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Chapter Text

It happens the night Rin dies.

Kakashi collapses, unnamed Kiri-nin felled around him, strung over rocks and dirt like a collection of broken toys. His eye spins wildly, hungry and wanting for every thread of chakra that sparks along his coils. There is nothing to do but let the world slip away, tearstains long dried on his cheeks and Rin’s blood embedded beneath his nails, and he sleeps.

He dreams of the face he misses most at this moment, a broken promise to a friend long passed. Obito lies on the cold hard ground in a sea of carnage, a perfect mirror of the last fading images from Kakashi’s conscious mind. His face pressed into the mud, rain weighing his short crop of hair to his skull, he is not unlike a corpse. It’s that scene again, the one newly burned into his Sharingan’s perfect clarity, a core memory in the making. He doesn’t see Rin. Her body, cut through by Chidori’s sharp edge, is missing.

Kakashi feels the rain soaking into his clothes, pulling him down with the rest of the fallen shinobi, and he sways forward, his eyes locked on an Obito that will not move, this person who was the first stone in the chasm of his regret. Everything feels different, from the flow of his chakra pathways to the rocks beneath his shoes and the way Obito’s eye bleeds his reserves from its socket.

Everything is a haze as he drops to his knees before the ghost of his teammate, blotchy black dots disrupting his focus as he reaches forward with a shaking hand.

It’s over just as soon. Kakashi wakes to the morning sun, Rin’s body left to fester in the heat, and he carries their broken selves with the last of his chakra-depleted strength to the home that, right now, feels like a fairytale.

Kakashi’s life revolves around a series of failures carefully compiled by his endless shortcomings. His only counter to this invariable truth is to push himself and break his body until it no longer puts up with the abuse. When his team is ripped away from him once more, when Sasuke leaves and Naruto goes to follow, and when Sakura is taken under the wing of the Hokage, he does just that. It’s easy to do with the constant flow of S-ranked missions that occupy most of his waking hours. The longer that he does, the more he falls back to the ANBU mentality that he has just begun to shake. His body is not his; he belongs to the village. His life is expendable so long as his loss is for the betterment of his Kage.

It next happens on the battlefield. No shinobi is exempt from careless mistakes, least of all one as critically aware of his worth as Kakashi is. When the earth above bends and breaks over him, his mind decides to play a little trick. It pulls one of his worst traumas up from the grave, falling rocks and crushing weight and an eye not his own hastily shoved into his skull. Before he knows it, he’s cut off from his reserves and someplace else entirely.

Kakashi finds himself in his village, his head propped up on his hand as he stares down at the academy rooftop. There stands his team, a bunch of budding young genin just the same as the day that he took them under his tutelage. He knows this memory well. It’s a day that felt completely inconsequential at the time, another team to cross off his list. More genin to fail.

The man standing over them is not him, though. From his vantage point, Kakashi can only see the back of the stranger’s head, some flak-jacketed jōnin with his hands folded over, leaning back against the railing. He doesn’t recognize this one.

It’s over as soon as it begins. Kakashi is somewhere in the heights of Earth Country, his chakra completely bled dry and a trio of hunter-nin dead at his feet.

Though it’s rare, there are times when Kakashi blacks out. His mind draws blank, his eye will spin, and he dreams of a life somewhere else that isn’t his own but feels so much like it could have been.

What nobody told him about taking up the mantle of Kage was that it would bleed every hour of sunlight dry. Kakashi knows he’s spent far too many hours in the Hokage office when the last trail of evening light peters out over Konoha’s wall and he’s still sat prone in his chair, hunched over his desk reading documents sent in for approval. He was also not told how much paperwork there would be, though he might have guessed from the piles of it always surrounding the Fifth whenever he was summoned.

For once, he’s been left alone. He usually has at least one attendant at his side standing off against the wall or helping to sort through the endless desk work that no one person could reasonably work through, but he’s found a rare moment of solitary peace and tries to enjoy it. His duties won’t let him. He thinks that maybe he can take a break to stare at the wall for some undiscerned length of time but if he doesn’t finish everything now, he won’t be able to go home.

It’s as his eyes glaze over that the knock at the door finally registers for him. All this time sitting in that chair is dulling his senses. Shame on him. He straightens his back, the brim of his hat blocking his face in shadow.

“Come in,” he calls.

He expects Shikamaru on the other side with lazy, unsympathetic eyes and a second round of files to hand over. Instead, the door opens to a face that he so rarely gets to see these days, and he smiles behind his mask. Any formality that may have crept into his stance is gone.

“Tenzō,” he greets, discarding the Hokage hat onto the desk. He hates that thing. “It’s rare for you to visit. To what do I owe the honour?”

Tenzō rubs his neck as he steps inside. His other hand holds a paper bag. At first, Kakashi thinks his old teammate may have brought food to share, but there’s no distinct smell from the bag to indicate that. “Sorry about that—I’ve been away for a bit. And it’s Yamato, Lord Sixth.”

“It’s Kakashi, Tenzō,” he sends back.

“I—” Tenzō sighs, his whole body wilting with the effort, and he doesn’t argue the point. It doesn’t matter; Tenzō will always be Tenzō, and getting him to break formality is like pulling teeth. Instead, he raises the paper bag up and wiggles his fingers. “I brought you a little something.”

“Hm?”

Tenzō sets the offering down on the desk, cushioned by a pile of mission reports. “I don’t know if you heard since you’re always stuck in here, but Master Jiraiya’s final manuscript was found.”

Ah. Yes, he has heard. It was a little over a year ago that it was located. Rumours started spreading about someone using Jiraiya’s unfinished notes to close off the story. He’d been looking forward to it but the village didn’t run itself and with his job taking over his life, he never followed up on it. For all he knew, the book was still in production hell. As he stares at the bag, its contents dawning on him, he realizes that must not be the case.

This is it, isn’t it? Master Jiraiya’s final work.

This exciting turn of events is enough to erase every ache and pain in his body. He plucks the bag up off his desk, feeling the unmistakable weight of the pocket novel within. It feels strangely new to him, having spent so many years with the series over and done with, its author long passed and everything it would ever be history in his mind. He’s read each book in the series more times than he can count; he has Icha Icha Paradise fully memorized from start to finish, and most of Violence and Innocence are right up there along with it. But reading the same treasured novels over and over again means he isn’t getting anything new out of them. All they bring to him is a nostalgic rush of years gone by that, now and then, he likes to relive.

Kakashi only notices his fixation on the book when Tenzō clears his throat. He lowers the bag to his lap and his eyes crest into a smile.

“Thank you,” he says. “I’ll enjoy every word.”

“I know you will.” Tenzō looks out the blackened windows, the last threads of sunlight only a memory, and heaves a sigh. No doubt he’s reminded of his current job as babysitter to one of the sannin. “I should head back. Give it a read for me, would you? Enjoy yourself a bit, Senpai. You deserve it.”

Kakashi’s left alone with nothing but the book and his job, and he matches Tenzō’s sigh with one of his own. With his brief reprieve now over and gone, reality rears its ugly head and he stares at all of the reports yet to be read. To keep his hands from wandering as he works, he places the book on the top shelf of the bookcase on the far wall, out of reach.

The night is quiet. When he stamps the last page, a budget request from Structures and Planning, he’s allowed freedom for the first time in two days. All that time spent hunched over at his desk leaves his shoulders aching and his eyes sore and strained. Maybe age is catching up to him. When he was a jōnin instructor, his job was a lot more taxing on the body and he had three genin-aged brats to contend with. Before that, in ANBU, his every day was a brush with death. He’d wake up in the night with blood on his hands and horrors in his mind, scrubbing away tears like he was scrubbing away his sins and begging for morning to come.

Nowadays, Kakashi has documents to sign and a village to run, and it’s somehow just as stressful as dealing with his trauma. Who would have thought?

With everything looked over and signed, and the fear of being dragged back to his duties if someone else walks through his office door looming over him, Kakashi pulls Icha Icha Reversal from its place on the shelf and flips it open to the first page. He shrugs off his Hokage cloak. It doesn’t come home with him; he’s too worried that its presence in his house will lead him to have nightmares about office work. At the start of the book, there’s a little biography about Master Jiraiya that he reads fondly. It details the grand adventure that the editor went on to locate the lost piece of literature and the struggles of taking the notes left behind with it and translating those into the final product.

Then, beyond that, a title card: Icha Icha Reversal.

Being this enthralled by a new installment of erotica is probably unbefitting of a Kage, but there are few pleasures that Kakashi allows himself and this series means more to him than it probably should. Its abrupt ending left an unfillable hole in his life. It’s silly, he knows, but Icha Icha found him at a time when he was closed off from everything around him, when intimacy  was a foreign concept and he craved so desperately for something that he was terrified of losing.

Kakashi was an emotionally compromised young man once. Maybe he still is; maybe all that’s changed is his body, aged with the years put behind him and lined with the stress of his title as head of the village.

Either way, he’s looking forward to his book.

The Land of Snow cast the earth into perfect stillness. Arata, world-weary from long nights of blizzards and ash, felt the first givings of spring in a world far too cold to welcome it. The ice that crunched beneath his boots reflected the moonlight overhead, partly melted in the rising temperatures of the changing seasons.

This was to be his final journey. Beyond the Land of Snow’s vast expanse of sterile white lay a future that he could never grasp in a world not his own. She, too, awaited him there. His fire and flame.

Nose pressed between the pages, Kakashi reads through the introduction curiously. It doesn’t quite feel like Master Jiraiya’s usual writing. It’s exceedingly rare for the sannin to start his books with heavy, dread-filled imagery. Icha Icha had its fair share of heavy moments, but never at the start. The prose doesn’t feel quite right, either, and he wonders if that has to do with the editor who filled in the unfinished gaps.

He dips out into the hall and greets the two guards stationed there before starting the  short walk home. He moved from his tiny one-bedroom apartment to a small house a little closer to the office for convenience. If he’s perfectly honest, he wouldn’t have even done that much had it not been for the prodding of everyone around him to raise his standards of living. He represents the village now. He needs to look the part. The new house has a small garden out back for his ninken to lounge around, at least, and he has more storage space for weapons, tools, and other miscellaneous supplies.

Kakashi reads as he walks, never looking up from the pages of his book. He’s so used to this route that after five years of taking it, he manages not to walk into anything, lampposts included. The story as a whole has a lot more setup than the other novels, as well. It’s a continuation using the cast of Violence so he assumed it would skip introductions in favour of getting to the meat of the story, but there he is on chapter two and still reading about the world and the protagonist’s situation. Things are looking grave, far darker than the situation left at the end of Violence, and something about that turns Kakashi’s stomach.

Icha Icha has always been a series that gives him a sense of peace. At the end of the day, no matter how many wars he fought in or how many people he lost, Kakashi could count on these books to be there for him, offering respite through the madness of reality. It was easy reading. Even when the characters suffered, there was always the promise of something better yet to come. Things would improve. No suffering is without reason.

This doesn’t feel like that, though; this feels like a world that is already lost and a man trying to put back together the pieces of a life that will not fit. It doesn’t sit well with Kakashi, but he keeps reading as he steps onto his front porch and releases the several wards placed on his home. He keeps his eyes on the text even as he shrugs off his boots and climbs the stairs to his bedroom.

There’s a moment when his thoughts stop and he rereads what he just read, sure that he must have interpreted something incorrectly.

The Land of Snow was a relic lost to history, but he stood there in the wreckage of his memories just the same. Fragmented stone jutted out from beneath the powdery snowbanks that the wind whipped into flurries, the remains of a village destroyed and a people abandoned. It was only when he stood at the precipice overlooking a decade’s worth of carnage that the implications of what he saw unravelled behind his eyes.

Kakashi shuffles up the steps, turns the page—

This world was not his.

His foot hits the stair and he lurches forward. He lets go of the book to brace his arms in front of himself, but he never hits the ground.

Chapter Text

His eyes blur, rimmed in darkness that prevails even as he squints, and he squeezes them shut. He tries rubbing them, thinking that sleep may be hanging on just a tad too long as he wakes, but there’s something covering his face that blocks his hand. He presses his fingers to it, feeling the smooth, hard surface of a mask that is not his own. Well, that’s one question answered; looking through the eye holes, it’s no wonder his line of sight is so narrow. The first question he has is: why is he wearing it?

The second is: where is he?

This desolate land of smoke and ash is little more than a distant memory. It takes time for his mind to draw upon the nagging familiarity that he feels when he looks around. His hands are gloved and these gloves are just as foreign as the mask. They aren’t the fingerless protective equipment with metal plating that he’s partial to. Instead, they’re lightweight and thin, covering the whole of his fingers from knuckle to tip. A tall collar brushes against his neck, off-black in hue and reminding him so much of an Akatsuki cloak that a ludicrous thought crosses his mind, one that he won’t give voice to.

Kakashi knows where he is and it must be a nightmare. That’s the only explanation for why he’s in the middle of a battlefield that was claimed five years prior. He fell, hit his head, and is lying unconscious on the floor of his foyer. No one is waiting for him, so he may spend all night there.

He looks down to see a dark robe so closely resembling the one once worn by a friend long passed.

Conversely, he died and this is hell.

The final nail in the coffin is an ear-splitting screech across the battlefield from a voice he knows too well. His body moves automatically to dodge an eye-burning blur of orange and blue. There’s a face so close to his, with scarred cheeks and curled lips and angry blue eyes—and this is real. It’s really happening, right here before his eyes. This is Naruto, and that’s a Rasengan narrowly missing his head.

Ah, he thinks distantly, I’m the antagonist this time.

Kakashi lands on a bed of rock, his sandals skidding along as he slows to a halt. He doesn’t want to fight—doesn’t know how he got himself into this situation in the first place—and his mind is running a mile a minute while trying to figure out what went wrong and how he can fix it. But he can’t think long as the familiar pull of his Sharingan draws out his chakra and he closes his left eye to counter it.

Obito’s eye has not been his in five years and this is not right.

When only his right eye is open and he still feels the ache of wasted chakra, Kakashi’s heart sinks. His right eye has clarity it never did before. It reminds him of his Sharingan, in fact, and he dreads what this means.

Kakashi remembers the moment Obito’s mask shattered and the feeling of dread as he stared into a swirling purple eye that did not belong on his old friend’s face.

Kakashi has the Rinnegan and his body can’t handle it.

Why does he have the Rinnegan? Why would he—this version of him—ever think that having two stolen eyes is a good move when the demand of the Sharingan alone is enough to kill him?

A Doton sends the earth at his feet shooting up through the rocks and he jumps away before it can break apart and swallow him whole. He looks up, closing his Rinnegan—the bigger pull on his chakra—and opting instead to use Obito’s Sharingan as he scans the battlefield, easily finding pink hair against the barren wasteland. Sakura is here, too, her hands pressed together in a seal and eyes focused on her target.

The Gedo Statue stands strong behind him, but it doesn’t look like they’re in quite the same position as they were in the battle that he remembers. There aren’t many people around. He’s not sure what stage of the war they’re in but hopes that this is before Madara’s revival. The Juubi still lays dormant, so he assumes their fight has just begun. But there’s a very real possibility that this war isn’t one-to-one with the one he lived through and he can’t know for sure.

Well, he could let them kill him. It would all be fine, then, wouldn’t it? Regardless of the differences between this nightmare and its real-world equivalent, at the end of the day, he’s all that’s standing between the Shinobi Alliance and peace, and he can easily take the fall for them, even in a dream. If he just so happens to not protect the Gedo Statue, this will all be over. It’s all up to him.

Kakashi worries when he recalls a certain seal on Obito’s heart that influenced his thoughts, but he’s not feeling any ill intent. It should be fine.

He puts some distance between himself and his students, looking so young to him now that he’s swimming in nostalgia, and closes both eyes as he senses his body. He feels out his chakra pathways, following them from his stomach outward until the buzz of an unfamiliar signature deep within him sparks, coating a seal over his heart—but it doesn’t seem to be working as it should. It’s inactive like it’s been designed to mark a chakra signature that isn’t his own. It’s complex, too; there’s a secondary function woven into it but Kakashi doesn’t know enough about seals to figure out what it does or what to do about it.

It links me to the Gedo Statue, something in him supplies helpfully. This thought is not his own. He doesn’t dwell on it. Instead, he opens Obito’s eye and locates the statue in the distance. Whatever connection the seal made seems to be severed.

I was siphoning chakra from the statue to replace the drain my eyes have on my reserves, his thoughts continue. Without it, I’ll soon bleed into chakra exhaustion.

Why, yes. He will. Already he can feel the warning tug of a fight that’s gone on far too long and he needs rest. Keeping his right eye closed as opposed to his left is another burden on top of it all; this eye situation makes it hard to think. He’s been free of all this clan-based Kekkei Genkai bullshit for five years now and he hates being pulled back in. The Uchiha can have their damn eyes; give him normal vision and he’ll be perfectly happy.

I could cut out the Rinnegan, he thinks before dismissing the idea altogether. He has two children after his head right now. Going through the effort and pain of removing an eye when he doesn’t have the medical ninjutsu prowess to do so safely seems like a big waste of time. Dying from chakra exhaustion is easier. Letting Naruto get him through the chest with a Rasengan would be—

Kakashi sees blood on his gloved hands and tenses up. Rin’s smiling face on the tip of Chidori plays on loop behind his eyes and he steps back, trying to shake the image free from his mind, this ghost that hasn’t come to see him in years —

He won’t do that to Naruto. Not to him or Sakura—none of his kids. Even in a dream of a world where they don’t know him, he won’t take the risk of his death spurring within them the same pain that still grips his heart.

But this isn’t a dream, is it?

When Naruto comes at him again, a screaming ball of orange fury cloaked in the golden glow of Sage Mode, Kakashi finds a hand through his chest that never actually lands. He feels a chill as it rushes through his body, chakra pouring rapidly out of his pathways, and—

Kamui activates in a way only Obito was able to, keeping him intangible, and it fills him with dread. Is that reversed in this world, too?

Naruto lets out a frustrated noise and pulls at his hair. “Just let me hit you, damn it!”

Fondness for this boy swells in Kakashi’s chest, proving that the seal is doing nothing to him. “Maa, you don’t expect me to sit here and take your punches, do you, Naruto?”

The boy’s eyes widen. “Well, I, er—”

What a cute little genin.

There’s a scent in the air that burns his nose and throat, a sulphurous fume mixed with woodsmoke and ash, and it buzzes familiarity in his mind.  Chills erupt across his skin and he activates Kamui without thinking as a kunai comes swinging through his arm.

A body comes with it. Kakashi stares as a whole ass person slips through him and skids along the ground. Konoha-green fatigues rest on the man’s shoulders, the red of the Uzushio swirl proudly displayed on the navy shirt beneath it. He’s the perfect picture of a Konoha jōnin and Kakashi holds his breath as the man turns to him. A modified hitai-ate covers the left side of his face, proudly brandishing the symbol of the Shinobi Alliance. Scars pull and bunch the skin of his right cheek. They’re scars that Kakashi did not expect to see again until it came his time to enter the Pure Lands.

Ah, he thinks. Obito took my place here, didn’t he?

Obito is here.

Alive.

He halts that thought when another kunai comes for his face. Instead of phasing through it, he deactivates Kamui and catches Obito’s wrist, pulling him in and searching his friend’s eye for recognition where there is none. This Obito doesn’t know what’s behind Kakashi’s mask. It’s the same as it was in Kakashi’s world.

The last words he read from Icha Icha Reversal find him, now, and his heart sinks.

This world is not his own.

“You know, you’d look good like that.”

Obito’s words pull him back to reality and he searches that face again for lost recognition. His hand is still wrapped around Obito’s wrist, keeping him here, but his grip fails as his old friend’s red eye looks him up and down. “Like what?”

“Dead.”

Obito’s hand covers Kakashi’s mask and a Katon bursts forth from his palm.

Kakashi’s mask is not porcelain like Obito’s used to be. Kakashi’s mask is wooden. It lights up like a funeral pyre. He curses under his breath and his fingers slide under the lip of the mask, heat from the fire licking his gloves, but he hesitates.

If he leaves it on, Obito won’t know.

Kakashi is fine with dying, but he’s not so fond of going out the slow and painful way. He throws off the mask before he can convince himself not to and it clatters to the stone. Now that it’s off and charring into a blackened husk, he realizes that a low-grade Suiton would have made short work of the issue without revealing his face for all to see. Thankfully, he feels his usual material mask in place to cover his mouth and nose, so he isn’t bare to the world. But it feels like he is. There are eyes on him, surrounding him, but he’s not sure which ones recognize his face.

“K—” Obito chokes on his name, eye blown wide and arms trembling. It’s drawing up five-year-old memories that he doesn’t want to face right now, and traumas he thought he’d long ago overcome. “Kakashi?”

The war was only a bandaid. He knows that if he rips it off, the wound still festers beneath it. The infection will spread, illness will follow and before long, it will consume him. But if he covers it up, closes his eyes and pretends it’s not there, at least he’ll have peace of mind as he lets himself die.

This war will be Obito’s bandaid, too, if Kakashi fucks up. Maybe it will be Obito taking up the mantle of Sixth Hokage, Obito’s face on Hokage Rock.

It will be Obito there with a festering wound waiting to swallow him whole. 

Kakashi takes a deep breath and holds it, feeling the cold battleground air fill his lungs. He can still remember all the words Obito said that day—every monologue about how damned the world is, how people can’t change and peace will never last, how he’ll fix it, all of it, culminating in the moment his mask shattered beneath the force of Naruto’s Rasengan. He won’t give Obito words like those, won’t fill his head with cynical ideals about world peace or claim that he’ll change things.

Trying to honour whatever past they may have had in this world, Kakashi’s eyes crest into an easy smile and he waves a hand. “Yo, Obito.”

Obito looks like he’s going to be sick. This is not Kakashi’s intention.

With their leader a bit useless at the moment, Team Kakashi—or, well, Team Obito —throw themselves at him again and again, and he keeps his Sharingan trained on their movements so that he can dodge and deflect while they tire themselves out. Sasuke is here, too, apparently. He just arrived. When Naruto and Sasuke start bickering, Sasuke wearing the same fatigues as Sakura, Kakashi wonders if this version of the Uchiha may have returned to the Leaf earlier, or never left in the first place. He doesn’t feel like an old friend returning to their side; he’s been here with them far longer than the Sasuke of Kakashi’s world.

Kakashi isn’t sure he can stand up against all three of his students at once. In a game of numbers, he’ll lose every time. But since he’s not attacking and all of his focus is on maybe not dying, he thinks he can hold his own while Obito picks his jaw up off the floor. The bigger concern is how long his chakra reserves can last.

“He’s not an Uchiha! Right?!” Naruto lands between his teammates and looks to them for answers. “I thought he was supposed to be that Madara guy!”

“He is, Naruto,” Sakura says as she heaves a breath. She’s the first to show signs of exhaustion; she’s been throwing Doton and Suiton Kakashi’s way nonstop for about seven minutes now and she doesn’t have the insane reserves that the boys do. Kakashi can relate. “That’s what he claimed, anyway.”

Naruto points an accusing finger at their instructor—Obito and not Kakashi, and isn’t that the strangest thing? “Obito-sensei called him something else!”

Obito- sensei . Kakashi’s breath hitches in his throat. He smiles behind his mask, feeling all warm and soft and disgusting in his own skin as he considers the idea and decides that Obito would have made an excellent jōnin instructor. He would have done a better job than Kakashi, no doubt. That’s probably why Sasuke’s still here, why he’s wearing a Konoha uniform for the very first time. That’s why these three are together, bickering even in the middle of a war.

It’s not much of a war, though, is it? Kakashi’s working alone and he wants this to end just as much as they do. He’s waiting to lose.

Kakashi spares his old friend a glance. He can see Obito working through everything, and not every thought in Obito’s head is filled with shock and horror. It’s looking like Obito might have figured it out the way Kakashi did in his own reality, everything clicking into place disturbingly well as he pieces together the who but not the why.

Kakashi doesn’t know why, either. He can’t imagine what his counterpart went through to get him to where he is, wanting to erase everything he should be protecting for the off-chance that the illusion he creates will offer him some semblance of peace. It’s not a choice Kakashi would ever make, even if he lost every precious person in his life. He would never throw away the world they died protecting. It’s all he has left.

Without a second thought and before Obito can come back to his senses to fight, Kakashi raises his arms in surrender. The bickering trio all turn to him, making faces, narrowing their eyes and not believing it for a second.

Obito’s heart breaks to see it.

“You win,” Kakashi says, the world shifting and warping beneath him. He’s just about out of chakra even with his Rinnegan eye sealed shut. It’s the fault of how easy the use of Kamui comes to him. Every time he crosses between dimensions, he expends more chakra than he can reasonably keep up with. At the rate he’s going, he won’t have the energy to destroy the Gedo Statue on his own power. And Zetsu—Kakashi hasn’t seen Zetsu but he should be around here somewhere, shouldn’t he? Kakashi doesn’t have the energy to deal with threats like that on his own.

Sasuke narrows his eyes, his sword drawn and steady in his hand. “What’s your angle?”

“I don’t have much chakra left,” he says bluntly, “and I’m starting to think this is a big waste of time.”

Naruto stands tall, blinking at him, and one by one the clones he has scattered across the battlefield vanish into smoke. “Huh. Alright, then.”

“Naruto,” Sakura chastises.

“What?! He said he’s giving up!”

“He wouldn’t do that, ” she says slowly, the strain of her frustration clear in her voice. In any other circumstance, Kakashi would be one hundred percent behind her on this, so he can’t blame her. “Sensei, what do we—”

The battlefield goes quiet. Obito bites his lip, his skin flushed and eye red, wearing more emotion on his face now than Kakashi saw him wear throughout the entirety of the Fourth War. He looks so much like the loud little brat who always showed up late to meetings and chased Rin around the village like a lost thing.

