AN: Just a little something to pass the time while I write the next chapter of Dark Waters. Hope you enjoy.
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Ghosts
Summary: Some people believe in ghosts while others don't. The ones who do wish they didn't, while the ones who don't wish they could.
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Madara doesn't believe in ghosts. It didn't stop him from seeing them.
The first time Madara thought he had seen a ghost was two months after the funeral of his older brother, Masaru.
His brother had been three years older than him, with the typical black hair and black eyes of their family, and a gaze that would turn red at the first sign of danger since he was seven years old. A true Uchiha genius, as the elders liked to say.
His brother had been the first-born, the heir, the prodigy of the Uchiha Clan. He had been the apple in their parent's eyes, a caring, helpful, charismatic young boy who shouldn't have died at the tender age of eight.
He had been everything Madara was not.
But now, feeling the weight of the elders and his father's eyes on his back during the funeral while his mother trembled beside him, holding a two-year old Izuna in her arms, Madara realized that, with or without his consent, he would have to become his brother.
He was now the heir of the Uchiha Clan after all.
He thought that he hated his brother a little for that.
He knew that he hated his brother when he was bleeding, backed up against a tree, knowing that he was going to die if his Uchiha teammates didn't find him soon.
He had been eight, and his first kill laid barely a hundred feet away from him, the man's blank eyes still staring at him in horror even in death.
That was when he saw him.
Wild black hair, coal black eyes that seemed brighter than any eye with so dark a color had any right to be, a soft smile in his lips, face still round with baby fat that simply wouldn't leave him alone.
"Hello otouto,"
His voice hadn't changed, even in death. It was then that Madara thought that maybe, he was already dead. The thought shouldn't have brought him so much relief as it did.
"You aren't dead, otouto," Masaru said amusedly, head tilted to the side. He then pointed at his right. "Look there," his brother said.
Madara looked, and to his surprise, he saw the team his father had assigned to him to this mission. They were far, too far away to see or sense him, and looked about to leave.
Madara knew that if they left, then he really would die.
Unconcerned, he looked back to stare at the ghost of his dead brother only to find an empty space where he had been.
"Masaru? Masaru! Aniki! Aniki, where are you?! Come back, nii-san! Please, come back!"
He continued to cry his brother's name, even when his screams became loud enough to attract the attention of the other Uchihas and make them discover him. He continued to call out for his dead brother right until the moment the medic in the squad knocked him out to keep him quiet.
When they came back to the compound, the medic told his father about finding him crying Masaru's name.
In response, Madara told him about Masaru. His father's answer was this: "Ghosts don't exist".
Ghosts don't exist.
Tajima didn't give him a mission again for three years after that.
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The second time Madara started seeing ghosts was a week after Izuna's (his younger brother, his last brother) death.
He began to see Izuna everywhere he went. In the streets, in the shops, in his house, his kitchen, everywhere.
Every time he saw that, he would close his eyes and repeat to himself the mantra his late father had told him years ago, ignoring the way Izuna would be looking at him with black holes where his eyes should have been; Ghosts don't exist. Ghosts don't exist.
Still, Madara sometimes wished they did, because the other option was that he was slowly but surely becoming mad, and that was something that frightened him more than any spirit ever could.
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Akasuna no Sasori believed in ghosts. How can he not, when he's always surrounded by them?
The first ones had been his parents. He had been young then, so young, enough to think that if he wished it hard enough, the cold puppets he had made with his own two hands would create life and fill the hole his parent's death had left in his heart.
Suffice it to say, he had been wrong. It didn't stop him from wishing though.
It also didn't stop him from hearing the painful moans while he lay in his bed, hands still dirty with the drying blood of his enemies who he had deemed worthy of becoming part of his art.
It was in those moments that he wished he didn't believe in ghosts so strongly, because then he wouldn't have to hear the cries of his victims day in and day out, see the accusation in their now-artificial eyes, feel wood under his hands where once there had been warm flesh and blood.
And then he would ignore those thoughts, because if the ghosts left him, he would be really alone then.
But yes, Akasuna no Sasori believed in ghosts. He lived constantly haunted by the dead after all.
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Inuzuka Hana didn't believe in ghosts. Her clan was a practical one, in tune with their more primal instincts, a fact only more weighed by their canine partners. To an animal, death was death. There was no after-life, no phantoms. You only lived once, so you had to make sure you enjoyed life the best you could.
