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.

[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.

[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.

[solace-adrift.livejournal.com]

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

[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".