It slips out before he can think about it, a fondness in his Sharingan eye as he says, quietly, “Crybaby ninja.”

Kakashi doesn’t know why Obito is looking at him the way that he is. He can’t pretend to understand the whiplash that Obito must be feeling right now, faced with an old teammate back from the dead, revealed to be the mastermind behind the Akatsuki and claiming to surrender only minutes after his identity is made public.

Kakashi wouldn’t believe it, either.

He allows it when Obito composes himself and approaches him, telling the kids to keep their distance. He stays quiet as their matching Sharingan meet, Obito’s eye still glossy with a film of tears yet to fall, biting his lip.

Kakashi resigns himself to it when his wrists are bound, chakra suppression seals drawn up and slapped onto his arms. The kids are all on edge, weapons drawn and jutsu at the ready, but he just smiles at them. It disarms them, just a bit.

With Obito behind him securing his arms, he closes both eyes and feels the relief on his chakra pathways immediately.

“You’ll have to destroy the Gedo Statue first,” he says offhandedly as another seal is burned onto his skin, his world dark behind his eyelids. “Maa, Zetsu should be around here somewhere, so keep your guard up. I don’t think he’ll be too happy about this.”

He can’t see, but he can feel Obito watching him, the hands hovering over his arm. Their heat brushes against his skin just enough for him to know that they're there. He has a lot he needs to share, and they'll have a lot to do before this whole mess can be considered over.

"I have a Rinnegan eye," he continues offhandedly. "It was Nagato's, I think. You'll want to have a medic-nin remove it when we reach Konoha."

There's a drawn-out moment of nothing before he's shoved to his feet. He thinks of offering to return the Sharingan, too, but it seems in poor taste to bring it up at the moment.

This is a mistake, the voice that's not his own tells him. All of my efforts until now will be wasted. I'm so close…

Kakashi is happy that he only ever got this close . He dreads the thought of finding himself in a world brought to its knees by his own unthinkable mistakes.

Chapter Text

They don’t blindfold him, which is a bit irresponsible. The chakra suppressors are doing their job so, theoretically, he shouldn’t be able to use the Sharingan or Rinnegan to their full potential even if he tries. But if it were Kakashi in their place, he would take all the precautions necessary to keep his prisoner from causing issues down the road. Seeing as they won’t do that, he keeps his eyes closed all on his own.

Really, though. If it were Obito who surrendered and Kakashi who arrested him, Kakashi isn’t sure he would be able to do it, either.

It takes time before they get moving. No one says anything to him but Kakashi has a bit of experience in this line of work. Right now, Obito must be informing the other divisions of the Allied Forces of “Madara’s” surrender. He’ll brief the five Kage on everything that’s happened up until now and they’ll wait around for further instruction. Kakashi hopes it’s Konoha tasked with his punishment. It’s the village he belongs to, after all. The rest of the Kage may fight for his head but he doubts that Tsunade will back down after learning that this whole war was orchestrated by one of Konoha’s own. Unfortunately, this is where his experience ends; Obito never made it to the end of the war. Kakashi has no point of reference for what will happen from here on out.

The Gedo Statue has been secured. Obito sent a team to guard it as soon as the war ended and they’ll wait there for reinforcements. Kakashi’s already spilled everything he knows about destroying it, though he won’t be surprised if he has to repeat himself a few times for posterity’s sake.

Obito hasn’t said a word to him since the suppressors went on. Kakashi would love nothing more than to sit his old friend down and ask after his life here in this strange, twisted world, but he has more tact than that.

They’re off the battlefield and settled somewhere in the grass when he’s shoved none too kindly to the ground by a very irate Sasuke. He doesn’t need his vision to know how much he unnerves his kids—all except Naruto, who seems ready to forgive all of his misdeeds after his surrender. These three are acting as his guards right now while Obito tries to deal with the messy administrative side of things. His report must be thorough because he’s been out of earshot for some time.

A body drops down next to him and comes to rest against the same tree he leans on. He smells ramen and the crisp, clean scents of wind and ozone that seep into Naruto’s skin after forming enough Rasengan.

“So, like,” Naruto starts. Kakashi peeks open his Sharingan eye, unable to resist the image of Naruto flailing his arms around in search of words, “Who the heck are you, anyway? You kept sayin’ you’re Madara but you don’t look like an Uchiha. At all.”

Kakashi smiles. The pull on his chakra is close to nothing at the moment and, hesitantly, he decides that it’s safe enough to keep his eyes open. If they have a problem with it, they can just blindfold him like they should have done to start. “I’m not an Uchiha,” he says lightly, sparing Sasuke a glance. “I’m a Hatake.”

Sakura’s head lifts up from where she’s rummaging through their supplies. She narrows a look at him, no doubt trying to figure out what his connection is to the long-passed White Fang. He expects nothing less.

Naruto makes a face. “But then why do you have the Sharingan?” He’s sitting cross-legged next to Kakashi like they weren’t just trying to kill each other. The canteen hanging open in his hand reminds Kakashi of just how dry his throat is. Now that the adrenaline is gone and he doesn’t have to move, he can feel how broken down and sore his body has gotten. The Kakashi of this world did not go into the war in peak condition and getting so close to chakra exhaustion didn’t help.

“He stole it,” Sasuke answers, sitting some distance away on the grasses by the roadside with his sword sheathed and waiting. The glare he cuts Kakashi with is not unlike the one his counterpart gave after first seeing what was hidden behind Kakashi’s hitai-ate. How nostalgic; he hasn’t thought about the Wave mission in years. “Probably took it fresh off a corpse. He had a hand in the Uchiha massacre, Naruto.”

Naruto pales. “What—really?”

It turns his stomach to think of all the blood on this body’s hands, not that his own were ever clean. The voice in his head is awfully quiet now, supplying no more context to his background in this world. He’s surprised Sasuke’s so calm in the face of this revelation; this boy is a whole different beast than the one he remembers.

Obito’s walking back to the group, his approach slow as each step is dragged out of him by force, and he’s looking anywhere but Kakashi. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, just as he did as a child. It’s wonderful.

“It was a gift,” Kakashi says. Obito stops. “From an old friend.”

Obito clenches his fists and grits his teeth, his eye blown wide, and takes a calming breath. Kakashi doesn’t mean to hurt him, really. It just slips out.

The kids follow Kakashi’s line of sight to their captain and it seems that at least two of them are putting the picture together all on their own. Thankfully, no one asks for details. With Obito’s approach, it means they have a game plan. Idle chitchat can wait.

“Obito-sensei,” Sakura greets. She zips up her bag and stands, walking over to him. “What did Lord Hokage say?”

“We’re standing by,” Obito says. “He’ll come to meet us once he’s updated the alliance on what’s going on.”

He? Kakashi wonders if Lord Third is still around. Or, Sage forbid, if Danzō managed to take the seat. But Obito pulls something bizarre out of his back pouch—a Hiraishin kunai. He throws it, embedding its pronged blade into the bark of the tree Kakashi rests against, and it’s only through Kakashi’s own dexterity that his stolen Sharingan is still in one piece. Obito expected him to dodge; he was just taking out his frustration on the easiest target. Well, Kakashi isn’t about to sit back and watch his precious gift be destroyed by the one who gave it to him. If possible, Kakashi wants to return it to where it belongs.

And then the significance of the Hiraishin kunai dawns on him and he knows that this world has far more surprises in store for him than he thought.

Sensei is coming, that voice mutters at the back of his head. The pieces fall into place and dread curls in his gut. He’ll know that I killed Kushina.

Kakashi only realizes that he’s been sleeping when he wakes. It’s night. The kids are asleep like this is just another escort mission, but Obito sits by the fire, feeding the flames with his chakra. When their matching eyes find each other, neither flinches away.

There’s a thin sheet draped over Kakashi’s body that wasn’t there before. His wrists are still bound beneath, the suppressors make it so that the only advantage his eyes give him is clarity, and he feels a bit useless. That’s okay.

This war may still be Obito’s bandage despite all the effort Kakashi went through to avoid it. What he sees reflected in that charcoal-grey eye are questions that he remembers having, too, in a world five years in the past with an Obito who looked so much like this one. Seeing a familiar face behind the mask of Madara is as deeply wounding as any death. Kakashi knows. Despite the revelation, Kakashi’s only choice was to keep on fighting, trying to stop Obito from committing a crime that time would never heal.

If this war is a bandage then Kakashi hopes Obito doesn’t let the wound fester for too long.

Obito is quiet and calm despite whatever lies beneath the surface. They sit there with the crackle and pop of the open flame between them, but neither of them speaks. Fresh logs clatter onto the kindling, sparks flying into the air like fireflies. Kakashi’s brought back to their childhood missions together. It was usually Obito falling asleep and Kakashi keeping watch. He rarely bothered to wake his teammates for their shifts. It was easier to take all the burden upon himself and, well, he hated disturbing them. Sensei would chastise him, though, and would wake them up instead.

“What happened to you?” Obito asks. There’s nothing behind it; he’s trained his inflection to stay neutral, sounding more like his otherworld counterpart than he has before.

“Who’s to say?”

Kakashi would like to know, too. From the look of Obito’s scars and the state of their eyes, the incident at Kannabi Bridge still happened. Obito should have died then, but he didn't. Kakashi looks down at Obito’s right hand and sees bleached white skin beneath fingerless gloves, confirming that Madara must have rescued Obito in this world, too. Dug him out of the rubble and fitted him with foreign cells to hold together a body that should be long dead. When did the switch happen? How did Obito end up back in Konoha with Kakashi taking his place at Madara’s side, a seal etched across his heart?

Obito slams his fist into the ground as the emotions he tried to quash come to a boil, but Kakashi has no story to tell and the tantrum won’t make a difference. When Kakashi doesn’t say anything, the anger dies and his whole body crumbles like a puppet with cut strings. He stares at his sandals, carding a hand through his hair and biting his lip.

Another stretch later, Obito swipes one of the canteens from their luggage and crosses the campsite to stand over Kakashi, casting a dark shadow over him that isn’t enough to mute the glow of his eyes. The Rinnegan must be jarring; Obito tenses when he finds it. Well, it was never a pleasant thing to look at. He crouches down, taking a knee before Kakashi and giving him a closer inspection.

“Look at you,” Obito says, and something breaks in his voice. Cautiously, he presses the pads of his fingers, calloused from his years serving the Leaf, to the skin beneath the Rinnegan. “What happened to your eye, Kakashi? Why would you do this to yourself?”

Wouldn’t he like to know?

It was the only way, that voice tells him. I was a man among giants. If I was to win the war, I needed more chakra than my body could handle. I needed the Gedo Statue, and I needed the Rinnegan.

Kakashi doesn’t think that this otherworld version of himself ever intended to see the Infinite Tsukuyomi in person. The measures he took to break his body wouldn’t have him last long.

Obito waits for a response that doesn’t come. He presses his lips together and holds up the canteen in question.

Kakashi doesn’t think he’s had anything to drink since well before he arrived in this world. His nod may be a bit too eager. But when Obito goes to hand it over, he remembers the bindings on Kakashi’s arms and there is no way Kakashi can manage drinking on his own like this. So Obito curls a finger beneath the edge of the cloth mask and tugs it. He stops before it even leaves Kakashi’s nose. Hesitating.

“Obito,” he finally says, seeing that they’ll stay this way until he does something about it. He appreciates Obito’s respect for his privacy and understands that Obito may never have seen his face in full, but he really doesn’t deserve it. “I’m thirsty.”

Obito narrows his eye and yanks the mask down around Kakashi’s neck. The breeze brushes past his bare skin and Obito soaks up the view in front of him, his gaze wandering from Kakashi’s eyes to his nose and mouth, settling on the small mole by his lips. Wordlessly, he tilts the mouth of the canteen and the cool rush of water wets Kakashi’s parched throat. By the time he’s done, he’s sure the canteen’s half empty.

Kakashi smiles. The hand falls away from his face and the cap of the canteen screws shut. “Thank you.”

“Shut up.” Obito’s tongue is sharp but he doesn’t leave. He rests across from Kakashi and sets the canteen down on the grass, folding his arms over his knees. It’s not hard to read the thoughts as they cross his old friend’s face. He looks young, sulking like this, and it harkens back to an age long gone. This man is nothing like the Obito that Kakashi fought in the war. He’s explosive and reckless. Emotional, like he was as a child. “Was it you, Kakashi?”

“Hm?”

“Did you set the Kyuubi on the village?”

Yes.

Kakashi is there again, on the rooftops of a collapsing village. There’s blood in the streets, bodies crushed beneath wood and brick, an impossible weight, falling rocks— Obito —

Kakashi nods. He can’t look Obito in the eye as he does. It doesn’t matter to him that he’s living someone else’s life right now or that it wasn’t his hand that cast the die. This body is now his. Until he wakes up, until he leaves this dream behind, he will bear the weight of its sins as his own. It’s only fair.

“Fucking hell, Kakashi…”

It was the ideal moment to take the Kyuubi for the Eye of the Moon project. But it wasn’t enough. I saw Konoha and every way it failed us. It made me sick.

He doesn’t want to hear this.

“And the Uchiha massare? Was that you, too?”

Why do you think you’re still alive if not for useless sentimentality?

Kakashi closes his eyes and breathes through it. “Maa, Obito,” Kakashi calls with a raw, aching voice, “I’m all for catching up, but the Kage should choose who questions me, don’t you think?”

The lack of an answer is enough. Obito doesn’t say anything. Tears burn the rim of his eye but he’s not looking at Kakashi, not anymore. His head is in his hands and the long night continues on.

It’s an hour later when Kakashi has started dozing again that the sparks of a familiar chakra crackle and flare around the metal of the Hiraishin kunai. Seconds after Kakashi opens his eyes, a yellow flash burns through the clearing, drowning out the light of the campfire. In its wake stands a man long ago lost to time, one who Kakashi never thought to see again.

Seeing Minato-sensei for the first time is honestly harder than seeing Obito. It may be because a part of him refused to believe that the Fourth Hokage could still be in power here. Maybe it’s the fear of meeting the husband of the jinchuuriki whose life he took. He can’t say anything when the man he last saw crumbling to pieces on the battlefield of the Fourth Shinobi War looks at him with nothing but wordless disappointment, so he keeps his mouth shut and works on breathing. He tries not to panic but Obito is here, greeting their sensei. Obito looks at Kakashi and sees something is wrong with him. He looks worried, even, beneath the layers of betrayal and hurt. Like Kakashi has given him any reason for sympathy.

Minato notices, too, but Kakashi’s well-being doesn’t matter to him right now. He’s calmer than expected when they meet face to face; Obito clearly informed him of Kakashi’s identity in the briefing. The Hokage exchanges a few words with his subordinate as the trio of Team Obito stirs awake across the field, and then Minato stands before his former student, a man with mismatched eyes, neither of which have ever truly been his.

“Kakashi,” he greets. Minato’s voice is cold and warded off in a way so foreign to the kindly instructor he grew up with. At first, he looks to Kakashi like he always did. But when the distance between them draws to a close, Kakashi can see signs of years gone by etched across his skin. He’s charmed by the laugh lines delicately carved into his sensei’s face. He sees them with his eyes, but not his mind. The image he has of Minato at the age of twenty-four is just too powerful for reality to overtake.

Kakashi is good at many things. Repression is one of them. He smiles up at the Hokage, but he doesn’t get a smile back. “You’re looking well, Sensei.”

Minato tenses beneath the title but ignores it all the same. He’s staring into the Rinnegan and thinking of all sorts of things, no doubt. But Minato’s never been one to put on a front. It only lasts so long before the rigid posture of his body deflates and he runs a hand through his hair, looking his age. “What am I to do with you, Kakashi?”

“Take me to meet the Kage, I’d assume,” he supplies helpfully.

“You’re not wrong.”

“Dad!” Naruto’s flinging himself at his father before anyone even realizes that he’s awake and Minato is more than happy to accept the sudden affection. It’s sweet. Kakashi recalls how well the father-son duo worked off of each other back in his world and feels a smidge of jealousy on behalf of the Naruto he knows. “You should’ve woken me up. When’d you get here?”

“Just now,” Minato says, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Go pack your things. It’s time to move.”

“‘Kay!”

Sasuke and Sakura greet their Kage briefly before they start dismantling the camp. Sakura smothers the fire and Naruto packs their bags, all the while Obito and Minato discuss the plan going forward: Team Obito will return to Konoha on foot and Minato will take Kakashi to a haphazard gathering of the Kage via the aptly named Flying Thunder God. 

He knows he has no right to an opinion on the matter, but he wants the Leaf to punish him. It would be nice to die a little closer to home.

Minato hooks an arm around Kakashi’s bicep and hauls him to his feet. He stumbles as he stands, only now realizing how faint his low chakra reserves have made him, but Minato is there to steady him.

“I’ll be bringing you to meet the Kage now, Kakashi. We’ll determine where to go from there.”

“I understand.”

Travel with Hiraishin is a very different beast than travel with a Body Flicker. Minato moves like a force of nature, crashing halfway across the nation to one of the Shinobi Alliance’s strongholds like a bolt of lightning, and Kakashi feels nauseous as the world materializes around him. Minato makes no comment about his coughing or shaking but acts as Kakashi’s support.

They’re in a dark corridor. At the end is a single door and, beyond it, the other four leaders of the alliance. It’s only now that they’re alone that Minato gives him another look. “Sage, Kakashi… What have you done to yourself?”

I did what I had to.

“I’m not too sure, Sensei.”

“You don’t have the chakra for eyes like these,” Minato observes. “If I were to remove the suppressors right now, you would die. Do you understand that?”

This is not the question Minato wants to ask. Kakashi doesn’t have an answer for the one that he does, though. All he can do is accept everything as it comes. “I’m aware. But now isn’t the time to be worrying over me, Sensei. I’m no longer one of yours.”

Minato’s eyes fall on the protective metal plate on Kakashi’s forehead, the delicate swirl of the Leaf cut horizontally across by a deep, jagged line. Kakashi hasn’t seen himself yet, but he can feel the hitai-ate level on his forehead all the same and knows that his loyalty to Konoha is no longer there.

Minato’s heart breaks to see it. How can he look at the murderer of his wife and still feel anything but hatred?

They enter the room, the Kages all gathered here, and as he’s presented as a prisoner of war, Kakashi thinks back to the Obito of his world. Obito was the monster that Kakashi is now, but Kakashi could never hate him. After all that he did and every pain that he caused, all Kakashi could feel was love for the boy who, for most of his life, acted as his moral compass. And for every ounce of love that he felt, it hurt that much more.

Kakashi doesn’t hear much of the debate. When they ask him questions, he can only vaguely answer most of them. Some, he remains silent. He doesn’t have the details and the voice in his head is not supplying him with any, as though the owner of his body doesn’t want to further damn himself. What he can speak about is how to assure no one can try to bring about the Infinite Tsukuyomi again and to that end, he speaks at length.

The Kage all want a hand at punishing him. The Raikage, in particular, votes that they off him right here and now. As the bickering starts and voices rise, Kakashi stares at a fixed point on the wall and retreats inwards. He doesn’t care what they do with him; that choice is theirs. Whatever they decide is fair. That doesn’t mean he wants to hear all of the juicy details. Surprises are more exciting, right?

“May I speak?” Minato asks and the room falls quiet. He’s such a soft-spoken man that Kakashi’s surprised anyone listens to him, but there’s a presence to his voice that commands attention all the same. “I understand your heartache, but I don’t believe it's fair to not take his surrender into consideration.”

Kakashi turns to face the Hokage, eyes wide.

“He has been nothing but cooperative since his arrest. He’s provided us with information on the Gedo Statue and laid out his plans point by point. Kakashi has even gone so far as to give us countermeasures against this happening again,” Minato continues. “I can’t claim to know why he’s had this sudden change of heart. But if what he told us today turns out to be true then I believe we have an obligation to lessen his sentence.”

Minato is really doing this right now. He’s standing up for a terrorist.

“Furthermore, I would like to request that Konoha take custody of him. As he is a missing-nin from our village, he is also our burden. I ask this of you.” Minato bows low, his hair falling in front of his face. “Please.”

Always such a bleeding heart.

They don't return to Konoha. Minato's entourage is sent to the battlefield to deal with the Gedo Statue alongside shinobi from the other nations. If they can determine that the information Kakashi provided them with is accurate and complete, at least as it pertains to the war, Minato will be allowed to do with Kakashi as he sees fit. In this world where the Fourth Hokage lived, it seems he's garnered quite a lot of trust from the leaders of the other hidden villages. People believe his intentions are pure and just (Raikage aside) because Minato Namikaze doesn't have a selfish bone in his body.

Until then, Kakashi is shoved into one of the stronghold's only cells to await a verdict. There's nothing in here but a toilet, a sink, a bed and a chair, but he's been in worse situations before.

One of the instructions Kakashi gave was to destroy the Rinnegan, so that’s what they’re going to do. Sensei looms over him, chakra like lightning on his fingertips. Removal of an eye isn't the most difficult surgery to perform, especially if it's not being replaced with a new one, so he trusts that Minato will perform it reasonably well despite his limited prowess in medical ninjutsu.

This is not what happens.

"I'm going to seal your Rinnegan," Minato explains instead. "You won't be able to use it after this, but it will still function as an eye. Do you understand?"

"Quite honestly? No."

Minato blinks at him, utterly baffled.

"With all respect, Sensei, it would be best to remove and destroy it. At the very least, give it to someone who can put it to use. The Rinnegan is lost on me. My chakra reserves are middling at best."

"And you have the Rinnegan knowing this."

"I—" Shit. He has a point. "There were circumstances."

Minato sits back on the bed and it wails, rusty springs compressing beneath his weight. "Then tell me, Kakashi. I'm all ears."

Kakashi knows that an answer will lead to a series of questions that his mind will draw a blank on. He doesn't know how his other self linked this body to the Gedo Statue. He doesn't even know if that Kakashi intended to survive long enough to need a solution. What Minato wants, Kakashi can't give him.

So Kakashi shuts up and allows the seal to be placed over his eye, even if he still thinks Minato should take it from him. He stays board-straight and rigid as Minato works and the moment the seal’s activated, he feels the flow of chakra to the Rinnegan eye cut off completely. His relief has him slouching in his seat. The constant drain on his reserves is finally gone and it's only now that he realizes how tired he is.

“Thank you, Sensei,” he says softly, trying not to betray the shaking in his voice. For all of his complaints, he's grateful.

Minato-sensei is wearing a face that Kakashi can’t discern, his lips pressed into a thin line. Then, without a word, he moves towards Kakashi’s left eye.

Kakashi jerks back. "Rather than sealing my Sharingan," he hurriedly interjects, "could you return it to Obito? He's been missing it."

Minato’s hand falls to his side where it hangs limp. "I'll see what I can do," he says. Then he brings his hand back up, covering the always red of his active Sharingan. "But for now, I'm sealing it."

Kakashi sighs a bit dramatically and allows it. The silver lining is that, at least for now, he’ll be able to keep both eyes open without the looming threat of chakra exhaustion.

"Can I ask you something, Kakashi?"

"Hm?"

"Why the change of heart?" he asks. "Why now?"

Kakashi looks up at the Fourth Hokage, a relic of a lost time. If his smile is a little tired, no one can hold it against him. "I don't want to fight anymore."

Chapter Text

The trip to Konoha is a long one. Lines of Leaf shinobi flank him on either side with their Hokage front and centre. Shikaku is here, alive and acting as the Hokage's right hand. He keeps a close watch, walking in the cast of Kakashi’s shadow and ready to act at the first sign of resistance. They’re treating him with more caution than an S-rank missing-nin and he’s flattered.

He passes the time by looking at his fellow shinobi, searching the crowd of soldiers for familiar faces. There are so many. The very first he noticed when they set out was Tenzō. He’s not so different. Kakashi greeted him by calling out with a crescent-eyed smile, but all he got in return was, “That’s not my name.” All distant and wary, wondering how this S-rank criminal came across a name that he no longer goes by.

“Yamato, then,” he said instead. “It’s good to see you.”

Tenzō is Tenzō no matter the world. He’s a pillar of support in this bizarre little dream and Kakashi finds himself glancing back now and then at this person who will always be a friend to him.

Now that they’re walking, he’s noticing a lot more. Asuma is in position to his left, holding tight to Kakashi’s bindings and keeping them secure. He’s been stealing a lot of looks, wary and confused after being told that his long-dead classmate is the leader of the terrorist organization that took the lives of most of the jinchuuriki. That Kakashi has been targeting his sensei’s son.

It doesn’t sink in that some version of him tried to snuff out Naruto’s life. Naruto, with his father’s eyes and his mother’s smile.

It was necessary, his mind defends.

A necessary evil from a madman.

This world isn’t real. Not to me. We could see him again when the world was rebuilt. He would have been happier there.

He would have been dead.

I watched him grow up just the same as you. I saw what Konoha did to him. Together, we could have created a better world. One without suffering.

He suffered because of what they did—a jinchuuriki without a mother in a village scarred from the lives that Kakashi took. If they’d done nothing at all, Naruto would have been fine.

I wanted to fix it.

Kakashi does not have the mind to deal with these poisonous thoughts. Is this what Obito had to deal with for all those years? If it is, he understands why his old friend went a bit unhinged. Day after day of this for over a decade? Every word that he hears is like an injection of toxins. He feels this pull at the back of his head— I still have taijutsu, and Gai isn’t here. I could escape. There’s still time.

Even now, this voice wants to try. It thinks they could escape the fastest man the shinobi world has ever known without Kamui. It’s sure that they could act before Shikaku casts his jutsu.

It’s delusional.

But sure. They can play this game. So, let’s say they escape: then what? The Gedo Statue is gone. It’s over.