So no, Hana didn't belive in ghosts. That didn't stop her from seeing him.
She had been in a month-long B-ranked mission outside the village in the Land of Lightning. The mission had turned south when it turned out that the client had been lying about the security around the scroll she and her team were sent to retrieve and out of her five teammates, only her and the Haimaru brothers had gotten out alive. Not that it helped them any, when they were stuck in the middle of nowhere with no way to get back home with their wounds.
That was when he appeared, as if summoned by her distressed thoughts.
"Come on, dog-breath, you've got to move!"
She growled at him, too tired to ask what he was doing there when he was supposed to be back in Konoha.
"Leave me alone Pretty-boy."
Pretty-boy. She had been calling him that since meeting him for the first time. He had looked so much like a girl then, still looked more feminine than her, and she had been teasing him about it since then. In retaliation, he had taken to call her dog-breath, and she had scoffed at him, because it wasn't like anyone else had called someone from her clan that before. Seriously, use some imagination in your insults!
"Sorry if my insults aren't good enough for you, dog-breath. I will try better next time. Now move!"
"Go away Shisui!"
Hana would have said more if she wasn't so exhausted. Uchiha Shisui always managed to make her feel tired.
"No. You said you wanted me to meet your little brother, remember? How can I do that if you aren't there to introduce us? What's the kid's name again?"
"Kiba," she whispered, and it was like a bit of her strenght returned to her. Yes, she had a little brother who was waiting for her back home, as well as a mother and a entire clan of humans and nin-dogs. How could she even think about giving up?
Beside her, the Haimaru Brothers let out whines and grunts while they trid to stand.
"See there, Hana? Even the Haimaru Brothers are trying to move. So come on! You got to go back home!"
And so she did. Hana stood up with her partners flanking her and followed after Shisui's voice, ignoring the way her body screamed at her in protest. When the pain become too much though, she would stop with her partners panting and bleeding at her side, and Shisui would once again appear, bitching at her to move already.
She would snarl, but then she would run again until she felt as if her legs were about to fall off.
Finally, she fainted, with Shisui's voice still urging her to run.
Hana woke up in the Konoha Hospital the next morning, the three Haimaru Brothers sound asleep around her bed, blinking at the light coming from the window. A nurse entered then to check her vitals and she asked her where was Shisui. When the nurse said she didn't know anyone named that, Hana asked about the man who had carried her to the hospital.
The woman blinked at her, saying that she had no idea of who she was talking about. She and her nin-dogs had been found outside the village's gate, bleeding and unconscious, by the chunnin guards. No one had been around her before that.
Annoyed, Hana then had asked for Uchiha Shisui and she watched the woman pale at the name 'Uchiha'.
It was then that she learned that the entire Uchiha Clan had been massacred during her month-long mission, barely a week before she was found outside the gates. Uchiha Shisui had been found dead in the Nakano River five days after she had left for her mission in Lightning.
Hana asked no more after that.
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She and the Haimaru Brothers had left the hospital two weeks later, all of them completely healed. The first thing she did after leaving was going to the Nakano River.
Shisui had always loved the water, almost as much as he had liked to run, feeling the wind in his face.
She clasped her hands together, offered a quick prayer in thanks, and left.
Inuzuka Hana didn't believe in ghosts. But it was better to be safe than sorry.
(And if she did wish that ghosts were real, than it was only so that she could yell and rage at that idiot Shisui, who got himself killed by water, out of all things, and proceed to beat the ever living shit out of him, for daring to leave her behind, that utter bastard, and just so that she could finally introduce him to her little brother, her Kiba, and hope that they would like each other, because Hana really lov-)
No, Inuzuka Hana didn't believe in ghosts. But sometimes, she wished she did, if only so that she could pretend that he was stil there by her side, like he promised he would.
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Hoshigaki Kisame didn't believe in ghosts. He was a ninja, a profession where one came face-to-face with death too often to believe in something as ludicrous as phantoms.
He didn't believe in his eyes when he saw his traitorous old master, Fuguki-sensei, every time he would take out Samehada to shred his enemies apart. He pretended not to see the frightened eyes of his old comrades, the ones he had killed to protect important information, when he watched the life leave the men and women sent to kill him, by the same village he used to serve so loyally.
He didn't see Kaori, that nice, pretty kunoichi from the cypher division that had flirted with him during the entire trip back to Kiri, every time he looked at a woman who appeared remotely interested in him. The same Kaori he had killed mercilessly when their team had been ambushed by Konoha-nin.
