Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Gentle Lesson: The Restoration of the Hatake ❯ Flowing Backwards: Hands Turn Time ( Chapter 17 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Every day
Our leaves are turned anew
And each one has
An error scrawled on it
Can we be fixed by our own broken hands?

No

Below his feet, the earth was giving way – a black hole expanding upwards out of this hell – growing like a dark monster in a child’s nightmare – reaching up to swallow the stars. And here he was in the belly of it.

Here he was – standing there – falling to his knees – curling up in a ball as he clutched his head willing himself to silence. Willing that wildness – that part of him which listened to no reason – those feelings of loneliness, depression, hate, anger, fear, bitterness, love, desire, joy and pride – he willed them into the silence.

Or tried to.

Let me out.

Let me out!

No.

Blood soaked his fingertips where they dug into his scalp – the pain brought back so many memories.

A short knife slashing down through his left eye.

A katana running through his gut.

And other things:

His father’s cool body as it lay half curled in the study – blood curling out from the huge hole in his torso.

Mother lying silent on the ceremonial bed.

And…

No.

Yukio’s rough hands sliding down his arms to wrap securely on his hips.

Sakura’s fingertips on his shoulder – her warm chakra and green eyes.

No. No.

Megami’s tongue gently licking that oh-so-lickable spot on his collarbone – a few seconds before laying a kiss there.

It seemed so long ago.

“Kakashi…. I don’t know how it will go…. But, please, after that performance, you truly deserve something.”

“Thank you for the honour.”
“Now, let’s go knock them dead.”
“Hai, hai!”

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Time goes by too fast. Too fast for me to grasp it. To hold it. To do anything with it. It’s like a child running after the wind – and once it’s done – once the moment passes – that moment of inability – there is nothing you can do to change it.

It is set in stone.

What do I regret? What do I relive again and again?

His chest felt tight in anticipation, his breath coming, faster and heavier.
“I guess,” he said, his voice husky with desire.
“So….”
Megami drew even closer, her face turned to his, noses almost bumping.
Kakashi suddenly wished he had his mask on – his walls up.

But any thoughts were lost as he moved past the entrance of her lips, his tongue exploring, sensitively, every part of her mouth.
Then he withdrew, and paused in contemplation, his eyes, half-lidded.
“Don’t think,” she whispered, the desperation of desire lacing her voice.
“Isn’t that a stock phrase in the movies?” he asked, rather hoarsely as his hands began to withdraw from inside her gaping kimono.
Her hands clasped his wrists, stilling him – trapping his fingers across her breasts.
“There’s truth everywhere.”
“Even here? Now?”
She laughed softly.
“If you look for it.”
As his lips and hands continued their quest lower, she moaned.
“Kakashi.”
Kakashi.

Why? Kakashi?

“Kakashi,” A light voice asked him – the shinobi looked up to see his sensei standing there – and from behind him shone the sun. “Why are you hiding in here?”
“He’s looking for me.”
“Looking – who?”
“Howl.”
“Kakashi – you’re talking funny again.”
“He’s inside me.”
“Now you’re making no sense.”
“I can’t let him out! I can’t! I can’t!”
“Kakashi-kun! What could go wrong?”
“You can’t understand, can you? You never will! He’s tormenting me!”
Kakashi stood up and tried to run, but his sensei’s hand firmly grabbed the Copy Nin’s wrist. “No. If you try to hide – one day, you’ll find that you have lost your own self.”
“A risk I have to take.”
“No. It’s not.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! You sound just like him!”
“Like who?”
Kakashi didn’t answer – but looking down into the darkness – he could easily recall that part of him – that voice. That being.

That –

He was standing on the edge of the river, the world bending wildly as his chakra fluctuated around him.
The waters rippled with a thousand pieces of white glass as his light and the moonlight shone upon it. Looking down, he caught a glimpse of himself in the water.
A flickering distortion. Or not.
His grey eye and its red companion with slit pupils. Wild grey hair and grey triangular stripes slanting across his…..

No. No. No. No. No.

He shut his eyes, screaming and shaking his head.

NO!

With a jerk, he came to. Opening his eyes, he glanced around him wildly – panicked and frightened at the unfamiliarity of the place. Slowly, his dizzied vision managed to focus on the brick walls on either side of him.

He was in an alley lying on top of a pile of garbage bags. To one side of him stood the brown wall of a small store and to the other side, a dirty grey wall which belonged to a large new complex of apartments.

Kakashi rubbed his eyes tiredly as he tried to recount what had happened.

He had returned home feeling fatigued and drained – feeling okay? Perhaps. But then he’d had a hard time getting to sleep…

So he had gone to find a drink – but ended up more depressed than ever.

