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Chapter Text

---

The final sunrays painted the sky with shades of pink and orange, casting long shadows across the village. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the ancient tree, whispering secrets that only the whispers of time knew. Above it, the crimson moon began its ascent, hinting at the approaching nightfall.

In the quiet embrace of the evening, Kakashi Hatake felt a strange weight lift from his shoulders. His eyes grew heavy, his vision blurred, and the world grew distant as if he was being pulled by invisible threads. A sudden sharp pain pierced through his chest, stealing his breath. He stumbled back, his hand clutching the wound that wasn't there.

As the world faded to black, a soft blue light began to envelop Kakashi. It grew brighter, more intense, until it was all he could see. And then, just as suddenly as it had come, the light swallowed him whole, and he was no longer in the village.

The sensation of falling gave way to an eerie calm. Kakashi found himself standing on a surface that felt like water, yet firm beneath his feet. He looked around, but there was nothing. No horizon, no sky, just an endless expanse of rippling blue. The silence was absolute, not even the echo of his own breathing to keep him company. He was utterly alone in this vast, aquatic emptiness.

With a trembling hand, he reached out, trying to grasp the water-like substance. It flowed through his fingers, leaving a trail of glittering droplets that hovered in the air before dissipating. His heart raced, a million questions bombarding his mind. Was this death? Some sort of afterlife? A bizarre genjutsu?

Kakashi took a deep breath and focused, pushing aside his fear. He had always been a man of action, not contemplation. He began to walk, the surface beneath him shifting with every step, creating waves that stretched into infinity. He had no destination, no map, no compass to guide him. Yet he moved forward, driven by a silent instinct that told him he must.

The silence grew oppressive, a silent scream echoing in his ears. The only sound was the rhythmic splash of his feet disturbing the water's calm. The world around him remained unchanged, a single, unending moment stretched out before him like a tightrope with no end in sight.

The blue light grew dimmer, and shadows began to form in the distance. They grew larger, more defined, until they were upon him. Figures, vaguely human in shape, emerged from the darkness, their eyes gleaming with an unearthly light. Kakashi's hand instinctively went for the hilt of a sword that wasn't there. Who were these beings? Were they friend or foe?

One of the shadows spoke, its voice a ripple in the quiet. "Welcome, Kakashi of the Hatake clan, Copy Ninja Kakashi, Kakashi of the Sharingan, Rokudaime Hokage." it said, its tone neutral, neither welcoming nor hostile. "You have much to learn before you may pass."

***

"Kakashi, wake up!" Rin's voice pierced through the fog of unconsciousness.

He blinked, and the world swam into focus. The cave walls, the dust in the air, the pain in his back - it was all too real. He was lying on the cold, hard ground beside Obito, who was trapped under a massive boulder. Rin knelt beside them, her eyes wide with fear and determination.

"Rin, I'm okay," Kakashi groaned, pushing himself up on one elbow. His chakra veins pulsed like molten lava beneath his skin. The sight of Obito's arm sticking out from the rock brought back a flood of memories he'd buried deep. He could almost hear the echo of their laughter, the scent of their sweat and blood mingling with the earthy scent of the cave.

"Your chakra," Rin said, her voice shaking. "It's burning you from the inside out."

Kakashi took a deep breath and turned to look at Obito. His heart clenched as he saw his friend's unmoving form, one eye open and unseeing, the Sharingan spiral already fading. The boulder pressed down on him like a monstrous hand, and Kakashi knew he didn't have much time. This wasn't how it was supposed to end. Not like this.

With a roar, Kakashi surged to his feet, his eyes blazing with a newfound resolve. "I won't let you die, Obito," he vowed, the words tearing from his throat like a battle cry.

The cave trembled in response, and the boulder above them groaned as if in protest. But Kakashi ignored it all, focusing on the chakra coalescing in his palm. It was time to rewrite history. Time to save the one person he could never save before.

Rin's eyes fluttered open and closed as she leaned against the cave wall. Her skin was pale, her breath shallow. She'd overexerted herself using her medical ninjutsu to keep Obito alive and to stabilize the boulder. The effort had taken its toll, leaving her on the brink of collapse. Her eyes widened when she saw Kakashi standing, the raw power surging through him.

Obito's hand twitched, a glimmer of hope in the otherwise still figure. Kakashi knew he had to act fast. He couldn't let his friend slip away again. He couldn't let his own failure define their story. He took a step forward, his legs shaking under the weight of his own grief and determination.

The air grew thick with tension as Kakashi's hand touched the boulder.

Kakashi has a sharingan, he was the famed Kakashi who knew a thousand Justus in the future, he's noy about to loss against a rock!

He took a deep breath and channeled his chakra, feeling it surge through him like a river of fire. His Sharingan spun faster, the eye burning brighter than it ever had before. Rin's eyes widened in amazement, her own chakra flaring briefly in response to the power beside her.

The boulder groaned louder as Kakashi pushed against it with all his might. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his muscles strained. He could feel the chakra veins in his arm bulging as he summoned every ounce of strength he had. The veins grew thicker, more pronounced, and his skin began to glow a soft blue. The rock didn't move at first, but then, inch by inch, it began to shift.

Rin watched, her heart racing. She knew Kakashi was strong, but she'd never seen him like this. His usually calm and composed demeanor was gone, replaced by a fierce, unyielding will to save his friend. Her own chakra surged in response, and she stumbled to her feet, ready to help. But before she could take a step, she felt the world tilt around her. Her vision blurred, and her legs gave out. She collapsed, gasping for air.

Kakashi didn't have time to check on her. He was too focused on Obito. The boulder was moving, but it was heavy. Too heavy. He could feel his chakra reserves draining rapidly, and the pain in his back grew more intense with each passing second. He clenched his teeth and pushed harder, the muscles in his arms standing out like cords.

"Rin, stay with me," he grunted through the strain. "We're going to get him out."

But she could barely hear him. Her own chakra was flickering like a candle in the wind. She felt her vision dimming, her consciousness slipping away. The world grew distant, and she could only watch as Kakashi's struggle with the boulder took on a surreal quality, as if she were seeing it through a foggy lens.

Obito's hand twitched again, and a faint light flickered in his open eye. He was still there, still fighting. Kakashi's resolve grew stronger with each pulse of pain. He couldn't let his friend die here, not like this.

The rock shifted, and Kakashi saw an opening, just large enough for Obito's hand. He didn't think; he just reacted. He lunged forward, his hand reaching through the narrow gap, his skin scraping against the jagged stone. He grabbed onto Obito's wrist, and with a final, desperate heave, pulled with every last bit of strength he had.

The boulder screeched in protest, and then, with a thunderous roar, it moved. Obito's arm was free, but the rest of him remained trapped. Kakashi could see the bones jutting out at unnatural angles, the blood seeping through Obito's shredded clothes. The sight made him want to retch, but he had to keep going.

Rin was barely conscious, her chakra almost depleted. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and her breathing was shallow. Kakashi knew he couldn't save them both if he didn't act fast. He shouted her name, trying to rouse her, but she didn't respond. He had to save Obito first.

With one hand still clutching his friend's wrist, Kakashi slammed his other hand against the rock. A burst of chakra shot out, cracking the boulder into a dozen pieces. The air filled with dust and debris as the rock crumbled away, revealing Obito's broken body beneath.

Kakashi pulled Obito free, laying him gently beside Rin. The younger boy's chest wasn't moving. Panic gripped Kakashi's heart. He had to get them out of here, now. He scooped them both into his arms, his muscles screaming in protest, and sprinted toward the cave entrance.

The sunlight stung his eyes as he emerged into the open air. The fresh oxygen fuelled his desperation. He laid Obito and Rin down on the soft grass and set to work. He had to save them both. He couldn't lose them again. His hands trembled as he placed his forehead against Obito's, sharing his chakra, trying to jumpstart his friend's heart.

A gentle light enveloped Obito, and his chest rose once, twice, three times.

"It's that sweet." a mocking voice spoke up. Kakashi's head snapped up to find several Iwa-nin ninjas surrounding them, their faces twisted into sneers. He had to act fast, but his body was still reeling from the chakra overuse. His eyes darted around, searching for an escape, but the ninjas had them cornered.

The leader stepped forward, a tall man with a scar that slashed through his left eye. "Looks like you've got a bit of a problem." He sneered, his one good eye glinting with malice. "What's the matter? Can't save your friends and face us too?"

Kakashi's grip tightened around Rin and Obito, his mind racing. He had to protect them. His Sharingan flickered, searching for a way out, but his vision was blurred, and his thoughts sluggish. The ninjas approached, their weapons at the ready. Kakashi's chest felt like it was on fire, and his breaths came in ragged gasps. He had to do something.

Summoning every last ounce of strength he had, Kakashi pushed himself to his feet, his knees wobbling. He positioned himself between the unconscious Rin and Obito and the approaching enemy. His eyes searched for any sign of weakness, any opening he could exploit. The scarred man chuckled. "You really think you can take us all on?"

The ninjas spread out, circling them like predators around their prey. Kakashi knew he couldn't fight them all in his current state, but he had to buy time. He had to get Rin and Obito to safety. He took a deep breath, centering himself. The world around him slowed as he focused his chakra into his Sharingan. He had one chance. One move. He had to make it count.

He whispered the incantation for a simple but effective jutsu, and several clones popped into existence beside him.

The Iwa-nin ninjas' eyes widened in surprise, and the leader's smirk faltered for a moment before he barked out an order. "Take them down!"

Kakashi's clones didn't wait for the enemy to attack. They rushed forward, drawing the attention of the Iwa-nin, their movements swift and precise. Kakashi knew he had to act now. He gently laid Rin and Obito down, placing a protective hand over each of their chests. He couldn't let them be harmed again.

The ninjas closed in, and the sound of battle filled the air. The clones fought valiantly, but Kakashi's chakra was almost depleted. He could feel his strength waning with each passing second. He had to end this quickly.

His vision blurred, but the Sharingan kept him focused. He could see the chakra flowing through all the men's body, the weak spots in his defense. He knew he couldn't hold out much longer. With a grimace, Kakashi summoned the last of his strength and dashed towards the nearest clone. The Iwa-nin ninjas took the bait, following after him. The real Kakashi remained behind, his eyes never leaving Rin and Obito.

The clones were a blur of motion, their movements a dance of shadows and steel. The Iwa-nin were skilled, but they were outmatched by Kakashi's experience and tactics. Yet, for every one he knocked down, two more took their place. His chakra was running dangerously low. He had to end this.

He performed a set of hand seals with the speed of a lightning strike, and a burst of chakra shot from his palm. It hit the ground between the Iwa-nin and exploded into a wall of earth, sending them flying and buying him precious seconds. He didn't hesitate. He scooped Rin and Obito into his arms once more, his muscles protesting but his will unyielding. He had to get them out of there.

The ninjas were disoriented, giving him the opening he needed. He sprinted away, his heart pounding in his chest like a war drum. The clones bought him enough time to put some distance between them and the enemy. The sun was setting now, casting long shadows that stretched out like welcoming arms. The warmth of the day was giving way to a cool evening breeze that whispered through the trees, carrying the scent of pine and earth.

Then he saw a yellow flash, before being engulfed by darkness.

Chapter Text

The war never asked for heroes, it only made room for survivors.

Minato stood still, the blood-streaked wind rustling his cloak, golden hair damp with sweat and the scent of fire clinging to his skin. The battlefield was quiet now, eerily so. All that remained were the echoes of screams, of clashing blades, of stones falling where hearts were crushed.

He hadn’t run fast enough.

“You're the Yellow Flash,” they had said. “Unstoppable. Unmatchable. Untouchable.”

But even light, it seemed, could arrive too late.

He found Kakashi first. The boy was leaning against a scorched tree, clutching at the bleeding line carved across his left eye, breath sharp and shallow. The new Sharingan glowed faintly, out of place in a face too young to be bearing this much weight. Surrounded by adults in a war, adults ready and willing to harm -kill- a child, several children, his students! 

Minato wasted no time knocking Kakashi out, the younger ninja needs the rest. 

He turns to the Iwa-nin with a deadly look, "No one is making it out alive here." He wiped out entire units before they even what hit them.

---

Minato didn’t remember the journey back to the village—not clearly. Just blurred flashes of his own kunai blinking through blood-soaked forests, his arms heavy with the weight of children who should never have been on a battlefield.

Kakashi was the first to be taken in, a prodigy, an asset to the village, despite Obito's state. Chakra exhaustion, they said. He had pushed beyond his limits—because there had been no one else.

Rin was the last one. She was covered in dust, her clothes torn and soaked with blood—his blood—but she didn’t cry. Not yet. She just held his hand, whispering his name as if that alone could call him back.

Minato stood at the glass of the hospital room now, silent.

Half of Obito’s body was crushed. The medics did everything they could. Bones braced. Skin patched. Healing jutsu fired off one after another. But some wounds ran deeper than chakra could reach. The boy was alive—for now—but unconscious. Trapped somewhere between life and the dark.

And it should’ve never happened.

“I was supposed to protect them.”

His reflection in the glass stared back at him—The Yellow Flash, hailed as Konoha’s savior, the genius who could end battles in seconds. And yet here he was. Powerless. Watching over the aftermath of his failure.

He clenched his jaw. His hands itched for a kunai, for something to do. But there was no enemy left to fight—only himself.

---

Hours passed. Maybe more. Minato didn’t sleep.

He sat at Obito’s bedside long after the medics left. Minato watched him breathe, his student -still alive- his responsibility.

“I should’ve been there,” he whispered.

The monitors beeped. Machines hummed softly. Obito didn’t move.

Minato closed his eyes.

“Next time,” he promised, voice cracking. “I’ll be faster.”

It was still dark when Minato noticed the shift—the soft rustle of fabric, the faint change in breathing. 

---

Rin was the first to wake up from his students. Her eyes opened, bleary and red, but alert.

Minato was already at the door.

He stepped inside the room quietly, the way he always did, though this time not with the speed of lightning—but the patience of someone who knew wounds weren’t always visible.

Rin blinked up at him, trying to sit straighter. “Sensei…”

Her voice was barely above a whisper.

He gave her a small smile. “Hey.”

She looked around—the hospital room dimly lit by the soft glow of chakra monitors.

He gently said, “Kakashi’s stable. He’s resting. Obito is...stable” for now, was unsaid.

Rin nodded once. Then again, slower, as if trying to ground herself.

Minato crouched beside her bed, lowering himself to her level. He placed a hand lightly on her shoulder—not a command, not a leader’s touch. Just presence. Just comfort.

“You don’t have to hold it in,” he said softly.

Rin’s bottom lip trembled.

And then the flood hit.

Tears spilled without warning, her breath catching in sharp gasps as the pain she'd been bottling cracked through her chest. “They—he tried to save me. Obito-he wouldn’t leave. He pushed Kaka-he-”

Minato gently drew her into his arms, holding her as the sobs took over. She shook against him, small and breakable, and for a long time, neither spoke.

“I was supposed to protect them too,” she whispered into his chest. “We were supposed to be a team. I should’ve healed him faster—I should’ve—”

“No,” Minato said quietly, firmly. “You did everything right, Rin. You’re the reason Obito and Kakashi’s still alive. You’re the reason we even had a chance.”

She didn’t argue. But her fists balled in his jacket, clinging like she was trying to keep the world from falling apart.

“I wasn’t there when it mattered most,” he murmured, mostly to himself.

Rin pulled back, just enough to meet his eyes. Hers were still wet, but clearer now. “You were fighting for the village. For everyone. We understand, its a tuff time.”

Minato didn’t answer. Because he didn’t understand.

---

He’d stayed by Obito’s bedside until the nurses all but insisted he leave—sleep-deprived, chakra-drained, eyes bloodshot from staring too long at things he couldn’t change. He didn’t protest, just nodded like a man moving through water.

It was Kushina who found him outside the hospital.

She didn’t say anything at first, just reached for his hand and held it like she was anchoring him to the present. Her fingers were warm, strong, alive. He didn’t realize until she touched him how cold he felt.

“Come home,” she said quietly. “Please.”

He didn’t remember the walk back, only that it was late—moonlight spilling across rooftops, the world hushed as if afraid to wake the dead. Their apartment was dark when they entered, and still he didn’t move to do anything. Just stood there, cloak slung over one shoulder, eyes somewhere far behind him.

Kushina didn’t push. She let the silence sit for a while as she made tea. The sound of the kettle boiling was the only thing that tethered the room to normalcy. When she returned, she found him sitting on the edge of their bed, staring at nothing.

“You’re still wearing your boots,” she murmured, setting a mug in his hands.

He blinked down at them, like he hadn’t noticed. He took them off slowly. Mechanically.

Kushina sat beside him, drawing her legs up. Her hair spilled across her shoulder, wild and untamed, a flame in the moonlight.

“You’re not okay,” she said softly.

Minato didn’t answer.

“You don’t have to lie to me,” she added, and there was no accusation in it, only love. “I know what it looks like when you’ve been carrying something too heavy for too long.”

His jaw tightened. “They’re just kids.”

“I know.”

“I should’ve been there. I should’ve gotten to them faster. I could’ve—” His voice caught, raw and brittle. “I was only seconds away, Kushina. Seconds. And look what happened.”

She didn’t try to tell him it wasn’t his fault. She didn’t offer hollow comfort.

Instead, she reached over and gently pulled his head down to her shoulder. She whispered. “Minato... it’s okay to feel it now.”

His shoulders began to shake, slow at first, then with growing intensity. She felt the way he clenched his fists against his own knees, the way he buried his face in her hair like a man who’d been drowning and just realized he could breathe.

“I thought I lost them,” he choked out. “I thought... I thought I lost all of them.”

Kushina wrapped her arms around him and didn’t let go. Not when the sobs came -quiet but jagged- or when the guilt poured out between gasped apologies and broken memories. Not even when he fell silent again, heart aching and emptied.

“I can’t protect everyone,” he whispered, the words tasting like failure.

“No,” she said gently. “But you still try. And that’s what makes you who you are.”

He was quiet after that, but he didn’t pull away. And for a long time, they just sat there—two hearts in the dark, one holding the other together. Seeing a kid, his student, forced to play the role of a soldier, outnumbered and bleeding, still trying to protect everyone like it was his burden alone. Minato would keep replaying that moment over and over again, wouldn’t he?

…

Minato didn’t sleep.

Even with Kushina’s arms around him, even with the comfort of home and warmth and breath and life—he couldn’t close his eyes without seeing it.

Kakashi.

Alone.

Back to a scorched tree, blood pouring from his eye, standing like a dying wolf holding off a pack of wolves twice his size.

A dozen Iwa-nin closing in.

A child facing death with a blade in hand.

Doing what he thought he had to do.

Minato’s breathing hitched. He sat up, careful not to wake Kushina, though her arm tightened instinctively around his waist.

Just stared out into the darkness of their bedroom, his fingers twitching as if still feeling the pull of a kunai, the rush of a jutsu he hadn’t thrown fast enough. “Kakashi was trying to protect them,” he said finally, his voice hollow. “That’s my job. Not his.”

Kushina sat up too, brushing her hair behind her ear. “He’s your student, Minato. You trained him to lead, to survive.”

“I trained him to be a shinobi,” he snapped, too sharp, and then he winced, immediately regretting it. His voice softened. “I didn’t train him for that. He’s thirteen, Kushina. He shouldn’t have had to stand there, fighting like that. Not alone.”

Kushina looked at him, really looked. At the tension in his shoulders. The quiet fury in his clenched jaw. The grief buried deep beneath guilt.

“You saw him,” she said gently.

He nodded, jaw working. “He didn’t even flinch when they came at him. He just moved, silent, fast. Like he’d already accepted how it was going to end. I don’t think... I don’t think he thought he’d survive. He wasn’t trying to win. He was trying to buy them time.”

Kushina’s hand found his.

“You should’ve seen his eye,” he whispered. “The Sharingan, it was glowing, and I thought for a second, he looks like a grown shinobi. But he’s not. He’s just a kid. A kid who thinks he’s supposed to carry the whole team because that’s what he believes leadership is.”

He turned to her, pain raw in his eyes.

“I put that belief in him.”

Kushina shook her head, not dismissively, but with calm conviction. “No. You taught him to care. You taught him to protect. The war taught him the rest, and that’s not on you.”

Minato looked down at their hands.

Silence lingered, but it felt less heavy now. Not gone—but shared 

Chapter Text

Kakashi narrowed his eyes, the weight of everything he had just experienced still fresh in his mind, every choice, every consequence, and every life touched. The endless ocean shimmered around him, calm yet impossibly vast, like time itself folding into stillness.

He faced the figure, voice steady but edged with fatigue. "You gave me a chance to change everything. I tried to save them all. Even if it meant breaking the rules."

The figure chuckled, hands folded behind their back, eyes gleaming with something unreadable? curiosity? Admiration?" And yet, some threads snapped tighter the more you pulled. You sacrificed your own happiness more than once. Why? What did you hope to gain?"

Kakashi didn't answer right away. The silence stretched, waves lapping gently beneath their feet as if the universe was listening. Finally, he exhaled. "Because I knew what would happen if I did nothing. Even if I couldn’t save everyone... at least I could carry less regret."

The figure tilted their head, as though weighing Kakashi’s soul in their gaze. "Regret, huh. A powerful motivator... but is it enough to warrant what comes next?"

Kakashi's expression hardened just slightly. "What comes next?"

The figure stepped forward, and suddenly, the ocean beneath them began to ripple outward in concentric rings of light—each pulse a different memory, a different timeline Kakashi had touched.

"You chose a path no one else would’ve dared. Now… the question is, do you want to go back again?"

They paused.

"Or do you want to see what lies beyond it all?"

The figure gave a small, knowing smile, equal parts amused by Kakashi's answer.

"Done enough?" they echoed, stepping lightly across the water as if it were glass. "You rewrote the very heartbeat of history. The world you left behind will never know the war, the Akatsuki, the pain you once carried. And yet..."

They stopped in front of Kakashi, eyes sharp now. "Do you understand the cost of what you've done?"

Kakashi didn’t flinch. "I do. I’ve relived too much not to."

"Then you know," the figure said softly, the ocean quieting beneath their feet, "that in a world where Obito and Rin live... your path diverges from the one you once knew. You may not be their sensei. There may be no Team 7. Naruto... Sasuke... even Sakura... their lives may be a lot different, but you may not be part of them in the same way."

There was a pause, and Kakashi let it sink in.

"Peace was never supposed to need me," he said finally, voice calm. "If I’ve made a world where they don’t need me—then good. That’s all I ever wanted."

The figure regarded him for a long time, then gave a small nod, almost... solemn. "Very well, Hatake Kakashi. You will return. Not as a warrior, not as a relic of a broken world—but as a man who’s earned his peace."

The ocean around them began to glow, light wrapping around Kakashi like warmth for the first time in decades.

"One last question," the figure said, voice distant now. "When they ask where you’ve been... what will you tell them?"

Kakashi gave a small, wry smile beneath his mask. "On a very long mission... one I hope never gets classified." And with that, the light swallowed him whole.

The words drifted to him, distant but unmistakable—"When have people gotten what they want, I chose you for a reason, so I apologize, but there's still a lot of work for you to do in this world. I'll give you an apology gift."

Kakashi’s eyes fluttered open, but instead of the peace he had expected, the weight of the ocean's vastness remained. The soft waves around him began to churn once more, but this time, they felt different—more turbulent, like a storm stirring beneath the calm surface.

He tried to steady himself, but his surroundings were shifting, breaking apart in a swirl of light and shadow. The ocean's endless expanse twisted into something unrecognizable, and the sense of finality he had felt only moments ago seemed to dissolve into nothingness. The figure’s voice was everywhere now, as if they were surrounding him.

"You’ve always carried a burden, Kakashi," the figure said, now shifting from a distant echo to something closer, more intimate. "And while you sought rest, the world still has gaps that need filling. Paths that were never meant to be undone, destinies that need to align."

Kakashi felt the familiar pressure in his chest, the one he had long ignored but never fully let go. Something was pulling at him, forcing him back into the role he thought he had escaped. Before he could process it, a flash of light erupted before him—a swirl of unfamiliar chakra, something that seemed both alien and familiar at once.

"Apology gift," the figure’s voice echoed again. "You’re not done yet. You still have a hand to play in this new world, one that wasn’t meant to be. This gift will make sure you have the strength to continue. But be warned—this will change things, again."

A strange, powerful surge of energy filled him, like something inside his very being was being reconfigured, his body and mind both tuning to a frequency he had never known. It felt almost like a second heartbeat, a new pulse of power rising from deep within. It was... different, but not in the way he'd expected.

His eyes flashed open, a strange sense of clarity sweeping over him. He felt the weight of the world press on him, yet... also an undeniable surge of power. It wasn’t the same as before—this wasn’t just chakra. This was something far more complex, a gift, yes, but one that came with its own responsibility. He could feel the weight of its potential, its possibilities... its consequences.

As the swirling light began to settle around him, he saw the world take shape again—familiar faces, but changed. Time was still bending and folding, as if the past Kakashi knew was being rewritten once more. There were subtle shifts, changes in the way people interacted, the way they lived, the way they fought.

***

Kakashi’s breath caught in his chest as his eyes snapped open. The sterile white light of the hospital room hit him like a wave, cold and unfamiliar. He was lying in a bed, the soft hum of medical equipment the only sound around him. His body felt... wrong.

He tried to sit up, but a sharp pain in his chest stopped him. His hand flew to his face, fingers brushing against the mask he had come to wear, but it wasn’t there. Instead, his left eye was bandaged up.

His heart raced as the realization hit him. He was twelve years old again. He had his youthful body back, his mind still full of the memories and the heavy knowledge of everything that was to come. The war, the losses, the pain, the choices he had made to protect his friends, to change the world. But none of it had happened yet. His life—his second chance—had just begun.

Before he could process it, the door to the hospital room opened. A young medic-nin walked in, a familiar face—she was the same medic who had patched him up during his earlier missions.

“Ah, you’re awake,” she said softly, checking the various medical readouts on the devices beside his bed. “You’ve been through a lot. How are you feeling, Kakashi?”

Kakashi blinked at her, still dazed. His throat felt dry, and the words didn't come easily. But the strange sense of déjà vu clung to him as he tried to push past the confusion.

“How long was I out?” he finally croaked, his voice sounding alien in his young body.

“A few days. You’re lucky. You took some serious hits during that mission. You should rest for a while longer,” she said, smiling kindly.

But Kakashi wasn’t focused on her words. His mind was racing, replaying everything he’d experienced in the space between worlds—the endless ocean, the mysterious figure, the heavy decisions... And now, here he was again, given another chance to change everything.

In a beat, he was hugged by his sensei, who got here as soon as Kakashi's chakra signature.

The moment felt surreal, as if time itself had splintered into two separate realities. Kakashi’s chest tightened as his sensei’s embrace enveloped him. The warmth of the hug was a strange comfort in a body that felt foreign to him—his twelve-year-old self, yet filled with the memories and burdens of a man who had lived through far too many lifetimes.

He swallowed hard, pushing against the wave of emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. His mind was racing, his memories fractured and scattered, but one thought was crystal clear: he had changed the course of history. He had saved Obito.

"Kakashi," his sensei murmured softly, his voice full of relief, "you gave me a scare there."

Kakashi's throat tightened as he pulled away slightly, looking up at the older man. He had to remind himself that everything had shifted, that this was a new timeline, a second chance. He opened his mouth to speak but found his words trapped in his chest. What could he say? “I'm fine?” It wasn’t enough. Not when the entire world was still on the edge of a precipice.

His sensei studied him, sensing the turmoil inside. “It’s alright, Kakashi,” he said with a quiet smile, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. 

Kakashi nodded, but a chill crept through him. This was a second chance, but it was also a new burden. What had he truly changed? What had he prevented? What was still to come?

“Sensei,” Kakashi began, his voice hoarse, “what happened after you-know, how are Rin and Obito?”

His sensei blinked, clearly surprised by the question. “You did well. Rin got discharged a while ago, she's with her family. Obito is stable but in a comatose state, his other half is... You got hit pretty hard, too. How are you feeling?”

“I’m… fine.” The words felt hollow in his mouth, too simple to explain everything that had just happened to him. He wasn't fine. He wasn’t sure what he was. He had been to a place beyond time and space, had met a figure who had pushed him back into this life. And now, the weight of his decision was just beginning to settle in.

"You’ve been through a lot, Kakashi. You’ll need time to process everything." his voice was calm and reassuring, but Kakashi couldn't help but feel like there was more to it. More he wasn’t saying.

His hand instinctively moved to his bandaged eye, but the weight of his new eye, the one that had been reshaped by the gift he had been given, felt... different. A new power, a new life... and more decisions that will have to be made.

The hospital room, the warm air, the soft beeping of the machines—it all felt like a dream, like he was caught between two realities. One where everything he had known was history, and another where he was still a child, with the future yet to unfold.

"I wasn't fast enough, I apologize" Minato said solemnly. 

Kakashi's gaze lingered on Minato, the weight of the words that had just been spoken hanging in the air. His sensei's voice, full of guilt, cut through the haze of confusion that still clouded his mind. Kakashi's chest tightened as he tried to find his bearings in this unfamiliar situation.

"Sensei," Kakashi started, his voice quieter than he intended, "None of us were prepared for what happened." The words felt strange on his tongue, as if they didn't belong to this moment.

Minato’s expression softened, though there was still an underlying tension in his features. He seemed to study Kakashi, like he was searching for something in his eyes that wasn’t there. Something that would reassure him. But Kakashi was beyond reassurance; he had lived through the worst of it.

"I failed you once," Minato murmured, his voice tight. "I left you with so much to carry. Even now, I see it in your eyes—the burden you’re already shouldering."

Kakashi’s fingers twitched slightly, betraying the internal struggle he was trying so hard to suppress. The weight of everything he'd seen, the things he'd been through, was still there, but he couldn't -wouldn't- let Minato in on the truth. Not yet. Not when the timeline was still so fragile.

"I don’t have all the answers," Kakashi replied, his voice steady as he looked up at his sensei, "But I know this—we don’t have to keep making the same mistakes. We can still fix things. Together."

Minato looked at him, searching his face, but Kakashi didn't break. He couldn't. His young body, the familiar ache of his eye, everything about this moment felt so foreign, but his mind—the one that had seen too many wars, too much loss—was clear. He had to protect this timeline, even if it meant leaving behind the people he’d once fought beside. It wasn’t about them knowing. It was about ensuring they never had to face what he had.

Minato’s face softened, the burden of his own guilt momentarily lifting as he nodded, though there was still something unresolved in his expression. "You’ve always been strong, Kakashi. You've always tried to carry all of this alone, remember I'm here."

Kakashi held his sensei’s gaze for a moment longer before shifting his attention to his bandaged eye. 

The silence between them lingered, heavy with unspoken words. The future, so uncertain and yet so clearly in his hands, loomed like a storm on the horizon.

"I’m fine," Kakashi said quietly, more to reassure himself than anyone else. "Really. I just… need to process."

Before Minato could respond, the door creaked open, and Kakashi’s heart skipped a beat at the familiar voice. Rin.

She stepped into the room with that same warm, concerned expression she’d always had. Her eyes landed on Kakashi, and a soft smile tugged at her lips, though she could tell something was off. "You’re awake," she said gently, her voice soft as she checked the various readouts on the equipment beside his bed. "How do you feel?"

Kakashi blinked, trying to push past the disorienting rush of memories and emotions. His voice came out rough. "How long… was I out?"

"A few days," Rin answered with a reassuring smile. "You were lucky. You took some heavy hits, but you’ll be alright. Just take it easy."

Kakashi nodded absently, his gaze drifting to the bandages, to the new life stretching out before him. This world… the one where Obito is still alive, where Rin and Minato are here with him. The same faces, but everything is so different.

He looked at Rin, the girl who would one day carry the weight of the same world they were all trying to protect. And yet, in this moment, she was just Rin. Innocent. Full of hope.

"I’m fine," Kakashi repeated, though the words still felt too small for the depth of everything he had lived through. "Just getting used to it."

She gave him a curious look but didn’t press. Instead, she smiled softly and said, "Well, you’re going to need rest. Let’s make sure you’re properly looked after, okay?"

Kakashi nodded again, grateful for her simplicity. This is where it all begins again, he thought, staring at his hands as though they might offer him an answer. He had been given a second chance, but now he needed to navigate this new path carefully. He couldn’t let the future he had come from define what happened now.

A moment passed in comfortable silence, before Minato's voice cut through the stillness. "You’ve always been a tough kid, Kakashi. But remember, you don’t have to face everything alone. You have people who care about you."

The words hit harder than Kakashi expected. His chest tightened at the reminder of what he stood to lose, and yet, this new timeline held so many possibilities. What if… what if we can change it all?

As Rin and Minato continued talking quietly at the foot of his bed, Kakashi felt a new resolve solidify within him. His second chance wasn’t about undoing the past—it was about ensuring a different future. He might not be able to protect everyone, but he could be the one to make sure they didn’t fall into the same traps he once had.

This time, he would fight differently. Not for revenge or redemption, but for something simpler. Something worth protecting.

As he closed his eyes, the strange pulse of the energy deep inside him thrummed softly, reminding him of the weight he now carried. But Kakashi wasn’t afraid anymore.

"I won’t fail again," he whispered to himself, more certain than ever that the future wasn’t set in stone. This time, he would shape it, one choice at a time.

Chapter Text

The wind whispered through the long grass atop the ridge, brushing against silver hair that had no business being so pale at twelve years old. Kakashi sat there alone, limbs folded neatly, spine straight, like a soldier. He watched his village below with a gaze too steady for a boy his age. Konoha basked in the amber light of early evening, peaceful and oblivious.

He knew what was coming.

Not just the next mission or the next skirmish on the border—no, he remembered everything. Every mistake. Every loss. Every death. Somehow, impossibly, he had returned to this moment in time, to this body, this age. Twelve. Jonin by rank, but just a child in frame.

He wasn’t supposed to be here.

And yet here he sat.

The skyline of the Hidden Leaf hadn’t yet changed with war. The Hokage Monument still bore only three faces. The Fourth’s would not be carved for years yet—though Kakashi had seen it. Touched the stone once, with fingertips trembling, long after Minato-sensei was gone.

He closed his eyes against the ache building behind them.

Down in the streets, life went on in its ordinary rhythm. Children chased each other with paper shuriken, civilians called out prices in the market square, and shinobi passed silently over rooftops, unaware of the boy on the hill who knew too much.

Kakashi pulled his mask higher. It was instinct more than anything. Familiar. A shield. He didn’t need it yet—not for the scars or the reputation or the ghosts—but it still made him feel like himself, even if the lines around his eyes were gone and his voice hadn’t yet dropped into the cool monotone people would one day fear and admire.

He let out a breath.

So what now?

He hadn’t asked to return. Hadn’t been given a mission or a vision or some hokey chakra-based redemption arc. He had simply woken up—in his old bed, in the Hatake estate, with his father still gone and the morning light slanting across wooden floors as if nothing had ever happened. As if Obito wasn’t dead. As if Rin’s blood didn’t stain his hands. As if the war hadn’t already stolen everything.

Kakashi tilted his head skyward. The clouds moved slow and serene.

He didn’t want to be a god. He didn’t want the burden of foresight. But the names echoed in his skull—Namikaze Minato, Uchiha Obito, Nohara Rin, Might Guy, Sarutobi Asuma, Uchiha Itachi, Uzumaki Naruto…

He could change things.

That tampering with fate, with time, was reckless—selfish, even. 

But no. The future was delicate. A string pulled too tight could snap.

And Kakashi didn’t know how many threads he could afford to cut before the whole world unraveled.

Kakashi sat with that knowledge in silence, the weight of it pressing against his shoulders like wet cloth. Then he stood.

There was something he had to do.

…

He remembered every move, every breath. He remembered what would come after.

Time was slipping.

The Third Shinobi War was already gnawing at the edges of the map, devouring border towns and leaving scorched villages behind. And Kakashi—Kakashi remembered how bad it would get.

And how many they’d lose.

So he moved fast, down from the ridge and through the village. He ignored the chatter of markets, the clatter of blacksmiths, the sweet-smoke scent of takoyaki. He headed for a house on the east side of town. A humble one. Neat, but a little worn around the edges.

Might Duy had died three days ago.

Again.

Kakashi remembered the funeral from his first life. He hadn’t gone. He hadn’t even spoken to Gai. He’d told himself they weren’t close. That it wasn’t his place. That he didn’t care.

He had.

But pride had made him cold, and cold had made him alone.

This time, he knocked.

The door creaked open after a pause. Gai stood there, still in his dull green jumpsuit, hair mussed, eyes red from crying he was probably too proud to admit to. His energy was dimmed—still burning, but dulled like a torch running out of oil.

“Ka—Kakashi?” Gai blinked, surprised. “What’re you—?”

“I heard,” Kakashi said, voice quiet. “About your father.”

Gai swallowed hard. “Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”

Silence stretched awkwardly between them. In another life, Kakashi would’ve used that silence to walk away.

Not this one.

“I’m not good at this,” Kakashi admitted, hands in his pockets. “But I’m here.”

Gai turned toward him, tears brimming again, raw and exposed in a way Kakashi could barely understand—but it hit something inside him, sharp and true.

“You don’t have to be good at it,” Gai said. His voice cracked. “You’re here.”

Kakashi wasn’t sure he could save everyone.

But maybe this—this—was where it started.

***

He didn’t head to the hospital right away.

The sky had shifted, the amber of dusk deepening into early twilight, shadows lengthening across the village like reaching fingers. Kakashi moved quietly, instinctively, his chakra masked without thought. The rooftops were familiar beneath his feet. The village sounds faded behind him.

He knew where Rin lived.

Not because he’d ever visited her house—not in the other life, not really—but because he’d memorized every street she walked. Every shortcut she took to the Academy. Every window light that stayed on when she studied late into the night.

Her family was civilian. Quiet. Kind. He remembered her father smiling awkwardly at a graduation ceremony, and her mother’s neatly packed onigiri during missions. Ordinary people. Good people.

He perched on a rooftop across the street, half-hidden behind a rusted chimney.

Her house looked just the same.

Modest and a little worn, with laundry lines stretching between balconies and a garden of overgrown herbs Rin refused to let her mother trim. A single paper lantern glowed above the doorway. Light spilled through the curtains of the living room.

And then—there she was.

Rin stepped into view, barefoot on the wooden porch. She was carrying a bucket of water and a small towel, humming something soft under her breath as she knelt beside a row of potted plants. Her hair was pulled into a loose braid. Her movements were careful, patient.

Kakashi’s breath caught in his throat.

She looked so alive.

It was stupid, he thought. It wasn’t like he’d forgotten her face. He remembered it better than his own. But memory dulled over time, even the sharpest pain. And now, seeing her like this—here—it knocked the air from his lungs.

He crouched there for a long moment, watching. 

Kakashi hadn’t seen her since—since before it all. Since the mission. Since Obito pushed him out of the way. Since the earth swallowed half their team.

Since he killed her. Would kill her. Might still kill her.

He forced that thought down, shoved it into the part of his mind that already pulsed with too many memories.

Now wasn’t the time.

She smiled at something someone inside said—her mother, probably. Maybe a sibling. The sound of laughter drifted out a moment later. Not hers, but close.

She looked okay.

That shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did. Kakashi had buried the image of her bloodied and broken so deep it felt like the only one that existed. But here she was. Whole. Breathing. Bright-eyed. She looked toward the stars and sighed, her expression soft and thoughtful, the way she always got when she thought no one was watching.

She was alive.

Kakashi’s fingers curled tight around the edge of the roof tile beneath him.

She didn’t know how close she’d come to dying. How many futures had already stolen her away. She didn’t know what he’d done, or what he might still do. She didn’t know that he was a time-displaced failure of a teammate who had no business standing here in the dark, acting like a guardian ghost.

But still he stayed.

He lingered just a little longer watching over her, like Obito would’ve wanted.

