Fic: "Perfect World"

[redbrunja]

Title: Perfect World
Author: redbrunja
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Kakashi, most everyone relating to him
Summary: "In a perfect world, Kakashi is dead."

In a perfect world, Kakashi is dead.

In a perfect world, Obito ducked, or dodged, and came out of their rescue attempt whole -bruised, battered, maybe,- but whole.

In a perfect world, Rin stayed behind the lines, while the Nine-Tailed Demon amused itself breaking apart shinobi like a cruel child playing with flies.

And his two best friends... if he were lucky, he would have gotten to see them together, maybe even held their first red-eyed child. He would have been best man at the wedding, would have teased Rin about marrying into such a prestigious clan, would have later made sarcastic comments about her gennin team. (Their sensei's cheerful and assured son, secure in his place in the world, another Uchiha desperate to stand out from amongst his pack of genius relatives, a sweet girl whose family understood her choices and didn't use her as a marker in their viciously mundane battles, none of them more than raw lumps of potential that Rin would love and guide into becoming great shinobi.)

Maybe Kakashi would know none of this - maybe the strike that took his right eye would have been just a bit deeper, maybe he would have been one of the many, many ninja dead in the Nine-tails attack, or maybe he would die later, on some ANBU mission in some country whose name he wouldn't remember.

In a perfect world, he would be one of the lucky ones, dead and buried while his precious people lived on.

Comments

[lydzi.livejournal.com]

Beautiful. I love how the words rings so true.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[wildwesternwind.livejournal.com]

Again...I have to take a step back to find the words to describe this. In short, it perfectly captures Kakashi's regrets and self loathing-- and Kakashi's wishes for a happiness and normalacy that Kakashi needs and probably doesnt even know that he needs/wants. Very nice.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I hadn't realized it (i wrote this one 3.5 hours of sleep before rushing off to work) but Kakashi is projecting what he would would (the happy love life, the beloved teacher) on the people he feels deserve it.

nd Kakashi's wishes for a happiness and normalacy that Kakashi needs and probably doesnt even know that he needs/wants

Oh, he so does. I find it really psychologically telling that he disconnects from the world through reading, and is reading porn/romance, which is all about connection, wether that be simply sexual or more emotional. (I've always had the suspicion that there was more to Icha Icha than met the I, and finding out about what Jiraiya was writing before made me positive that those books are rich with gratitious sex and Jiraiya's unrequited longing for Tsunade.)

[wildwesternwind.livejournal.com]

Occasionally Im perceptive like that. I can totally see where Kakashi would do that seeing as he has had what amounts to a raw deal for most of his life.

True that. For all appearances Kakashi has the emotional capacity for an orange, but for those he holds closer (well as close as he is capable of)there is something there. Kakashi probably feels (and this is just a theory) that he cant get close to anyone because the minute that he does, that person is going to leave him. He probably idolized his dad...and he commits suicide. Finally becomes friends with Obito-- big rock crushes the kid. Forms a connection with his sensei and Rin-- large angry fox. If that doesnt psychologically scar a person, i dont know what will.

Totally. Jiraiya totally wanted more than what Tsunade was willing to give. But, then again-- at times I dont think Tsunade realized how much she meant to Jiraiya.. More than a teammate. And yes-- those books are totally full of gratuitous sex and I bet the main characters have a freakish resemblance to Jiraiy and Tsunade.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Kakashi probably feels (and this is just a theory) that he cant get close to anyone because the minute that he does, that person is going to leave him. He probably idolized his dad...and he commits suicide. Finally becomes friends with Obito-- big rock crushes the kid. Forms a connection with his sensei and Rin-- large angry fox. If that doesnt psychologically scar a person, i dont know what will.

Oh, hell yes he has an abandonment complex! I mean, sheesh, who wouldn't? I bet a large part of the reason he was failing his students was to avoid getting close, which is part of why he reads all the time, imho.

