A/N- This is a gift for one of my friends, and my first published fic. Enjoy =)
Disclaimer- I do not own anything related to Naruto. If I did, I wouldn't be DRAGGING THE SERIES OUT FOR GOD KNOWS HOW MUCH LONGER! -_-*
*ahem* Sorry about that. It's a bit of a sore point ^.^"
Also, I do not own anything related to Paheli, or any other Bollywood movie (sadly)
Butterfly Meetings
Five-year-old Hatake Kakashi ran through the crowds of the Konoha marketplace, ignoring the playful calls of his father behind him. He wove in and out of the passing shoppers, running until his little legs could barely move. Panting, he slipped behind a corner onto a small street, hiding from his dad. He looked around curiously at his surroundings, for this was an area he'd never been to before.
The street was mostly lined with tall, dirty apartments casting dark shadows that covered the street. At the end, however, sat a small house, bathed in sunlight and surrounded with a neat profusion of flowers. A child's voice drifted down the street, and Kakashi found himself drawn to the noise.
In the front yard of the house ran a girl who looked to be about his age. She was chasing a butterfly round and round the flower border, two fat, dark braids flying behind her. She was dark, with skin the color of wet brown clay and eyes that were almost black. Kakashi had never seen anyone like her before.
The child stopped running, having finally cornered the butterfly. She sang to it, a soft sweet song in a language Kakashi could not understand.
Kangana re kangana re
Kirnon se sab Rangana re
Kangana re Kangana re
Kirnon se sab Rangana re
Jab chaluun to chhan chhan chhanke angana re
Jab chuuriyaan khanke kangana chhanke
Kakashi crept closer and closer, until he was right in front of the strange girls. She stopped singing, smiled at him in the friendliest way, and laughed, a tinkling laugh that reminded him of wind chimes. Kakashi smiled back, but was caught by his father before he could say anything. Sakumo turned the boy upside down in his arms, then proceeded to tickle Kakashi until there was no breath left in the giggling boy. By the time Kakashi was able to look for the girl, she had gone.
Ten years pass
Kakashi jumped through the trees, his ANBU mask firmly in place. He was almost home, close enough to see the peaks of the Hokage Monument whenever he peeked above the trees. The mission had been particularly strenuous, and his eagerness to get back to his Icha Icha books and a warm bath was at an all-time high. He stopped on a branch to readjust his pack, then jumped to the ground. Someone was coming.
He saw the slight figure of a female ninja making her way through the trees. He could hear speaking on a radio set relaying coordinates and instructions to a pair of unseen teammates, and as she got closer, he could see the Leaf insignia on her headband. He stepped out of hiding, throwing a kunai before the kunoichi's feet to stop her. The girl turned, armed and ready, but relaxed when she saw him. She was dark-skinned and dark-haired, with two long braids falling behind her and two short braids extending from two buns on top of her head. She smiled at him, and hummed a bit of a tune, then laughed out loud. Kakashi frowned. . .he'd heard that laugh before. . .
She stopped singing, smiled at him in the friendliest way,
and laughed, a tinkling laugh that reminded him of wind chimes. . .
She remembers that? She recognizes me?!? Slowly, Kakashi took off his mask. The girl laughed at the puzzled look on his face, making Kakashi smile just a little through the black fabric covering his face.
"How did you know?" he asked.
"Your hair is a dead giveaway," she replied, smiling mischievously. Then a teammate chattered in her ear, and away she jumped, leaving only the echo of her laughter.
Nineteen years pass
Kakashi stood in the Hokage's office, feeling older than his thirty-four years. With his team and friends gone, he had found himself thinking more and more of the dark kunoichi he had met so long ago. Something about her laugh had caught his memory, stuck in his head, until he found he had to hear it again, to see if the girl still remembered him, to watch her braids move in time to the tune she hummed. True, he hadn't seen her in nineteen years, but he assumed that she was retired or (a thought that made him strangely angry) married, and he knew that Tsunade would be able to tell him where she was.
"Dark, foreign, Jounin at fifteen, same age as you, you say? You must be talking about one of the Khan sisters, Shobha. She and her sister Sheena were refugees from one of the villages in An no Kuni, and both girls decided to become nins to repay us for taking them in. Unfortunately, I can't give you her address, because they were killed shortly after you met Shobha, on an A-rank mission that quickly escalated into an S-ranked situation before they could call for backup. Their names are on the base of the Memorial Stone, if you're interested."
. . .
Kakashi left the office in a daze. How could he have been so stupid, not to realize she could be dead! Even more upsetting to him, why was the news of her death so earth-shattering? He had spoken all of four words to her, but here he was, shaken beyond measure. He had never realized, he guessed, how much he had been obsessing over the girl since the death of his team.
His musings ended, and he looked around. His feet had brought him to the marketplace he had run through as a tiny boy. He even recognized the street where he'd first seen her. Annoyed at his sentimentality, but unable to resist the urge, he turned down that street again, feeling the cool of the gloomy shadows. Suddenly, the sound of singing caught his ear. There, in front of the sunny little house, stood a slim girl, dark and lithe, with two long braids trailing down her back. She was sweeping the pathway, and singing in a musical language:
Kangana re kangana re
Kirnon se sab Rangana re
Kangana re Kangana re
Kirnon se sab Rangana re
Jab chaluun to chhan chhan chhanke angana re
Jab chuuriyaan khanke kangana chhanke
A memory stirred, and Kakashi crept forward, not believing his eyes.
The girl looked up, and smiled, then quietly laughed, a laugh of wind chimes.
"Who are you?" Kakashi asked, all at once dreading and craving the answer.
"I was born nineteen years ago, on the night of a failed A-rank mission," she answered, in a voice he knew, "And my name is Shobha."
The song used is from the Bollywood film Paheli, a lovely film filled with much mystery and intrigue. The song is called "Kangna Re." (Go watch it on youtube, it's awesome =D)
Some may not get this ending, so I shall briefely explain: she's been reincarnated.
R&R, pretty please, with a nekkid Kakashi on top? =]