Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sky hung heavy and oppressive, a dense shroud of dark clouds smothering any hint of light. Not a single ray of sunlight pierced the thick, foreboding banners above and the world below remained trapped in an unrelenting greyness. It was a rather bleak day. The kind of day that invited you to retreat from life, to bury yourself in the embrace of a warm, cosy blanket and wait for the sun’s distant rays to bring hope back into people's hearts.

But even if the sun shone, it wouldn't change a thing, Minato thought bitterly. Not when his pupil lay dead.

Minato stood at the windows of the Hokage Tower, his eyes scanning the streets below. A pair of ravens tussled over scraps of garbage, their sharp beaks tearing into each other with vicious precision. Feathers flew, black and tattered, as they pecked and slashed, striking with a brutal determination. Detached, Minato watched as their lukewarm blood began to stain their sleek bodies, trickling down in slow, crimson trails to mix with the dirt.

Each blow, each gouge of their talons, reminded him of Kakashi's final moments. Fighting with the same ferocity, the same desperation to protect his comrades. The ravens tore at each other until they poked out their eyes. Until they were an unrecognizable tangle of feathers, beaks and blood, just as Kakashi’s body had been brutally mangled beyond recognition with every strike.

A single feather swirled through the icy air.

Minato sighed deeply, his heart heavy. Survival of the strongest. The one law that governed everything. Merciless, unyielding, woven into the very fabric of the universe. The one law that created an unchallengeable order. He knew it just too well. They were lucky that they had left enough of Kakashi to be able to identify him at all.

His empty gaze lingered in the distance for a moment as the first drops of rain began to fall, soft and cold against the glass, but it was time.

“Secure the district. I don’t want a single civilian near it,” he ordered quietly.

The Anbu, who had been silently staying by his side ever since, gave a brief nod and in an instant, they were gone, vanishing into action as if the stillness had never existed. The Lord Hokage straightened, his expression hardening. He couldn’t afford a single mistake now. After all, resuscitation was a delicate matter. His life hung in the balance.

With a brisk pace, he moved through the dimly lit corridors, the flames flickering along the walls casting long, wavering shadows that danced with his every movement. His footsteps echoed in the hollow silence, each step pulling him closer to long buried sorrow.

At the end of the hall, Kushina, Tsunade and Jiraiya stood waiting in front of a massive door, their expressions somber. Their eyes lowered to the ground.

“Lord Fourth,” Tsunade greeted him, her voice taut with tension.

Kushina offered him a small, tired smile, one that was meant to reassure him, but fell short, weighed down by her own exhaustion.

“Minato,” Jiraya murmured, barely audible.

Minato nodded at them firmly. But no smile graced his lips. No wrinkles of joy adorned his eyes. Only weary sadness. His eyes, normally alive with a spark of energy, were dull and his face was hidden behind a mask of stoic determination.

“Open the doors,” Minato ordered almost in a whisper, afraid that if he spoke just a little louder, he would break down in tears and shatter.

Shinobi don't cry.

Kushina immediately understood her husband's inner turmoil, the raging storm within him. Her own eyes glistened with unshed tears, reflecting the dim light of the torches. Without a word, she stepped forward, her chakra flowing into the seal on the wall and slowly, the massive doors began to creak open.

Minato’s breath hitched in his throat. This was the moment that could change everything. But the cost, the weight of what lay ahead, was almost too much to bear.

“Minato,” Jiraiya spoke quietly and placed his hand firm on Minato's shoulder, “I don’t think this is right. We’re not just bringing someone back. We’re disturbing the sacred peace of the dead. Even the gods don’t dare-,” he gestured toward the carefully restored corpse lying within the summoning circle, “-this kind of thing.”

“Jiraiya-,” Minato began, but Jiraiya cut him off, his voice rising.

“No, Minato. This is unnatural! An evil omen, I say. The consequences-”

“Jiraiya,” Minato now interrupted him with calm voice, but there was steel in it now, his authority unmistakable.

“I’ve heard your concerns. But I will do this, with or without your approval. Respect the word of your Hokage,” he finished, a sharp edge to his tone.

Jiraya frowned and looked his former student in the eye. There was no anger there, just deep, gnawing concern. With a heavy sigh, he shook his head slowly, resignation weighing down his features.

