Memoirs of a Shinobi
Hey, Dad.
This place, you brought me here
Dropped me off and didn't say a word
As I opened the door
And walked inside.
When they asked me for my name
I almost said yours.
Because I was so sure
That you were supposed to be here
Instead of me.
+Kakashi+
Those Eyes
You're dead, Obito said. He had reached up to Kakashi's plate-metal covered forehead and flicked his finger against the symbol of the leaf. The sound had pinged across the empty clearing, and a shot of pain had gone through Kakashi's head. But then Obito had looked down and seen the kunai pointed to his heart, clutched by Kakashi's gloved hand.
I'm dead, Obito said, looking almost forlornly down at the kunai pressing into the fabric of his shirt. If only Kakashi had ripped the shirt around and looked at the back, stared at the back with his two normal eyes would he have seen the same symbol that he would see many years later. He knew it was there anyways, but it was a useless detail that wasn't actually helpful until after that day. The day when he had to know every bit, every part of Obito to remember him perfectly.
He never gave it much thought, this symbol. Maybe he should have, for it was the sign of the Uchiha, the sign of pain. It was the sign of death. It was the sign of his own destruction.
And then, when Sasuke had walked away in much of the same way that Obito had, killing, massacring, obliterating his past self in the hope for a better one, he had seen it again. A hope that was tangible and unbreakable, yet so far away, so unreachable it should have just been impossible and unreal in the first place.
Kakashi couldn't hope, couldn't rest his life on something as childish as hope because he believed that hope was nothing and now was forever as long as you wanted it to be. But he never knew that hope could be forever too, as long as you wanted it to be.
Yes, I suppose you are. Kakashi had said, and walked away without a word. Maybe he didn't want it to be.
He's dead, Rin said.
Obito, Obito, he's dead. Dead! She cried at him, flinging Obito's blood all over him, drenching his face, his clothes, his vest, his mask in blood. Until he was unrecognizable, until he was blood soaked and dead himself, and until the blood created a mask of its own. You're always dead, Kakashi, Obito had said. Dead behind that mask.
He's dead, he's dead Kakashi! What are you going to do? Rin had cried. And she had cried, screaming that Obito was dead until her throat was hoarse and she had doubled over, attempting to vomit. Until she could get it out of her, this death-like sickness. This death that would haunt her and him until forever ended and oblivion began.
Dead dead dead dead dead.
But Kakashi had just stood there, stoic and unmoving as always. And while she cried and screamed until there was nothing left but emptiness, which would eventually drain to leave space through which nothing could sift, for even emptiness has an end too, he had been unmoving. A million different things were flying through his mind, sticking together, tumbling over one another until they created a pile which blocked the hole out of his mind, and thus crushing everything he was thinking together into an excruciating mind-stop.
Please, please, please just stop. Please just let it stop.
But it would not stop, and he could not speak, for words seemed superficial at that moment, seemed so plastic. So fake. Nothing in his vocabulary could describe the ripping sensation across his chest that everything seemed to fall through at once, leaving him to stand until everything came back. And in this moment of numbness he could be killed, yet it was as though Time were taking pity on him, and letting him live with the burden of carrying his best friend with him all of the time, not just in memory, but in mind too. And with that, he carried the pain of the Uchiha, the tragedy of the clan that had killed, murdered, slaughtered itself in a rage of self-righteousness.
Those eyes, they let him live to see the destruction of yet another. For many years later, he had seen that same symbol, that symbol that had once been so prestigious and was now associated with death and pain and blood of everyone you once loved on your hands, and in your mind. He had seen the symbol, he had seen the signs, had seen the pain and the blood in the eyes of the other that he recognized from the past, and had known the hope in his heart that had blossomed like the narcissus flower when Echo had realized that she could never have him, her fake-lover, Narcissus. Just a reminder, a remainder of the past, a figment that wouldn't go away.
Those eyes.
He had seen, but nothing had happened. He had tried, maybe not really tried, but tried as hard as he could, yet it wasn't enough. He couldn't show them the past, couldn't make them realize their mistakes and learn from his that had been made so long ago; those mistakes that had, in the end, ruined him. He couldn't force them, yet he wished he could. And that wish had languished in his heart like a rusty sword. He couldn't pull it out, yet he couldn't leave it in.
He was destined to die. Just like the eye he held in his heart forever, the one that looked into the future yet remained inexorably forever in the past. Obito was gone, yet Kakashi carried the burden of a thousand and one deaths. He, the one who lived.
Maybe he didn't want anyone else to live.
She's dead, Yondaime said.
Who? He had responded. Yet immediately, he had known. He had known who it was the moment he walked into the village, back from yet another mission. A mission to kill and forget everything in that one rabid moment of killing.
