Title: A Faint Color
Author: tsubaki-hana
Series: Naruto
Rating: E
Characters: Naruto, Kakashi, Yondaime
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi
Summary: Made to fade. [For some, there is no peace in knowing the Hokage is dead.]
_ _ _ _ _
1
He supposes that he should be able to find comfort in the knowledge that someone has died for him, that someone cared enough to give up everything in exchange to keep the breath in his lungs.
_ _ _ _ _
“Humans are really easy to kill, aren’t they?” he asks of his sensei, looking over to the east where it is all shadows and night, the golden glow of the sun behind him casting him into dark relief against the water of the stream. The red paint of the bridge itches underneath his fingers, and absently he picks off a piece and casts it to the water.
It disappears before it hits the surface.
Kakashi looks mildly surprised at first, as if this question wasn’t a long time in coming (and oh, it has been, has been since Naruto first heard that people actually die). The lift of his grey eye (sometimes blue when he is sad, or the deepest black when angered) tells more to Naruto than the words that he knows Kakashi will say.
“Yes, I suppose they are.”
He won’t say anymore, because any man can wield a blade, even Naruto knows this, and any man can cut something, but both of them know that it takes a wholly different kind of person to end another’s life. (The unspoken between their eyes says that there is no way to explain what kind of man can kill himself for another.)
“Do you suppose people lose their value in death?” he asks again.
“Of course not.”
Kakashi is a pathological liar, and he will never tell Naruto the truth.
Naruto plays the pathological fool, and nods.
_ _ _ _ _
2
As numerous as the falling leaves.
_ _ _ _ _
The crunch of leaves underneath his feet is comforting, watching little snowflakes that will soon cover them fall and freeze. The snow is preserving them, or so Kakashi thinks, feeling one land against his forehead and see one land and soak into his cloth mask. Stretching out a gloved (but so very small) hand, he lets a few collect before clenching his fist.
“I don’t see you outside of the training grounds often, Kakashi-kun.”
He turns his head, halfway disgusted with himself for not sensing someone else’s presence and the other half happy to see his teacher, all smiles and garishly bright, almost taunting the bland landscape.
“It was a nice morning.” he says, putting his arms to his sides almost rigidly. He’s not cold, he’s just embarrassed to be seen acting so idly. It’s not like him and he is frustrated that he has allowed him to do something so...useless.
“A tad cold, if you get my meaning.” his sensei says, pointing at the white clouds and monochrome landscape. Grinning again and coming up behind Kakashi, he sets a gloved hand on his shoulder. “But I am glad to see you out here.” He moves up in front of Kakashi, the crunch of the leaves under his feet hissing before growing mute underneath his boot. The place is still for a moment.
“Why is that, sensei?”
The (not yet) Yondaime looks back at his student and his face grows more relaxed, something peaceful and clear, like the face of the Jizo statues that line the cemetery that isn’t too far from here.
“You must make many memories, Kakashi, and cherish them while you may. As many as the leaves on the ground now if you can.”
He is quiet for a moment.
“Because when you die someday, they will leave you and scatter underneath snow as well.”
Kakashi doesn’t walk in the snow anymore. He doesn’t want to step on someone else’s feelings, especially his sensei’s. It horrifies him to think he might be standing on a day that he spoke in the woods with the Yondaime while it snowed.
_ _ _ _ _
3
On the water's surface, only you float, reflecting the middle of a battlefield.
_ _ _ _ _
Somewhere along the lines of casualty dealt on that cold autumn night, the death toll went from catastrophic to minimal within an hour. Somewhere along the lines, a number has gone from a statistic to a single funeral.
Somewhere along the lines, it became less about a people and more about one person.
Yondaime-sama is dead, he’s dead, dead, dead and gone and left his body with no means of returning. It runs all across town until at last it comes to rest on the ears of a young man with blood matted hair, a tired mismatched gaze, and a small infant in his arms. He’s heard the story before, he saw it happen, he just doesn’t feel like accepting it.
He looks at the baby in his arms, and over across the room to where the Sandaime sits, watching Kakashi soundlessly, though the grief that would make other men cry shines brightly in his aged eyes.
“So it ends, that he would die.”
Kakashi ignores the words and instead shifts the baby in his arms a little to the side. There are other things he would like to think about first, and it is nigh impossible with wizened old men looking at him expectantly. Expecting unhappiness, or anger, or perhaps acceptance.
“We should be happy that he is at peace.”
Kakashi shows no emotion on his face because it would be meaningless. He cannot accept what has happened, and he won’t, and he remains as unmoved as stone. He cannot believe that the Yondaime’s death is a blessing or a gift.
Kakashi feels he would be more blessed to have the Yondaime next to him, cooing at his infant son.
.
.
The funeral is beautiful, and all come around to see the linen wrapped body of Konoha’s youngest Hokage be placed on a bier and sent to float out into open water. There are candles and paper lanterns with the name of the Hokage scribbled upon them, sent to float out with him. (We come from water, so will we return, says Sandaime).
Lotus, pine and chrysanthemum are thrown to him, many weep, and others bring folded paper butterflies to speed his rebirth into the world. For a moment these people have forgotten their own cares and instead throw them away into the water like little petals. (He can’t remember their color, everything is blurred in his mind now.)
An infant Naruto sees this from across the stream, away from the crowds, because he will not be allowed to see the funeral of his father, but even so far away, it is the clearest memory he holds of his family, dead.
Years later, he looks back on it, and can’t seem to find any beauty in it at all.
_ _ _ _ _
End.
A/N: Please don’t email/comment me saying this doesn’t make sense. It’s a tryptic, meaning they are related, but not directly like a chronological scale. If anything, the time line moves backwards.
I know I’m supposed to be working on ‘This Place Is A Prison”, but drabbleijingletidus got me and sucked me in.