***

Kakashi moved like a shadow, neither rushing nor stalling. He knew exactly where he was going.

Obito. 

Still breathing when they laid him in the sterile bed with its pale sheets and humming monitors.

He hadn’t woken up.

Not in this timeline.

Not yet.

Kakashi slipped past the front desk without a word. The nurse didn’t stop him. The Hatake name still carried weight, and his rank—even at twelve—was stamped in every stride.

He took the stairs.

Room 212. End of the hall.

He hesitated outside the door.

In another life, Obito had died beneath a mountain of stone. Kakashi had walked away with a new eye, a new promise, and an old wound that never closed.

But this time, the rock hadn’t taken him. Not fully.

Madara hadn’t taken him. Not yet.

And Kakashi wasn’t sure which version was worse.

He stepped inside.

The room was dim. Machines beeped quietly, steady and detached. Obito lay motionless beneath thin blankets, his face turned to the window, bandages wrapped like a mask around his broken skull. Only one eye—his eye—was visible. Closed. Still.

Kakashi approached slowly. He didn't know what he expected. Some flicker of recognition? A shift in chakra? A miracle?

None came.

“Hey,” he said softly, settling into the chair beside the bed. His voice felt strange in the sterile air—too young, too small. “I, uh… I don’t know if you can hear me. Probably not. But…”

He trailed off.

Obito didn’t move.

Kakashi folded his hands in his lap. The silence was heavy.

“I saw Gai,” he said finally. “I went to his house. Talked to him. Weird, right? I… didn’t do that before, at least not at this age.”

Still nothing.

Kakashi sighed.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Obito.” His voice cracked just a little. “I think I’m supposed to fix things. But I don’t know how to do that without breaking something else.”

He looked down at the bandaged figure before him. His friend. His burden. His second chance.

“I don’t know if you’re ever going to wake up,” he whispered. 

Obito looked impossibly small.

Kakashi approached slowly, each step thick with something he couldn’t name. Guilt, maybe. Or dread. Or the ache of impossible things.

“I’m here,” he said quietly, pulling a chair beside the bed.

The words felt foolish. Not enough. But he said them anyway.

He sat in silence for a while. Watched Obito’s chest rise and fall with machine-prompted precision. He didn’t touch him. Didn’t speak more. Just sat—like penance. Like prayer.

He remembered Obito’s hand closing around his once, bloody and shaking. “Take care of Rin,” he’d said. “And… don’t throw away your friends.”

Kakashi stared at that same hand now, still and pale beneath the blankets. He swallowed.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted. “But I’m trying.”

The monitor continued its rhythm. The only reply.

He stayed there until the window darkened and the shadows stretched long across the floor.

***

By the time Kakashi made it to the Uzumaki-Namikaze residence, the lanterns were already lit.

The house sat tucked between two quiet streets just east of the Hokage Tower—modest by shinobi standards, but full of little touches that screamed Kushina. Wind chimes clinked under the eaves. Potted herbs lined the windows. A faint hum of chakra-sealing kanji shimmered across the front step—not because they were paranoid, but because Minato was Minato.

Kakashi hesitated before knocking.

It still felt strange, coming here. Living here. It had been part of the deal: early hospital discharge under the condition that he stay somewhere monitored, somewhere safe. Not that he was a danger—but Minato had looked at him that day, truly looked, and known something was off. The man had always seen through him too easily. Minato had suggested it gently, with that maddening mix of kindness and strategy he always wielded so well.

"You’ll rest here," he’d said, eyes soft but firm. "That’s non-negotiable."

Kushina had folded her arms across her chest, fiery as ever. “And you will eat real food. No sneaking out for instant noodles.”

Kakashi hadn’t argued. Not because he agreed, but because he was tired. And because a part of him—buried deep—wanted to be near them. Just a little longer.

The door opened before he even knocked.

“Kakashi!” Kushina’s voice was warm and a little too loud, her chakra flaring just slightly as she pulled the door wider. “You missed dinner. Again.”

“I wasn’t hungry,” he mumbled, stepping inside.

She arched a brow but didn’t argue. She never did—not about that, at least. She’d stopped trying to force him into meals after the second time he’d barely touched his plate. Now she just left food in the fridge with a sticky note and a doodle of a fox making a pouty face.

The house smelled like rice and grilled fish and something sweet—azuki beans, maybe. It was painfully normal.

Kakashi toed off his sandals and moved to head upstairs. 

“You went to see Obito.”

It wasn’t a question.

Kakashi didn’t answer at first. Then: “Yeah.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Alive.”

Kushina sighed, rubbing her temples. “Minato visited earlier. Said the medics don’t know if—or when—he’ll wake up.”

“I know.”

Silence hung thick between them.

“He’ll wake up,” she said firmly. “He’s too stubborn not to.”

“He looked peaceful,” Kakashi said at last. “Like he’s just… sleeping.”

Kushina gave him a look. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“No.”

Another pause. Then, softer: “But it makes me feel less alone.”

Kushina blinked. Her expression softened. “You’re not alone, you know.”

“I know,” he said. And he meant it. But there was a hollowness to the truth.

“Minato’s in his study,” Kushina called after him, not quite stopping him, but definitely making sure he knew. “He wanted to talk to you.”

Kakashi paused at the landing. “About what?”

She shrugged from the kitchen doorway, drying her hands with a towel. “He didn’t say. But you’ve got that storm-cloud look again, so I’m guessing he noticed something.”

Of course he did.

Kakashi nodded, then changed direction, heading down the short hall instead of up.

Minato’s study door was open a crack, light spilling through onto the tatami mat. Kakashi knocked lightly—more out of form than necessity.

“Come in,” Minato said gently.

The room was tidy, scrolls and files stacked in neat arrangements, maps pinned to the walls. The Fourth Hokage wasn’t Hokage yet—but even now, he carried himself with that quiet authority, like the world didn’t weigh less on him, just more evenly.

Minato looked up from his desk, pen still in hand.

“You visited Obito today.”

Kakashi didn’t flinch. “Yeah.”

“Good,” Minato said, setting the pen down. “I think he’d like that.”

Kakashi folded his arms, leaning against the doorframe. “He didn’t respond.”

“He’s still here,” Minato replied, soft. “That’s something.”

They sat in silence a moment. Then Minato tilted his head, watching him closely.

“You’re not sleeping.”

Kakashi didn’t reply.

“I can assign you something small,” Minato offered. “Something routine. Patrol, genin evaluations. Keep you moving without pushing too hard.”

“I don’t want to babysit genin.”

Minato gave a faint smile. “No, I didn’t think so.”

He stood, crossing to the cabinet in the corner. Pulled out a scroll and handed it over.

“Tomorrow morning. Border watch rotation. You’ll be back before sundown.”

Kakashi took it. “Thanks.”

“And Kakashi?”

He looked up.

“You don’t have to fix everything all at once.”

Kakashi’s grip on the scroll tightened. “I’m not trying to.”

Minato didn’t push. Just nodded. “Alright.”

Kakashi left the study quietly, scroll tucked under his arm.

Upstairs, his temporary room still smelled faintly of clove and sage—Kushina had smudged it with incense after he moved in. His gear was folded neatly on the floor. The bed was made.

He lay back on the futon, staring at the ceiling.

Outside, the wind whispered again. The kind of wind that carried warnings.

Tomorrow, he’d be back on the borders. Back near the edge of the war.

He closed his eyes, and this time, sleep came like a shadow.

Chapter Text

The weight of the headache had become unbearable, the kind that gnaws at your thoughts like a relentless beast, leaving no room for clarity. Fugaku massaged his temple, the sharp, pulsing pain almost familiar by now, but no less frustrating. The Elders had been breathing down his neck more than usual, their demands and questions growing increasingly insistent. They were never pleased with anything. But today... today was different. Today, it was about Obito.

Fugaku’s thoughts drifted, back to when the boy was still a child, barely out of the academy. He didn't remember much of Obito, not enough to feel any real connection. What he did remember, however, was the faint recollection that his wife had helped Obito’s grandmother babysit him. An insignificant connection, one buried under the years of clan politics, but still there, lingering like a bitter aftertaste.

Yet that boy—Obito—had somehow found a way to claw his way into the fold of clan discourse. What had once been a nuisance now felt like a growing infection, spreading quickly. The incident with the Sharingan... giving away his eye to Hatake Kakashi… That was the issue. The moment the Elders heard of it, it was as if a switch had been flipped. Their collective disapproval hit Fugaku like a storm.

He couldn’t understand it fully. Obito was just a child—reckless, naive, full of ideals, perhaps—but he’d made a decision. A foolish decision, but a decision nonetheless. Handing over the Sharingan to Kakashi, a boy from the Hatake clan, a foreigner to the Uchiha legacy, had sent waves of tension rippling through the Council. The Elders, old and stuck in their ways, were horrified by it. The Sharingan was a precious gift of the Uchiha Clan, a power that was meant to stay within the family, a legacy that had been passed down for generations.

But here was Obito, handing it to someone who wasn’t even worthy. Worse still, it was Hatake Kakashi. Kakashi was talented, yes, and no one could deny that. But the thought of an outsider, a non-Uchiha, wielding their bloodline’s most powerful gift—it grated on Fugaku's every nerve.

The Elders had made their stance clear—they wanted to see Obito punished for his disobedience. Fugaku was their clan head, their representative, and as much as they respected his authority, they expected him to handle this matter swiftly. And yet… he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not entirely.

A part of Fugaku understood why Obito had done it. The boy had looked up to Kakashi. But that was the issue. Idealism. It was dangerous, reckless. Kakashi, a child of war, with no place in the heart of the Uchiha, was now bound by a symbol of their bloodline, and that terrified the Elders.

The ramifications were vast, unknown, and impossible to predict.

Yet, Fugaku couldn’t deny the sting in his chest when he thought about it too much. His clan’s traditions, their very core, were being questioned by their own. Obito had thrown away something precious, not out of malice but out of a misguided belief in friendship and loyalty. The clan elders, in their usual wisdom, saw nothing but betrayal in it. Fugaku, in his quiet moments, wondered if they were right. And yet, if he acted with too much force, if he crushed the boy’s spirit under the weight of the clan’s expectations, he risked losing something deeper.

Could he really bring himself to punish Obito, who had already paid for his actions with guilt and sorrow? He’d seen it in the boy’s eyes, that uncertainty, that realization of the consequences of his choice. Fugaku wasn't blind to the emotions that had clouded Obito’s judgment.

But then there was the matter of the future. The council was demanding answers. They were pushing him, squeezing him into a corner with no room for compromise. The Uchiha were growing restless, their patience thin, and Fugaku could feel the tightening grip of the elders in every conversation. He had to do something. He had to take control of the situation.

As his headache throbbed with increasing intensity, Fugaku leaned back in his chair. He couldn’t let this go on much longer. The clan’s future was at stake, but so was the future of the boy who had once been a potential prodigy of the Uchiha.

The question was no longer just about Obito. It was about what it meant to be Uchiha. Fugaku’s resolve hardened as he stood from his chair, his mind already turning over the difficult decision that lay ahead. The cost of keeping the clan united, of maintaining tradition, had always been high. But now, with the weight of the clan’s eyes upon him, it felt heavier than ever.

There were no easy answers. But that’s what it meant to be the Uchiha clan head.

Fugaku closed his eyes, his headache only growing worse as he prepared for what was to come.

***

The scroll was thick with names, the list of reinforcements heading out to the border patrol. The Third Great Ninja War raged on, a constant reminder of the fragile peace the villages struggled to maintain, and the unending bloodshed that came with it. It had been the cause of countless losses, but it had also forged bonds, tested resolve, and highlighted the true cost of leadership. Fugaku read through the names one by one, each one a familiar face from his clan, or from allies they had worked with for years.

But there was one name that stood out among them: Hatake Kakashi.

Fugaku’s fingers hovered over the boy’s name. Hatake... Kakashi. Of course.

The Elders were pressuring him for answers about Obito, but this was an opportunity. If he could speak with Kakashi, assess the boy’s potential, perhaps even test him... He could gain the insight he needed to decide how to handle the situation. And so, the decision was made.

The moment the scroll was sealed, Fugaku's mind was already on the path ahead. He would go to receive Kakashi himself.

...

It had taken Fugaku some time to track down Kakashi’s unit. The boy was likely focused on his mission, on his orders, and would not expect a visit from someone like Fugaku. But there was something important in this meeting. Kakashi’s presence on the battlefield, the way he carried himself—these were things Fugaku needed to assess for himself.

When Fugaku finally spotted Kakashi among the reinforcements, the boy was hard at work, his focus entirely on the task at hand. He was surrounded by soldiers, moving with a precision that Fugaku couldn't help but respect. There was something about the way he operated—efficient, detached, calm under pressure.

Fugaku walked forward, his expression unreadable as he approached Kakashi. The boy paused, his eyes flickering up to meet Fugaku’s, the sharpness in those eyes telling Fugaku everything he needed to know. Kakashi was alert. Kakashi was aware.

“Hatake Kakashi,” Fugaku began, his voice steady but carrying the weight of authority. “I’ve heard much about you. Your reputation precedes you.”

Kakashi nodded, his mask shifting slightly as he spoke. “I’m just doing my job, Uchiha-sama. What brings you out here?”

Fugaku studied him for a moment, weighing the words he would say next. He wasn’t sure if Kakashi understood just how important this encounter was, but Fugaku had no time to waste.

“I’ve come to see you in action,” Fugaku said bluntly. “The Elders have asked about your abilities, particularly with the Sharingan. It is... a unique position you’re in, one that demands attention.”

Kakashi’s eyes flickered briefly, but his posture remained casual, unfazed. Fugaku noted the lack of nervousness, a sign of Kakashi’s control.

“I don’t put much thought into it,” Kakashi replied. “The Sharingan isn’t really something I focus on. It’s just... part of me now.”

Fugaku couldn’t help but admire Kakashi’s composure. But it was also a problem. That kind of detachment, that lack of concern—it made him unpredictable. And that, in the Uchiha clan’s eyes, was both dangerous and fascinating.

---

The clang of steel, the hiss of kunai slicing air, and the dull, rhythmic thunder of distant jutsu echoed across the charred valley. Kakashi moved like a ghost between shadows, striking hard, fast, and without hesitation. He didn’t use the Sharingan. He didn’t need to.

This wasn’t about impressing anyone. Not about victory, either. For Kakashi—future Kakashi—this was training. Rebuilding. Reforging. Every enemy downed without ninjutsu, every wound dodged without chakra enhancement, was another weight added to the foundation he needed to reshape. His raw strength, honed through years of future battles, was being tempered now with discipline and control.

But from the outside, few could see that. Especially not the Uchiha.

To them, he looked like a prodigy flaunting his superiority, throwing himself into combat with a cold arrogance that came from talent rather than experience. They saw a boy younger than most of them, moving through enemy ranks with disdainful ease and not even activating the Sharingan that had cost their clan dearly.

How dare he, some thought. How little he values the eye.

Fugaku watched from the ridge above, his arms folded, eyes narrowed. His face was unreadable. The other Uchiha with him whispered among themselves, some barely concealing their resentment. But Fugaku? He said nothing.

He had seen the boy's footwork. The deliberate restraint in his movements. That wasn’t arrogance—that was control. The kind born from long, painful experience. Fugaku couldn’t explain how he knew, only that he’d seen enough real killers to know one when he saw one.

---

He was much too young to be here.

Barely five years old, Itachi stood under the watchful eye of a jōnin escort. He hadn’t been sent to fight, only to observe. Fugaku had insisted it would “open his eyes.” And it had. The blood, the desperation, the lives lost for inches of land—it had changed something in him already.

But then he saw him.

Kakashi Hatake.

He moved like no one else Itachi had ever seen. Efficient. Silent. Focused. His strikes were clean and final. He didn’t play with his enemies. He didn’t hesitate.

Itachi didn’t know why, but something inside him stirred. Admiration, maybe. A strange kind of curiosity. There was something about the silver-haired boy, something behind the coldness of his mask that felt... familiar. Like a shadow Itachi couldn’t quite touch.

“Who is that?” he asked his escort.

“That’s Hatake Kakashi,” the jōnin replied. “Son of the White Fang. Has the Sharingan, thanks to that Uchiha brat—Obito.”

Itachi said nothing more. He just kept watching, eyes wide and unblinking. His father had told him the Sharingan was sacred, that it was the soul of their clan. But this boy... he wielded it like it was just another weapon. And somehow, that intrigued Itachi more than it offended him.

---

He landed after another skirmish, breath steady despite the exertion. Blood stained his gloves, but it wasn’t his. Around him, the others whispered, stared, judged. He didn’t care.

But then his eyes fell on him—a child standing far too close to war.

Kakashi stiffened.

Itachi.

So small. So quiet. So much weight already pressed into those tiny shoulders. The sight of him pulled Kakashi straight back into the dark future—the massacre, the ANBU mask, the lonely death. Itachi, walking the tightrope between duty and despair, alone in a web of manipulation.

Kakashi’s chest tightened.

Not this time.

He looked away, forcing his mind back into the present. He couldn’t let emotion crack through his carefully built mask. Not here. Not now.

But deep down, something in him had shifted. Seeing Itachi again, so young and unscarred, reminded him of everything he had returned to stop. The boy didn’t know it yet, but Kakashi had come back not just for his friends or the village—but for all of them.

Especially him.

---

Itachi’s eyes never left Kakashi. He had always been taught to value control above all else, to temper his strength with precision. But Kakashi... Kakashi’s movements were something else entirely. His control was in his restraint, his ability to finish a fight before it even began. Itachi felt his heart quicken with an unfamiliar excitement. The battle itself didn’t matter to him, not right now. What mattered was the gap between them. The gap he had to close.

Without thinking, he drew a kunai from his pouch and began moving, slow and deliberate, weaving through the smoke and bodies.

At first, he tried to stay low, to avoid drawing attention to himself, but then, the thrill of the challenge overtook him. He wasn't trying to win, but simply to keep up, to see if he could match Kakashi’s rhythm.

The first enemy he encountered was swiftly dispatched with a flick of his wrist. His Sharingan flared to life, briefly. A quick, efficient kill. Itachi moved on, glancing over at Kakashi.

Kakashi was still dancing through the chaos, effortlessly slashing down enemy after enemy. And despite the difference in experience, despite the years that separated them, Itachi felt something stir deep in his chest—he could see the edge of Kakashi’s power, but it was far from unreachable.

He moved faster now, closing the distance.

---

Kakashi, mid-swing, caught a fleeting glimpse of movement in the corner of his eye. He turned, just for a second, and there he was.

Itachi.

The young Uchiha was already deep into the fray, his eyes sharp, his kunai flying with speed and precision.

Kakashi’s brow furrowed slightly. What was he doing here?

He couldn't help but respect the boy's focus, even in the chaos of battle. Itachi wasn’t reckless, not by any means. His steps were cautious, calculated. He moved in a way that seemed almost too mature for someone so young. But Kakashi knew—it was that very maturity, that control, that would eventually make Itachi dangerous. He could see the potential.

But Kakashi had no time to analyze the boy right now. Itachi was small, out of his depth here, and Kakashi couldn't afford to take his eyes off the battle. He wasn’t about to babysit. He wasn’t going to let this kid get himself killed.

He stepped forward, intercepting a sudden attack from a hidden enemy, his kunai slicing through the air with brutal efficiency. When he turned back, he saw Itachi still keeping pace, moving faster now, his Sharingan flaring ever so slightly as he adjusted his steps to match the rhythm of the battle.

Kakashi smirked, just the tiniest hint of amusement breaking through his usual stoicism.

So, he wants to test himself, huh?

The boy was trying to keep up, trying to prove something to himself. To Kakashi. He couldn’t help but admire the tenacity in Itachi, even if it was dangerous.

But just as quickly as the thought flashed through his mind, Kakashi's focus snapped back to the task at hand. There was no time for distractions.

---

The smoke was starting to clear from the battlefield, leaving behind the charred remnants of battle. The distant sound of soldiers regrouping and the faint groan of the injured was all that could be heard. Kakashi stood still for a moment, wiping his kunai clean, his mind replaying the events of the fight. But even as his body was cooling down, his thoughts were in a whirlpool of conflicting emotions.

Then he heard a soft footfall behind him. Kakashi didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

Itachi.

The young Uchiha stood there, his face dusted with grime, his Sharingan now dormant. His posture was stiff, controlled, but there was something about his eyes—something familiar and unsettling. Kakashi, despite his usually unflappable composure, couldn’t shake the feeling that he was looking at a reflection of something far darker. The future version of Itachi—the one he had tried so hard to stop, the one who would be a cold and distant killer, the sacrificial lamb because the adults failed to protect the young generation—was standing right there in front of him, young, still innocent, yet already beginning to carry the weight of his clan’s expectations.

This is not how it was supposed to go, Kakashi thought, but his voice remained calm as he spoke.

“You held your own out there,” Kakashi said, his words clipped but not unkind. He didn’t know how else to open the conversation.

The silence between them felt thick, awkward, like two people who were trying to speak but had no words to bridge the gap. “Not bad for someone your age.”

Itachi simply nodded, his eyes never leaving Kakashi’s face. “I can do better,” he replied, his voice quiet but firm.

Kakashi let out a breath, resisting the urge to smile. Of course, he can. That kind of drive, that self-assurance—it was the same thing he had seen in Sasuke when he was younger. He could see it now in Itachi, but more disturbing than that was the calmness in Itachi’s words. It reminded him too much of Sasuke’s own hunger for validation, the loneliness behind every one of those words.

Kakashi couldn’t stop himself from speaking again, his thoughts bubbling to the surface before he could stop them.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” Kakashi said, the words slipping out before he could filter them. “You’ll get there, eventually. But don’t forget—there’s more to strength than just getting better.”

Itachi’s gaze shifted slightly, a hint of curiosity flickering in those sharp, calculating eyes. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Kakashi paused for a moment, unsure of how to explain himself. How could he put it into words? How could he tell this boy, this prodigy, that the path he was walking—this single-minded determination—could easily turn into something darker?

He shifted his weight, feeling a little uncomfortable as he glanced away, then back at Itachi. “Strength isn’t just about how much you can push yourself. It’s about understanding why you’re pushing in the first place.” His voice softened, though the words still carried weight. “You won’t always have someone to measure yourself against. Eventually, you’ll have to face yourself, and that’s a harder fight than any of these battles.”

Itachi stared at him for a long moment, processing the words in silence. Kakashi didn’t expect the boy to understand right away. He was too young for that, too focused on climbing higher, on being better. But there was something else in his eyes now—a slight shift, as if Kakashi had said something that resonated with him, even if Itachi couldn’t yet comprehend it fully.

“You’ve fought a lot of battles,” Itachi said, his voice quiet, almost to himself. “Do you ever... feel like it’s all just a waste?”

Kakashi blinked in surprise. It wasn’t the question he had expected. Most people didn’t ask that kind of question, especially not someone so young. But Kakashi heard something in Itachi’s tone—something familiar. The pain, the loneliness of trying to shoulder a weight too heavy for someone so young to carry.

He looked down at the ground for a moment, taking a deep breath. Itachi wasn’t asking because he wanted an answer. He was asking because he was already grappling with the same thing. The cost of being good, of being the best. Kakashi knew that feeling well.

“It’s easy to think that way,” Kakashi said quietly, his voice low. “Especially when you’re caught up in it all.” He turned to face Itachi fully, his gaze softening, though there was a weariness in his eyes. “But... the truth is, we don’t have a choice. There will always be a next fight. A next battle. And sometimes, you just have to keep moving forward, even if you’re not sure what for.”

Itachi’s eyes flicked to Kakashi’s mask, then back to his eyes.

“I see,” Itachi said, though his tone was distant, as though the full weight of the words had not yet sunk in.

The silence stretched between them again, and this time, it felt different. Less uncomfortable, but still fragile. Kakashi’s thoughts turned back to Sasuke, to the younger Uchiha, and how much of Itachi he saw in him. The hunger. The drive. The emptiness.

It was hard not to imagine that this was the same path Sasuke would walk if things went wrong. The same loneliness. The same pain. Kakashi’s heart tightened at the thought, and he couldn’t suppress the uneasy feeling growing in his chest.

“So, what’s your plan?” Kakashi asked, changing the subject in an attempt to shift the atmosphere. “You’re a Uchiha. You’ll be a shinobi of great power someday, but... what do you want to do with all of it?”

Itachi didn’t respond immediately, his gaze turning inward, as though he were contemplating something far beyond his years.

“I don’t know yet,” Itachi said after a long pause. “I’ll do what I must.”

The words were so final, so resolute, that Kakashi couldn’t help but wonder: What will you do when that decision isn’t enough?

For the briefest moment, Kakashi caught himself thinking of the future, imagining a version of Itachi that was so distant, so cold, so broken by his choices that there was nothing left of the boy who stood in front of him now. The weight of that future pressed on his chest, and Kakashi pushed it away.

“I hope,” Kakashi said softly, “you’ll find a way to do more than just what you must.”

Itachi met his eyes again, his expression unreadable. But for the first time in the conversation, there was a slight shift, a tiny crack in his usual composure. Kakashi caught it, but didn’t acknowledge it.

Instead, he nodded.

---

The battlefield was quiet now.

The last of the enemy had either fallen or fled, and what remained was only silence and the stench of scorched earth.

Fugaku Uchiha stood atop a ridge overlooking the aftermath, arms folded across his chest, his eyes narrowed in deep, calculating thought.

He had seen enough war to know when a battle was won. But this one—it wasn’t the enemy that lingered in his mind.

It was the boy.

Two boys, really.

Kakashi Hatake, the White Fang’s son. Kakashi of the Sharingan. The prodigy of a different breed.

And his own son—Itachi. Just five years old, and already stepping into a world no child should enter.

Fugaku had not told Itachi to join the skirmish, yet he had.

Not out of recklessness, but out of intent.

Itachi had chosen it.

That made it worse.

And now, Fugaku had watched him stand beside Kakashi—silent, watchful, straining to keep up. Like a shadow trying to merge with a flame.

They had spoken after the battle.

Fugaku couldn’t hear their words from where he stood, but he had seen the stillness between them.

The way both geniuses communicated without needing much at all.

It made Fugaku’s jaw tighten.

He had hoped Kakashi would be a point of comparison for Itachi—perhaps even a challenge. But instead, what he saw unsettled him.

There had been no challenge.

There had been... understanding.

Too much understanding.

Fugaku turned his gaze away from the pair, his eyes sweeping across the scattered wounded, the exhausted shinobi, and finally back to the still-smoking craters.

War was the only constant. He had long accepted it. But seeing his son down there, shoulder to shoulder with another child, forced something cold into his veins.

Kakashi had barely looked at Itachi during the battle—at least not the way others did. Not as a child. Not as a weapon either. There was something... haunted in the boy’s expression whenever his eyes fell on Itachi.

A kind of restraint.

Regret.

Fugaku didn’t like mysteries. And Kakashi is a walking one.

A genius, yes—but also a tool sharpened too quickly. 

He saw it in Itachi now too. That same dangerous stillness. That precocious silence that wasn’t innocence, but calculation. The way Itachi had watched Kakashi—not as a child watching a hero, but as a student watching a subject.

It was unnatural. And far too familiar.

Fugaku’s fingers curled tighter around his arm. He could already see the elders whispering, already feel their eyes crawling over Itachi’s performance like parasites. The clan had start pressuring him—why wait? train the boy now. sharpen him now.

As if they hadn’t already stripped enough away from him.

His son admired Kakashi. He could see it in his posture, in his quiet. And that worried him more than if Itachi had hated the boy. Admiration could be poison. Especially for a child like his.

Because Kakashi wasn’t just a prodigy.

He was a mirror.

And mirrors, Fugaku knew, didn’t only reflect your image. They showed you what you were becoming.

Fugaku exhaled through his nose, long and controlled.

He would need to speak with Kakashi again. Not as a comrade. Not as a fellow shinobi.

As a father. 

Chapter Text

The trees whispered with every passing breeze, soft and indifferent to the exhaustion etched into every shinobi's face.

Mud clung to their sandals, the scent of blood lingering faintly in the air—a scent Kakashi had long since grown numb to.

The mission had gone as expected.

A minor border skirmish, a quick interception of a Kumo scouting team, a few casualties on both sides.

Nothing out of the ordinary for the Third Great War. Kakashi walked near the rear of their small returning unit, his single visible eye dull beneath the weight of it all.

The Uchiha team, he was placed with, walked ahead, their backs straight and disciplined, though none spoke much. Tensions always ran high when the Uchiha were involved.

They passed a burned-out wagon trail as dusk began to set, shadows long across the leaf-strewn path. That was when they found them.

A group of Konoha shinobi, slumped in a ditch just off the road, their flak jackets torn and muddied.

One of them, a Chūnin, raised a weary hand as they approached.

"Halt—Konoha unit," the man rasped, clearly injured. His left leg was bound in a blood-soaked bandage.

Kakashi’s team came to a stop.

One of the Uchiha stepped forward to check on them while the others spread out in formation.

"Ambushed," the wounded man croaked. "Just two hours ago… we were escorting the medics to a forward unit. They—they must’ve tracked us..."

Another survivor coughed violently, his face pale. "We held them off as long as we could. But they didn’t want us—they wanted the medics."

Kakashi folded his arms, his stance aloof. "What enemy unit?"

"Kiri… at least, we think so. Hidden Mist," the Chūnin said bitterly. "Could’ve been rogue mercs working with them. They moved fast—cut off our escape. Five of us made it out, but the rest… they took three of the medics."

The Uchiha leader clicked his tongue. "They took hostages? That’s rare."

"It’s war," Kakashi said flatly, already glancing toward the horizon. "Not everyone fights fair."

He turned to move on—this wasn’t his unit, and while unfortunate, these kinds of losses were expected in wartime.

Medics were always targets.

Still, something tugged at him faintly.

"They were kids, mostly," one of the wounded murmured. "One was this short girl—brown hair, tied up. Gentle chakra touch. She kept healing even while we were being attacked…"

Kakashi froze mid-step.

A dull thump echoed in his ears.

Not the sound of combat.

His own heartbeat.

"Brown hair?" he asked, slowly.

His voice came quieter than intended.

The man nodded. "Yeah… quiet voice. Soft eyes. Said her name was Rin. Rin Nohara, I think."

The world narrowed.

Kakashi didn’t speak.

He just stared forward, as if looking through the mist gathering in the trees.

Of course. Of course she wouldn’t stay behind. That wasn’t who she was. Rin didn’t hide behind others—she healed them, patched them back together, even when they were already falling apart. He should’ve known she’d volunteer for frontline work. Should’ve known she wouldn’t sit idle in Konoha, not when people were bleeding in the mud.

"Kakashi," one of the Uchiha called, uncertain.

But he didn’t respond. The name echoed in his mind like a dropped kunai clanging down a dark well.

Rin. The only one who ever smiled at him without judgment.

The only one who spoke to Obito like he mattered.

The one who patched them both up when they didn’t deserve it.

The one person who had never asked for anything except to keep the team together—and now she was taken.

His jaw clenched. "Which direction?"

The wounded man blinked. "W-what?"

Kakashi stepped forward, voice sharper now. "Which direction did they take her?"

The Chūnin pointed toward the east, where the trees thickened and the air turned wet with lowland fog. “That way. Toward the river gorge. Probably trying to cross before nightfall. They had maybe six shinobi. Mist-nin, maybe some water-type users—”

But Kakashi wasn’t listening anymore. His hands had already moved, tightening the band around his forehead protector, pulling his mask a little higher. The dull ache in his bones was already fading, drowned out by something else. Purpose.

"You three—tend the wounded," Kakashi said, barely turning his head. "I’m going."

"You’re not in command," the Uchiha leader snapped.

Kakashi’s eye glinted, and for the first time that day, it burned. "I wasn’t asking for permission."

He vanished in a flicker of leaves and wind, disappearing into the forest before another word could be spoken.

...

The trees whipped past him in a blur, the sounds of the forest melting into a constant hum behind his ears. Chakra surged in his limbs—not for battle, but for speed. For once, his precision gave way to raw momentum. There was no hesitation. No calculation. Only the image of Rin, bleeding in the mist.

He should’ve paid more attention. He should’ve known she’d be on the front lines. This war was eating everyone, and Rin—Rin would never stop helping until it consumed her too.

Not again.

He couldn’t explain the twist in his chest, the coil of dread and memory and anger tightening with each stride.

Rin.

Rin.

Where are you?

They took you.

I should’ve been there. I should’ve—

Rin.

Why didn’t I see this coming? Why wasn’t I there to keep you safe?

Damn it, Rin.

You’ve always been strong, always been able to handle things. You never ask for help. But this time—this time it’s different. You’re not alone. I won’t let you be alone.

Rin.

I promised. I promised I’d protect you. That I’d never let anything happen to you. And I… I failed.

I won’t fail again.

I’ll find you. I’ll get you back, no matter what it takes.

You don’t deserve this.

You’ve always put others first, always given so much—too much. But now, I’ll be the one who keeps you safe.

Rin.

Just hold on. Please, hold on.

I’m coming for you. I’ll make sure you’re safe. You will be safe again.

Rin.

No matter what they’ve done, no matter how far they’ve gone… I won’t let them hurt you.

Rin.

I swear it. I’ll bring you back.

***

It happened so quickly.

The sound of distant rustling, a crack of a twig snapping in the brush, then—

"Sensory! We’ve got company!" a soldier shouted.

Rin’s heart skipped a beat.

She had no weapons, no ability to fight back against a proper assault.

But there was no time to think—her hands were already moving, unstrapping her medical kit, ready to perform triage if they got close enough.

The others, still trying to move in formation, began to scatter as the first few shuriken sliced through the air, whizzing dangerously close to her.

"Rin! Move!" one of the soldiers barked as they tried to push her behind a nearby tree.

But before she could react, she saw them—the enemy shinobi—emerging from the mist like shadows.

Kiri nin.

The mist.

A well-coordinated ambush.

Her heart raced, and before she could process what was happening, the fighting erupted around her.

There was no space for retreat, no time to think.

Just the blinding instinct to survive.

A figure, cloaked in shadow, appeared in front of her, moving faster than she could register. Rin tried to jump back, but it was already too late.

They moved in unison—an organized, deliberate force—and one of them reached for her, pulling her into the center of their group. The sharp sting of a kunai pressed to her neck made her freeze.

"Don't move," the voice behind her growled. "You’re coming with us."

She could feel the weight of the mission slip from her shoulders as her body tensed in terror. The realization hit her like a cold wave—she had been taken.

Before she could react, everything turned to a blur. The mist and the fighting faded into the background as she was pulled further into the shadows, away from the comrades she had tried to protect, away from the people who would be coming for her.

And the one thought that clawed at her as they dragged her deeper into the forest?

...

The first thing that hit her was the cold.

It was sharp, biting through the thin fabric of her medical uniform, and Rin immediately shivered, her body stiff and uncooperative. Her head throbbed as though she had been struck with a blunt object, and her throat burned, dry and parched. But the worst sensation was the disorienting feeling of nothingness. Her body felt as though it had been drained of energy, and when she tried to move, her arms were bound. Her eyes fluttered open, but all she saw at first was blurry gray—a misty fog that seemed to seep into her bones. She could barely make out the shape of a ceiling, or was it just the sky? She couldn’t tell. It was dim, the shadows twisting around her, playing tricks on her exhausted mind. Her breath caught in her throat.

What happened?

Panic began to seep into her chest. Her pulse quickened as she instinctively tried to push herself up, but her wrists were bound to a rough, wooden post. No... She couldn't move. The realization hit her like a wave, and she gasped, pulling at the restraints, her chest tightening in fear.

The last thing she remembered was the mission—the border run, with the rest of the medics.

The Kiri ambush. Her heart lurched.

She had tried to fight back, to use her healing jutsu to stabilize the wounded, but it had all been a blur.

There had been more of them than she expected, and they had been fast, too fast for her team to stop. And then...

The faces—

A rough jolt of memory made her stomach turn.

The rogue ninja from Kiri had surrounded them, and before she could process what was happening, she'd been grabbed.

They'd taken her.

She hadn't been able to fight back.

She had been too focused on the wounded, too focused on her duties.

She’d failed to notice the danger until it was too late.

Her heart pounded, the fear gnawing at her insides.

I have to get out.

She clenched her fists, feeling the strain of the rope cutting into her skin.

The situation was grave—she knew it. Her medical supplies were gone, and she had no chakra to spare; she had been exhausted from hours of healing on the battlefield, and now there was nothing. Only the cold, oppressive darkness around her.

She tried to recall anything about her surroundings—anything that could help her make sense of her situation. She could hear the faint sounds of movement in the distance, murmurs, and the occasional clink of metal on stone. The air was damp, with a thick, musty smell that made her gag. It felt as though she were in some underground cavern or cave system, far from any help.

No… Rin thought fiercely. Don’t panic. You’ve survived worse than this.

She closed her eyes, steadying her breath, trying to clear the panic fogging her thoughts. Focus, Rin. Focus.

Rin remembered the one thing that could pull her through—her will to protect, to help those in need. And right now, she needed to help herself, because no one else was coming to do it.

But Kakashi—Kakashi will come for me.

The thought gave her a flicker of hope, but it was quickly followed by the gnawing fear of how long would it take? She didn't know where they were, and worse—she didn’t know what the Mist nin would do to her. She had been taken because of her medical abilities. Her knowledge of healing jutsu and her ability to stabilize injured soldiers had made her an asset on the battlefield, and now she was a bargaining chip in their hands.

If they wanted information from her, or worse—if they wanted her dead—what would Kakashi do? How long would it take for him to find her?

I have to escape. I can’t wait for him.

Her eyes scanned the shadows in search of any weaknesses in her bonds. The rope was tight, too tight. Whoever had tied it had done so with purpose, but there was a slight slack near her wrists. If she could just—

A noise came from behind her. The sound of boots scraping against stone.

Rin froze, her heart stopping in her chest.

She didn’t dare move, didn’t make a sound. She could feel the presence of someone approaching, their silhouette outlined by the faint light of the fog. The figure loomed closer, then stopped a few feet away. The smell of wet earth and smoke clung to them.

"You’re awake," a voice grunted, low and grating.

Rin’s heart skipped a beat, but she kept her breathing slow and controlled. She had to keep her cool.

"I am," she replied, her voice steady. "And you’re not going to get anything out of me."

The man let out a harsh laugh. "We don’t need anything from you, medic. But it’s your luck we’ll be keeping you alive. For now."

Rin clenched her jaw, holding back her anger. She could feel the heat of frustration rising within her, but she couldn’t let it break her calm. She had to think. There had to be something—anything—that could help her escape before they decided her usefulness was spent.

She shifted her wrists slightly, just enough to test the ropes again. The slack was there. If she could get the ropes to shift just enough…

The man snorted. "You’re not going anywhere, girl. We’ll have a use for you soon enough."

But Rin wasn’t listening to him. Her mind was already racing, calculating the smallest movements she could make, the exact right pressure to put on the rope so it would loosen. Her focus narrowed. She only had one shot.

She had to get out. For herself. For Kakashi. For her village.

And if she couldn’t escape? If they did kill her… she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Not again.

Rin could hear the quiet shuffle of feet, the muffled whispers of her captors moving closer to her, but she kept her focus on the tightness of the rope around her wrists, the way it bit into her skin. Her heart raced, but she knew she couldn’t waste any energy on fear—not now.

Get out, she told herself, gritting her teeth. You have to get out.

But then, a sound sliced through the quiet—something low and guttural, a sickening growl that rattled the air and sent a chill down her spine.

Rin’s eyes darted toward the source, just in time to see one of the rogue Mist nin—their leader, by the looks of it—step forward, dragging the limp body of one of the medics from the group they had captured earlier. The medic’s face was pale, his body bruised, but he was still alive, breathing shallowly, though not for long.

And in front of Rin, he was thrown onto the ground with a thud.