Perhaps, he thought, he could escape. He could escape from the deaths on his shoulders, escape for just one moment in which he could catch his breath from all the running he was doing. Perhaps for just one more moment he could languish in the moment, the forever moment that always had an end.
Yet he never could, and he was forced to look in the past as the door to the Hokage's room slammed shut behind him, locking him out of yet another world he could never be a part of. Because of this burden, Obito whispered to him, and he had seen. He had seen the pained look on the Hokage's face, seen his old sensei's defenses crack and disappear, seen him break down.
You can't break down, can you Kakashi? Obito hissed in his ear. Come on, just once. You didn't even cry at my funeral, merely looked down at the empty pyre with disgust. Don't think I don't know. I'm always here for you, Kakashi. I'm with you in ways you'd never even be able to imagine. Always and forever, tied together we'll be. Our fate's strings are all twisted together and loop-de-looped. Without me, you would be dead. Without you, as would I. We are one. We are—
Stop. Pause. Freeze. End. Quit. Stop it, Obito, just stop it.
It's the end Kakashi, yet not for you. Another one that died just for you, your name on her lips as she passed away. You'll see it happen again and again until you are the only one left, left in the moment of the Rat's Dance where slowly, agonizingly, you'll consume yourself. Dripping, bleeding from a thousand self-inflicted wounds that you'll lick and bite again. Death you'll become, and slide down that river of lost souls, you will. None will come with you, and none will lead you forward into the depths of the fire. You will be alone, forever alone in life and in death, because you are fated to be as such. I will be there with you, but it will only be half of me. Half of you, and half of me.
Obito, I told you. Stop. I can't listen anymore.
Yet Obito kept going, talking the truth because only Obito knew the future; kept talking forever until Kakashi couldn't listen anymore, and nearly wanted to cut his ears out. Plunge the kunais deep into his head until all of the movements that Obito's eyes caught, all of the sounds that Obito made, all of the distractions that Obito made would just stop for once, and he could live. Breathe, maybe, one last breath before complete death.
But Obito stopped him from reaching down and slipping his fingers around the cloth barriers that protected the kunai. Obito stopped him from touching the slick metal; Obito's eyes stopped him from getting hit with a single blade that might hurt him; Obito's training stopped him from dying inside like he might have.
But now Obito was gone, and yet in his head, constantly, constantly, raining down insults and commentaries, useless words and thoughts that clouded Kakashi's own muddled brain.
And for once, Kakashi couldn't get him to stop, for when he had died, so had Kakashi.
He's dead, Sandaime said.
This time he didn't try to play dumb. He had always known that it would happen, he always knew that one day, he would be the last one standing, the last one alive because he always had something to do. Some mission to complete. A book to buy. A person to talk to. There was always something that kept him alive, something that kept him going on this grueling pace that would otherwise crush him.
Yet he didn't know what kept him alive anymore. There was no Rin, no Sensei, and no Obito.
There was no Father, there was no Mother, there were never any siblings or lovers or children. There was nothing. He was alone, and it seemed as though this was what it was meant to be like.
He was the phoenix, the everlasting, ever present, eternal phoenix. The one that died after 500 or 1,000 years, but always was reborn. Always. There were no other phoenixes like him, there were no other birds like he. But as Neji was, he was also caged in a way he could not describe. At least Neji had someone to blame, someone to hate, someone to push all of his anger at until it collapsed and was set free.
He had no one. They were all dead.
I hate you sensei. I hate you for dying, I hate you for telling me that Rin was dead, I hate for letting Obito die. I hate you for letting me die in ways I cannot tell. I hate you for letting me live through it all; I hate you for the strength you gave me. I hate—I hate—hate—hate—hate you anyways. I hate that you gave me strength and gave me Obito to love and lose.
I just wish I could hate you more than my very being.
And Kakashi tore away, silently swimming, struggling, and drowning in his thoughts, pretending pretending pretending behind that mask that he did not care, for he could not care. He said nothing as he flew through the air, his eyes closed in a way that would have been called reckless if one of his eyes wasn't always closed. Closed to keep Obito from seeing it all fall apart, even though Obito saw it anyways. Obito knew in ways that Kakashi didn't, and Kakashi couldn't understand why he didn't know.
I wish I could hate you, Obito.
You already do.
He's dead, Naruto said.
I'm sorry, was the only thing he could say. He hated the old man for all he knew of his sensei. He hated the way he could read into everyone's thoughts, see all of the pain and the faults, yet believe that the person could heal themselves.
