He had been falling for quite a while. The sensation would normally have woken him, but trapped in this state of limbo, Kakashi had to endure the feeling of his stomach rising to his throat. He kept his eyes closed to lessen the vertigo, but opened them just a fraction for just a second, every so often, to see if anything had changed. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he felt his body falling onto a soft field of grass. The impact would have killed him in reality, but in this dream state it was a mere jolt of unpleasantness, not even pain. He kept his eyes closed, refusing to open them, waiting for the environment to stabilize. But then he felt someone approaching.
He opened his right eye to find himself in a meadow of green grass reaching as far as the horizon. No tree or rock or other feature was in sight. Just a field of green that gradually became enveloped in heavy mist, but even the mist was tinged with green. He forced himself to get up and then stretched his limbs to ensure nothing was broken. Not that anything should be, after all, this is still a dream, he reasoned with himself. Kakashi looked around and saw a figure nearby. Although it was obscured, he instinctively knew it was Rin, After all who else was left? She was standing with her back towards him, looking up at…not the sky, there was no sky, just the green mist. He came within a few feet of her, but he still could not see her clearly. She remained obscured, even to his sharingan.
She turned to him saying, "It's lovely here isn't it? So peaceful and beautiful. I wish you could stay here with me." He could feel rather than see that she gave him a wistful smile.
"It is peaceful, isn't it?" He felt a sense of calm pervading his body. It was unlike his other dreams. Then again, Rin had that influence on him. She was always the mediator between him and Obito. It would be nice to stay here with her, wouldn't it? If only he could see her clearly. He tried to remember how pretty she was with those beguiling stripes on her cheeks.
Obito had loved her. She had known that though he said nothing. But she gave Obito no encouragement as her heart was set on Kakashi. And he knew of her feelings for him even before she tried to tell him. But back then, before Obito's death, there was no room in his heart for any kind of love, not even friendship. And then after his death, he still couldn't love her, not the way she wanted. And then…but it was too late. If only…
"Rin…I…I've missed you, " he managed to say.
She smiled more broadly, so it seemed. "I've always longed for you to say something like that to me."
"I…I'm sorry I wasn't able to protect you…I promised Obito…"
"Not all promises can be kept. You can't be in two places at once. You can't protect everyone. No one can. It just the ways things are. But let's not dwell on that." She turned away from him again and looked around, holding her arms out as if trying to capture the intangible, elusive mist. "Do you remember how the three of us would run around the training fields of Konoha? The fields were so green all year round. Just like this. I used to hunt for medicinal herbs while the two of you chased each other…"
Kakashi rubbed his eye, trying to clear away the mist, but still it hung around them and clung to them and she remained partly hidden from his sight.
"Damn this mist, I can hardly see you…"
She turned back to him. "Well, you couldn't look at me in life either, could you? Not after his death."
"What do you mean?"
"You wouldn't acknowledge my feelings for you. You wanted me to hide them away. I did as you wished, but those feelings never went away. I always loved you."
Kakashi bowed his head sadly, whispering "Yes, I know. I'm sorry you wasted your feelings on me."
"It wasn't wasted. I was happy just to love you and be near you, whether or not you returned those feelings. But you couldn't love me, could you, because of Obito? All I want to know now is…could you have loved me, if it weren't for Obito?"
Kakashi hesitated. He could have loved her, if he had let himself. But it was a testament to his loyalty toward Obito and the guilt he felt for his death, that he had withheld his feelings. It was not until after her death that he realized what he had lost, someone more that just a friend or comrade in arms. After some thought he cautiously said, "If I had stayed as I was back then, I could not have loved anyone. It's only thanks to Obito that I think perhaps…"
But his answer was either too slow in coming or not good enough for her. "If I came to you now…in flesh and blood, with breath in my body, could you love me?" She asked him insistently, almost desperately. Still no answer. "Could you? Yes or no?"
"Yes," Kakashi finally admitted.