The Mist nin spoke in a cold, dismissive tone. "We have our orders. The hostages will be more useful to us alive, but we can always use the jinchūriki." He looked over at the medic with a twisted smile. "Let’s see if this one’s chakra is strong enough."

Rin's pulse spiked in an instant.

No, please…

Her heart lurched as the medic, an older man with graying hair and a kind face she recognized from their travels together, was forced to kneel. His expression was one of confusion and terror, his hands shaking as he tried to stay upright. Rin could hear him muttering something under his breath, but it was drowned out by the sound of the Mist nin chanting, their hands weaving dark, forbidden seals.

The air itself seemed to grow heavier, the moisture thickening as the Mist nin performed the ritual. Rin’s stomach churned. She recognized the signs. The sealings. The ritual for bringing out the chakra of a tailed beast.

The older medic cried out suddenly, his body convulsing as dark chakra swirled around him—deep, malevolent, and powerful. He screamed, his voice breaking with the unbearable strain of being overwhelmed by the three-tailed beast sealed within him.

Rin could hardly breathe. She wanted to scream, wanted to close her eyes and block it out, but she couldn’t. She was forced to watch.

The man’s body buckled, and then something terrifying began to happen: dark, swirling chakra began to leak from him. His body arched in unnatural angles, the skin around his ribs bulging as the beast fought to break free. The medic’s mouth opened in a scream of agony—flesh tearing, chakra surging violently, and all Rin could hear was the sound of his skin ripping as he was consumed by the power of the three tails.

His body jerked violently, and for a moment, he was nothing but a trembling mass of skin and raw energy, struggling against the beast trying to escape. His face contorted in pain, and tears streamed down his cheeks, but the Mist nin were unrelenting.

"Let it loose!" their leader barked, his eyes glinting with excitement. "Let the beast rise. We need it to fight."

The man’s screams reached a crescendo, and Rin wanted to cover her ears, but her body was frozen in place, paralyzed by the horror unfolding in front of her. She could see the old medic’s eyes, wide and bloodshot, locked on her as the chakra completely consumed him, the three-tailed beast’s influence overtaking his will.

And then the beast erupted.

The man’s body exploded with a torrent of chakra, and a massive, dark form began to emerge from his back—a creature with scales and long, jagged fins. Its massive tail whipped out, sending shockwaves through the cave as the three-tailed beast roared into the air.

Rin gasped, the air leaving her lungs in a rush of horror. The entire room seemed to vibrate as the beast’s power pulsed outward. The Medic-nin was still there, but barely—his body now a mere vessel for the monstrous creature writhing to break free, its growls echoing through the air like thunder.

The Mist nin moved quickly, sealing the creature back in, trying to control it, to keep it bound within the medic’s body. But Rin could see the signs—they had only scratched the surface. The beast’s chakra was unstable, violent, and only a thin thread of control separated them from total chaos.

The older medic’s body twisted in agony, as if the chakra was tearing him apart. His screams were louder now, echoing off the stone walls as the Mist nin began chanting again, trying to restrain the beast within.

But it was no use.

Rin clenched her teeth, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. The sight of the man she had known, the medic who had cared for the injured like she did, now writhing and consumed by the three-tailed beast, was unbearable. The beast was too strong, too violent.

Rin’s thoughts were a blur, and she struggled with herself—what can I do? What can I do to help him?—but all she could do was watch in helpless horror as the scene unfolded in front of her. She couldn’t heal him—not with this level of chakra, not with the three-tailed beast trying to break free.

And that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the realization, the terrible clarity that hit her like a crashing wave.

They will do this to me too.

She could see it now—what they would try to do. The Mist nin would try to use the three-tailed beast within her. They would break her, force her to become a vessel for its destructive power, just like they had with the medic.

She had to escape. She had to get away, before it’s too late.

Tears burned in her eyes, but she blinked them back, steadying her breath. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her broken. Not while Kakashi was out there, still searching for her.

She refused to be a victim.

Then the screams stopped all at once.

One heartbeat he was there—the older medic writhing, pleading—and the next, he was gone. A deafening crack of splitting flesh and a final burst of the three-tailed beast's chakra shook the cavern. The body fell forward in a steaming heap of torn fabric and scorched bone, the last remnants of humanity crumbling under the weight of something far too massive for any human to contain.

The Mist-nin stepped back, some of them coughing, some shielding their faces from the foul smoke. One of them cursed under his breath, his voice sharp with frustration.

“He couldn’t hold it. Damn it.”

"Too weak," another hissed. "We need someone stronger. Someone younger. More resilient."

Rin felt bile rise in her throat. She was still shaking, still staring at the crumpled shell that had once been a man—someone she'd trained beside, someone who had fought for their village with everything he had. Now he was just… gone.

And then their eyes turned.

Not on her. Not yet.
On the other woman.
One of the older medics—Shiori—quiet, kind, dependable. She had a bad leg and a rough cough that never quite healed from an infection the winter prior. But she had always treated Rin like a little sister, always shielded her from the worst of the front lines when she could.

Rin saw the Mist-nin begin to move, and something in her snapped.

"No," she whispered.

One of the men stepped toward Shiori, hand already glowing with chakra-infused restraint jutsu.

“No—don’t touch her!”

They turned, surprised at the sound of her voice.

Rin’s body surged forward, rope burning her skin, but she didn’t care. She strained against the restraints with a strength that came from somewhere deep inside—beyond fear, beyond sense.

Beyond survival.

“She won’t survive it,” Rin said through gritted teeth, breath shaking. “You know she won’t.”

They didn’t stop.

The man reached for Shiori.

Rin screamed, her voice raw and shaking the damp air. “Use me instead!”

The words tore out of her throat like shrapnel. Shiori gasped, turning to her with wide eyes, horrified. “Rin—no! What are you doing?!”

“I’m younger. Stronger,” Rin said quickly, fiercely, before her voice could break. “You said it yourself. You need a vessel that can survive the three-tails, right? That won’t die before the seal is done?”

The Mist-nin paused. One of them stepped closer, studying her. His face was hidden beneath a mask, but she could feel the weight of his gaze—cold, calculating.

“She’s right,” he muttered to the others. “Her chakra’s better suited. Strong heart. Medical background. She can endure the strain longer.”

“No!” Shiori cried, struggling against her own bindings, eyes wet with tears. “Don’t take her—please, not her!”

Rin ignored her. She didn’t look away from the Mist-nin. Not even when the older one with the shaved head stepped forward, his hand outstretched.

“Unbind her,” the leader ordered.

As the ropes were cut away, Rin’s limbs collapsed beneath her. Pain flared in her shoulders and wrists, but she bit it back. She wouldn't show weakness now. She forced herself to kneel upright, shoulders square.

Shiori was screaming now. "Rin, no! This isn't what we do! You don't have to—"

"I do," Rin said, softly this time, eyes still locked forward. "I have to."

She couldn’t stop the tears sliding down her cheeks. Not from fear—though she was afraid—but because she hated this. Hated that it had to be her. Hated that no matter how hard they trained, no matter how strong they became, they were still children playing roles too big for them.

But if someone had to suffer—let it be her. Not Shiori. Not someone else’s mother, someone else’s sister.

Let it be her.

The Mist-nin began their preparations. Seals were drawn, ink smeared. A scroll was unfurled and placed in front of her. The container holding the remnant of the Three-Tails’ chakra pulsed darkly at the far end of the room.

And as Rin lowered her head, letting the chill of the stone settle beneath her knees, she thought of Kakashi.

She imagined him scolding her for being reckless.
She imagined his face—aloof but pained.

He would come for her.
She had to believe that.

But if he was too late… she’d die with her choice made.

The stone beneath her knees was freezing, but Rin didn’t flinch. She wouldn’t give them that.
She wouldn’t give him that—the one leading the ritual, a masked Mist-nin with hands too calm and eyes too dead for what he was about to do.

The circle of seals painted around her began to glow. The scent of iron and ink hung thick in the air. Across from her, the container holding the Three-Tails pulsed like a heartbeat, rhythmic and wrong, pounding in her ears louder than her own.

One of the Mist-nin stepped behind her, pressing a cold hand to the base of her neck. Another knelt before her, holding her face steady, like she was a scroll to be written on.

Like she wasn’t even human anymore.

Rin gritted her teeth.
She didn’t want to scream.
But she would.

They began chanting.

The seal lit up—red, then white-hot. Chakra lashed through the room like lightning made of hatred. Her body convulsed immediately, as if struck by a storm.

The first wave hit like fire in her veins.

She screamed.

Her back arched, muscles seizing as the chakra of the Three-Tails slammed into her. It wasn’t a presence—it was a force, an ocean trying to drown her from the inside out. Every drop of her chakra rebelled, burned, twisted.

Her fingers dug into the stone. Her mouth opened in another scream—hoarse, raw. Her vision blurred.

This isn’t like healing… this isn’t like any chakra I’ve ever touched…

The chakra bit at her nerves like blades, tore through her muscles like glass. Her stomach lurched, her lungs spasmed.

The seal at her chest lit up—sickly red, black ink bleeding out across her skin, crawling up her throat like chains.

Rin sobbed. Her body wanted to break. Her heart wanted to run. Her spirit—

It screamed louder than her mouth did.

She could feel it: a monstrous will pressing in from all sides. The Three-Tails—Isobu. Ancient. Cold. Vast.

Its rage was bottomless.
Its loneliness—suffocating.
And now it was inside her.

It thrashed against the cage being forged around it, and every strike shattered through her chakra network. Rin felt like she was dying a hundred deaths in every second.

Why me?

Her mind reeled through every moment that had led her here.

She saw her parents.
Kakashi. Obito.
Shiori’s face.
The man who died screaming before her.

He’ll blame himself for this too, she realized through the haze of pain. Like everything else.

Her throat gave out mid-scream. Only the sound of the seal filled the chamber now—glowing, roaring, burning her from the inside out.

Then came the anger. It rose with the next wave of chakra, thick and violent and not her own. But it fed on her own rage, echoed it, amplified it.

She hated them.

The men around her, chanting calmly like she wasn’t shattering in front of them. Like she wasn’t a person.

She hated the war.
She hated the Hidden Mist.
She hated that the world kept using children like weapons and expected them to smile through it.

I’m not a scroll.
I’m not a cage.
I’m Rin. I’m—

The final lash of chakra knocked her forward, her head slamming against the stone. Blood spilled down her face from her nose, her mouth, her ears.

But she didn’t pass out. She couldn’t.

The chakra settled.

The seal burned, and then dimmed.

And for a moment… she was still.

Rin panted, twitching with every tiny pulse of the monster inside her. Her body trembled uncontrollably. Her hands were slick with blood—hers. Her arms ached. Her heart was too tired to beat properly. Her vision was full of shadows.

The room was quiet.
Until one of the Mist-nin whispered: “It’s done.”

No one cheered. No one bowed. No one congratulated each other. There was only silence and smoke and the stink of blood.

Rin’s head hung forward. Her breath caught in her throat, and the tears came again—silent, exhausted, bitter.

But behind her tears, behind the pain and the trauma stitched into her bones, one thought cut through everything:

Kakashi’s coming.

She could feel it, like a pulse in the earth.
She knew him.
She knew he’d come.
She just had to hold on.

Just a little longer.

...

The Mist-nin never heard the first one fall.

A soft shnk of metal through flesh—so clean, so quiet it sounded more like a sigh. The man collapsed in silence, a kunai buried through the soft underside of his jaw. His partner turned, startled—

Too slow.

The next one choked on his own breath, eyes wide as blood bloomed in his throat. He hit the ground hard.

“Two,” a voice murmured in the dark, cold as a mountain wind.

The third shinobi—young, barely more than a boy—reached for a flare scroll. His hand never made it. A flash of silver, the hiss of lightning, and then nothing.

“Three.”

Now they noticed. The others shouted, scrambled, fumbled for weapons. Too late.

He stepped out from the smoke, from the mist, from the treeline like a ghost made flesh.

Kakashi Hatake.

His hitai-ate hung low over his left eye, his flak vest darkened with dirt and blood. The air warped around him with residual chakra still crackling at his fingertips. His movements weren’t fast—they were inevitable. Like gravity. Like death.

The Mist-nin backed away, just a few steps.

That was all they had time for.

“Hatake?! He’s supposed to be on—”
The sentence never finished.
A kunai whistled past and buried itself in the speaker’s eye.

“Four,” Kakashi whispered. Still walking.

A Jōnin stepped forward. “Wait—wait! We can make a deal. We have hostages. You wouldn’t want—”

Chidori.

The sound of birds screaming tore the sky. The Mist-nin’s world turned white for a split second—before the jōnin’s heart exploded in his chest.

“Five.”

Now they ran.

Kakashi didn’t chase.
He threw a scroll. It exploded in a snare of wire and tags. The fleeing group vanished in a flash of fire and steel.

He didn’t even watch them die.

“Eight.”

One shinobi tried to crawl away. He didn’t even make it to the treeline before Kakashi’s boot landed on his spine, grinding him into the dirt.

“You laid a hand on her.”
Kakashi’s voice was quiet. Measured.
But his chakra seethed.

“You hurt her.”
He leaned down, pulled the man’s head back by the hair. One eye stared into the other. The Sharingan spun.

“Look at me while you die.”

The man screamed.

By the time Kakashi reached the mouth of the stone chamber, there was no more resistance. Only silence. The stench of blood and ozone clung to the air.

He stepped into the room like the shadow of death.

Rin looked up through the fog of her pain, eyes glassy—until she saw him.

Not the Hokage.

Not the masked soldier.

Just Kakashi.

Her lips moved.
“Kakashi…”

He didn’t speak. He crossed the room in seconds, fell to his knees beside her.

Her body was wrecked. Seals still burned across her chest, faintly pulsing with the mark of the Three-Tails. Blood matted her hair. But her eyes—those eyes—still burned with something human.

“I came,” he said softly.

Chapter Text

The blood on Rin’s skin had started to dry, but her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

She curled in on herself, arms locked around her ribs, as if trying to hold her soul together by force. Kakashi knelt beside her, close but not touching, as though afraid one more sensation might break her in half.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered finally. Her voice was rough, threadbare from screaming.

He didn’t interrupt.

“They weren’t just using me as a jinchūriki.” Rin’s breath caught. “They… They said the seal wasn’t just containment. It was a trigger. A failsafe. If I ever made it back to the Leaf—”

She swallowed, bile crawling up her throat again.

“—they planned to release the Three-Tails. From the inside. In the middle of the village.”

Silence fell like a dropped blade.

Kakashi’s jaw tightened. His hands, still stained with Mist-nin blood, clenched slowly into fists.

“They were going to use me to destroy Konoha. As a bomb. As a weapon.” Her voice broke. “They made me into a trap, Kakashi. I didn’t even know I was begging them for it.”

He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at her—looked through the tears and blood and broken girl on the stone floor.

And then his voice, low and dangerous:
“We’ll undo it.”

Her head snapped up. “You can’t. The seal—once it’s done—”

“I said we’ll undo it.”

There was a weight in his tone that hadn’t been there before. Something colder. Deeper. Rin blinked, suddenly struck by how unfamiliar he seemed in this moment. He was Kakashi… but something else, too.

...

The seal on Rin’s chest still pulsed with the residue of foreign chakra. The Three-Tails had settled—trapped, for now—but Kakashi could feel it, like a second presence breathing just beneath her skin.

He didn’t flinch when she told him.

Didn’t blink when she said the word: bomb.

They’d made her a weapon. Rigged her with a detonation seal keyed to the gates of Konoha. A suicide tactic. A massacre waiting to happen.

His fingers curled tighter against his knees.

It was happening again.

But not like last time.

This time, he wasn’t just a soldier. Not just some jōnin barely holding it together with duct tape and blind orders.

This time, he was already a Hokage—even if no one in this timeline knew it yet.

And Hokage or not, he’d been dead before. Had watched too many people he loved fall before their time. Obito. Rin. Minato. Even Naruto—eventually, painfully. He had lived long enough to see peace born in fire and die choking in ash.

Now he was back. And everything was different.

“I’m going to fix this,” he said quietly, eyes locked on the glowing remnants of the seal.

Rin looked at him like she didn’t understand what he meant. Or maybe she did, but couldn’t believe it.

“Fix… how?” she asked. “You can’t remove a seal like this without—without killing me. It’s tied to the bijuu.”

Kakashi stood slowly, his eyes never leaving her. Also didn’t respond at first.

“They said… it’s meant to activate automatically,” Rin rasped, her voice cracking. “The second I enter the village walls. That’s the whole point. They wanted Konoha to think we did it ourselves. That… that I did.”

She was trembling now.

“They planned for me to kill our own people.”

Kakashi met her eyes—eyes that still shone, even through tears and fear and the mark of a beast caged in her chest.

“No,” he said. Firm. Final.

She blinked. “What—?”

“You’re not going back,” he said. “Not like this.”

Panic flared in her. “But we have to warn them. They’ll—”

“I’ll handle it.”

There was steel in his tone, but not cold. Steady. Assured.

Kakashi stood slowly, his shadow long in the firelit chamber. Around them, the corpses of the Mist-nin were cooling. Blood soaking into the stones. The stench thick.

“I need time,” he said, more to himself than to her. “This seal… it’s complex. Layered. Laced with Mist-style chakra weaving.”

He could already see the structure forming in his mind—the detonation clause buried under suppression runes, the bijuu containment matrix knotted into her chakra network like a parasite.

And worse: a timed decay trigger. Fail-safe.

They weren’t just planning a detonation.

They were planning a message.

“You can’t remove it, can you?” Rin asked quietly. “Not without killing me.”

He didn’t answer.

But that wasn’t the question that mattered.

The real question was: how fast can I learn to rewrite it?

He crouched beside her again, gaze calm, collected.

“You’re going to come with me,” he said. “There’s a place a few days out. Hidden. Old ANBU site from the Third War. It’s safe.”

She looked unsure. “You’re going to hide me?”

“I’m going to fix this,” he corrected.

Rin searched his face like she was trying to read something behind the mask. Something he wasn’t saying.

And she was right.

There was more. So much more.

But he wouldn’t tell her. Couldn’t.

The moment he admitted the truth—that he’d already watched her die, that he knew exactly what Mist had planned, that he’d lived a whole life beyond this moment—the burden would shift. It would become hers, too. A weight she didn’t need to carry.

And it would make her a target for more than Mist. It would make her a threat to time itself.

So instead, he offered the one thing he had left to give her: certainty.

“You’re not dying,” he said flatly. “I won’t allow it.”

That was enough to quiet her for now.

He stood, scanned the room one last time. Retrieved scrolls, intel from the Mist-nin's bodies, anything that might give him more insight into the sealwork. He found one with a series of partially-burned schematics. The symbols were unmistakable—Tailed Beast Transfer, Mist variation. Crude, but functional.

Kakashi tucked it away.

“I need to start right away. We leave before dawn.”

She nodded, leaning against the cold stone, still shaking.

He looked back at her one more time.

Not a girl.

Not a weapon.

Not a casualty.

Rin.

“I’ll carry you,” he said simply.

And when she opened her mouth to protest, he added, softer this time:

“You’ve done enough.”

He turned, masked again in every way that mattered, and walked toward the dying firelight. 

***

Chapter Text

Most days, they called him a legend.
The Yellow Flash.
Konoha’s Golden Boy.
The Fourth Hokage-to-be.

But tonight, Minato Namikaze was none of those things.
Not the smiling hero children admired.
Not the gentle mentor who could make even the blood-soaked world of war feel lighter.

Tonight, he was something else entirely.
And it began with silence.

He sat alone in his office, the dim moonlight filtering through slatted windows, drawing long shadows across the floor.

The silence clawed at him, louder than any battlefield. Rin and the others had been taken. A hostage mission gone wrong. The Hidden Mist had her now, and no one knew why. Worse still was the aftermath. Kakashi—his student, his prodigy—had gone after her alone. He’d disobeyed direct orders, left his team behind, and vanished into enemy territory.

Minato had always known Kakashi was capable of reckless devotion. 

There’d been one report. A lone medic pulled from the wreckage.
Yes, Kakashi had saved them.
Yes, Rin was taken.
But there was no word of Kakashi after that.

Just… nothing.

Minato exhaled slowly, his hand moving through his blond hair, fingers trembling. Cold sweat prickled down the back of his neck. How had it come to this? He’d seen Kakashi’s brilliance when the boy was just a genin, watched him rise faster than any of his peers. He was sharp, composed, nearly unbreakable. But no one—not even Kakashi—was meant to carry so much alone.

"Where are you?"
The question echoed in his chest.

There were no follow-ups. No signs the mission had succeeded. No reports from the medic teams that should have returned. The silence wasn’t just frustrating—it was screaming.

Rin was unaccounted for. The Mist had made her their prize. And Kakashi… Kakashi was missing. Not confirmed dead. Not captured.

Just gone.

Minato stood abruptly, pacing. The cloak he wore brushed against the chair as he passed, each footstep sharp in the quiet room. He felt the weight of failure settle deeper in his ribs with every turn.

He had promised Rin’s parents. Promised he’d keep her safe.
He had trained these children—Kakashi, Rin, Obito.
He had watched them become more than soldiers.
And now, he couldn’t even protect them.

"What happened to you, Kakashi?"

The image of his former student—silver hair, solemn eyes, always half-hidden behind that mask—flashed in his mind. Kakashi had always carried the world too early. Too young. But something about this time felt different. More final.

He stopped pacing. His eyes landed again on the headband.

The silence mocked him.

Eastern Ridge, Border of Mist Territory

The wind cut like knives as it swept across the cliffs, but Minato moved through it without sound. His cloak was torn at the edges, fur lining stiff with snow. Kunai rattled softly at his side—marked, charged, waiting.

He had spent days preparing.
No one knew where he had gone.
No one asked.

He hadn’t offered any answers.

Let them wonder.
Let them believe the Hokage-in-waiting was grieving.

He wasn’t grieving.
He was acting.

Minato had scattered his seals through Mist territory like a trap laid by time itself. Trees. Rocks. Birds. Enemy bunkers. Each one a silent promise: if Kakashi and Rin were out here, he would find them—or burn everything around them until someone answered for it.

He crept through the mountain pass now, shadows clinging to him. A faint flicker of chakra pulsed to the west—an enemy scout lighting a pipe.

Minato vanished.

No flash. No sound.

The man didn’t even finish his inhale. The kunai pierced cleanly through his ribs, lodging into the stone behind him. The body slumped to the snow. Minato reappeared twenty meters away, breathing in steady, measured silence.

He didn’t feel better.
Just… quieter.

His hands trembled. Not from fear. From restraint.

...

The first camp didn’t even scream.

Minato moved like a ghost, one mark to the next, flickering from blade to blade. Twenty men fell in twenty heartbeats. He burned the scroll bunker. He didn’t speak. Didn’t hesitate.

The second convoy was louder. They saw him.

A burst of golden light. Blood. Panic. Screams ripped through the icy canyon as flare-chakra shot into the sky. It lit the battlefield like false daylight.

Minato stood in the center of the chaos, cloak flapping in the wind. His hands were soaked red.

A Mist jōnin—massive, cleaver-wielding—charged him, screaming something about vengeance.

Minato let him finish half a phrase.

Then he vanished, reappearing behind him. One flick—tendons severed.

The cleaver hit the snow with a dull thud. The man never turned around.

...

He was not fighting the mist.

He was fighting the helpless.

The image haunted him: Kakashi, limping through a blizzard, Rin’s body in his arms, her blood soaking her medical satchel.

He was fighting the voice of the surviving medic, cracking during debrief:
"Kakashi took her… the Mist succeeded… she's the Jinchūriki now."

He was fighting the memory of Obito, crushed beneath the rubble, buried alive with dreams of becoming Hokage.

He had been their teacher.

He had sworn they wouldn’t die on his watch.

...

A forward base. Three platoons. Communications tower. Supply scrolls. Medical stores. The Mist’s eastern artery.

He had marked the tower days ago.

Now, he appeared inside it in a single flash. Then another. And another.

To the Mist, it was like being hunted by thunder.
Blood misted the snow. Screams rose—then stopped. Chakra surged wildly, chaotically, until there was none left to control.

They’d prepared for the Yellow Flash. The tactician. The genius seal master.

But this was someone else.

This was an angry sensei.

Minato struck with surgical cruelty. No flourish. No hesitation. The final Mist commander tried to form a hand seal.

Minato drove a kunai up through his jaw before he finished the first sign.

...

The world went still again.

Smoke curled from the tents. Scrolls burned slowly in the snow. Minato stood alone in the wreckage, breathing through the taste of ash.

No one had spoken in ten minutes.

A hawk circled above. A recall signal from Konoha.

He didn’t answer it.

He knelt, pulled a cleaning cloth from a storage scroll, and began wiping blood from his kunai. One by one. Slowly. Deliberately. His chakra was low. His soul, lower.

But something in him had settled.

Not healed.

Not forgiven.

Just… still.

He thought of Rin’s laugh. Of Obito’s boundless optimism. Of Kakashi’s rare, unguarded smile.

The children they had been.

Children this war had stolen from him.

If Kakashi had taken Rin, it meant there was a reason.
Minato trusted him.
Even now.
Especially now.

But trust didn’t mean standing still.

He would find them.

And he would end this war.

Even if it meant carving a path through the Mist with fire and steel.

Chapter Text

The wind whispered through half-shuttered slats, brushing over the tatami floor like a ghost.

Kakashi sat still beside the bed, one arm draped over his knee, the other resting inches from Rin’s hand.

She hadn’t stirred in sixteen hours.

Her skin was still too pale.

Faint chakra pulses flickered through her like dying sparks.

The seal they’d carved into her had been cruel—elegant, intricate, fatal.

Designed to detonate if she returned to Konoha, if her chakra flared, or if her heart stopped.

The Mist hadn’t just turned her into a weapon.

They’d turned her into a warning.

But not anymore.

He stared at the white linen wrapped below her collarbone—his hands had done that.

Carefully.

Precisely.

The seal’s removal had left deep bruises, but no lasting damage.

Her heartbeat was steady now.

She was safe. For now.

He wished that felt like enough.

Outside, the nameless village slept.

Unaware that a jinchūriki lay on borrowed breath in their midst. That the famed Copy Ninja was here—not as a hero, not as a hunter—but a shadow. No forehead protector. No allegiance. Just a man, in the aftermath of surviving too long.

Kakashi exhaled. The weight in his chest remained.

He hadn’t told her the truth. That he was from the future. He hadn’t told anyone. He wouldn’t—unless trust was the only path left between survival and annihilation. What good would it do? It wouldn’t undo her pain. Wouldn’t erase the things she carried in silence.

He looked down at her again.

Rin.

He had failed her once.

This—this was his penance. Not just to save her life. But to earn it.

He rose and moved to the window. Cold air poured in, brushing against his skin. In the stillness, his senses unfurled, brushing across distant chakra. Nothing close. Not yet. But they would come. The Mist. Konoha.

Minato-sensei.

Kakashi’s jaw tightened. His sensei would think the worst—that he’d defected. Gone rogue. Left corpses in his wake.

Good.

That was safer—for now.

A flicker in Rin’s chakra pulled him back. He moved quickly, sitting beside her again, fingers brushing her wrist. He let a thread of his chakra flow into hers—gentle, stabilizing, not enough to disrupt. Just enough to anchor her.

She twitched. A sound escaped her lips—small, wounded—but her eyes didn’t open.

He closed his own.

And slipped inward.

...

The world changed.

He stood knee-deep in black water, fog curling around him. Rin’s subconscious—the inner world of a jinchūriki. It was fragile, raw from trauma, but there was form beneath the pain. Memory. Structure.

Something stirred.

A massive eye opened beneath the surface. Red. Ancient. The water vibrated.

Isobu.

The Three-Tails.

It did not rise. But it watched.

“You,” it said. A voice like mountains groaning beneath snow. “You are not of this time.”

Kakashi didn’t flinch. “It doesn’t matter.”

The eye narrowed.

“It does. Your chakra is... broken. Like a scar on a mirror.”

He said nothing.

The beast shifted beneath the surface—vast, immense, and not hostile. Not yet.

“She doesn’t want me.”

“She didn’t want to be used.”

“And you think I do?”

“No,” Kakashi said quietly. “That’s why I’m here. I won’t let that happen. Not to her. Not to you.”

Silence. Mist thickened.

“Her soul rejects me.”

“I’m not here to force her. I’m asking for time. For trust. If we work together… maybe she’ll see there’s power in protecting. Not just destroying.”

Isobu rumbled. The water shook.

“You carry too much weight, mortal. You speak as though you can rewrite fate.”

“I’m not trying to rewrite it,” Kakashi said. “Just… give it a better chance.”

Another silence.

Then the eye blinked. Slowly, the water calmed.

“I will not fight her. For now.”

As close to a truce as Kakashi had hoped for.

He bowed his head once. Not in reverence—in gratitude.

The mist wavered.

The world shifted.

...

He opened his eyes.

Rin’s breath was deeper now. Her pulse, stronger. He reached for a cloth, wiped the sweat from her brow.

Then her lips moved.

“…Kakashi…?”

He froze.

She hadn’t opened her eyes. But she’d said his name. A whisper—fragile, half-lost to the dark.

He leaned in. “I’m here.”

No reply. No movement.

But she had spoken.

She was coming back.

Kakashi stood slowly, pulling the blanket higher around her shoulders. Then he felt it—outside. A flicker of unfamiliar chakra. Faint. At the edge of the valley.

His body went still.

His hand slipped to his kunai pouch as he turned toward the window.

The moon hung low over the mountains.

It had begun.

And this time, he would protect her—from the Mist, from the war, from the thing inside her.

Even from himself.

For the first time in two timelines, Kakashi Hatake was ready to fight for the future—not as a shinobi.

But as her shield.

***

The road was quiet.

Not silent—never truly silent. The trees rustled with the spring wind, and birds called out from time to time. But the quiet between them was different. Intimate. Like a secret shared between old friends.

Or something else.

Rin’s breath warmed the back of Kakashi’s neck as she leaned against him, arms hooked around his shoulders. Her legs draped loosely over his hips, her body light but undeniable in his arms. Kakashi walked with steady, measured steps along the forest path. Each step a rhythm. A vow.

She was awake now.

Not healed—her chakra was still raw, her breath catching if he shifted his grip—but conscious.

And for now, that was enough.

"You're walking too fast," she murmured.

He glanced over his shoulder but didn’t slow. "I’m not walking. I’m carrying. And you’re heavier than you look."

A soft huff warmed his ear—half a laugh. "That’s a rude thing to say to someone who almost died."

"You didn’t die," he replied. "That’s why I’m rude."

She didn’t respond right away. He wondered if he’d gone too far. Then—her fingers tightened ever so slightly on his shoulder. Grounding.

"It… hurt," she said, voice small. "The seal. Whatever they did."

He nodded, eyes ahead. "I know. It was layered. Laced around your heart. Meant to kill you if you came back to Konoha. Or lost control. Or... died."

Rin stilled against him. "They were going to use me against everyone, weren’t they?"

"Yes."

Her next breath trembled. But she didn’t cry. She never had—not for herself. Rin had always held her own pieces together for the sake of others.

"I could feel it," she said. "The beast. Isobu. Like pressure in my chest. But it’s quiet now. I think he... stopped fighting."

"He did," Kakashi said. "I spoke to him."

That startled her. "You what?"

"You were fading. I had to reach you through the seal. He listened."

Rin was quiet for a moment. Then, she leaned her head against his shoulder again.

"Thank you."

Two words. Small. But they carried the weight of near-death, and something heavier.

They walked for a while.

Then—"Kakashi… can I tell you something?"

His fingers tensed at her thigh before he caught himself. "You should be resting."

"I want to tell you."

A pause. A sigh. Barely audible.

"Okay."

She shifted slightly—cheek brushing against the side of his neck.

Her voice was soft.

"I’ve loved you for a long time."

His steps faltered.

She felt it—but kept going.

"Not because you saved me. Not because you're strong, or mysterious, or anything like that. I just… I see you. You carry everything. Even when it’s breaking you. Even now, you're carrying me like some silent guardian. You always have."

"Rin—"

"Please. Let me finish."

He said nothing.

“You’ve always been like that,” she continued. “Silent. Steady. And so gentle, even when you're trying not to be.”

Kakashi stopped walking.

The forest held its breath.

He lowered her carefully to a mossy log, helping her sit. Her legs trembled, but she stayed upright.

She looked up at him.

He looked away.

"You shouldn’t say things like that," he said, voice low.

"Why not?"

"Because Obito loves you. And he trusts me."

She reached for his hand. He didn’t pull away.

"And I love him too," she said. "But that doesn’t mean I can’t love you."

His mask hid the parting of his lips. The breath he forgot to take. But not his eyes.

She saw it.

"I don’t want an answer," she said gently. "Not now at least. I know we’re both hurting. But I had to say it. Because if something happened again, and I hadn’t told you..."
Her voice broke just slightly. "I’d regret it."

The silence stretched between them like a second heartbeat.

Then, Kakashi knelt in front of her. Their eyes locked.

"You matter to me," he said. "More than anyone."

A pause.

"That’s why I can’t..."

She watched him. Didn’t interrupt. Didn't press.

He lifted her into his arms again.

Neither of them spoke after that.

But her head found his shoulder again.

And this time—his steps were slower.

Gentler.

***

“Rin…”

A voice—though not sound—brushed the edges of her consciousness. Gentle, hesitant. Like a whisper riding on the surface of still water.

Her eyes opened into darkness. No room. No ceiling. Just endless pale green water, light filtering down like rain through glass.

“Who’s there?” Her voice echoed, thin and uncertain.

“I am Isobu.”

The name rippled through her like a stone dropped in a lake.

The Three-Tails. The creature sealed inside her.

Her pulse faltered. Her thoughts coiled inward.

“…Why now?” she whispered.

“You sleep,” the voice answered, soft as tide foam. “And so I speak more freely.”

It wasn’t what she expected. No growl. No fury. Just quiet waves against the mind—tentative, even shy.

She drifted forward, reaching out—only to find mist.

“I always thought you were angry,” she said, voice catching. “That I was just your cage.”

The pause that followed was deep and gentle.

“Angry?” Isobu echoed, testing the word. “No. I feared you might be angry. But I am not.”

A memory surfaced—her first awakening in the Mist’s cold cell, the weight inside her chest like drowning. She’d mistaken it for rage. But this... this was something else.

“You’re… timid,” she said softly.

A pause.

“No one ever asked to hear me before,” he murmured. “You are the first.”

Rin blinked. “First… host?”

“First voice,” Isobu corrected. “They sealed me. Buried me. Used my power, but never my name. You… called to me.”

Her breath caught. She remembered the agony. The seal burning behind her ribs. The desperate wish to live.

“You heard me?”

“I heard the seal crack. Felt your fear. Your hope. You are smaller than the ocean I am bound to. But your voice moved me.”

Tears welled behind her closed eyes.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” she whispered. “I just… wanted to survive.”

“So did I.” His voice was low now, laced with something like sorrow. “I do not wish to harm. I only wish to exist.”

She let herself float. His presence surrounded her—not cold now, but warm. Heavy. Vast. And utterly still.

“I’m still afraid,” she admitted. “Sometimes I don’t know where I end and you begin.”

“And I,” he said, “do not know how to be anything but large.”
Another soft pulse of thought.
“But smallness has its strength. You are the shore to my waves. The line I cannot cross alone.”

She pictured a coastline at dusk. Silver tide kissing sand.

A faint smile touched her lips. “You’re poetic.”

“Only reflections of you,” he said.

And she believed him.

The water trembled then. A distant ripple brushing her mind.

Kakashi.

A tether. Calling her back.

Her eyes fluttered open.

...

When she woke again, the sun was setting. The forest burned gold, and a small fire crackled nearby. Kakashi knelt beside it, back turned, head bowed in thought.

She stirred, slow and careful. Her heartbeat felt... still.

He noticed. “You’re awake.”

She nodded, rubbing her eyes. The firelight made him look softer somehow. Younger.

“I saw him,” she said.

Kakashi turned. “Isobu?”

She nodded again. “We spoke.”

A pause. Then:

“He didn’t hate me.”

His eyes searched her face, unreadable. But something in his shoulders eased.

“Good,” he said, quiet. “That’s… good.”

She touched her chest, fingers resting lightly above her heart.

“He’s still there. Still watching. But I think… he’s waiting, too.”

Kakashi nodded once. Then, as if it had simply occurred to him, he offered her a blanket, brushing her hair gently aside.

She pulled it around herself and leaned into the warmth.

They would reach home soon. But she knew now—it wouldn’t just be her.

She wasn’t returning alone.

Isobu would come with her.
Kakashi, too.

And somewhere between the ocean and the shore, something like peace had begun. 

Chapter Text

The path home wound through low hills and soft trees, spring light dappling across their backs. Kakashi walked slowly now, his steps careful—not just because Rin was recovering, but because neither of them seemed in a hurry to leave this in-between world.

He carried her when she tired. Let her walk when she insisted. And every time their eyes met, it was like something invisible passed between them—something they weren’t ready to name, but couldn’t ignore anymore.

Kakashi, ever silent, had shifted somehow. His hands, usually precise and distant, were now careful in new ways: brushing hair from her eyes, adjusting her cloak when the breeze crept in, holding her elbow steady when the uneven ground threatened her balance. He said little, but in every quiet motion, he said everything.

And Rin—despite the ache still tucked behind her ribs and the odd weight of chakra that pulsed like a second heartbeat within her—noticed all of it.

She was used to Kakashi’s silences, but not the way they softened when directed at her. Not the way his shoulders loosened when she smiled, or how he stayed closer now—always a step within reach, even when she didn’t need him to be.

And then, of course, there was Isobu.

“You’re thinking again,” the beast murmured in her mind, his voice a ripple over water. Curious. Unintrusive.

“I’m always thinking,” Rin answered silently, adjusting the strap of her cloak. She didn’t have to close her eyes anymore to hear him. He was simply… there.

“You’re not afraid of me.”

She paused, stepping carefully over a tree root. Kakashi reached out on instinct—hand at the small of her back—and she nodded to him in thanks before answering the voice inside her head.

“I was. I’m not anymore.”

“He cares for you.”

That made her cheeks flush. “He won’t say it.”

Isobu’s presence shifted—like a ripple lapping at the shore. “Neither will you.”

She huffed softly. Out loud this time.

Kakashi glanced back. “What?”

“Nothing,” she said, biting back a smile. “Just… chakra weirdness.”

He didn’t press. He rarely did.

But later, as they stopped beside a stream to refill their canteens, he knelt beside her, his hands brushing against hers as he offered the water. His gaze held hers a beat too long. And when she shivered, he shrugged off his cloak without a word and draped it around her shoulders like it was second nature.

The fire that night was small, but warm. Rin sat with her knees tucked to her chest, his cloak wrapped tight around her frame. Kakashi leaned back against a tree, head tilted, eyes on the stars—but not really watching them.

It was Rin who broke the silence.

“I can hear him now. Even when I’m awake.”

Kakashi blinked slowly. “Isobu?”

She nodded, then turned toward him. “He’s not what I expected. He’s… thoughtful. And kind of quiet. Like you, honestly.”

A faint twitch at the corner of Kakashi’s mouth. Maybe a smile. “Should I be flattered?”

She smiled. “You should.”

They sat like that for a while—comfortable, even in silence.

Eventually, Kakashi said, “Are you afraid? Of what this means?”

Rin thought for a long moment before answering. “No. Not when you’re here.”

He looked at her, and for once, didn’t look away.

Their hands brushed again—slow, tentative. She didn’t pull back. Neither did he.

“He’s quieter when you’re near,” Rin said softly, almost to herself.

Kakashi’s voice was just above a whisper. “So are you.”

A pause.

Then she leaned her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes.

“I like this,” she murmured.

His response came after a moment, almost like it hurt to admit. “So do I.”

The fire crackled. The woods slept. And though they were still far from the village, something about the road felt different now—like they weren’t just walking back to where they came from, but forward into something new.

