged icy water into his stomach. He hadn't mentioned Rin . . . and he hadn't seen her, either.
"Sensei . . . . Sensei, are you feeling all right?"
Minato continued to stare at Kakashi, as though the latter was some mildly interesting insect.
"Sensei?"
"Bears."
"Huh?"
"Bears. Bears are coming." Minato-sensei declared this as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. His blue eyes had never once left Kakashi's, but his right index finger rose from his side, and was now pointing to somewhere behind Kakashi.
Perplexed, Kakashi turned around. What did Minato-sensei care about bears for? They could take them on! They had taken on far else . . . . But then, to Kakashi's utter amazement, he seen what Minato-sensei had been referring to. Only, the creatures that were stumbling out from the trees were not bears, and they didn't look anything like bears. Instead, they looked more like giant chameleons.
Kakashi had read of these chameleons in Konoha's library, and supposedly they were very deadly, to say the least. They had invisible armor to the naked eye, so Kakashi knew that kunai knives and shuriken were not about to kill the beasts. A well-chosen jutsu, perhaps, stood a chance, but Kakashi's chakra levels were too depleted for him to even actually consider hitting the overgrown lizards with one.
"Sensei . . . Sensei, we need to run . . . we need to . . . to . . . ."
Kakashi turned around, and with a start, seen that Minato was no longer with him. He felt betrayed and hurt—why had his sensei left him?—and could not stop the hot, unwanted tears from shedding.
Why did everyone love to leave him?
"DAMMIT!"
Four days.
It had been four days since the war had ended. All of Konoha had been in a huge, unanimous celebration—and mourning. There were hundreds of families who knew at least someone that had died, whether he or she had been an actual family member, or just a friend. Either way, the end of the Third Great Shinobi World War had brought together shinobi and civilians alike. They were always celebrating, that was for certain, but it was a darker celebration, if that made any sense.
They all kept those they had lost close to heart.
Kakashi could not stop his thoughts drifting on to Obito and Rin, both of whom had died during the war—the former during the Battle of Kannabi Bridge, and the latter during the Battle of Hotaka. Kakashi was Minato Namikaze's only student to have made it out alive.
Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
There happened to be a large part of him that would rather be dead. Dead, like the girl who had harbored a crush on him since the very beginning of their days together. Dead, like the boy he had constantly called an idiot for not getting simple jutsu, and always being late. Dead, like so many ANBU, jonin, chunin, genin—hell, even civilians had been hurt.
Dead, just like his father.
What is death like? Kakashi found himself gazing outside at the half-moon, making no move to wipe the perspiration his body had produced during the nightmare from his face.
It was a question he had often asked himself when he was younger, shortly after his father committed suicide. Was he happy? Was he sad? Was he watching over Kakashi? Or was he simply six feet under?
After a few months, Kakashi began to feel resentment for his father. Everyone that knew about the Hatake incident was positive that Kakashi felt such negative feelings because of the rules he was—Had been, he reminded himself—obsessed over.
But that wasn't it.
The truth was that Kakashi felt betrayed by the one man who was supposed to lead and to guide him throughout his entire life. Why couldn't he have kept his bearings, no matter how tough it got? Why did he have to leave Kakashi all on his own to fight an inevitable war?
To survive?
In the beginning, before the anger itself had really settled in—when Kakashi fully loved his father—he had often wondered if his father hated him, and that was why he had took his own life: a desperate attempt to get away from Kakashi. As he grew up, though, and realized what the situation was, he felt disgusted. He was related to that . . . that . . . that thing!
Kakashi wasn't like that anymore, though.
That wasn't to say that Kakashi wasn't upset about what his father had done. Because he was. Most likely always would be. The man was dead, and Kakashi accepted that. However, there would always be a large hole in his life that could never be filled back up. Covered up, perhaps, but that was only momentary.
The wind would always succeed in blowing covers away.
It was for that reason that Kakashi Hatake would never willingly take his own life. He was not totally sure how many people cared about him other than Minato-sensei now that Obito and Rin were . . . gone . . . but even if it was just his jonin sensei, he didn't want to cause the man any more pain that he already had to.
