Born Anew

Chapter 7

Kakashi POV

Halfway through the night, I'm woken up with shrieking and sobbing, as someone is being slaughtered. At first, I think that it's just my nightmare of my old comrade and friend Rin Nohara's shriek as I stabbed my hand into her chest.

But it's real. And coming from Karin's room.

Without a moment of hesitation, I'm out of bed and in Karin's room.

She's thrashing around her bed like a fish without water, screaming, "NO!!! Leave me alone!" Huge alligator tears are pouring from her eyes and I rush to her bedside. I give her a good shake. "Karin!"

"Don't let them have me," she sobs. "Don't let them have me!"

"Karin!" I raise my voice and add authority to it. "Wake up!"

She keeps screeching until I gently but firmly pat her face. Her eyes fly open and in one swift movement, her fist rockets up and punches me right in the jaw. My eyes water but I suck up the pain and raise my hands to show that I don't mean any harm. Damn, that was one hell of a punch.

Her eyes are wild and frightened so I keep my distance, keeping my hands up where she can see them. "It's just me, Karin," I murmur. "It was just a nightmare. It's okay."

Her whole body is trembling and the sobs die down. Recognition flashes in her eyes. "Kakashi?"

"I heard you screaming from the other room. Are you okay?" I can't prevent that concerned tone that my voice takes.

She wraps her arms around herself. "It was just a nightmare," she says, then repeats it a few more times, as if trying to convince herself that that was really true.

"Just a nightmare," I assure her.

"It felt so real," she whispers, her red eyes haunted.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" I ask softly.

She shakes her head. So I sit next to her, just to offer her some comfort just by me being here. And she doesn't ask me to leave. After a few moments of silence, she says, "I was a little girl again, being dragged into the hospital to help all those other people. They needed me for something."

I turn my head to her and ask, in a soft voice, "Is that how you have all your scars?" Even though I already know that she has the ability to give others chakra through a bite of her skin, I pretend that I don't. Right now, other than the fact that she found the picture of both of us, she doesn't really know that we knew each other beforehand. Back when she was a "prisoner" of Konoha, she hadn't really told me much, just that people used her for her ability to give chakra. This memory that she just got must mean that some of her memories are coming back to her. Was she hiding anything that she already remembered?

She shivers. "I think so."

"Why would they want to use you?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. But there was another woman in my dream. She was dead."

Dead? Karin mentioned something about having no parents when she stayed here last. Could the woman in her memory be her dead mother?

She lays down and turns her back to me. "You don't have to stay here with me anymore. I'm okay."

"You sure?"

"I'm fine," she snaps, sounding like herself again.

I stand. "Okay then. I'll see you in the morning. Sleep well."

I could practically hear her rolling her eyes from where I'm standing. "Stop talking to me like a baby, Kakashi," she mumbles.

A shiver passes through my body when my name passes her lips but I snap at myself to get ahold of my emotions. I step out of her room and softly shut the door. Sitting in my own bed, I scrub my hands over my face. Her yelling scared the sh*t out of me. But I know exactly how she feels. While my memories are still intact, I sometimes wish they aren't. Because all night long, I see the same image in my head, playing on repeat: my Chidori (lightning blade) going through Rin's body, through her heart and her wide, stunned eyes gazing into mine as her last word pass over her lips: Kakashi.