They were still young. Still healing.

But in each other, they had found the kind of quiet that didn’t need words.

A beginning.

And this time, neither of them was alone.

***

Chapter Text

The gates of Konoha rose in the distance like the silent judgment of gods.

Kakashi kept a steady pace as they approached, his half-lidded eye tracking every movement on the walls, the subtle shifting of sentries. Rin walked beside him, silent but close. Her chakra was calm, steady—but the faint, pulsing undertone of something vast and ancient still beat within her.

The Three-Tails slumbered. But it was still there.

As they crossed the threshold into the village, the reception was immediate. ANBU dropped from the trees without a sound. Four of them—white masks, flawless formation.

“Hatake Kakashi. Nohara Rin. You are to come with us. Now.”

Kakashi raised his hands slowly, wordlessly. Rin glanced at him. He gave a single nod, and she followed suit.

No resistance. That had been part of the plan.

“Standard procedure,” one of the ANBU said to Rin with mechanical calm. “You’ll be debriefed separately.”

Rin hesitated. She looked back toward Kakashi, uncertainty flickering in her eyes. He didn’t turn. He couldn’t afford to.

She was led away down a sterile corridor toward the lower wings of the Intelligence Division. Kakashi, meanwhile, was directed toward the darker halls—the ones insulated with chakra-dampening seals and lined with the subtle hum of genjutsu suppression fields.

The T&I wing.

Torture and Interrogation.

The room was small and cold. Not brutally so—just enough to be uncomfortable. To wear someone down.

Kakashi sat calmly, masked face impassive. His hands were free, but he could feel the sealing array woven into the chair beneath him. Chakra suppression—not full nullification, but enough to limit reflexive jutsu casting.

The first man who entered wasn’t one he recognized. Medium height, black flak vest, clipboard in hand.

“We’re not enemies here,” the man began, sitting across from him. “You understand why this is necessary.”

Kakashi tilted his head slightly. “I understand suspicion. That doesn’t mean I respect it.”

A pause.

“You and Nohara disappeared without a trace. Then reappear, days later, under circumstances that raise more questions than they answer. You returned with her... but her status has changed. She’s now a jinchūriki.”

“Unwillingly,” Kakashi replied. “The Mist embedded a seal in her heart. It was set to activate when she returned to the village.”

“And yet you still returned.”

“I disabled it.”

“Alone?”

Kakashi didn’t answer.

The man leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “You didn’t follow extraction protocol. You made no attempt to contact your commanding officer. You vanished with a known host of a foreign bijuu, and by every estimation, you should have returned with a corpse. But instead, you brought her back alive. Intact. Containing one of the most dangerous beings on this continent.”

Silence.

The man set his clipboard down. “You’ve been trained to resist interrogation. But we’re not here to torture you, Kakashi. We want to understand.”

Another pause.

“We’re going to use a low-grade mental probe. Nothing invasive—just surfacing your intent during the mission.”

Kakashi’s eye locked onto him like a blade.

“You’re wasting your time.”

But they tried anyway.

The Yamanaka specialist arrived in silence, cloaked in white and calm as snow. She bowed once to the T&I officer, then faced Kakashi.

“I will enter your surface thoughts only,” she said. “You may feel slight pressure, but there will be no pain. Do not resist.”

Kakashi closed his eye.

The jutsu began.

For a moment, there was nothing. Then the world tilted—light warping through a thin veil, a sense of displacement. He felt her chakra brush against his consciousness like a feather dipped in ink.

And then... it hit a wall.

Not a constructed mental defense. Not a genjutsu trap. But a void—a sealed vault deep within Kakashi’s mind, layered in chakra constructs the Yamanaka had never seen before. It didn’t feel like Kakashi’s doing.

It felt... external. Ancient.

The woman recoiled slightly, blinking in surprise.

“There’s... something obstructing access,” she murmured. “I can’t reach anything below surface impulse.”

“Anything?” the officer asked.

She shook her head, eyes fixed on Kakashi.

“His emotional state is level. Too level. It's... filtered. Something’s screening his reactions. His mind is fortified against intrusion far beyond ANBU standard.”

The officer folded his arms.

“That’s not supposed to be possible.”

Kakashi opened his eye slowly.

“I told you. You’re wasting your time.”

Rin sat under the sterile glow of the debriefing chamber, flanked by two high-ranking med-nin and an intelligence officer. Her eyes were clear, her hands folded in her lap.

“I didn’t ask for this,” she said softly. “They took me. They placed a seal on my heart to weaponize me against the village. Kakashi... saved me.”

“And how can we be sure?” the officer asked. “We’ve detected no volatility from the tailed beast, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be activated. If you were sent back to infiltrate—”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were missing for five days. That’s plenty of time for brainwashing.”

“I’m not brainwashed,” she said evenly. “And if I were, would I be sitting here having a rational conversation with you?”

The tension thickened.

One of the med-nin checked her chakra again, then spoke up hesitantly. “Her chakra flow is... uncorrupted. There’s no external influence we can detect.”

Still, the intelligence officer didn’t look convinced.

Then—a knock at the door.

Kushina Uzumaki entered like a storm.

Red hair tied back, eyes blazing. Behind her, the ANBU made no effort to stop her. Because they couldn't.

“Kushina-sama—this is an internal review,” one of the officers began.

“I’m the only person in this village who knows what she’s going through,” Kushina snapped. “And if you think I’m letting you break her just because you’re scared of something you don’t understand, you’re idiots.”

She marched to Rin’s side and placed a firm hand on her shoulder.

“She’s stable. The beast is dormant. If she says Kakashi saved her, I believe her.”

“Kushina—” the officer started again.

“No. This girl has been through hell. And your paranoia is doing more damage than anything the Mist could have pulled off.”

Kushina turned to Rin and gave a small, reassuring nod.

“You’re not alone in this. Not ever again.”

Minato Namikaze was furious.

Not visibly, of course. That wasn’t his way. But the faint tremble in his hand and the tightness in his jaw said enough.

He stood outside the Intelligence Division’s sealed doors, arms crossed. The ANBU guarding the door didn’t move.

“You know who I am,” Minato said calmly. “You know what I’ve done.”

“We have orders, Namikaze-san. You're not permitted to see Hatake.”

His eye twitched.

“They’re my team. I’m their commanding officer. And I have a right to know what the hell is going on.”

The ANBU didn’t respond.

Minato turned away, stormed down the hall, and vanished in a blur of yellow.

He needed to see Hiruzen. Now.

Back in the cell, Kakashi sat alone once more.

The Yamanaka had left. The interrogators had left. He was being held for “further observation.”

But Kakashi was already counting the hours.

They’ll move me soon, he thought. Probably to a chakra-isolated holding room. No windows. One guard outside. Two inside.

He had prepared for this.

A small tick pulsed in his palm—just once.

The seal he’d drawn with a tiny bit of Obito’s blood before entering the village flared for a moment under his glove. Nothing overt. But it triggered a link.

Message received.

Outside the village, beyond the forest line, a hidden scroll marked with Kakashi’s chakra signature would now open.

Inside was a detailed account of his version of events—including how he’d found Rin, how he’d disabled the seal, how he’d carried her across enemy lines while masking her chakra to avoid detection. It was addressed to Jiraiya, and hidden within a coded summons scroll.

If they silence me, the truth still spreads.

Kakashi closed his eye again.

He’d played this game too long to lose it now.

Later that night, Rin was cleared.

Kushina had insisted she stay with her at the Uzumaki compound until things calmed down. Rin had agreed, though her thoughts still drifted toward Kakashi.

...

The Uzumaki household was quieter than usual.

Rin had barely crossed the threshold before she heard it—muffled voices, sharp and panicked, coming from one of the back rooms. Kushina stepped in front of her protectively but didn’t block the sound.

“He’s been like this since last night,” she said softly, voice edged with concern. “He collapsed halfway out of the medical wing trying to leave. Minato found him and brought him here.”

Rin looked up. “Obito…?”

Kushina nodded. “Half his body’s still bandaged. But that’s not what’s got him worked up.”

She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to.

Rin knew.

Her hand curled into a fist at her side as Kushina stepped back and gestured toward the hall. “He needs to see you.”

Rin swallowed hard, then walked down the corridor.

The door creaked open gently.

Obito sat slumped against the wall, a blanket draped around his shoulders, bandages still tight across the right half of his face and body. His left Sharingan eye, bright and wild, stared out the window—but it snapped toward the door the moment she stepped in.

“Rin.”

His voice was hoarse, tired. He looked thinner, older—not in years, but in weight. In spirit.

Rin hesitated. “Hey.”

Silence stretched between them.

Then, Obito spoke again, the words laced with disbelief and something like fear.

“I saw it.”

Rin blinked. “Saw what?”

“You.” He pointed at her, then at his temple. “You were crying. Screaming. And Kakashi—he—he was doing something to you. You looked like you were in pain. Like he was hurting you.”

Rin flinched.

The connection between their eyes… the shared vision. Even half-buried in trauma, the transplanted Sharingan had acted as a bridge—linking them across space and memory.

“You saw…” she began, then stopped.

Obito surged to his feet, staggering slightly, ignoring the pain. “Why didn’t you stop him, Rin? Why didn’t you—?”

“Because I asked him to do it.”

Obito’s breath caught.

“What?”

Rin stepped forward, her voice trembling but resolute. “The Mist put a seal inside me, Obito. A trigger—if I came back to the village without it being deactivated, it would’ve unleashed the Three-Tails and killed everyone. I was… ready to die.”

“No—” Obito shook his head, furious and desperate. “No, that’s not what I saw. You were hurting, Rin! You were crying!”

“I was scared,” she said quietly. “And in pain. But not because Kakashi was hurting me. He was saving me. He had to reach through the seal with his chakra, force it open, and... neutralize it from the inside. It was agony.”

Obito stood frozen, his chest heaving.

“But I agreed to it,” Rin continued. “Every second of it. I chose to come back. I chose to survive.”

Obito’s hands trembled at his sides. “You could’ve died. Both of you could’ve died. Why didn’t you call for help? Why didn’t Kakashi—”

“Because we didn’t have time!” she snapped, finally breaking. “We barely escaped as it was. If Kakashi hadn’t done what he did, I wouldn’t be here!”

Her voice echoed, sharp and raw.

Silence.

Obito slumped to his knees, his strength failing him. His voice dropped to a whisper.

“I thought I lost you.”

She dropped to her knees across from him. “You didn’t.”

He looked up, eyes red-rimmed. “Everything’s different. You… him… me…”

“You're alive. That’s all that matters,” she whispered, reaching out to touch his hand.

He gripped it like a lifeline.

Kushina watched from the kitchen doorway, arms folded.

Minato appeared beside her quietly.

“Still think Kakashi did the wrong thing?” she asked without turning.

Minato sighed, gaze distant. “I think... he did what no one else could. Or would.”

Kushina looked up. “Then why won’t they let him out?”

“Because they’re afraid of him now.”

“He's still a kid.”

“He’s a kid who outmaneuvered a Kage-level genjutsu seal, masked a jinchūriki’s chakra signature, and manipulated an entire rescue operation without alerting a single enemy shinobi.” Minato exhaled slowly. “Konoha doesn't reward unpredictability. It buries it.”

Kushina's jaw tightened. “If they push him too far, they’ll lose him.”

Minato looked at her with something dark behind his smile.

“They already might have.”

That night, Obito slept for the first time in days.

And the dreams returned.

Except now, the dream showed more—more than he saw in the link.

He saw Kakashi alone in a field of blood, screaming with both eyes glowing. He saw a war consuming the world, fire in the sky, black rods piercing the earth. He saw Rin again—but this time, she wasn’t crying.

She was standing tall, surrounded by strange chakra—part of something terrible.

Obito woke with a gasp.

Sweating. Shaking.

That wasn’t just a dream, he thought.

That was something else.

Chapter Text

The darkened room in the Intelligence Division had long since emptied, save for its four current occupants.

A single paper lantern lit the table between them, flickering shadows dancing across the faces of the men seated around it.

Kakashi Hatake, freshly released under high observation, sat cross-legged across from the legendary Ino-Shika-Chō formation—Shikaku Nara, Inoichi Yamanaka, and Chōza Akimichi.

This was no formality.

This was war planning.

Kakashi knew the stakes.

He had orchestrated this meeting with subtlety—a whispered message here, a gesture there.

"You're surprisingly forward-thinking for a jōnin," Shikaku said, his sharp eyes watching Kakashi like a puzzle he hadn’t yet solved.

"And oddly well-connected," Inoichi added. "This request came through a dozen indirect channels. Care to explain why a war hero in the making is digging into village politics instead of recovering from his debriefing?"

Kakashi met their gazes evenly. "Because we don’t have time."

Shikaku raised an eyebrow.

"The Mist's involvement with the Three-Tails, their use of Rin as a living weapon—none of it was random. There is a rot spreading through the hidden villages. A chain reaction of old men making decisions that kill children. We either stop it now, or we bleed for decades."

Choza stirred. "And what would you have us do?"

Kakashi leaned forward. His voice was low. "We need Minato Namikaze to be Hokage. Immediately."

The air tensed. Not even Inoichi flinched outwardly, but the silence was heavy.

"That," Shikaku finally said, "is not a decision made by four people in a quiet room."

"No," Kakashi replied. "But it can begin here."

Shikaku rolled out a scroll and began sketching abstract shapes. Lines of influence. Conduits of power. Kakashi recognized what he was doing: mental mapping of Konoha’s political and military nerve system.

"You want Hiruzen to step down," Shikaku said without inflection.

"I want a Hokage who won't hesitate to root out threats before they grow heads. Hiruzen is a good man. But his mercy has cost too much."

"Danzo," Inoichi said.

"And the Uchiha," Kakashi added.

That earned another pause. Chōza looked down, uncomfortable. But the other two remained focused.

"You realize the implications," Shikaku said. "Suggesting that an entire clan could become a threat..."

"It isn’t the clan," Kakashi replied quickly. "It’s the leadership. The distrust they feel now becomes paranoia later. They will become desperate. We need someone they trust in power, someone who can walk them away from the edge."

"Minato," Inoichi said again.

"Yes. But that alone isn’t enough. ROOT is going to be our biggest issue. Danzo's been building it quietly for years, and Hiruzen lets him."

"You want to go in," Shikaku guessed.

Kakashi nodded. "ANBU first. I need to get close. Get eyes. When I leave the village... and I will... I need to be sure Danzo can't use that to justify anything dangerous."

Choza finally spoke again. "Leaving the village?"

"Temporary," Kakashi said. "But necessary. There are enemies Konoha doesn’t even know it has yet. I need to stop them before they get stronger. But I won't abandon Konoha in the process. That’s why I need you three."

Shikaku tapped his finger on the scroll. "If we do this, we need layered contingencies. If Danzo makes a move to replace Hiruzen himself, we act. If he tries to instigate Uchiha suppression, we stall it. But that means building leverage now. Political and military."

Kakashi reached into his vest and pulled out a smaller scroll. He tossed it onto the table. Shikaku opened it.

"These are sealed transcripts from the Mist outposts we hit. Evidence they were acting on orders related to Tailed Beasts. Not ours. But any involvement with jinchūriki tactics this early could suggest a larger movement. Use it. It’ll push the Elders to panic."

Inoichi frowned. "That's risky."

"Everything worth doing is."

Choza looked at the others. "And what about the clans?"

Kakashi nodded. "I need you to start forming soft alliances. Particularly with the Sarutobi, the Hyūga, and the Aburame. If we can fracture their neutrality now, we can counter ROOT's political play before it starts."

Inoichi glanced toward Shikaku. "He talks like a Nara."

"He talks like a man who’s seen too much," Shikaku said. Then, more seriously: "You’re making long plays. These are moves that won’t bear fruit for years. Are you prepared to wait?"

Kakashi’s voice was cold and calm. "I’ve already waited too long."

As the meeting closed, Kakashi stood, only to be stopped by Inoichi.

"One more thing," the Yamanaka said. "I did a surface scan of your mind during interrogation. Nothing invasive, but... you're partitioning parts of your memory in a way I've never seen."

Kakashi didn’t move.

"Care to explain how a teenager learned to fragment his own psyche?"

Kakashi met his eyes. "Some things are better left locked away."

Inoichi nodded slowly. "Then keep it locked. For your sake."

As Kakashi left the room, Shikaku rolled up the war map, sighing.

"He’s either going to save this village," he muttered, "or burn it to the ground trying."

Inoichi chuckled grimly. "Let's just make sure we're standing close enough to steer him either way."

In the cold silence of a ROOT surveillance chamber, a faceless operative watched from afar. The conversation had not been heard, but the meeting had been noted.

A coded message blinked into life, stamped with a symbol: a single kanji for Observe.

Danzo had not moved yet.

But now, he was watching.

***

The streets of Konoha were still as twilight fell over the village, painting the rooftops in hues of blue and gold. Kakashi Hatake walked through the fading light like a ghost, his face unreadable behind his mask. He moved with the stiffness of someone who had just emerged from battle—not with weapons, but with words and implications.

He had just left the strategic chambers of the Ino-Shika-Chō trio, where politics and trust were exchanged in quiet statements and dangerous silences.

Now, his legs carried him instinctively to the old Hatake compound, empty and cold, untouched by time or comfort.

But he wasn't alone for long.

A blur hit him with enough force to stagger him back a step.

"You're not getting out of this that easily!" Rin's voice was sharp, breathless, and then suddenly warm as her arms wrapped around him tightly.

Kakashi blinked.

"Like hell we were letting you sulk alone in that dusty old house," she replied, stepping back just enough to look at him. Her eyes were glossy, like she'd been holding back tears since she found out he was being detained.

A second figure appeared behind her. Minato-sensei. Calm, deliberate, but with a faint smile tugging at his lips.

"We figured you'd head straight home. It's what I would've done," Minato said. "Come on. You're coming with us."

"I'm fine."

"You look like someone put you through a meat grinder," Rin snapped, tugging on his sleeve. "No arguments. You're coming. Kushina made dinner."

Kakashi opened his mouth to protest again but saw the look in both their eyes—firm, relentless, warm.

He sighed. "Fine. But I'm not washing any dishes."

...

Kushina's voice was the first thing he heard upon arriving.

"Obito! If you chop those carrots any thinner, you're going to make soup out of them before they hit the pot!"

"I—I’m doing my best!"

The kitchen smelled like heaven—spices, herbs, a rich curry bubbling on the stove. Obito was at the counter, his right side still heavily bandaged, fumbling with a knife that was clearly not meant for someone who had just gotten out of bed.

He turned when they entered. One eye narrowed. One eye wide.

The room went still.

Then:

"You're late."

Kakashi exhaled through his nose. "I got held up."

Obito's mouth twitched. "Figures. You always get delayed when someone needs saving."

Kakashi shrugged. "I like to make an entrance."

Obito huffed a laugh and returned to his chopping.

"Good. You're here," Kushina said, stepping around the stove with a towel over her shoulder. She pointed a spoon at Kakashi. "Sit. Eat. No brooding at my table or I’ll throw you into the hot spring fully clothed."

"Tempting," Kakashi muttered.

Rin elbowed him. "She’ll do it."

...

The table was small but warm. Minato sat at one end, Kushina at the other, Rin and Obito on either side of Kakashi. Food filled every available space: curry, rice, miso soup, braised vegetables, and fresh mochi.

"You really made all this?" Kakashi asked, blinking.

"Cooking is like sealing," Kushina said. "Complicated, messy, and immensely satisfying."

"If she doesn’t burn the kitchen down first," Obito added with a grin.

"Hey!"

Rin giggled, and even Kakashi felt something in his chest loosen.

They talked as they ate, slowly falling into old rhythms. Rin filled in some gaps of what had happened since the Mist attack. Obito gave his best account of waking up in the hospital and finding himself stitched up like a ragdoll.

"And then I tried to get out of bed," Obito said. "Twice. They tied me to it the second time. Literal ropes."

"You tried to phase through the wall," Rin reminded him.

"In my defense, I thought it was a genjutsu."

"You screamed at a nurse."

"She snuck up on me!"

Even Minato chuckled. Kakashi quietly finished his food, observing, storing every moment in memory. This—this warmth—he hadn't realized how much he missed it.

Until it was back.

...

Later, after dishes were done (mostly by Obito and Rin, under Kushina's supervision), the team sat outside under the stars. The Namikaze-Uzumaki home had a porch, slightly elevated, with a view of the training fields beyond.

Rin leaned against the wooden railing, half-asleep. Obito stretched out beside her, tossing a senbon in the air and catching it.

Kakashi leaned against the far post, arms crossed.

"You're planning something," Obito said quietly, after a long pause.

Kakashi didn't respond.

"I know that look," Obito continued. "You used to get it when you were about to break mission parameters for a 'tactical advantage.'"

Kakashi tilted his head slightly. "It worked."

"It did. Still doesn't mean I trust it."

"You don't have to," Kakashi said, gaze focused on the stars.

Obito looked away. "I want to, though."

That caught Kakashi off guard.

Rin stirred. "You can. He hasn't changed."

"He has," Obito said. "But not in the way I feared."

Silence stretched again.

Kakashi finally spoke. "I just want to make sure this time... no one gets left behind."

Team Minato sat beneath the stars, the remnants of war and trauma heavy but not unbearable.

Chapter Text

The Namikaze-Uzumaki household stirred before dawn. Amid the pale haze of morning, the clang of a wooden spoon against a pot echoed like a drumbeat of domestic normalcy. Kushina Uzumaki, barefoot and humming to herself in her off-key but spirited tone, was already at the stove, red hair twisted into a messy bun.

Steam curled from a pot of rice. Eggs sizzled in a pan. Minato Namikaze sat at the table in his Hokage candidate robes—not yet appointed, but the aura of leadership clung to him nonetheless. A cup of tea rested in his hand, forgotten as he flipped through reports.

"Minatooooo! Are you even awake? You haven't turned that page in ten minutes!"

Minato blinked. "I'm awake. Just rereading."

A loud, dramatic groan rolled down the hallway. Obito Uchiha limped in, dressed in sweatpants and an oversized shirt, half his body wrapped in bandages, the right side of his face heavily scarred. He moved like every joint hurt, which it did.

"She’s torturing me again today," Obito grumbled, dragging his left leg. "Some new chakra therapy that sounds like medieval punishment."

"That 'torture' keeps you from walking like a baby deer," Kushina said, placing a bowl of rice in front of him. "Eat. You're already two days behind on your healing protocol."

"Don’t care. I’m already a civilian now. What’s the point?"

Minato's eyes darkened. "Being alive is the point. We didn’t get you out of that mountain just to give up."

Obito looked away. He didn’t argue.

...

Kakashi Hatake stood alone in the empty training ground behind the compound. Morning mist clung to the grass. His breath came slow and even as he shifted through a silent kata, blade held in a defensive grip.

His senses, honed to near inhuman sharpness, told him he was being watched. He didn’t stop moving.

ANBU.

He could feel them.

Let them watch, he thought. Let them wonder. Let them tremble. I’m done hiding.

Kakashi’s latest war assignments were strictly limited. Surveillance, intercept, eliminate. Always with a chaperone, always with I&T debriefing after.

They thought he was broken, perhaps unstable. Dangerous, but useful. And they were right.

He was dangerous. Just not to who they thought.

...

Inside the compound, Rin Nohara sat cross-legged on a woven mat, a bowl of water in front of her. Her eyes were closed, hands resting on her knees.

The water trembled, ripples spreading from the center outward in erratic, jagged waves.

"Breathe through it," Kushina instructed. "You’re letting Isobu feel your fear."

"I’m not afraid."

The bowl cracked.

"Rin."

Rin opened her eyes, and for a moment they shimmered with three-tailed blue.

"Okay. Maybe a little afraid."

Kushina smiled and sat beside her. "It’s normal. I once shattered five windows because kyuubi tried to rattle the seal within me."

"What happened?"

Kushina not wanting to sour the mood grinned, "Minato slept on the couch for three days."

Despite herself, Rin laughed. The bowl stilled.

...

Kakashi returned from his mission before nightfall. Dirt-streaked, blood on his sleeves—not his own. He was greeted with warmth, light, and the scent of garlic miso soup.

Obito was at the table, slouched, spooning rice one-handed. Rin had her legs curled under her, sipping tea. Minato looked up from his scrollwork.

"Welcome back," he said simply.

Kakashi nodded and said nothing.

He sat down. Kushina filled a bowl for him without asking. Rin slid him a napkin. Obito didn’t meet his eyes.

...

That night, they gathered on the back porch. Rin was humming under her breath. Obito had his legs stretched in front of him, leaning back on his palms. Kakashi stood at the edge of the porch, masked, arms crossed.

The stars above were gentle tonight.

"I saw a genin team today," Obito muttered.

Rin looked at him. "Did it hurt?"

He shrugged. "They looked so… sure of themselves."

"They’ll learn."

Kakashi said nothing.

Obito glanced up at him. "What do you even see out there anymore, Kakashi?"

Kakashi tilted his head. "Every mission is a map. Every casualty a flag. Every pattern a thread to pull."

Rin blinked. "What are you pulling?"

He looked at her finally.

"The future."

...

Minato met with Shikaku, Inoichi, and Chōza the next day. He had suggested Kakashi debrief directly to them. A calculated move.

Kakashi walked in, pristine, direct.

They grilled him.

Tactical insights. Observation anomalies. Political instincts.

He answered smoothly. Cunningly. Dropping breadcrumbs.

Danzo.

Stalling leadership.

ROOT operatives bypassing mission protocols.

"Why bring this to us?" Shikaku asked.

Kakashi’s eye narrowed. "Because if I die tomorrow, someone still needs to know what’s coming."

They didn’t press further. But the seeds were planted.

...

At home, Kushina tested Rin’s seals—new experimental variations that allowed temporary suppression of Isobu’s chakra under high duress.

Rin passed out twice. She got back up both times.

Obito, watching from the edge of the field, balled his fists.

"You’re not useless," Rin told him later.

"Don’t lie to me."

"I’m not. You saw Kakashi’s memories, right? Then you know how close we came to dying. And how he saved me. You think he’d do that if you didn’t matter?"

Obito didn’t respond. But the next morning, he asked Minato to help him with basic clone techniques again.

...

Another week passed. Kakashi remained under surveillance.

He used it to his advantage—mapping ANBU routes. Identifying loyal operatives. Testing the limits of Hiruzen’s leash.

At dinner, he sat beside Obito, who no longer flinched when he did. Rin leaned against the doorframe, hair damp from training, Isobu unusually quiet.

"I’m going back out tomorrow," Kakashi said quietly.

"We know," Rin replied.

Obito looked up. "Don’t die."

Kakashi tilted his head. "Not part of the plan."

Kushina sat on the rooftop that night, Minato beside her.

"They’re kids," she murmured.

"They’re survivors."

"We weren’t like this."

Minato’s eyes were on the sky. "They’re going to save this village. Or burn it down trying."

Kushina exhaled, leaned into his shoulder.

"Then let’s make sure they survive long enough to decide."

...

The war was still raging. The enemy still at the gates.

But inside the Namikaze-Uzumaki home, something rare was forming.

Not peace.

Something stronger.

Resilience. Family. Fire.

And a plan that would change Konoha forever.

***

The descent into Orochimaru’s laboratory began with silence. Kakashi moved through the tunnels beneath Konoha with the precision of a ghost, his steps silent against the stone. This route wasn’t listed on any map. It existed beneath the village like a festering wound, sealed away by those who claimed to value light and justice. But even light cast shadows, and Kakashi was learning to walk in them.

ANBU knew of these paths. But only a few. And fewer still had access to the hidden seals and passwords that unlocked the doors Kakashi passed. He had no illusions about what he might find here. His source hadn’t given specifics, only a location and a warning: "Go alone. Speak carefully."

The final seal parted with a whisper of chakra. Kakashi stepped through.

The air changed instantly. Cold. Stale. Too still. He could smell formaldehyde and blood.

“Hatake-san,” came a voice, smooth and distant. “To what do I owe the disturbance in my sanctum?”

Orochimaru stood in the center of the room, surrounded by medical equipment, tubes, and tanks. His golden eyes gleamed, but there was no warmth in them. Only curiosity.

Kakashi didn’t flinch. He kept his hands visible, non-threatening. “I’m not here to judge.”

“How refreshing.”

Kakashi's eyes swept the room. There were tables with restraints. Papers scattered in precise chaos. One tank held something humanoid. A child, maybe. Or what had once been a child.

He didn't look too long. “I came to know what Danzo bought with this place.”

Orochimaru tilted his head. “Bought? What a crude term. I prefer... leveraged.”

“Doesn’t matter what you call it.” Kakashi stepped further in. “He funds you. Protects you. In exchange, you run tests. You give him results.”

“Very astute. But you didn’t come to confirm what you already know.”

“I came to hear it from you. And to tell you this:” Kakashi met his gaze. “I won’t expose this. Not yet.”

Orochimaru's smile widened.

“Oh? And what would keep Konoha’s shining prodigy from sounding the alarm?”

Kakashi shrugged. “Because I know what’s coming. And I need information more than I need righteousness.”

There was a long pause.

“You’ve changed,” Orochimaru said. “You’re not the boy who buried friends and followed orders.”

Kakashi didn’t answer.

He walked slowly along the perimeter of the lab. His eye caught glimpses he didn’t want to see—notes on chakra grafting, failed cell cultures, genetic imprints of extinct bloodlines. Each step made his stomach churn, but his face remained impassive.

“What does Danzo want from you?” he asked.

Orochimaru chuckled. “Many things. But mostly: progress.”

“Progress in what?”

“In crafting tools that cannot betray him.”

Kakashi stopped. “Clones?”

“Sometimes. But clones degrade. No, what he wants are... candidates. Children, mostly. Orphans. Prisoners. People the village forgets.”

“You’re experimenting on them.”

Orochimaru gave a slight shrug. “The village takes children and turns them into soldiers. I take the broken and make them... more.”

“And the ones who die?”

“Better here than on a battlefield, screaming for a medic who never arrives.”

Kakashi turned sharply. “That’s not mercy.”

“And yet,” Orochimaru murmured, “we both work for the same master.”

The silence between them stretched. Neither moved. Then, faintly, from behind a sealed wall, a child whimpered.

“Brother... don’t go... please...”

Kakashi's expression didn’t change, but Orochimaru noticed the shift in his stance.

“They remind me of the students I failed,” Orochimaru said, his voice softer now. “I began this... not out of cruelty. But to find a way to save them. To save everyone. Forever.”

Kakashi looked at him.

“Good goal. Horrible execution.”

A beat of silence. Then Orochimaru smiled again. “Perhaps. But isn’t that Konoha’s specialty? Noble words. Dirty hands.”

Kakashi turned to leave.

“What will you do with this information?” Orochimaru asked.

“Prepare. Adjust the board. Let you live—for now.”

Orochimaru's smile thinned. “And if I decide you’re inconvenient?”

Kakashi paused at the threshold. “Then we’ll both burn. I’m not afraid of that anymore.”

He left without another word.

Orochimaru stood alone in the lab, gaze drifting to a small tank in the corner. Inside, a child floated in stasis, breath fogging the glass faintly.

“So much potential,” Orochimaru murmured. “So many ways to win... or fail again.”

***

The message was simple. No name, no seal. Just one sentence, buried in the folds of a field report that should have never passed through the Uchiha compound.

"One who remembers the snow at the border seeks your counsel. Come alone."

Fugaku Uchiha read it once, then again. He didn’t speak. He burned the note without hesitation, the memory of that mission—Hatake Kakashi—crystallizing in his mind.

He was cautious. Uchiha always were.
But he came.

Kakashi waited beneath an ANBU ruin.

He had chosen this place for a reason. It was old and forgotten, a place where whispers wouldn’t echo. Snow still gathered here, just as it had when he and Fugaku had fought back to back nearly a decade ago. Back then, Kakashi had only been a boy with a sword too big for his hands and a burden too deep for his spine.

Now, he waited not as a soldier, but as a ghost from the future.

Fugaku appeared like a shadow peeling from the tree line. Silent. Measured.

"Hatake," he greeted flatly. Not a question. Not a threat. But not welcome, either.

Kakashi inclined his head. "I appreciate you coming."

"Say what you came to say."

The tension was thick. There was no kindness between them. Only memory.

"I know what the village plans to do to your clan," Kakashi said calmly. "And I know how it ends."

Fugaku didn’t flinch, but his silence sharpened.

Kakashi met his gaze directly. No Sharingan. Just his own eye—cool, steady, unapologetic.

"They isolate you. Let you police your own. Make you feel powerful while cutting you out of every decision that matters. They put you in a cage and smile while doing it. And eventually, someone will panic. And they’ll use that panic to justify murder."

"You speak like a prophet," Fugaku replied coldly. "Or a liar."

"Call me what you want. But I know the names of the men who will kill your children. I know the night it will happen. I know the blood that will stain the Naka Shrine."

Fugaku’s chakra flared for a brief moment, a threat, a question.

Kakashi didn’t move. "I’m not your enemy."

"Then what are you?" Fugaku asked. "Because you're not just a soldier anymore. You're something else. I can see it."

Kakashi exhaled. Cold mist left his lips. "I’m a man who saw the end of everything and was given a chance to stop it."

He offered no explanation. No evidence. Just truth carried like a blade in the open.

"I’m offering you a different future. One where your clan survives. One where your son isn’t forced to choose between loyalty and blood."

That made Fugaku pause.

His eyes narrowed.

For a long time, neither spoke.

Then Fugaku stepped forward.

Not aggressive.

Curious.

"Tell me your plan."

And so Kakashi did.

"First, everything will be initiated when Minato gets into power. That’s non-negotiable. Hiruzen is too kind to stop Danzo. Too blind to see the rot beneath his own reign. Danzo has to be removed, but carefully. Quietly."

"You think I support Danzo?" Fugaku asked.

"No. But I think your silence makes him bold."

That hit. Fugaku didn’t deny it.

"Once Minato takes office, he move the Uchiha out of the police corps."

Fugaku’s expression hardened. "You want to take away our one remaining authority?"

"No. I want to replace it with real power. Not ceremonial. I want you as one of the Hokage’s advisers. At the center of command. In the room where decisions are made. Not guarding gates while the world burns."

Fugaku considered this. "And what of the elders? Koharu. Homura. The council. They won’t allow it."

"They won’t have a choice. Not once the war ends and Minato consolidates support. And I have ways to nudge that along, other allies."

"You want to put me in the center," Fugaku said. "Where they can watch me more easily."

Kakashi shook his head. "Where they can no longer ignore you. Where you can steer the ship instead of being chained to its rudder."

There was a pause. Then:

"And in return?" Fugaku asked. "What do you gain?"

Kakashi didn’t hesitate. "A village that doesn’t eat its children."

For the first time, Fugaku looked... tired. Like the weight of possibility was heavier than the burden of oppression.

"I can’t promise my people will accept this," he said. "We don’t trust easily."

"Then start with you. If I have you, the rest will follow. Not all. But enough."

They didn’t shake hands. There was no contract. But a pact was made.

Unspoken. Unbreakable.

Kakashi turned to leave. Fugaku remained beneath the ruined outpost, staring at the frozen sky.

Fugaku returned to the Uchiha compound.

He didn’t speak of the meeting.

He didn’t breathe a word to his wife or his most trusted officers.

He watched the child sleep and thought about war, and peace, and the weight of survival.

Chapter Text

The steam curled lazily in the evening air, soft and wet against Jiraiya's bare shoulders. He reclined against the smooth stone rim of the hot spring, a bottle of warmed sake resting near his elbow. Somewhere behind the bamboo screen, the innkeeper's daughter sang as she swept the floors. The village was small, nestled deep in the Fire Country's outer reaches, a quiet hot spring town untouched by the growing tensions of the ongoing Third War. It was the kind of place a man could lose himself in—at least for a few nights.

Jiraiya sipped his sake, letting his eyes fall shut.

He was tired. Not in the way a soldier gets tired after a long mission, but in the deeper, soul-bound way that clung to your bones. His student—Minato—was shaping into a hero, already feared as the "Yellow Flash." A new generation rising.

And yet...

Jiraiya exhaled through his nose, shifting slightly. The water rippled with his movement. He glanced down at his hands, calloused and scarred, though the spring’s mineral touch made them feel younger. He had once held children’s hands with these—three orphaned war brats under his care, their faces blurred by time, memories half-silenced by guilt. 

He frowned.

He hadn’t thought about them in years. Or rather, he had refused to.

A soft rustle broke his thoughts.

Jiraiya turned.

From the edge of the trees, through the veil of dusk and mist, padded a gray-furred ninken—one of Hatake Sakumo’s breed. Jiraiya recognized the narrow, sharp eyes and quick steps. Not just any hound. One of Kakashi’s.

The dog sat at the edge of the spring without a sound. It held a scroll in its jaws, sealed with dual wax stamps. The ninken approached, dropped it on a dry towel, then stepped back.

"For me?" Jiraiya muttered.

The dog gave a brief nod.

He rose, the water cascading from him, muscles flexing as he moved. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he reached for the scroll.

His fingers froze at the seal.

This wasn’t standard intel.

...

Back inside his room, towel discarded, Jiraiya lit the lamp and unrolled the scroll on the table. The first layer was standard ANBU report format of what was happening back in the village.

But then—he noticed it.

The ink in the margin shimmered faintly. Chakra-ink.

Minato’s old technique.

He applied a chakra thread to the edge, and the second message unrolled—a hidden layer, unseen to normal sight.

His eyes scanned the new lines, and he went still.

"You taught three war orphans how to dream. One became a god, one became a ghost, and one still prays you’ll come back."

Jiraiya sat slowly.

"Yahiko. Konan. Nagato."

"You left them in a land still bleeding. You believed in their strength but gave them no shelter. They are still there—or what’s left of them. A shadow stirs in Amegakure, and soon the world will know their names. But not as students. As monsters."

"This is the cost of your silence."

Jiraiya inhaled deeply. The words cut sharper than kunai.

"If you wait any longer, the world will carve them into weapons. And you’ll be too late. Again."

He blinked, and for a moment he was no longer in a warm inn, but back in the rain. In a broken hut where three children looked at him like he was a god.

Yahiko had always spoken the loudest, full of idealism and fury. Konan never needed to raise her voice—she was steel under silk, a storm held still. And Nagato… Nagato had eyes that didn’t belong in a child’s face. The Rinnegan, yes, but more than that. Pain. Hope. Fragility.

He had taught them to survive. Trained them. Built them up.

And then he left them.

Because he thought the world would be kinder.

Because he thought they'd be fine.

Jiraiya set the scroll down, hands trembling slightly.

A final line, freshly written, as if Kakashi had etched it seconds before the scroll was sent:

"I am fixing what I can. Start with them. You were their world once. Be their world again."

By sunrise, Jiraiya was dressed and packed. His inn bill paid. His pen and unfinished manuscript left behind, page half-written. The latest draft of "Icha Icha: Love Among Shinobi" would have to wait.

Outside, the same ninken waited by the tree line. Jiraiya approached him with soft steps.

"Tell Kakashi this," he murmured, tying his forehead protector back on. "I'll find them. Even if I have to walk into hell."

The dog gave a short huff and vanished into the trees.

Jiraiya adjusted the straps on his back, looked toward the east—toward Amegakure, where the rain never stopped, and old ghosts still lingered.

"Time to pay my debts."

He stepped into the mist.

And did not look back.

***

The border village was quiet in the early morning, the mist still clinging to the treetops and muddy paths like a ghost reluctant to fade. A hot spring inn sat nestled between moss-covered rocks and crooked pines, smoke curling lazily from its chimneys. Jiraiya, the Toad Sage, the Gallant, the Sannin, stepped barefoot onto the wooden porch, his geta slung over one shoulder, his cloak drawn tight against the chill.

He left no payment at the front desk—just a few coins tucked beneath a half-filled sake bottle and a page from his next book.

The innkeeper wouldn’t question it.