Not yet.

The desperate plea of someone who has nothing and no one.

When Konoha’s gates finally come up on the horizon, Kakashi feels relief in his aching feet. The procession around him which has been silent and stiff for their full day of travel lets out a collective sigh of relief and their nerves ease up. They start chatting back and forth absently, sharing stories of all the things they want to do when they go back to their families. It’s probably their first time setting their eyes on the village in weeks, the war calling them to the front lines long before this.

“You have a daughter, right?” one of the men asks.

Asuma grins ear to ear and pulls a picture out of his back pocket, holding it out in a proud display of fatherly love. Kakashi can’t see it from where he stands, but he watched that girl grow up, so he already knows. “Name’s Mirai.” Then he turns it on Kakashi, practically shoving it into the prisoner’s face. “Cute, isn’t she?”

Kakashi’s eyes soften on the family of three in the photograph. “Very.”

“I almost didn’t get to meet her,” he says. He’s not smiling anymore. “Your boys tried to kill me.”

That’s Kakashi’s sin to bear.

But Asuma is alive. Team Ten still has its captain, Shikamaru has his role model and Mirai has a father. When faced with so many people who were lost in his own world, it’s hard for him to see this one as a punishment.

They reach the front gates and there are more shinobi there waiting for them. Obito’s here, standing at the front of the group with his arms crossed and a hastily drawn mask of indifference. He’ll lead the next procession—the one through the village. But it’s not Obito who draws Kakashi’s eyes.

It’s Gai.

Gai is standing on his own two legs. He’s made it out of the war with his body in one piece. Even though he’s here to act as a guard, his eyes gloss over with tears the moment that he sees his old sparring partner approach, and his heartbreak is a kick to the teeth. Somehow, it hurts more when Gai doesn’t say anything. It’s so unlike him. The Gai that he knows… He’d be demanding to know what led Kakashi down such a warped path. But he can’t.

Kakashi doesn’t like the spotlight. For all that his name would tell you otherwise, his accomplishments mean nothing to him. They’re a result of him doing his job and doing it well. But the Friend Killer moniker that marked his adolescent years will not leave his mind. Not with the village’s favour, not with the stamp of Hokage branding him as useful. Years of walking through Konoha’s streets with a stain on his back can’t be erased by a title and it will follow him until his dying days.

They did to you what they did to our father. They’re never satisfied, are they?

Those days return to him in the eyes of the villagers who watch on as he’s drawn through Konoha and all he can hear are whispers in his head, reminding him of Rin.

The ceiling collapses and his hand plummets through her chest.

Kakashi’s shoved none too kindly when he drags his steps. It’s a gift from Obito, the one holding his shackles and keeping him moving. He’s not spared a glance. Not from Obito, anyway.

He needs to stop getting caught in his own head. There are plenty of looks and whispers in the real world, sharp enough to cut like knives.

Believe it or not, this isn’t Kakashi’s first time on the wrong side of a T&I interrogation.

The first was after the passing of his father. He found the body and made the report so he needed to be questioned. It was only a formality—Sakumo’s death wasn’t ambiguous by any means. He was found with the blade still plunged into his gut. Everyone could see that it was suicide but still, Kakashi sat there, small and young and barely big enough to look over the table, recounting his newly-acquired trauma to one of the investigators.

The second was after the Kannabi Bridge incident. He gritted his teeth and steeled himself while Inoki Yamanaka sifted through his head and forcefully brought to mind every painful memory of Obito’s death. He relived it all in real-time, from the start of the mission to the fight that they had, all the way up until he was cutting through Iwa-nin with Obito’s eye tucked away in his head.

This is his first time being treated as a missing-nin, though, so there’s still some novelty to be had. He’s flattered. Really.

Kakashi is pretty run down at the moment. He hasn’t eaten, he’s had a minimal amount of water. Fortunately, he doesn’t have any injuries from the war, but his empty reserves make it feel like he’s at death’s door. There are plenty of places he’d rather be. But this interrogation is something that he’s expected for a while now. He knows it’ll be long and extensive, and Minato will be here for every minute of it.

At this point in time, Kakashi’s kept his identity to himself. But he’s intimately familiar with the procedures of the Yamanaka and he’s interested in seeing how this will play out between Kakashi’s own memories and the voice in his head.

He considers the man sitting across from him, looking a bit different than the Inoichi lost in his world’s last war. His hair is short, a little more groomed, a little more managed. Kakashi wonders how many changes he’ll count in his companions before he either wakes up or dies.

“Alright,” Inoichi says, taking Minato’s nod as permission enough to start. There’s a clipboard on the table but if Kakashi’s hunch is correct, he won’t have much of a chance to use it. “I’m going to be looking through your memories. When I ask a question, I want you to think of the first thing that comes to mind.”

“You can skip the explanation,” he says. “I’m familiar with the process.”

Inoichi starts the interrogation with basic questions, from his name to his place of residence—he earns a look when he automatically answers ‘Konoha’ but he won’t lie to T&I—all the way through to his age, his family. Personal questions to confirm his identity. Inoichi jots them all down on his paper, adjusting his reading glasses. “And how old were you when you moved on from Konoha?”

“I never left.”

Minato lifts his head. He hasn’t been fully invested up until now, his mind clearly elsewhere, but those words pull him from whatever trance he’s in.

Inoichi, on the other hand, sighs. “It’s in your best interest to cooperate, Hatake.”

“Maa, I’m trying my best.”

“Then let’s get started, shall we?” Meaning that he remains unconvinced. Inoichi scrapes his chair a little closer and forces his way into Kakashi’s mind. It’s a cold, detached sort of feeling, having someone else in there with him. Seeing his thoughts and feelings. Kakashi has nowhere to hide. “We have on file that your last recorded mission was at Kannabi Bridge during the Third Shinobi War. You were labelled missing and presumed dead. Can you explain to us what happened that day, Kakashi?”

All that comes to mind is the cave collapse. Everything is falling, and he’s guiding Rin out. Obito’s right behind them. He’s right there. But Kakashi looks back. He turns to see his teammate crushed beneath a weight that neither one of them can handle. He sees the moment that decides Obito’s fate and he runs back. Rin’s screaming at him, at both of them, but her words aren’t preserved in his memory. He sinks his fingers under the rock and hefts its weight but it won’t budge. There are enemies outside. Even if he can move the rocks, Obito will bleed out. The weight is probably the only thing keeping that from happening. His bones, his organs—they’re not skilled enough to deal with this, and the shinobi code says that they have to—

But he won’t. He can’t.

Obito’s request is to see the world with him. His last gift to Kakashi is his Sharingan, a red, swirling chakra drain that his body can’t handle, but Kakashi accepts it anyway. It’s Obito’s words that make him accept this death, and Obito is the reason he can move on.

Inoichi pauses the memory there, with Kakashi and Rin leaving their fallen comrade behind. He doesn’t pull out of Kakashi’s mind, but he’s scratching his head. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“What is it?” Minato presses. Kakashi opens his eyes long enough to see the Hokage walking over, leaning on the edge of the desk and observing.

“His memory doesn’t match up with Obito Uchiha’s report,” Inoichi says. “What we have on file says that Kakashi stayed behind with him, but I’m seeing him leave with his other teammate.”

“Keep going.”

Inoichi nods. The rest of the mission plays out in full, all the way up until they reunite with Minato. Apparently, that’s the biggest red flag of all.

“Rin summoned me,” Minato says. “I gave the team one of my Hiraishin kunai to use in an emergency. When I arrived, she was alone. Kakashi was left behind with Obito in the cave-in.”

“That’s not what he remembers,” Inoichi mutters. “Hold on—I’ll keep looking.”

Kakashi doesn’t appreciate having to relive his childhood through the Yamanaka’s jutsu a second time, but he doesn’t protest it. He stays quiet while they go through these long-buried images again, clenching his fists. But there’s a snag this time. There’s a discrepancy. It’s brief, but Inoichi tries to follow it and the memories he’s drawing up are from a part of Kakashi’s mind that he just doesn’t have access to. He feels terror, raw and real, clawing up his throat from the pit of his stomach.

Kakashi is digging Obito out. Rin’s already left the cave—he ordered her to get Minato-sensei, but he just wanted her safe. As more rocks fall, he breaks them with Chidori, again and again, Obito’s eye guiding him. He won’t leave Obito behind. If one dies, they both die. Kakashi keeps fighting until debris falls on him, too, and the world goes black.

He sees a cave, dark and damp, and Obito lying on an old, filthy mattress. He’s hooked up to—something. Kakashi isn’t sure what. The images are hazy, as though they belong to someone else, and he can’t make out details even with Inoichi’s jutsu there to guide him.

He sees Madara, old and greyed on death’s door. He sees that man and an offer is made.

One that he cannot refuse.

Inoichi pulls back with a hard-set frown. He’s not happy with what he’s seeing. Kakashi isn’t, either, knowing that his counterpart's experiences are still there in his head somewhere. Soon enough, though, his interrogator reclaims his wits and they move on.

“What’s happening here, exactly?” Inoichi asks. “Give me some guidance, Hatake.”

“I don’t know,” Kakashi answers, earning a look from his sensei. “But I can hazard a guess.”

He was dying, the voice says. If I listened, he got to live. So I obeyed, just for a while. Just long enough to save him.

But it wasn’t just long enough to save him, was it? It was weeks, and then months, all while Madara toyed with Obito’s body, trying to get it to work. But it would have been inconvenient to sit around and wait. Somehow, Madara thought that willing his plan to the non-Uchiha he found curled around his target was a better idea. He would have used Obito’s survival as leverage and Kakashi would have obeyed to save his teammate.

Well, something like that.

Inoichi listens to this internal back-and-forth, a grave look on his face. Surprisingly, he does write all of this down, to the best of his abilities, in his record. It takes a while for him to collect all of his thoughts. He’s not telling Minato about the discourse. Not yet. Now he has to figure out how to follow these two separate trails of memories, something he’s probably never had to do before, and record them just the same.

“What happened after Kannabi Bridge?”

“I returned to the village and made my report, then I was evaluated just as you’re doing now.”

From here, the duality of his memories really starts to shine. It always starts with Kakashi’s own experience. His memories are clear, easily accessible and instantly pop into the forefront of his mind when a question is asked. But like a rolling storm, the Kakashi of this world is there, lying in wait, his past coming to them in slow-moving waves.

They see Kakashi kill Rin, and they see the one who soaks the battlefield in the blood of Kiri’s soldiers. They see the Kyuubi attack as the instigator and as one of the shinobi trying to protect Konoha’s people. They see ANBU, and they see carnage.

Inoichi pulls back again, rubbing his temples. They’ve been at this for hours now and the further they get, the more baffled he is. Kakashi is given water to drink as the two Konoha-nin sit on either side of the desk and the notes thus far are passed on to the Hokage. Minato reads them over carefully, his eyes narrowing, and then he looks up.

“What does this mean?”

Inoichi makes very vague hand gestures, utterly frustrated. “I can’t say. But these memories are real, Lord Fourth—he couldn’t have fabricated them. They’re clear and instant. But this second set,” he taps the page to push his point, “is muddy. Like these memories were implanted, or like they don’t belong to him. The problem is: these are the ones that correlate with the Kakashi Hatake that we know.”

If they’re freaking out now, he better not tell them that the Fourth Shinobi War ended five years ago for him. That’d really throw them for a loop.

“What’s more: his records of the Kyuubi attack show you passing away. You used the Reaper Death Seal.”

Minato blinks as though the thought of ending his own life for a seal never occurred to him before. “Why would I do that?”

Kakashi tilts his head, absently holding the water bottle in his lap. The cuffs he has on now allow him some maneuverability. “I’ve been wondering the same thing, Sensei. You tended to do whatever you wanted.”

Minato doesn’t appreciate that, but he keeps his mouth shut.

“Should we continue?” Kakashi presses. “What would you like to see next?”

The further they get, the harder it is to read the companion set of memories, like they’re resisting Inoichi’s pull. It doesn’t matter. Kakashi sits back, closes his eyes, and puts together pieces to a puzzle that he isn’t sure he wants to see.

The worst parts, though, are the memories of Kakashi overlooking Obito’s visits to the memorial stone in the very same way that his Obito must have watched over him. Listening. Hearing how broken he is, but never doing anything about it.

Together, they fill the room with silence. Inoichi is putting together just who and what Kakashi is, and Kakashi is coming to loathe the person whose body he’s claimed.

Chapter Text

It’s Kakashi’s first time behind bars in the prison under Hokage Rock and, honestly, it’s pretty shit. The roof leaks. The steady drip, drip of water hitting a puddle is a constant tug on his nerves. It’s cold but there are no blankets and worse still is the knowledge that Icha Icha Reversal never came with him to this brave new world. New material was so close, just barely within reach, and he’s lost it. His only options are to die now and never read it or to live through a painful five years and hope that this reality lines up well enough with his own for the unfinished manuscript to be released here, as well.

Kakashi sighs. Nothing is ever easy for him, but at least he won’t have to look at paperwork.

He’s been down here for a few days, he thinks. It’s hard to tell when no one is visiting him. The only time he sees anyone other than the guards is when they bring him his meals. And to think just a little while ago he was the most popular person in the interrogation room.

Inoichi’s findings sent the whole of T&I into an uproar. Another Yamanaka was sent in to replicate the interrogation because no one would believe that Kakashi had two sets of memories playing in his head. No one was allowed to read Inoichi’s file outside of Minato for fear of it influencing the session, but the second interrogator threw up his hands in frustration before they even made it to the Kyuubi attack. It would be amusing if it didn’t mean going through the same agonizing pieces of his history over and over and over again.

No one knows what to do with him. He tries not to take it personally.

Kakashi sits alone in his cell with his eyes on the ceiling and considers what he, as the Sixth Hokage, would do in Minato’s position. If it were Obito here, claiming to be from another world when everything they knew pointed to him being a broad-scale terrorist. Thinking this way doesn’t get him far; for all that he wants to be the impartial leader, Kakashi’s a bleeding heart. He’d struggle not to drop Obito’s charges out of some misplaced sense of love and he would stay up every night after, worried that his poor decision would cost the lives of the people he was meant to protect.

Kakashi never should have been Hokage. It’s a better fate for him to be here behind bars and not carry the weight of the village on his shoulders.

To be honest, the comparison isn’t fair as Kakashi hasn’t claimed to be anything. He knows what it’ll look like if he starts spitting bullshit lines about being from an alternate reality and he really doesn’t think they would appreciate his claims that this is all a dream. He doesn’t believe that anymore; it’s too long, too detailed and, quite honestly, more sensible than any of his dreams tend to be. That’s why they’re all racking their brains, trying to figure out what’s going on. They don’t even think that he could have memories beyond this moment in time, so they haven’t delved deep enough into his brain to dig up the past five years.

He wonders what they’d say if they saw his coronation.

The door leading into Kakashi’s new private room creaks open, heavy footfall echoing down the stairs, and it’s Minato that he sees. He smiles at the Hokage who is quickly becoming a familiar face. “We’ve been seeing a lot of each other, Sensei.”

Minato hasn’t smiled back at him once, but that’s fair enough. The circumstances aren’t ideal.

A chair is dragged over to the bars, scraping against the stone, and Minato takes a seat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his fingers intertwined. “You’ve turned T&I on its head. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t the one who had to clean up this mess.”

Kakashi’s lying flat on the ground to see if it will help with his back pain. The mattress they gave him is worse than just sleeping on the cold, hard floor and there isn’t a lot of room to do proper stretches or exercise, so he hopes that this will somehow aid in his recovery. And, well, he finds lying on the floor and questioning reality to be a good way to cope with life in general. Not healthy, but effective.

“You’ve really put me on the spot, Kakashi,” Minato continues when he gets no response. “Everyone’s looking to me to tell them what they should do, but I don’t really know, either. So, can you help me figure it out?”

Kakashi rolls his head to the side to face the Hokage. He has no qualms about giving Minato everything that he knows, but he’s also incredibly, impossibly bored, and he’s so broken down from reliving his worst moments that he really doesn’t want to go through it all again.

“Maa, Sensei,” he sighs, “you’re asking a lot of me while offering nothing in return. That’s bad business.”

Minato considers him, head tilted. He feels a lot more open now than he did at the start of this mess. This memory situation is prodding his natural curiosity. “Is there something I can bribe you with?”

“ Icha Icha ,” he answers automatically, shifting to stare once more at the ceiling. It’s still leaking. There’s a bucket beneath it now, though. The sound the droplets make when they hit the bottom is even worse. “ Violence, Innocence and Tactics, if you could.” He’s memorized Paradise, so he doesn’t see much point in asking for a copy of it now.

Nothing shows on Minato’s face, not at first. But he can’t hold back the sheer absurdity of the request for long. “You’re asking for the erotica that Jiraiya-sensei authored.”

“I’m terribly bored in here, Sensei,” he confesses.

The Hokage looks around the dreary place and swipes a hand over his face. “I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, will you talk to me?”

“Bad business,” Kakashi repeats, waving his hand uselessly in an extension of his words before it falls back against the ground.

Minato lets out a noise of frustration that he’s only ever heard from Kushina before and is gone in a fading stream of yellow light. It only lasts a few minutes. Then he returns, bribe in hand, and passes those sacred offerings between the bars. Kakashi checks the goods, flipping through the pages, and he finds that they’re all signed by Master Jiraiya, himself. They’re Minato’s copies, gifts from a sensei, and Kakashi will let no harm come to them. He’ll guard them with his life.

After the successful transaction, Minato has his full attention. He offers a teasing smile. “Say the word, Sensei, and I’m yours.”

“Please don’t speak like that.”

“Noted.”

Minato returns to his chair and the light, airy atmosphere that Kakashi’s been trying to build dies out. “I want to hear your story,” he says. “Do you know why your memories are split the way they are?”

“In a way,” he says dismissively, getting a dirty look that he probably deserves. “I have theories, I should say. But both sets of memories aren’t actually mine—I only remember the first lot, the ones where I left Kannabi Bridge with Rin. That’s the world that I know.”

“What do you mean, world?”

Kakashi has to tread carefully here. If he says the wrong thing, if he comes across as insincere, it’ll ruin whatever tiny sliver of trust is growing in Minato right now. “Where I’m from, the Fourth Hokage died sealing a rampaging fox into the body of his son,” he tries, watching for any sign he’s pushed the wrong button. “Lord Third returned to office after that. No one else was ready to take the seat.”

“And this,” Minato tries, his eyes darting around with his thoughts, “is the world that you grew up in?”

Kakashi nods.

“You mean to say that you’re not our Kakashi. You belong elsewhere.”

“Full points!” The disappointed stare reminds him that this isn’t the time for games. It’s not his fault. The mood’s been oppressive ever since he arrived in this world and he can’t handle it anymore. He misses teasing his kids. And Tenzō. And the staff at Hokage Tower. And Shikamaru, Gai… everyone, really. He longs to just be able to play off of someone else’s reactions. “Though to be accurate, this body belongs to your Kakashi. I just seem to be borrowing it.”

“How, though?”

Kakashi shrugs. “In all likelihood? A jutsu. I was at home at the time, so I suspect it happened on this end.”

Minato presses his thumb and forefinger to his chin as he mulls that over. “A seal could maybe… But in the middle of a war?” This question isn’t one for Kakashi. Minato’s working through his theories one at a time. Trust the Seal Master to try looking at this situation through the lens of his specialty. Experts do tend to veer into their own expertise before they try other avenues. A seal is a possibility, though, and one that Kakashi tucks away for later. “Then those other memories…”

“Are his,” Kakashi nods.

“Is he there, too, then?”

That is a very good question. One that Kakashi is not equipped to deal with right now. He tries prodding internally for an answer but the voice comes and goes as it pleases. It's been silent since the interrogation.

"I'm not sure?" he tries. "I hear his thoughts now and then, but this is his body and his mind… Whether it's a side effect of that or because his consciousness remains is unclear. It's not exactly cooperative."

They go back and forth, drawing up conclusions that may or may not mean anything. Minato believes him. At least a little. There's tension there but the accounts of two Konoha-loyal mind readers give him some credibility. He sees many more trips to T&I in his future.

Eventually, they settle into a comfortable silence. Kakashi picks up one of his books.

"How is Obito?"

Minato smiles. It's the first time and it doesn't last, but Kakashi treats it as a personal victory. "Holding up. You meant the world to him, Kakashi. After we lost you…"

Kakashi doesn't need to hear the rest. He has a personal stake in feelings like this.

The door leading into the basement creaks open and Kakashi listens as heavy footsteps hit the stairs one by one, the clack of sandals echoing around him. Soon, someone stands at his cell door, quiet and calm and everything that he expects to find in his old friend.

This is his first visitor and Kakashi’s touched. No one’s bothered with him until now.

In all fairness, he’s pretty sure he wasn’t allowed visitors until this evening. Minato loosened the ball and chain after their talk with the caveat that his little misadventures through space-time remain undisclosed while T&I continues its investigation. They don’t want Kakashi’s claims to influence the interrogators one way or another. That means that with Obito standing here, Kakashi has to suck it up and accept whatever’s handed to him. He’ll play the role of the villain, at least to the extent that he won’t try to deny anything his other self may or may not have done.

Neither speaks. Kakashi’s pretty comfortable with silence so he doesn’t mind. He thinks Obito does, though, when he hears the bars rattle beneath an empty fist.

Obito takes a breath, calming the quiver of anger in his fingertips and swaying where he stands. There are words unsaid between them and the air is thick with tension, so Kakashi decides to hide behind a book. Tactics is just about getting to the juicy bits and rereading the same smut for the nth time sounds a lot better than dealing with feelings.

Obito kicks the bars, slamming the sole of his sandal into the metal with a growl. When his outburst doesn’t get a reaction, he sinks down against the cell, his back pressed up to the bars and his arms folded over his knees. He looks so much smaller than he is.

“I thought I died back then,” he mutters, staring at the unnaturally white skin of his ungloved hand. “I thought when the rocks fell… But I woke up in the hospital. Here in the village. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Kakashi tilts his head. It tugs at a place in his mind that he can’t quite reach on his own power and it feels like this body still has memories to share. He doesn’t hear the voice, but he feels it. It lies at the edge of his conscious mind, experiencing this moment right alongside him, and he tries pulling at it to get it to move.

When he closes his eyes, he can see a hospital room. It’s not the sick bay or lobby. It’s a storage closet. Obito hasn’t woken up yet and the foreign cells have broken apart so many times that he’s starting to lose hope. The burn of a freshly carved seal aches on his chest, a constant reminder that his time here is limited, and he rests his teammate on a pile of spare blankets. Madara promised to save Obito, but there’s a real fear that he’s not going to make it, and then what? What was all of this for? He gave up his body, allowed Madara to carve his will into Kakashi’s heart, and for what? A few weeks with Obito’s still-breathing corpse?

This is his last chance. He’s been waiting for a moment like this, for one of Lady Tsunade’s rare visits to the village, and he knows that if the goddess of medical ninjutsu can’t save Obito then everything is a waste.

When he hears someone approach the door from the hall, he steps through Kamui and crouches on one of the endless stone pillars, running desperate hands through his hair as the minutes tick by.

But for a brief moment, Kakashi was not in Kamui. He was in the forests of Fire Country, leaping through the trees in full ANBU gear, his heart pounding in his chest, and he does not know why.

He’ll compartmentalize it for later.

When there’s no answer, Obito makes his own assumptions and bites his lip. “Why didn’t you stay?”

All Kakashi can do is shrug. He thinks a part of it had to do with the seal on his heart, but that isn’t everything. From his internal struggle a few days ago, it’s safe to assume that this version of himself came to the same bitter conclusions that his Obito did, his eyes clouded by a delusion that he clung to like a lifeline. But he’s not all that interested in drudging up memories of a life he didn’t live. He can’t imagine that his lack of enthusiasm is doing anything for his old friend, though, and he doesn’t want to play the role of the unhelpful supervillain stewing in his own thoughts after his defeat, so he considers maybe defying Minato’s orders. Just this once.

What? He’s an evil mastermind. No one said that he has to take commands from the Hokage. The defaced brand on his forehead is pretty telling of where his loyalties lie.

Kakashi scoots close to the bars and leans against them, watching Obito through mismatched eyes. Obito tenses beneath his gaze like he’s ready for a fight, but what could Kakashi even do right now? He only has access to civilian levels of chakra—just enough to keep him moving. Maybe with enough concentration, he could produce a bit of static electricity. Yay. He can’t even do a Body Flicker.

“What if I told you I’m from another world?”

Obito gives him a look . Beneath the perfect insult, there’s a thread of pity. “You could’ve just not answered me, you fucker.”

“It’s true,” he insists, sulking a bit. Sensei didn’t completely reject his claims, granted Sensei also had access to more information. Obito isn’t used to him wearing faces like these; there’s something uncertain in his eye, as though he can’t decide whether Kakashi is teasing or sincere. “Maa, you don’t have to believe me, Obito. I can keep my stories to myself.”

Kakashi keeps close to the bars, enjoying the company even under these circumstances, and shifts to press against the wall. The drip of water into a half-filled bucket fills the seconds between them. At the back of his head, he wonders where this leak is coming from. They’re underground right now and the monument is directly above them. Specifically, they’re beneath Lord Third’s crudely carved head. Between the monument and his cell are various corridors carved into the rock, forming a little cave system, and a leak this deep and this far down could be a sign of a weak point further up.

If the cave collapses on him, he may suffocate. Perhaps he should make a formal complaint.

“When I see you,” Obito mutters, his face downcast to the floor, “it’s like I’m looking at a stranger.”

He understands.

