Kakashi Gaiden

Chapter-2

Chapter-2/The Ritual

"Kakashi! Kakashi! Wake Up!"

His head was really heavy and he couldn't move his limbs, he heard someone was calling him. 'Where am I?' He couldn't remember anything, and felt like he was drowning. 

In his drowsiness, he was unable to open his eyes, before he lost his consciousness again, he heard his grandpa and his mom talking, "Please let us go, Dad, you can't do this to us, Please let us go." "Mina, don't worry, he'll be fine. Just let the kid sleep."

He woke up in a cold sweat bcoz of the noises, this waking up was kind of like emerging from deep water. He was extremely weak and he just realised that he was back in their clan shrine building somehow and lying in the middle of ritual circle. 

There were like ten people around the circle reciting something, he saw his mother crying, she was tied to the pole in the corner, he tried to call his mom and tried to stay awake but his sudden drowsiness gotten worse, at the same time he started hearing many voices whispering around him and those voices pulled him into the darkness.

His body suddenly seemed to divide into two distinct beings. One of these beings remained motionless in the circle; the other snapped free and drifts downward as if he was falling into an infinite abyss and felt like he would never hit the ground. He stopped falling at one point and he found himself at the front of the shrine, he couldn't stop himself and kept walking into the gate, once he entered into shrine, he saw three masked men floating in the air and behind them, a very big tree he had never seen before.

He carefully approached them, the three men appeared to be asleep and chained by something he couldn't see, but still his inner self was alarming him not to go near them, but he couldn't stop himself going near the middle guy - who was wearing a black kimono, a ragged black jacket and his face was covered with ox mask with horns.

Immediately after as he was standing right next to him, he heard a low pitched moan. Kakashi stepped back, got completely frozen, and yelled, "who are you?!" Again, immediately, he heard the same low-pitched moan, except this time it was louder. 

He was starting to completely terrified coz he had always been able to sense those spirits in his whole life but this one was on completely different level, all he could sense from him was absolute evil, but for whatever reason, he still decided to walk closer to the man and yelled very loudly, "I know you are awake now, What do you want from me??"

That guy slowly moved his hand to remove his mask and hand it to him. Then the guy said in hoarse voice, "Take it, this is what you come for." Kakashi looked petrified by his voice and after a while he took the mask from the demon, once he got the mask in his hands, it turned into a black mass hole swarming around him. The more he tried to get rid of it and the further down into the darkness he was sucked until eventually he got completely drowned into the darkness. 

After then he was in the dream, where he wanted to get out of so badly. In the dream, he was standing in the shrine building again and his mom and other four persons were lying in the blood. He tried to wake up his mom but she was not moving at all, he couldn't feel she was breathing anymore, he kept convincing himself, 'this is not real, this is just a dream, I just need to wake up.' but it still hurt him a lot just living the moment. 

Then he heard a voice coming from his back, his grandfather and other clan elders were standing in the corner of the room, "Kakashi, I know you could do it, don't cry, your mom happily did this for you, we need Mina to bring you back from underworld."

Hearing his explanation, Kakashi growled, "Did you do it ? did you do it to my mom? how dare you!!" His grandpa were saying something, but he couldn't hear or understand the words he was saying. 'How can he do this to me? My own grandpa killed my mom. This is not true.'

Enraged and overwhelmed with grief, he lost himself in the darkness again, he knew his body was moving on his own. He heard a lot of screaming and the smell of blood but he had no control over his body nor could he walk, move on his own properly.

He didn't stop when he killed his grandpa and the priests with his own hands, he didn't stop killing the clan members guarding outside the ritual circle, the darkness within himself finally emerged and spread across their village killing everyone in the process. 

Kakashi panicked when he noticed that part of him enjoyed killing his own people and the smell of death, he really wanted to escape from these nightmares, everyone was dying by his hands, but he was unable to stop himself. 'Please stop, wake up, somebody help me!!!'

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"Kakashi, wake up. You are safe here, son."

After a long time, he woke up hearing a soft voice, he saw a light which washes away all those darkness around him. It was his mom. His mom was smiling at him, his head was sitting in her lap, she was caressing his hairs softly. 

He cried once he saw his mom. "Mom" ..."Relax, Honey, everything is fine, you are alright, your father will be here soon." Mina spoke gently while trying to comfort Kakashi.

After he heard his mom soothing voice, he looked at his mom and tried to remember the recent events of the day. He really had no idea of what had happened or what had been happening to him.

He hugged his mom and stayed in her embrace for a while, till his mom said suddenly,

"Kakashi, listen to me." his mom expressions became serious, "my child, what just happened here is not your fault, I am sorry that I couldn't protect you, forgive me for being a weak mother." Kakashi stared at his mom, confused and anxious. His mom was in tears, "Pls promise me you will try to live on no matter what, You are a strong kid, you are who you are, don't let people define you, especially don't let those darkness control you, Kakashi."

His mom's voice cracked as she broke down in tears. Something was not right here,"Kakashi, you must choose your own way, stay strong, I just wished I could stay with you a little longer, life will be tough from now on, tell your dad that I am sorry." Why did it sound like mom was saying goodbyes? "Mom" His vision became blurry, he totally lost his consciousness soon.

Kakashi woke up in the forest this time, his father was sitting beside him stiffly with a pained expression on his face. He knew it was a nightmare, coz what's happening now had to be a dream, there would be no way it was real, right? He didn't have a proper recollection of the events so it must be a dream. 

But why was he in the Crooked forest shrine? He was supposed to be in Hidden Leaf Village with his mom, the last thing he remembered was his father had been out for mission and while he was having dinner with his mother, his grandpa came to visit them with other clan members. After that, everything he remembered was much like a series of nightmares,

He asked his father, "Dad, where's mom? I just saw her sitting here." His father said nothing but he was crying, Dad was crying? He'd never seen his dad was crying before. He was the strongest man he had ever known. 

Then he realised that the air he's breathing had strong metallic smell - which means the smell of blood, he screamed as he found his whole body was covered in blood. Not just him, the whole shrine and ground were covered in blood and corpses, he followed along the blood trails, then followed by the sight of the brutal massacre of women, men and children.

He froze and asked again in terror, "Dad, what's just happened? Who killed them? Where's mom?" He remembered something from his dream and run in to the shrine building out of panic, there he saw a ritual circle and lifeless bodies, which meant that was not a dream, it was actually happening out here.

Those were the sacrifices made for the ritual, No, No, this was not true, when he learnt that one of the bodies was his mom, he finally be able to learn the bitter truth that his grandfather had planned everything and used his mom as an essential sacrifice pawn for his ritual. 

The brutal massacre, the ritual, his mom death, everything was too much for him to take in, it completely shattered his spirit, he screamed in torment. After witnessing his mother death, he became completely incapacitated and the memories of massacre came back to him slowly, exhausted with grief and trauma, Kakashi passed out instantly.

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