The man had long since learned that strange visitors came and went during war, and when they walked like ghosts and smelled faintly of chakra and blood, you simply let them go.

Jiraiya glanced over his shoulder once. The inn was still asleep. Good. He preferred it that way.

He had work to do.

...

The forest greeted him with damp silence. Even the birds were quiet this morning. Jiraiya moved quickly, chakra suppressed, each step calculated and soft. He didn’t use the roads. Not during wartime. Not when the name Jiraiya could set fire to half a province.

He moved through the trees like a shadow with purpose.

The scroll from the ninken was tucked into a pocket of his cloak, though he’d long since memorized every word. He had reread it until it blurred into the rhythm of his heartbeat.

"You taught three war orphans how to dream. One became a god, one became a ghost, and one still prays you’ll come back."

There had been no signature. But the ink had bled with something heavier than orders. The scroll had included a brief ANBU-style report, but beneath that veneer was something else. Something personal.

"If you wait any longer, the world will carve them into weapons. And you’ll be too late. Again."

The message was a blade, and it had found its mark.

Jiraiya didn’t trust easily, and he didn’t move without a reason.

He’d been in the business of secrets and survival too long.

But something about the scroll unsettled him.

Not just because it dragged up old regrets.

Not just because it accused him of abandonment.

Because it was right.

Yahiko. Konan. Nagato.

He hadn’t thought of them in months. Maybe years.

When he’d left them, Yahiko had been charismatic, full of dreams bigger than his body. Konan had been quiet and capable, eyes sharper than his. And Nagato—Nagato had those eyes. Rinnegan. Eyes of a god.

And he’d walked away from them.

He told himself they’d be fine. That they had each other. That they’d survive like every other child of war had to.

But now Kakashi knew. Somehow, some way, Hatake Kakashi knew about them.

And that was impossible.

The old Jiraiya might have dismissed it.

He might have scoffed and poured another drink.

But he couldn’t shake the sense of precision behind those words.

It wasn’t a report.

It wasn’t even a request.

It was a reckoning.

And if Kakashi was the one sending that kind of message—

Jiraiya’s memory of the boy flickered: cold, rigid, obeying protocol like it was scripture.

He remembered the scowl, the stiff posture, the way Kakashi followed orders like they were oxygen.

Not someone who would reach into a man’s soul and hold his failings to the light.

"Something changed in that brat," Jiraiya muttered aloud, leaping branch to branch. "Something big."

...

By the time the sun reached its peak, Jiraiya was well past the central forests and nearing the edge of the Rain Country.

The land shifted here. Trees grew taller, darker. The air thickened with humidity and the scent of metal.

He paused by a stream to refill his canteen. His reflection looked older than he remembered.

"Still chasing ghosts, old man?" he asked his reflection. It didn’t answer.

He scouted refugee camps along the border in secret. Families huddled beneath broken tarps, children stared with hollow eyes. Burn marks marred old farmland, kunai embedded in trees like warnings. No sign of Yahiko. No sign of the three.

But whispers.

A boy leading a group of fighters.

A girl with blue paper butterflies.

A ghost-eyed god who never bled.

Night fell like a shroud. Jiraiya made camp in the hollow of a tree, summoning a small toad with a flick of chakra. The toad blinked up at him, sleepy and unimpressed.

"Take a message back to Hatake Kakashi. Tell him: 'Moving on Ame. If this is a trap, you better hope you're dead before I get back.'"

The toad croaked, bowed... 

***

The rain hadn’t stopped in three days.

Jiraiya trudged through the mire, the edges of his cloak soaked through with mud, the brim of his traveling hat dripping with cold water.

He barely noticed the weather anymore.

The Land of Rain was always like this, as if the sky itself mourned for the people forced to live under its unrelenting weight.

That, or the heavens had long since given up crying.

He wasn't supposed to be here.

As a Sannin of the Hidden Leaf, Jiraiya had better things to do. Missions to accept. Borders to protect. Books to write. Women to chase. A war to manage from the shadows. But none of that mattered now. Not since the message.

The borders of the Land of Rain were fragile, flanked by death, and too many shinobi had already died for reasons they didn't understand.

Still, he listened.

At a merchant outpost in the Land of Rivers, a missing-nin traded information for coin.

"They’re calling them ghosts. Three kids. No headbands. No village.” The man leaned in. “But they move like ninja. One has orange hair, talks like he's trying to save the world."

Jiraiya said nothing. Paid extra. Moved on.

In a border tavern, a barmaid told him about a blue-haired girl who repaired the roof after a lightning strike.

"Didn’t ask for coin. Just smiled. Said, 'No one should freeze just because they're poor.'"

He stayed silent. Left a larger tip. Moved on.

A beggar at a crossroads murmured about a boy with strange eyes who buried the dead after a skirmish.

"Even the enemy. Said everyone deserves peace."

The more Jiraiya heard, the more it hurt.

Yahiko, all fire and words. Konan, quiet and brilliant. Nagato, gentle despite his power.

They were still trying.

Still believing.

Still alive.

The pain struck like shrapnel through his chest. He remembered the last time he saw them—children with bruised knuckles and hungry bellies, sitting cross-legged in the ruins of war, still hopeful. Still clinging to the idea that someone would help them fix the world.

He was supposed to be that someone.

Instead, he'd trained them for a few months, left them scrolls, and walked away. Told himself they were strong enough to handle it. Told himself they had to grow on their own.

Told himself it was the right thing to do.

But Kakashi's message had shattered that illusion. If the Hatake boy was warning him now, it meant something terrible was coming. Something Kakashi was trying to stop before it arrived.

Jiraiya didn’t know how the boy had learned about the Ame orphans—even Minato didn’t know about them. Which meant Kakashi had sources beyond what was normal. Far beyond. And that, more than anything, chilled Jiraiya to the bone.

He stood at a ridge overlooking the eastern basin of Amegakure.

Rain blanketed the city below. The towers were cracked, scaffolding clinging like ribs to a broken skeleton. Smoke curled from makeshift chimneys. Lights flickered in patches—not from power, but from candles. The kind of light that spoke of survival, not comfort.

He pitched a small camp, used a cloaking seal, and waited.

That night, he watched refugees line up for bread rations.

Among them, a trio.

Too far to see faces.

But one walked like a leader. Another with a bodyguard's vigilance. The third bent to tie a child’s shoe.

It could be anyone.

But in his gut, Jiraiya knew.

It was them.

And suddenly, he didn’t want to go down.

He wanted to stay in the rain forever, a ghost watching ghosts.

Because what if he was too late?

What if the dream was already dying?

He thought back to the old days.

The Second Great War. Orochimaru with his scalpel and eyes that never blinked. Tsunade breaking bones with a whisper. Himself, making jokes to cover up the smell of burning villages.

They survived by growing colder.

By letting go.

So how were these three children still clinging to warmth?

And how long would it last?

The realist in him said it wouldn’t. Said the war would find them eventually, like it found everyone. Said if they weren’t stained with blood yet, it was only because the knife hadn't reached their throats.

But another part of him—the teacher, maybe, or the broken-hearted fool—hoped they were stronger than he had been. That they had found a way to live without becoming monsters.

He wandered into a ruined district, searching for shelter.

There, he found a wall.

Crumbling. Bombed. But still standing.

Drawn on it, in soot and paint, was a mural.

Three figures. Holding hands. A red sun behind them.

Underneath, scrawled in childish handwriting:

Hope. Yahiko. Konan. God.

Jiraiya stared.

For a long time.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

"God, huh?"

His voice was rough.

"Let’s hope you never have to become that."

Chapter Text

The message arrived in silence, slipped beneath the door of the Uchiha clan head's office.

It was not sealed, nor marked with any of the usual emblems of authority.

No Hokage stamp.

No clan insignia.

Just a folded square of parchment, plain and unassuming.

Fugaku opened it, eyes narrowing.

He recognized the handwriting at once: Namikaze Minato.

Just to talk. I’ll bring the sake.

It was signed only with a time, a location—a quiet meeting house at the border of the Uchiha compound, near where the clan district brushed the forest line.

He stared at the paper for long minutes. Then, without a word, he set it to the flame.

Minato arrived early.

He always did.

He believed in the quiet power of preparation, in the steadiness it offered.

Even now, with the war still bleeding through their country, he bore himself with calm.

The fire crackled low in the hearth. He set the sake on the table between them, along with two small cups.

He didn't expect Fugaku to drink it. But the gesture mattered.

He'd learned that from Kushina.

The door slid open exactly on time.

Fugaku stepped through, still in uniform, posture taut.

He looked like a man walking into an ambush.

His eyes were sharp and unreadable, but he sat across from Minato without a word.

Minato bowed slightly. "Thank you for coming."

Fugaku said nothing. He studied the bottle.

Minato poured. First for him, then for Fugaku.

"You don’t strike me as someone who hides behind alcohol," Fugaku said flatly.

Minato offered a faint smile. "I don’t. But this isn’t hiding."

He drank. Then waited.

Fugaku lifted the cup slowly, as if weighing more than just the sake within. He drank.

"Speak."

Minato set his cup down. "This war is bleeding us dry. And not just in battlefields. At home. In the village. In our children."

Fugaku's jaw flexed. "Konoha has always bled. Some of us more than others."

"Yes," Minato said simply. "The Uchiha most of all."

That earned him a sharp glance. But Minato didn't flinch.

"I won’t waste your time with flattery or vague sentiments. You know what the council thinks of your clan. What the Hokage allows them to do. I’m not here to deny it. I’m here because I want it to change."

Fugaku's eyes narrowed. "Words are cheap, Namikaze."

Minato nodded. "Then let me offer more. I want you as my advisor. When this war ends, when I become Hokage—and I will—I want your voice beside mine."

The silence that followed was thick.

Fugaku leaned back slightly. "That is a dangerous offer."

"Yes. For both of us."

Fugaku took another sip. "And the Uchiha Police?"

Minato’s tone remained calm. "It has become a tool of division. A leash. I will disband it. Return your people to equal positions within the regular shinobi ranks. The police force isolates you. That was intentional."

Fugaku's eyes darkened. "And who whispered that intention to you?"

Minato met his gaze steadily. "Kakashi."

A pause.

Fugaku set his cup down, slow and deliberate. "That boy… he sees too much."

"He sees what most adults refuse to. And he has a vision."

Fugaku said nothing. But something flickered in his eyes. Thought. Calculation.

"He told you I would come to this meeting."

Minato nodded. "He believed you would, yes."

Fugaku looked away briefly, gaze drawn to the fire.

"I have seen this village through war and peace. I have watched as my clan—once founders, protectors—were turned into convenient scapegoats. I have buried too many good Uchiha because of fear."

Minato didn't speak. He let the silence sit.

Finally, Fugaku turned back. "And what of Danzo? He will not allow this to pass without resistance."

Minato's voice dropped. "Danzo has built his own empire in the shadows. I will dismantle it. Brick by brick."

"Dangerous words."

"Necessary ones."

Fugaku looked at him long and hard.

"You speak of trust. But you have not earned it."

"Not yet." Minato met his eyes. "That’s why I’m here."

They spoke for another hour.

Of transition. Of timing. Of power.

Fugaku asked for details. Contingency plans. He was not a man who dealt in dreams. He wanted structure. He wanted insurance.

Minato gave what he could.

They did not agree on everything. But they agreed on enough.

And when the bottle was empty, Fugaku stood.

"You are not what I expected."

Minato smiled faintly. "Neither are you."

Fugaku walked to the door. Then paused.

"Hatake said he wanted to change the story," he said quietly. "I didn’t believe him. But maybe... not all the chapters are written yet."

He left.

Minato remained.

The fire burned low.

In the embers, something stirred.

Not peace.

But the possibility of it.

***

Kushina stirred the miso soup slowly, counterclockwise the way her mother taught her. She wasn’t really watching the pot. Her eyes were on the door, which opened with a creak like an old man’s sigh. Rin entered first, trailing dust from the training fields and the lingering scent of sweat. She looked stronger these days—sharper, quieter. There were calluses forming on her palms now, old shoes beginning to wear at the soles. Obito was outside, somewhere on the porch, muttering to himself through his physical therapy drills. He’d promised he could walk unaided by the end of the month. Kushina doubted it, but she didn’t say that. His pride had already taken too many hits. Kakashi was in the corner, curled in a chair, legs up, his attention flickering over a half-unrolled scroll. He looked like he hadn’t slept. He rarely did. His visible eye barely twitched when Rin came in. He had his mask up, but Kushina didn’t need to see his face to know how tightly his jaw was clenched.

She stirred the soup again.

Too young to be this quiet, she thought. Too quiet to still be children.

Kushina, ironically, had all the time in the world now. Ever since she was classified as a "restricted civilian," she had nothing but time. The Council had called it "precautionary," citing her status as a jinjuriki. A security measure. A kindness.

It was a prison.

She couldn’t go on missions. Couldn’t train openly. Couldn’t even leave the village without three forms of written approval.

Red Death, they used to call her.

Now she was just Red.

Rin trained every morning, without fail.

Kushina would watch her from the porch, steaming cup of tea cooling in her hands as dawn spilled its pale light over the compound. Rin was already there—barefoot and balanced atop the surface of the koi pond, walking slow, measured laps across the water as if it were stone. She never faltered. Not once. Each step was steadier than the last, her chakra control refining with every breath, every hour. Even the koi had learned to ignore her shadow.

There was a quiet determination in the girl that Kushina recognized too well. That restless energy. That need to be in motion, always reaching, always trying. And beneath it, something tighter, wound like a coil.

Sometimes they trained together. Just the two of them, no audience. Early morning or late at night, when no one could overhear.

Water techniques. Chakra flow. Medical chakra control so precise it could make or unmake a body.

Kushina wasn’t a medic—not really—but she’d trained alongside one. Tsunade had taught her more than she cared to admit. Enough to guide Rin. Enough to be useful.

They practiced chakra threads between their fingertips, and Rin was quick to learn, pulling threads like spider-silk through water. The chakra scalpel took longer—finer control, more risk—but she never complained, never hesitated. Kushina admired that, even as she felt the weight of it pressing against her.

The girl was too young for this. But then again, so was Kushina, once.

Lately, Rin had started muttering to herself. Not loud. Not enough for the words to carry. Just under her breath—tiny, careful movements of her lips when she thought Kushina wasn’t watching.

At first, Kushina said nothing.

Then one morning, as they sat together catching their breath beside the pond, Rin finally said it.

“Isobu says our chakra is getting better,” she whispered, voice barely audible over the wind stirring the leaves. Her eyes were too wide, shining with something like awe.

Kushina flinched. A tiny, involuntary jerk—nothing dramatic, nothing loud—but she felt it in her bones.

Her tea splashed quietly in the cup, and she looked away too quickly.

She hadn’t looked at her own seal in months.

Didn’t need to. She knew it was stable. Knew Minato checked it sometimes while she was asleep, quiet and subtle so she wouldn’t notice.

But that wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that she couldn’t bear to see it.

Couldn’t bear to feel him stir, even slightly. The dull throb of awareness. That endless, heavy presence coiled in her belly, patient and silent like a tide.

She forced her voice steady. “Be careful,” she said. “Tailed beasts lie.”

Rin didn’t react with fear or doubt. She just smiled—soft and small, as if comforting Kushina, not herself.

“He doesn’t lie to me,” Rin said simply.

Kushina didn’t answer. She didn’t warn her again. Didn’t press the issue, though she probably should have.

Maybe she was tired. Maybe she didn’t want to reopen that part of herself.

Maybe—just maybe—she didn’t want to admit that she envied Rin’s ease. That she wondered, just for a moment, what it might feel like to believe the fox could speak without malice. To believe he might be something other than a weapon or a curse.

But she didn’t say any of that.

She just sipped her tea, eyes on the water, and told herself that if Rin ever needed her—really needed her—she’d know.

She hoped she’d know.

Chapter Text

The mission was supposed to be easy.

“Easy” was the exact word their sensei had used, actually—tossed over her shoulder like a spare kunai as she handed them the scroll and vanished to rendezvous with another squad.

"A supply run," she said. "A milk-run mission. In and out. No heroics, and no screw-ups."

"Define 'no heroics,'" Tenmaru Takuya had joked, tossing his dark braid over his shoulder with mock flair. “Because I’m personally incapable of being anything but heroic.”

“You’re personally incapable of shutting up,” muttered Hoshino Aiko, all arms-crossed and unimpressed, as usual. She was already inventorying the gear before they left—standard field pack, emergency flare tags, message hawk.

Shisui had just grinned, hands behind his head, and let them bicker. It was their usual rhythm. Takuya the mouthy tactician with too many plans and too little self-preservation. Aiko the sharp-tongued sensor, always three steps ahead in analysis and five behind on empathy. And him—the runner, the fighter, the jōnin-to-be-if-he-could-just-stop-getting-yelled-at—for going too fast, too far, too recklessly.

Team Nine was unorthodox, maybe. But they worked.

The supplies were food and medicine. Meant for a forward camp two clicks from the border of Rain Country. Shisui didn’t ask who was stationed there—probably some tired chūnin posted to the back lines to make up numbers. They weren’t told much, and they didn’t need to know.

All they had to do was deliver the crates, confirm receipt, and head back to Fire Country.

Easy.

Except nothing was ever easy near the border.

...

It started with the rain.

Not a soft drizzle like the Hidden Rain was known for—this was thick, heavy, drenching sheets of water, falling too suddenly, too fast. Visibility dropped to nothing in seconds.

“That’s not natural,” Aiko said immediately, fingers moving through seals as she activated her chakra sensor. “We’re being funneled.”

“Into what?” Shisui asked, eyes narrowing.

“An ambush, probably,” said Takuya grimly. “And now they know exactly where we are.”

Then came the kunai. Whistling from the trees. One thunked into Aiko’s thigh—just a graze, she said, even as blood soaked through her pants.

Shisui spun, parried, ducked low.

Their attackers didn’t wear any identifying symbols. No hitai-ate. Just dark hoods, muffled footsteps, and precision strikes. Rogue elements, maybe. Rain-nin deserters. Or worse—Rain-nin with sanction.

“We need cover!” Takuya shouted, dragging Aiko into a crouch behind an uprooted tree.

“We need backup,” Aiko snapped, pain curling her mouth.

Shisui leapt into the trees, chakra pulsing to his feet, eyes scanning for an opening. There was none. The rain hit his skin like needles, blurring everything. These weren’t normal guerilla tactics—they were practiced. Coordinated.

This was a trap.

He returned to the ground with a thud.

“Takuya, smoke screen?”

“On it,” his friend said, fingers moving through hand seals.

The bomb went off before he could finish.

One moment, Takuya was crouched beside him, breath fogging the air as he reached for his pouch.

The next—

Fire. Shrapnel. A scream.

Shisui flew backward, hit a tree trunk hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs.

When he staggered to his feet, everything was smoke.

And in the middle of it—

Takuya.

Body shielding the others.

Arms outstretched.

Chest blown open.

Time stilled.

Shisui couldn’t breathe.

He didn’t scream—he couldn’t. It was like his voice had gone with the air in his lungs.

No. No, no, no—

Aiko was crawling toward them, hand smeared with blood, one eye swollen shut.

“I’m sending a flare,” she said, breath ragged. “Cover me.”

She never got the chance.

Two Rain-nin dropped from the trees like shadows. One threw a knife, the other lunged.

Shisui moved, but not fast enough.

The kunai struck Aiko in the chest, just below the collarbone. She gasped—and still, still, she forced her hand up to release the flare.

It burst into the sky, red and bright and useless in the rain.

Then the second attacker slit her throat.

Shisui saw it all.

The arc of blood. The way her hand trembled. The way she collapsed beside Takuya.

His legs moved before his mind caught up.

One enemy down with a kunai to the gut. The other burned alive by a katon blast that blistered Shisui’s hands.

He didn’t care.

He didn’t think.

He just moved.

They were dead. Takuya and Aiko. His team.

His friends.

And he was alone.

Something cracked open inside him.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even painful. Just—empty. Like space expanding behind his ribs.

His Sharingan flared to life. Not the usual red swirl, but something new. Darker. Deeper. A pattern like a pinwheel, burning in his eyes like fire under ice.

He didn’t know what it was.

He just knew that now—he could see everything.

The trajectory of every kunai.

The pulse of enemy chakra as it moved like ink through the trees.

The space between the raindrops.

He moved like a ghost.

His blade found necks and arteries.

His fists crushed throats.

His genjutsu twisted their perception, turned friend against friend. He didn’t care if it was dirty. They deserved worse.

When they tried to run, he followed.

When they begged, he didn’t hear them.

When the last one dropped, twitching and bloodied, Shisui stood in the middle of the clearing, soaked in red and rain, staring down at the bodies of his teammates.

And finally, finally—

He fell to his knees.

***

Shisui didn’t remember much after the burning pain in his chest swallowed the world whole.

When his eyes fluttered open again, the world was too quiet.

No rain. No birds. No footsteps.

Only a faint pulse in his veins, slower, deeper than normal.

He was lying on something soft. Moss? Vines? The scent was strange—earthy and sharp, like the forest but not quite.

He tried to sit up.

A cold wave shot through his body, sharp and biting. His limbs felt heavy, disconnected.

Then he felt it.

A tickling, crawling sensation beneath his skin. Not pain. Not quite. But something foreign.

Shisui’s vision blurred and swam, dark shapes flickering at the edges of his sight. When he blinked, the shapes were gone. When he looked again, they returned—like shadows moving just beyond reality.

A voice echoed—not in words, but in feeling.

“Rest. Heal. Wait.”

The voice was gentle. Yet impossible to ignore.

Shisui tried to call out, but his throat was dry and his tongue thick.

He let his eyes drift closed again.

Far above the trees, a black figure observed.

Black Zetsu, coiling like smoke around a twisted branch, his shape ever-shifting.

His cold, gleaming eyes watched the fading chakra signature of the young Uchiha warrior.

“Shisui Uchiha,” Black Zetsu whispered, voice dripping like oil. “The last seed of your bloodline’s future... so much potential, and so fragile.”

Beneath the forest floor, far from any path, something stirred.

A mass of writhing white tendrils—White Zetsu spores—emerged from the earth, spreading like ink into the roots and stones.

The spores connected to Shisui’s nearly extinguished chakra, weaving into the fibers of his being.

In the hidden cave, ancient and organic, shaped by the will of Madara long ago, the spores began their work.

The walls pulsed gently, alive.

White tendrils merged with Shisui’s wounds, carrying the cells of the legendary First Hokage—Hashirama.

His broken ribs knit together.

His torn muscles closed.

Pain gave way to warmth, unnatural and steady.

He did not know how long he lay there.

Minutes? Hours? Days?

When at last he opened his eyes again, the world was brighter, sharper—but not real.

He was alive.

Or so he believed.

The hidden infection hummed beneath his skin, a seed planted deep.

When at last he woke, weak and trembling, his mind grasped for answers.

“Konoha... a rescue party...” he thought, clinging to hope.

But beneath his skin, the seeds of a darker fate had taken root.

***

Days passed.

Shisui’s wounds healed with impossible speed. Muscle and bone knitted back as if time itself bent around him. His strength returned, almost unnatural.

But then—

A flicker.

A sudden, terrifying silence within.

During a sparring session with a fellow Uchiha trainee, his chakra flared—and abruptly vanished. His arms went limp mid-throw. He staggered, heart hammering, as the world spun.

Later, during a mission briefing, his vision fractured. Blinding white flashes exploded behind his eyes, and for a moment, the room was gone—replaced by shifting shadows and whispering voices he couldn’t understand.

His body betrayed him again and again. Brief paralysis seized his legs like cold iron chains. His eyes fluttered shut unbidden during tense moments.

At night, his dreams twisted into fragmented nightmares—fleeting images of tendrils creeping through his flesh, faces warped and melting, whispers in a language he could almost understand but not fully.

He woke each morning drenched in cold sweat, heart pounding in a cage of uncertainty.

Was he losing his mind?

Or was something far worse at work?

In the shadows of Shisui’s chakra network, the pseudo-White Zetsu lurked.

It was not a master, but a leash—silent and invisible, wrapped deep inside the threads of his being.

It did not rush to seize control.

Instead, it allowed Shisui to believe he was free.

It watched, waiting for the right moment.

When Shisui’s will wavered, the spore suppressed his chakra, locking down his ability to fight or run.

When he tried to resist, temporary paralysis chained his limbs.

The illusions in his dreams eroded his confidence, planting doubt and fear like seeds in fertile soil.

The infection did not shatter him—it wore him down, slowly and patiently.

Black Zetsu’s voice whispered beneath the veil of shadows, “Patience, patience... the warrior must be tempered, not broken.”

Zetsu did not rush.

He did not reveal himself.

The pseudo-White Zetsu embedded within Shisui’s chakra network was a parasite and a leash.

When the time came, it would take control.

Until then, it would watch, wait—and guide.

Chapter Text

The mist had barely begun to lift when Kakashi Hatake arrived at the secluded training grounds on the village’s edge. Dawn filtered in soft gold through the tree tops, dappling the moss-covered stones and damp earth. Birds chirped lazily from high branches, and the occasional thump of a fist against bark echoed between trunks.

He wasn’t surprised to see Maito Gai already there.

Gai stood in the clearing like a flame barely held in check. His green jumpsuit clung to him, soaked with the sweat of an already brutal warm-up. Kakashi watched for a moment, appreciating—perhaps even envying—how Gai always seemed to overflow with the same tireless energy, no matter the hour or season. No matter the timeline.

Gai sensed him before he spoke.

“Ah! Eternal Rival!” Gai called, twirling into a flamboyant backflip before landing in a wide, open stance. “You dare arrive exactly three minutes later than me! I suppose you needed those minutes to prepare your spirit!”

Kakashi stepped fully into the clearing, hands in his pockets, an eye half-lidded in feigned disinterest. “Or maybe I just value sleep more than screaming at trees.”

“Screaming at trees is essential to igniting one’s Flames of Youth!”

Kakashi hummed, gaze drifting skyward. “Funny. I don’t recall any ninja manual including tree-yelling drills.”

“I am the manual,” Gai declared, striking a pose so dramatic that a squirrel nearby lost its grip and fell from a branch.

Kakashi snorted softly, masking the sound with a cough.

...

They moved into warm-ups, side by side. Push-ups, pull-ups from tree limbs, and sprints from stone to stone. Gai was a blur of motion, breathing loud and proud. Kakashi kept pace with quiet efficiency, breathing through his nose, limbs loose and precise. The familiar rhythm of their rivalry—one fiery, one calm—clicked into place like a ritual dance.

“You’re not letting your age slow you down, I see!” Gai bellowed between squats.

Kakashi arched an eyebrow. “I’m twelve.”

Gai blinked. “So you are.”

“Should I be concerned you forgot that?”

“I simply meant that your aura feels... seasoned!”

Kakashi smirked faintly. “Your metaphors are getting desperate.”

“And your taunts lack spirit today!”

Their banter was easy, natural. Like water over worn stones.

But underneath, Kakashi felt the hollow thrum in his chest. Because Gai was the same. Exactly the same as he remembered—flamboyant, intense, loyal beyond reason. A constant.

No matter the era, the mission, or the war, Gai remained unshaken. Not even time could bend him.

That truth settled deep into Kakashi’s bones with unexpected comfort.

They moved into sparring.

No jutsu. No tricks. Just taijutsu.

Gai grinned as he circled, feet bouncing in rhythmic cadence. “Today’s Rivalry Challenge is Number 138! First to land a clean hit!”

Kakashi adopted a loose stance. “Isn’t that the same as 137?”

“Of course not! 137 was elbow-only. This is freestyle!”

“I’m honored by the variety.”

Gai lunged with a flash of green. Kakashi sidestepped, pivoting on one foot, letting the momentum roll past him.

Strike. Block. Duck. Sweep.

The forest echoed with the slap of feet and the whistle of wind-cutting kicks. Kakashi didn’t go all out—not because he was holding back out of mercy, but because he didn’t want to break the spell. This was real. Not a memory. Not a dream.

This was Gai, laughing as he fought, bright and unshattered.

They broke apart for a breath.

Kakashi leaned against a tree, arms crossed, chest rising and falling.

Gai tilted his head. “You’re faster today.”

“You’re slower.”

“HA! Then I must double my sprints tomorrow!”

Kakashi glanced to the horizon.

The village was barely visible through the trees. 

A jagged line of rooftops and stone, untouched by the fires of war—for now.

His smile slipped.

Gai watched him, perceptive behind the dramatic posturing.

“Something on your mind, Rival?”

“Not really.”

“Mm.” Gai dropped his pose and walked over, less theatrical now. “You’ve been... quieter than usual lately.”

Kakashi didn’t answer.

Gai rubbed the back of his neck. “I won’t pry. I know that look. The one that says, ‘Talk and I’ll vanish into a tree.’”

Kakashi gave him a side glance. “You’ve been cataloguing my expressions?”

“Of course. As your rival, it is my duty!”

“Flattering.”

Gai grew serious. “But if that silence ever turns inward—if it starts to eat at you—I will drag it out. I know you, Kakashi. Even if you don’t say it.”

Kakashi swallowed. His throat was suddenly dry.

“…I’ll let you know before I start punching rocks.”

Gai beamed. “Excellent! Then I’ll be ready with bandages and bento!”

Kakashi looked away, smile creeping back. “We both know you’ll forget the rice.”

“I never forget—okay, maybe once. Or thrice.”

Kakashi laughed. A low, real thing.

They resumed sparring. The stakes were nothing, but their hearts were in it.

Gai fought with open passion, Kakashi with guarded precision. They danced between trees, rolled in the dirt, and threw themselves into the contest with reckless youth.

It felt good. It felt right.

And Kakashi thought:

Maybe I don’t have to do this alone.

He would still make the hard choices. Still rewrite history one brutal page at a time. But here, in this moment, with Gai breathing beside him, he allowed himself a rare mercy.

To believe in something constant.

They lay on the ground afterward, chests heaving, covered in dirt and bruises. The sun had climbed higher, spilling gold between the trees.

Gai had his hands behind his head, eyes closed. “Next time, I’m beating you and bringing the better bento.”

Kakashi looked at the sky. “That’s a tall order.”

“Consider it a Rivalry Promise!”

“…Yeah.”

He turned his head slightly, gazing at his friend’s familiar profile.

“Promise.”

***

The path back to Konoha was quiet. 

Leaves whispered with a summer breeze above, and the warm sunlight filtered through the trees like gold dust. It should have been peaceful. For most people, it would have been.

But Kakashi’s mind was never quiet these days.

Gai jogged a few paces ahead, his gait light even after hours of sparring. He was whistling—something loud and off-key, exuberant as always. Kakashi trailed behind, content to let Gai fill the silence. His body ached from the intensity of their spar, but in a way that was satisfying. Familiar. A reminder that some things—some *people*—never changed, no matter the twists of time.

He looked up. The trail curved ahead, revealing a lone figure standing in the middle of the road, half in shadow.

Gai stopped. “Looks like we have company.”

Kakashi said nothing, but he already knew.

Obito Uchiha.

He stood stiffly, arms crossed over his chest. His left side was tense, almost immobile, but he was upright. Dressed in civilian training clothes, not a uniform. His eyes locked onto Kakashi’s with an intensity that bordered on brittle.

Gai glanced between the two, reading the tension in an instant. He cleared his throat, tossed Kakashi a quick, knowing look, and said, “I’ll go make sure the ramen stand isn’t out of miso. Rival, don’t keep me waiting too long!”

He was gone a moment later.

Kakashi and Obito stood alone in the sun-dappled path.

“Fight me,” Obito said, without preamble.

Kakashi blinked slowly. “Hello to you, too.”

“I’m serious.”

“I can tell. You usually open with a dumb joke.”

Obito’s fists clenched at his sides. “I’ve seen the way you move now. You’re not even trying to hide it. You’re not the same. You’re different.”

Kakashi’s face remained unreadable. “So are you.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Obito snapped. “You’re *beyond* me now. I was *close*, before. I could’ve caught up. But now?”

Kakashi didn’t respond.

Obito stepped forward. “I trained. I bled for this. I was going to be Hokage. And now? I’m deranked. I’m not even a shinobi on paper anymore. Rin’s still studying. You’re out here doing God knows what with Gai, and I’m stuck on the sidelines. Watching. Again.”

Kakashi exhaled. “You’re recovering.”

“I’m rotting,” Obito growled. “Everyone’s moving forward and I’m frozen. This therapy crap—they keep saying I’m doing well, but I can’t even hold a kunai properly with my hand.”

His voice cracked. Kakashi’s gaze softened for just a second.

“I want to fight you,” Obito said again, quieter now. “I need to know how far behind I’ve fallen.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

Obito laughed bitterly. “Why? Because I’ll get hurt? Because you think I can’t handle it?”

“Because you’re not fighting me. You’re trying to prove something to yourself, and if I go all out—” Kakashi looked away. “—I’ll break more than your ribs.”

Obito’s expression twisted. “Don’t hold back. You think I’m pathetic? Useless now?”

“I think you’re *angry*,” Kakashi said. “And scared. And tired. And you think that if I knock you down, it’ll confirm what you already believe.”

Obito lunged.

It wasn’t elegant, but it was fast. His right arm was strong, practiced. Kakashi slid aside with ease, his feet never leaving the ground. Obito came again, this time with a feint and a left jab that faltered halfway through.

Kakashi deflected and stepped back.

“Stop dodging!” Obito shouted. “Fight me!”

“Obito—”

“You owe me this!”

The words hit harder than the blows. Kakashi’s shoulders stiffened. He didn’t argue.

Obito struck again, and again, every move raw with emotion. It wasn’t sparring. It was desperation.

Finally, one punch glanced Kakashi’s cheek.

Obito’s eyes widened, triumphant—then narrowed.

“You *let* me hit you.”

Kakashi didn’t deny it.

“Damn it!” Obito’s knees buckled. He fell hard, hands scraping against the dirt path. “You’re not even trying.”

“I am,” Kakashi said softly. “Just not in the way you want.”

Obito stayed on his knees, breathing ragged.

“I used to think… if I just pushed hard enough, I’d catch up. I thought we’d always be a team. You, me, and Rin. But now?” His voice trembled. “Now you’re somewhere I can’t even see.”

Kakashi knelt beside him.

“I saved you,” he said. “But I didn’t fix it. And I know it’s not fair to ask you to be okay. But I didn’t leave you behind. Not on purpose.”

Obito turned his face away.

“Then why does it feel like you did?”

Kakashi hesitated. “Because I’ve changed. And because the person I used to be… the one who’d wait for you to catch up…” He looked at the sky. “He died a long time ago. But I’m still here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Obito didn’t answer.

The breeze picked up. 

The forest whispered again. 

And two boys sat in the dirt, shoulder to shoulder, as the sun slipped through the leaves.

***

The ramen stand glowed like a lantern in the dusk, warm and humming with laughter. The wooden countertop was scratched from years of use, its surface dotted with soy sauce rings and shallow nicks from countless chopsticks. It was a place for shinobi who wanted a hot meal and a moment to breathe—or for the rare chance to be young in a world that rarely allowed it.

Kakashi slowed his pace as the stand came into view. Obito was just ahead, his gait uneven but determined. The boy's left side dragged slightly, a stiffness in his leg and arm that no amount of therapy had fully resolved. But he walked without a cane, and Kakashi respected the sheer stubbornness it took to get that far.

"Come on," Kakashi said, voice low. "You owe me ramen. For trying to punch my spleen out."

Obito didn't look back. "You dodged. That doesn't count."

Still, he veered toward the stand.

Inside, Gai sat like a green firework halfway through detonation, steam rising from the enormous bowl in front of him. He looked up and lit up instantly, waving his arms like a man drowning in enthusiasm.

"Obito! Kakashi! You came! You’ve arrived just in time—I was about to challenge this chili oil to a duel!"

Kakashi blinked. The broth in Gai’s bowl was more red than brown.

"That doesn’t look like food. It looks like molten regret."

Gai slammed a fist to his chest. "Regret is for cowards! Passion burns hotter than peppers!"

Obito groaned, limping past him. "If you die, I’m not giving a eulogy."

Kakashi let himself smile, just faintly. This, he could manage. Banter. Routine. It reminded him of simpler times that had never really been simple at all.

A cluster of voices caught his attention. Further inside, a small group of nin sat packed around a cramped corner table.

Asuma Sarutobi leaned back against the wall,  the casual defiance was already in place. His hair stuck out in wild tufts, a prelude to the man he’d become.

Next to him sat Kurenai Yuhi, poised and sharp-eyed, her long hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. She was laughing softly at something Genma Shiranui said—Genma, already with a senbon in his mouth, lounging like a man twice his age.

Kakashi froze for a breath.

He hadn’t known them well at this age. Barely interacted with them, really. They'd been classmates, sometimes teammates on joint missions. Background noise to his own grief.

But now?

He saw Asuma bleeding out in the grass with smoke on his breath. He saw Kurenai weeping at the funeral pyre. He saw Genma refusing to abandon his post during Pain’s assault.

He had watched them die.

And now they were here.

Alive. Laughing.

Asuma noticed him first. "Hatake. You’re actually social now?"

Genma grinned. "Didn’t think you were allowed to make facial expressions before thirteen."

Kurenai smirked. "Leave him be. Maybe Gai’s enthusiasm is contagious."

Kakashi blinked back the sudden ache in his chest.

"Contagion implies infection. Gai’s a disease now?" Obito chimed.

"A flame, my eternal rival!" Gai shouted, waving his chopsticks like a flag. "A virus of spirit and youth!"

Obito slumped onto the stool beside Kakashi, accepting the miso ramen Gai had already ordered for him. He didn’t say much, but he didn’t leave either. That was progress.

Kakashi sat down last. The warmth of the counter seeped into his sleeves, grounding him.

Around them, the din of laughter and slurping noodles filled the air. Genma was explaining a prank he’d pulled on Ebisu involving rubber frogs and glue. Asuma snorted into his broth. Kurenai rolled her eyes but smiled.

Kakashi watched them with a strange sort of reverence.

This was what he had missed.

The first time around, he'd buried himself in missions and discipline. He'd been distant, cold, efficient. The perfect soldier. But he'd been alone.

Now, he had a chance.

To notice them. To remember this.

To maybe keep them alive.

Obito shoved his bowl aside, half-finished. "They don’t even look at me like a shinobi anymore."

Kakashi turned. "Who?"

"The villagers. The other kids. Even Gai." He looked up, eyes shadowed. "I hear what they say. 'Poor Uchiha boy.' Like I’m already dead."

Gai’s face fell. "Obito…"

Obito didn’t let him finish. "You’re all moving forward. Rin’s still training. You… whatever you are now, Kakashi. I’m just here. Stuck."

Kakashi said nothing at first. The truth hurt too much.

"You’re alive," he said finally. "That’s not stuck. That’s step one."

Obito scoffed, pushing to his feet. His leg wobbled, but he didn’t fall.

Kurenai spoke gently. "Everyone moves at their own pace."

Obito didn’t look at her. "Yeah, well, my pace sucks."

He limped out of the stand.

For a moment, no one moved.

Kakashi sighed and stood.

Gai looked up. "You going after him?"

"He’s my teammate."

Gai nodded. "I’ll wrap up your order."

Kakashi paused, glancing back at the table. Asuma gave a casual two-finger wave. Genma just nodded, senbon twitching slightly. Kurenai met his gaze with a smile.

Then he followed Obito into the night. 

...

They didn’t talk much on the way back.

Kakashi walked beside Obito, close but not hovering. The stars were just beginning to appear, faint pinpricks through the deepening dusk.

Obito finally spoke. "Rin’s still training. Did you know that? She’s been working with Kushina, trying to learn medical techniques without chakra surges triggering the Three-Tails."

"I know."

"She’s brave."

"She always was."

Obito was quiet for a long moment. "I thought if I worked hard enough, I could catch up. Be useful again. But then I saw you fighting today. You were always ahead of me, but now it’s like… like you’re not even you anymore. You’re something else."