“I see all of the horrible things you’ve done and I can’t line you up with the kid that I knew. You were full of yourself, sure, and you didn’t treat your comrades well, but you weren’t… this. ”

When Obito’s mask broke, it felt like time stopped. Kakashi stared off at nothing as every piece of history cycled through his mind, drawing up connections between the friend that he lost and the monster standing opposite him in the war. He couldn’t see it. As he regained his wits and forced back sentimentality to protect his precious people, he separated the Obito of the past and the Obito of the now. He would destroy the man tarnishing his old friend’s memory. He would protect the future and the people in it.

He would kill Obito and die with his memory.

There came a point in his life when Kakashi had no one else to lose. They all left him behind in the land of the living and went someplace that he couldn’t reach. No matter how broken down his body was or how close to death he got, he would open his eyes to a new day, unable to die.

“How did we get here?” Obito asks, and he really wishes he had an answer to give.

Instead, he focuses on the book he isn’t reading, feeling the eye watching him from beyond the bars. “You can think of me as someone else,” Kakashi says. “You don’t have to taint that memory. It’s yours to do with as you please.”

“How can you just… say that?”

Kakashi smiles. “Maa, it’s been years, Obito, and people change. I lost the chance to fix things a long time ago.”

“That’s not how it works, Kakashi.”

“Hm?”

Obito leans against the wall of the prison, boneless and tired as he crosses his legs beneath himself. He’s angry now, a crease in his brow telling as much, but this anger is quiet and constant. It’s nothing of the fast, loud rush that he’s come to expect of this man.

“For as long as you’re alive, you can keep trying. Nothing is ever set in stone. You don’t get to give up just because you’re tired—that’s not how life works. Because no matter how you've suffered,” Obito says, “tomorrow will come, and you can’t stop it.”

He doesn’t know what to say. He sees this strange, twisted, charming version of the friend that he lost and pulling old history from its tomb isn’t as daunting as it once was. Anything for Obito. Anything to wash away the disappointment on that achingly familiar face.

Kakashi reaches his fingers through the bars and presses them to the pale white of Obito’s foreign cells. The hand beneath flinches at his touch but he can still feel that skin, sorely lacking body heat, as he smooths it beneath his palm. When he looks at it, all he can see is that dark hospital storage room, a puddle of white cells formless on the tiles as they broke apart across his lifeless teammate’s injuries.

This hand is solid and whole. It is nothing of the unstable mess from his counterpart’s memory and he’s so incredibly thankful for that.

“Look at you,” he breathes, this body’s relief warming his chest. “You’re whole again, Obito.”

Everything was worth it.

Obito snaps his arm free and rubs at the phantom heat of Kakashi’s caress with his flesh and blood hand, his pupils darting this way and that as he processes the meaning behind those words. “You were there.”

Kakashi smiles. “Not personally.”

Chapter Text

Round two of his T&I interrogation goes swimmingly. Inoichi realizes that there’s more in his head than they thought and is none too happy that Kakashi kept it from them. In Kakashi’s defence, he really doesn’t care.

When Inoichi learns about Kakashi’s title of Sixth Hokage, he goes white as a sheet. Ah, but it’s so fun when they react like that. He misses this.

Minato is called in. Kakashi gets to sit in a boxy little room all by himself with a flickering overhead light in need of a new bulb while they wait for word to reach their Kage. If they would have just let him bring his books in then maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, but the boredom of his cell is ten times better than waiting here all by his lonesome with nothing to occupy his thoughts.

When Minato enters, he offers a little wave with his cuffed hands, wiggling his fingers. “Good morning, Sensei!”

Kakashi's strangely particular trials through these interrogations have aged the Hokage ten years over the last few weeks. Or maybe Kakashi's just reconciling this man with the twenty-four-year-old image he's held onto since the Kyuubi attack. Minato gives him a tired moment of acknowledgement.

Then there's a smile, soft and real, and Minato returns his wave. Look! He's making friends! "Good morning, Lord Sixth. So kind of you to join us."

"Ah. They told you, did they?"

"They did," he agrees as he pulls a chair across the room from its place by the wall. He brings it right up to Kakashi's and takes a seat. Close proximity to another human? Is he still allowed something like this? "I'm wondering why you didn't."

Kakashi rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. The heavy chains he wore before have been switched to standard chakra dampener cuffs since the second round started, and they've even offered him tea. Apparently, he's garnering compassion through these interrogations. Who would have thought? "It didn't sound very believable. I worried I'd lose your trust if I brought it up."

"Is that the only reason?"

"Yes," he answers easily, then falters, "no. Truthfully, I never wanted the hat. It's a lot more trouble than it's worth, no offence."

Minato laughs. This is the first time Kakashi's heard that sound in decades and it has him melting into his chair, feeling like he's actually doing something right for once. "None taken. It's… a bit of a hassle, I'll agree."

"It’s terrible," Kakashi mutters, thinking back to his last days before arriving in this world. "There's so much paperwork, Sensei. I don't even get to read anymore."

Inoichi clears his throat and they shut up and face forward. He's set up a chakra projector while they've been chatting, one that will allow him to play Kakashi's memories out in the open for all to see.

Joy.

Inoichi starts from the Fourth Shinobi War because, who knows, maybe he has a grudge against Kakashi or something. They go through the motions and see the grand scale on both sides—the reanimated past Hokages all lined up on a battlefront next to the rest of their fleet.

They see the mask break, and they see Obito. Kakashi glances over at his sensei, all too aware of the clenched fists betraying his calm. Looks like Inoichi forgot to mention that little tidbit.

"So, in your world, Obito…"

Kakashi nods. "Our places are switched here, it seems. Maa, he made a better villain than I do. His body could actually handle the chakra drain of his dōjutsu."

"You make it sound like you're a delicate flower, Kakashi."

He sighs dramatically. "I need to be watered twice a week, daily."

"Twice a week," Minato repeats, a slow-forming grin on his face, "daily. Right. Makes perfect sense."

"I knew you'd understand."

Inoichi is giving them another of those stern please-just-let-me-do-my-job looks and they both fall silent again. It's hard to keep his mouth shut now that he has someone willing to banter with him. It's been weeks. He can't even bug Tenzō and the only person who visited him was Obito. And only once! For all that he used to spend his free time solitary in his little house outside of work, he never realized how social he'd gotten over the years. It's rare for him to be this alone.

They catch Zetsu in the memory and Minato is entirely confused—apparently, the Shinobi Alliance never encountered him before. Considering no one put up any fight when the Gedo Statue was destroyed, it's quite possible he doesn't exist in this world, which would also mean that Kaguya may not have had a place in the war, which… Well, it changes some things, to say the least. Kakashi won't dwell on it.

Inoichi makes him relive Obito's last moments and the humour is gone from his eyes. He can't even look away; it's playing in his head, inescapable.

You couldn't save him.

Kakashi does not need the voice's input right now.

But I did.

While Kakashi may not have been able to keep Obito alive, his failures measured by the bodies left in his wake, he can at least take pride in the fact that he didn't end the world or destroy everything that his precious people stood to protect.

He would be lying if he said he didn't want to see Obito's face right now, though.

Minato grips his shoulder, reading him like an open book, and he smiles at his sensei. For all that this isn't the Minato he knew, they feel like old friends reunited across time. It's nice to receive a little comfort now and then. Kakashi isn't used to it.

"You okay?" Minato asks, his voice gentle.

"Always, Sensei."

"Are we good to continue, then?"

"Of course."

He appreciates the sentiment, but he's pretty sure if they keep interrupting, Inoichi is going to throw a fit. The poor man is just trying to work and they keep challenging him.

They skim through the post-war mess, though Minato steels himself when he sees the prosthetic that Naruto wears after everything quiets down. It must be hard to imagine his only remaining family with injuries so severe, all because of some little Uchiha punk Naruto couldn't forget.

Well. It seems Kakashi and Naruto share a few similarities.

They both have a green thumb!

Eventually, they find Kakashi's coronation. Minato's filled with prideful smiles, as though he's already forgotten the horrors committed by the body housing Kakashi.

"You look quite good in it," Minato says. "The hat, I mean. It suits you."

"Stop it, Sensei. You're making me blush."

From there, there's not much to see. The past few years have been peaceful. Uneventful, even. They take note of the decisions he makes during his tenure that have resulted in peace between villages, they watch his little genin grow up to become admirable shinobi, and then there's just a lot of sad time alone in the office with piles of paper higher than Kakashi is tall.

Minato relates on a spiritual level.

And then they see it—his last day back home, the moment he fell but never landed and woke to the stirrings of war.

This is it. There's nothing left to tell. As much as they didn't view every memory of every day (they would have been here watching for as many years as Kakashi lived), they covered the most important bits. The chakra projector deactivates, Inoichi struggles to write his report off to the side, and finally, they're free to speak without the ire of the interrogator looming over them.

Minato stretches. Well, this has taken hours. So many hours— too many hours. Kakashi aches from sitting in place for so long. Tomorrow, he'll be hurting more than he does after an intensive training session.

"How old are you, Kakashi?" Minato asks.

He has to think about it for a moment. It's not something he keeps track of anymore. "Thirty-six," he settles on.

"Good," Minato grins, teasing and mischievous in a way the Minato that Kakashi knew never was. "I'm still older."

Kakashi smiles. "You would still be my sensei even if you were an academy student."

"Well, fortunately, I seem to have passed that stage of my life."

Yes, fortunately, because Kakashi is pretty sure he would never be so openly welcomed by any other soul in the village.

He stands corrected.

Naruto looms beyond his prison walls, passing him packages of cup ramen through the bars. Kakashi accepts the offerings with mild confusion, recognizing them as his little genin's favourite brand. The boy looks endlessly pleased with himself.

"Dad says you're actually pretty okay."

"While that's nice and all, Naruto, I—"

"I knew you weren't so bad when you surrendered. That was cool. But, like, couldn't you have done it sooner? The war was a lot to prepare for, y'know! Anyway, Dad also said the food here is bad, so—"

"Naruto," he calls flatly. "I'm not allowed to have hot water. It's a rule of the prison."

"Oh."

Finally, he gets it.

"I can get Sasuke! He has a fire affinity. Then we can heat you up some ramen!"

This poor, sweet, stupid boy.

Naruto leaves without much notice and, true enough, returns with a very irate Uchiha—and Sakura, who had been with said Uchiha at the time of his kidnapping. Naruto explains the sorry state of Kakashi's meals (they're nothing to write home about, but they're fine) and the cruel prison rules (annoying, but tolerable) and makes his plea.

Sasuke is incomprehensibly moved by his teammate's words and steps forward, ready to lend a hand— why , though?—when Sakura stops them.

"Then we would be breaking the prison rules," she says like she's explaining shapes to toddlers. "Giving him cold water and making it hot is still giving him hot water."

This is an actual conversation that his kids are having. Honestly. What has Obito been teaching them?

Kakashi's already gone back to his wall and is reading, or rather pretending to, using the children as a bit of entertainment.

"So," Sakura starts, and it feels like she's about to say something silly, "what about cold noodles instead?"

Of course, she would suggest that. It makes perfect sense.

"Somen?" Sasuke tries, rubbing his chin. "Mm. Maybe. Naruto?"

Naruto is entirely unconvinced. "You can't compare ramen to somen. That's such a downgrade!"

"It's cup ramen, Naruto. You can't go much lower than that."

"Well, it's not like I could go to Ichiraku and—" A pause. A gasp. "Wait. Wait, hold on, I've got it!"

Sakura rolls her eyes. "It would still be hot water, Naruto."

The arguing goes on for quite some time with no real end in sight, so he just sits back and watches the show.

Sakura makes a delivery of more books the next day at Minato's request. Apparently, the Hokage has gone to discuss their findings at yet another summit. She passes some reading material through the bars that Kakashi happily accepts, eyeing him all the while.

Word is getting around that Minato's trying to help him and it's raising a lot of heads. Sakura is still wary, but she's curious, too.

"How do you know Lord Fourth?" she asks as he checks over the merchandise. There are some local history books, which might prove useful if he wants to know the differences between his world and theirs, and smut by different authors. Aw. Sensei is so thoughtful.

"He was my jōnin instructor," Kakashi says simply as he reads the back of one book. "And before that, my private mentor."

"But Lord Fourth isn't the type to let personal connections affect his actions." Clearly, she doesn't know Konoha's Bleeding Heart well enough. "Why is he trying to help you?"

Help, huh?

Kakashi lowers the book into his lap with a knowing sigh. "He isn't trying to get me pardoned, is he?"

"He told you?"

"No," he says. "Just a hunch. Either way, I wouldn't put too much stock in it; the other Kage would never accept it."

"Um…"

"Yes?"

"What's your name?" she asks, rubbing her arm. "They keep calling you Sukea, but…"

He sees this girl willingly standing across the bars from an enemy and can't help but wonder what would have happened to Obito if he had come home with them, if people could have accepted and welcomed him into the village, or if the sins he committed would find him dead not long after the war ended either way.

"Kakashi," he answers with a smile.

"It's true, then," she says. "You're the son of the White Fang."

"Guilty."

She crosses her arms over her chest and leans against the wall, eyeing the books that she brought as an offering. "Can I ask how you ended up here?"

Kakashi knows full well what she means, but he sure won't act like it. "I surrendered."

"I know that ," she huffs. "I was there, remember? I meant to ask how you left the Leaf. Your father was a hero, and… I don't know. It just seems strange to me."

Oh, yes. My father, the hero, who the village strung up and killed. A man who stayed true to his beliefs and was punished for it. My father is the perfect example of everything wrong with this world.

Kakashi tries reading the first page of one of the books, but the return of the voice in his head is too distracting to focus on the words. He wishes there was a warning for when it decided it cared about what was happening around them.

Tell her.

He doesn't like how familiar it's getting with him. Ignoring it just makes its presence in his mind more obvious, like something is watching through his eyes and experiencing the world right there alongside him.

"Maa, the circumstances surrounding my father are a bit unpleasant for me to discuss," he says. "I've already told my story to T&I. I'm sorry, Sakura, but I hope you'll understand."

A monologuing villain he is not.

"Of course."

Before she leaves up the stairs to the higher levels, Sakura looks back at him one last time. "Oh, um. You were friends with Obito-sensei, right? He asked about you after my last visit. I just thought you might want to know."

Kakashi finds himself playing card games with prison guards. That's always fun. Deciding that he should live up to his scary title of supervillain, he cheats on every round. All, or at least most of the guards, have realized this by the third game but can't for the life of them figure out how he's doing it. Instead of stopping the rigged bet and leaving him out of the next round, they keep an eye out to try to catch him in the act. So far, it's doing them no good. Sleight of hand isn't that difficult when compared to his decades-old ANBU training, and he gets into a rhythm before long.

Kotetsu seems to be the only one actually mad about it.

Apparently, Konoha is still kicking up a fuss about what to do with him. Minato has yet to return from the summit, though it's been a few days, and while it seems knowledge of his otherworld origin hasn't left T&I, shinobi in the village are taking notice of how the people in the know are behaving around him and coming to their own conclusions. Kakashi tries not to think about it.

The cheating is just a natural extension of their games. While winning is fun, watching the guards' faces crease as they squint at his every move is more so. They can tell by the looks he's giving them that he isn't trying to hide it which must be all the more infuriating. To end the mystery, they've formed an alliance, reporting their findings amongst themselves. It's him against all of the guards huddled together on the other side of the bars. Seems a bit unfair, doesn't it?

Kakashi expects Genma to figure it out first. He's sharp. The detail-oriented sort, even if he comes across as lazy and disinterested. Out of all of them, he'll be the first to pick out the villain's tells.

This situation is silly, but Kakashi's having fun. There's no telling how long the Hokage will be out of the village or what news he'll come back with. Given Kakashi's luck, there may be an execution in the near future. The guards are helping distract him. It's nice to see all of these familiar faces, too, changed though they may be.

He's still waiting to hear whether he can give Obito's eye back. Minato said that he would see what they could do, but they'll need Obito's consent to go ahead with the surgery and it doesn't seem like Obito's interested. Kakashi really doesn't want the burden of keeping it, though, when he so neatly wrapped up that story beat five years ago.

Kakashi wins again and Kotetsu throws his cards on the floor. They land in a sprawled-out mess, scattered every which way, and everyone laughs at his frustration.

"Don't be a sore loser," Izumo teases.

"He cheats!"

"We know. That's half the fun."

The door at the top of the stairs creaks open and they collectively watch the slow descent of an old friend in Konoha green. Obito takes one look at the lot and tilts his head, his hands shoved into his pockets.

“The hell are you layabouts doing?”

“Playing,” Kakashi supplies helpfully.

“You, shut up.” Obito looks on as Kotetsu scrambles to gather his cards. “Aren’t you supposed to be guarding the gate? What the fuck are you even doing here?”

“The kids took over for a bit,” Izumo explains with a sigh. “We need rest, too, every once in a while.”

“You need rest, so you came here. To play cards with a terrorist.”

Genma grins. “Hey, he’s pretty good. Got us all running for our lives, so to speak.”

It’s a poor choice of words when talking about someone who, only two months ago, stood against the world.

Obito breaks up their game and sends the guards above ground, leaving the two of them to awkwardly stare at each other in the ensuing silence. Obito isn’t looking at him with the same sense of tragedy that he’s brought to Kakashi in all their past encounters. Instead, he’s shuffling his feet and kicking the ground, unable to meet Kakashi’s eyes. Like they’re meeting for the first time, and like he’s nervous.

Like he's caught wind of something he probably shouldn't have.

Kakashi will play it by ear and see where this takes him.

He gives a little wave. "Yo, Obito."

There's a twitch. Just a small one, just enough to show how unnerved his old friend is. He schools neutrality onto his face a little too late to hide it. Then his eyes fall on Kakashi's collection and it sets him off-balance. Whatever he came here to say is forgotten as he scrutinizes the very obvious porn piled next to the terrorist.

"What the fuck is that?"

Kakashi taps the book at the top of the stack and answers with conviction, "Fine literature."

"The hell it is. Kakashi wouldn't—" Obito thinks better of it. " You wouldn't read shit like that."

Oh, he definitely heard rumours.

Kakashi hums. "How strange. It seems that I do. Gratuitously." He slips Icha Icha Paradise free of the pile and wiggles his fingers. "This one's my favourite. You can borrow it if you'd like."

"What? No. I'm not reading your trashy romance novel."

"It's a classic."

"It's porn. "

"What's wrong with porn?"

Obito opens his mouth to say something and then doesn't. The tips of his ears are flushed and—Sage, but he wears his emotions well. Kakashi sees this man and can think of nothing but a boy with obnoxious orange goggles and dreams higher than the Pure Lands.

So, Kakashi takes the initiative. He slips the book through the bars and holds it there. "Give it a read," he suggests. "Who knows? You might like it."

"Yeah, no. I have no fucking interest."

Obito swears a lot in this world. It's a bit cute.

Kakashi wiggles the book a little more dramatically. "Read it," he insists. "I've memorized this one, so I don't need it. Keep it safe, though; this is Sensei's copy."

“I—” Obito makes a face, burning holes into the book with his eyes as he stares at it, and then he takes it between his fingers like it's dirty or something. “...Fine. Whatever."

Obito drags the guards' desk chair over to the bars so he can sit comfortably while doing all that staring he seems so fond of.

Kakashi smiles. Never did he think there would be a day when he could share his thoughts on something that he loves with his old friend. There's so much he never noticed about Obito, like how close they are in height or the way the scars on his face stretch along the muscle beneath his skin, emphasizing every smile and frown.

"I hear T&I has been kicking up a fuss over you," Obito says eventually, his attention still on the book he very much wants nothing to do with that has found its way into his hands.

There it is. Obito’s cast his bait and is fishing for answers. Kakashi waffles between his loyalty to Minato, the first person in this world who was willing to play along with his jokes, and his need to lift Obito's spirits. "Really? I'm flattered."

If he’s not careful, Obito’s going to set Sensei’s book on fire or throw it at Kakashi’s head. That’s no good.

“They’re keeping their mouths shut,” Obito continues, muting the frustration on his face, “but it’s obvious that there’s something going on with you.”

“Well, secrets are fun. Good luck, Obito. You can do it. I believe in you.” Then, when he feels unnatural heat radiating off the jōnin in waves, “Please don’t burn the book. It’s signed.”

Obito takes a breath and quells the rage bubbling below his skin well enough to contain whatever flames were about to erupt. To Kakashi, this one feels like who Obito should have grown up to be. When he finally met up with the one from his world, all that life was dead and gone in Obito. Everything was muted, as though he were nothing but a reflection of himself or a ghost wandering the world in search of peace.

I wish I could have met him. He was never there when I crossed over.

Kakashi blinks, forgetting the outer world for a moment as he prods inwardly at the voice for more of an explanation.

I’ve been there, it says, to your world.

He remembers, then. Kiri-nin felled at his feet, Obito’s body still beneath him, wearing that same arm of foreign cells with hair weighed down by rainwater. His stomach turns. That memory, the one where Rin’s body was not there—that was this world, wasn’t it?

And while Kakashi was here, his counterpart must have been filled his place.

I was there the night she died. That was when you unlocked your Mangekyou, wasn’t it?

Oh.

Throughout the T&I investigations, they’ve only uncovered a small fraction of this body’s memories. Kakashi wonders if the ones they’ve found are only the ones that this body’s owner allows them to see.

“And since Minato-sensei’s been acting strange,” Obito says, pulling Kakashi out of his own head, “I need to know, Kakashi. You understand that, right?”

Kakashi must be missing half of the conversation. It feels like his old friend just went on a long tangent that was completely unheard and he feels bad, really he does, but he has to ask, “Is Rin alive, Obito?”

Obito makes a face, eyes narrowed as he squeezes Icha Icha in his white-knuckled grip. “What kind of question is that?”

“Is she?”

“Yeah,” Obito mutters, “of course she… What’s this about, exactly?”

All he can do is melt against the wall and allow the addicting buzz of relief to wash over him, smiling softly at the man who grew from the boy this body rescued so long ago. Obito is here in Konoha-green, half of his face covered by a hitai-ate and scarred all the same, whole. Rin is here, somewhere in the village. They’re both alive.

This world is wonderful. Brilliant, even.

“Kakashi,” Obito calls, “what’s wrong?”

So what compelled him to ruin it?

Chapter Text

Kakashi’s deeply disappointed in himself for ruining Obito’s last visit with all those strange, sudden revelations. Hopefully, they’ll meet again before the Kage demand his head. In the meantime, Kakashi has made some discoveries, the first of which is that he’s pretty sure his counterpart is still living in this body. It’s not just this body’s thoughts. There’s a soul trapped here with him. That’s mildly horrifying, knowing what this man is capable of, but he seems to have no control over their actions—that’s all Kakashi’s territory.

He’s taken to calling the voice, now so clearly the internal monologue of his mean-spirited self, Sukea, the name he went by in the Akatsuki. Why? Well, because there can only be one Kakashi, of course, and that name belongs to him.

Sukea is more vocal now that he has a name.

It’s my body, he says. You’re the intruder. You take the name.

Kakashi will not. He’ll be tuning the voice out now, too, to read his porn.

Sukea has more control than Kakashi thought—not over their body, but their mindscape. It’s how he’s managed to drag memories to the forefront of Kakashi’s focus, making him watch helplessly as Sukea relives all of his old history not unlike the way Inoichi’s jutsu does. Sukea can also implant images in their head, courtesy of his imagination. Kakashi finds this out when, while reading a particularly raunchy scene in his latest novel, Obito’s naked form takes the place of the heroine in the mental image Sukea creates.

He’s had a hunch for a while now, ever since arriving in this world, but he’s pretty sure Sukea is infatuated with their fiery-tempered Uchiha. Kakashi doesn’t know how he feels about that. It explains why there’s so much noise in his head whenever Obito’s around, though.

Every sex scene he reads from now on will be tainted, won’t it?

Kakashi sighs. He’ll make this sacrifice for the sake of his village. At least Sukea can’t hurt anybody… except for Kakashi, and who knows how long he’ll be around for?

The day he gets to meet Rin finally comes. She's standing where Obito usually stands, sizing him up, looking for all the world like she wants to be anywhere else. But she's all grown up now. In this world, she gets to live.

Until a few days ago, Kakashi didn't even know she was still around. He assumed she was dead and gone and that, like his world's Obito, she acted as a catalyst for Sukea's warped downward spiral. But if that isn't the case then what set Sukea down the path he took?

To this, Sukea doesn't answer. He'll rarely pass up the chance to monologue but there are some things even he doesn't like talking about.

Rin sizes him up and sighs. She's all dressed up as a hospital medic, and it makes sense why she hasn't stopped by before now; hospital medics rarely have a moment to themselves. "You're in a sorry state, Kakashi," she says. "What happened to your eye?"

Kakashi prods Sukea for an answer. He's been wanting to know that, too.

Tossed it, Sukea declares.

"I tossed it," Kakashi repeats.

Rin frowns. "Why would you do that? Eyes don't grow on trees."

The image supplied to his mind begs to differ. It turns Kakashi's stomach to see just how many Sharingan his counterpart harvested from the Uchiha massacre. This time, he doesn't say anything.

He tries not to think about his last memory of Rin. He tries very, very hard.

"What would you have done after the war? You couldn't maintain that chakra drain forever."

I didn't plan to make it to the end of the war.

This, too, Kakashi doesn't say.

I'm so tired, Rin. I just want to rest.

Did Obito feel like this?

"Anyway," Rin mutters as she unlocks his cell door and steps inside, crossing over to where he sits on the floor and kneeling before him. "Sensei says you want to give the Sharingan back to Obito. He'll never agree to that, but I'm going to check your pathways anyway to see how viable a second transplant is."

Kakashi nods and is perfectly compliant as chakra sparks through his eye in an itchy, tingling way that he absolutely hates. It's silent between them. She doesn't ask how he ended up where he is or what happened to him like everyone else does, and he's grateful. There's only so much of that he can take.

