One Hundred Hungry Ghosts

One figure outlined against the glare of the rising sun. One watcher in the shadows, awaiting the other's arrival with a patience that should be expected in a person trained solely to complete the given task. The wait may take hours, it may take days. But the waiting figure does not stir. And now the wait is over. He looks up into his comrade's face and is blinded by the rising fire smouldering behind. He shields his eyes but the crimson vision does not fade. Twice he blinks; then nearly fails to catch his friend's body as it falls. For one of them darkness descends, while the other remains dazzled by the brilliant red light and the overwhelming stench of blood.

His task had been to wait. To take news to the nearest outpost should the mission fail. The mission itself had been assigned to the other. It had been to take one hundred unwanted lives. Unwanted, that is, by all save five old men and twenty-two young, seventeen old ladies and thirty young women, fourteen little girls and eight small boys; plus four lives never fully realised, who died in a warm, safe place, ignorant of all such evil. Among these numbers were sixty-two elite, content to protect only what they called their own. And they had done so in no unskilled manner. They had nearly succeeded in saving a few. Nearly succeeded in killing their opponent. He would die on the journey back, surely, but this was no consolation to them. None of them had ever taken any great interest in politics. They had been content to lead a hundred innocent, unobtrusive and in their own small yet noble ways, worthy lives. Now they are destined to walk the barren path to the underworld; one hundred hungry ghosts.

"Damn it Genma, I said I'm fine!"

"Well, damn it Kakashi, I know you're not! Cut the crap before I sedate you, and in the condition you're in right now, you know you couldn't stop me."

Kakashi gritted his teeth. There was a blur of silver and red. Genma found himself looking up into the Copy-Ninja's livid, blood-red gaze and his pale, blood-streaked face. The ANBU was pinning him to the ground, holding a kunai to his throat. Genma wasn't particularly fazed. It wasn't the first time a heated exchange between the two of them had ended with the Copy-Ninja on top of him. What worried him more was the fact that the man's hand was shaking.

Genma had a senbon ready; all he needed was one chance to get it into Kakashi's neck. It would be better for everyone if the Hatake was unconscious right now. He felt the Jonin's grip weaken on the hilt of the blade, while Kakashi's Sharingan continued to bore into the back of his skull.

Genma's words were fractured by the effort of keeping the knife from pressing further into his throat. "For… Gods'… sakes… Kakashi. Close… that… damn… eye!"

The Copy-Ninja growled. It was not a sound of warning or admonition. It was pure, unbridled contempt. "The day one of my comrades sticks a laced senbon in my neck is the day I leave this godsforsaken job, for good."

And Genma could tell that this was no idle threat. Kakashi was close to the edge now. Not the edge of exhaustion. Well, that too – of course. But he was nearing the edge of his patience, his tolerance of everything. All the shit the world had thrown at him and here he was, two decades later: his life falling away drop by crimson drop; his world unravelling one wound at a time. Genma let the senbon fall from his grasp. He lifted one hand and guided Kakashi's shaking arm back down, gently removing the kunai from his faltering grip. The Jonin's eyes closed for a moment. Genma prayed he'd never find out what the man was thinking. There were some things that just couldn't be said; sometimes you just had to go on living – in ignorance.

But Kakashi had to live with the knowledge that every one of those villagers' pleading, defiant faces would earn him an eternity in the blackest depths of Hell. Greater than any flame of posthumous retribution was the relentless cold steel of lifelong regret; death by a thousand guilty cuts. Fuck it all. No one deserves that!

The man was barely conscious now, but the fire in his eyes had told Genma that as long as he was, not one of his injuries would be treated. Sometimes you needed to feel the blood flowing out of you, settling the score. The wounds on the outside were easier to live with. Or at the very least would ensure that you didn't have to live with the ones on the inside for long. Genma knew this; he knew that Kakashi wanted to suffer. And he knew that the Copy-Ninja was by no means taking the easy way out. To take one look at a village full of a hundred blameless faces, belonging to shinobi who'd nevertheless fight to the death to defend those they loved, then to turn around, rip the S-rank mission scroll in two and walk away – that would have been the easy way out. Until the punishment later, of course. For now Kakashi needed to suffer; it was all the redemption he'd ever receive.