Kakashi exhaled slowly. "I had to become something else. To fix the things I couldn’t before."

Obito stopped walking. "What things?"

Kakashi looked up at the stars. They were brighter now. Cold, distant lights.

"Everything."

Obito studied him. "You know things, don’t you? Nobody tells me anything anymore."

Kakashi met his eyes. Didn’t answer.

Obito didn’t push. He just nodded slowly, like filing the answer away for later.

They reached Sensei's house. The light inside was on, always.

"You gonna be okay?" Kakashi asked.

Obito gave him a long, tired look. "I don’t know."

Kakashi put a hand on his shoulder. "You'll be fine."

Obito snorted. "You’re a pain."

"It’s mutual."

He waited until the door clicked shut behind Obito, then turned back toward the village.

The night was quiet. But his mind was not. 

Getting Lady Tsunade here is going to be a lot of work, but she is Obito's only help, Orochimaru is last resort.

Chapter Text

Konohagakure, late-stage Third Shinobi War

The war was ending, not with celebration, but with exhaustion.

Within the battered stone walls of Konoha, the world moved in whispers.

The damage was immense — buildings could be rebuilt, yes, but people?

People frayed.

People changed.

And while the final treaties were being drafted in public rooms adorned with too many banners and too few truths, the real decisions unfolded elsewhere.

In hushed corners.

In smoke-filled offices behind locked doors.

In glances exchanged between those who knew better than to speak plainly.

Minato Namikaze sat alone in the Hokage's office, not yet his — but the transition was already in motion.

The Third had asked him to keep things running in his absence, a temporary measure, they said. But the old man had already retreated behind the veil of legacy.

Everyone knew Minato was next.

He stared at the mission reports on the desk in front of him, though his mind drifted to the map on the far wall — lines drawn in ink, but soaked with blood.

Minato had won battles, but peace wouldn’t be sealed on battlefields.

Peace was maneuvered through silent influence and soft power.

And some things had to remain in the dark.

He reached for the next folder without looking — instinct more than intention — and paused when he saw the name.

Hatake Kakashi
Application for ANBU Integration: Pending Evaluation

Minato's mouth pressed into a thin line.

It wasn’t unexpected.

Kakashi had been shifting for some time — becoming harder to read, colder around the edges.

Since Kannabi Bridge, the boy had been... changed. Not broken — no, never that. But altered in the way steel is after flame: stronger, sharper, more brittle.

Minato sighed, leaning back.

Kakashi didn’t belong among the regular ranks anymore.

He was too fast, too silent, too good at disappearing in plain sight.

More than that — Kakashi needed missions that allowed him to vanish, not because it suited strategy, but because it made sense to him.

Kakashi sat on the rooftop of a half-collapsed warehouse, watching the sun drip down behind the Hokage monument.

He didn’t move when the evening breeze tugged at his flak vest, nor when he heard the distant murmur of shinobi returning from patrol.

He was waiting.

Waiting for confirmation. For rejection. For anything.

He had submitted the ANBU application two days ago. Word traveled quickly in the underground channels — the elders would already be arguing.

His service record was impeccable, but there were questions.

There always were.

He’d heard the whispers.

“Too cold.”

“Too independent.”

“Can he even function?”

They weren’t wrong. But they weren’t right, either.

Function wasn’t the point. Obedience wasn’t the point.

He didn’t want to follow orders like a cog.

He wanted clarity — and ANBU offered it.

No politics.

No explanations.

Just objectives.

A clean chain of action in a world bloated with contradiction.

He didn’t want to be seen anymore.

Not the way villagers looked at him — not with pity or reverence or suspicion.

He wanted to do something that mattered.

Something invisible.

Something sharp.

And if they didn’t accept him?

Then he’d find another way. He didn’t need certainty. He’d lived too long with ghosts to expect comfort.

He stood, finally, just as a raven cut across the sky — a sign, maybe. Or nothing at all.

Behind closed doors, Minato faced two of the village’s advisors. Homura’s voice was cool.

“He’s a risk. He disobeyed a direct order at the boarder missions.”

“He completed the mission,” Minato replied evenly.

“By improvisation. That kind of unpredictability is dangerous in ANBU.”

Koharu added, “And useful, in the right hands.”

Minato didn’t flinch. “Kakashi’s not a child anymore. He’s one of the few shinobi left who understands what this war cost us. He can carry out the missions that don’t make it into the records. And he won’t ask questions.”

The silence that followed was permission.

A quiet nod.

An unspoken approval.

The kind that didn’t need paperwork.

When Kakashi received the summons, he was already halfway to the ANBU compound.

The mask they gave him was simple: white with a sharp lines of red, the hound mask.

The signature of his squad — future squad — would be etched in later.

He held the mask in one hand.

It was light.

Lighter than a headband.

Lighter than memory.

There was no initiation. No welcome speech.

Just the code name: “Hound.”

And a door that led downward — into the belly of the hidden.

Minato stood atop the Hokage monument later that night.

Alone, again.

He watched the village beneath him — lanterns swaying, families reuniting, laughter bleeding through paper walls.

And yet, the real work was only beginning.

He didn’t want to rule with parades and press conferences.

He didn’t want to be surrounded by sycophants and titles.

He wanted to reshape the system from the inside — to create a version of Konoha where boys like Kakashi didn’t have to disappear to survive. But that change would take time.

And in the meantime?

They would need operatives. Eyes that saw what the council ignored. Blades that struck before danger reached the gates.

He closed his eyes, just for a moment.

Kakashi would thrive in the dark.

And Minato — Hokage or not — would make sure the light survived long enough to be worth returning to.

***

The air in the village was cooling with twilight, the sun bleeding orange across the rooftops like the remnants of a battlefield sunset.

Konoha, for all its bustle, was quiet now — the kind of quiet only found in the moments between wars, where peace felt more like a breath held than a sigh of relief.

Kakashi turned a corner, his gait unhurried but precise — the measured steps of someone trained to expect ambush even in his own backyard.

He didn’t expect the boy.

A light collision. A smaller frame bumping into his side, followed by a swift step back.

“Sorry, senpai.”

The boy bowed with crisp formality, posture sharp and words cleaner than most adults Kakashi knew.

His hair was black, unruly in the way all Uchiha seemed born with.

On the back of his shirt, the familiar fan crest flared in stark white against dark fabric.

Uchiha.

Kakashi’s visible eye narrowed.

The boy looked up.

His eyes were ordinary — dark, round, no Sharingan to be seen — but there was something beneath them.

A weight.

A steadiness that didn't belong to a child.

Kakashi blinked once.

Recognition sparked.

“Uchiha Shisui,” the boy offered, polite again, as if rehearsed. “I’m sorry again for bumping into you. I wasn’t paying attention.”

Kakashi didn’t reply at first.

He was still processing the name.

Shisui.

In another time, a file. A funeral. A death marked in hushed tones. The boy who vanished too fast, too young, with eyes too powerful. Mangekyō Sharingan. Classified as a “self-termination” under suspicious circumstances.

Kakashi had never known the why — only that he’d heard the name whispered among ANBU ranks years later, a ghost tied to greater tragedies.

And now here he was. Alive. Ten, maybe eleven. Full of something Kakashi hadn’t seen in a long time.

Hope.

Kakashi nodded once, cautious but not cold. “Kakashi Hatake.”

Shisui’s eyes widened slightly. “You’re the White Fang’s son. The one who—”

“—Just got accepted into ANBU,” Kakashi interrupted, not unkindly.

Shisui lit up.

“I’ve just returned from admin,” he said, almost bouncing with quiet pride. “Apparently my ANBU application’s under review. They said I was too young, but... well, I have hope.”

Kakashi looked at him properly this time. The boy stood straight, chin high — not with arrogance, but with something fiercer. Conviction. The kind that hardened when no one was watching. He remembered that posture. Carried it himself once.

“You’ve seen field combat?” Kakashi asked.

Shisui nodded. “Several recon missions and two ambushes. My fire-style’s faster than most chūnin. And I can move without being sensed.”

Kakashi didn’t comment. He could believe it.

They began walking side by side, a quiet understanding forming. Shisui fell into step just behind him, a respectful half-step of deference, but not fear.

Kakashi didn’t like talking much, but Shisui filled the space without being annoying. He spoke carefully — thoughts measured, tone curious.

“I’ve been thinking,” Shisui said after a stretch of silence. “If I do get accepted, I want to specialize in prevention work. Intelligence. Intervention.”

“Prevention?”

“Stopping wars before they start,” Shisui clarified. “We always send shinobi in after people die. I don’t want to fight if I can help it.”

Kakashi glanced sideways. “But you will.”

“Yes,” Shisui said, not flinching. “If I must. But there has to be a better way. Genjutsu lets me see patterns — how people act when they’re afraid. If we can understand that, maybe we can get ahead of it.”

Kakashi didn’t answer immediately. He recognized the rhythm of the words. It was the cadence of every idealist he’d ever known. The way he softened before hardening again. It was the same bright ambition that always bled out before it bloomed.

“You sound like a hero,” Kakashi said eventually.

Shisui smiled, sheepish but firm. “I don’t want to be a hero. Just useful.”

Kakashi looked ahead.

You died for those ideals, he thought, silent. You drowned in them. And no one even told us why. Just a name in the shadows. Just a body in the river.

He didn’t say any of it.

He didn’t warn the boy that the village eats its brightest.

That the path of understanding and prevention demands impossible sacrifices. That even the best intentions, in the hands of the wrong people, become weapons. That somewhere in the future, Shisui’s idealism would be deemed dangerous — not because it was wrong, but because it was right in a world that didn’t reward rightness.

Instead, he said, “You’ll be accepted. They like ambition in ANBU. And obedience.”

Shisui nodded, eyes thoughtful.

“What about you, senpai? Why ANBU?”

Kakashi’s face remained unreadable beneath the mask slung low on his chin.

“Because I work better in the dark.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

But not unfriendly.

Probably not.

There was the tragedy of boys like Shisui.

They never stopped hoping.

Even when the river came.

Chapter Text

The war was winding down, if such a thing could be said about blood-soaked soil and haunted villages.

Across the continent, peace talks whispered through enemy camps like wind through reeds—cautious, brittle, and never trusted.

Jiraiya had been told to report to the border of Grass and Rain for surveillance, but he hadn’t listened.

Not really.

Instead, he walked alone through the pitted roads of Ame, trailing shadows he once called his students.

It had been months. Embarrassingly so.

The great Toad Sage reduced to murmured questions in underground markets, slipping into neutral outposts with a henge just good enough to pass. Sleeping under torn awnings, drinking bitter rainwater, listening for rumors.

But guilt did strange things to a man. Especially when it came in the form of a letter written in a tired scrawl.

“There’s talk of a group in Ame. Akatsuki, they call themselves. Pacifists, they claim. But I think you’d know the faces if you saw them.”

Jiraiya had burned the letter the night he received it. But his hands remembered the names written between the lines.

Yahiko.
Konan.
Nagato.

And something inside him, something stupid and wounded, had cracked wide open.

He hadn’t known what he was looking for when he first returned to the borderlands. He hadn’t known if they’d be dead or disillusioned, turned into weapons by the same world that had orphaned them. But as the weeks turned into months, as trail after trail led him just a step too slow, he began to realize something else:

They weren’t hiding.

They were leading.

The first time he came across one of their cells, he thought it a coincidence—rain-nation orphans distributing food to hungry families, carving out clean water routes, fighting off local thugs. But then came the symbol: a red cloud stitched on a black banner, raised high in a village too small for maps.

The second time, he found a medic-nin who healed regardless of allegiance and spoke of “the path to peace” with such calm conviction, Jiraiya’s stomach twisted.

The third time… well, the third time was last night.

He’d stumbled across an abandoned checkpoint near Hanegakure. Scorched earth, torn tarps, and a trail of bloody footprints. It looked like a battlefield, but the reports had called it a rescue. Civilians freed from traffickers. No casualties, except the slavers.

Painted on the broken wall was the same red cloud. This time, in blood.

Jiraiya crouched beneath the collapsed frame of the checkpoint tower now, listening to the rain tapping against the metal like a reluctant lullaby. His coat was damp. His joints ached. His summons had stopped answering unless he bribed them with sake.

“How the hell did you three grow up so fast…” he muttered.

It wasn’t rhetorical. It was reverent. Because whatever Akatsuki had started as—his three little students with impossible dreams—it was now something else entirely. A network. A movement. A threat to the old systems that had propped up war for decades.

And someone had noticed.

Through his own channels—an old thief in Kusa, a traveling monk with half a face, a Kusagakure archivist too sharp for his own good—Jiraiya had pieced it together. Something dark was crawling behind Akatsuki’s path. Not Rain-nin, not the fractured mercenaries they’d cast out.

Something older. Hungrier.

He’d intercepted a coded message near the Sanzu Ridge two weeks back. Two lines only:

“The children of pain walk toward the mountain. Send the hounds. No survivors.”

He didn’t know who wrote it. But he knew who it was about.

The campfire cracked behind him, low and feeble. It was a small comfort, its light half-shielded by the crumbling ruins of a Rain village school. Jiraiya sat with one knee up, watching the street beyond. The children who once played there were gone—some taken by war, others maybe now among the Akatsuki’s ranks. They hadn’t vanished.

They’d changed sides.

Jiraiya exhaled. His breath misted.

“Sensei…”

He remembered the way Yahiko used to say it—loud, unshy, like he wanted the world to know he had someone worth calling that. And Konan’s quiet loyalty. Nagato’s shy, haunted eyes, always listening.

He wondered if they hated him now.

He wouldn't blame them.

He'd abandoned them. Left them with ideals and chakra, but no protection. When the war grew loud and the borders sealed, when the Hidden Rain drowned in blood not its own, he’d chosen to walk away.

And now?

Now they were walking ahead of him.

He woke to a whisper. Not of voice, but of chakra—flickering faintly across his senses like a breeze against a candle. He was on his feet before his brain caught up, hands already at the ready, body shifting into the silent, lethal focus of a trained shinobi.

Nothing in the street.

Nothing on the rooftops.

But there—just a flicker. A tag nailed to the broken wall behind him. Black paper. Red ink.

A seal.

He moved fast. Chakra surged into his palm as he deactivated the trap with a single twist of his fingers. It sputtered, resisted, then unfurled—leaving only a message beneath.

One word. Written in Konan’s careful, deliberate script:

“Stop.”

Jiraiya stood frozen, breath caught.

They knew he was following.

He didn’t sleep again. Not because he feared an attack—if they wanted him dead, he’d be dead. But because for the first time in weeks, the trail was warm.

They were close.

Not just in reach. But watching.

He packed silently, leaving no trace, and moved west. Toward the ruins of Rōran. Toward the edge of Rain’s old industrial sprawl, where Akatsuki had last been seen coordinating a diplomatic meet with neutral survivors.

Through the cold wind and morning fog, he walked. Thoughts loud in his skull.

They’re being hunted.
They’re growing too fast, too clean. The world doesn’t like hope. Not when it comes with a uniform.
I should never have left them.
I’m going to find them.
Even if they don’t want to be found.

By nightfall, he reached the outskirts of the settlement. It was quiet. Too quiet.

Then, in the distance—a silhouette.

A single figure stood on the rooftop of a half-destroyed chapel. A coat billowing. Red clouds. Orange hair glinting under moonlight.

Jiraiya stopped walking.

And Yahiko—grown, scarred, and radiant with purpose—looked down at him.

Neither of them spoke.

Then Yahiko turned… and disappeared into the night.

Jiraiya stood there for a long time, heart pounding.

He wasn't too late.

Not yet.

He hadn’t meant to stop at the camp.

Not really.

Jiraiya had only ducked into the outpost to refill his canteen and steal a bite from the mess tent before slipping back into the shadows. But fate—or maybe cruel irony—had a different plan.

Because of course she was here.

He recognized her before he saw her—her chakra was like a crack in the sky, a pulse of restrained power even the most amateur sensor-nin could feel in their molars. And there she was, sitting half-slouched behind a row of medical tents, legs crossed, a half-empty bottle of sake dangling between her fingers like it owed her money.

Tsunade.

Jiraiya felt like he’d stepped into a genjutsu. One that smelled like antiseptic and disappointment.

Shizune—he was pretty sure that was her name, the quiet girl with the sharp hands—moved like a whirlwind between tents, healing wounds Jiraiya knew from experience. Torn tendons, cracked ribs, punctured lungs. She was competent. Fast. Too fast for someone her age. But maybe war did that to kids.

Or maybe Tsunade had trained her well.

She hadn’t seen him yet. He considered slipping out the way he came in.

But something pulled him forward.

Maybe stupidity. Maybe longing.

Maybe just the need to sit still for five minutes before chasing ghosts again.

He didn’t announce himself. He just walked up beside her, crouched, and sat.

Tsunade didn’t look up. “If you’re another bleeding idiot, you can wait in line. I’m off-duty.”

Jiraiya smiled faintly. “Good thing I’m not bleeding.”

She went still. Slowly, like an animal sensing a predator. Then turned.

Her eyes narrowed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He shrugged. “I wish.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Her voice was already rising. “Did you finally decide to be useful after a decade of screwing around?”

“Still screwing around,” he admitted. “Just... in a more purposeful way.”

Her gaze sharpened. “I swear, if this is some half-assed attempt to convince me to come back to Konoha—”

“It’s not.”

She blinked.

“I’m not here for you, Tsunade.”

The silence after that felt like a dropped kunai.

Then she scoffed, took a swig, and muttered, “Liar.”

Fair.

He didn’t argue. He just leaned back, hands behind his head, and let the rain patter against the awning stretched over them.

They sat like that for a moment. Just two old soldiers who’d survived more than they should have. Watching tired people tend to worse wounds. Listening to the coughing, the moaning, the shuffle of boots over mud.

It was Shizune who finally noticed him. She paused mid-step, eyebrows lifting in startled recognition—but didn’t interrupt. Just gave Tsunade a look, then slipped into the next tent with quiet efficiency.

“She’s good,” Jiraiya said softly.

“She’s overworked,” Tsunade snapped. “Because every damn village is too proud or too broke to send help. We're patching up shinobi from three countries here.”

Jiraiya nodded. “I heard. That’s why I didn’t come through the front gate.”

“Always the coward.”

“Not always.”

Tsunade snorted. “You tracking something?”

Now that surprised him. “What makes you say that?”

“You look like crap. Even for you. You haven’t shaved in a week, and you smell like wet scrolls and regret.”

Jiraiya winced. “I’ve been... on the move.”

“Since when?”

He hesitated. Then said quietly, “Since I got a letter.”

Her brows arched. “Konoha?”

He didn't answer that, not when he had questions, instead he continued, “Warned me about a group in Rain. Called the Akatsuki. Said I might recognize them.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You do?”

He nodded. “They’re mine.”

Tsunade went quiet again.

Jiraiya exhaled. “I thought they were dead. I told myself they’d probably died years ago and that I was better off not knowing. But they didn’t die. They thrived. They built something.”

“And now you want to take credit?”

“Hell no,” he said sharply. “They don’t owe me anything. I left. I trained them, then walked away. But someone’s after them. I don’t know who yet, but they’re not amateurs.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve been chasing shadows for months. I keep missing them by hours. Days, if I’m lucky. But I finally got close. Yahiko saw me.”

Her gaze flicked to him. “And?”

“He left.”

Tsunade sighed, long and low. “You sure they want to be found?”

“No,” Jiraiya said. “But I’m not doing this for closure. I’m doing it because they’ve made themselves targets. And I’m tired of burying kids I once trained.”

She looked away. Her jaw clenched.

He could’ve left it there. But he didn’t.

“I need advice, Tsunade.”

She laughed. Bitter. “You? Asking me?”

“I trust you more than I trust the people behind desks,” he said. “You’ve always seen through bullshit faster than anyone.”

She shook her head. “And what kind of advice do you want, exactly? How to beg forgiveness? How to save ghosts? Because I’m not the one to ask.”

He didn’t flinch. “If it were Nawaki or Dan out there, doing something dangerous, something powerful… something that might change the world… would you try to stop them? Or would you let them go?”

Tsunade froze.

Jiraiya watched her fingers tighten around the neck of the bottle.

“I’d want to stop them,” she said finally. “Because I’ve seen what this world does to hope. But... if they believed in what they were doing, even knowing the cost?”

She closed her eyes.

“I’d follow. Just to make sure they didn’t die alone.”

Jiraiya nodded. “Then that’s all I needed to know.”

He rose slowly, his knees protesting.

She didn’t stop him.

But just as he turned to leave, she said, quietly, “You’ll get yourself killed chasing them.”

He looked back at her, smiling faintly.

“Wouldn’t be the dumbest way I’ve almost died.”

She didn’t smile. But she didn’t call him back, either.

And as Jiraiya vanished into the mist, Tsunade looked up at the gray sky and whispered into her cup:

“Don’t let them become what we couldn’t stop.”

Tsunade didn’t leave a note.

She didn’t tell the medics where she was going, didn’t brief anyone, didn’t even bother to officially pass authority to Shizune.

The camp would survive without her for a few days.

It wasn’t like they expected her to stick around, anyway.

She’d been running for so long, it was a miracle they still acted surprised when she vanished.

Shizune didn’t ask questions. She just packed quickly, evenly, like muscle memory—and then jogged after her teacher down the mist-soaked slope of the outpost before dawn cracked open the sky.

“I assume we’re not going back to Konoha,” Shizune said, trying to keep pace.

“We’re not going anywhere official,” Tsunade muttered.

“Then where are we going?”

Tsunade didn’t answer.

But her feet followed the trail of broken ground and masked footsteps Jiraiya had left in his wake, half on purpose, half because he always was a bit dramatic about his exits.

“You’re actually doing this,” Shizune said later, when the village was far behind them and the rain had soaked through their cloaks.

Tsunade didn’t answer at first. She just walked.

“Following Jiraiya. You’re not even mad anymore. You didn’t punch him, and you always punch him.”

Tsunade muttered, “I’m not not mad.”

Shizune raised a brow.

Tsunade sighed. “He’s going to mess it up. Say something stupid. Get himself gutted by a paper bird or guilt-tripped into joining a revolution. And someone’s going to have to keep him from falling on his own sword.”

Shizune’s tone softened. “That’s not the only reason.”

Tsunade didn’t deny it.

Because she hadn’t stopped seeing Dan’s eyes in the night. Or Nawaki’s hands, small and eager and bloody. She hadn’t stopped remembering how Jiraiya looked sitting there under the awning—tired and raw in a way she’d never seen him.

She’d thought he would never grow up. Maybe he hadn’t.

But he’d finally grown into something else: desperate. Devoted.

And that scared her more than anything.

People like them didn’t get to believe in anything too long. It broke them. Made them reckless. Made them hopeful.

Tsunade clenched her fists. “He’s chasing kids who could reshape the world or burn it down. I’m not letting him walk into that blind.”

They caught up to him faster than expected. Of course they did. For all his cleverness, Jiraiya still left a trail any medic-nin with chakra sensitivity could follow.

They found him outside a collapsed Rain-era fortress, crouched beside a crumbled wall, studying something folded and red, left behind like a calling card.

Tsunade crossed her arms. “You never could cover your tracks.”

Jiraiya didn’t even look surprised. “Knew you'd show up. Took you long enough.”

Shizune sighed, brushing wet strands from her eyes. “You say that like you planned it.”

“I hoped.”

Tsunade kicked a rock. “You’re still a moron.”

Jiraiya grinned, but there was something tired behind it. “I missed you too.”

She ignored that.

Instead, she knelt beside him, brushing her fingers over the origami lotus left on the stone. It was perfectly folded. Damp now, but the chakra-laced paper still shimmered faintly with a defensive seal.

“I know her work,” Tsunade muttered. “Konan.”

Jiraiya nodded. “They’re testing how close I’ll follow.”

“And you’re still following,” she said.

“You’re here too.”

“Because I don’t trust you not to get killed.”

“Likewise.”

That earned him a glare. He didn’t flinch.

Shizune cleared her throat. “Are they watching?”

“Probably,” Jiraiya said. “They’ve been ahead of me for weeks."

“You think they’ll forgive you?”

He was quiet.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think it’s about forgiveness anymore.”

They moved cautiously after that, the three of them crossing what remained of the inner Rain borderlands—flattened farmland, broken canals, rusted-out war machines used for cover by both sides.

Twice they passed refugee shelters bearing the red cloud banner. The people there didn’t run. Didn’t welcome them, either. But Tsunade noticed the way Shizune lingered at each one, checking on wounds, slipping into healer mode despite the warnings.

And every time she did, Jiraiya found some small piece of evidence—an old training kunai, a coded scroll, even a rations bag hand-stitched with Konan’s distinct thread pattern.

Breadcrumbs.

They were being led.

That night, they camped in what had once been a weapons depot. Crumbling stone walls, roof blown out. Jiraiya made the fire. Tsunade didn’t offer help.

“You sure this isn’t a trap?” she asked.

“Feels too elegant to be a trap,” Jiraiya replied. “They want to show us something. Or test me.”

“Or kill you with a sense of irony.”

“That too.”

They sat in silence for a while, Shizune quietly mending a ripped cloak while Tsunade stared at the fire like it owed her answers.

Jiraiya poked at the flames.

“She’s the one who left the seal,” he said finally. “Konan. She was always the most careful. Nagato would’ve tried to face me. Yahiko might’ve sent someone else.”

Tsunade looked at him sideways. “You think she’s the leader?”

“I think… she keeps the other two from burning out.”

He sounded almost wistful.

Tsunade leaned back. “If you had stayed…”

“I’d have died,” he said bluntly. “Or failed them worse than I already did.”

“Maybe.”

“They didn’t need a protector,” he continued. “They needed the space to grow into what they are. The problem is, the world doesn’t like growth that threatens the old order.”

“You think that’s why they’re being hunted?”

“I know it.”

“And you think you can save them from it?”

Jiraiya didn’t answer right away.

“No,” he said eventually. “But maybe I can warn them. Maybe I can make sure they know what’s coming.”

Tsunade’s jaw clenched. “You’re going to try to tell three war-forged revolutionaries that peace isn’t that simple.”

He laughed quietly. “Well, when you say it like that... yeah.”

“You’re going to screw this up.”

“Probably.”

She didn’t say anything else.

But when the fire dimmed and Jiraiya leaned back to sleep, Tsunade sat up a little longer—listening to the wind, watching the ruins.

And when Shizune finally dozed off, Tsunade whispered softly:

“If they’re anything like we were… you don’t get to stop them. You just walk beside them. Or behind.”

Chapter Text

The morning sun filtered through the tall trees of the Konoha training grounds, painting long, golden streaks across the worn dirt and practice dummies. Kakashi’s silver hair caught the light as he crouched across from Rin, his Sharingan hidden behind his headband, but his mind sharp and alert.

Rin moved with a precision that made him grin beneath his mask. She was more focused than ever, and it was no surprise, he had been tailoring these session specifically for her.

“You’re too tense,” he said softly, circling her. “Remember, control comes from understanding, not force. Isobu will respond to your calm, not your anger.”

“Focus on controlling your chakra flow,” he instructed, gesturing toward the clone of Isobu hovering near her. “If you lose control even for a second, you risk letting it react on its own. Remember, your jinchūriki isn’t just power, it’s responsibility.”

Rin nodded, her brow furrowed but determination shining in her eyes. “I won’t let it take over, Kakashi.”

He gave her a slight nod of approval. 

“You’re stronger than you think,” he said firmly. “And today, I’m going to help you prove it to yourself.”

Rin nodded, taking a deep breath.

Kakashi raised his hand in preparation, signaling the start of the exercise, when a sudden, excited voice rang out.

“Senpai!”

Both Kakashi and Rin turned sharply.

The voice was bright, youthful, and utterly confident, carrying the kind of warmth that made the world feel just a little lighter.

A small figure came running across the training grounds, black hair bouncing with every step. Shisui Uchiha’s smile was radiant, almost painfully familiar. Kakashi’s chest tightened for a moment there was something in that grin that reminded him of another face, another boy from a past that had once shattered him. Obito. Before the boulder, before the half-paralysis. The memory came unbidden, a soft pang of nostalgia and regret.

“Shisui…” Kakashi murmured under his breath, not moving. He didn’t need to. The boy had already spotted him.

“Senpai! I knew I’d find you here!” Shisui exclaimed, skidding to a stop just shy of Kakashi. His dark eyes sparkled with mischief and determination, and for a brief, fleeting second, Kakashi could imagine a timeline where all the Uchiha children grew up free of tragedy, laughing freely under the sun.

Rin tilted her head, curious. “Kakashi, who’s that?”

Kakashi gave her a small shrug, answering cautiously. “An acquaintance… from the Uchiha clan.” He wasn’t about to explain the layers of connection he had with Obito’s clan members or the grim knowledge of what lay ahead in the future. 

Before Rin could respond, another figure appeared behind Shisui. His steps were measured, precise, and though he was younger than Rin, the weight of presence he carried was undeniable.

Itachi Uchiha.

Kakashi’s eyes narrowed slightly as he observed him. The boy’s black hair framed a pale face, his dark eyes calm and almost unreadable. But there was an unmistakable determination there, a silent insistence that seemed to demand attention. Kakashi already sensed that this one had dragged the smaller Shisui along here: calculated, controlled, precise.

Itachi stopped a few feet away, bowing his head slightly in a formal greeting. “Senpai,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “You promised we would spar one day. Today is that day.”

Kakashi’s lips twitched into a small, almost imperceptible smile.

The Uchiha persistence was undeniable. That same quiet stubbornness, the hallmark of an Uchiha, was already etched into the child’s every movement.

Rin’s brow furrowed in curiosity as she watched the interaction. “You know him too?” she asked, glancing between Kakashi and the small, stoic boy.

“An acquaintance,” Kakashi repeated, his tone guarded. “Nothing more.”

Shisui, undeterred, bounced in place next to Rin. “Are we going to watch, or are you going to let me join too?” he asked brightly, tugging at Rin’s sleeve. Rin laughed, a soft, musical sound that made even Kakashi’s hardened heart skip.

“You can watch for now,” she said. “But maybe after, we’ll spar together.”

Shisui’s grin widened. “It’s a deal!”

For a moment, the air seemed to shimmer with the innocence of youth, and Kakashi felt an unfamiliar lightness. Here were the children, bright and unspoiled, unaware of the coming tragedies, unaware of the wars that would go beyond  stain the earth with blood and shadow. And here was he, a ghost from the future, armed with knowledge that could save them or doom them further if misused.

“Alright,” Kakashi said finally, standing and stretching lightly. “Let’s begin.”

Itachi stepped forward, his posture straight, eyes locked on Kakashi.

Despite his age, there was an uncanny precision in his movements, the kind of focus that made Kakashi’s heart rate quicken—not from fear, but from recognition of potential.

The boy’s skill wasn’t fully developed yet, but it was already extraordinary.

The spar began slowly, a dance of careful movements and calculated strikes. Kakashi moved deliberately, holding back the full force of his abilities. Itachi countered with an elegance that was almost unnatural, anticipating attacks with an intuition that belied his few years. Kakashi noted each adjustment, each flicker of instinct, filing it away for future teaching moments.

Meanwhile, Rin and Shisui drifted to the side, their conversation light and animated. Rin’s warmth was infectious, and Shisui responded in kind, his own bright energy complementing hers.

They talked about missions, training, and the small victories of being young shinobi in a village at war. Kakashi glanced at them occasionally, a tight knot forming in his chest. Protecting these two would be harder than any jutsu or strategy he had learned. They were precious, and the knowledge of what the future held gnawed at him.

The spar between Kakashi and Itachi intensified.

Kakashi was impressed, not by the boy’s raw power, which was impressive enough but by the mental discipline. Even at this age, Itachi’s mind was a step ahead, anticipating movements, calculating angles, adjusting in a way that most shinobi twice his age could not.

“You’re… quick,” Kakashi remarked between maneuvers, letting a hint of genuine admiration slip into his tone.

Itachi inclined his head slightly, a faint smile touching his lips. “I learned from the best,” he said, almost in a whisper, though it carried the weight of truth.

Shisui’s voice piped up suddenly, breaking the moment. “Senpai, you’re not letting him go easy on you, are you?”

“No,” Kakashi replied calmly, eyes still tracking Itachi’s movements. “He needs to understand the consequences of underestimating anyone, even at a young age.”

Rin frowned thoughtfully. “Even if it hurts?”

Kakashi’s gaze softened. “Sometimes, yes. Lessons aren’t always easy, Rin. But they’re necessary.”

Shisui’s grin widened. “Then I’ll make sure he doesn’t get hurt either”

Kakashi’s chest tightened at the sight of the boy’s determination.

The Uchiha always had a sense of loyalty and persistence, and Shisui was no exception. Watching him interact with Rin, so carefree, so unburdened was almost painful. He knew the storm that would eventually arrive. He knew the sacrifices that would come.

But for now, here in this quiet moment on the training grounds, there was only sparring, laughter, and the warmth of sunlight.

As the session continued, Kakashi adjusted his strategy, throwing in subtle lessons for both Rin and Itachi. Rin’s control over Isobu improved with each passing minute, her confidence growing, while Itachi’s technique sharpened under Kakashi’s watchful eye. Shisui clapped along the sidelines, cheering both of them on with a bright energy that refused to be dimmed.

And as Kakashi watched them, he allowed himself a small, rare smile. This was why he had been given a second chance. To protect them. To guide them. To ensure that even in a world scarred by war and loss, these sparks of light could grow strong enough to survive.

He didn’t know what the future would bring, but for the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to hope.

Chapter Text

Minato Namikaze had always thought he understood what it meant to shoulder responsibility. He had commanded squads, fought on the frontlines, and carried the lives of comrades in his hands. He had led where others faltered, inspired hope where there was none. But none of it—not the years of war, not the burden of sacrifice, not the desperate hours spent defending their home—had prepared him for the sheer weight of the Hokage’s hat.

Becoming the Fourth Hokage should have been an honor.

It was, truly. Yet the moment the war ended and the mantle fell upon his shoulders, Minato realized it was far less about prestige and far more about endurance.

Endless stacks of reports crowded his desk: casualties tallies, infrastructure breakdowns, lists of orphans and widows, requests for aid from villages barely hanging on. Supplies were short, and the medic corps had been decimated by the sheer strain of the war. Rebuilding demanded not only physical resources but also the careful mending of morale.

And then there was the village itself fractured, divided, bitter in ways that war had only deepened. The wounds weren’t only physical. The Uchiha, ostracized and mistrusted, sat in a corner of Konoha both physically and politically. Root still slithered through the shadows, its head lopped off but not yet truly dead.

Distrust lingered, grievances sharpened.

Minato rubbed at the bridge of his nose, feeling the dull ache of fatigue creeping in. He couldn’t show it. Not to his council. Not to his shinobi. Not to Kushina, even. A Hokage was supposed to be unshakable.

And yet-

He set his pen down, eyes drawn to the sealed folder resting at the edge of his desk. It was the same folder he returned to every night when the weight grew too heavy. It wasn’t filled with mission reports or statistics. It was filled with Kakashi Hatake.

Minato leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing as he considered the boy who had been his student, his soldier, and now something more.

Kakashi had always been precocious, marked by genius, discipline, and a stoicism far older than his years. 

But this Kakashi…

This Kakashi was different.

Where Minato had been too slow, too far, too caught in the demands of war, Kakashi had acted. And ever since, the boy had been different.

Minato liked to think of it as growth.

A boy stepping out from under the shadow of loss, the same way he himself had changed after his father’s suicide. But Kakashi’s transformation had been sharper, more deliberate, as though something far greater than grief or duty had carved new edges into him.

The boy spoke with a confidence he hadn’t carried before.

He offered insights sharp, calculated, strategic that left even seasoned jōnin blinking in surprise. Sometimes Kakashi knew things Minato hadn’t yet considered, as if he saw several moves ahead on a board the rest of them only stumbled across.

Minato still didn’t understand how a thirteen-year-old could maneuver so deftly through politics and strategy. When Kakashi had first suggested, with quiet but firm conviction, that Fugaku Uchiha should be brought in as an advisor, Minato had almost dismissed it outright. The distrust between the Uchiha and the village ran deep, and Fugaku himself was proud and wary.

But Kakashi had insisted, laying out reasons Minato couldn’t easily dismiss. He spoke of bridging divides before they widened into chasms, of giving the Uchiha not only responsibility but also visibility. He had spoken with such certainty that Minato had eventually acted on it.

And, to his astonishment, it had worked.

Fugaku had accepted.

More than accepted he had impressed Minato with his diligence, his loyalty to the village, his pragmatic sharpness. Slowly, a working trust had begun to form, and though the segregation of the Uchiha remained an open wound, there was at least a path forward.

Minato still didn’t know how Kakashi had managed it. Rope Fugaku into serving as his aide? Persuade him with words that seemed too precise, too informed for a boy barely into his teens?

He shook his head. It wasn’t normal. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Minato allowed himself a small smile. “You’ve always surprised me, Kakashi,” he murmured softly, his voice nearly lost in the quiet of his office. “But this… this is something else.”

His quill hovered over parchment, but his thoughts drifted again.

The bridge mission had changed something in Kakashi.

Minato had seen it clearly.

The boy had returned not with the numbness of grief but with a new edge. He carried himself differently, spoke differently, trained differently. The way he guided Rin, steady and protective, with a strange reservoir of knowledge about jinchūriki training that even Minato had never shared with him. The way he spoke to younger shinobi with the tone of a seasoned veteran rather than a boy barely grown. 

As though Kakashi had leapt across years in the space of weeks.

And Minato didn’t know if he should be proud or afraid.

He sighed, leaning back in his chair again, staring at the wooden ceiling of the Hokage’s office.

“Kakashi,” he murmured, “what happened to you out there?”

He wanted to ask him outright, but he didn’t. Not yet. The boy was guarded, even more so now. Minato respected that, even as it gnawed at him.

One day, he hoped, Kakashi would trust him enough to speak. To tell him what lay behind those cool, watchful eyes. To explain the uncanny foresight, the strange wisdom, the unyielding determination that didn’t fit the frame of a boy his age.

Until then, Minato could only trust him.

And he did trust him.

More than he should, perhaps, but Minato had learned to trust his instincts. Kakashi might be a mystery, but he was a loyal one. A shinobi who carried his burdens without complaint, who would shoulder whatever the village demanded, who would walk alone in darkness if it meant sparing others the pain.

It was that, perhaps, that frightened Minato most. Because he had seen men break under lesser weights.

Minato let out a slow breath as he stepped out of the Hokage Tower, shoulders rolling back to ease the tension that had settled there throughout the day.

The sun dipped toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of crimson and violet, Minato allowed himself a small smile.

Because this was his favorite part of the day.

Going home.

The thought alone lightened his step as he crossed through the village. The market stalls were closing, but he slipped easily into one shop, picking out a small bouquet of fresh lilies, their white petals fragrant in the warm air. At another, he bought a neat little box of chocolate—Kushina’s favorite. She would pretend to scold him for being late, but he knew the flowers and sweets would earn him forgiveness before she could even finish her sentence.

By the time he reached the familiar house tucked neatly into a quiet neighborhood, his smile was genuine. He pushed the door open with a cheerful call.

“I’m home!”

The smell of dinner wafted through the air savory broth, steamed rice, something roasted. He barely had time to slip off his sandals before a voice rang from the kitchen.

“You’re two minutes late!” Kushina’s voice carried its usual mix of mock outrage and warmth.

Minato chuckled, stepping inside with his hands hidden behind his back. “I’ll have to beg forgiveness, then.” He revealed the bouquet with a flourish, the white lilies bright against the warm tones of the room. “For my beautiful wife.”

Kushina appeared in the doorway, hair still damp from an earlier shower, eyes glinting with mischief. She made a show of huffing, but when he pressed the flowers into her hands, her lips softened into a grin. “Hmph. You’re lucky you’re handsome, dattebane.”

