The first bite of the cut stung, but Kakashi did not care. All that mattered was cleansing the guilt, washing away the memory...the looks...the accusations. It hadn't been his fault that Rin stepped in front of his lighting cutter! It hadn't been his fault that Obito was crushed! His friends were dead and there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it! Even now, years later, the whispers ceased, the looks became kind – yet the name still stuck. Friend Killer...such a name as that was hard to escape, even all these years later. He had tried...oh how he tried...
Everything he had tried, everything he had done to cleanse his soul of the wounds that still bled, the scars that still burned...nothing worked.
No matter how much he drank, the alcohol became sour the moment it touched his lips. Bitter and vile tasting, the drink burned down his throat, searing away the tears he's trapped there. With every bitter drink, he tries to chase away the memory of Rin as he stabs her...every searing sip, he tries to forget the memory of Obito, crushed under that rock that was meant for him...
The haze of alcohol induced pleasure is only temporary. He can still hear them...still see them. No matter how many times he's asked for forgiveness at the monument and the graves of his friends, no matter how many times he's ignored the voices, the looks, the accusations, he still carried that guilt, that self – accusation.
Nor could he find the peace he so craved in solitude. Endless hours spent kneeling and praying for forgiveness at the shrine of Konoha's fallen shinobi and his friends graves. Cleaning the graves, bringing them flowers, bits of their favourite foods, cleansing incense, anything to try and appease their spirits. Countless hours, he would spend there, talking about the past, his genin students, previous missions, anything but the real reason he was there. Also to, when not talking, he would read in the silence, just sitting so beyond lost in his memories of guilt and regret, the world was lost to him and he to it. One of the rare moments he did not read his Icha Icha books.
Countless hours of trying to appease lost souls, self imprisonment of solitude, shared memories, rituals so engrained, he felt incomplete if he could not follow through with them. None of that brought his friends back...none of that eased his pain. So instead he gave what he could. Himself, his time, his voice, his regret, his guilt...he gave what he could and asked nothing in return. Not even forgiveness.
As an Anbu and member of Root, he instead sought to relieve his pain and guilt through inflicting pain onto his enemies. Each cut, each scar, each victim lying at his feet, a way to escape his past. A way to escape who he really was. So easy was it to slip on the mask of the Anbu and hide his true face. With his victims unable to see his face, they would not be able to curse him and drag his soul to Hell along with them.
Although...in the silence of his own mind and heart, there were times where he would admit he had moments where he wanted to lift his mask just as the light was leaving their eyes and show them...tell them – I am just as lost, alone, afraid and scarred as you are...
In the silence of his own mind and heart, there were times where he would also to admit to moments where, in looking down into the eyes of his dying enemy, he wanted to kneel, reach out a hand and whisper simply – take me to Hell with you...let Death cross our names from those of the living...let us fade into memory and be forgotten...
Even though the desire was so strong to do so, his mask stayed. His voice silenced as he let his deceased enemy fallen to lie there, dying alone. He, Kakashi Hatake, was not one deserving in the honour of offering comfort for their souls. He was simply a fallen angel of Death, hidden in the shadows and killing as he was commanded.
Even so...
Eventually that to ceased to help him forget. In the end, all it did was add to the faces he dreamt about at night. The voices he heard in his sleepless slumber, accusing him of killing them. Telling him, he was worthless, beyond forgiveness, beyond redemption...
...and he believed every single word. Wholeheartedly, he embraced their accusations, shouldered the guilt and embraced the heart wrenching truths.
The very hands he used to assist a genin in holding a kunai just so, were the blood stained hands of a murderer. The same tongue he used to congratulate his students on a job well done, was the twisted tongue of a liar. The same body he used as a human shield to block a shuriken from hitting one of his genin, was the warped and guilt-ridden body of one who lived on borrowed time.
To convenient was it to retreat behind his books, getting lost and enveloping himself in a world so vastly different from his own of such pain and heart ache. To hide behind his mask, desperately trying to hide the characteristics of his father, the scars of his past, the words that clawed his throat each and every time he went to the graves or monument. Far to easy was it to embrace and hide behind aspects of his life.
To gladly, he allowed himself to fall...
His Sharingan and what he had achieved through it's use, became the cause of people calling him the Copy Cat Ninja. They didn't realize how desperately he clung to the minutest of moments in his life where he found true peace and joy, trying to copy them and cover the bad – even if just for a moment. Desperately trying to make it stick so he could actually smile to his students...laugh with his friends...have something positive to look forward to coming home to when he went on missions.
Nobody realized just how tightly he clung to the lies born of desperation and grief, guilt and inability to accept that which is already spoken and done. So skilled and convincing, he'd managed to trick even himself.
Until he was able to...
Feel the first bite of the blade.
See the once clear water run red.
Feel his strength slowly dripping down the drain with the stained water.
Smell the metallic tang of the wound he'd opened.
Hear the dull sound of the kunai fallen to the ground at his feet, useless in his limp hands.
Taste the tears that finally came salty and bitter, each drop a final admission of his sins.
As fatigue finally took over, his body so numb, he was unable to feel the arms that held him, the hands that shook him, unable to hear the voices that called his name, laced with desperation. One thought ran through his mind before he closed his eyes forever...
I have accepted my fate...
Come to answer for my sins.
Take me to Hell...
Let Death cross my name from those of the living.
Let mefall into ignorance....
Forever forgotten, forgiven and alone.
Just let me fade into oblivion, abandoned beyond memory...