He didn't see his best friend, the one he had killed during his Graduation Exam, every time he looked at Uchiha Itachi, his young partner from Akatsuki. He didn't taste the metallic blood on his tongue, the blood that had invaded his mouth after he tore through his friend's throat (he had hesitated, faltered for a second, but not Kisame. Kisame hadn't. He had wanted to survive above all else that day).
No, Hoshigaki Kisame didn't believe in ghosts. But sometimes, he wish he did, if only so he could tell them all to leave him the hell alone.
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Sasuke Uchiha believed in ghosts. He lived in a compound practically crawling with them after all.
The bodies may have been removed, the blood stains cleaned off, the houses repaired and the stray weapons collected, but nothing would change the fact that there were no more Uchihas to live there. Nothing would wipe away the horror and violence marked so firmly over that cursed place.
Nothing would make the ghosts of his family go away and finally rest.
Nothing but justice. Revenge.
He could hear them, every time he walked back into the compound. Their cries for mercy, their shouts of pain. He could see their bodies as vividly as he had the first time, their blood seeping into the ground, ensuring that nothing good would grow from that earth ever again.
But he prefered to hear their cries of pain to their yells of rage. Because otherwise he would get so restless that he would end up spending the entire night awake, with no hope of sleep, until he left his bed and went to the dojo, where he would then proceed to train for hours on end, until his body refused to move one more millimeter.
Those were the best times though, because then the voices would quiet down a little, and Sasuke would manage to get some respite from them. He would know a moment of serenity before the whispers started up again, urging him to be stronger, faster, better.
Sasuke Uchiha believed in ghosts. He wished that he didn't though, because then maybe he would know what peace felt like.
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Kakashi Hatake believed in ghosts.
How can he not, when he sees and talks to them every day? He sees Obito, Minato and Kushina in his blond student, the son and legacy of two heroes, a boy considered a demon by the vast majority of Konoha even when his heart was purer than all of those bigots put together.
He sees his teammate Rin in Sakura's caring and healing nature, in the way that she would hit Naruto and Sai over the head and then would see if there were any serious damage left by the strength of her fists. He sees Rin in Sakura's unwavering loyalty and determination to become a better person for her teammates and village.
He sees himself, the younger and foolish version of himself that had died the day he watched Obito die, in Sasuke and maybe that's why he can connect so much with the boy, because in the end, Sasuke was as broken as him, and misery loves company.
Kakashi believes in ghosts, for how can he not, when he sees one every day he wakes up, staring at him from his bathroom's mirror, one blood-red orb slowly swirling away in greeting?
He remembers Minato-sensei saying that he shouldn't despair over his teammate so much; "After all," the blond jounin would say. "He might end up becoming your best friend."
In the end, Uchiha Obito became much more than his best friend. He became a ideal, brother, a hero, someone to strive to be like, the first thing Kakashi saw in the morning.
Obito became a part of him that would haunt him until his dying day.
So yes, Hatake Kakashi believed in ghosts.
(He wishes he didn't though, because then he would realize that many of the people he cares about are dead and buried and that's too much for his broken mind to handle.)
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Tsunade Senju didn't believe in ghosts. Or that was what she would tell herself everyday, when in truth, she believes in them more than one should. Why else would she spend years running away from Konoha?
She runs to escape from the dead and their memories. She runs because she's too weak to face them and not drown in sorrow and guilt.
So she runs and drinks and gambles her life away, hiding under a genjutsu that makes her appear young because even then she still can't quite let go of the past, and because it's easier than staying in Konoha and having to live in a house that feels too empty to withstand.
Tsunade believes in ghosts, and that's why she runs. Because she cannot face them. Or couldn't, until a loud-mouth blond idiot way too stubborn for his own good finds her and drags her away from the carefully-constructed shell she had built around herself, kicking and screaming, and reminding her so much of her brother that it breaks her heart all over again.
That boy helps her face her fears, her ghosts, and even though Tsunade still feels a little cold every day she wakes up and looks at the Hokage monuments to see her face carved there, she knows one thing;
She doesn't believe in ghosts anymore. The only thing she believes in, is in that little loud-mouthed blonde idiot who dreams of becoming Hokage.
And she's perfectly fine with that.
After all, ghosts don't exist in the end.
(And if they do, well, is because we haunt them more than they ever haunted us.)
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AN: So, tell me your thoughts?