Rin pulls her hand back but her eyes linger for far too long on his Rinnegan. "It's viable. But like I said, he'll never agree to it."

Kakashi tilts his head. "Why not?"

It was a gift.

"It was a gift," she shrugs. It's eerie how much she sounds like Sukea when she says it. "He never regretted giving it to you, even if it caused him a lot of struggles in the beginning. Even when he brings you up these days, it's never about the Sharingan."

"He talks about me?"

"Ugh, don't get me started," she groans as she slips back out of the cell, locking the door behind her. "Did you know that he has a weird theory about you?"

He smiles, recounting their words together when they last met. "I can hazard a guess."

Rin doesn't stick around. This isn't a social visit, it's business, and he knows better than to forget that. Unlike the visitors before her, she's not holding onto any curiosity about him. She must have tossed away her sentimentality when she found out the role that he played in the war. That's fine. That's all he deserves.

But when she turns to leave, he makes sure to tell her, "I'm glad you're okay."

Kakashi is bored of reading and has once more taken to lying on the floor and contemplating his life choices. Sukea must be bored, too; Kakashi can feel foreign irritation mixing with his own to form one big ball of misery. Well, Sukea should be used to this, shouldn't he? He's spent so many years alone.

I wasn't sitting on my hands all that time, Sukea protests. I was moving forward with the Eye of the Moon plan. I didn't have hours to waste like this.

But he had time to skulk around Konoha and watch Obito at a distance.

I missed him.

Kakashi won't fall for it. If Sukea missed his teammate so much, he could have returned to the village at any time. But at some point, that plan of his became more important to him than the people he cared about most. His infatuation with falling into the perfect delusion was so powerful that he attacked Konoha's jinchuuriki and tore the fox from its seal.

It wasn't for me, Sukea insists. It was for them.

Kakashi takes a heavy breath and tries not to let it bother him. They've talked about this several times over and they never get anywhere. His counterpart's arguments are cyclical, and they always come to the same conclusions. It's frustrating, yes, but it's also a sobering reminder of the Obito that he lost, stuck in a perpetual loop for the majority of his life, forced to walk the same stony path every day because he couldn't find a way off it. In a way… It's possible that the seal on their heart is still active and is still affecting Sukea, even now. And if it's anything like the one that acted as Obito's ball and chain, then Sukea's mind is a mess that neither of them will ever be able to sort through.

He died with regrets, didn't he? Your Obito.

Kakashi closes his eyes and tries not to think about it. By the end of the war, Obito was a walking corpse. It was only once he started feeling those regrets that he opened up, but by then it was too late. There was no fixing the damage that had been done, and moon goddess or not, Obito would not have seen tomorrow.

But Kakashi likes to think that there was something at the end. That the friend he watched break apart before his eyes was finally, after wandering so long in the dark, at peace.

Kakashi doesn't like having Sukea around. He always makes the days so depressing.

When Minato emerges from whatever far-off land he's been staying in, it's the middle of the night. Kakashi is trying to sleep, kept awake by the ever-increasing activity of this body's owner, and he's grateful for the distraction.

Even if his sensei may be the messenger of unsavoury news.

"You wouldn't happen to be sleeping, would you?" Minato asks, tilting his head with his hands in the pockets of his fatigues. He rarely dresses for his station; he must have stopped by his house to change after returning from the summit.

Kakashi yawns and stretches, picking his aching body up off the floor. "Maa, Sensei, it's rude to bother people at night."

"I know, but I have news you might like to hear."

"You got me acquitted?"

"You've—" Minato blinks, frowning. "Did Naruto tell you?"

Kakashi sighs, acting ever so burdened when he's just happy to see Minato again. There's something so youthful about the spark in his eyes when he's excited about something. It's adorable. And tragic. "I took a shot in the dark and happened to be correct. I assume it's not a full pardon, though. What are their conditions?"

Poor Minato, the wind's been taken out of his sails. He rubs the back of his neck and hides his mild disappointment. "Well, chakra binding, for one. We'll get you some lighter dampeners that aren't so cumbersome." Honestly, they've already switched out the heavy shackles for bangles, so Kakashi can't complain. "They wanted me to seal your chakra completely, but when I explained that I would have to remove the seals on your eyes to do so safely, it made them uncomfortable."

"Hm." It's fair enough. Kakashi wouldn't be able to use his dōjutsu without chakra, so a full chakra bind would have worked fine on its own, but he understands the Kage wanting a failsafe in place.

"And while I can get you out of here now, you won't exactly be free. You'll need a guard, someone to supervise you."

"A babysitter," Kakashi says. "Maa, that's fine by me, Sensei. By this point, I'm used to being watched. But I don't think there's a person alive right now who could stand being stuck with me for an extended period of time." If not him, then Sukea. Even Kakashi wants to get away.

"I wouldn't worry," Minato says, smiling warmly. "There's always someone, Kakashi."

This isn't what Kakashi was expecting. It's not completely out of left field, either, and he's sure that Sukea, at least, is pleased by the outcome.

Obito stands across the bars, full scowl in place like someone pissed in his miso. He crosses his arms and leans to the side, drowning in clothes similar to the last thing Kakashi remembers seeing his counterpart wear, which is sobering enough. Usually, this Obito takes to more practical clothing. Baggy sleeves aren't great in combat.

"Let's move," Obito grumbles with absolutely no explanation. "Gather your things. We don't have all day."

Well, no. Kakashi has all the time in the world. For the first time since his coronation, he has nowhere to be. It's freeing, in a way, even if he's a certified convict. He knows that Obito must have time, too, if he’s willingly offering himself up as the new personal guard of said convict.

Kakashi has questions. The first is, “Where are we going?”

Obito sighs but doesn’t answer.

The second is, “Why?”

“We’re not about to let you off the hook just because you had a change of heart.”

“That’s not what I was asking.”

“I don’t like being left out of the loop,” his old friend bluntly admits. “If no one is going to share, I’ll figure it out myself.”

In other words: he wants to put his theories to the test. It’s likely that in time, Kakashi’s identity will become public knowledge. For now, though, the Kage must not want word to spread until they have more to go off of than Kakashi’s memories alone. Minato’s already explained that he’ll need to continue with the tests he was going through here even if he’s removed from prison. That’s all well and good, he’s not sure what else there is to gain when this body belongs to this world.

Oh, wait. There is one thing.

“Move it, Hatake.”

“Maa, Obito, it’s never too late to learn manners.”

“Oh, you’re right, I’m sorry: please move it the fuck along. ”

“Better.”

It’s always nice to have someone around with a short fuse.

Kakashi doesn’t have much to his name other than a few stacks of books. Obito passes a storage scroll through the bars, but Kakashi can’t do anything with it courtesy of the chakra dampeners, so his new guard is forced into the cell with him to pack up Kakashi’s things instead. Unlike Kakashi, who only cared about his reading material, Obito gathers the cup ramen gifts still sitting by the back wall, the extra pillows Sakura dropped off yesterday when he complained about his back and the deck of cards Genma and the rest gave him to pass the hours. As he piles it up on top of the open scroll, Kakashi watches from the bed.

“There’s something I forgot to tell Sensei,” he confesses, causing the Uchiha’s hands to still.

“I’ll relay the message. What is it?” Obito presses his hands to the corners of the scroll and it lights up, all of Kakashi’s personal effects sinking into it one by one.

“It’s nothing important,” he assures, dismissing the issue already, “but I seem to have a seal placed over my heart.”

The scroll clatters to the ground, slipping free of Obito’s fingers as they stand across from one another. “What?”

Kakashi smiles with false cheer to diffuse the very sudden, unwarranted tension. “Maa, as I said, it’s nothing—”

“What kind of seal?”

Obito’s worried. Despite everything, a part of this man still cares for him, even now. Kakashi’s smile fades. He won’t dismiss an old friend’s feelings, and he’s not insensitive enough to tease right now. When he wonders why he still matters to this man, he sees himself as a hypocrite. Despite all that the Obito he knew did, every wrong and all the pain left in his wake, Kakashi could never hate him. If that Obito returned to Konoha as a prisoner of war, Kakashi’s heart would bleed the same way it did at Kannabi Bridge.

“I don’t know the specifics,” Kakashi confesses. “It was placed on me by Madara, but I think it’s been modified since then.”

“The owner of that body,” Obito shudders out a breath, “is he the one who modified it?”

Obito knows. Nobody’s told him, but he’s figured it out all on his own.

Not knowing what to say, he can only nod.

Kakashi doesn’t get to see where he’ll stay for the next leg of this adventure because Obito’s too worried about the seal to see him out of prison. He’s brought to one of the higher levels where the infirmary is kept, a pair of high-clearance guards watching the door, and across from him on one of the chairs Obito sits with his ankle on his knee and his foot tapping away with nerves. He looks like a disgruntled parent whose child got injured at the academy and is now hell-bent on bringing down the whole training system.

On the plus side: he thinks he found the source of the leak. There’s a damaged roof in the corner of the room with grey skies behind it and a bucket below, cracks all down the wall. This room sits directly above Kakashi’s cell and there’s a caution sign sitting in front of the damage, so that marks the end of that little mystery.

Contrary to what his frequent visits may have people think, Minato is a busy man and calling for him out of the blue isn’t going to yield much unless there’s a threat to the village. As such, the two of them wait here, the storage scroll stowed away on Obito’s belt loop, for well over an hour. It’s an awkward affair that neither enjoys, mostly because Obito’s stress is seeping into the air between them.

Sukea’s pretty content, though. He’s not talking, but Kakashi can feel it.

If he was that obsessed with Obito, Sukea could have abandoned his plans to end the world and maybe courted him a little.

He wouldn’t have me.

Well, now he sure wouldn’t.

Any happiness it may have brought would be momentary. You can’t save a spoiled apple. Just because you can’t see the rot, that doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Always such a pleasure.

Kakashi goes to ask something just as Obito opens his mouth and they fall silent again, waiting for the other to speak. Kakashi is too old to play these games, so he relents first. “It seems you sniffed out one of my secrets. I’m curious how. Did Sensei tell you?”

Obito’s mouth twitches. He won’t look away, though, that glare directed straight at Kakashi. “He’s not in the habit of sharing. I put it together when I saw how the T&I guys were treating you. Didn’t think I was right. ”

That still doesn’t explain how Obito looked at his fellow shinobi, saw that they were treating their prisoner well, and jumped to the conclusion that there was someone else wearing his teammate’s skin, even if Kakashi teased his other-worldly origins. Kakashi won’t press; far be it for him to question how Obito’s mind works when his own is split between himself and a monologuing villain.

After another break in the conversation, Obito knits his hands together and leans forward on the chair, finally daring to look somewhere other than Kakashi. “Just who are you, exactly?”

“Kakashi,” he supplies helpfully.

“Don’t give me that crap.”

“It’s true,” he pouts. “But I don’t belong to this world. Ask Sensei if you want more details.” He doesn't like explaining things the easy way. It's too much of a chore and it's much more believable if the people here learn the truth from a credible source. Anything that comes from the mouth of a terrorist is bound to sound like a lie. Minato's credible; he couldn't tell a convincing lie if he tried.

When Minato finally enters, Kakashi's grateful for the break in awkward tension. He greets the Hokage with his usual little wave, but Minato isn't smiling today. It seems that mention of the seal has everyone ruffled.

"Kakashi," he scolds in that teacherly way only Minato can, "why didn't you tell me?"

"Quite honestly? I forgot."

Minato rolls up a chair and has Kakashi remove his shirt. He feels eyes on his bare skin, staring straight at his collarbone, but when he looks down at himself, all he can see are scars below that, down his chest and stomach, small and old and so different from his own. In all this time, he has yet to see his reflection, so he doesn't know what other people see when they look at him.

His sensei is as prepared as ever, setting a sealing kit down next to Kakashi on the infirmary bed and pulling his tools free. "What effect is it having on you?"

"Currently? None."

Both shinobi remain skeptical.

"Honest. I've watched for symptoms ever since I arrived here but haven't noticed any," he says. "Well. Not my own . "

"What do you mean?"

"It still seems to be affecting him , though I can't be sure."

He's keeping it vague because he doesn't think Obito is ready to tackle all that he's shared with Minato at once. Obito's already grappling with the fact that this man who looks like his childhood friend isn't. Telling him that there's a little voice in Kakashi's head who monologues and has, on separate occasions, imagined him naked, is maybe not wise.

The seal must not store chakra if Minato never noticed it before now. It isn't on Kakshi's skin (not the root of it, anyway), so they have to dig deeper to find it but, eventually, Minato grabs the paper and pen from his kit and copies out the pattern of the seal, each stroke even and smooth.

"Seals on the heart are said to be impossible to nullify," Minato mutters, "but there's no such thing as an unbreakable seal. The fact that it’s been altered at all is a testament to that. I'll look into this on my own time and get back to you when I can."

Kakashi salutes him teasingly. It's not appreciated.

"You're sure it's not affecting you?"

"Not in the least."

"Okay. I'm trusting you. Obito," Minato twists around to find his student in the chair against the wall. "Continue with your duties for now and report back to me if there are any changes. I wouldn't worry; he should be fine."

Obito gathers himself off his chair and huffs, insulted by the idea that he would ever worry over a war criminal, but it's hard to miss the ease of his shoulders.

Kakashi doesn't deserve all the love he's been given. He hopes that, during his stay here, there will be ample time to return it.

This Konoha isn't the one that he knows. He saw a bit of it when he was being led to the prison, but the path was streamlined and the crowds mitigated any notable differences along the way. This time, he gets to see the bare side streets of a world he hardly knows, and something is charming about it. It's like a warped reflection of his village; the layout is the same but the architecture is different. Some of the shops are in new places, but the shinobi residential district is exactly as he remembers.

Well, mostly. They pass by the corner that his old apartment building was on and in its place sits a two-story house, so there are changes still. But even if he were alone, he could find his way around. Something in him finds familiarity in it. It's the part of him that's Sukea, he thinks. The part of him that this body knows, the part that he's repressing. Sukea's intimately familiar with this village even long after leaving it.

When they come into view of Kakashi's old home, he thinks this must not be real. It's not where he left it, and they have to duck down a back alley to reach the front door. Of course, his eyes catch it. That's only natural. But he's entirely confused when Obito leaves him and the guards flanking his sides to waltz straight up to it and drop the wards.

This is Obito's house. Oh dear.

Kakashi's no sensor but he's been in ANBU long enough to feel out the team scattered about the rooftops nearby, cloaked though they may be. This will be his new prison.

Sage, help them all.

The guards lead him up the steps and hand him off to his new warden. It's late, several hours later than they intended it to be because of their seal detour earlier, and the only light between them is from street lamps overhead. Obito waits until they're alone, or as alone as they'll ever get, and stares at the door.

"Let me be clear: I think you've fucking lost it," he spits. "But what does it matter? You haven't been in your right mind since we were kids. Maybe I’ve lost it, too."

The worst part of it all is that, for the very first time, Sukea laughs. You’ve always known me best.

“Whoever you think you are, it doesn’t change what you’ve done. Don’t forget that.”

Kakashi lets out a shuddering breath, the voice in his head quieted for a moment. “I won’t.”

The landscaping outside could easily be a coincidence. Houses built in the same era tend to share a similar structure, and that goes double for old homes like his that were built en mass after the Third War. But when Kakashi steps into the lobby and is faced with the very same steps that may as well have ended his life back home, he takes a moment to soak it in. This house isn’t just similar to the one he owns; the layout is identical. It's his home. There's even a little garden out back, and he has to wonder if Obito would mind terribly if he woke up to find eight dogs hanging out back there.

He also wonders if he can even summon his ninken to this world. Hm.

This Obito led a richer life than he ever did. There’s something to him that feels alive in a way that’s been dead and gone in Kakashi for most of his life, something that he only started to regain at the end of the war. He sees it in the photos decorating the wall above the stairs and in the clutter all throughout the house. For all that their roles are reversed here, Obito is not the walking husk of a man that Kakashi was. The pieces of his life scattered around his home are proof of that.

Kakashi isn’t given much of a tour, not that he needs one. Obito walks him down the main halls of the first and second floors and leaves him in a spare room upstairs to unpack. Of course, he can’t do that without his new warden’s aid, so Obito begrudgingly releases the seal on the storage scroll and everything shoved into it from the prison spills out across the floor. And, of course, Kakashi is left to figure the rest out on his own.

He’s already missing the random visits from his kids. Kakashi is good at repressing a lot of things, but if the only person he’s around is Obito then he’s not sure for how long he can hold back old traumas.

It’s one of those things he can’t forget, like the rush of Rin’s body limp on his arm, her hot blood cooling in the open air, or the weight that he carried when he returned from Kannabi Bridge. Obito’s face as that mask cracked and the untold horrors of the man revealed beneath it.

Kakashi loved Obito. Or, maybe it’s more accurate to say that he loved the idea of Obito. For one brief moment in life, when that dead-last brat was screaming in his face, the world made sense. It was the first time he felt that way after his father’s passing and the moment he remembered his love for the village, the loyalty branded onto him from his first breath to his last. When the moment he clung to was ripped from his hands and the truth laid bare across the battlefield, it broke him.

He’s placing the extra pillows on the bed when clothes are thrown at him, falling over his head. He turns numbly to the door to where Obito stands, leaning against the frame, his body always slouching or leaning or hunched or crouched. “Lose those rags and take a shower. You smell like mildew and sadness.”

Obito doesn’t stick around after that, and the clothes he threw must be from his own wardrobe because they bear markers of the Uchiha crest. Kakashi pulls them off his head and stares at the tight knit of the fabric, running his thumb along a seam as he blinks away old memories, and smiles.

All it takes is a reminder that Obito is here to chase away those seeds of regret.

Kakashi wants to make a good impression on his new warden, so he heads back down to the main floor to find the bathroom. He stops partway there, poking his head into the living room. There’s a book half-read on the chabudai, a page marked with a bent corner, and he reads the title with amusement.

Icha Icha Paradise.

Obito's lounging on the couch, staring at it like it personally wronged him. But he's reading it.

“How far are you?”

Obito just glares at him. That suits Kakashi just fine. He doesn't actually need an answer. He's read Icha Icha Paradise more times than he can count and the dog-eared page puts Obito in or around chapter eleven, so he's read through the first bit of smut at least. Chapter fourteen is where Jiraiya's skill and depth really shine through, and it was reading that chapter that made Kakashi fall in love with the series all those years ago. In just seven pages, the book goes from aimless smut to something soulful.

"Maa, keep tissues nearby," he cautions. "Read any further and you'll cry."

Obito grabs the book off the table and shoves it behind one of the throw pillows to get Kakashi's eyes off it. Must be embarrassed. "I'm not gonna cry over smut."

"It's not just smut," he supplies helpfully. "It's a love story."

"It's porn. "

Kakashi sighs. "You just don't understand art."

The one problem with chakra dampener cuffs is how sweaty and itchy you get after wearing them long enough. Unfortunately, these cuffs are now a permanent fixture on him, so Kakashi will just have to deal.

He steps into the bathroom and the door clicks shut, leaving him to stare blankly at this all too familiar space. It looks exactly like his own, save for the toiletries that Obito uses and the frosted window at the back. When he's alone like this, it feels like the past few weeks have been nothing but a long dream. Except, well.

There's the gnawing feeling that he's never truly alone.

For the very first time, Kakashi gets to see what he looks like. The mirror shows him a ragged, world-worn man who's been ripped away from death's door moments before the end. His hair is a little longer than he kept it back home, but he already noticed the way his bangs fall into his face now and then. He's unshaven, too, and grateful to note that Obito has a little goodie bag of toiletries sitting on the counter for him. Most jarring of all is the Rinnegan, and its swirling void paints grim images in his head as he looks at it. Minato-sensei's seals are in place. They won't be visible unless he kneads chakra, and that isn't possible in his current state, having lost control of his pathways because of the dampeners.

It's been a while since he looked at himself and saw Obito's gift. He doesn't know how to feel about it, there with an old scar on his right eye and not his left. For five years now it's been gone and he's adjusted to not seeing it, but here it is again, back like a sickness and taking up a whole new space in his head.

Kakashi showers. The heat against his skin is a luxury he hasn’t known since arriving here as the prison's showers only stay warm for ten minutes at a time, and he indulges in it until the air is thick with steam and breathing in makes him feel like he’s drowning. By the time he turns off the taps, his skin is a raw, abused red and he feels like a human being.

He stares at himself as he towels off the residual droplets. This body doesn’t have as many scars as his own. That may be thanks to Kamui, he thinks, and its ability to make him untouchable. As he considers his chest and arms, untouched save the oldest threads of battle that tie together the pieces of his past, he wonders how this affected Sukea. Incorporeal, like a phantom. Like he was already long dead, wandering the world with nothing but the drive to accomplish… something. The seal on his heart would twist his thoughts, but Kakashi doesn’t have the experience to know how, exactly, that feels.

No matter how hard I looked, there was no way out, Sukea says. Behind his eyes, someone else watches, seeing the body that he wears, the same scars and skin, history written with age. It was like being trapped underwater and running out of air. Whenever something breached the surface I reached for it, hoping that someone would save me, but I could never grasp it. I kept sinking but didn't die. But still, I could not breathe.

Kakashi feels that crushing weight in his chest all his own and he's not in the bathroom but standing over a kitchen sink with blood that won't leave, his hands and sleeves stained with it.

It's as he's pulling over the baggy shirt Obito gave him that he notices a mark that he missed, traitor branded in carved letters just below his collarbone. He presses his fingers to it, feeling the distress of poorly-recovered scar tissue that would look more in place on his body back home. It's a knife wound, intentional in its lettering, a mark that's been there for a long, long time.

Kakashi doesn't ask and Sukea doesn't say. They stand there together, feeling the reality of their self-imposed regret and the different ways they view it.

He doesn't dwell on it. Instead, he thanks the Sage as he discards his Akatsuki robes into the bin by the sink, hoping to never see them again. Obito's clothes fit him well. They're loose and baggy, something he's not used to, but he likes the idea of seeing Obito in plainclothes, grateful the two of them don't share the habit of always wearing their fatigues.

Steam rolls out into the hall when he opens the bathroom door. There's no hot water left, so Obito better not be looking to bathe. In the living room, he sees his old friend flushed, his eyes burning red as he holds a throw pillow in his lap. He's not crying. Not yet. But there's a shine to his eyes that says he will. Ah. He's reading chapter fourteen.

Kakashi leans in the doorway and enjoys the view, hands shoved lazily into his pockets. Obito doesn't notice at first—too busy turning the page and wiping his face on his sleeve.

"I told you that you'd cry."

Obito tenses but doesn't look up. For someone so bold, he should be better at facing Kakashi head-on. "I'm not."

"Crybaby ninja."

"I said I'm not. "

Kakashi shrugs and walks upstairs. He doesn't need to stick around to see how Obito seeths and when he turns away it's hard not to smile.

Teasing. He missed teasing.

When he's with Obito, he feels like a kid again. Before Kannabi Bridge, before his father's moonlit corpse and his first time in T&I. Back when all he wanted was to be a hero like his father and couldn't wait to grow up.

Isn't that the strangest thing?

Chapter Text

Living with Obito is dangerous. Waking up in the morning to a knock at the spare room door and the tired rasp of a man half asleep is an experience in its own right, but Sukea makes it all the more challenging.

Sukea can't regain control of the body, loathe as he is to admit it. But the longer they’re together, the more naturally his experiences affect Kakashi, intentional or not. So when the voice of Sukea's long-time obsession wakes him up in the morning, Kakashi nearly has a heart attack. Fortunately, his is a quiet affair, unnoticed by his warden.

"Wake up," comes the command through the door, followed by a yawn. "I won’t be as lax as your last guards were. We’ve got a long day ahead of us and you have an hour until we head out. Don't waste it."

Joy.

This prison is a little fancier than his last one; he can move about unsupervised and has a room all to himself, complete with four walls and privacy curtains. 'Freedom' isn't quite the word for it; the house is warded to hell and back and Obito's chakra signature is the only key, so even if he had access to his chakra, there isn't much he could do. There's a team of ANBU outside running eight-hour shifts and then, of course, there's Obito, a tank of a jōnin if ever there were one. But Kakashi doesn't mind this sort of life. It's more than he deserves.

Kakashi stands in the kitchen, staring at the empty fridge with the numb realization that Obito would have starved him were it not for Naruto's bountiful gift of cup ramen. The shelves are bare. So is the freezer. The cupboards. The only food at all is what came with him in that storage scroll and there aren't even food pills or ration bars lying around.

Numbly accepting whatever bullshit revelation this is, Kakashi boils the kettle and preps two of Naruto's offerings, appreciating the boy all over again as he does so. Once finished, Obito sits at the table, staring at the instant meal with vague disdain, his chin in his hand.

"If this is your idea of winning me over, you'll have to try harder. I don't need to eat."

"Maa, you're so prickly in the morning. I'm not bribing you—Sage knows I'd come up with a better offering than cup ramen." Not to say anything about Naruto’s offering, of course. To him, ramen is the highest tier of gift.

Kakashi sits at the table, stirring his noodles with chopsticks as Obito watches on with narrowed eyes and a sour face. He wonders if this man is similarly bad at caring for himself the way Kakashi is, but the tug on his mind that Sukea offers has memories attached. Old images flash behind his eyes of a young boy staring at his plate as the people around him eat. Lovely to know that Sukea hung around for those moments, too, isn't it?

Obito doesn't get hungry, Sukea supplies helpfully. Oh, sure, when Obito is involved, he’ll run his mouth. But anything about them? Perish the thought if more than a word is dragged out of him by force. Think of him as a plant. Water him and give him lots of sunlight, and he’ll thrive.

Hm.

