Disclaimer: This is a purely non-profit story written for entertainment purposes only. The characters of Naruto belong to their respective owners.
Author's Notes: The concept for this story is simply the fact that no one knows how Rin died. All the stories out there relating to Rin have her dying during a mission or something of some sort, but for me, I'd always pictured something a little different. The format is a little iffy, but there are certain phrases that I want to use that are otherwise unusable if it's not written this way. I guess this could be hinting KakaRin if you squint real hard, but it's not meant to be.
And I know it's "sensei and I"… but you know, the 'me' just sounds better.
Supposition
( alpha )
"How does it feel?"
The first face he ever saw with his new sight was of a girl who never should have loved him.
"Fine." His left eye burned.
Superimposed beside her was a ghost of her image, raining tears and blood onto Obito's body.
"Wow, Sakura-chan, that looks delicious. Can I have one?"
"Gross! Don't ever touch my food, Naruto!" Sweetly, she turns to the object of her affections. "Sasuke-kun, would you like some?"
"Heeeey! How come you're offering him food!"
"No thanks."
"But… I made these especially for you. I know rice balls are your favourite…"
"Sorry, I'm not really hungry."
In the back of his mind, Kakashi makes a displeased mental 'tsk'.
( focus )
We all started out with so many promises, but in the end he lives only with his secrets.
Obito laughs and runs and lives, like the rest of us – like Sensei and me. Kakashi exists from behind something intangible, behind shifting shadows that refuse to depart. While we are distracted, while he thinks we are distracted, Sensei worries. It's an unspoken truth between us, and it's ok.
We all knew – heard, rather – about Kakashi's father. News like that wasn't enough to leave our generation; news like the betrayal of a Legendary Sannin wasn't enough to leave our generation, even though it happened decades before. The elders didn't believe in shielding us back then. And it worked, because no matter how much my hands shook, no matter how badly I wanted to scream and cry, the Sharingan passed without a whisper from one teammate to the next.
I don't think Kakashi realized how fragile he was.
When we returned to the village, after submitting our mission reports and getting our physicals and deluding ourselves with a semblance of normalcy, he found every rock he could get his hands on and threw them into the river. The pile was so immense that it began to block the flow of water, consuming the riverbank and churning the liquid into an angry brown. His mismatched eyes – speckled and solid – spoke of betrayal.
"Kakashi, stop." For some reason, my hands are shaking. He doesn't listen.
"Kakashi, please stop." I reach out for him, grab his wrist gently. He turns those haunting orbs in my direction.
"Let go." It was the first time I was ever afraid of him. Slowly, I shake my head.
"Let's go home," I urge. "Please."
"Let go." And now his tone bothers me.
"What is wrong with you? You're not the only one who's suffering here!"
Kakashi is only ice. "What would you know of suffering? You're just some stupid girl who has nothing better to do than to follow me around. If you want to go home, then go. Nobody wants you here."
Perhaps it was only my imagination, but I thought I saw his left eye fill with tears. "If that's the way you're going to be, fine! I don't know why I even bother!"
The bridge was flooded the next morning; I wish Kakashi had gotten in trouble for it.
---
There were days when he didn't even remember his own name.
He would simply stare, numbly, at some universe we couldn't reach. He'd never been good with kids our age, but after a while even the adults felt uneasy around him. Sensei smiled instead of Obito, I talked instead of Sensei, and through all our breaking love I started to realize how unreachable the child genius really was. Not long after, psychological evaluations were introduced for shinobi returning from high-ranked assignments. We didn't get any missions for a while. I was relieved, because one night while we were walking home from training, Kakashi had casually mentioned that Obito thought my henge jutsus were too blurry around the edges and asked about the welfare of the goldenrods Obito had given me as a symbol of his affection.
To avoid the stares, and I suppose to make me more comfortable, he took to wearing his hitai-ate over the left eye. Perhaps since it wasn't his own anatomy, Kakashi wasn't able to shut down the Sharingan ability as Obito had been able to. The dark fabric was an interminable ocean; he never mentioned talking to Obito after that.
Life passed; I sometimes even think that Kakashi could've been okay. But righteousness is cruel, and the man who had held up the sky for us – especially for Kakashi – passed without so much as a glimmer. The burial did not come close to touching what he deserved, so someone carved his face out of stone. Mimicking, the last piece of the remainder of my world did the same.
Perhaps he only wanted to relive every memory. I found him one day in the forest, standing on the patch of grass where Sensei had first taught us genjutsu. The canopy shielded our lives. He stood until the blaring red of the mid-afternoon turned into a subdued mist-grey, and when the world was in monochrome, he embraced the truth.
They say the child genius of the Hatake house did not so much as shed a single tear during his father's funeral. In the dark of the forest of our minds, I watched him cry. The moment is suspended between us – like time, like a supernova. And all I wanted was to ask.
Kakashi, what's become of us?
"Hey, Sasuke, how about we walk home together?"
"No thanks."
He's gone before she can try to convince him, and Sakura only has time to be disappointed before Naruto offers to walk her home instead. Kakashi eyes them wearily, says a farewell that neither of them hears through their yells, and follows his departed student.
