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It’s the nightmare again.
Kakashi should be used to it by now. It happens almost every night. Rin’s wide brown eyes flashing with chidori’s hot spark, the crimson blood pouring from her lips, the whisper of his name - such vivid and frequent images in his mind. Somehow, her last moments in this world still feel real every time he wakes. It’s been almost two years since that day, but no matter how many times his mind re-enacts this, taking her life comes as painful as that first time.
What’s more painful is what comes after.
As Kakashi sits up in a cold sweat, catching his breath from the pure terror of it, the current reality rises to the surface. For a moment, he was looking into her eyes. Rin endured a second of pain in his psyche, but at least there she’d existed. Here in this cold, dark house in the hidden leaf village too big for Kakashi alone, she’s gone. There is no Rin Nohara. And just as that reality settles in - that she is nothing more than a ghost haunting his memories - the reality that it’s because of him that she’s gone crashes on top of him, smothering him with its weight until he can’t breathe.
He doesn’t sleep again.
He washes away imaginary blood, sharpens weapons, reads, and prepares meals for the week in the early hours leading up to his next mission - all futile efforts of distraction. Their futility lies in the fact that every act reminds him of the girl he killed, her face so fresh in his mind. Following that nightmare, memories of Rin can be activated by the most minuscule things. From the shade of purple vegetables so similar to clan markings he’ll never see on blushing cheeks again to the first-aid pack conjuring memories of a certain gift - once a token of his accomplishment, now a reminder of the responsibility and title he doesn’t feel he deserves. Maybe this time, on this mission, he’ll meet his fate and follow her - follow them - to where he belongs.
With eyelids as heavy and weary as his heart, Kakashi sets out, mission after mission, following sleepless night after sleepless night. Somehow, he fails to follow her path. He believes Rin’s ghost must be at his side in the day just as she is at night, always watching, just like he feels Obito is watching, too. There must be a reason they don’t let him join them and their sensei. Since it seems there’s something he’s meant to do, he’ll continue to fight for the village. He’ll fight to honor his teammates’ memories and make them proud.
He fights, hoping Rin sees his warmest moments and forgives him all his coldest ones - especially the moment he hates most of all, the one which took her away from him.