The images crowded in fast and hard –

Father’s cheerful face cast in a stern light as he sat down in Granpa’s council seat.

Mother’s anguished face as she sent Kakashi for a medic.

Obito’s empty eye socket as he lay there, wedged under the rock.

Rin’s peaceful face as blood gushed out of her mouth and stomach.

Sensei’s grin – and beside the dead kage – a blonde haired baby in a basket.

Kakashi battled with tears and lying there, he looked up feeling so – so –

Alone.

Somewhere, above him, he could see the blue sky, and to the right the balconies of the apartments – where clothes flapped in the wind to dry, bird feeders hung invitingly, and from inside, the Copy Nin could hear the sounds of talking, radios, bumps and cries. A baby was wailing – then it stopped suddenly. From somewhere the aroma of soba filtered down.

Ignoring his suddenly aching stomach, Kakashi became aware of himself – alone, isolated and dirty. Still dirty from the evening before.

Yukio.

His chakra charging out of his hands and into the firm body above him.

The fascination of seeing his tormentor tormented.

Kakashi shut his eyes and blocked out the image – wishing it away – he sighed. Pulling his fingers out of his matted, greasy hair, he sat there, staring at the pale long fingers.

His hands.

Killer hands.

Hands that could burn. That created seals of destruction. The bearers of the chidori.

Hands that –

It didn’t bear thinking on.

He rose rather shakily to his feet. Understanding, feeling, knowing nothing but a desire to get away from it all. From the crowds. From the noises of life surrounding him.

Without looking back, he darted quickly across the rooftops to the walls – over the walls and into the forest.

He knew where to go for the calm he needed.

Sure enough, he found it – two miles south of Konoha, a small waterfall poured gently into a quiet pool which then fed a small river. Here, among the silence of the trees – where the birds were chirping peacefully, where insects whirred and somewhere a squirrel rustled in the undergrowth – here, he fell down, back to a large tree trunk, to catch his breath.

Looking up through the leafy boughs of the evergreen, Kakashi gasped and panted as his already taxed body fought to remain conscious – as his mind tried to bind up that welling flow of feelings –

Feelings as real as the prickly grass under his fingers. As the rough bark behind his head. Real as the warm sun filtering on his face.

No.

I can’t feel it.

Already, looking at his nails, he knew what he would see if he crawled over to the edge of the burbling stream.

Drawing his knees up, the grey-haired man wrapped his arms around his legs and shut his eyes. For a moment, he sat there, curled up in a ball – and then, giving up on the whole matter, he decided that at least, while he was there, he would take advantage of the inviting pool.

Carefully, he peeled off his bloody, damp ragged shirt. His torn gloves were painfully removed. And then, after a moments thought, Kakashi shrugged. Stripping down to his bare skin, Kakashi limped over to the river and after half-heartedly rinsing the clothes out, laid them to dry on the rocks by the bank.

Leaning over the edge, he stared down at himself.

This unreliable mirror. This unreliable me.

Who am I? Do I even know? Is this – is this wild creature you, Hatake?

Hesitantly, he raised his fingers to the edge of his navy blue mask.

It too needs washing. Everything does.

I’m so –

Fucked –

So dirty.

What can make this clean?

An error scrawled on it
Can we be fixed by our own broken hands?

No

Slowly, he pulled it down, to stare earnestly. At two mismatching eyes – one black, one red. The straight (obviously well reset) nose and below, curved – he knew – his father’s smile.

You are just like your daddy, eh, Kashi-kun! So handsome!

Haha!!! Just like me, eh?

Mmmm… well… you’ll have to remind me…

Young Kakashi watched as his father pulled down his mask to kiss his giggling wife.

That mouth, those eyes, that nose – the high cheekbones and pale skin. The scar that ran from forehead to cheek on the left side.

This piece of flesh that makes me who I am.

And the grey-white hair.

Kakashi sighed.

Did they ever see me? Did they ever see beyond the obvious? Underneath the underneath? No. They could never know – should never know – this.

Kakashi watched as his pale hand reached out to trace the new grey markings on his cheek. The sign of Lightning’s Howl. Even as he shut his eyes, he could feel him – himself – who was he, really?

I awoke a being – completed a jutsu that I never totally understood.

And now –

The mirror revealed it all – baring his teeth, Kakashi knew that his body had once again been affected by the upsurge of emotion. It was there – the longer canines, the obviously ragged, shaggy hair, the sharper nails, the markings on his cheeks (like Naruto’s seal) – and his eyes –

His slit pupils.

What have I become?

Kakashi sneered at himself, suddenly irritated. And without further thought, broke the mirror – dived forward from his crouch into the clear, cleansing waters. Underneath in the cold dark, he relished the sudden death of silence – here there was nothing – only the sound of his mind and the SWOOSH of his hands and feet cutting through the water.

