| Find Me Faithless [Kakashi & Rina] | [Jan. 5th, 2010|11:46 pm] |
Takes place five years previously, four days after the Kyuubi attack.
Kakashi was late for Minato's funeral.
It was a village-wide affair, held at the smoke-charred base of the Hokages' monument, attended by anyone with the strength to stand. Or lean on a friend's shoulder. Or maneuver one of the wheelchairs that was suddenly a precious commodity. Several hundred shionobi, ordered by clan and rank and allegiance, clad in sober black and hitai-ate steel. More civillians, clustered into tight-knit family groups and marked by tears they felt free to shed. Masked ANBU, fringed around the edges and stiff with battle-weariness that still lingered. Dignitaries paying their respects from other villages still under treaty. Fire Country Daimyos.
The Sandaime. Jiraiya.
And Kakashi, slipping through the massed ranks like a pale wraith to stand between them, ignoring the ripple of sound that followed him. Mid-sentence, the Sandaime paused and laid a hand on his shoulder. Jiraiya slanted him a sideways look.
"Obito sends his regards, I'm guessing," he said, voice scraped deep and flat.
Tight-jawed, Kakashi jerked his shoulder. The Sandaime's hand fell away. Calm and dignified and utterly weary, the newly reinstated Hogake returned to his eulogy speech, delivering it with the measured skill of a man who'd recently had cause to practice.
One week after the Kyuubi attack, Kakashi had lost count of funerals.
He remembered Rin's, a gut-shot of disconnected agony two days after the Fox had fallen. Barely attended by anyone but the Sandaime, Kakashi, and scatter of her medic-nin friends who'd managed to grab five minutes free from dealing with Konoha's hospital-turned-charnel-house. He'd stayed on his feet, dry-eyed and stone-faced, and laid a branch of cherry blossom in front of her picture; she'd never wanted chrysanthemums.
He didn't remember what he'd done afterwards.
Uzumaki Kushina's funeral, three days after the Fox, had been bigger. More people wanted to pay their respects to their shining hero's dead wife, killed by a sacrificial birth for the sake of a burning village, and stare at the blue-eyed baby held in the Sandaime's arms. Kakashi had stared, too, red-grey gaze fixed on the infant housing his sensei's destroyer until he'd felt his lips peeling back from his teeth. A growl rumbling in his chest. Bloodless fingers forming into fatal seals...
He'd left.
And didn't remember what he'd done afterwards.
Minato's was his last funeral; he didn't know anyone else well enough. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a Sannin and the sensei of his sensei, facing the sea of black-drenched villagers, and thought of nothing while the words washed over him. Not of the last moment he'd stood by Minato's side, acting as shield and chakra-source and anything he had to be while Gamabunta's massive shadow had darkened the world. Not of the split-second of fire and falling when one of the Fox's tails had lashed around and he'd surged forward to meet the blow with a fistful of lightning and raging, desperate fury to not let the monster take what was his. Not of the aching return from blackness, when he'd woken to find Rin's body in the leaves, the last of her chakra singing through his blood, and Gamabunta disappearing like a thunderclap.
The Kyuubi gone.
He'd been the first to reach the crater, half-blinded by blood and smoke and rib-clawing fear. The first to land on his knees by the tattered, red-drenched coat of flames and press his hand against a throat still warm and glimmering with seals. The first to find no pulse.
He remembered exactly what he'd done afterwards. Sandaime had almost lost both arms trying to pull him away.
But, standing with his back to Minato's picture, listening to talk of heroes and sacrifices and a will of fire, he wasn't thinking about that. His hands weren't shaking, his heart wasn't breaking, and his eyes weren't wet.
He was fifteen years old, and Minato wasn't there to call him on his denial. |
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