Shuddering, Kakashi pulled himself out of bed and half-stumbled to the bathroom. He needed a shower—desperately. If he didn't know any better, Kakashi was sure that he was covered from head to toe in his own sweat.
Stupid fucking nightmares.
When Kakashi was done with his shower, he had walked out into the bustling streets of Konoha. He would not bother with breakfast; Kakashi always seemed to throw it back up, so what was the point? No, instead, he was going to go visit Minato-sensei. Kakashi knew that the man would not leave him in the same way the dream character had, and for that, Kakashi was eternally grateful. It felt good to have someone in his life that was able to put on some strange sort of father-like quality—even if Kakashi denied it numerous times.
The sun above the village was only barely rising above the mountain, but that hardly mattered. People were still in mourning and celebration, so it truly was not that hard to understand why most people had stayed wandering in the streets all throughout the night, and were now only just returning home. A cool breeze came, to Kakashi's relief. Despite the shower, he still felt as though he were dirty.
Contaminated.
That wasn't a big change, though; he had been feeling that way for the majority of his life, and since Obito's death, it had only increased. Then when Rin was caught in that ambush—Stop thinking about it.
Kakashi cleared his mind in a way that only someone who had had years of practice would be able to accomplish. It was better, it seemed, to have no thoughts at all for a short period of time—just enough time to do something that needed to be done. Kakashi in no way had any ambitions to become a walking zombie—than to sit and mull over what he was never going to be able to bring back.
He had been walking for at least twenty minutes, being, to put it nicely, completely oblivious to the world, when the noise of panicked shouting had registered in his head. The next thing he noticed was the faint, distant smell of smoke coming from Kakashi's right reached his nostrils. Turning around, he seen people—mostly civilians and Academy students—running from the same direction.
Kakashi was sure of what was happening, but all the same, he wanted to ask. "Hey! You!"
A stout man with dark brown hair and beady eyes turned around to face him.
"What's going on over there?"
"Fire," grunted the man in a hoarse, raspy voice, and he was gone.
Vaguely, Kakashi was wondering why so many people were running away from it. If the fire had been in the middle of the forests surrounding Konohagakure, he could have understood better. Was the fire spreading? Or—and this thought made him run in the direction everyone else was avoiding—had someone caused the disruption purposely?
Kakashi summoned a small bit of chakra from his reserves—just enough to help him get to his destination quicker. He hopped from roof to roof. During his years of experience, the roofs were always an easier route to take if one was trying to make it through the billions of people down in the streets. It took him about two and a half minutes before he seen the raging fire.
He now knew why the civilians wanted to run: it was fear. Fear of not wanting to see—to hear—what was happening. Fear of being "in the know." They wanted to stay ignorant. Can't blame them there.
With Kakashi's super sense of smell, combined with his experiences in the war, he could smell the horrible, rotting smell of—
"—MY BABIES! GET MY BABIES!"
Kakashi looked in the direction of where he had heard a woman's scream and seen what he presumed to be a mother being held back by two men—civilians, judging from the state of their attire. Kakashi reverted his attention to the other people—most were other civilians, but he seen someone he knew.
"Asuma!" Somehow, his voice reached across the depressing sounds of the deadly fire.
Asuma Sarutobi, a comrade that he had fought in the war with, halted to wait for Kakashi.
"Yeah?"
"What happened?"
Asuma shrugged, but Kakashi could tell that he was weary. "Dunno."
"Is there anyone in there? Besides—besides that woman's children?"
"I don't know, Kakashi, I just got here, like you."
Kakashi cursed, ignoring the sound of growing irritation in Asuma's voice. "It doesn't look like there's any way that we can get in, does there?"
A few moments were spent as Asuma examined the burning building carefully, as if willing some opening to save the kids in there. "No . . . I don't see any at all."
"Shit!"