He falls in step beside the young 'prodigy', never saying a word. Sasuke continues walking as if he has not sensed Kakashi's presence, but within a few steps he turns to give Kakashi an agitated glare.
"Yes?" His tone is testy.
Kakashi merely shrugs, not moving an inch. "I'm walking home?"
The teen only gives an exasperated sigh before he continues on. Again, the jounin tails him, and within a few more paces they come to another stop. The process repeats itself many times, each time with Kakashi being aware enough not to bump into Sasuke's rigid back. Eventually, the genin gives up and simply walks ahead of his teacher.
After a time, Kakashi has brought out his book and his legs move forward languidly. "You know, you could try being a little nicer to her." His voice is indolent, stating unhurried facts; facts that remain concrete.
Sasuke tosses a brief glance over his left shoulder. "Why? So she starts to think I actually care about her?"
They continue to walk together, leisurely and briskly, their steps slow but measured. Sasuke never sees the brief flash of emotion that plays by Kakashi's eye, and the man's feet do not falter.
"No," he replies after a time, voice quiet. "One day she'll know better… but by then maybe you won't want her to."
The Uchiha scoffs. "I'd never like her like that, no matter what the day."
"That's not quite what I meant," Kakashi says – doesn't elaborate, and turns the page.
( finis )
I never told anyone what I saw.
Her soul was accusing me even as she soothed my fears, and I could see one so much clearer than the other. I never understood what it was supposed to mean, never understood that I had momentarily seen the future. If there's anyone to blame, I suppose I'm the only one left.
Everyone thought I was going to break, but in the end she broke first. Perhaps that was also my fault. I can't help but wonder if she did it to try to soothe my pain, try to drag me back to the real. If I were thinking clearly – if she were thinking clearly – we would've both realized that it was impossible then.
"Kakashi!" Her face was alight, a sight so rare after the core of our universe faded. "Kakashi, I know of a way to bring them back!"
And maybe if I pretended not to hear, remained within my own mind, she would still be here to hate me. Instead I looked at her for the first time in weeks, months – and she was as good as dead.
"Listen, I met this man who knows how to revive people…"
---
She bared all the dreams of her soul, and all I could say was that it was against the rules. That it was impossible.
"All you care about is your stupid rules! I don't know why I ever liked you!"
Afterwards, she would not listen to reason. I think we had all pushed her so far beyond reality that any spark of hope would turn into an inferno of need. She needed them back; I wasn't much good to her – another, grander, fault of mine.
Despite my warnings that it was impossible, she went out to meet "that man" anyways. He wasn't too pleased with my interruption, his sallow skin gaunt and his dark eyes glinting dangerously. When I disabled all of the snakes he had summoned and moved in to kill him, he abandoned his body and took over Rin's, laughing at my incredulity. In a wild fit of fancy, thought I'd lost her as well.
And how did you die, my sweet sunshine? No one knows that I had to kill you myself.
It was only when he started to use the forbidden jutsu to resurrect Obito that Kakashi panicked. Before he even noticed what had transpired, his hands are soaked with something sticky and tepid, and there's warm brown eyes staring back at him. Brown like the river. Her smile falters.
When her body finally slumps onto his, he's still not ready for the weight and they topple like stones piled too high, stones toppled by the wind. In retrospect, he should've killed the man's body, and then there would be no spirit to return to the shell, no spirit to laugh hauntingly in his dreams.
"H-hey Kakashi…"
He's never appreciated how light her voice is. Or is it only that way because she's dying?
"You were… right." He knew that if she could, she would've added, "you're always right", and make her usual annoyed face. As it was, her face was turning as pale as the moon. Moonshine. "But I… still don't know why I ever liked you."
And he didn't either, which seemed fitting for the two of them. He cremated her in the forest and scattered her ashes into the river he had tried to destroy. The Hokage didn't question his word, and the official mission report agreed with him as well. Rin was killed in battle, and so her teammate, badly injured and judging that it would be safest to destroy her body to protect the secrets of the village, had cremated her immediately. They etched her name in stone, and then she was forgotten.
---
And maybe it was selfish of him not to give Sasuke reasons, selfish not to give any of them reasons because he just bloody well didn't want to talk about it. A part of him argues that maybe, if he'd brought it up, Sasuke (stubborn as he was) would've stayed and Naruto wouldn't feel abandoned and Sakura wouldn't need to cry over them both. Because Sasuke was talking to a snake man, Kakashi expects him to die first, but he doesn't know when and he doesn't know how and he's sad that Naruto will have to be the one to do it. However, such suppositions are hopeful at best, and he's learned better than that by now.
Because Naruto's hands are brown like the river, and Sasuke's face is pale as the moon. All that's missing – waiting – is the stone.
ENDAN: I couldn't think how to end this properly… so that's how it stands. I will admit that perhaps the Orochimaru part in Kakashi's history is a little farfetched, but I really think Kakashi is the one that killed her. Anyway, if nothing else, I felt this was original.