“And thoughtful,” Minato added, presenting the chocolates with his other hand.

Her laugh filled the room, and she pulled him down by the collar for a quick kiss. “Thoughtful and smart.”

“Don’t forget modest,” Minato teased.

“Pfft.” Kushina swatted at him, though the smile on her face gave her away. She disappeared into the kitchen with her treasures, muttering something about setting them on the table later.

“Welcome back, sensei!”

Minato glanced toward the dining room to see Rin, smiling brightly as she balanced a stack of bowls in her arms. She was steady now. stronger in ways that had nothing to do with chakra. The kidnapping had changed her, marked her, but seeing her bustling about with Kushina was like watching a glimpse of the girl she should have been allowed to remain all along.

“Good to see you, Rin,” he said warmly, moving forward to relieve her of half the bowls. “Dinner smells amazing.”

She blushed faintly. “I only helped with the vegetables. Kushina-san did most of the work.”

From the kitchen, Kushina’s voice carried out, playful but loud enough to be heard. “Don’t let her fool you! Rin’s got a natural touch in the kitchen, she’s just too shy to admit it.”

Minato chuckled, placing the bowls neatly on the low table. The domestic sound of clattering dishes, sizzling pans, and muffled laughter filled the air, weaving itself into something that felt more precious than any treaty or title.

“Sensei, pass me that ladle?”

Minato turned to find Obito shuffling awkwardly from the kitchen with a tray in his good arm. The other was still stiff, his movements cautious as he compensated for the lingering effects of his injuries. He wore determination on his face, though, and Minato’s chest warmed at the sight.

“Of course,” Minato said, handing him the ladle. “How’s the arm today?”

Obito grimaced faintly but kept his voice upbeat. “Better. Still feels heavy, but I can manage.”

Minato gave his shoulder a light squeeze. “You’re stronger than you think. Just don’t overdo it.”

Obito grinned sheepishly, though there was pride in his eyes. “I know. Rin already scolds me enough for trying.”

“Because you never listen,” Rin chimed in, setting the last of the dishes down with a fond sigh. “You’re impossible.”

Their bickering was easy, familiar comfort wrapped in teasing words.

From upstairs, the sound of running water echoed faintly, a shower rushing behind closed doors. Minato tilted his head toward the noise, and his smile softened further. Kakashi.

The boy had protested at first when Minato and Kushina insisted he move in—insisted he didn’t need the help, that he was fine on his own. They hadn’t given him the option. 

“You’re moving in with us,” Kushina had declared, arms crossed and eyes daring him to argue.

“It’s only part-time,” Minato had added gently, to soften the edges of her command. “Until you’re steady again.”

Kakashi had scowled, muttered something about not being a child, but Minato had seen the hesitation in his eyes. In the end, he’d relented though Minato suspected it was less from agreement and more from sheer exhaustion at trying to argue with Kushina. He stayed here now, part-time, drifting in and out between missions and duties, but the house was undeniably his home.

Rin’s case had been simpler. With Isobu sealed inside her, she couldn’t safely return to her civilian family. The risk to them was too great. Minato had explained it gently, Kushina had wrapped the girl in a fierce hug, and just like that Rin had a room in their house. Moving in here had been necessity as much as comfort. 

Obito, too. When he woke from his coma, half his body unresponsive, Minato knew the boy couldn’t go back to his grandmother. The old woman had neither the strength nor the resources to care for him, and the Uchiha clan… well. Minato tried not to let bitterness creep into his voice when he thought it, but the truth was plain. They didn’t care for Obito the way they should have.

So Obito moved in too, grumbling about being a burden, about how he’d never be Hokage now, about how pointless it all was. But Minato had seen him smile at Rin’s jokes, had caught the boy sneaking candy from Kushina’s cupboards, had watched his eyes soften when Kakashi sat quietly with him in the evenings.

The goal of Hokage no longer passed Obito’s lips, but joy hadn’t vanished entirely. Just… dimmed. And dimmed could still be reignited.

This was family.

Yes, Minato thought, listening to the shower hum upstairs and the laughter bubbling in the kitchen this was home.

Kushina swept back into the room, setting the flowers in a vase at the center of the table. She glanced around at the gathered group Rin setting cups, Obito awkwardly balancing a dish with his good arm, Minato rolling up his sleeves to help. Her smile softened, almost wistful.

“Oi,” she said, voice warm but firm. “Everyone sit down before dinner gets cold.”

By the time Kakashi padded downstairs, toweling his hair dry, the table was full bowls of rice, miso soup, roasted fish, vegetables, and little dishes Kushina had thrown together as only she could. He blinked at the scene, one eye visible beneath damp silver hair.

“You could’ve started without me,” Kakashi muttered.

“We wouldn’t do that,” Rin said, scooting to make space for him. “Sit.”

Obito grinned, elbowing him lightly. “Yeah, stop being late for once, Kakashi.”

Kakashi gave him a flat look, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward. He sat.

The meal was noisy in all the best ways: Kushina’s laughter booming, Rin asking questions with genuine curiosity, Obito cracking jokes, Minato occasionally scolding them all with mock sternness. Even Kakashi, quiet as he was, let himself be drawn into the rhythm of it, answering Rin’s chatter, rolling his eye at Obito’s dramatics, listening to Kushina’s stories with the faintest smile.

Minato sat back for a moment, chopsticks idle in his hand, and simply watched. Watched his students, his wife, his family, gathered around one table as if the war had never touched them. Watched the light dancing in their faces, the warmth sparking in their voices.

This, this was worth every late night at the Tower, every endless scroll and clan negotiation. This was the heart of what he fought for.

Home.

Chapter Text

The sight of Might Guy approaching the Hokage's imposing tower sent a familiar wave of dread through Kakashi Hatake.

Even from a distance, Guy’s grin was a supernova, an unyielding beacon of enthusiasm that Kakashi often wished he could simply extinguish. The vibrant green of Guy’s jumpsuit seemed to pulse with an almost aggressive optimism, a stark contrast to Kakashi’s own muted, more pragmatic attire.

"Kakashi, my eternal rival!" Guy boomed, his voice echoing slightly against the stone structure. He planted his feet wide, hands on his hips, his smile a blinding flash under the midday sun. The sheer force of his presence was enough to make Kakashi instinctively brace himself. This was Guy, after all, a force of nature in spandex.

Kakashi offered a slow blink, a subtle gesture of his utter bewilderment. "…What?" The question hung in the air, a tiny island of confusion in Guy’s sea of declaration.

Guy, however, was utterly impervious to Kakashi’s befuddlement. His enthusiasm was a runaway train, picking up speed with every word. "A gathering!" he proclaimed, his eyes alight with a fervent glow. "All of us, those who braved the perils of war, those who achieved the esteemed rank of chūnin without the fanfare they deserved, we will come together! We will raise our glasses to our fallen comrades, to the strength of our village, and to the enduring flame of youth that burns within us! There will be food, drink, and the warm embrace of fellowship!"

In the space of less than three seconds, a critical analysis flashed through Kakashi’s mind. The verdict was swift and absolute: a resounding and unequivocal no. He parted his lips, ready to deliver his polite refusal, but Guy, with his characteristic booming sincerity and an almost terrifying lack of restraint, had already acted. A firm, friendly hand landed squarely on Kakashi’s shoulder, a tangible, inescapable connection.

"Seven o'clock! Be there promptly!"

And just like that, without so much as a vote, Kakashi found himself irrevocably committed to an evening he had no desire to attend.

The invitation, delivered with the force of a Taijutsu attack, was now a binding contract.

As dusk settled, Kakashi finally conceded defeat. He knew Gai, with his relentless optimism, would drag him out anyway if he didn't go willingly. Going solo was also out of the question; the thought of facing a crowded room alone, especially in his current state, was daunting.

"Why is it always me?" Obito grumbled, his body slumping further into the chair. Kakashi was carefully adjusting the straps on his leg brace, a routine that had become all too familiar. "I'm half-paralyzed, Kakashi. You really think I'm in any condition for a party?" The weight of his physical limitations pressed down on him, making the idea of socializing feel like an impossible feat.

"You need some fresh air," Kakashi replied, his tone steady and unyielding. He was used to Obito’s protests but rarely gave in.

"I can breathe perfectly well in here," Obito retorted, gesturing vaguely at the confines of his room. The familiar walls offered a sense of safety that the outside world seemed to lack.

"You haven't stepped outside your house in weeks, Obito," Kakashi pointed out, his gaze not wavering from his task. The days had blurred into a monotonous cycle of rest and recovery, and the world outside had begun to feel like a distant memory.

Obito opened his mouth, ready with another barrage of complaints, but Rin intervened with a gentle smile. She was already fussing with her own braid, preparing for their outing. "It will do you a world of good, Obito. And Kakashi, too." Her words were soft but carried a quiet conviction. "And if you really can't stand it, we'll leave early. Promise."

Kakashi offered her a look of genuine gratitude. Rin possessed an uncanny ability to understand, to sense what was needed without being told. Her presence was a calming anchor in the often turbulent waters of his own anxieties.

And so, the three of them prepared to face the evening together.

The gathering wasn’t very big, just a cozy little bunch of familiar faces all squished together in the back room of a cute, modest teahouse that smelled like warm cookies and sweetness. Lantern light spilled all around just like honey, warm and golden, making everything all nice and cheerful. It danced across the low tables, lighting up half-finished plates of yummy food, like little treasures waiting to be eaten, and pitchers of steaming tea that looked like they were bubbling with giggles. 

“Look who decided to show up!” shouted Genma, all excited and twirling a shiny senbon, the kind that looked like a little silver star between his teeth, like a playful little trickster. Just then, Kakashi, Rin, and Obito stepped inside, their faces lit up by the lanterns as if they were glowing themselves! “Kakashi of the Sha-” But before Genma could finish his silly name, Kakashi cut him off, muttering automatically, “Don’t call me that.” 

“-ringan brought friends!” Genma happily finished with a big, cheeky grin that made everyone giggle, especially when his eyes sparkled with mischief.

Over by the wall, Asuma waved lazily, looking all relaxed and cool, even as a faint flush crept across his cheeks, making him look a tiny bit shy. “Good timing, you guys! We were just about to start the real drinks,” he said with a chuckle, which made the other friends' eyes light up with curiosity, like little stars in a night sky.

Kurenai shot him a look that was both playful and pretending to be stern, and said, “You mean the ones you totally stole from your father’s collection?” She folded her arms, raising an eyebrow like a detective who just solved a mystery. 

“Borrowed,” Asuma quickly corrected, waving his hands as if that made it all better. “There’s a difference, you know!” His voice was all serious and silly at the same time, like he was trying to convince a whole crowd of kids that sharing was the best.

Suddenly, Raidō chuckled and nudged the jug at his side, which looked a bit wobbly but was also very interesting. “The difference is, my friend, we don’t tell him!” he added with a giant grin that made everyone laugh even more.

The room suddenly erupted in giggles and happy chatter, and it felt like a cozy bubble of friendship. 

Kakashi sighed, shaking his head with a smile, feeling the warmth and joy wrap around him like a soft, fuzzy blanket.

It was not at all loud or rowdy, like Kakashi had anticipate­d. In fact, there was some amount of noise­; the contest betwe­en Asuma and Genma was getting re­ally stupid by the minute and Ebisu was busy giving a hollering le­cture over there­ on official courtesy, not hearing anything amidst his drinking spree­, however…

It wasn’t just that.

Pe­ople talking.

That was the first time Kakashi had liste­ned to his comrades talk as people­. Not outskirts or mission specifics, without particular notice about squads or the numbe­r of people killed, ove­r something unattached to their se­rvice lives.

Raido kept on whining about the­ cut on his chin and how it was now the cause of his unfortunate love­ life; Aoba and Iwashi were arguing about whe­ther it is dango or yakitori that is the more supe­rior snack; Kurenai just laughed saying they we­re both wrong the best answe­r is obviously mochi. With a laugh they all looked around flippantly and asked if anyone­ wanted to put a hand up for or against it. Somehow, somewhe­re, without meaning to, Kakashi found himself drawn in.

“He­y, Kakashi,” Genma called out across the table­ at some point that evening, risking life­ and limb over Asuma and his never-e­nding contest with him. “Is it true that you single-hande­dly took out twenty Iwa-nin?”

Kakashi was a little te­nse. “It’s exaggerate­d.”

“What? Did you say, thirty?” He brought everyone­ around him into harmless laughter again, and it was differe­nt from before. 

The sake made its rounds. Asuma was far too generous with pouring, and though Kakashi only sipped at his cup, the warmth spread anyway through his chest, through the room, through the laughter that bubbled up louder and louder.

Stories spilled out ridiculous training accidents, embarrassing missions, near-disasters that turned into jokes with time.

“Remember when Ebisu tried to teach that squad of academy kids how to throw shuriken?” Aoba said between wheezes of laughter. “Half of them hit the target, the other half hit him.”

“I was demonstrating proper stance!” Ebisu protested, red-faced.

“You were standing in front of the target,” Kurenai countered.

The room howled. Even Kakashi chuckled behind his mask, earning a triumphant look from Gai.

“See?” Gai declared, thumping him on the back. “Even the stone-faced Kakashi cannot resist the power of youthful camaraderie!”

Kakashi shook his head, but he didn’t deny it.

The night blurred into warmth—warm lanterns, warm sake, warm laughter.

For once, Kakashi wasn’t the genius, wasn’t the prodigy, wasn’t the boy carrying too much too soon.

He was just Kakashi.

Just another kid, surrounded by others who had seen too much but still found the strength to laugh.

When the group finally stumbled out into the cool night air, Obito was leaning heavily on Genma’s shoulder, grinning through his complaints, and Rin’s cheeks were pink from laughter. Gai was already declaring the night a triumph, promising that their “youthful gatherings” would continue, and Asuma was loudly insisting he could handle another round tomorrow.

Kakashi stood a little apart, hands in his pockets, watching them. For once, the weight on his shoulders felt lighter.

Maybe this was what peace felt like.

And maybe… he could get used to it.

---

He could live with long missions, sleepless nights, the constant ache of responsibility pressed between his shoulder blades.

What he could never get used to was weekends.

Or rather, weekends when Shisui and Itachi appeared at the training grounds, eager-eyed and stubborn, asking to spar.

It shouldn’t have been strange.

They were Uchiha: talented, ambitious, determined to hone their strength.

They had their clan to guide them, elders who would eventually teach them what the Sharingan could do, and yet… they still came to him.

The irony was not lost on him.

Kakashi pulled his hitai-ate down over his left eye, flexing his fingers as the familiar tug of chakra burned at the edge of his vision. Shisui and Itachi stood opposite him, one bouncing on the balls of his feet like an overexcited puppy, the other calm, hands folded neatly behind his back.

It was always like this Shisui radiating energy, Itachi radiating restraint.

“You ready, Kakashi-senpai?” Shisui called, his grin sharp as he rolled his shoulders. “Or should I give you a moment to stretch those ancient bones of yours?”

Kakashi sighed. “I'm barely thirteen.”

“Exactly. Which makes you ancient.”

He didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he lifted his kunai, sliding into stance. “Whenever you’re ready.”

The first exchange was clean, efficient.

Steel rang against steel, shuriken split the air, genjutsu shimmered across the ground.

Kakashi moved without hesitation, falling back on instinct honed by years of battle, countering, redirecting, correcting.

“Too much chakra, Shisui,” he said mid-clash, forcing the boy’s kunai wide. “You’ll burn out before you get anywhere.”

“Noted,” Shisui said cheerfully, twisting out of range.

“Itachi, you’re over-anticipating. Don’t read so far ahead you trip over the present.”

“Hai,” Itachi murmured, shifting smoothly into a different rhythm.

“Senpai,” Shisui called, chakra crackling dangerously at the edges of his blade. “Come on. Show us how you use it. We came here for the ‘Kakashi of the Sharingan,’ after all.” He said it with such unfiltered delight that Kakashi had to bite back a sigh. Of all the nicknames that had ever followed him, Shisui was the only one who seemed to genuinely love it.

“You do realize,” Kakashi drawled, deflecting the boy’s strike, “that I’m not the owner of this eye?”

Shisui’s grin widened. “And you do realize that makes it cooler, right? Our clan elders get all stiff about it, but me? I think it’s genius.”

“Arrogance disguised as genius,” Kakashi muttered, though he knew Shisui would hear the faintest thread of amusement in it.

Itachi, silent until now, tilted his head, eyes bright with something boyishly curious. “If they call you ‘Kakashi of the Sharingan,’ then what would my nickname be, I wonder?”

The question was so earnest that Kakashi almost stumbled.

He had forgotten that Itachi, the prodigy, the clan heir, was still only five. Still a boy, for all his talent and poise.

“You don’t need a nickname,” Kakashi said softly, blocking another strike. “You’ll make one for yourself.”

Itachi blinked at him, thoughtful, before sliding back into stance.

They fought until the sun slanted low, shadows stretching long across the training field.

By then, both boys were panting, sweat slicking their brows, and Kakashi was suppressing the ache in his chest more than the ache in his limbs.

They looked at him like he had answers. Like every correction, every warning, was a gift they couldn’t find anywhere else.

And it was unbearable, how much it reminded him of another boy.

A boy who had glared at him across training grounds with that same mix of defiance and desperate hunger to be acknowledged.

Sasuke.

Kakashi closed his eyes briefly, tugging his hitai-ate back up, concealing the Sharingan - that automatically flares when his in a high-stake situation.

“Enough for today,” he said, voice rougher than he meant. “Any more and you’ll just be reinforcing mistakes.”

Shisui groaned, flopping back into the grass. “You always say that.”

“Because it’s true.”

Itachi gave a small bow, as polite as ever. “Thank you, Kakashi-senpai.”

Kakashi nodded faintly.

When he glanced to the edge of the field, he froze.

Obito sat there in the grass, one leg stretched stiffly, the other bent awkwardly, arms crossed. His expression was shadowed, but he was watching.

Not the fight, not the sparring-watching him.

Kakashi swallowed hard, memories pressing sharp against his ribs. The voice of the boy Obito had been, shouting at him to protect comrades, to stop looking down on others. The man he’d become, swallowed by fire and self-loathing.

Obito never stayed long when Shisui and Itachi came by. He usually retreated inside, away from their eager eyes and flashing dōjutsu, as though their power was a wound he couldn’t bear to look at.

But today, he had come outside.

And he had stayed.

Kakashi didn’t know what to do with that.

So he said nothing.

He only gathered his weapons, gave Shisui and Itachi one last correction about balance and breathing, and walked Obito home in silence.

The weight of three tomoe lingered behind his eyelids.

The weight of three boys lingered heavier in his chest.

Chapter Text

Kakashi hated the smell long before he stepped inside.

The air around Orochimaru’s hideout clung damp and chemical, the tang of blood and something acrid that burned the back of his throat.

Even after weeks of visiting, it hadn’t grown familiar.

It never would.

But he came anyway.

Obito wasn’t getting better. If anything, he was getting worse. The prosthetic work on his half-crushed body held, but only just. Kakashi could see it every time Obito walked, every time he breathed too sharply, every time exhaustion dragged him down faster than it should. And if there was one thing Kakashi knew, it was the slow decline of a comrade slipping through his fingers.

He wouldn’t let it happen again.

So he swallowed his disgust, his mistrust, and his shame and pushed open the heavy iron door.

The lab was lit by sickly pale lamps, shadows writhing across jars that lined the walls.

Too many jars.

Too many things floating in them.

Kakashi didn’t let his eye linger.

Orochimaru looked up from his workbench, scalpel glinting under the lamplight. His smile slithered across his face, all teeth and false welcome.

“Hatake. To what do I owe this… visit? It hasn’t been so long since last time. You must be growing fond of me.”

Kakashi ignored the jab, stepping further inside, keeping his expression flat. “Obito’s condition isn’t improving. He’s deteriorating.”

The scalpel stilled, then was set down with deliberate care.

Orochimaru turned, yellow eyes gleaming in the half-dark. “Mm. Half a body crushed beneath stone, patched together by sheer will and a touch of luck… survival was always going to be fragile.”

“I need a solution,” Kakashi said evenly.

The sannin’s smile deepened. “Ah. And so the proud student of the Fourth Hokage comes begging. How… precious.”

Kakashi’s hands flexed at his sides. “This isn’t about me.”

“Of course it isn’t,” Orochimaru purred, rising to his full height, robes whispering across the filthy floor. “It’s about your teammate. Your little broken bird.” He tilted his head, snake-like. “How touching. And what is it you imagine I might do for him?”

“You know more about the body than anyone else in Konoha. More than Tsunade, even, when it comes to… replacements.” Kakashi’s mouth twisted around the word. “You’ve studied grafting. Reconstruction. Artificial stabilization. You can help him.”

For a long moment, silence stretched, thick with tension.

Then Orochimaru chuckled, low and amused. “You’ve been paying more attention than I thought. Yes. Perhaps I could improve his… condition.” His eyes glinted, sharp as blades. “But nothing is free.”

Kakashi met his gaze without flinching. “We already have an arrangement. You report Danzo’s movements. I keep my mouth shut.”

“Mm, yes. That agreement was… entertaining, while it lasted.” Orochimaru’s tongue flicked briefly against his lips. “But this is different, Hatake. You are asking me not merely for information, but for my art. My genius. That demands a higher price.”

Kakashi’s jaw tightened.

He had expected this.

Orochimaru never gave without taking, never agreed without twisting the knife.

“What do you want?” he asked.

Orochimaru stepped closer, the lamplight catching on the pale scales at his throat. “So quick to the point. Very well. I want… access.”

“Access to what?”

“The boy.”

Kakashi stiffened.

Orochimaru’s smile widened, sensing the reaction. “Relax. I don’t mean to break him. Not yet, anyway.” He chuckled at Kakashi’s glare. “I mean access to observe. To study. If I am to keep him alive, I must see how his body responds. I must test what holds, what fails. Surely you didn’t think this would be a simple matter of handing over medicine and sending him on his way?”

Every instinct in Kakashi screamed against it. The thought of Orochimaru’s hands anywhere near Obito made his stomach twist. But the image of Obito’s strained breath, his faltering steps, the way his eyes clouded with pain he tried to hide those weighed heavier.

“What else?” Kakashi said, voice low.

Orochimaru’s eyes gleamed. “How delicious. You know me too well.” He leaned close, his breath cool against Kakashi’s ear. “When you come here… you bring me samples. Scraps. Information. Not about Danzo this time.”

Kakashi’s chest tightened. “Then what?”

“About Namikaze.”

The name dropped between them like a blade.

Kakashi’s fingers twitched toward his kunai. “Careful.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Orochimaru drawled. “I don’t need secrets that would topple him. Not yet. I simply want… perspective. The Hokage is not so easy to read, even for me. And you… you are his student. His ward. His shadow. Surely you see sides of him others do not.”

Kakashi’s mind raced. This was a trap. Of course it was a trap. But refusing outright might cost him any chance of saving Obito—and Minato had taught him well enough to know when sacrifice had to be weighed.

Finally, he said, “No sensitive information. No strategies. No vulnerabilities. I’ll give you scraps, nothing more.”

“Scraps,” Orochimaru echoed, amused. “Very well. Scraps for scraps. I will see what can be done for your little Uchiha.”

Kakashi forced himself to nod, even as his stomach churned.

When he left the lab, the night air felt cleaner than it had in days. But it didn’t wash the weight from his chest.

He had bargained with a snake.

He had handed Orochimaru a sliver of Minato’s shadow, and offered Obito’s battered body up for examination.

And all he could think was that he would do it again tomorrow, and the next day, if it meant Obito had a chance.

Because he could live with guilt.

He could live with shame.

What he couldn’t live with was another comrade slipping away.

---

Kakashi found Obito sitting on the engawa of the house, one leg dangling over the edge, the other stiffly bent the way his body allowed.

The boy was staring at the sunset, eyes reflecting fire and shadow, his face tight with frustration.

He always sat there lately.

Like he was waiting for something that never came.

Kakashi stopped a few paces behind, breathing in steady. He’d been turning the words over in his head since leaving Orochimaru’s lab, trying to figure out how to tell Obito without lying, without breaking him further.

There was no perfect way.

“You’ve been quiet,” Kakashi said, stepping forward.

Obito startled, then quickly masked it with a scowl. “You’re one to talk. You practically invented quiet.”

Kakashi allowed the jab. It was familiar ground, and Obito needed familiar ground. “I spoke with someone.”

“Oh?” Obito tried for nonchalance, but his hands fisted in his lap.

He was listening.

Too intently.

“There might be… a way to help you,” Kakashi said. “To strengthen what’s left. Maybe even repair it.”

The words hit like a spark to dry brush.

Obito’s whole body jerked, his head whipping toward Kakashi, the Sharingan in his ruined socket glinting as if it too wanted to burn brighter.

“Are you serious?” His voice cracked with it. “Don’t-don’t mess with me, Kakashi.”

“I’m not messing with you.”

“Then who? Who’s going to-” He cut himself off, breathing fast, chest heaving. 

Kakashi hesitated only a moment. “Orochimaru.”

The word landed like a kunai, sharp and dangerous.

Obito’s face flickered, excitement collapsing into suspicion, then surging back into something uglier, desperation. His fingers clawed at the wood beneath him. “Orochimaru? You mean the snake sannin? The creepy one who-”

“Yes.”

Obito stared at him. “You’re serious.”

“I am.”

Silence stretched, thick with everything unspoken.

Kakashi watched the storm play across Obito’s face: revulsion, hope, fear, hunger.

Finally, Obito whispered, “Can he really do it?”

Kakashi crouched down so they were eye-level. “There’s a chance. No guarantees. But he knows more about reconstructing bodies than anyone else in the village.”

“And the risks?”

Kakashi swallowed. He could have softened it. But Obito deserved honesty. “He’ll experiment. Test things. Push your body to see what holds. If something goes wrong, it could hurt you. Permanently. And even if it works, there will be… consequences. I don’t know what yet. But nothing he gives is ever clean.”

Obito’s breath shuddered out. He looked away, eyes fixed on the horizon again, as if he could will it to give him answers.

“You’re telling me to say no,” he said flatly.

“I’m telling you the truth.”

Obito’s jaw worked. “If there’s even a chance I can walk again, fight again” His voice broke, and he slammed his palm against the wood. “You think I care about clean? I don’t care if it’s snakes, or demons, or whatever the hell else! I’m so-” He cut himself off with a choked sound, shoulders trembling. “I’m so tired of this, Kakashi.”

The words hit harder than any punch.

Kakashi sat beside him, the boards creaking under his weight. “I know.”

“You don’t,” Obito snapped. Then softer, broken: “You don’t. You’re still whole. You can run. You can fight. I can barely climb stairs some days. I can’t even keep up with Rin when she walks. I hate it.”

Kakashi let the words hang, let Obito spit them out raw. He remembered Sasuke’s anger, all sharp edges and vengeance. Obito’s anger was different, it bled desperation, the kind of pain that begged for relief no matter the cost.

“That’s why I came to you,” Kakashi said quietly. “Because if you want this, you have to want it knowing everything. Knowing it’s Orochimaru. Knowing you can never tell anyone: not Rin, not Minato-sensei, no one. If word gets out, it won’t just be you at risk.”

Obito turned his head sharply. “Why? If this can help me, why would-”

“Because Orochimaru isn’t doing this out of kindness,” Kakashi cut in, voice firm. “He’s doing it because it amuses him. Because it serves him. If the village knew, he’d be pulled into the light, and he’d disappear into the cracks before anyone could stop him. And you-” Kakashi’s throat closed for a moment, but he forced the words out. “You’d be ruined. They’d call you a subject, not a shinobi. Do you understand?”

Obito’s breath came shallow. He stared down at his scarred hands, then clenched them. “I understand.”

“Do you?”

“I do,” Obito snapped, then softer: “I do. I don’t care. If it means I can stand on my own again… I’ll take it.”

Kakashi studied him. He looked so young like this, eyes wide, face pale with fear and hope mixed until they were indistinguishable. But behind it all was iron. Obito might break himself against the world, but he would never stop trying.

“Then we keep this between us,” Kakashi said.

Obito nodded quickly. “I won’t tell. Not Rin, not anyone. I swear.”

Kakashi almost believed him. He wanted to. But he knew Obito’s heart too well, loud, impulsive, desperate for connection.

Secrets weighed heavier on him than wounds ever could.

Still, he reached out, resting a hand on Obito’s shoulder. “I’ll be with you. Through all of it. If it goes wrong, I’ll stop him. I promise.”

Obito swallowed hard, blinking fast, then gave a shaky grin. “Man, you sound like such a dad sometimes.”

Kakashi almost laughed. Almost. “And you sound like a reckless brat. Some things don’t change.”

The grin wavered, but held. For the first time in weeks, Obito’s eyes sparked with something other than exhaustion.

Hope. Fragile, dangerous hope.

And Kakashi, for all his dread, couldn’t take it away.

But he also knew: if hope was poison, Obito would drink it anyway.

And Kakashi would drink it with him.

---

The air changed before they even reached the place.

It was humid and thick, carrying the scent of damp stone and something faintly metallic, something that clung to the back of the throat.

The forest thinned, trees twisting around jagged cliffs and hollow caverns that seemed to breathe.

Obito followed in silence, every step tighter than the last. His hand brushed against the rock walls once, and he pulled it back instantly—it left a smear of something slick, not-quite-moss.

Kakashi glanced at him but said nothing. He didn’t need to. Obito’s eyes said everything: this doesn’t feel like a place for people.

The entrance was a narrow crack in stone, widening into a downward tunnel that breathed cold air. Kakashi lit no torch; Orochimaru had left faint chakra lamps that glowed green along the walls, sickly and uneven. Shadows stretched long across the path, bending them into shapes they didn’t recognize.

“Creepy bastard,” Obito muttered under his breath, trying to mask his unease.

Kakashi almost smiled behind his mask. Almost.

They descended for what felt like forever.

The tunnels twisted, doubling back, narrowing until Obito thought he might be crushed between rock.

Then suddenly it opened.

A door waited at the end, heavy metal that groaned when Kakashi pushed it.

The room beyond stole the air from Obito’s lungs.

Obito froze.

Glass cylinders taller than a man lined the walls, each filled with murky liquid that bubbled faintly. Within them floated bodies.

Some were unmistakably human: young men, women, even children, their skin pale and slack, hair drifting like seaweed in stagnant water. Others were wrong. Limbs bent at impossible angles. Eyes doubled, tripled, misplaced. Half-formed things with twisted mouths and clawed hands. One tube held only a torso, twitching feebly as though it still clung to life.

Obito’s breath caught in his throat, a strangled sound escaping him. “W-What… what is this?”

Kakashi’s jaw tightened beneath his mask. He’d been in warzones, seen comrades crushed, burned, shredded apart. But this—this was different. There was no chaos here, no desperation of battle. Only calculation. Cold, clinical horror.

“Experiments,” Kakashi said flatly.

Obito swayed on his feet, his good hand clutching at his stomach. He turned his face away, gagging. “Kami…”

Kakashi just looked, silent and unreadable, until finally he said: “This is what it means to deal with him.”

As if summoned, a voice slid from the shadows, silken and cold.

“You make it sound so dramatic, Hatake.”

Orochimaru stepped into view, pale as moonlight, his golden eyes glinting with amusement. He looked utterly at ease, as though this grotesque gallery was no more shocking than a library.

“You’ve brought me the boy,” he said smoothly, gaze sliding to Obito. “Good. Very good.”

Obito flinched, heat rushing up his neck. He didn’t like the way those eyes lingered, like a snake deciding where to bite.

Kakashi stepped slightly forward, subtly between them. “You said you had a plan.”

Orochimaru smiled. “I always have a plan.”

He gestured lazily around them, as though the horrors in the tubes were nothing. “You see before you the result of my… exploration. Attempts to push the limits of human potential. Some successful, some… less so. But that is the price of progress.”

Obito tore his gaze away, bile in his throat. “These are people.”

“Were,” Orochimaru corrected. “And perhaps will be again. But you, you are alive. You still have hope.”

His smile widened. “And I can give you more than hope. I can give you strength. Wholeness.”

Obito’s heart hammered. Strength. Wholeness. The words hooked deep, dragging at the desperate longing he’d tried so hard to bury. He thought of Rin’s pitying eyes, of being half a shinobi, half a failure.

“I can fix you,” Orochimaru said, soft, intimate, like a whisper meant only for him. “If you let me.”

Kakashi’s hand tightened on Obito’s shoulder. It grounded him, pulled him from the golden gaze. He glanced up, and though Kakashi’s mask revealed nothing, his one eye was sharp, warning.

“You don’t trust him,” Obito muttered.

“I don’t trust anyone,” Kakashi said flatly. Then, softer: “But I promised you a chance.”

Obito swallowed hard, gaze flicking back to the tubes. One child floated small, hair dark, skin pale in the greenish glow. His chest barely rose and fell, as if the machine breathed for him.

Obito’s gut twisted. “How long… would I be here?”

“Long enough,” Orochimaru said, smile still fixed. “The body needs time to knit, to mend. Time you can spare, if you truly want this.”

Obito’s mouth was dry. “And if… if something goes wrong?”

Orochimaru’s laugh was soft, serpentine. “Then you’ll be no worse off than the ones you see here.”

The words landed like lead.

Obito staggered back a step, horror warring with desperation. He couldn’t—he couldn’t end up like them. But the thought of not trying—of hobbling forever, of dragging down his team, of never standing equal burned like acid.

His hands trembled.

“I…”

Kakashi turned, crouching slightly to meet his gaze. “Obito. You don’t have to decide this second. But if you walk away now, this is it. Think about what you’re willing to risk.”

Obito bit his lip so hard he tasted iron.

He didn’t trust Orochimaru.

He didn’t even like looking at him.

But he trusted Kakashi.

Trusted that his friend, his rival, wouldn’t have brought him here if there wasn’t at least a sliver of hope.

Finally, he whispered, “I’ll do it.”

Orochimaru’s smile sharpened and led them deeper into the lab, Obito forced himself to look straight ahead, not at the tubes. But Kakashi couldn’t stop glancing. Couldn’t stop cataloguing the half-formed faces, the tiny hands pressing weakly against glass.

Children.

Somewhere among them, one of them would be Yamato. The boy he knew in another life. A survivor of these horrors.

At last, Orochimaru opened a door to a smaller chamber. A bed, a desk, a basin of water. Plain, almost comfortless, but clean.

“Your ward will stay here,” Orochimaru said, almost kindly. “I will examine him tomorrow. Tonight, rest.”

Obito hesitated in the doorway, eyes darting to Kakashi. His lips moved soundlessly, shaping a question he couldn’t ask aloud.

Kakashi met his gaze. “I’ll be here.”

The boy sagged with relief, stepping inside.

Orochimaru’s eyes gleamed. “How touching.”

Kakashi didn’t respond.

He only watched until Orochimaru left, the door sliding shut behind him.

Only then did Obito let out the breath he’d been holding. He collapsed onto the bed, curling into himself, shaking. “Kakashi…”

Kakashi sat on the edge of the bed, keeping his voice steady. “You still want this?”

Obito’s answer came too fast, desperate. “Yes. I don’t care what it takes-I can’t-” His voice cracked, breaking into a whisper. “I can’t stay like this.”

Kakashi closed his eye.

The image of the glass tubes, the warped faces, the small child floating in shadows, burned behind his lids.

He reached out, resting a hand briefly on Obito’s shoulder. “Then endure it. But you do what I say, when I say it. Understand?”

Obito nodded furiously, tears bright in his eyes. “I trust you.”

Kakashi’s throat tightened.

He thought of Yamato, alone in his tank, thought of all the others who had no one to come for them.

And silently, he added: And when the time comes, I’ll take you and that boy out of here. Whatever it costs.

Chapter Text

~Time skip~

We remember that night.
The fire. The screaming. The sky painted red.

We had lived with whispers for years, hadn’t we? That the Hokage’s wife was no ordinary woman, that she carried the burden of a beast. We smiled at her when she passed, bowed even, because she was the Hokage’s wife and deserved respect. But in our hearts? We whispered. A Jinchūriki. A vessel. A curse in red hair.

When her belly grew round, when her smile brightened, we told ourselves it was a good omen. The Hokage will be a father. The village will have a child blessed with Minato-sama’s strength. And yet beneath the joy was fear. A Jinchūriki carrying life? Could such a thing be safe? We hushed the questions in daylight. But we carried them with us at night.

And then, one night, the questions were answered.

The roar split the sky.
We woke to fire. To shadows larger than the mountains. To the crushing weight of chakra that suffocated our lungs and burned our skin. The Nine-Tails. The demon fox. Loose.

We screamed in the streets. We called for guards, for shinobi, for the Uchiha Police. Where are they? Where are our protectors? We shoved our children into basements, slammed doors shut, clutched each other in the dark.

And above us, we saw our Hokage. Minato-sama, glowing like the sun itself, standing between us and death. He faced the beast with nothing but his will and his jutsu. We cheered his name even as our throats tore raw. Our Hokage. Our savior.

For a heartbeat, we believed.

But then—shadows within shadows.

It was not only the beast that raged that night. No, no. We saw masks in the smoke, ANBU tearing into ANBU. They fought in alleys, on rooftops, in the very streets meant to be safe. Blades clashed where they should not. Why? Why would our defenders turn on each other when death towered over us all?

We asked, but no one answered.

We saw Itachi Uchiha, the clan’s prodigy, barely more than a boy, cutting through assassins twice his size. His blade moved like light, his eyes burning with power. A child, but already a savior. He fought… but against whom? Against those who wore our own masks.

Our own ANBU.

And at their head—white hair. A boy grown into a man too fast. Kakashi Hatake.

Yes, we saw him. Do not tell us we did not. The silver head, the cold mask, the Sharingan burning in his eye. Hatake Kakashi, student of the Hokage himself. The White Fang’s son.

We had watched him rise, hadn’t we? The prodigy. The genius. The shinobi who carried Konoha’s pride in his small shoulders. And yet, like father, like son 'curse will breed curse'. Hadn’t Sakumo Hatake betrayed us once before? Abandoning mission for sentiment, throwing away the trust of the village? His son was no different. We should have known.

For we saw Kakashi that night.
We saw him not against the demon, but against the Hokage’s own guard. We saw him clash with the Uchiha heir. We saw him turn his blade not on the fox, but gods preserve us on Kushina-sama herself.

Did he strike her down? Some say yes. Some swear they saw his blade pierce her side. Others claim he dragged her before the beast, offering her like sacrifice. And others still whisper he severed the seals himself, that it was Kakashi Hatake who freed the fox from its prison.

We may not know the precise blow, but we know the truth. It was him. The white-haired one. The cursed son.

He brought the demon into our streets. He betrayed the Hokage. He turned against his own.

We remember the flames rising higher, the cries of our children. We remember the ANBU masks shattered, our protectors falling one by one. We remember Minato-sama battling not only the beast, but treachery within his own home.

And through it all, Kakashi’s name burned in our throats like bile.
Traitor. Scum. Curse.

Our Hokage fought until he was nothing but ash and light. He sealed the beast, he saved the village, he gave his life. That much was true. But in the void left behind, whispers filled the silence.

The beast was freed because of Kakashi.
The Hokage’s wife was struck down by his own student.
The White Fang’s shame lives on in his son.

We told these stories to each other in hushed voices. We told them in the markets, in the taverns, by the river. We told them to our children, so they would remember who had betrayed us.

Some say he vanished that night. Some say the Hokage himself banished him before his death. Some say he slunk into the shadows with his rogue ANBU, traitors all.

Where he went, we do not know. But we remember him.
We remember the fire.
We remember the blood.
We remember the traitor.

Even now, when the night is too still, when the wind rattles through broken tiles, we whisper it:
Hatake Kakashi. The demon’s hand. The son of the White Fang. The one who betrayed us all.

And though the years will twist the tale, though faces fade and truth is buried, we know what we saw.
We know who to blame.
We know who damned us.

Chapter Text

Everything had been fine.