"Hey, hey, Miss, don't—"
Kakashi and Asuma both turned around to see what was going on. The woman—the mother—had broken free of the mens' hold and was now bolting to where Kakashi presumed the door to the burning building was. He made a move to run after her, but for once, Asuma was quicker than Kakashi. He reached the hysterical woman and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her back, away from the fire.
"NO! NO! LET ME GO! LET ME GO! LET ME G—"
"No other choice," Asuma grunted as he kept the now unconscious woman from falling to the ground.
Kakashi nodded absentmindedly, staring at the place where she had been trying to get to. A few minutes ago, Kakashi would have probably been able to run through there, but now . . . .
"Where the fuck are the water types?"
Kakashi didn't answer.
There was, in truth, nothing neither he nor Asuma were able to do except try to keep everything as calm as possible. Neither of them knew any water-style jutsu, and there didn't seem to be anyone around who did—
Never mind that last thought. More of the shinobi were coming in force now ("Stay out of the way," he and Asuma were told), and a few more minutes passed before the fire really started to die down. Kakashi watched as two shinobi—upper jonin, by the looks of them—ran into the house to try and find the children.
Kakashi felt the distinct need to know what had happened to the kids. No, no, no no! You know what happened to the kids, Hatake; don't pretend that you don't. Turn off, turn off . . . .
And that was what Kakashi did. Or tried to do, rather, as he attempted to order his mind to become blank and numb. He had done it so many times before, it wouldn't make sense if he couldn't now.
Just as Kakashi felt the familiar sense of having blissful "unconsciousness," his attention was quickly redirected to the jonin who hurried out of the house, each carrying what looked like the sickeningly burned remains of—
Oh, God, you imbecile! He did not want to see that. He did not want to see that. He did not want to see that. He did not want to see that.
Asuma blanched and turned away; Kakashi thought that he was about to be sick on the ground, the way his comrade was acting. Kakashi felt that he could do the exact same thing.
Neither of them wanted to see the charcoal bodies of what were once children—about eight or nine, by the looks of things.
Apparently it didn't matter how many times a person seen someone die, because it would always be something horrible to witness.
According to Minato-sensei, there had been some party across the street from where the now burned-to-a-crisp house resided. A drunken party, to be exact. When Minato-sensei had said that, everything clicked and had made perfect sense with Kakashi.
There was an old tavern near the said house, so there must have been quite a few people celebrating—Or numbing the pain—out that night. Perhaps someone knocked something over ("Officials are sure that it was a complete accident," Minato had stated), or had went to light a cigarette and missed. According to Kurenai, who actually lived in the same neighborhood, there was always a large stack of hay near the house, and the general guess among the public was that that was how it had started.
Two children did indeed die during the fire. The father had been away, half-way across the village, when someone had ran up to him and told him that his house was on fire, and that his two daughters were trapped inside.
Both parents were receiving free therapy, payed by the government.
"Sensei?"
"Yes?"
Minato-sensei had been accompanying Kakashi on a nighttime stroll around the village a few days after the fire. For the first ten minutes, neither had said a word, but remained silent, enjoying their wonderful comradeship, and time to sort things through.
"What is Kushina to you?"
Minato-sensei's face was illuminated under the night lamp that the two of them were passing, and Kakashi could see that the man was blushing a bit.
"Ah . . . well . . . you see . . . ."
Kakashi couldn't help it; he chuckled.
"It's okay, Sensei, I've got it."
He was sure that Minato-sensei was only blushing harder.
They were quiet again for another five minutes until Minato-sensei interrupted the silence.
"Kakashi . . . ."
"Yes, Sensei?"
"I was meaning to talk to you. Are you all right?"
Kakashi knew that Minato-sensei was not asking if he was running a fever.
It was very rare when Konoha's Yellow Flash intruded in another person's business. Often times, Minato-sensei waited for the said person to open up to him. Kakashi got the feeling that his sensei merely did not want to intrude on anyone's lives or privacy, and that was why he generally stayed quiet.
The few times that Minato-sensei did, however, ask someone about such intimate feelings such as what he was referring to were times when the man was positive that something needed to be said, or someone needed to be helped, or both.