She smiled in satisfaction and relief. "Then you could love someone else…"
The green mist began to fade, but along with it so did the figure of Rin. Kakashi felt he still had more to say to her and he called out her name. But it was too late again and he was alone again in the field of green.
The green field began to undulate and he nearly lost his balance. The ground broke and a serene green light appeared from beneath. The light encompassed Kakashi and he felt the initial feeling of calm he had when he first saw Rin. He felt the light and the tranquility enter him and he closed his eyes to try to keep the feeling from escaping and to enter it into his memory banks to call upon in the future.
Kakashi's state of peaceful contentment was disturbed by an annoying, rather high-pitched, voice calling him as if from a distance. "Hey, hey Kakashi-sensei! Kakashi-sensei! Wake up, wake-up!"
Leave me alone! Kakashi thought, but still the voice continued to call him, persistently louder and more annoying, worse than nails on a chalkboard.
Tsunade was using her healing green chakra to enter Kakashi's mind and repair the damage Itachi had done. After weeks of torturous dreams, he awoke from Itachi's spell, only to find: Tsunade standing over him, berating him for being a failed genius; Naruto by her side, ecstatic that he was the one who brought Tsunade to help return his sensei to the real world; and Gai by the door waiting impatienly. Kakashi slowly sat up to clear his head.
"Hmmph, I heard you lost to just two traitors. Weren't you supposed to be a genius?" Tsunade asked sarcastically.
Kakashi hung his head and sighed to himself. I woke up to this?
Fortunately, Gai and Naruto immediately dragged Tsunade away to see the next patient and Kakashi was left alone in peace to meditate on the possible meaning of his dreams.
...-...-...-...-END-...-...-...
Author's Notes:
The first draft of dream#1 was more obscure such that my beta-reader didn't get it, so in my rewrite and dreams#2-4,I made certain aspects more obvious. But then another person said she didn't get it. I usually refrain from long author's notes but here's a few things I'd like to point out:
Colors used:
White: purity, deity (Kakashi has put his friend Obito on a pedestal)
Yellow: cowardice, glory (Sakumo can be seen as a coward for committing suicide, or a hero for his achievements. Yellow is a color used to depict cowardice, but it's also the color of emperors and royalty in China, and of the sun deities.)
Blue: truth, nobility (Yondaime is often depicted as the exemplary shinobi)
Green: unrequited love (based on green for envy/jealousy similar to want), and new beginnings (spring time)
Red/Black: blood/death/guilt
Dream#1 Obito – A part of Kakashi wants to let go of the past but in the end his guilt wins over. It's also about how our memories are different than reality as when Kakashi calls Obito his best friend while in reality they did not get along at all.
Dream#2 Sakumo – This is an extension of my story about Sakumo (see Fall from Grace) with Kakashi's reaction to his father's death.
Dream#3 Yondaime – Kakashi wrestles with his insecurities of being a good teacher, represented by Yondaime. This also a prophetic dream. At the end Yondaime warns Kakashi of Sasuke's intentions. The Uchiha eyes are Sasuke's eyes.The area where Naruto and Sasuke fought was marked by two large statues. The fresh red blood is a prediction of the fight between Naruto and Sasuke and the aged black blood refers to the fight that probably occurred between the two shinobis depicted by the statues (I think one of them is Shodaime).
Rin – This was my favorite but most difficult one to write since very little is known about Rin, when or how she died. I got around that by using the mist, which is also symbolic of how shinobis hide their feelings. Poor Kakashi, but I tried to end it on a somewhat positive note with Kakashi's potential to find happiness.
Will probably not be updating this collection of stories for a while. I'm currently working on my much longer story Kakashi and the Kidnapped Kunoichi (please check it out) and a new short story (starring Hiashi and Hanabi) titled An Investigation into the Death of Gekkou Hayate which will be published under a collection of non-Kakashi stories tentatively called Konoha's Confidental Case Files. More Naruto stories/art/stuff at animefamily. com