Title: Candles Can Light the Dark
Summary: Konoha has come to an end. The remnants of its people scattered and wandered lost across the world. For all Iruka knows, everything he holds dear is no more. Until someone he believes to have long ago perished shows up…KakaxIru. One-shot.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and its characters
Note: This piece is so angstsy and sucky that I very much advise you to prepare a puke box. And I am being absolutely serious.
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Seven years flew by like the soaring wind, but no amount of time could really be enough to relieve him of the weight of the past horror, which was pulling him down the Earth's deepest crevices. Konoha was no more, that much was true. In fact, he had lived the past seven years of his life painfully embracing that reality. All hope to rebuild the Hidden Village had gone beyond the confines of the world.
For so long that Iruka spent his remaining days on the hills and along the shores, he always knew where to aim his thoughts at; to the past, where everything and everyone he held dear still lived. Precious memories with no tangible proof of their ever existence were the only things he now possessed to fuel his loyalty to life, directionless as it was.
A recluse he had become and aimlessness was now the entirety of his being, so to speak, to save anyone the trouble of wasting spit to describe him. The ex-shinobi voluntarily and adeptly eluded venturing upon another living soul, harboring the bitter thought that if he were to meet someone of familiar personage, a surge of the terror of that night would drown him in sorrows. Everyone he knew by name had perished, or so he believed, on that fateful night; his students and colleagues, in other words, the only family he had known and he would ever know. If anyone managed at all to escape Akatsuki's wrath, he could only wish that person well in clinging to life. He didn't know how it happened, though he could remember it all too vividly.
The Akatsuki had conjured a monster, a beast too hideous to be attributed to any form of monstrosity. It incinerated anything it came upon and wreaked havoc across the land. It howled in triumph as the Leaf Village crumbled to the ground, taking with it countless lives and hopes and dreams. Iruka, and a few others, from some freak of coincidence or unthinkably incredible stroke of luck, managed to survive. His weakness couldn't have been apparent the moment the monster steered its breath in his direction. For a split second there, he entertained death and welcomed its idea without a thought of protest. What chance did he stand against it? Amidst this, something happened. Something or someone had snatched him within inches of Death's jaws. An amulet now lied at his feet, nullifying whatever Jutsu it was that was engulfing him to suffocation. That saved his life. From where the magical object came from none could tell, and he doubted if he ever would. The mayhem passed. Konoha sank in ruins. Alas, the Leaf had found its final place on Earth and would forever be cradled by the ground, leaving behind a silence that was ominous.
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Iruka was wallowing the afternoon away on some cliff, where what remained of Konoha was visible, fingering the small piece of marble hanging around his neck, the object responsible for the uneventful, meaningless, close to nothingness that was his life. He had long ago abandoned trying to solve its mysteries. Come to think of it, there was no point of it now. He watched the sun sink to its final abode and stayed long after to bathe in the ghostly moonlight. This occupation he would nightly engage himself into would only further solidify his adamant anticipation of death as its stench lingered persistently.
He heard a rustle coming from the bushes and paid it no heed, having the initial assumption that it was just a stray animal.
"So you're here." Said a voice. Its familiarity had long ago slipped past Iruka's recalling. He turned around to face its owner. And it seemed as though the ex-Chuunin no longer possessed the energetic vibe to greet an old friend, much less the ability to revive it.
"Hatake Kakashi," Iruka said grimly.
"Is this how you welcome an old acquaintance?"
"I never thought I'd ever run into another living soul. I'm glad you're alive." The brown-haired ex-ninja said as casually as he could manage. If he was in the least relieved to finally find someone who would share his lonesome musings, he didn't elicit the merest signs of appreciation.
They both stared at the pale moon. Such activity could keep Iruka occupied for days on end, even without interruption, if only he wouldn't meet the necessity of filling his stomach.
"So you kept it." Kakashi said, eyeing the amulet.
"This? I don't even know what this is or where it came from. All I know is that it saved my life seven years ago. And it has been keeping me alive from then on." The ex-Chuunin said without letting his curiosity take its pace by asking the gray-haired man how he seemed to know about the object. He said all these as though he didn't want to be heard, as if he only wanted to say it.
"It kept you going? How?"