Totally. Jiraiya totally wanted more than what Tsunade was willing to give. But, then again-- at times I dont think Tsunade realized how much she meant to Jiraiya.. More than a teammate.

*nods* I honestly think it's the latter, that she never realized how serious Jiraiya was about her, and I also think she was so burned out on having loved ones die that she just didn't want to go there again (subconciously).

I mean, for most of the manga I was loving the fact that Tsunade just keep turning him down, until I realized (at flashback to Naruto's parents, I think) how much Jiraiya actually loved her.

[yumi-maki.livejournal.com]

You know, as much as I love Kakashi, I try not to dwell too much on his past (part of why I never read Gaiden) but whenever I choose to read something pertaining to his life and his regrets, I'm always impressed by how people manage to portray his suffering aand to show how he feels about his life and his existence. You're one of those people - you managed to portray his feelings and dreams so plainly and yet so meaningfully. It's an amazing piece, really.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you!

Actually, Kakashi's pain and his past and his fuck ups are what make me love him. If he was just this laid back teacher I'd actually find him really, really annoying.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

Ahh, Kakashi’s survivor’s guilt. Nicely written.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Kakashi is one of those people who is doomed to live, and I think he hates that quite a lot.

[tobu-ishi.livejournal.com]

Smooth, heartbreaking imagery. I never read far enough to hear all of Kakashi's backstory, but this fills in the gaps quite well enough to understand.

On a random note, as a nascent translator, it always makes me blink to see the way Naruto fansubs use "precious people" for taisetsu na hito. I realize it's the literal translation, but English already has such a natural phrase to express the same concept...."loved ones".

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Kakashi's backstory is well worth reading. It's only about five chapters, and it really does a good job of showing him as a completely different person, showing why he was that way, and then showing what happened to make him who he is now. (It was a very similar to finding out about Giles' backstory on Buffy.)

And that note about the translations is interesting. Do you know if the official translators traslate it as 'loved ones'? (I bet they do.) Also, I've noticed that fansubbers have a tendency to go a little too literally. I have fansubbed Saiyuki where I only understand the dialogue because I read the official translation first.

[tobu-ishi.livejournal.com]

Well, honestly, I remember from my early-on translating attempts that I oftentimes would start grabbing for the dictionary and fumbling to cobble things together that sounded good when I realized I was entirely unsure what somebody was talking about. (It's a rather nasty feeling when somebody expects you to know what a speech bubble says and you don't. Bit like showing up at the Fire Palace only to realize the Fire Lord is sixty feet tall and you haven't any pants on, really.) I think I once managed to translate the scene where Scar tells Winry to get off the battlefield if she isn't going to buck up and fight, as some sort of compliment on her Joan of Arc-like courage, because I didn't have the guts to just admit I couldn't understand the idiom he was using. So I expect that's where some of the literalism comes from--too much dictionary, not enough grammar savvy or the confidence to fess up to confusion and ask a native.

I think my favorite translator's flub, though, is when they start mucking about with transliterating katakana without doing a quick Google or something first. I will never forget the first few episodes of fansubbed FMA I watched, where they called Lust and Gluttony "Rast" and "Blatny". Even the official manga translation rendered the nation of Kuserukusesu as Cselkcess, when a bit of asking around can tell you that there was once a Persian king named Xerxes who had a consort named Amestris. (Somehow they got the country of Amestris right, but not the other one...)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Can you remember what the literal idiom was? I always remember the the french version of 'a frog in your throat' is 'a cat in your throat.'

[tobu-ishi.livejournal.com]

Nope, can't remember at all. I just remember being quite mawkishly proud of myself for having covered my slip, and then reading some more experienced translator's version a few hours later and emoting a massive "DUH." Ah, humility. XD

(And I really like the Japanese version of "I was pissed off"--it's "My stomach stood up".)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, that does have a sort of viceral sense, doesn't it?