|\/\/|
The superstition goes far back, decades, centuries, millennia perhaps.
One silent autumn night, long ago when his father was still with him, was still a man who held his head high, he had told Kakashi stories about the scarlet moon and pale ghosts walking the earth in search for their people.
Back then, under the clear sky and blood-red moon, Kakashi had listened spellbound to his father's tranquil voce. Not because he found the story particularly interesting, but because moments like this were few and far between—it was rare that Sakumo Hatake, Konoha's great White Fang, could be found at home, and even rarer that he spent that time at leisure with his son.
So, Kakashi had listened. He had listened and learned about haunted people and bowls of milk mixed with drops of blood placed at the front door by men in fear of the restless spirits which might come for them.
Kakashi was never one to be scared, much less by such phantasmagorical folktales. In a world like theirs, he believed even at the fragile age of three, an enemy shinobi lurking outside your window was a much realer, much more frightening possibility than a ghost knocking at your door in the midnight hour.
They had gone camping on that chilly late October night, somewhere not too far in the forests behind the Hatake compound. They hadn't lit a fire and were sleeping under the open sky as Kakashi was learning how to survive the cold with only the aid of chakra, when his father had begun to recount stories.
Still, the mind of a child, however mature they may be, is always so easily impressionable.
And as his father went on and the rosy moonlight was pooling around them even through the thick canopy of trees, the shadows seemed to grow thicker and thicker. It wasn't too difficult for Kakashi's wild imagination to conjure faces in the dark.
But then again, even so young, Kakashi was never one to allow himself the liberty to be scared. There were expectations he had to live up to. He was training to be a strong shinobi, training to defend his village, so he had ignored the logically impossible sprouts of his own mind and had kept his eyes glued on his father's profile, whose gaze was dreamy and looking far away into the sky.
Sakumo had called it a blessing and a curse, to meet your ghosts.
Come morning, and the surreal night spent under the spell of ghost stories and ruby red moonshine could be just as good as a fleeting dream. Kakashi locked it away in the far corners of his mind and tried to never think of it again.
The years passed, as they always do, but now Sakumo is long buried, and his tall tales along with him.
—
But you shouldn't worry, Kakashi. Ghosts don't come for silly children who train hard.
—
A scarlet moon is not something that occurs very often. Kakashi has been around to witness no less than five of these mystifying events, but only later did he start to fear his ghosts.
It was strange, because Kakashi has never been one to fear so easily.
It was even stranger, in a way, because each of his mornings was spent pouring his regrets over a cold, dead stone that could never answer back, and each of his nights thinking about ghosts that could never come back.
But those nights, when the moon turned scarlet, Kakashi was careful to spill a few drops of his blood into a bowl of milk, like old civilian ladies did these days and like he remembered his late father saying, and put it on the inside of his door — too paranoid a shinobi to leave something like that outside for everyone to find.
And the ghosts never came.
—
Then who do they come for, father?
—
He meets his ghosts fighting in a raging war when the moon is as red as the blood of fallen comrades and lives cut short.
He meets Obito, and he may not be a real ghost, but Kakashi feels haunted all the same.
Minato-sensei fills him with nostalgia.
And Rin... She is there for her teammates in death as she was in life.
He meets his ghosts and remembers that night, many moons ago, when Sakumo had said—cryptically at the time, or so it had seemed to Kakashi—that it is both a blessing and a curse to face your ghosts.
Now he understands why.
—
Hm. People these days would say the ghosts are evil wraiths who come for just anybody's soul. But what I would say, is that ghosts visit people they'd held dear during their lives, or they are perhaps attracted by those filled with regrets, whom they've left behind. Either way, if you see your ghost, let it be a blessing rather than a curse. Nevermind the pain. Be happy—not many get a chance to say goodbye a second time. I believe it is cathartic.
—
At the age of three, he hadn't known what cathartic meant. He hadn't asked his father either—too embarrassed to admit so, later searching for the meaning on his own when his father was away on a mission.
Cathartic.
And well, if he looks into himself deep enough, beyond the heartbreak and regret, he finds that it is cathartic indeed.
FIN
A/N: Thank you for reading!