I couldn't heal myself, Sandaime. I couldn't heal myself from the pain you gave me, all bundled up into two words. Separated by a space that can't be filled. It's a space that reminds me so of the space in my heart, the space where you sliced oh so cleanly with a knife to open up my insides to the world. I couldn't heal my mind.
I can't provide for these kids. I can't help these kids.
Don't give them to me. They don't understand, just like I didn't understand why anyone had to die. I knew, but I didn't understand. Why did Obito have to die? Rin? Sensei? Father? Mother? Why, why did they have to leave me? They believe this ninja business is all a game. They believe in invincibility. They believe in life, something even I never understood.
I still don't understand.
I promised them. I promised they wouldn't die, I promised they wouldn't be able to leave me without a fight. But they did, each by something different. One, a crushing boulder. One, a kunai. One, an ancient animal. One, a forbidden justu.
How are you going to die, Naruto? How will death claim you?
Death claimed your father, and your mother was never really alive. But what of me, where will I go? What will happen to me?
Do you know? Ever since Sasuke left, you were all I had.
I promise you that you won't die. You'll be immortal like the phoenix I am. The everpresent phoenix. I'll take you into my arms and curl you up in my feathers. You'll breathe in the soot and the sun and the fire and become the phoenix you were always meant to be. Then I won't be alone in the skies, and when I die, so will you, and we will be born again. Together, for right now I need someone to hold, I need someone to be there when there is nothing but the sun.
I need someone that believes in life and invincibility and never ending happiness. Someone who believes in something. Because right now I cant believe in anything.
Please, teach me something. For I cant teach you anything but pain and death, I can only bring to you the worst in life. Teach me happiness.
Yet Naruto had silently rejected his offer, and taken off into the sunset to find Sasuke once again.
He's dead, Iruka said.
Don't tell me that! He cried. He grabbed Iruka roughly by the shoulders and shook him. Everyone who tells me that dies next! You can't die because I can't live, and someone needs to teach me. You need to teach me something. Anything. Teach me happiness!
Iruka had just looked back up at him, his eyes streaming with tears. His hair was mussed up and he was all covered with dirt. "I can't teach you happiness, Kakashi. I don't have any left to give you."
No, no, no, no, no, no. He can't be dead.
I can't do this anymore, he thought. I can't keep pretending all is right and true, and that inside I'm not really dying. I can't keep this up anymore. Even this mask is breaking and it's falling apart, and I'm falling apart with it. Everything's coming to an end. An end… An end…
He felt his legs breaking beneath him; he felt everything falling away, his pretentions, his morals, his hopes (which were so unreal they were almost ethereal), his life. What was it to begin with, his life? Did it even matter?
Did I even matter, Obito? Even though you died for me and Rin and sensei, and even though we all never ended up living, did I even matter? Or was Rin the last thought in your head, the last word on your lips? What of you, Naruto? Who was your last thought? Who did you think of in that last sweet split moment before death? The moment of release.
Someone, someone please tell me. Tell me, Iruka!
Iruka knelt next to Kakashi, crossing his arms across his chest as though that would keep the fire away. Iruka was crying, the tears creating red marks over his cheeks as the salty liquid plopped softly into his lap.
"He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. Dead… Dead! Dead, Kakashi! How can he be dead? How could—How could Naruto—Naruto—die? How could this have happened? How can he be dead?"
Shut up! Are you trying to bring death to yourself? Kakashi yelled at Iruka, yelling until his throat hurt and there were no more words lodged in there. Iruka sounded so much like Rin, so much like sensei, so much like Obito and everyone who had ever known him.
Know him and die, Obito whispered.
Shut UP! But Iruka kept crying, kept babbling on and on about Naruto and about death until Kakashi couldn't take it anymore.
Kakashi grabbed Iruka's forearms and yanked the man's body towards him. The cloth covering his mouth was gone, yet no one seemed to notice, least of all Iruka. But then Kakashi's mouth was on his and Iruka couldn't speak anymore through the heavy scent of disillusioned hopes crashing and burning. The tears kept falling all over the ground, the soil seemed soaked with them.
Kakashi could taste the pungent flavor of redblood sins and the faraway tang of alcohol but he was nowhere and he was nothing. Iruka was nothing, but at least he was half and perhaps he could give some to Kakashi, even if it was only for a moment.
Please, please just lend me some of your sins, some of your pain. Lend me something to lay myself on, so that the executioners may come and take off my head. Please, just one last thing.
And then there was a silence so great it was almost a sound.
We are all destined to die, his father had said, right before he disappeared into the room that claimed him, Kakashi's room.
He broke.
wah x3 kakashi! srry people who wanted tenten, but not right now... Nam Pham died. i knew him, he sat next to me. why does everyone die? (the story so far doesnt make much sense. good luck.) iruka or tenten?