“This will be our downfall,” he murmured.

“If it is,” Kushina interjected, stepping forward to her place at the rune circle, “at least we’ll see Kakashi one last time.”

She seemed calm, but there was a brittle edge to her tone, a fragile optimism that belied the tension in the air. Around them, Tsunade and a few high-ranking jounin gathered, each taking a quiet moment to steel themselves for what was to come. And from the shadows, Danzo watched intently, his eyes glinting with something dark, something calculating. Darkness calling to darkness.

Minato hadn’t once looked directly at the small, youthful body in the centre of the summoning circle, its pale skin covered in stitches. A young adult, mutilated by life and now prepared for something even crueller.

Shinobi do not feel.

The unease in the room was palpable. It wasn’t just the moral line they were about to cross, it was the unknown, the fear of what they might awaken. If they failed, it would be a desecration, a blasphemy. A disturbance of the dead. Rather, they were worried about the possibility that they might succeed.

“I’d like to remind everyone,” Tsunade’s voice cut through the tension, steady but with an undercurrent of warning, “that if this works, we have no idea what state Kakashi will be in. Genma, Shikaku, I trust you and your units are prepared to act if necessary. In case the Hatake brat wakes up a little... agitated.”

Her gaze was sharp as she made sure everyone understood the gravity of the situation. Outside, the rain began to intensify, hammering against the windows, as if the heavens themselves were protesting.

Kushina attempted a smile, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Let’s hope everything turns out well, eh?”

Minato said nothing, stepping into position, his arms outstretched as if offering himself up to eternal damnation. His chest rose and fell in steady, deep breaths, the sound punctuated only by the relentless pattering of rain on the roof. His eyes fluttered shut and for a moment, the room was enveloped in complete silence.

A shinobi is a tool.

But then, without warning, Minato doubled over, his body trembling as a surge of chakra exploded from him, flooding the sealing points with raw, unrestrained power.

And chaos erupted.

The air thickened with chakra, electric and violent, whipping through the room like a tempest. The summoning circle flared to life, its intricate runes glowing with an eerie, pulsating light. The body at the centre twitched, as though something unseen had grabbed hold of it, pulling it from the void. And so, it had begun.

The ground trembled beneath their feet as Minato poured more and more chakra into the seal, his face contorted with strain. The very walls of the Hokage Tower seemed to hum with the intensity of the ritual, the flickering lights casting long, jagged shadows across the room.

And then came the sound. A low, guttural growl, rising from deep within the corpse. A sound not quite human. The Anbu units drew their weapons. A roar deafened their ears, as if a shinigami himself was living within the stone walls.

“Brace yourselves!” Tsunade barked, her hands already glowing with chakra as the tension snapped into action.

Dozens of shinobi charged the air with their jutsu, causing the electric air to shimmer. Orders were shouted and sweat gathered. Minato kept his focus, unyielding, as the sealing points flared brighter, the circle writhing with energy. The rain outside battered against the windows harder, each drop echoing like a drumbeat of the inevitable. And still, the chakra surged.

The roar so loud.

The air so heavy.

The rain so strong.

Breathing heavily, they shifted positions as the ground trembled beneath them, more violently than ever before in Konoha’s history. The torches lining the walls sputtered, smothered by the thick, chakra-induced air until only faint embers remained, casting dim, flickering shadows across the room.

And with their extinction, an eerie silence settled.

As if time had frozen.

A flash of silver cut through the stillness. Minato barely managed to dodge the kunai aimed between his eyes. It nicked his temple, leaving a deep gash and blood trickled down the side of his face, warm against the cold air.

Then came the sound. Like the screech of a thousand birds.

A dozen bodies fell lifeless to the ground, cut down in an instant. Kushina’s eyes widened as the room momentarily illuminated with a brief, purple light and a familiar silhouette stood with its back to her, framed in the dying glow, before the darkness reclaimed the space.

Just in time, Jiraiya intercepted Kakashi’s bloodied hand, inches from plunging it into Kushina’s heart.

A surprised shinobi is a dead shinobi.