Even though Kakashi knew that his sensei was only trying to help him, and that the man cared for him, he couldn't help being a tad annoyed. Kakashi did not want to talk about anything that had been bothering him. He wanted to forget the war, forget those little kids, forget all of the pain that held life's hand so tightly . . . .
"No, Minato-sensei, I'm fine."
He looked skeptically over at Kakashi, and Kakashi knew that Minato-sensei did not believe him.
Oh well.
It wasn't that Kakashi didn't trust Minato-sensei. He did! Oh yes, yes he did. The simple matter of the truth was that Kakashi had grown up in a childhood with no one to really comfort him. That sounded incredibly whiny, he knew, but it was true. With a dead father and an absent mother, Kakashi grew up without anyone to really confide his hopes and fears in. And now, that he was a young adult . . . .
To put it simply, he had simply spent a bit too much time alone, with only himself as intimate company.
Minato-sensei sighed, defeat at the edge of his voice.
"Kakashi, I've been around a lot longer than you have."
"I know that, sir."
"I can tell when someone's lying to me."
Kakashi did not answer, though he did register a twinge of anger and annoyance coming from his core.
"I can respect your wishes if you don't want to talk about something," Minato said—though he sounded as though he didn't really want to be saying this. "However, I won't pretend it's not the best thing for you to do. You can't ignore negative emotions, Kakashi—"
"I've been doing just fine, tha—"
"—and as soon as you have come to accept that, I'll be here for you. You won't be by yourself.
Kakashi was running. There was a small voice in his mind saying that he was in familiar territory, but it was so vague that he couldn't fully register whatever in the world it was trying to say.
Why was he running? Where was he running to? To whom? And to what?
There were a billion questions running wildly through Kakashi's brain, none of which he could answer with absolute certainty. However, to be perfectly honest, it didn't bother him too much. Not like it would have before, anyway.
What had changed?
Kakashi had changed.
No longer would he be the person that would walk down the streets surrounded by a thousand and feeling like a zero; no longer would he be the person to feel that the stress that life presented to humans with a carefully wrapped gift would have to be held on his shoulders, rather than his and his friends'; no longer would Kakashi ever feel that he was second—third—fourth—fifth—ninth.
Not anymore.
Because Kakashi was new. He was much different from his younger self from merely a few days ago.
Had Minato-sensei done this? Yes, yes he did. One day, Kakashi would have to pay the man back. How, he did not know. He merely understood that he was going to have to do it—some way or another.
For once, a sense of happiness enveloped him.
The abnormal was now the normal.
He wasn't alone anymore.
First of all, about the dreams: I tried to make that as realistic as possible. "Wait a minute," I hear you saying, "there wasn't a thing about the dreams that was possible!" I know that. I mean possible in the dream world. Both of Kakashi's dreams have significant meanings, and, if nothing else, I am confident that those who are reading this understood the meaning to the first one (Minato was Kakashi's father figure, and because his real father had killed himself, Kakashi was afraid that the one person closest to him was going to abandon him as well).
And the bears/chameleons thing? Well, think back to any dreams that you can remember. Did a dream character ever say anything that turned out to be so false it wasn't funny? That was what was going on there.
Speaking of the chamelons, that was entirely made-up. There may be giant chamelons in Naruto-I can't remember if there is or isn't. But, I am justified in pulling the "Kakashi-read-it-at-the-library" story as well; dreams have the tendency of feeding you memories that you never once did in order to keep up with the dream plot.
ON TO THE FIRE: That actually has its own "symbolic" meaning, though you may not be able to tell upon reading it immediately. The "symbolic" meaning was that sometimes, children aren't the only ones who are abandoned-adults can be, too. And, therefore, adults are nothing more than "big kids."
Oh, and the part about the hay being near the house that burned? I didn't totally pull that out of my ass, either-well, okay, I did, but there's a bit of a background story to that. You see, that house is right in the middle of Konoha, but the family used to live out further to the countryside. The hay was merely a "homesick" sort of thing.
Well, anyway, I hope that you all enjoyed this.
- CNGB