Kakashi stares at the scars on Obito's skin and the foreign cells, all climbing up from the left side and not the right, this world a mirror image of his own, and he thinks he understands. It might have to do with Obito's use of Mokuton. But none of that matters to him.

He slides the mixed noodles across the table to his old friend and takes Obito's for himself before they go soggy.

"Eat," he urges. "I want to share a meal with you "

Obito picks at his food and only takes his first mouthful when Kakashi's half finished. They don't say anything. It's hard to thread connections when their history is frayed and at the end of the day, these two are strangers. Sharing one meal won't bring them together any more than sharing a body will change Sukea's ideals, but having someone there while Kakashi eats, even if they don't say anything, makes him feel more like a human.

First on today's agenda is a trip to Konoha Hospital for a proper medical exam. The whole thing is blown way out of proportion. A team of ANBU chaperone him alongside Obito—Tenzō among them, he’s happy to note—and when they enter the building, they draw the eyes of every staff member and patient they happen to walk by. If Kakashi has to guess, he suspects that not many people know who he is outside of the entourage that returned him to the village and a few shinobi already familiar with his name. There hasn’t been a formal trial for him since every decision made about his fate has happened in the quiet of the Kage summits. Under normal circumstances, the Hokage would wait until the investigation is over to either share the truth with Konoha or bury it, but Kakashi is now considered an innocent trapped in the body of a monster, which complicates things. Minato probably doesn’t want to have his name out there in the masses, but with the display they’re making now, word will spread. Soon, the name of the White Fang’s son will be in the mouths of civilians again.

Kakashi’s not one for the spotlight, contrary to what stories of his accomplishments back home may have people think. Living quietly is a small, unattainable dream of his, always ripped away by obligation and chained down by the expectations of his village. Now, he gets to play terrorist. His presence chokes up the halls as he passes through, whispers already spreading like sickness among his onlookers. The last time his name sucked the air out of a room like this was when they first called him Friend Killer, so it’s been a while.

It wasn’t fair of them to brand you at such a young age, Sukea says. You didn’t deserve that.

Justice is a tricky concept for him. When so much of history is biased and soiled, fairness stops being an important part of the present. The idea that he didn’t deserve that title never even crossed his mind. Yet Sukea says it so casually, as though announcing the weather.

It’s one of the things I hate about Konoha. These fools are so indoctrinated with the beliefs of their government that they blindly shun all who oppose it. They did it to Dad. To you, even. You followed the rules and protected the village and still, you were branded. You weren’t good enough. Yet they made you their Kage.

Briefly, Kakashi understands. It’s unsettling. He shakes free of that momentary connection, wary of what it means, but it lingers at the back of his mind.

Well. Until he sees Obito’s back and his eyes drift lower, and suddenly Sukea’s too distracted by his imagination to continue his speech. Kakashi feels bad for all these inappropriate thoughts aimed at his old friend, even if they’re beyond his control.

Relief is a private room far away from the prying eyes of the locals and the ripe new gossip that will soon flood the streets, a strange man with stranger eyes being escorted by masked ANBU guards through the hospital. The ANBU remain on the far side of the door while he and Obito take a seat, which is as nice as it is disappointing because he’d love to share some words with Tenzō. There are a few people he’s still longing for after not seeing them in so long. Gai is one of them. He thought surely his old rival would come to visit him in prison, crying tears of virtue over his traitorous self, but it’s been a lonely affair.

Obito’s not the patient type and it seems he can’t wait in silence for longer than ten minutes, but that’s what Kakashi likes about him. “You claim to be from another world. What do you mean by that, exactly?”

“I never made any claims,” he corrects just to be difficult. “I simply made a what-if statement. You filled in the rest yourself.”

“Shut up, you know what I mean. You’re such a bastard.”

He knows. He delights in it.

Deciding he should make more friends if he’s going to stay here long-term, Kakashi puts some thought into how he should tackle that question. “I’m still Kakashi,” he reaffirms, “but the world I’m from differs greatly from this one.”

“How so?”

“Well,” he sighs, “we lost you at Kannabi Bridge. Rin, shortly after.”

Obito’s been fixing his gaze on the wall but he’s looking now, peeking out of the corner of his eye.

Kakashi has no qualms about telling Obito his story. It’s not because all of T&I already knows it (though that helps) but because this is Obito. His or not, this man once meant the world to him. Even now, all he wants is to help. It doesn’t matter that he’s laying bare his life to someone he only just met, or how Obito views him. “I joined ANBU after losing my teammates. It was meant to be a temporary thing, but I captained a team and stayed on for a few years.”

“You, too?” Kakashi’s stomach knots as one more overlap between them presents itself. He doesn’t like the idea of this man, burning hot like fire and bright as the sun, going through those same painful years of taking and killing, watching blood spray across foreign lands until he became numb to it. “Was it after the Kyuubi attack?”

“Before,” he says, genuinely shocked at Obito’s interest. Despite their talk yesterday, he honestly expected Obito to treat him like a liar. But Obito believes him. What’s his next move, then? Does he await another question? Press on with more details? Tell him about the driving force behind that attack? Don’t you dare. “We lost Rin to Kiri and I wasn’t fairing well. I suppose Sensei thought of it as a way to shift my focus, so he requested my service.”

Obito clicks his tongue and slouches back in his chair, his fingers intertwined as he struggles through some internal debate. Even quiet, he’s easy to read. “That’s a load of shit. How would the Black Ops unit help with trauma?” Then, haltingly, “I served after the attack. A lot of my predecessors died and we needed manpower. We’d just lost our jinchuuriki; we couldn’t afford to lose our Kage.”

There’s a moment of pause between them as Obito drums his fingers. He has so much trouble sitting still when he’s nervous; he moves like a spark in the night. But this sort of company is just what Kakashi needs right now. This, he thinks, is something he’s growing comfortable with. Well. Until Obito’s trust becomes real when he twists around and pulls up his sleeve to reveal the small, familiar stamp of red ink there, branding him Konoha-loyal. It looks strange on him, as though it belongs to someone else. The boy Kakashi grew up with should never have had that branded onto him. He wasn’t meant for that life. And the boy he saw in that storage closet, falling to pieces as tears stung Kakashi’s eyes and he begged the Sage, please don’t let him die —

That boy shouldn’t be here right now, wearing that mark. Sukea wished for nothing but Obito’s happiness.

When the staring gets to be too much, Obito leans away and lowers his sleeve, averting his eyes to the wall once more. “I’d ask to see yours, but that’s not your body, is it?”

Kakashi lets out a shuddering breath and fingers the edge of his seat. “No, no it’s not.”

“Where is he?”

“Hm?”

“Our Kakashi. Where is he?”

Ah. Well.

It’s at this moment that Kakashi realizes he’s neglected to share one very crucial detail about his situation. It felt wrong to dump that on Obito yesterday, but now that he’s being asked, all he can do is stall as he wonders how best to break the ice.

You don’t need to tell him. Knowing the truth won’t make a difference.

While that’s all well and good for Sukea, Kakashi doesn’t imagine Obito’s going to take all that well to his question being denied, and Kakashi owes this to him.

The door at the front of the room opens and saves him from himself. Kakashi’s stress melts away and doubles all at once.

Rin is such a joy to see, even if she looks at him like he’s the dirt beneath her shoes. Or maybe it’s because of that. Kakashi won’t wonder what that means for him as a person. She does her best to ignore him straight from the moment of her entry and greets Obito like he’s the room’s sole occupant as she picks up the instructions left on the desk. She skims them with one hand shoved lazily into the pocket of her lab coat, her reading glasses falling down her nose in a charming way that doesn’t befit the sour look on her face.

“Lord Fourth’s given me quite the list,” she sighs, looking up from her clipboard and finding Obito. “He wants all this done today ? Why the rush?”

Now that he’s not the only one responsible for the terrorist and their heavy topic of conversation is cast aside, Obito eases up a bit, throwing his arms behind his head. “He has a seal on his heart. I assume that’s why.”

“Sensei’s the seal master,” Rin counters childishly as she guides Kakashi by the arm to the scale at the far end of the room. She casts her eyes to the number on display and then goes to jot it down, only to realize she can’t find her pen. A new search begins on the desk before she finds one, scribbling it out in her doctor’s scrawl. “You don’t need a medic to tell you that you’re underweight, do you, Kakashi?”

“I had a hunch,” he says offhandedly. Sukea had no regard for his health, so nothing comes as a surprise anymore. But with the regular prison meals and the excess sleep he’s been getting, Kakashi feels better by the day.

“Sensei probably wants to make sure his heart’s in working order.” Obito sighs, scratching his head. “C’mon, Rin. Since when are you this petty?”

“Since he has me working with the perpetrator of the Fourth Shinobi War,” Rin mutters bitterly. For all of her complaints, she’s mindful of Kakashi as she ushers him back over to the bed and doesn’t hesitate to set up the room. Her words are sour, but she’s not as miserable about this as she makes herself out to be. Beneath her indifference, there may be a part of her that misses her teammate.

After your Rin died, I couldn’t sleep. I needed to check on her to make sure it wasn’t real. For the longest time, I thought it was a dream.

“To start, I’ll need you to strip for me,” Rin says, pulling Kakashi away from Sukea’s solemn quiet. “Would you like me to send Obito out?”

“I’m his guardian —”

“And you can wait out in the hall with the ANBU.”

Kakashi listens to them with fond nostalgia. They used to bicker a bit in their genin days, but those habits have grown with them into adulthood. Obito’s boyhood crush seems to have been dealt with, if it was even a thing in his world.

It was, Sukea answers. Sage, but that boy was exhausting.

Kakashi understands, but sympathizing with Sukea feels dirty.

He was sweet, though, when he looked at her. Like she was all the light in the world and the stars above.

When he talks like this, he doesn’t seem like the same voice Kakashi fought with only months ago, at the start of this journey. All this time together is damn near making him feel human, and all that taint in his brain, that rot, I’ll save them all, is so far away.

“Maa, I don’t mind,” Kakashi says, a crescent-eyed smile there to diffuse Rin’s skepticism. “I have nothing to hide.”

Kakashi is allowed his underwear, so he gets to keep his modesty. That’s nice. Back home, he’s been poked and prodded by so many medics that his bare body on display means little to him—he has the Sharingan and chakra exhaustion to thank for that—but he can feel the tight curl of dread in his stomach from Sukea, and it’s awfully similar to how it felt when he took off his shirt in front of Obito and Minato. Sukea doesn’t want this. At least he isn’t making a fuss out of it.

When Kakashi disrobes, he feels their eyes tracing the contours of his skin, gravitating to the self-made brand just below his collarbone that Obito must have noticed yesterday. To Kakashi, that word is nothing more than this body’s history, a clue to its past and a gateway into something he’s not sure he wants to explore. But for them, its presence on his body might mean something because it’s self-made, like a momentary acknowledgement that the person they once knew was here. There was a time when this monster hated the changes he saw in himself.

Traitor, carved onto his skin so that he would remember that the person he was becoming wasn’t all that he was.

Rin and Obito don’t say anything about it, even if their eyes wander back anytime they’re not distracted. Rin follows along the scars of Kakashi’s body, mapping out these old, pale lines from his life before Obito’s eye and the Mangekyou it came with. She notes them all down from his shoulders to his toes. But through it all, Obito’s eyes linger on that word. Traitor. It’s the first concrete proof he’s seen of who this body really belongs to. Whatever poorly threaded relationship they formed with their ANBU bond is crumbling like pillars of salt into sand. The sobering reality of their situation is finally hitting him, and Kakashi doesn’t want this.

“This body isn’t mine,” he blurts out while Rin draws vials of blood from his arm. She’s not surprised, meaning that Minato must have filled her in when appointing her as Kakashi’s physician. “I woke up in the middle of the war.”

Obito’s lips twitch and his eyes find Kakashi’s. Something must resonate with him, that terrible burden falling off his shoulders as he comes to believe what Kakashi says. “It was right before I burned your mask.”

“You noticed.”

“How the hell would I not? You stopped attacking and just stood there like a dead fish.”

Well. Kakashi wouldn’t put it quite so rudely, but he’s not wrong.

“That’s not like you, Kakashi,” Rin says offhandedly as she slides the needle from his skin, expertly covering the pinprick wound with gauze before beads of blood blossom from it. “You run your investigators into the ground but spill your guts to us for nothing? You’re definitely not ours.”

She sends the vials out of the room and when she returns, Kakashi gets to sit pretty while her glowing green chakra slides across his collarbone to begin the dreadfully long process of the thorough scan Minato requested. They’re all too stiff to say anything for a while, especially as Rin has to constantly jot down notes as she explores the planes of Kakashi’s body. She takes extra time over his seal, as per Minato’s request.

“The seal isn’t causing any negative effects on your heart,” she assures in that same blasé tone. “It’s in perfect working order. Shockingly, despite your sorry state. I’d like to know how his body ended up like this.” Her eyes flicker up to his. “Our Kakashi’s, I mean.”

Kakashi prods, but this is one of those instances where Sukea doesn’t feel like sharing with the class. He’s already gleaned the answer to that question, though, and hopes this will be the chance he needs to break that ice. “Maa, I don’t know if I should say,” he hedges, waiting for Sukea’s protest, but their connection is dim right now. He can’t feel the body’s owner. It’s a rarity these days. “Your friend didn’t intend to continue beyond the war.”

Rin’s hand stills. Two sets of eyes weigh down on him, and he meets them with sympathy.

“He only needed to last long enough to see his plan through,” Kakashi says. “After that, he would rest.”

Obito doesn’t speak to him during their hospital stay. Rin gets him through the rest of his tests, a mind-numbing six hours filled with waiting, poking, prodding, and questions, but she’s the only conversation he has through it all. Even the journey home, rife with stares as it is, is a silent affair.

They drag their feet through the back alleys that lead to the house, and once the ANBU leave them at the front gates and they’re inside the wards, Obito mutters a soft, “Sorry.”

“Hm?”

Obito’s head is lowered like a scolded child, his fists in the fabric of his robes. “I wasn’t prepared when I took on this job,” he mutters like an even smaller child explaining to their parents what he did wrong. “I didn’t think to get you clothes or stock the fridge. I just—Sensei made a request and I accepted it. Everyone’s kept their mouths shut about you this whole time, and I was looking for answers.”

Ah.

Obito scrubs a hand over his face. “I’m such an idiot.”

What’s all this now? Where is it coming from? Kakashi has no qualms about wearing Obito’s clothes or surviving off of cup ramen for the rest of his days, even if it’s not his first choice. All of this guilt seems a little overblown when considering that Kakashi’s an enemy of the village—

But he’s not anymore, is he? He’s a different Kakashi, from a different world, taking responsibility for crimes not his own. And now, finally, Obito knows this.

It’s hard to feel anything but sympathy for this man, just as broken as he is, as they stand in the unkempt front garden of a house they both share. But Kakashi still laughs, and the glare he’s settled under changes absolutely nothing.

“Maa, Obito,” he starts as he always does, running a hand through his hair. “I know you don’t know me, but please don’t treat me like a stranger. We can stock up on food and clothes at any time. You haven’t committed any sins, I promise.”

“You—” Obito cuts himself off, a pinkish heat to his sun-tanned skin, and he bites his tongue in favour of opening the door.

The two of them spill out into the lobby and go their separate ways, Obito straight to the kitchen and Kakashi to the bathroom to bathe. Hospitals always make him feel grimy and he needs to get the smell off him to feel at ease. Sukea has the same heightened nose that he does, so the reek of disinfectant is like a cloud hanging over him. Once he’s out, wearing yet another set of Obito’s clothes, he goes looking for his warden. Obito’s still in the kitchen, staring at the six remaining servings of cup ramen on the counter. All of the cupboard drawers are hanging open, as though ravaged by a thief, and whatever plates and bowls were inside have been shuffled around. Obito runs a hand through his hair.

“Still stressing, I see.”

Obito looks over his shoulder at Kakashi and deflates, turning back to the sad little row of instant food. “I usually keep something stocked for guests,” he explains, a defeated man. “I didn’t even realize I was out.”

Kakashi leans in the doorway with his arms crossed. “Guests?”

“My kids,” Obito sighs. “They stop by now and then.”

Kakashi smiles, remembering the great hot water debate of two weeks ago. The trio did come back with somen the next day, Naruto’s apologies and promise of one day bringing Ichiraku sounding like an oath of revenge. So they come here, too, do they? It’s nice to know that this Obito has bonded with more than just Rin. He feels like a real person, not the walking skeleton his other self became.

Kakashi walks across the kitchen and grabs a pair of cup ramen off the counter, wiggling his fingers. "We have these for tonight. Let's worry about groceries tomorrow."

"No," Obito sighs, gently freeing them from Kakashi's hands and setting them back down. Gently. Imagine that. Nothing about this man has been gentle since the moment Kakashi woke up here. "Rin says you're not doing so well. I can't have you eating this garbage."

Does he have a fever? Is this really the same hotheaded fireball that shoved him the whole walk to the prison two months ago?

Obito drags his feet to the front door to ask one of the ANBU to go on an evening grocery run for them. Picture it. A fully-geared ANBU grocery shopping. Kakashi's seen it all now.

While they wait, they sit on either end of the couch, a cushion between them like a physical boundary they’re too afraid to cross. Kakashi's newfound freedom doesn't mean he has a whole lot to do, so he's content keeping his old friend company, even if there's not much said between them. He racks his brain for the answer to Obito's strangeness this evening, but it's hard to place.

"He's there, too, isn't he?" Obito asks. "Our Kakashi."

Ah. So that's what this is.

It's hard to understand how this must feel—to be looking at your friend while knowing they're a stranger, and for that friend to still be there, watching through their eyes, hearing every word and feeling each touch the same. Kakashi tries to imagine, but Sukea's overwhelming love and shame are warring in him and he can't shake it. This body is overjoyed just being asked after like this, and Kakashi wonders if all that talk of missing Obito may have been true.

"He is," Kakashi admits and Sukea hates him for it. Obito deserves his answers and anything that makes Sukea uncomfortable is just a nice bonus. “I’m not sure how we ended up like this, but here we are.”

Obito hesitates, sizing the missing-nin up with dark eyes. “Is it always you?”

“Hm?”

“Does our—” He thinks better of it. “Does the other Kakashi ever take control?”

“I assume he’d like to, but no. He seems to be locked in.”

“So every time we’ve met…”

“You’ve been speaking with me, yes.”

Obito sinks back into the couch, his eyes on the chabudai and the twin cups of water on top. The kitchen is so bare that they don’t even have tea to indulge in. Even Kakashi keeps tea back home. He may have had bouts where he cared so little about himself and the world that he survived off of food pills, but he could always spare a moment for tea or sake.

Think of him as a plant, Sukea had said, but it’s only now that Kakashi understands what that really means.

Well, he’s answered Obito’s questions. Surely a little give and take wouldn’t hurt?

“Obito,” he calls and is ignored, his warden too focused on glaring hard at the glass. Obito’s default face when deep in thought is a scowl. Kakashi stretches a leg across the couch and nudges the man with his foot, earning a jolt. “You said you don’t need to eat?”

It takes a moment for Obito to gather up his wits and think back to their conversation this morning, what must feel like a lifetime ago. “Oh. Yeah. I, uh…” He raises his left arm and the pale skin of his palm is stark before his sunkissed face, wiggling his fingers. “Lady Tsunade says it’s because of Lord First’s cells. Guess the guy was a weird plant man or something, I dunno. I can survive off of water and sunlight, and I don’t get hungry.”

“But you can eat,” Kakashi affirms. They ate together this morning, barebones as it was. “Will you share more meals with me?”

“Seems like a waste of resources to me,” Obito grumbles. “I dunno. Now and then, I guess. Eating’s not as fun if you don’t feel hungry.”

Kakashi smiles. “It depends on the company you share.”

After the ANBU arrives with their delivery, Kakashi takes to the kitchen. He’s tired and sore from sitting on a hospital bed all day, he hasn’t had a lick of food since the cup ramen at breakfast and, more than anything, he wants to crawl under the sheets of the spare room upstairs and pass out. The meal he makes is simple and small, taking all of his failing energy, but when they sit across the table and Obito eats with him, it’s worth it.

This moment now is one he never dreamed he would have, and though it may mean nothing at all to Obito, Kakashi will never forget it.

Chapter Text

Kakashi has a week to settle into Obito’s home. More to the point: he’s stuck in the house for seven days. They have nowhere to be while Konoha’s leaders run their mouths back and forth over what to do with him (this is becoming a trend) and Obito’s job is to run this personal prison, so he doesn’t leave, either. Obito’s looking sour, though. He’s not the type to stay cooped up at home, and while the two of them aren’t at odds, the circumstances are stressful enough on their own, so he gets touchy now and then.

Whenever the warden gets snappy, Kakashi goes out to the gardens. For all that Obito operates like a humanoid plant, he doesn’t know how to care for them; his ‘green thumb’ is obvious in the gnarled stems of long-dead flowers, the dried-out husks of climbing vines that haven’t lasted the season. Obito hasn’t even touched the garden since he bought the house and the rampant, uncontained weeds are proof of that.

Kakashi spends that week digging all the old plants out of the earth by the roots. He found gardening gloves in the back shed, most likely left behind by the last owner, and he’s been putting them to use. The act of restoring a desolate flowerbed is surprisingly calming. It brings him back to an old estate on Konoha’s edges, to his father’s scarred-up hands blackened by soil, the smell of dew-covered grass at the break of dawn. His parents used to garden. Well, Mom did. Dad learned through her, or because of her. Because he didn’t want something she loved to wither with her death.

If the balance ever rights itself and Kakashi is sent back home, maybe he’ll be ready to face his demons and undo these past decades of neglect. The Hatake estate is still his, and still empty, and facing it doesn’t seem as hard as it once was.

Now and then, Obito watches him work. He’s indulging in tea these days, Kakashi’s demands of his company during meals reawakening something in him. He’ll sit on the edge of the engawa with his slippers on and a cup beside him, looking around at the mess Kakashi’s making of the inner courtyard. It looks like chaos now, but once all the rot is dug up, and he turns the soil—well. There’s something else he’ll need if he’s going to see this through.

On the eighth day, Kakashi joins Obito under the stars. Summers here are as blistering as they are back home and the tea shared between them is cold and sweet. For all that Obito must have his questions, he swallows them. That’s a common theme between them both, but it’s not as awkward as it sounds. Some days, it feels like a camping trip. Or a sleepover. Kakashi never got to have those growing up, but they must be similar, right?

“Could you pick up some starters?” he asks. The moon is out, and the crickets are loud. It’s a good night.

“What?”

“Plant starters. I won’t be able to finish the garden if I just dig everything up.”

Obito looks out at the yard like it’s the first time he’s seen it and scratches his chin. “I can send someone for ‘em. Why are you landscaping for me, anyhow?”

“Boredom,” he confesses. “I may be a monster, but I still have my hobbies.”

“You’re not.”

“Hm?”

“A monster,” Obito says. “You’re not. I hate when you talk like that. Like you’re less than human or something. You say it so easily, like you’ve heard it all your life.”

Well. He has. But this was meant to be a self-deprecating joke, not a deep dive into his psyche.

The more time he spends with Obito, the easier it is to understand Sukea’s reluctance to open up. It’s hard to watch someone care about him, harder still to share the small pieces that make him up, and every time Obito calls him out, he wants to hide.

Kakashi sighs. Hiding is for people who aren’t over thirty. In his father’s time, he’d have reached his life expectancy three years ago, and whether he dies tomorrow on a battlefield or forty years from now in bed, he’s too old for this. So he dips inside in search of sake and pours them each a cup.

“You can drink, can’t you?” he asks. “I know you’re a plant, but—”

“I’m not a plant, ” Obito hisses, snatching up the cup to spite him. “A little alcohol won’t kill me. Plants don’t drink tea, either.”

“Some do.”

“What?”

“They’re very Obito-shaped.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Kakashi laughs. The sake burns all the way down, and he remembers late nights with old friends, those rare moments between obligations when he could give his all to his precious people. Those memories are his favourite.

When it’s quiet again and Kakashi’s on his second cup, watching the sky reflect off the cool, clear liquor in his hands, he thinks he and Sukea have both loosened up enough. “Maa, Obito,” he starts as he always does, “do you know what they called me growing up?”

Obito eyes him. He has a small blanket drawn over his shoulders, procured from the hall closet, and he tugs it tighter around himself. “Do I wanna know?”

Kakashi’s smiling. For all that this is something he doesn’t share, he’s sharing it with Obito. It’s not hard if it’s an old friend. “Friend Killer,” he says simply. “There were circumstances. But when Rin passed, it was on the blade of my Chidori. That stuck with me for a long, long time.”

The world killed Rin, not you. You were just an instrument.

Sukea’s comfort isn’t as good as he probably thinks it is.

Through the ensuing silence, Obito leans forward and refills both their cups. Two sad sacks drinking the night away doesn’t sound all that bad. At least they’re in good company. They clink their cups together and take sips. Obito doesn’t remark about that little alcohol-spurred confession, and Kakashi won’t elaborate. The quiet between them is a common thing.

It’s as the sake blushes their cheeks and fogs their heads that Obito says, only slurring once, “Ours is no monster, either, y’know. He doesn’t need to be. Humans can do terrible things all on their own, but they’re still human.”

Getting all sentimental on each other makes things awkward in the morning, but they’re grown men who can compartmentalize their feelings instead of tiptoeing around each other, so that’s what they do.

They’re back at T&I for another friendly Yamanaka session and Kakashi dreads it, as he always does, but today their focus isn’t on him.

It’s Sukea.

