Here's another drabbly oneshot... looks like I'm in angst mode for now. Death, I guess, always makes for interesting fiction. Well anyway, I hope you like the drabble, please review, and I love you.
(I don't know why the dahlias are dahlias, or why they are the red fubuki variety. The words just seemed to fit, you know.)
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Kakashi stands beside the stone. Silently he stares at the name that he has carved into his heart so many times, since the day it was engraved here. He wonders how many lives he has failed to protect. He wonders if history must always repeat itself.
There is a new name on the stone. He cannot bring himself to look at it yet.
Why is it always the dreamers who die?
Kakashi realizes how odd this thought is as it comes into his mind. He thinks of Obito. He thinks of their sensei and his sacrifice. And he thinks of this new name, and realizes that the dreamers must carry a heavier burden.
When they die, so much dies with them.
Kakashi turns away. He is going to be late for the funeral.
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Sasuke is in the village. No one speaks to him; no one looks at him. But no one questions him. "I am here to mourn the death of a great ninja," he says to himself, and his voice is so defeated that they know he is harmless.
For now.
He walks slowly through the streets dressed in black. He is going to be late. He turns down a side road that he knows but cannot place.
He finds himself standing before the Uchiha main house. His mind feels numb as he drifts through the door. In moments he is staring down at the flaky patches of dried blood that still splatter the floors of what used to be his parents' room. He sees their bodies lying there, just as before. He sees that red-eyed figure standing in the shadows, vile and reeking of evil.
He is surprised at how little he feels. They seem so… distant, now.
He walks to another familiar house. Of course he is late, and he is surprised to see Sakura standing at the door, waiting for him. Her expression is hard and unreadable. She doesn't speak when he walks to her, but she is the first person to look him in the eye in a long time.
Silently she walks beside him, and before long they reach the gravesite. They listen absently as people speak, words hollow, hearts cold. Nothing can be said, anyway.
Sakura places flowers on the alter. Sasuke notes that they are blood-red fubuki dahlias. He wonders why she chose that bloom.
He also notes that the stems are withered, but the flowers have not yet lost their beauty.
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Later, Sasuke stands beside the stone. With a frigid finger he traces the fresh carving, leaving the dust from his skin in the glassy black groves. He thinks of his blond hair and blue eyes, his stupid laugh, how much he loved the sunlight. For the thousandth time he wonders why, why the fool would leap before him, why he would sacrifice himself. Sasuke was a traitor. He was worth nothing.
He doesn't want to think of himself as a friend. Friends don't let their friends die.
Suddenly, he finds himself next to the silver-haired scarecrow of his childhood. Sasuke looks on to the new name, Kakashi to an older one, but it means the same.
"So." Kakashi's voice is tired. He is the first—and maybe to the last—to speak to Sasuke since he's come.
He turns to look at his former student, expression the same as always. He hasn't changed. "So," he asks, "does history always repeat itself, then?"
Miraculously, Sasuke realizes he is just like the scarecrow.
And he whispers, "Yes, it always does."
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Review. Come one, you know you want to. (But please do, even if you don't.)