"I have long ago retired from unveiling its secrets. But nothing changes the fact that I am indebted to whoever it was who cast it upon my feet on that dreadful night. The least I can do is to not throw his legacy and live on." Iruka recited this in the same manner as one would in talking to himself. He never released his gaze from the horizon, though the unmistakable bitterness in his voice echoed mournfully through the night.
"You are saying that though your life was spared, you were not rescued from the aftermath of that horror and even now you are still haunted by the eerie ugliness of that past?"
"Perhaps, it might as well have allowed my death."
Kakashi sighed as he himself began to wonder what attraction life still reserved for him. He spoke,
"I never thought one would continue to exist in here amid the pain this place brings." As he said this, anyone could easily tell how much of this pain he spoke of he had lived with.
"All the wonders in my past revolved around this ground. It would be impossible for me to be capable of abandoning it; it would have meant forsaking my identity."
"And if one of these wonders lives still, would you resign from being the ghost that you are now? Would the fervor for living reappear in you? And resort to not wasting your life away?"
Iruka now looked at the ex-Jounin square in the face.
"I'm not wasting my life away; life is wasting me away."
If this so clearly indicated the ex-Chuunin's lack of motivation to maintain any association to anything positive, Kakashi chose to overlook it.
"So you resolve to sulk on this grave which you now call your home for the rest of the time that remains? You aren't waiting for anything or anyone who would permanently disengage you from this? You'd rather be forever trapped, lost in uncertainty, is that it?" Kakashi said, projecting mild pity and mild contempt as he did so.
"I am no longer under any obligation to live for anyone; I simply chose this."
It seemed like their exchanges required a certain mood from anything within miles of their vicinity, for a cold wind had started to brush against their cheeks. Enough time passed, perhaps even enough to develop pages of history.
"I gave you that." the gray-haired ex-ninja said, pointing at the object on Iruka's chest. He waited for the ex-Chuunin to speak; he should have instead waited for the stars above their heads to collapse on them. Kakashi continued, "I wanted you to live. At that time, insuring that seemed to be the only thing that mattered to me. Everything besides just dissolved, escaping the importance of being rescued, or so it seemed to me. But you…I could never let you die."
The minutes that elapsed afforded generous time for Iruka to compose himself.
"Why?" He asked.
Without looking at him, Kakashi spoke,
"In the end, we're only humans cringing in the face of fear. We may be broken after the storm, but I still wanted a reason to live. It wasn't our duties as shinobis to put a stop to whatever evil that would spread; rather our duty was to stop it to the extent of our last breath, because there are things that are just beyond our powers. I couldn't do anything about that dreadful night either. There was one trick, though, that I could pull under my sleeves, and that was to keep you and me breathing." He paused and took a deep breath before continuing, "If you are thinking now that your reason to be here on the face of the Earth still remains unseen, I am now here to confirm its existence." Though solemnly, he said all these with conviction, defying the entire wearisome atmosphere that the world was thrusting upon him.
"Kakashi, you gave me a shot at something I hardly deserved; I could've saved a child out there. The truth was, I could not, and as clearly as you see now, I am weak, just as I always have been. However, I marvel at your efforts and your principles, peculiar and unfathomable as they are. I suppose you are entitled to my gratitude." Iruka said before resuming staring at the vast landscape. The shadows in his face amplified the helpless misery dwelling in it.
Kakashi swallowed the lump that had built up his throat.
"You could've saved a life, yours for instance. That would still be something. Regrets, remorse, they're all useless now. My spirit remains intact, only because all I have but love is dead." He paused and surveyed the darkness as if searching for the words hiding in the shadows, awaiting discovery. He continued, "I didn't just wait, Iruka. I didn't just sit around all these years waiting for the pieces of my broken existence to fall into their respective places; I searched far and wide to locate them all. And now the last piece stands before me, refusing to be rescued. I looked everywhere for you. And I purposed never to miss you even if it meant neglecting my duties of finding myself." He finished in a low voice. Their eyes, met and the look that Kakashi gave the other hoped to close the unreckonable expanse of distance that the latter conjured between them.
"Kakashi…"
"I didn't fail to rescue you seven years ago; I'm not going to fail this time around either." As if for the first time in seven long years, Kakashi's lips curled to a weak and weary but pleasant smile. He held his hand out to Iruka which the ex-chuunin took with what must have also been a smile; something he thought would never again grace his face.
And so the two lost souls found their way through the cruel jungles of their past and, at long last, each other.
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END