Kushina snapped out of her shock, summoning her chakra to relight the torches. But as the flames gently illuminated the room, she gasped in horror. Kakashi’s dead eyes, empty and unfeeling, were mere centimetres from her own. Instinct took over and she hurled a seal-laden shuriken at him, but it never found its target. Kakashi vanished, only to reappear behind her, effortlessly dodging the relentless attacks from Minato and Jiraiya. His movements fluid, precise. Almost inhuman in their elegance.

“Get reinforcements, now!” Shikaku shouted, his voice tight with urgency.

Beside him, Genma collapsed to his knees, gasping and choking on his own blood. Panic rippled through the ranks. People were arguing.

“Quick! Quick!” Tsunade shouted from somewhere, desperate as she issued orders, but the chaos was growing, voices clashing and overlapping in the frenzy.

Crying and sobbing, Ebisu cradled his dying comrade, his raw, terrified screams cutting laced with desperation.

 “Somebody help! Please!”, his anguished cries of terror echoed through the crowd.

A shinobi is destined to die.

Panic spread and Kushina scanned the room frantically for Minato, who had circled Kakashi with a few others. But Kakashi’s gaze, cold, detached, seemed to see through them, as though they were nothing but ghosts to him.

His hair, now an unnatural snow-white, shimmered under the soft torchlight. His left eye a vivid, sickly red, its iris clouded and blind. Scars, black like those of the Edo-Tensei, traced his body, but with strange golden edges that glowed faintly, giving him an almost otherworldly appearance.

To Kakashi, it all felt like a dream. A nightmare. From one moment to the next, he was torn back into the devastating cold of the light. But there was no peace here. Only regret, shame and the crushing knowledge of the monster he had become.

Pure madness.

What else could remain of a man who had lost everything and was responsible for everything himself? How could someone not break under such a burden? The truth was, Kakashi had already broken a very long time ago.

He could no longer remember the faces of all those he once called sensei, comrade or friend. The only thing that remained was a vast, consuming emptiness, an abyss that would never be filled again, tearing more of his humanity away with each passing moment.

And so, for him, they were just long-forgotten faces and chakra signatures in a Konoha that had long ceased to exist. Just strangers who held him captive with a powerful seal in a body from which he had long since become estranged.

Nothing made sense. It didn't need to. Kakashi would simply do what he had always done. The only thing he was really good at. Bringing sadness and regret. Remembering past pains.

“Kakashi!” Rin breathed into his night terrors, while the warm blood of her heart dripped down his hand.

“Kakashi!” Obito spat hatefully in his nightmares for leaving him in a life of betrayal.

“Kakashi!” Gai screamed in fear and regret as he realised that Kakashi would be too late.

Nothing had any meaning. Neither death nor life.

“Kakashi!” Minato called out to him, raw terror in his eyes.

But this scare, this animalistic fear, was not directed against him, but for him. Kakashi tilted his head, confused. Minato, of all people, was afraid not by Kakashi, but for him. For the friend-killer Kakashi Hatake. This had to be some cruel, bestial dream meant to torture him with guilt, to make it his noose. To hang him.

But Anbu Hound would never be tempted by such ridiculous tricks. He had embraced the blood and welcomed the intoxication that came with it far too quickly and willingly, especially after Gai's death. There was nothing left for him but the slaughter.

And so he danced with Minato, a deadly ballet of jutsus, their movements as light as two leaves caught in the wind.

To ever escape his humanity as Kakashi of the Sharingan and finally become fully Hound, to become perfect, he had to be smarter, faster and more ruthless than this last remaining imitation of Namikaze Minato. To finally become something beyond human.

“Retreat! Retreat!” a voice shouted from the sidelines.

“Not a word to the outside world! Anyone who speaks of this commits treason!” the voice of the Tsunade imitation thundered fiercly.

As the Anbu vanished into the shadows, Minato looked hopefully into Kakashi’s eyes. Eyes as grey and unrelenting as a seething storm.

“Kakashi,” he gasped, breathless but still smiling, gently yet pained, “How nice to see you again. Rin and Obito have waited far too long.”

“No one will ever take you away from us now,” a new voice echoed in the nearly empty room.

Kakashi’s eyes shifted lazily, and there they stood. Rin and Obito, staring back at him.

Faces from a past long shattered.