The Tokubetsu Jonin whispered, "Yeah… I get it."

Then he paused. There was a moment of silence before he helped the man onto his back and sat beside him. Kakashi cringed with every motion and Genma didn't dare ask what was hurting him the most. He'd pass out soon, if not from the pain then from the exhaustion, if not from the exhaustion then from the blood loss, if not from the blood loss then from the simple fact that his dreams would be more torturous than reality – and torture was what he wanted. Through pain he would be cleansed. That was how it had to go. And then he'd put it all away somewhere. In some dark, impenetrable corner of his mind he'd place his hatred for the role he'd been given, so that he could face another day. So that he could get on with the next mission, finding a reason to hate it all once more. Never once blaming the system, keeping all the blame for himself. Fuck it all!

Rage flooded Genma's senses. It took control. "You selfish bastard! You selfish, self-righteous, self-sacrificing bastard!"

Genma raised his fist and brought it down hard. After all, senbon were not the only tools for ensuring a much needed rest. But Kakashi deflected the blow an inch away from his face with one injured hand. He didn't even blink. Sparks seemed to shoot between both shinobi's eyes. Then Genma raised his other hand and brought the retrieved senbon sharply into Kakashi's neck. The man's expression didn't change. True fury doesn't come by degrees. Genma removed the senbon and sat back. The Copy-Ninja's eyes closed, unadulterated rage still marking his deceptively juvenile features.

Then slowly, Genma reached up to Kakashi's hair. It hung down over his eyes, plastered to his brow with sweat and blood. He brushed it aside, fully exposing the ANBU's unmasked face. That face was beautiful; neither blood, nor dirt, nor disfiguring contempt would ever change that. It overwhelmed him. Genma pressed his lips hard against Kakashi's. Even the man's blood tasted too pure; as sweet as a guileless child's smile, with an aftertaste more bitter than a grieving father's tears. No one deserved to be born so perfect. Not in a world where perfection can be whetted, polished and sent to war. Sometimes, in a world like this, it's better not to be born at all.

He let his kiss linger, until all the blood coating Kakashi's lips was gone. Then he whispered into the unconscious man's ear, "I can be selfish too…"

Two figures outlined against the haze of the setting sun. One recumbent in the other's arms, being held with a tenderness that should be impossible in a person trained solely to kill. The journey back may take hours, it may take days. But the unconscious figure does not stir. The drug has seen to that. It has seen to many things. Three days of blackness where memories should have been. A faceless guilt, but no recollection of the countless dying faces that caused it. It has been decided that this is right. Whatever the consequences may be. Perhaps the past will be left behind, perhaps the ultimatum will be followed through. Perhaps this was always the intention.

This would be no consolation to those departed spirits who now seek only revenge. But to a people from whom everything has been taken, what consolation can still apply? Little comfort to them is the knowledge that – in the esteemed opinion of men too powerful and too foresighted to see the blood dripping from their own hands – their continued existence would have led to the deaths of thousands. Little does it help that their killer had no choice but to spare the phantom thousands and sacrifice the comparatively few instead. And certainly it will not bring them back to know that the events of this day would save hundreds of very real lives, people just like them. Because their killer would not slaughter again, not when there was another way, and sometimes even when there wasn't. A young man so blinded by the fear of losing those he loved, that he'd deafened himself to the cries of those to whom he was indifferent, had now been forged into a hero of mercy, compassion and famously unerring judgement. But what did they care? To them, and to that man himself, he would always be an irredeemable, heartless killer.

But he was forced to forget and to go on living; helping to move the future, day by day, a little further from the past. Redemption may never await him, and it may be that condemnation is no less than he deserves. But still, a reward must lie somewhere in striving never to make the same mistake more than once. Surely every person deserves more at their funeral than the pale, expectant faces of one hundred hungry ghosts. Surely everyone has the right, just once, to forget.