Copy cat, friend killer, cold blooded...Friend, comrade, teacher...Kakashi has been called all of these and many more besides. No one sees the real him. The man behind the mask, behind the names, behind the perverted books he reads. To them, he is just their teacher, the shinobi that just saved them from being run through with a kunai knife, the Jonin that they want on their side of the battle field. Simply a means to an end, be it an S ranked mission, training new genin in the ways of being a shinobi, or risking his life on a daily bases for the Village Hidden in the Leaves.
Isn't that what a good shinobi does? Risk their life, die if need be, all for their village.
Just the very idea is enough to make a bitter smile pass his masked lips. No child at five years old should be taught the knowledge of how to kill a man a hundred different ways. All of them ruthless, brutal and without mercy.
Isn't that would a good shinobi does? Take a life, watch as their enemy dies before them, the blood of the dead forever staining their hands...all for their village.
No child of six years old should be able to boast that he is the best shinobi in his village, under the Hokage. No six year old should look in to the eyes of the person across him and know beyond the shadow of a doubt – he can kill this person before him. It's so easy, so very easy to entrap them in a genjutsu using his hell viewing technique. Waiting for the right moment, that almost instinctual shift in their gaze as the enemy shinobi before him assess what threat he may be. That's all he needs. That one look and the enemy is trapped in a living nightmare.
Their loved one slowly dying before them, sick and beyond the help of even the most strongest of medical jutsu. Their comrades dying one by one in battle, felled by an enemy shinobi, a demon, something dark and so twisted it's beyond recognition. A mirror, allowing them a glimpse at their own selves worst fears, reaching in to the darkest corners of their hearts and lying it bare for the world to see.
Isn't that what a good shinobi does? Shatter the mind, body and spirit of their enemy, their once – comrade, a complete stranger, all for their village.
For twenty – five years, he's done all of this and more for his village and the Hokage that have come in his life time. Kakashi has killed his friend, watched another seemingly die, trained a genin in an assassination technique that ultimately failed and back fired. Sauske had mastered the technique, yes...he even wielded it well, yet in thanks, he'd turned his back on the very village that raised him. Although his reasons were known, Kakashi couldn't help but feel some remorse at having taught him such a jutsu.
Yet another mistake and guilt to add to the list. No matter how many times he'd visit the epitaph and beg forgiveness of his dead friends and comrades, the guilt never seemed to wash away. The blood was always their on his hands, ingrained in his memory. Little droplets in a trail that followed him through life, each bearing the mistakes he's made for the world to see.
Still the list grows. Each time he kills another shinobi, takes a life and sees the light fade from their eyes...another droplet of blood falls, a crimson bread crumb leading to a place he has no desire to ever find again, let alone remember.
Isn't that what a good shinobi does? Kill with out remorse, take the life from another when duty calls for it and live life happily and as best as one can, all for their village.
All the while, deep down inside and so hidden even form themselves, they don't dare even think it...that nameless fear of fading away, with no one to remember them. Just a picture at a funeral others are duty bound to attend.
Bitter laughter escapes passed dead lips as his Sharingan whirls, taking in the sight of the bloody battle field before him. Shinobi, every where. The dead, dying and wounded. Some their enemy, others their comrades. Crimson blood mixes with the charred earth, greedily taken in to sate the thirst for blood within the deep confines of their hearts.
Duty calls, lives are to be taken, without fear, without remorse, without bias and with out mercy. That's what a good shinobi does, kills terrible people who've done terrible things. People who might be a father, a mother, a sister, a brother, a wife, a husband. People with lives, people with others at home waiting for them, friends, family, comrades. All of this knowledge is cast aside as the chakra of Chidori fills his palm, the ever so familiar bird-song so unique to this jutsu filling his ears.
This is what a good shinobi does, all for their village. The Hokage demands it and so they step in to the guise of a shinobi, an excuse already jumping to their minds to ease their own guilt.
So easy is it to convince oneself that it's all for the village's safety. For the people of Konoha. For the people of Suna, their enemies turned allies. For that little boy that weeps over the corpse of his father, desperately trying to remove the kunai from his chest, wiping at the crimson blood and begging in the broken voice of a shattered child for his father to wake up! Just wake up! Keep the promise they made to each other, to come back alive!
For that little girl that stands dazed beyond words as the shinobi that bought her ramen that cold day, actually listened to what she had to say, kept coming back to make sure she was okay, is cut down. Her voice forever silenced as the arms that once carried her high above the world, reassuring that there is good to this dark world, that she can rise above it all, wrap around her one last time, embracing her even as dozens of kunai pierce his back.
This is what a good shinobi does. They live life as best they can, conquer their fear, knowing full well that one day they will meet their ancestors and god in heaven, praying that they will be accepted and cleansed of all the blood they have spilled. Pray that the ones they killed all in the name of duty are not waiting in the after life to cut them down, forever ending their existence, even in death.
Kakashi knows he is a good shinobi. So covered in the scars of battle, each one baring their own stories, won at the cost of another's life. The debt is paid from the blood of the other, he can live and breathe another day.
The path of his life from the age of six when he'd first became a chunnin, littered with blood so dark the stars of good memories and happenings struggle to break free. He is a murderer, mercenary for hire, assassin, teacher of future murderers, barer of ill fortune and a legacy so stained with blood, even he cannot look upon it without feeling overwhelming guilt.
Kakashi of the sharingan, Hero of the sharingan, Sixth Hokage... Friend, comrade, teacher... Copy cat, friend killer, cold blooded.
Kakashi Hatake.
Special Jonin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves.
Even for all of this...there's no escaping the nightmares, no erasing the crimson shadows and peeking at the stars.
The blood is to thick...the only way he has to go is forward in to oblivion, at least until it's his turn for his eternal rest. His turn to look Death in the eye and call him Brother.
That's what a good shinobi does. Lives, fights and dies, all without question for a mere glimpse, a desperate grab, for the little shards of good and light in so very dark a world.
That's what a good shinobi does. Forces their gaze away from the shining stars...looks in to Death's eyes and welcomes him as a Brother. Walks the path to Hell and knows beyond a doubt, among the dead, dying, damned and twisted, they are home.
Right where he belongs, trapped in his own shattered Elysium.