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Facing a calm river, the sky melting into a black blanket, Kakashi held the fishing rod his father had made for him when he was two years old. The water was calm, calm, almost looking like a newly made mirror, without the slightest ripple. Two people had been reflected in it.
His father was looking at him intently across the water. He was leaning slightly over the water, taller than Kakashi and with a face devoid of any emotion, as if he was on a mission; it seemed imposing, monumental. Kakashi was uncomfortable seeing it, but he didn't want to break the illusion by moving the rod.
Strangely, he couldn't see himself clearly, couldn't focus on himself despite the calm of the river. All he could see was a drop of red swimming where his sharingan should be, but he didn't believe it.
"KAKASHI!"
Kakashi looked up with a start. On the other side of the river, which suddenly seemed narrow enough that he only had to run a little to jump across, Gai greeted him, raising his arms and waving them, with a big smile.
"Rival, come with me to this side!"
Kakashi watched him for a moment, and nonchalantly returned his gaze to the reflection in the water. Strangely, for an instant he believed that the red drop had grown larger, but perhaps it had always been that size.
"I'm fine here."
He could almost feel Gai's disappointment, who must have collapsed like a balloon at his response.
"But this side is better."
"And why is your side better?"
"On my side there is no mud like on yours! Look, your feet are sunk in so much that you almost look like a tree."
Taking his eyes off the reflection, Kakashi realized that Gai was, indeed, right; the cold mud surrounded his feet and slowly absorbed it, but Kakashi shrugged. If he wanted to leave, he would only have to put his feet up.
"So what? This side is still better." My father is here.
I'm watching him.
"Rival, come!" Gai insisted again.
Kakashi ignored him and refocused his gaze on the reflection; his father seemed to have leaned in a bit more, and the red drop was now a smudge. And it was no longer the only one.
Two tiny drops appeared where his hands would have been, and a red line, barely distinguishable because it was very thin and long, spread over his father's abdomen. Kakashi frowned; He only looked away for a second, what happened?
The second he heard a splash, Kakashi looked up in pure terror.
"Gai, don't you dare cross the river!" Kakashi yelled, terrified. He doesn't want Gai disturbed the perfect image of him and his father.
When he looked over to where Gai should be, he almost staggered from his position, surprised to realize how far away he seemed to be now. Like there was a kilometer between them, Kakashi barely noticed Gai.
Slowly, a soft mist began to emanate from the river, and in the cloud-filled sky there was the cracking sound of lightning.
Frightened that the reflection had slipped away, he looked down. His father was kneeling, doubled over, on the floor, still staring at Kakashi, gushing red lines from him. His majestic presence had broken, and he suddenly seemed tired and as deadly as Kakashi himself.
Kakashi moved hysterically to help him, but as he did so his feet melted into the ground and he nearly fell over. The mud had risen a little past his ankles.
When he was going to pull up his feet to help him, he realized that as soon as he entered the river, the reflection would disappear horribly in waves, never to be the same again. With that in mind, he resisted the urge to go in to help him, and fear began to suffocate his heart that writhed like a beast in his chest. His father would endure, he would return.
Although he wanted to move again, he couldn't, and acting too late, he saw his father displeased next to him. Kakashi gripped the handle of the rod hard, not knowing or knowing what to do again. What had he done the first time?
"KAKASHI!"
At the desperation in Gai's voice, he looked up, but the fog was too thick to let him see, and when he felt the mud soften, he tried to pull his feet out as he glanced back at the water.
He couldn't breathe, nor could he exhale anything.
Rin and Obito loomed over the side of his shoulders, both with their faces barely visible, and his sensei loomed over him with steady blue eyes, his hair flashing like lightning.
"What...?"
His two team-, his friends tried to grab Kakashi's hands, and Kakashi tried to avoid him, not wanting them to get all the big red spots that covered them, but unfortunately they managed to grab them.