Now that they’ve mapped out the key points of Kakashi’s history, they no longer see him as a threat. Sukea is, though, and they’ve barely scratched the surface. To Inoichi, it seems like Sukea’s leveraging Kakashi’s memories to protect his own, burrowing them too deep for the Yamanaka’s jutsu to dig up. Theirs is a powerful tool, but it probably hasn’t been tested on many people with dual sets of memories before. The goal here today is to try to get anything up out of those deep crevices, even just a little. So, that’s what everyone else is doing today.

Kakashi? Well, he’s on a day trip, of course.

The air is fresh beyond the wards (it’s all in his head) and he breathes in deep as he passes through the barrier, all dolled up in his old pair of shackles. Being toted around like the bested villain was novel at first, but now he’s able to ignore the looks and whispers as his entourage of ANBU leads him through the streets to Torture and Interrogation. He even chats up a guard or two.

“Tenzō,” he greets with a smile, making the man behind the cat mask edge away. “How are we this morning?”

“That’s not my name,” Tenzō repeats like clockwork.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Yama—”

There’s a hand over his mouth before he can finish and behind the eyeholes in the mask, Kakashi sees his old friend’s stress. Giving away ANBU names looks bad, but if they didn’t want him to ruin their secrecy, they should have accompanied him in standard fatigues. He can look at the mask and build of every shinobi here and name them like clockwork.

And, well. Boredom makes risk-taking so much more fun.

Inside T&I, his guards are told to wait outside. This includes Obito. Kakashi stares back as two assistants lead him into the same room they always do. Obito’s sulking. Just a bit. This man hates nothing more than being left out of the loop.

“Is it alright if Obito sits in?”

The assistants share a look, and one pokes her head in to ask Inoichi. When she comes back, she shrugs. “If you’re okay with that. There’s no telling what he might see, though.”

“I’m aware.” He’s been through enough of these to know the risks.

Obito doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to; they spend enough time together for Kakashi to know how he feels.

Minato won’t be joining them today, courtesy of his busy schedule, but Inoichi sets up the chakra projector anyway. Sukea isn’t bothered, confident in his ability to hold tight to the things he doesn’t want them to find. Once they’re all seated and the room is set up, Inoichi looks between them. “Are you ready?”

“Go on,” Kakashi urges. “I’m tired of reliving my memories. It’ll be nice to traumatize him for a change.”

It’s not as easy as choosing to see Sukea’s memories over Kakashi’s. If it were, they would’ve already mapped out all of Sukea’s history. What Inoichi does is pull up whatever he can draw upon, and one by one they filter whose memories they are. The idea is that, once they find something from Sukea, they can pry deeper in search of tangentially related memories. Eventually, they should get somewhere, even if today is fruitless on its own.

They start with the oldest memories first. Those are the hardest to hide, and Sukea doesn’t even try. Kakashi sees the Hatake estate from the eyes of a small child, a much younger Pakkun ramming into him and knocking him off his feet. Mom is there. She pulls the dog off him while Dad laughs and helps him up.

“This is mine,” he says quietly. Within him, Sukea feels nostalgic, too. “It may also be his. I’m not sure.”

Inoichi nods along and scribbles something onto his report.

They sift through a few more around the same period, but it’s hard to draw a line between Sukea and Kakashi from this far back. Their early life was similar, and the day Mom died is ingrained in their minds just the same.

Kakashi first met Obito and Rin during his brief stint at the academy. He wasn’t there long, just a few short months before they bumped him up to genin. At the time, he didn’t make friends. He was the son of the White Fang and a bit full of himself because of it, knowing that he was special, able to do things other kids his age could not. Obito didn’t like him because of it. The few times they shared words, it was easy enough to see that. Even before they teamed up, they butted heads.

This is not what plays out in his mind.

Sukea skipped the academy altogether. He was tested when it came time for him to enroll, and the instructors advised his still-living father to push him ahead as a genin. His skills would be wasted learning with his peers, they said. Minato was there earlier than he was in Kakashi’s life, a smiling face and a warm instructor. Being the private student of the very young, still green Yellow Flash, Sukea didn’t have a team. All those mandatory D-ranks were his burden to bear alone, and hunting down missing cats wasn’t all that hard with a Hatake’s keen sense of smell.

But Sukea was sick. It started sometime after dawn and only got worse throughout the day, his sense of smell lost to him and a fever clouding his thoughts. By the time he found the cat, he’d lost his sense of direction.

Kakashi watches as the world on the projector tilts sideways, and his counterpart falls off a roof, landing on a very confused, very young Obito below.

Beside him, Obito snorts.

“This one isn’t mine,” Kakashi says, drawing his old friend’s eye. “I met Obito in the academy, so this must belong to Sukea.”

Inoichi’s relief is palpable as he jots that down, too. “Good. We’ll dig from here, then.”

To be honest, Kakashi doesn’t want to move on. He wants to keep watching. In the blurry haze of a fevered memory decades old, Kakashi can see the face of a young Uchiha trying to balance worrying about the kid that just fell on him with herding the cat that said kid is weirdly fixated on. It’s not the most ideal first meeting, but hey, it’s memorable. If his first memory of Obito was being carried on his back, it makes sense that he left such an impression on Sukea.

Kakashi’s glad to see that the skips forward are incremental. On the screen, Sukea wakes up in the academy infirmary. It must have been the only place Obito could think to bring him. There’s a nurse and a young boy speaking words that the memory hasn’t captured, and Kakashi feels all the emotion Sukea is doing his best to bottle up.

To his right, Obito watches him, but he pretends not to notice.

“This should be ours, too,” Inoichi observes before pushing further ahead. “I’ll see if I can connect it to anything else.”

They meander around the days following that first meeting, but the glimpses are so short and sporadic that Kakashi can’t glean anything from them. What a let-down. Sure, T&I isn’t interested in anything that happened before Kannabi Bridge, but Kakashi wants to see it.

“I stuck around ‘til your dad came,” Obito says, leaning back in his seat. It’s nice of him to be indulgent, but it drags the image on the screen back to that day, much to Inoichi’s exasperation. “You—he was stuck in bed for a few days, so he asked me to bring the cat home for him, and we split the reward. Then he started cropping up near the Uchiha District.”

“Coincidentally, I’m sure.”

“Of course.”

For as annoyed as Inoichi is by Obito’s influence, his words help guide the memories naturally. He sees Sukea wandering an area he’s unfamiliar with, loitering around until he catches sight of a familiar face and leaves just as quickly. Sage, he’s been looking at Obito all those years, hasn’t he?

It stops when Dad dies. All those bubbly feelings in his chest turn cold, and it's hard to tell whose memory it is playing. Kakashi opens the door to an empty room of the estate and finds his father lying in a pool of dried blood. They quiet, waiting for his answer, but he doesn’t know what to say.

“It’s mine,” he decides, “I think. His must be similar. I met sensei after the funeral, so we should be able to tell from there.”

He says this, but he doesn’t want to go back to that day any more than he wants to stare at a boy standing over his father’s corpse. The memory presses forward until he’s sitting in an interrogation room just like this one, the adults around him whispering about his poor circumstances. Kakashi stares at the blood on his hands and shirt through tears, trying to recount events he’s too young to fully understand, until Inoichi’s father enters the room. Inoki Yamanaka does as his clan always does, and that young boy is shown, once more, a memory that stays with him for the rest of his life.

The funeral happens and Obito is there next to him in mourning clothes. This is Sukea, not Kakashi. Though Sukea is the chief mourner, Minato takes the responsibility of greeting guests and playing to social niceties on himself, leaving the boys to sit and stew by the funeral portrait. Because Minato is there, barely older than a boy himself but already well-respected, the villagers bite their tongues. Sukea doesn’t have to listen to the corrosive words that Kakashi once did, but even if he had, it wouldn’t matter.

Sukea doesn’t look up.

Obito isn’t in Sukea’s memories after that. The gratitude that Sukea felt, and his budding admiration, are dead and gone. He doesn’t wander over to the Uchiha District, and even Obito’s influence can’t guide the memories further. The more they search, the more Kakashi’s history crops up, and before they ever reach the formation of Team 7, their session ends.

Kakashi prods Sukea, but he doesn’t answer.

Back home, Kakashi is staring at the ceiling, arms splayed across either side of the mattress. He’s been left alone for the first time so that Obito can go pick up gardening supplies, but it’s probably an excuse to give them some breathing room after T&I. It’s nice that they’re trusting him more, but really, there’s nothing for him to do alone. Sukea won’t even answer him, no doubt sullen after having to relive all that and working out a way to keep them from prying free memories he would rather not share.

Well. It’s time to read porn again.

Obito sent one of the ANBU, now demoted to errand boys, in search of more literature a few days ago. Tenzō (because of course it was Tenzō) returned with a stack of very dull reading and Kakashi tried, really tried to get through it, but the whole thing turned him off reading instead. He’s read educational books in his pastime, biographies and historical texts and the like, but Shinobi: The Five Pathways and You was not only the driest material he’s ever set eyes on, but also a severely tone-deaf choice for an S-class missing-nin.

Sukea got amusement out of it, at least.

Fortunately, Kakashi hasn’t fully digested the erotica sensei got for him in prison, so he pilfers one of the books from the shelf. This one isn’t as narrative-driven as Icha Icha, but it’s nowhere near as dry as Chakra Networks in Nature: The Fire Country Plant Directory, so he’ll take what he can get. The very first chapter is raunchy. Before they’re even introduced to the characters and world, there’s already sex, and Kakashi gets his amusement more from Sukea’s sudden interest than from the writing itself.

“You’re very repressed, aren’t you?”

No answer. Nothing surprising there, all things considered. He reads a little further, already onto the second chapter, where they finally get some sort of insight into what the story is about. There’s no nuance to this story, but that doesn’t make it bad. Everything has a purpose, and sometimes porn can be written just for the sake of it. He’d take this over A Brief History of Everything in the Known World any day.

I was numb for a long time, Sukea says. Kakashi lowers the book and looks across the room as though he isn’t alone. My seal selectively represses certain emotions in favour of others to influence me.

Kakashi hums. If Sukea was aware of this, and if he modified the seal himself, why wouldn’t he have tried to fix that? But Kakashi’s never been under that influence. He doesn’t know how it would feel or what it could do. The only one who might have understood was his world’s Obito.

Even though I knew what Obito meant to me, I couldn’t feel it as time went on. I remembered it, but it wasn’t there.

“And that influence is gone now?”

Your chakra signature is different from mine. Because you’re in control, it can’t reach me. But if you were to leave, or I took back my agency, it would return.

That’s a terrifying thought. It’s a good thing Kakashi doesn’t plan on letting that happen. Part of him wants to prod for more, ask how these brief two months free of the seal have felt, but he doesn’t need to. He can feel how different Sukea is now from how he was then, the ripple of all those newfound emotions reaching through their connection. Though the decades of indoctrination are still there, Sukea doesn’t talk about the plan anymore. He doesn’t demand his body back or fight with Kakashi about what is moral and just. Sukea is content observing the world through Kakashi’s eyes, feeling all the those things he lost whenever he looks at Obito.

Keep reading.

Kakashi sighs. “You aren’t going to imagine Obito as one of the characters again, I’ll hope.”

Silence is confirmation enough.

Obito passes through the wards an hour later. They’re halfway through the book as it’s just a thin pocket novel, and while the depth of the story has grown across the nine chapters they’ve read, there’s been a lot of adult themes for them to explore. Kakashi hears the front door click shut and smells his warden soon after, and all those images Sukea has running in his head are stirring something in his gut.

He decides that the politest thing to do is take a cold shower. As he descends the staircase, he and Obito nearly bump into each other, one going up and the other down. Obito stills, then awkwardly goes back a step and clears a path through the hall. “Hey,” he greets just as awkwardly, raising the paper bag in his hands. “I got the stuff you asked for. I wasn’t sure which ones to get, so I—are you okay?”

“Fine,” he says easily. “I was just going to shower.”

“You’re not going to the garden today?”

Well, he intended to, but then he would have to explain why he took a shower before digging around in the dirt, and that’s not a conversation he’s up to having at the moment. Sukea doesn’t want Obito to know how he feels, either, and Kakashi respects that. That love is Sukea’s to give, and he doesn’t owe it to anyone else.

“Are you feeling sick?” Obito asks. He sets the bag on the console by the stairs and presses the back of his hand to Kakashi’s forehead. “You don’t have a fever, but your face is red…”

Kakashi is a well-trained shinobi. It’s rare for anything to show on his face.

The problem is Sukea.

“I’m not sick,” he says. “The humidity is getting to me, that’s all.”

When he passes Obito by, he notices all the little starter pots scattered by the door. There’s dirt all through the entryway. Obito clearly went overboard, and Kakashi can’t bring himself to go for that shower. He sighs, admits defeat, and crouches down before the mess to sort through the plants. Fortunately, the labels are still attached, and most of what he finds will work for the courtyard. Some will need to be kept in the house, though, as the conditions outside aren’t ideal.

“Could you help me carry these?”

“I thought you were taking a shower.”

“There’ll be time for that later, I suppose.”

Obito crouches next to him, their knees brushing against one another, and starts gathering the starters into his arms one by one. “You were reading porn, weren’t you?”

Kakashi freezes and Obito leaves first. But just before Obito steps outside, he looks back, mischief in his eye as he shakes his head.

Sukea is mortified, but Kakashi is only resigned.

Chapter Text

For once, it's Obito who is in need of a check-up. When Kakashi’s told this, Sukea’s anxiety bleeds into him, and it's completely unwarranted. The stress must show on his face, because Obito takes one look at him and sighs.

“Relax. It's just my eye,” he says, tapping the skin beneath his Sharingan. “I need to get the pathways worked on regularly to prevent vision loss.”

Is that how it works? From what he knows, his world’s Obito didn't have to worry about that. Obito used his Mangekyō continuously, for hours at a time, without blindness. Considering he was the shadow leader of a criminal organization, he wouldn't have a Sharingan expert to go to for network therapy, especially after the Uchiha massacre.

Your Obito’s body was made of white Zetsu, Sukea says. His isn't. Madara failed, and Obito’s prosthetics were made by Lady Tsunade with his failure as a base. They don't quite function the same.

Trust Sukea to be up-to-date on everything related to Obito.

“Would you mind terribly if I tagged along?” Kakashi asks. He stands over the sink, washing their dishes from breakfast. As the days go on, Obito joins him for meals more often. Each time feels like a new victory. “It gets boring when you're not around.”

“Nice try. You're stuck here; I got you a babysitter and everything.”

Joy.

Kakashi watches from the couch as the door clicks shut behind his warden, and sighs. He’s alone again, waiting for his new guard dog to arrive, counting distractions on his fingers. Porn is an option, as it always is, but he’s not in the mood for fine literature at the moment. Sukea doesn’t request it, either, too busy wasting minutes by turning their stomach in knots over Obito’s relatively routine procedure. This body’s owner gets hung up on the strangest things.

The starters were planted in the courtyard yesterday, and the garden has been watered. Even if it hadn’t, Kakashi can’t enter the courtyard while unsupervised; there’s a second set of wards that go up when Obito’s chakra signature is absent that prevent him from going outside.

He needs more hobbies.

Because there’s nothing to occupy his time, his mind wanders. It’s been half an hour. Most of the Uchiha are long gone, so he wonders who Obito goes to for network therapy.

Rin. She studied it when he unlocked his Mangekyō.

Well, wouldn’t you know it? Sukea always has an answer where Obito’s involved. It’s unsettling, knowing just how often Sukea must have checked in on his old teammates to pick up so much about them. But then, the other Obito did the same to Kakashi, didn’t he? All those years, Obito watched him, listened to his words at the memorial stone, and at Rin’s grave, and never once did he show himself.

If he had, he may have not been able to go through with it. He knew that.

“And you did, too.”

Sukea doesn’t deny it. That’s the worst part, isn’t it?

This train of thought is miserable, and Kakashi is tired of following this same cyclical thought pattern. They think of something completely inconsequential, bring it back to something sad, and ruminate on Sukea and Obito’s choices. Neither of them like doing it, but they do it anyway. That’s just how their brain works, he supposes.

“Why can you see, then?” Kakashi asks instead. He closes the Rinnegan, peering through Obito’s eye at the new fern sitting in the window sill across the room, able to see its stalk and leaves, the scuff marks on its pot. “You used Kamui a lot, didn’t you? And you don’t have any foreign cells. You should be blind by now.”

I taught myself network therapy while watching Rin.

Of course, he did.

I think I regret it.

Learning network therapy?

It’s still hard to tell.

Kakashi sighs, scrubbing his hands over his face as a weight drops in his chest and nausea goes with it, a product of Sukea’s emotions. In the beginning, he hardly noticed Sukea. But the way this man influences him gets more grating every week. It isn’t constant, though. When they’re talking like this, or when they read together, when they interact—that’s when the influence is at its strongest. But those times when Sukea pulls back and refuses to speak, Kakashi’s emotions and thoughts are, more or less, his own.

“Maa, you could do to be a little less cryptic. If you want to have a conversation, then talk to me.”

I think I regret not coming back.

Kakashi’s hands fall and his head goes up.

The wards flicker. Kakashi cranes his neck to watch the front door, wondering why his babysitter chose this very moment to barge in. As much as he longs for company, this is the one moment he doesn't want interrupted.

But Kakashi is a prisoner, and he doesn't get a choice.

When the door opens, Minato’s on the other side. He ducks in quickly, and the wards go back up as he takes off his shoes and puts on the spare set of slippers by the wall. Their eyes meet, and Minato’s smile makes him forget Sukea’s revelation.

“It’s been a while, Lord Sixth,” Minato says.

Once more, Kakashi sighs dramatically as he sinks back into the couch. “You're still on that, I see.”

“I’m getting used to the idea. I think I like it. I'm sure you're a wonderful Hokage.”

“I didn't do much in my tenure,” he reasons, “and I died by falling down the stairs.”

“I doubt you're dead.”

“If not, my body’s empty. Your Kakashi’s in here with me, if you recall.”

Minato’s not smiling anymore, and Kakashi regrets saying it. He didn't mean anything by it, but the time they spend together will always be hampered by Sukea’s history.

Minato doesn't ask after Sukea. No one does, really, whether they know the truth or not.

No one but Obito.

They set up in the kitchen because there are a lot of surfaces for Minato to place the endless number of things he pulls out of his sealing toolkit. He's been the type to over-prepare ever since Kakashi was a newly-graduated genin. The sense of normalcy he feels as Minato lays a stack of test seals on the countertop is welcomed.

It's been a while since the revelation of the seal on Kakashi’s heart. That's to be expected; altering a seal on its own is an incredibly difficult task, but breaking one placed on an organ is thought to be impossible. But if anyone can do it, the Fourth Hokage can. The sooner it’s gone, the sooner Kakashi can stop worrying about it.

“What is he like?” Minato asks as he takes a seat at the table and organizes his things. “Our Kakashi, I mean.”

Sukea is silent. Their thread of connection is weak now, and Kakashi can't feel the echo of his thoughts. For the first time, Minato’s asking about him, but he doesn’t care.

“Obnoxious,” Kakashi says, hoping it'll get a rise out of Sukea. But for all that he’ll ramble about his hatred of Konoha for weeks on end, he's mild tempered. Sukea doesn't get angry, and this isn't enough to pry him from the depths of their mind. “He’s about what you would expect of a terrorist. But these days, he's starting to feel more human.”

Minato eases up as he sets three ink pots in a row, keeping them perfectly aligned. “Is he?”

Kakashi thinks better of sharing those words he wishes Sukea would elaborate on. They’re too fresh and incomplete to be trusted. If they weren’t interrupted, Sukea might’ve gone off about how he wished he’d destroyed Konoha from the inside, instead of leaving and building up something elsewhere. A few months without the seal’s influence wouldn’t be enough for someone so driven to regret their life choices. No, there’s more at play here. Sukea withdrew for a reason.

Instead of imagining what-ifs, he smiles at his sensei, and focuses on information he does have. Kakashi leans on the table, watching Minato thumb through a pad of sealing paper. Apparently, he’s already sketched out ideas, but doesn’t seem satisfied. “I spoke to him about the seal recently, and it seems I was wrong.”

Minato’s eyes go up, the test seals forgotten. “In what way?”

“He’s not being influenced,” Kakashi says. “Well. Not anymore. My chakra signature doesn’t match his, and while I’m in control, our body operates under mine. So, he’s…”

“Free,” Minato sums up in a shaky breath. “For now, while you’re here with us, he’s… free of it. He’s able to think for himself.”

As the Hokage runs a hand through his hair, Kakashi sees the moment stress turns to curiosity, maybe a bit of hope. The light in his eyes now is the same as it was when he taught Kakashi how to find his chakra signature as a genin. Minato loves knowledge. He loves figuring things out, pressing buttons, and recording the results. It’s probably why he was able to become such a great seal master. Sealing is complex stuff, and known sigils run in the tens of thousands, so even the masters have to trial and error their way into figuring out how an unfamiliar one functions. Kakashi knows that because—

Kakashi knows that because Sukea knows that. Because Sukea, in his own way, may have studied sealing in the same way Minato has.

He feels it, then, a nagging thought of Sukea’s mingling with his own, irritated by this conversation about him as though he’s not here. Kakashi swallows it at first, but eventually, he gives in. “I think it’s more appropriate to say that he always thought for himself, Sensei,” Kakashi says. “He told me that the seal muted some emotions in favour of others, and that was how it influenced him. But that doesn’t absolve him of his crimes.”

If Minato is disappointed in that, he doesn’t look it. He stares softly at Kakashi for a time before returning to his dig-through of an inventory scroll, turning their once neat and tidy kitchen into a replica of the Hokage office. “I see he’s correcting me.”

“Was it that obvious?”

Minato smiles, tapping one of the stools at the counter, and Kakashi moves from the table to sit on it. “I started teaching him sealing when he was a boy,” he confesses. “It was before the formation of Team 7, and we didn’t get very far. But even then, he would lecture me if I misspoke in my explanations. He took to it quickly, and he was thorough. I’m sure, if he continued on that path, he would have surpassed me.”

This is a side of Sukea that Kakashi doesn’t know. It’s strange, he thinks, to find a new piece of the man whose monologue has been his background noise for months now. And the more he dwells on it, the more he comes to understand that, really, he knows nothing of Sukea. Nothing but his love for Obito, his lingering attachment to his team, and his long-time goal to reach an end, even if the end he finds is one without him in it.

“So?” Minato presses, drawing Kakashi out of himself. He’s leaning on the counter, soft eyes and fond looks, and the hope always present in Naruto is inherited, it seems. “He’s going to help me, then, is he?”

Kakashi blinks.

“I’ll make mistakes without him, of course. I overlook things so easily, and I’m sure he’d love to share his prior knowledge, seeing as he must have mapped out the seal in order to edit it.”

Kakashi rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Maa, Sensei, even if you say that, I’m the one in control…”

An emotion not his own begins to stir.

Minato thinks for a moment, nodding absently as he pushes off the counter. “Of course, of course. Now, let’s see… How would I go about viewing a seal placed inside the body…”

Kakashi twitches. Foreign irritation bubbles up inside him, and his fingers itch.

Minato presses a thumb and forefinger to his chin, tilting his head. “You know, I don't think it's possible. Perhaps this is all a lost cause.”

Something inside him snaps.

Kakashi barely registers it when he grabs a brush, opens an ink pot, and tears off the used page of sealing paper from the pad. Drawing patterns onto the blank white canvas at his fingertips reminds him of the way his body moves when he uses Obito’s Sharingan, like he's tracing someone else's movements or recreating an image from memory. He tears that page off, sets it aside, and starts another.

When the urge cools and his hands still, Kakashi is seated before twelve pages of seal designs that don’t make sense to him. He reads it like a foreign language, one he can't pronounce. The brush falls from his hand, clattering against the floor, his slipper splattered by black ink.

It scares him.

Kakashi breathes through the moment, balling his hands into fists to hide their shaking. He doesn't like this. What was that? Did Sukea, for just a moment—

Is this how Sukea feels, helplessly locked within them as someone else moves his body?

Minato is the picture of an unbothered man as he holds up one of the pages. “This must be the initial design,” he observes, then grabs another, “and this is one of the alterations he made. I see, now.”

Kakashi licks his lips, his mouth dry and tongue heavy in his mouth. “Sensei?”

“Sorry.” Minato turns to him and smiles. “He’s just as easy to tease, I see. I'm a little insulted that he has such little faith in me as his teacher, though.”

Slowly, rattled nerves easing, Kakashi lowers himself back down onto the stool. But the shaking won't stop. “You knew he would—” He clears his throat. “That he would do that?”

“He's not the type to get angry, but he gets annoyed easily. And when he gets riled up, he likes to fix things.”

What bothers Kakashi is not how Sukea behaves, but the way his influence came to reality, and how powerless Kakashi was to stop it. He can't seem to control his jitters, and he feels sick, If Sukea regains control before that seal is gone—

Minato pulls back from the plethora of new knowledge to comb through and looks at Kakashi. His smile fades, and he hurries over, crouching down to catch Kakashi's eyes.

“Hey,” Minato starts, soft-spoken, as though addressing a frightened child. He places his hands on Kakashi’s arms, gently squeezing him. “That wasn't him, Kakashi. That was you. I promise you that.”

Kakashi raises his head, meeting his Sensei's eyes, but he's not sure if he should believe it.

“I noticed that you seem to feel what he does,” Minato says. “And you have his knowledge. I assumed if I got a rise out of him, and he wanted to give me answers, it might show through you. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that without consulting you.”

He hears the words, and he understands. For weeks, at least, Sukea’s stress has turned nausea in their stomach, and his arousal became Kakashi’s. But a new fear is developing within him, one he didn't think he had to worry about before.

If Sukea’s agency returns, the seal’s influence will return, too.

And that influence may very well extend to Kakashi.

