For the LJ community Poe Challenge.

Word count - 1126

Rating - K

Prompt - A Tale of Mystery and Terror

Haunted

He has carried the guilt with him all his life and he was convinced that it would follow him 6 feet under.

When his father committed suicide, his sensei had done his best to make sure that his young ward would be shielded from the scrutiny from the village. So at a young age he grew hard and cold and refused to let love or friendship dominate his life. So he lived in the shadows; only staying alive to serve his village and his Hokage.

He was merely a tool, bent and tempered like a metal, transforming into one of the most powerful and revered shinobi, with a name that was feared amongst all five Shinobi nations.

When Rin was taken prisoner, he and Obito parted ways. The same Obito who convinced him that true shinobi don't abandon their teammates no matter the circumstance. The same Obito who managed to convince him for the first time that his father's death was not his fault.

They had parted ways but not through life but through death. And with his finally seconds he was entrusted with the mot precious thing, the third most precious gift he had ever received a gift that he would cherish till the day he dies.

Obito had said with his final breath he will become his eye and so he did. It was because of his eye that Kakashi Hatake became one of the most feared ninjas. It was because of his eye that he was named the Copy-nin. A name he would carry to his dying day.

It was also because of his eye that he was able to see clearly a woman, who after 10 years, had reached his level and was known to be as almost as dangerous as he.

It also didn't help the fact that he was his past student or the Godaime's apprentice either!

It was also a fact that Kakashi Hatake was good when it came to hiding his feelings.

He didn't cry when he had found his father dead, lying on the floor with his hand smeared with crimson blood. Neither did he cry when he had to leave Obito's half-crushed body under the bolder. Instead he helped Minato-sensei keep Rin's tears at bay, weeks after he was killed. Just looking at her made him sad, but he still didn't shed a tear.

When his sensei sacrificed his life to seal the Kyuubi in his newborn son, the only word Kakashi Hatake could drunkenly utter was 'foolish'.

But the day she died would torment him forever.

The last mission Sakura went on was an A-class mission to Amegakure to deliver top secret medical scrolls to the resident shinobi hospital. There was outbreak of a nasty chakra virus in the ninja village and as the most accomplished medic-nin and medical diplomat, it was her duty to see that the scrolls arrived safely through the Ame's protective barriers. It was only an A-class mission because of the importance of the scrolls. It wasn't supposed to turn into an A-class catastrophe.

She had refused point blank for any shinobi guard, even though her own husband the Rokudaime, Kakashi Hatake, had requested a team of ANBU black ops to accompany her.

She was after all Lady Hatake.

And she was the mother of his two babies, whom she had left behind to suffer along with their father after her passing.

And after all these years, the void left by her death could not be filled.

Her son, Obito and her daughter, Kaiya, grew up to become well-respected shinobi, never knowing their mother.

At eighteen, Obito was still as unobservant as ever but not me. I would mask my chakra every morning and follow my father to the cenotaph and watch him tracing my mother's name over and over, through rainfall or sunshine.

If you listen closely you would hear soft sobs coming from the guest room every night (he had stopped sleeping in the master's bedroom since her death). He would never cry in our presence.

I knew he missed my mom just as much as we did, but after twelve years when everyone had gotten over it and moved on, he was still grieving.

My dad and I are really close but for some reason he always avoided the subject of my mom. From the time I was a little girl, I had gotten the habit of crawling into his bed and resting my head on his chest while listening to his soft snores calming me to sleep.

But tonight was different. He was wide awake when I came in and he put his arm around me and pulled me close and kissed me on my forehead. I looked up at his bare face and into his lone onyx eye that was bloodshot. He had the faint smell of sake on his breath mingling with the saltiness of his tell-tale tears. I had never seen the Copy-nin look so broken.

I loved him and his pain was eating at me to do something. So I finally broke the silence.

"Dad, I know you miss her but I think it's time you moved on."

He sighed. "Kaiya, you wouldn't understand why I feel this way because you were only a baby when she died. The reason I feel this way I because I'm the one responsible for her death."

He turned away from me and went to stand near the window with his back turned to me. "If I had only ignored her stubborn request and assigned an ANBU guard to her, then she wouldn't have been killed on the border."

The dark creepy silence fell on them once more. Kaiya just sat on the edge of the bed listening to the silver-haired jonin finally admit his feelings that he had been so good at hiding.

"It is because of this guilt," he continued quietly, "that I keep remembering her. Her smile, her laugh, the way her nose crinkles when she frowns just like what you're doing now," he added and Kaiya forced her face back in to it somber state.

"It is also because of this guilt that I keep hearing her heartbeat." Kaiya opened her mouth to comment on it but her father rushed on. "I'm not going crazy, sweetheart, but I might as well be crazy. I hear her so vividly that it's almost as if her ghost I till around and haunting me."

The wind blew again and goose bumps formed on Kaiya's forearms. She looked at her father's hunched back near the window and whispered to the wind.

"Why are you haunting dad, Sakura? Why can't you just rest in peace?"