From above, warm light filtered down – touching the round, mossy rocks and glittering off the scales of small fish. Turning around, facing up, Kakashi’s eyes opened – he watched the patterns of light dancing on the water – and his mouth turned upward –

For a moment –

He smiled –

“There’s truth everywhere.”
“Even here? Now?”
She laughed softly.
“If you look for it.”

What can I find here?

Breaking the surface, Kakashi savored the sudden warmth of the sun as it beat down on his cool head. After a moments thought, he paddled to his clothes and found in his pant’s pocket, a rather large hanky.

Finding another rock, the Copy Nin sat and carefully washed his body down.

It’s been so long…

As he ran the grey-white cloth over his knobby knees, he noticed with a sigh that he’d lost too much weight in the last couple of months.

Gotta remember to buy vegetables…

His fingers paused as the cloth ran over one light scar which lay across his calf from knee to heel.

His mouth went dry at the memory.

Four kunai pinned him down – helpless he watched as the rabid man raised his broken katana to cut the Copy Nin’s leg –
“You killed them all – you fucking BASTARD!!! Die! Die! Alone! By yourself! Unwanted!!!”

He had nearly lost the use of his leg then.

Twitching at the thought, Kakashi’s eye fell on a pattern of scars which invisibly lay on the pale skin of his right arm.

That too –

Ten kunai flying in his direction. He dodged five of them – using his right arm to shield his face from the others – then, disregarding the sudden screaming pain, he dived to the ground – bounding upwards to jam his chakra-covered katana up through the jaw of his attacker into the man’s skull.

Falling helplessly to his side, Kakashi’s arm throbbed in dulled pain as the young Jounin rose in shock to his feet.

“Kakashi – are you alright?”
“I’m fine… Sensei…”
“No you’re not… Idiot…”
“Rin…”
“Is that all you can say?”

A pause.

“Kakashi – you’ve had your revenge and now –“
“I’m so –“

Fucked.

“So cold.”

Sitting there, in the warmth of the sun, Kakashi knew that he was still cold – it was there – that hard lump in his gut – no in his heart. It was spreading outward – it was spreading outward into his lungs –

It’s getting hard to breath.

The cold of that black hole night reaching upward – outward – clenching his lungs –

It’s –

Nonsense.

Kakashi shook his head roughly.

It’s nothing.

Dowsing the cloth in the cool river, he watched as it rose in his hands – soggy and wet – dripdrip dripping – the rhythmic sound of the water – the blood – that covered his body – his hands –

It was dirt on his body – like that time –

Kakashi’s eyes glazed as he remembered – his hand clenched the clothe tightly over his –

The masked man looming over him – it wasn’t Yukio – it was a monster – it was a fiend – it was his ENEMY. Kill it! But he couldn’t move – they had bound him well – the rough hands on his body bruised him harshly as that alien moved into his body –

Kakashi’s back arched in pain, his throat blistering raw with animal screams of rage and pain.

He’d kill them all. Slowly. One by one.

He WOULD be free.

Already, he could feel that consciousness inside him slamming up against the seal that lay across his belly. No one could hold him in this prison for long.

But he couldn’t do anything.

And he watched helpless as his tormentor – paused momentarily to gouge into his victim’s pale – glowing – sensual – skin – just below the hip – LOVE.

Love. Is this it?

Vividly I recall that moment –

No.

Kakashi clamped down on the thought – and watched sordidly as the cold spread through his arms and down to his toes.

All – all those signs were gone now.

I’m back.

From a discreet distance, Genma sat on a bough – hidden by leaves – as he watched the Copy Nin rise to his feet, cloth in hand, dive in for one last dip before rising out of the river like some wild, prowling creature.

Sexy. Hot. Smoldering.

That pale skin – the almost invisible scars – Raido – if only you could be here to see this. No wonder people go crazy over him. With that kind of body who wouldn’t want him.

But the outside – this muscular, attractive body is only a mask for something much, much more dangerous.

Raido. Ibiki. What have we brought to light, I wonder?

As Kakashi finished pulling on his tight white vest (if not clean, at least smelling moderately okay), the Copy Nin froze at the whisper of chakra.

Genma blanched.

Oh, shit. If he finds me here… shit shit… damn…

Then, without warning, an ANBU dropped into the clearing. Kakashi was already jerking his mask down as he turned to eye the shinobi standing before him.

Genma could barely hear the man, most of the words were muffled behind the mask.

“…. Mission…. –age to – country… backup…”

Genma shook his head as he watched Kakashi disappear into the trees.

You can never be free, huh?

And though we try
We fail miserably
Why are we given a choice?
When we choose so badly

Day after day

We’ll never get any better