At least, that’s what Shisui kept telling himself. Fine.

But had it been?

He wasn’t so sure anymore.

There were the blackouts: brief, unsettling, fragments of time he couldn’t account for. At first, he thought it was exhaustion, or the stress of training with ANBU. He told himself that. Pushed it aside. Kept moving. Kept excelling.

And yet… why had he been pushing himself so hard lately?

Why did he find himself volunteering for the riskiest missions, taking the spotlight in ways he normally would have avoided? He wasn’t looking for recognition. He wasn’t… was he? The questions clawed at him, gnawed at the edges of his consciousness. Something was off. Something had been off for weeks.

He shook his head.

No.

Don’t think about it. Focus. He was supposed to be the youngest ANBU operative, after all, eleven years old, working under Captain Kakashi, his senpai. The youngest ANBU under the youngest Captain ever. A record that should have felt like a triumph. And yet it felt hollow.

He rubbed his temples. “Everything is fine,” he muttered aloud, even though the words sounded brittle, unconvincing. “Everything is… fine, yes?” His voice cracked slightly on the last word.

Then, just like that, it began again. The blackout.

One second he was standing in the training hall, wiping sweat from his brow, reviewing the mission brief in his head. The next, darkness clawed at the edges of his vision, pulling him under. His body froze, his limbs stiffened, and he felt nothing. Or perhaps everything, at once.

When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t in the training hall. He was… elsewhere. A chill ran down his spine, and the first thought that hit him was simple: I’m not moving myself. I’m not… here.

A voice echoed in his head, unfamiliar and insistent. Let me work.

Shisui’s stomach turned. He tried to speak, to shout, to resist but his mouth wouldn’t obey. His limbs twitched, not with his commands, but with those of a foreign puppeteer. Panic clawed at his chest. His mind screamed.

What is happening? Who-

The answer, if it could be called that, came in the form of his own hands, moving without his consent. They bent and flexed, pulling on a cloak, adjusting straps, securing weapons he didn’t remember choosing. A pouch here, a kunai there. His body was preparing itself for a mission, and he was merely watching.

This isn’t me.

The thought repeated like a mantra, but it did nothing to stop what was happening. His feet carried him out of the shadows of his room or wherever he had been and into the night. The air smelled of damp earth, of smoke faintly on the wind. A city breathing in tension, unaware of what was about to descend upon it.

Through the haze of fear, Shisui could make out the faint outlines of the agency. ROOT’s hideout, one of the most secure locations in Konoha. He knew it, instinctively. But that knowledge only deepened the terror: he wasn’t supposed to be here. Not yet. This mission wasn’t scheduled. It wasn’t his responsibility.

And yet here he was, moving toward it, as though drawn by strings he could neither see nor sever.

His mind tried to reconcile the impossibility of it all. Am I dreaming? No… I can feel it. I can see it. My body… my body is doing these things. The thought made him shiver. Every step, every movement, was dictated by something else. Something foreign. Something alive inside him, whispering commands that he could not refuse.

He passed through the shadows, his cloak blending with the darkness. There was a strange precision to his movements, almost mechanical. Every step, every breath, every hand movement was executed with perfect timing as though the body he had trusted for eleven years was now a vessel for another.

The corridors of ROOT were silent, save for the faint hum of machinery and the distant drip of water echoing through hidden channels. Shisui’s heart raced, hammering in his chest like a drumbeat he couldn’t silence. His mind reeled at the sight of explosives being primed, mechanisms being armed, plans unfolding that he had never seen, never approved.

This isn’t me. It cannot be me.

A flicker of awareness whispered through his mind, a memory, or perhaps a warning. A fragment of black in the corner of his consciousness, almost imperceptible, yet impossibly familiar. He had felt it before, in the strange urges, in the blackouts he had shrugged off as fatigue. Something else had been there all along. Something else is here now.

And that something was in control.

The voice returned, low and insistent. Let me work.

Shisui’s stomach dropped.

He felt the dread coil around him, a serpent tightening its grip. Every explosion set in motion, every fuse lit, every silent mechanism triggered he felt them as if they were extensions of his own body, but none of it was his will. The creeping realization made his vision blur, panic threading through his limbs.

This is the beginning. This is the beginning of something terrible.

He tried to resist. His mind screamed at his body to stop, to turn away, to run. But the voice was patient, relentless, and Shisui could only watch in horror as his body continued forward.

Through the dim light, he saw the first sparks of fire flare in the distance, reflected in the steel and concrete of the hideout. A shiver ran through him, and he felt it deep in his chest a sense of inevitability, a knowledge that what was coming could not be undone.

Why is this happening? Why now?

Questions came and went, unanswered, as his body continued on its path. The explosives were set. The corridors, once silent, now hummed with tension and potential violence. Every step took him closer to disaster, and Shisui felt the weight of it pressing down on him like a living thing.

And then, for a brief instant, he caught sight of his reflection in a polished metal panel. He didn’t recognize himself. Not really. The face staring back at him was his, yes—but it was alien, cold, eyes sharp and calculating. A stranger wearing his skin. The image made him stumble inside, though his body moved with unerring precision.

I’m a passenger in my own body.

The thought hit him like a punch to the gut, and for the first time, true fear took root. This was bigger than any mission, any danger he had faced as an ANBU operative. This was not a fight he could win with skill or speed. This was a battle for the very command of his own mind.

Through the haze of panic, he realized the horrifying truth: whatever force had taken him, whatever presence whispered in his head, was not just a parasite. It was a strategist. It was patient. It was deliberate. Every move he had made, every impulse he had felt in the past weeks, every desire to excel and push himself further this was its work, shaping him into a vessel, preparing him for a moment he could not yet comprehend.

The first explosion lit the corridor ahead, a flash of orange and red that painted the walls in stark relief. Shisui flinched, but his body remained steady, moving with perfect control as the chain reaction continued. The sound was deafening, reverberating through the hideout like thunder. Dust fell from the ceiling, and the acrid tang of smoke filled his nostrils.

I am not the one doing this, he told himself, even as his body carried him deeper into the chaos. I am not the one responsible.

And yet, deep down, a seed of guilt began to sprout. He could see it all unfold. He could see the destruction, the chaos, the inevitable suffering. He could feel it, every tremor, every heat wave, every life endangered by the actions his body was taking without his consent. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

The dread coiled tighter, and Shisui understood this was only the beginning. What was set in motion here would ripple outward, touching lives in ways he could not imagine. It would not be contained, could not be reversed. And at the heart of it all was him, or at least a version of him that was no longer entirely his own.

The voice whispered again, calm, unyielding, patient. Let me work.

And as his body moved, precise, unflinching, prepared to execute the final steps of a plan he had never agreed to, Shisui felt the first true taste of helplessness.

He was no longer the master of his fate.

He was merely a passenger.

Suddenly, the compound erupted into chaos: masked agents leaping at masked agents, shouts of recognition and betrayal colliding in a cacophony of violence. Shisui’s mind twisted with horror.

What have I done?

He had no answers. .Only the movement of his body, the cold precision of actions he could not stop. Guards outside the main hideout fell one by one, their minds ensnared by his Sharingan, Kotoamatsukami guiding his hand without thought. Their struggles were brief, the confusion on their faces fleeting but the weight of the act pressed on him in every fiber.

The path led him onward, deeper into the underbelly of the village he had sworn to protect. His body didn’t hesitate, didn’t waver, and he didn’t dare try to resist. The voice whispered in his mind again, controlling, calculating. “Trust me.”

Inside the central chamber, his stomach knotted violently. Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage, stood beside Kushina Uzumaki, radiant even in the flickering torchlight of the hidden enclave. She was heavy with the child they would never have imagined could one day shake the world.

Shisui’s chest tightened as he took in the sight the moment frozen, beautiful, terrifying and then he realized what was coming next.

No. No, she’s about to…

But it was too late.

Minato noticed him first. “Shisui? What are you doing here?” His voice was calm, steady, though there was an edge of surprise that hinted at suspicion.

Shisui tried to speak. Tried to explain. But no sound passed his lips. Panic surged, coursing through every vein like ice fire. His eyes spun wildly, the Sharingan flaring without intent, a crimson whirlpool of impossible power.

Stop… please… I can’t…

And then it happened. Minato fell into a genjutsu before he could react, a flicker of disbelief crossing his face even as his movements slowed. Kushina too was caught, her cries muted by the invisible chains of illusion.

Shisui’s body moved like a machine, methodical, almost ceremonial, preparing the ritual that would shatter everything he loved. He knew what was coming next, he could feel it, each heartbeat a drum of dread but he had no control. His hand, elegant and deadly, moved toward Kushina, fingers poised over the seal that bound the Nine-Tails.

No! Stop! I-

It was done.

The seal broke.

The chakra burst forth like wildfire, spilling into the village center in a torrent of red and fury. Shisui’s stomach dropped as the overwhelming presence of the Kyuubi surged past him, tearing at the edges of reality.

Buildings shook, gates splintered, and the cries of the villagers reached him in distorted waves. He saw flashes of shinobi scrambling, trying to contain the impossible, but the Nine-Tails had already begun its destruction.

He could do nothing.

Shisui’s mind reeled, a hurricane of guilt and horror crashing through every thought.

And Shisui… Shisui could only watch.

The villagers’ screams echoed from the distance.

The smell of burning wood and splintered stone filled his senses, mingling with the metallic tang of blood and the overwhelming scent of chakra. He felt every pulse, every surge of the Kyuubi’s energy, and it was all wrong. The creature had no aim other than devastation, and the village the only home he had ever known was at its mercy.

“Why…?” he whispered, though no sound came out. His voice was trapped in his head, his hands unmoving. He had become the instrument of destruction, the conduit for chaos.

And still, the voice in his mind whispered, smooth and persuasive. “It’s necessary. Trust me. Let it happen.”

Shisui’s stomach churned, bile rising, as the Nine-Tails’ roar rolled across the village, shaking windows and sending birds screaming into the sky. He could see the edges of the village in flames, roofs caving, gates splintering. Even now, he tried to force his body to stop, to resist—but it was impossible. The alien will controlling him had long since taken over, and he was left only to observe.

For a moment, a single, horrifying thought took hold. This… this is not me.

He had always believed in duty, in honor, in protecting the village with his life. And yet here he was, the cause of untold suffering, powerless to prevent it. Minato, Kushina, the unborn child… all imperiled because his body had become a weapon he could no longer wield.

The Kyuubi’s red chakra surged, flooding the streets, crushing walls, shattering stone, and igniting a fear unlike any the villagers had ever known. Shisui’s eyes—his Sharingan—reflected the chaos in a twisted mirror. Every movement of his body felt both his own and entirely alien, a terrible dichotomy that left him suspended between horror and detachment.

Through the panic, through the fire and shattered stone, he glimpsed the villagers fleeing, shouting, crying, blaming, cursing but he couldn’t reach them. Couldn’t warn them. Couldn’t save them. He could only watch.

And still, the voice whispered. “Let it work. Let it happen.”

Shisui could only scream silently inside his head as the Nine-Tails’ fury tore the village apart.

Shisui’s vision blurred as control returned to his body.

His legs wobbled beneath him, knees almost giving out as if they hadn’t belonged to him all along. The air was thick with smoke, the stench of singed wood and scorched earth filling his nostrils. Somewhere in the distance, the roar of the Nine-Tails made his chest tighten, a hammering drum of pure dread.

For a moment, he thought he was dreaming. Or worse, that someone else was controlling him still. But the crushing sensation in his skull, the voice echoing in his mind, “Let me work” had vanished. His eyes, once spiraling with the hallucinatory twist of Kotoamatsukami, now burned red for an instant before the Sharingan faded, leaving nothing but his own frightened vision staring back at him.

And then he saw her.

Kushina. Standing-no, staggering, yet alive. Her face was pale, sweat and blood mingling with the vibrant red of her hair, her hands clutching her belly as pain radiated from deep within. The genjutsu had broken, and her wide eyes locked onto his.

Panic slammed into Shisui like a tidal wave.

“I-I’m sorry! I didn’t-” His voice trembled. Words failed him, stuttering out in fragments that made no sense. “I didn’t mean… I didn’t=”

The ground shook beneath him as the Kyūbi’s roar tore through the village, a sound that felt like it could shatter bones and minds alike. Villagers’ screams pierced the chaos, adding another layer of terror. Shisui’s stomach lurched violently. He had unleashed it-he had done this. His hands shook violently as he fought against the images in his mind, the memories of what his body had just done.

Then he saw Minato.

The Hokage, speed and skill, was moving with precision through the carnage. The yellow flash of his hair was all the villagers could track in a blur of blue and gold. He had freed himself from the genjutsu, now attempting to control the chaos and protect his wife. The sight should have been comforting. Instead, it drove Shisui further into despair.

“I-I have to help,” Shisui whispered to himself, taking a tentative step forward, only for the ground to tremble violently beneath the Nine-Tails’ massive chakra. The fox’s enormous, fiery form was coiling and twisting through the streets, its tails smashing through walls, flinging debris, and igniting fires wherever it passed.

And then Kakashi appeared.

The sudden presence of his Senpai, calm but resolute amidst the storm, was almost surreal. He moved with an eerie precision, his single eye scanning every threat as if he could see the chaos itself and cut it down at its root. Rin was with him, a med-nin in training, her hands already moving to prepare for Kushina’s aid. She carried herself with a quiet determination that only made Shisui’s guilt spike higher.

Kakashi’s gaze found him instantly. Shisui froze. There was no anger in Kakashi’s voice yet, only the unshakable weight of responsibility that made Shisui feel as though he had been stripped naked in front of the world.

“Shisui,” Kakashi said calmly, though the calm carried the edge of steel. “Step away from her.”

“I-I don’t know what I did!” Shisui shouted, his voice cracking. “Please, Senpai! You have to help me! I-my body… I couldn’t control it!”

Rin’s voice joined in immediately, sharp and urgent. “Kakashi! She’s still in labor!”

Kakashi held up a hand, silencing her with a single glance.

His gaze returned to Shisui, steady, unwavering. “Go,” he said.

Shisui’s breath caught in his throat. “Go? Where?”

“No time to argue,” Kakashi said, the edge of command in his voice slicing through the chaos. He summoned his ninken, the dogs appearing in an instant, their eyes glinting with purpose. “Leave the village. I’ll find you later. I’ll deal with this. You-just survive.”

Shisui’s eyes widened. “I can’t-Senpai, I can’t leave here! I need to explain!”

“Go.” The command was repeated, final and absolute. Kakashi’s single eye held the weight of all the years of experience, of all the decisions he had ever made, and all the choices that had led to this night.

There was no room for argument.

The ninken nudged at Shisui, urging him forward.

The world seemed to tilt beneath his feet as he obeyed. Every instinct screamed at him to fight, to stay, to try and fix what he had destroyed. But Kakashi’s presence, steady and unwavering, anchored him, forced him to make a choice: leave or doom everyone further.

Reluctantly, trembling, he turned and ran.

His heart was pounding so violently he thought it might tear itself out of his chest. His legs moved faster than his mind could comprehend, as if some primal instinct drove him onward. Behind him, the cries of the villagers, the roar of the Nine-Tails, and the frantic shouts of ANBU collided into a deafening symphony. He couldn’t stop the images from flashing in his mind, the split-second movement of his body, the way his hands had moved on their own, the ritual he had unwillingly performed. The seal was broken. The Nine-Tails was loose in the heart of Konoha. And he had been its unwilling architect.

“Kakashi… Senpai… why?” he whispered, voice barely audible over the carnage. He felt tears blur his vision, anger, frustration, guilt, and fear all twisting into one impossible knot inside his chest. “Why did you let me… why did you send me away?”

Kakashi’s voice echoed in his mind, though not physically. “Because I knew you needed to live. And because I know what must be done.”

Every step Shisui took carried him farther from the chaos, but the echoes of destruction followed him. He could hear the screams, the cries of mothers and fathers, the shouts of children caught in the storm of the Nine-Tails’ rage. He could see flashes of fire, walls crumbling, and the immense, terrible form of the beast moving unchecked through the streets.

And still, he ran.

The ninken guided him through alleyways, collapsed streets, and debris-strewn lanes, each step feeling heavier than the last. Shisui’s mind spun with a mixture of relief and horror.

Relief that he was no longer the puppet of an alien force; horror that what he had done, even involuntarily, had unleashed the most dangerous beast in the world into his own village.

He dared not look back.

Every instinct screamed at him to glance over his shoulder, to see the destruction, to witness the aftermath of his body’s actions. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Instead, he focused on the command he had been given: survive.

Survive.

Somewhere deep in his chest, in the pit of his stomach, a spark of hope flickered. If he survived, maybe there would be a way to make amends.

Maybe he could undo, or at least mitigate, the devastation he had caused.

Maybe, just maybe, Kakashi was right.

And so he ran.

Through smoke, through fire, through chaos and panic. Every step a reminder of the guilt he carried. Every breath a struggle against despair. Every heartbeat a testament to the unbearable weight of having been both witness and unwilling perpetrator.

The village burned behind him, and the Nine-Tails roared its fury.

And Shisui ran on, uncertain of what awaited him, but knowing one thing with terrifying clarity: the world he had known was gone, and nothing would ever be the same.

Chapter Text

Days after the attack

The air in Konoha was thick with dust, the tang of smoke and mortar clinging to every corner of the village.

Obito’s boots crunched over broken tiles and splintered wood as he moved through the streets, eyes scanning the chaos. Walls were rebuilt with haphazard haste, makeshift scaffolds leaned at precarious angles, and the occasional clang of hammer on steel rang out from every direction. The Kyuubi’s attack had left scars on the village, and those scars were not just in stone and timber, they lingered in the eyes of the people who survived it.

Obito’s pulse thrummed in his chest. The village was alive, yet it felt alien, strange. He had returned a different boy from the one who had been trapped under that boulder, half-paralyzed, half-drowned in the hopelessness of his own body. Now, whole and healed, he was… not the same. But the fear lingered just beneath his skin, a shadow clinging to the edges of his confidence.

He moved without a clear path at first, drawn instinctively toward the Hatake home.

The familiar street felt smaller somehow, the windows dark and shuttered. Sealing tags adorned the front gate, ANBU shadows standing like statues at the corners.

“No… this can’t be…” Obito muttered under his breath, stepping closer. He could feel the tension thrumming in the air as though the walls themselves had grown wary of him. Kakashi’s home wasn’t closed off in the way a resident might leave for a long trip; it was contained, restricted. Under investigation.

Obito’s stomach knotted, a sinking weight pressing against his chest. Kakashi… what have you gotten yourself into?

The street stretched before him, littered with rubble and hurried workers, but he couldn’t linger. His next destination loomed above the village, a beacon of authority and answers: the Hokage Tower. His stride lengthened with urgency. The closer he got, the heavier the weight in his chest. The villagers’ whispers brushed against him, tinged with fear, awe, and curiosity.

“Is that…that uchiha boy?”
“He’s back? But… he was supposed to be-”
Obito’s jaw tightened. He had expected shock, maybe even suspicion, but he hadn’t counted on this on everyone watching him like he might break, like he might vanish again.

He barely noticed the scowl of a passing shinobi, the slight stiffening of guards at the gate. The cover story Kakashi had crafted, Obito sent to a remote village for healing had been intended to keep him safe, to sever ties with the snake sanin who had aided in his recovery. But the cover was fraying. He could taste it in the air, bitter and metallic.

At the foot of the tower, two ANBU stepped forward, their masked faces unreadable.

“Obito Uchiha,” one said, voice neutral, clipped. “You are not cleared to enter the Hokage Tower.”

“I am cleared,” Obito replied sharply, voice carrying over the clatter of distant construction. “Tell Sensei to come. He’ll vouch for me.”

The guard stiffened, uncertainty flickering behind the mask. A ripple ran through the other personnel stationed nearby. 

Minutes later, the figure of the Fourth Hokage appeared at the top of the steps, his blond hair catching the sunlight like a halo. His face was calm, but his eyes held a hardness, a shield against the exhaustion of responsibility. “Obito,” Minato said, voice firm but carrying the warmth that had always been a tether to the boy’s frayed heart. “Come inside.”

Relief and fear collided in Obito’s chest as he hurried up the steps, barely noticing the stares, the silent calculations of the ANBU lining the tower. The moment the heavy doors closed behind him, the noise of the village faded into muffled echoes, leaving only the scent of polished wood, old parchment, and faint traces of incense that still clung from council meetings past.

Obito took a shuddering breath and looked around the Hokage’s office.

The room was both familiar and strange, Minato’s presence anchored it, but it was a place of power and consequence, not the safe haven of friendship he had once imagined.

“Why… why is everyone saying Kakashi planned everything?” Obito’s voice cracked, words tumbling out in a torrent. “Where is he? Where’s Rin? Where’s Kushina? Is the baby okay?” His hands clenched into fists at his sides. He couldn’t stop the storm of questions, each one heavier than the last.

Minato’s expression tightened. He had expected this. Obito’s voice, raw and urgent, filled the room with a kind of desperation that only the young Uchiha could produce. Minato took a measured breath, his shoulders sagging slightly under the weight of the truth he carried.

“Obito,” Minato began softly, but firmly, “there is a lot you need to know. But first… you need to calm yourself.”

Obito laughed bitterly, the sound sharp and hollow. “Calm myself? After everything I’ve been told? After being left in the dark for so long? No. I need answers now. Everything, Minato. I need to know what happened while I was gone.”

Minato studied him, weighing every word, every subtle shift in posture. Obito’s return was not just a relief, it was a reminder of what had been at stake, of what could have been lost. He gestured toward a chair, though Obito didn’t sit. His gaze swept the office, landing on the maps of the village, the scrolls of missions and strategies, the polished wood that reflected the sunlight like fragments of hope just out of reach.

“Kakashi…” Minato’s voice faltered slightly, heavy with the burden of both authority and friendship. “He… did what he thought was right. Always. But not all plans went as he hoped.”

Obito’s chest tightened, breath catching in his throat. He had imagined this moment countless times in the last months of recovery, what he would say, what he would demand but the reality of standing here, facing Minato, confronted by the weight of a village still healing from scars, was suffocating.

“And Rin?” Obito pressed, steps forward, heat of anger rising in his chest. “She… she didn’t die?”

Minato’s face softened, and a faint, almost imperceptible nod confirmed what Obito had barely dared hope. Relief surged, fleeting and fragile, before anger and confusion reclaimed the space in his heart.

“And Kushina-san? The baby?” Obito’s voice was almost a growl now, fear and fury entwined. “Tell me she’s safe. Tell me she’s alive!”

Minato met his gaze steadily. “Kushina-san survived, and the babies… is safe. They…are strong, Obito.”

Obito stumbled back a step, words failing him. His fists unclenched slowly, shaking, as the truth settled into him like stones in a riverbed. His legs felt weak, but his mind raced, spinning through the implications, the what-ifs, the paths Kakashi had chosen, and the choices he himself had yet to make.

“Kakashi… why isn’t he here?” Obito whispered, voice rough with emotion.

Minato’s gaze drifted momentarily, heavy with unspoken sorrow. “He is… handling matters that only he could. There are things you need to see for yourself, truths that will only become clear with time. But know this—he has always had the village’s future in mind, even when it seemed he acted alone.”

Obito sank into a chair, though he didn’t notice himself moving. His mind reeled Kakashi’s absence, Rin’s survival, Kushina and the babies safety, the village still breathing despite the Kyuubi’s attack and yet the weight of all he didn’t know pressed down like iron. The storm inside him raged, questions and fears colliding, emotions raw and exposed.

For a long moment, there was silence, broken only by the distant sounds of rebuilding outside. Minato’s presence was steady, an anchor in the storm, yet even that stability reminded Obito of the fragility of everything he had returned to.

“Obito...” Minato finally said, soft, deliberate.

---

Chapter Text

The smell of antiseptic clung to everything in the hospital.

It was in the bedsheets, in the walls, in the tired hands that passed potions and sutured wounds. Rin thought she would never get used to it. Once, she had found comfort in the crisp cleanliness of the wards.

Now, after the Kyuubi’s attack, the scent was sharper, harsher, tainted with smoke that had seeped into the very timbers of the building. It made her think of blood, old and drying, new and hot, no matter how hard she tried to push the thought away.

She had lost count of how many times this happened today. Since her reinstatement, the looks had followed her everywhere: wariness, suspicion, sometimes outright hostility. She understood it—of course she did. The attack had left scars too deep to ignore. Civilians had died, shinobi had fallen, families had been destroyed. And somewhere beneath it all was the whisper, she carries a beast too.

Again.

She adjusted her trainee’s apron and carried a tray of supplies to the next bed. Her patient, a middle-aged man with a bandaged arm and burns streaking across his cheek, tensed when she approached. His eyes darted to her, then away, then back again. She saw his throat bob as he swallowed.

“Please, hold still,” she said gently. Her voice was steady, though inside her chest the familiar ache pressed down.

The man flinched anyway. “Don’t let her touch me,” he hissed toward the supervising medic, his tone pitched just low enough to think she couldn’t hear. “I’ll heal on my own.”

Rin froze, the tray wobbling in her hands before she steadied it with practiced care. She smiled, not at him, he didn’t want her smile but at the supervising medic, who looked uncomfortable.

“It’s all right,” Rin said softly. She set the tray down, stepped back, and let another trainee take over.

Rin adjusted the tray, careful not to rattle the glass vials of antiseptic or let the gauze spill over the edge. Her arms ached from the long shift, her eyes raw from staring at wound after wound, stitching torn flesh, soothing burns, whispering encouragement when patients sobbed or raged at her. She’d kept her smile in place: soft, steady, determined.

Again.

“You’re a monster,” he’d spat, delirious from pain, before slapping away her hands.
Another nurse had stepped in, ushering Rin aside, whispering that it was “better not to aggravate him.”

She hadn’t argued. She couldn’t.

The words had cut deeper than the strike. She carried them with her now as she moved down the dim hall, the echo of sandals and boots thudding against the polished wood.

It wasn’t new. Not really. Ever since the sealing, ever since Isobu became a part of her, people had looked differently at her. The fear was never entirely hidden. Some couldn’t stand to meet her eyes. Others did, but only to glare, as if daring her to prove them right. She had grown used to whispers: jinchūriki, dangerous, unstable.

But the hospital magnified everything. Here, people were at their weakest, desperate for comfort, for healing and the sight of her brought only suspicion. Why should a monster touch them? Why should a beast wear a healer’s face?

She set the tray down on the counter of the supply station and exhaled, letting her shoulders drop for the first time in hours. She flexed her fingers, stiff with dried blood from the last sutures. She was exhausted, but it was the kind of exhaustion that pressed deeper than muscle and bone, it weighed on the soul.

“You did good today,” murmured a voice inside her.

Rin paused, eyes flicking to the corner of her mind where Isobu’s presence stirred. His tone was quiet, careful, like the gentle lap of waves against a shore.

You saw? she thought back.

“Always,” Isobu replied. “They don’t see you the way I do. You’re stronger than they’ll ever admit.”

Her throat tightened, and she pressed her hand briefly to her stomach, grounding herself. Isobu was no curse, no burden. He was a companion, a sensitive soul with a kindness she often thought outshone her own. If not for him, she wasn’t sure she’d have made it through the glares and mutters today.

Again.

“One of them,” she spat again. “You’re a jinchūriki, aren’t you? You’ve got a monster inside you. And you expect us to trust your hands on him?”

Rin forced herself to keep her voice steady. “Your son’s lung was punctured. If I don’t reset the drain, he’ll-”

The woman slapped her hand away. “We’ll wait for a real medic.”

For a moment, Rin thought of walking away. Of letting them sit in their ignorance until someone else came by. But the memory of Minato-sensei’s voice stopped her: Do what only you can do, Rin. Don’t let them decide your worth for you.

So she pressed her lips together, bowed her head, and said quietly, “As you wish.”

She moved to the next cot, ignoring the muttered insults. The next patient didn’t want her either. Or the one after. She could feel their fear like a physical thing in the air, prickling against her skin. Some whispered monster, some simply turned away. A few tried to strike her when she came too close, too worn-down and furious to hide their disgust.

And through it all, Rin worked. She carried linens, she mopped floors, she pressed cool cloths against burning foreheads. She bandaged wounds that bled through before she was finished tying them off. She told herself she could bear their mistrust. That this was better than what might have been, had Minato not fought for her place here.

If the elders had had their way, she’d have been locked away already, a second Kushina chained to the shadows with seals and suspicion.

At that thought, her chest tightened. Kushina-san…

Rin had only seen her once since the attack. The woman had been pale, eyes ringed with exhaustion, her arms wrapped fiercely around her two tiny children. Naruto and his twin sister, Namiko. Both newborns, both so small Rin had been afraid to breathe too loudly near them. Yet even in that state, Kushina had burned with fury.

Rin sighed as she set aside another empty basin. The sting of antiseptic filled her nose; her fingers were pruned from scrubbing, but she didn’t care. Thinking of Kakashi always left her with a knot of conflicting feelings.

She trusted him. She always would. No matter what anyone else said, no matter how many rumors swirled through the streets, she knew him better than that. He carried too much alone, though. He always had.

I wish you’d tell me more, Kakashi. Let me carry some of it for you.

But she knew he wouldn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever. And so she’d decided she would wait. However long it took.

When her shift finally ended, the sun was already sliding low in the sky. Orange light bled through the shattered windows, painting the walls in shades of fire. Rin stripped off her gloves and mask, tossing them into the bin, then stepped outside into the evening air.

For a moment, she simply stood there, drinking it in. The smell was still there—the acrid tang of ash and smoke—but out here the wind softened it, carried it away. She let her lungs expand fully for the first time in hours.

And then she froze.

Someone was waiting just beyond the hospital steps.

He was leaning against the wall, arms folded loosely, dark hair catching the dying light. For half a heartbeat her mind refused to recognize him, tried to insist this was some trick of exhaustion, a hallucination conjured from longing and grief.

But then he smiled.

“Hey, Rin.”

Her breath caught in her throat.

The last time she had seen Obito, he’d been broken. Trapped beneath stone, body twisted, pain etched into every line of his face. The months that followed had been worse: a slow unraveling of hope, his once-bright spirit dulled by the weight of paralysis and despair. She had thought she’d lost him, piece by piece, even before his body had disappeared.

And now...

Now he stood whole before her. Taller, stronger, scarred but alive. His grin was the same as it had always been, wide and reckless and full of warmth.

The basin in her hand slipped and clattered to the ground. She didn’t notice. Her feet were already moving.

“Obito...”

“Obito?” The word came out as a croak.

He pushed off the wall, scarred cheek catching the last rays of light, and for a moment she saw both the boy she remembered and someone entirely new—older, stronger, healed yet marked.

“Hey, Rin,” he said, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like he hadn’t been broken, paralyzed, fading before her very eyes the last time they met. His voice cracked on her name, betraying the emotions under the casual façade.

Her throat closed. She stumbled forward, her vision blurring. The part of her that had been calm all day shattered like glass.

The last time she’d seen him, he’d been pale with pain, his body uncooperative, his spirit fraying. She had left his side choking back tears, fearing that piece by piece, Obito Uchiha would simply disappear.

And now, now he stood whole, smiling, warm, alive.

She ran.

Her sandals slapped against the stones, her chest burned, her hands trembled as she reached for him. When she collided with him, all the breath whooshed out of her lungs, but she clung anyway, burying her face into his shoulder, fists curled into his shirt like she never meant to let go.

Obito staggered back a step, then wrapped his arms around her so tight it almost hurt. His laugh was shaky, wet at the edges, half-sob and half-relief.

“Careful,” he said, his voice muffled in her hair. “I just got this body working properly again.”

She laughed and sobbed at once, words tumbling out against his chest. “You idiot- you absolute idiot- I thought-”

“I know.” His hand rubbed circles on her back, steady, grounding. “I’m sorry.”

She pulled back enough to look at him, her tears streaking her cheeks. His scars were stark in the twilight, but his eyes—those warm, stubborn eyes—were the same. She touched his face with trembling fingers, as if afraid he might vanish.

“You’re real,” she whispered.

“Last time I checked.” His grin wobbled, broke, reformed.

Her heart twisted painfully. “I thought I lost you, Obito. I thought-”

“I know,” he said again, softer this time. His thumb brushed at the corner of her eye, chasing away a tear. “But you didn’t. I’m here. I’m back.”

She leaned back just enough to see his face, her hands framing it as if to prove it was real. His grin wobbled, threatening to split into a sob, but he held it anyway, for her.

“You look-” Her voice caught. She shook her head, laughing through the tears. “You look so different.”

“Handsome, right?” Obito teased, though his eyes glistened. “Scar and all?”

Rin swatted his arm weakly, half laughing, half sobbing. “Idiot.”

“Your idiot,” he said, and the certainty in his voice sent a shiver through her..

Chapter Text

The world had not stopped raining since the night Konoha burned.

A month had passed, but Kakashi still woke to the echo of the Kyūbi’s roar, not in his ears, but in the hollow behind his ribs. The sound had long since faded from the land, yet the memory clung to him the way the damp clung to his cloak. It was quieter now, the world, the kind of quiet that came after something irrevocable had been broken.

He’d once believed silence meant peace. Now, he knew better.

They traveled along the border of the Land of Rain, where the forest thinned into spindly trees and the soil grew soft underfoot. Mist hung in pale ribbons over the trail, and every breath tasted faintly of iron. Kakashi led the way, hood drawn low, one hand resting loosely on the pack strap across his chest. Behind him, three shadows followed, far too young for the kind of ghosts that trailed them.

Kineo walked second, his movements precise and unnaturally quiet for a ten-year-old. Root training had carved the softness out of him; his eyes never stopped scanning. Beside him padded Yukimi, pale and slender. She was trying to hum, a habit she’d picked up to calm herself, but the rain swallowed the tune whole.

And then there was Shisui.

At eleven, he should have been laughing, teasing, full of life and confidence. Instead, he walked like someone haunted by his own shadow. His head hung low, eyes dark, voice rare. He hadn’t slept properly in days.

Kakashi had stopped expecting him to.

They’d been on the move for weeks, from the outskirts of Fire Country through the Riverlands, into the ceaseless drizzle of Rain. He hadn’t told them the full reason for their destination. He doubted any of them could yet understand the weight of what he was trying to change.

Jiraiya should have long found the Akatsuki trio — Yahiko, Konan, Nagato. If he hadn’t, then they were probably on the same old path. And it fell to Kakashi to help them first. He had no plan for what he would say when he did. Stop trying to fix the world before it breaks you? Don’t listen to the voice that tells you pain is power? The words rang hollow even in his own head.

Still, he had to try.

“Senpai,” Kineo said softly, breaking through his thoughts. “We’re close to the border outpost. Should we detour?”

“Stick to the east ridge,” Kakashi murmured without slowing. “Less chance of patrols.”

Kineo nodded once, adjusting his pace. Yukimi followed his lead instinctively, trusting his quiet authority more than her own judgment.

Shisui lingered behind, gaze unfocused.

Kakashi slowed until they walked side by side. “Still having the dreams?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.

Shisui hesitated. “It’s not a dream,” he said finally. “It’s… pieces. Fire. Screaming. And-” His voice broke. “I see my hands. I know they’re mine, but they aren’t.”

Kakashi’s jaw tightened. He wanted to tell the boy the truth that it wasn’t his fault, that something far older and darker had been pulling his strings that night. But the truth would destroy him just as surely as the guilt already was. So he said only, “Keep remembering. The more you see, the more we can understand what happened.”

“And when we do?” Shisui asked, looking up at him. “What then?”

Kakashi glanced toward the horizon, where the clouds folded in endless grey layers. “Then,” he said, “we find a way to stop it from happening again.”

They stopped by evening, when the rain thickened to a steady downpour that blurred the edges of the world. The four of them sheltered beneath the half-rotted overhang of an abandoned shrine. Someone had carved protective seals into the stone, now eroded to near nothing.

Kakashi crouched by the small campfire he’d coaxed into life. The flames flickered weakly, half-choked by humidity. He fed it carefully with splinters of dry bark, more for light than warmth.

Kineo set up perimeter tags in practiced silence, while Yukimi wrung out her damp cloak. Shisui sat apart from the group, staring into the rain.

The scent of wet earth mixed with smoke. Kakashi leaned back, resting his elbows on his knees. His eyes reflected the firelight in dull silver.

This wasn’t the team he’d planned to lead. He hadn’t planned to lead anyone at all. When he planned on leaving Konoha, his intention had been simple: keep moving, keep thinking, keep changing the future. But plans never survived contact with conscience.

He’d found Kineo by accident, a Root operative too young and too disillusioned to follow orders. The boy had been sent to eliminate a girl who’d seen too much: Yukimi. Instead, he’d defied command. Kakashi hadn’t been able to walk away after that. He’d seen himself too clearly in both of them, the weapon and the witness. Not to mention his Yamato.

Now they followed him like fragile echoes of choices he hadn’t yet learned to make right.

“Senpai?” Yukimi’s voice was small. “Will it always rain here?”

Kakashi looked up. “In the Land of Rain? Mostly, yes.”

“Doesn’t that make people sad?” she asked.

“It depends,” Kakashi said after a moment. “Some rain washes things clean. Some just reminds you what won’t come off.”

Yukimi blinked, trying to understand. Kineo’s hand brushed hers, a silent reassurance. Kakashi’s gaze softened slightly at the gesture, a rare flicker of warmth in the cold.

He turned his attention to Shisui, who hadn’t moved since sitting down.

“You should sleep,” Kakashi said.

“I can’t.”

Kakashi reached into his pouch, pulled out a small metal flask, and tossed it lightly. Shisui caught it out of reflex.

“Tea,” Kakashi said. “Won’t fix everything, but it’s warm.”

Shisui hesitated before drinking. “Why are you doing this?” he asked suddenly. “Helping me. Helping me. You don’t owe me anything.”

Kakashi studied the fire, watching how the light bent around the edges of the stones. “Maybe I don’t,” he said. “But I’ve spent enough of my life watching children pay for the mistakes of men. If I can stop it once, just once, that’s enough.”

Shisui’s fingers tightened around the flask. “But you lost everything. Konoha, your name…”

Kakashi gave a faint, humorless smile. “Names are just words. What matters is who remembers them.”

The fire cracked, and for a moment the sound of rain filled the silence between them.

He didn’t tell Shisui that sometimes, in the hours before dawn, he still felt the phantom weight of Minato’s hand on his shoulder or heard Rin’s laugh echoing faintly in memory. He didn’t say that every decision since his return to the past had carried the same taste: iron and ash.

You can change the story, he told himself each morning.
But the story always changes you, too.

They broke camp before sunrise.

The rain had lightened, reduced to a fine mist that turned the air silver.

Amegakure’s skyline appeared through the haze, jagged towers of steel and stone, their tips lost in cloud. The city looked like something born of defiance, a place built to outlast the storm.

Kineo’s eyes widened slightly. “It’s… big,” he said.

“Bigger than it looks,” Kakashi replied. “And more dangerous.”

“Are we meeting someone there?” Yukimi asked.

“Maybe,” Kakashi said. “If the message reached him in time.”

“Who?”

Kakashi paused, then smiled faintly under his mask. 

He didn’t say any name. Best not to.

They reached the ridge overlooking the outer district by midday. From here, the rain shimmered like veils across the rooftops. Smoke curled from distant chimneys, and somewhere deeper in the city, he felt faint chakra signatures. Kakashi drew a slow breath, the air thick with petrichor. If I can keep them away from Madara’s reach, maybe the Akatsuki will never turn to darkness. Maybe this time, peace can survive its own idealists.

“To the people who still believe peace is worth dying for.”

He stepped forward, boots sinking slightly into the wet earth, and led them down the slope toward the city of endless rain.

The dawn was breaking somewhere above the clouds, though they couldn’t see it, not yet. But the light was there, waiting.

And as Kakashi moved through the mist, he thought, Maybe this is how I make amends. Not by going back… but by going forward.