They jumped away from him in horror, and Kakashi watched with chills and cold sweat as Obito began to turn red from his hand to the middle of his chest, while a red line climbed up Rin's chest. They both began to dye themselves a deep red, Obito screaming into the void as the red in Kakashi's eye swirled, while Rin slowly fell to the depths of the river, staring him with static eyes and bloodstained lips, as she seemed to whisper his name in the lowest note a dead body could.
Kakashi tried to move this time, and barely processed the frantic screams he was making as he tried to get his feet out of the mud; it had reached his knees, and now he could no longer move. Like a deer with one leg in a trap, with bestial desperation he tried to break free.
Minato-sensei spat red, spat blood, and the sky lit up with lightning that made the floor rumble.
Kakashi dropped the rod and tried to reach for the reflection, but suddenly he was just the distance away where he could barely touch the beginning of the river, and desperate, he could only watch as they all slipped away in bloody waves.
The river gave off the metallic smell that would always haunt Kakashi.
"KAKASHI, PLEASE!"
Kakashi looked up. "GAI, HELP ME!" The mud trembled around them as another bolt struck the ground. "GAI!"
The reflection broke, and the water began to churn, the smell becoming even more unbearable and the mist slowly seeming to turn red. He heard some distant splashing.
Terror clawed at Kakashi's every nerve, and he tried harder to pull himself out of the mud. The sweet reflection had been broken, what would he do now?
Everything was dead.
"GAI, DON'T COME!" The splashing didn't stop. "SHIT, DON'T COME! GET AWAY! GET AWAY!"
If Gai got close, he too would end up like the rest, he too would disappear. This time Kakashi wouldn't be selfish; It's okay if he didn't see him again, but at least he won't see him die like the rest. That is better.
Gai had told him that his side was better, that at his side he will be better, but stupid as he was, he hadn't listened. And now the stupid one was not him, but Gai who did not stop going towards him.
The water trembled as another bolt of lightning peppered the ground, and the mist lowered enough for him to see Gai running across the water toward Kakashi.
Blood spread like millions of hands towards the last and only thing Kakashi had, and Kakashi yelled louder for Gai to go away, that he'll leave him rotting there, but like the big idiot that Gai was, he kept advancing on him.
"DAMN SHIT, GAI! GO AWAY!"
So close yet so far away, a bloody hand grabbed Gai and he fell into the reflection. Kakashi frantically shifted until he managed to get one leg out, and tried to reach out to help Gai, but as always, he caught on too late.
The calm waters opened their jaws and trapped him below its surface. And Kakashi touched the suddenly clean and strangely solid surface of the water, looking across at Gai. Gai was waving energetically at him from the other side again, and Kakashi saw his reflection covered in blood. A drop of blood fell from Kakashi, landing on Gai.
With horrible anguish he watched as the stain expanded.
Kakashi's eyes widened with a calm he didn't possess. Sitting on a branch and leaning against the thick trunk, he felt pathetic when he realized he was shaking like a baby.
He heard a soft breath beside him, and when his eyes shifted to his side, he almost felt blessed by the sight.
Gai was at his side, sleeping peacefully with each arm at his sides. He was incredibly calm, and Kakashi for a moment thought it was just a reflex as a soft snore escaped his lips.
Calmer, Kakashi lay down next to him again, and looked at the sky; around him, the forest sounded incredibly in sync with its thousands of musicians. Both of them were about to finish the mission, but they decided to rest in order to get to the village faster the next day.
It was the first mission he had with Gai in a while since AMBU kicked him out. He really miss being by his side.
What a dream.
He turned his neck, and extended his bare hand to Gai's, and entwined them. He smiled fondly as Gai's hand unconsciously squeezed him.
Laying one arm across his stomach while the other nuzzled a thumb over the calloused hand of his darling, Kakashi breathed easy.
Every dream says something, people say.
His grip on Gai's hand weakened.
What will it mean?