Kakashi lies down on the couch, one arm tucked behind his head and the other up, fingers splayed on a hand that, for the first time in a while, doesn’t feel like his own. His existential crisis is still overtaking most of his thoughts, and though he continued chatting with Minato in the kitchen while Minato worked, his heart wasn’t in it.

When the front door opens, he can hear muted voices talking about him, but doesn’t care. The guilt he feels for brooding during one of Minato’s rare visits is eating at him. Because he’s no longer in a convenient prison cell, he doesn’t get visitors like he used to. This was one rare instance, and his newfound fear ruined it.

Kakashi never honestly thought he was at risk of Sukea taking control. For months, this body’s owner has been nothing but a voice in his head and bitter memories to swallow. He doesn’t doubt that Sukea’s tried to regain his autonomy on several occasions only to fail, especially in the earlier days. He can’t know whether those efforts are continued as Kakashi goes about his day to day. Sukea effortlessly reads his thoughts and memories, but Kakashi can only read Sukea’s when their connection is close.

Right now, Sukea is distant. Kakashi can’t bring himself to prod, and the nausea turning their stomach is his own.

A shadow falls over the couch, the window light blocked by a new body. Kakashi turns over his hand and reads the age lines on his palm. He doesn’t know if his own looks like this. For years, Kakashi spent his days in the Hokage seat, piled behind endless work and expectations. He stopped looking in the mirror long ago, and the passage of time on his body is something he can’t recall.

“Kakashi,” someone calls. His nose tells him it’s Obito, but even as his warden crouches beside the couch, Sukea does not stir. There’s no love and longing at the sound of that voice, and all those pleasant, heart-wrenching feelings he’s come to expect with this man’s presence are gone.

What does he feel for Obito, really? How much of what transpired between them was Kakashi’s choice?

Kakashi is so wrapped around the voice in his head that he doesn’t know his own thoughts.

Obito snaps his fingers, and Kakashi’s eyes fall to the side. Beside him, Obito leans onto the couch cushion with one of his signature scowls. They’re so close, but the butterflies in Kakashi’s stomach are gone.

“Hey,” Obito calls again, “you okay?”

Kakashi offers a smile. “Never better.”

Lying is easier now, too. He no longer has the urge to spill all his secrets, or open up. But he should, shouldn’t he? Sukea’s influence be damned, this is still Obito, and Obito has meant the world to Kakashi since they were children—

Hasn’t he?

Obito frowns, pressing the backs of his knuckles to Kakashi’s forehead. Kakashi doesn’t shiver, and his heart doesn’t race. “You feel a bit warm, and you look pale. Why not lie down upstairs?”

Kakashi doesn’t want to be alone with these thoughts. He rolls onto his side to better face his roommate. “Maa, I’ll be fine, Obito. Let me rest here.”

“Alright. Let me know if you need something, or if you start to feel worse.”

He salutes his warden, and Obito sighs.

Obito grabs a throw blanket from the closet and lays it over Kakashi. He brings a glass of water, and a wet cloth, fussing in a way that would usually warm Kakashi’s heart. But Kakashi isn’t sick, or doesn’t think he is, and all this effort is wasted on him.

Sometime later, Obito calls him for dinner, but he isn’t hungry.

Against the black ink of the sky, a red moon hangs. The years fall behind him, and the pain of his mortal shell falls away. Everything was worth it.

He walks the length of the Fourth War’s wasteland as piece by piece, the illusion begins. The fighting stops, and the people fall. In their eyes, he sees his Rinnegan, and smiles.

Soon, he says. We’ll be there soon.

The God Tree’s roots coil around bodies graced by the moon’s light. Soon, he’s all that’s left. He looks at his hand as it cracks, grains of sand breaking loose across the ground. It won’t be long. But for this brief moment, for this one instance, he’s still here.

Their bodies are near the God Tree. They can’t see him, and that’s okay. He sits between them, his fingers pressed to their roots, and feels the flow of chakra beneath them. Crossing his legs, listening as the world falls still, Kakashi watches the black-red patterns in the sky.

His fingers break, and he can no longer touch them. That’s okay. This dream isn’t for him.

Kakashi wishes there were another way. Over time, the God Tree will eat away their chakra, and their features will change. Obito’s scars will fade. Piece by piece, the past will unwrite itself across their faces, and all the pain they endured will no longer matter. It’s not forever. Life never is. One day, the people they were will no longer be here, and no one will remember them. That’s okay.

Kakashi hopes to be the first to leave.

“What do you think, Rin?” he asks. “There will always be another war. But at least this way, we don’t have to see it.”

For so long, he thought history would repeat. They failed once, and twenty years later, they would fail again. Life is a circle that won’t break, and he hated it and hated it and hated more. But there’s always a way, and if there isn’t, one can carve out a new path.

“We’ve fought for so long, but it’s over now.” Kakashi has no chakra left to spare, and even the God Tree doesn’t want him. As he sits between his precious people, his body breaks away, piece by piece, but he doesn’t feel pain. “Maa, you thought I was wrong, but look at us now. Justice is perceived by the winner, Obito. Does that make you the villain?”

It doesn’t hurt because he died long ago.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

Now, he can rest.

His eyes open to the dark. His body is heavy, like a lead weight is pressing down on his chest, and when he blinks, he sees the black-red threat hanging in the sky. It was a dream, he knows. A stupid, terrible dream. This isn’t the battlefield of the Fourth War, but Obito’s living room. The weight on his chest is little more than a blanket, and when he scrubs at his face, his hands are solid and whole.

As he shifts, his arm hits something, and he turns his head. Obito’s sleeping here, next to him, hunched over the side of the couch as he was before. Kakashi watches him through the dark. His features shift and morph, the scars smooth away, and his skin and hair lose their colour.

Kakashi shakes his head, squeezes his eyes shut, and groans. It won’t leave him. Even now, he can feel the rough texture of the God Tree’s roots beneath his fingertips. Sage, but he hates this.

When he looks at Obito next, he doesn’t see white zetsu, but his friend. Deep in his chest, the longing returns, the love and fear and sorrow that ground him and mark his tether to Sukea. It scares him as much as it brings him relief, and at least he has someone to blame for the dream.

Kakashi brushes the hair from Obito’s eyes to better make out his face, and debates waking him up. Sleeping here will only bring him pain come morning, but he knows he’s worrying Obito and dreads having a talk. Kakashi is an adult who can compartmentalize his trauma with the best of them, and sharing feelings seems wholly unnecessary.

As he gathers his leaden body off the cushion, he realizes how sore he is, and sighs. He hasn’t moved all evening. Kakashi doesn’t know the time, but the moon is out, it’s red glow falling in through the window, and—

Kakashi blinks away the illusion, and the red fades. Cool blue stretches across Obito’s back, a soft, natural light that eases Kakashi’s nerves, and he gathers the man in his arms.

Obito’s bedroom is upstairs, across the hall from his own. In another life, it was Kakashi’s room, actually. He nudges the door open with his foot and walks inside, staring at the photos on the walls. He’s never been in Obito’s room, actually. There’s a mount for a katana on the wall, and his sensitive nose picks up the smell of mineral oil and metal from the closet. For now, he’ll refrain from snooping to tuck his warden in, even if the tug on his heart wants him to linger here.

Loathe as he is to admit it, Kakashi has grown comfortable with Sukea’s influence, the feelings that leach into him and the affection he carries. When he looks at Obito and goes warm, it feels right.

Earlier, when Sukea pulled back completely and all that went away, it felt like he stopped existing. For just a brief moment, Kakashi forgot who he was.

Sighing and too old for this melodrama, Kakashi drags himself downstairs to get back to suppressing his insecurities. He’s always been fond of that.

It’s four in the morning, a little before dawn, and it’s as good a time as any to start the day. His depression nap turned into a depression slumber and ate away half his day. Kakashi doesn’t have many hobbies, but if there are chores to be done, they’ll help him eat away the hours while he sorts himself out.

On the coffee table sit a bowl of water and a rag. It’s cool to the touch, and as he carries it to the kitchen, he wonders what Minato told Obito when they met. Of course, the kitchen is a mess, as Kakashi wasn’t there to clean up after dinner, and Obito was probably too distracted. That’s fine; it’s another thing to do with his hands. He wonders what Obito cooked. Kakashi hasn’t seen him do more than heat up instant foods since they started staying together, and if Obito really doesn’t need to eat… can he cook?

As he goes to dump the food waste from a pot, he thinks that no, Obito probably can’t cook. He smells burnt food, and is a bit glad he skipped dinner. Everything’s been sitting and drying for hours now, so he gathers it all up, fills the sink with water and dish soap, and lets it sit while wiping down the counters. Obito’s a messy cook, too, apparently. There are smudges of things everywhere.

Kakashi checks the fridge next to see if the leftovers from Obito’s abomination are viable. There are a few containers all filled with the same strange soup… How much did he make, exactly? What did he think the portions for two people would be? Ah, whatever. Trust a plant man not to know serving sizes. He takes the lid off one and gives it a sniff. It’s overcooked—there may be sautéed vegetables in the soup like onions and garlic that were burnt—but it’s not a complete write-off, and they can probably get a few more meals out of it. The thought of Obito’s effort going to waste breaks his heart.

Ahh, yes. This feels much more normal.

Kakashi smiles. Perhaps he should be more conflicted. Oh well.

There’s more to do, though, as he sees the dried ink on the tiles from when he dropped Minato’s brush. That powerless feeling looms over him like a future he can’t run from, and one day, he’ll have to confront it. But for now, there’s a mess to clean, and sealing ink is notoriously bad for staining.

As Kakashi dabs at the blotch on the ground with a heavy-duty cleaner he found under the sink and some thick rubber gloves, he notices a pot of the very same ink sitting on the table. Sensei must have forgotten it.

He’s hopeless.

Kakashi presses his lips together and wipes at the stain. It’s the first time Sukea’s spoken to him since, well… He’s a bit on edge. Sukea must feel it, too.

All these years, and he’s never changed. He used to forget half his tools when he taught me sealing. I would lecture him when I brought them to the training grounds the next day.

He shudders out a breath and pulls back. The stain is gone. As he stands, he spots one of the sealing books there on the table, too. If Minato had left a brush, they’d have a whole set.

Would you like to make one?

Kakashi dumps the used rag and washes his hands, looking around for more messes to clean. There are none, though, and he can’t run away forever. “What for?”

Boredom, Sukea answers blandly. To learn, I suppose. You’re quite shaken.

He doesn’t need this man to tell him that, and he hates how easily Sukea reads him.

If you learn, perhaps next time, you won’t feel such a loss of control.

“You assume there will be a next time.”

And you assume there won’t. Who’s the bigger fool here, Kakashi?

He breathes in deep, runs a hand through his hair, and looks at the sink. The dishes require more time to soak. On the table, the ink is there, unassuming and untouched. He’d have overlooked it, had today’s events not left a permanent mark. From what he knows, an ordinary brush can’t be used with sealing ink. The ink is designed to absorb chakra as a power source, and use with improper materials can strip that quality away. Kakashi doesn’t have any seals he wants to activate, so that wouldn’t be a problem… But if he dips an ordinary brush in that ink pot, it’ll contaminate the whole batch, and the ink will no longer be useful to Minato. Sealing ink is expensive, notoriously so, and takes a long time to make.

“Where do I start?”

Go to the study.

Back upstairs, then. Sure, he’ll play along. The study is next to Obito’s room. It was where he used to do his Hokage work when it, unfortunately, followed him home. Kakashi kept all his books here in the other world. It looked like a small library. Here, though, it’s a few blank walls, a small sitting area, and a desk. One of the potted plants they got seems to have migrated its way onto the window sill. Part of him wants to name it, but he’s not in the right headspace.

“Alright,” he sighs. “What am I looking for, exactly?”

A fountain pen.

Kakashi frowns. How will they make a brush with a pen?

Obito won’t have the materials to make the bristles for a sealing brush. But there’s something else we can do.

Hm. Well, okay then. Kakashi remains skeptical as he loops around to the far side of the desk. It’s covered in a thin layer of dust and doesn’t seem to see much use. There’s no pen holder on top, so he starts opening drawers. In the second one, he finds a bunch of pens of all different types shoved loosely inside. Behind them, he sees a picture frame. Curiosity gets the best of him, and he fishes it out.

It’s their team photo, but it’s not the one Kakashi knows. Sage, he’s stared at that picture on his nightstand for so long that he could never mistake it. In this one, Rin is on the left, Kakashi the right, his face red as an over-eager Uchiha hangs off them both. Obito’s grin is infectious, but the young Kakashi in the photo is annoyed. The nervousness beneath the glare lays bare his thoughts, though. He isn’t fooling anyone.

Fountain pen, please.

Sullenly, Kakashi puts the photo back and starts rifling through the pens. “Maa, I was finally enjoying myself, and here you go ruining it.” At least his manners are improving.

Kakashi doesn’t know much about stationary because, honestly, he can’t bring himself to care. So, he can’t look at the pens and pick out which one is what type. One by one, he pulls off the caps in search of their distinct metal nib. Eventually, he finds one, and holds it before their eyes so Sukea can judge it.

The nib is too thin. Look for a broad tip.

“You’re very demanding, you know that?”

By the fifth pen, Kakashi wonders what he’s doing with his life. Would Obito even have this specific type of pen? Is this really necessary? Couldn’t Sukea teach him sealing with ordinary ink instead? They don’t have access to their chakra, and nothing can come of any sigils they’ll draw. But Sukea insists, and eventually, they find the fancy little pen that he wants. What Obito needs all these for, he’ll never know.

They were gifts. Birthdays, anniversaries. Naruto and Sasuke are convinced that all adults need this sort of thing. Never mind. Now he does. Open it.

Kakashi doesn’t appreciate how much the owner of this body is ordering him around, but when compared to earlier, it’s the lesser evil. He unscrews the threads of the barrel from the section of the nib, and inside is a converter half-filled with black ink. Nothing special here—just an ordinary, rather boring fountain pen.

We need to flush out the old ink and clean it before we can begin.

Sage, of course there’s more. But Kakashi looks through the window, sees the slightest gradient of light in the sky, and, well. He’s not worrying himself sick anymore.

In the bathroom, Kakashi runs the section beneath the tap until he no longer sees ink coming out of it, then empties the old ink in the converter into the sink. He’s never bothered cleaning pens back home because he can’t be bothered. But Sukea insists they fill the converter with water from a cup a few times until it comes away clear, just to be safe, and that they soak the nib for an hour. Soon, the cup sits on the bathroom counter, slowly darkening with ink, and Kakashi yawns.

“I didn’t think you were this thorough. I realize it’s to preserve the chakra-absorption of the ink, but it’s still a bit…”

I suppose I have a tendency to over-think.

“You don’t say.”

While they wait, Kakashi starts on the dishes in the kitchen. The drone of the tap makes for pleasant white-noise, and as he sets each pot, pan, and bowl in the drying rack, he appreciates the calm. It’s a quiet morning, all alone in this house without his things, his chakra, and his books. But he isn’t bored. He’s not thinking about what he can’t control, either, which is an added bonus.

As he sets the parts of the pen out to dry and heats up a bowl of Obito’s soup for breakfast, he starts to wonder if Sukea suggested this for his sake. From Sukea’s perspective, having this strong of an influence over Kakashi is a good thing. It means that even if he doesn't regain autonomy, there's still something he can leverage for control. Helping Kakashi to understand sealing doesn’t benefit Sukea in any way. All it does is give Kakashi some peace of mind.

The soup is burnt, but he eats it anyway. With every spoonful, his love for the absurd man upstairs grows. He smiles, imagining Obito fumbling his way through the kitchen. Perhaps Kakashi will have to give him a lesson or two.

After breakfast, finally, the pen is dry. Kakashi fills the converter with ink, assured that doing so won’t harm Sensei’s precious tool, and fits the pen together again. He opens the sealing pad to the first blank page, and his pen hovers over it.

“Alright. How are we doing this, exactly?”

Lean into me.

“What?”

Ease up a bit. I can’t be there to show you visually, but I can guide you.

That sounds all sorts of dangerous and even if Kakashi knew how, he wouldn’t want to. For all he knows, this is some elaborate ploy to take control.

You know that it’s not, Sukea says. I’m none too eager to feel that seal, either, Kakashi.

This is a truth known to them both. Sukea enjoys his feelings for Obito, and doesn’t want to go back to the numbness he felt before. Still, he can’t shake the fear. But as Sukea’s influence comes on stronger, he feels calm, and relaxed. When next he feels the prodding of foreign thoughts, he wonders if maybe it’s okay.

Kakashi presses the nib to the page, and like water, patterns flow from his fingers in black ink. He watches as a small circle of sigils is drawn out before him. Beneath that, the individual symbols are listed out, and their translations. It’s a rudimentary seal, something tells him—the kind first taught to genin-aged students. The first sigils translate to sun and disperse. Those are the main two at the bottom and top, and the smaller ones that draw out the lines of the circle are all modifiers: heat, linger, touch and circuit repeat on each side. Kakashi reads them over carefully, and he thinks he knows what this seal does, but there’s no way to test it.

Go to your plants.

“Why?”

Trust me.

“You sound like a demon priming me to hand over my soul.”

Keep your soul. It’s bad enough living in here with your anxiety.

Rude. At least his anxiety is more tolerable than Sukea’s obsession.

Kakashi’s gone along this far, so he may as well go all the way. He gets up from the kitchen table and walks over to one of the plants sitting beneath the living room window. At Sukea’s request, and while apologizing to the new additions of their home, he plucks a leaf off one and hurries back to the kitchen to press it against the centre of the seal. Nothing happens, and he scratches his head, wondering what they’re supposed to do without chakra.

Something compels him to press the touch sigil on the right side, and he does. The leaf browns, and the room lights up in a soft glow, like a nightlight. Kakashi stares at the glowing ink, his eyes wide.

It’s such a simple seal, and it’s practically useless. But warmth hovers over it, and he feels it against his hand. This small, insignificant thing is something that he created while chakra-bound, and that’s kind of amazing. As Sukea’s explanation flows into him and the seal burns out, he comes to understand that even the weak chakra found in plants can be enough to trigger some seals. He also understands that they needed a broad-tipped pen because the line variation is necessary to accurately represent the sigils. Even if he’s not looking at it, he thinks he could recreate this.

Whenever Sukea’s influence overcomes him, any knowledge he involuntarily acts on leaves him once it passes. But because he learned this, he doesn’t lose it when Sukea recedes.

“Kakashi?”

He looks up, and Obito is there, rubbing sleep from his eye with one arm twisted behind him, scratching his back. The fondness is strong, so Sukea hasn’t fully withdrawn. Kakashi smiles. “Yo, Obito.”

Obito eyes him, staring across the table at the seal, the leaf, and the ink. “What’re you doing?”

“Playing,” he answers simply.

“It’s like 6 A.M.”

“I’m a morning person.”

“Bullshit. You’ve slept in every day this week.”

“Maa, don’t worry about it. Are you hungry? Should I whip something up?”

“I don’t get…” Obito thinks better of it because Kakashi’s already rummaging through the fridge, trying to spark a recipe to life while seeing what they have to work with. He sits at the table, pulls the sealing pad over to have a look, but doesn’t ask. “Kakashi… Are you okay?”

“Hm?”

“You didn’t seem like yourself.”

Kakashi wonders what makes him feel like ‘himself’ to Obito, what those markers are and how he lost them.

“Sensei told me what happened. Wanna talk about it?”

He pulls one thing after another out of the fridge and piles them on top of the counter. At least the dishes are done, and the sink is clear. Nothing feels better than cooking in a clean workspace. “I’m fine, Obito,” he assures. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Obito plucks the pen up next, turning it over in his hand. “C’mon. You were a better liar last night, Kakashi.”

“Noticed that, did you?”

“I’d be a shit friend if I didn’t.”

Friend, huh?

As he preheats the oven and sets water to boil, Kakashi spins around to face his warden. The overlay of last night’s dream doesn’t find him this time, but it’s still there in his head, this all-consuming thing that won’t leave. When he thinks of the fate Sukea tried to force upon this man, his heart breaks anew. He wonders if that pain really is his own.

A thought occurs to him, then, and he’s not quite sure what to do with it. For a while, Kakashi stares at this man’s face, the angle of his jaw in the slow-growing sunrise and the bottomless black of a sole eye. Obito just stumbled out of bed, and his eye patch is nowhere to be found, so Kakashi can see the left one, as well. Rin must have sealed it with chakra so that it remains closed to keep out infection, holding out hope that a viable match would one day be found. Kakashi wants nothing more than to dig his fingers around his own Sharingan and return it to its proper place. But even if he did, Obito wouldn’t take it.

It’s a gift, after all.

“What’s that look for?” Obito asks, eyeing him.

Kakashi sighs. It’s a wistful thing. Beneath it, his heart fills with adoration, and he doesn’t know to whom it belongs. Sage, but he wants it to be his.

“Obito,” he calls as he draws across the room, leaning forward on the table. “Can I ask you something uncomfortable?”

“Do I wanna know?”

He smiles and shakes his head. “Not at all. That’s why I’m asking.”

Obito slumps over, pressing his thumb to the side of the pen. Absently, he pops off the lid and pulls it back down, again and again, filling the room with a persistent clicking. “Fine. Lay it on me.”

He’s a sweet man, Kakashi thinks, and wants that thought to be his own. It would be so much easier if it were.

“What would you do,” he starts, and Sukea’s dread curls around him like a vice, “if I told you that I loved you?”

Kakashi respects Sukea’s right to his feelings, and his love. But the line blurs when it seeps into his own.

Chapter Text

In Kakashi’s head, there’s a storm. Its name is Sukea.

Despite the noise, the nausea, the fear and betrayal at his own words, Kakashi waits. He doesn’t let Sukea’s misery seep into reality and gives Obito all the time he needs. It’s a strange question, probably not the best choice at 6 A.M. on a Saturday.

Obito narrows him under a look, waiting for the punchline of a joke that doesn’t come. The longer the silence between them, the more he falters. He starts to fidget. The pen in his hands is turned, twisted, and flipped. He posts the cap, spins it around, then replaces the cap over the nib.

Finally, he rolls it across the table. It lands over the seal, next to the dead leaf.

“I’d tell you not to sexually harass me at work.”

Kakashi stares long and hard, sighs, and goes back to cooking. He shouldn’t have asked. That little half-joke doesn’t warrant the sheer turmoil going on in his head at the moment. Honestly, he’s surprised Sukea hasn’t pulled back yet, punishing Kakashi with numbness. He will, though. Give it time.

“That wouldn’t stop you, though, would it?”

Kakashi doesn’t rise to the bait. He’s making a few side dishes, but can’t guarantee they go together that well, as he’s using up the last of what’s in the fridge before it goes off. He makes a mental note to request Obito go on a grocery run soon, else they’ll be eating nothing but the mysterious soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“You’ve always kind of done what you wanted.”

He turns back to his warden, expecting some punchable look on Obito’s face. But Obito’s smiling. It’s a small, tired thing, but it’s there.

Alright, okay. This isn’t something Kakashi foresaw, but it’s not bad, right?

“Maa, Obito, a straight answer would be nice,” he nudges.

Obito rests his chin on his palm and watches Kakashi flit about the kitchen. “You asked what I’d do, not how I’d feel. I think I gave you a pretty blunt reply.”

Kakashi wants to protest this, but can’t. Obito isn’t wrong, and he won’t push. His words weren’t really a confession, anyway… Kakashi honestly doesn’t know how he feels, and he won’t share Sukea’s affection, much as Sukea’s angry with him now.

Breakfast is served for one, as Kakashi’s still full. Even so, Obito eats. Kakashi watches him fondly as one by one, the side dishes disappear.

War, thy name is Sukea.

Kakashi spurred on this morning's event knowing full-well how Sukea’s influence would change afterward. That is to say: it's gone.

Kakashi smiles his sympathy as Inoichi’s frustration becomes a real, tangible thing in the interrogation room. They've been at it for two hours with nothing to show for it; even though they can pull up pre-discovered memories that belong to Sukea, following them only ever leads to Kakashi's history, and nobody's happy about this. Beside him, Obito’s eye burns holes into his skin, but he doesn't look.

That numbness is back, of course. He's ignoring Obito to not draw attention to it. But, well…

This is what he wanted. Suppose he can't complain, can he?

In the afternoon, Kakashi sits cross-legged in the courtyard, his plants watered (Obito included!), and reads. Shockingly, the book that has him so enraptured is Chakra Networks in Nature: The Fire Country Plant Directory. Tenzō’s book is crucially important to sealing techniques, apparently, which the author probably never intended. Who knew?

Because the book lists the average chakra levels of each plant at different stages of its growth, Kakashi can see which plants it would be best to pull from if he wants a short burst of chakra versus something long-lasting, and how many leaves it would take to match the average shinobi’s reserves. That is to say: a lot! But probably not as many as one would expect.

Kakashi never gave much thought to outsourcing chakra. Most people outside senjutsu masters wouldn't; it's a cumbersome process. As he considers this, he realizes that even the grass on which he sits could be used as a power source. What a terrifying ability.

“Maybe you should have taken up senjutsu instead of tying yourself to the Gedo Statue, hm?”

Sukea doesn't answer, so he’s drawing strange looks from Obito for nothing.

As the hours pass and that same muted emptiness fills his chest, he makes peace with it. When he looks at Obito, it isn't that he feels nothing, but…

Kakashi's emotions regarding Obito are secondary. They're distant now that his connection with Sukea has grown so close and gone on so long, and that makes them hard to feel. If he stops paying attention, he won't be able to decipher them well, which led to his panic last night. Well, the panic other than the helplessness he felt with Minato.

Kakashi would not be Kakashi if fresh trauma didn't come to greet him now and then.

While Kakashi reads about the plants in their garden, Obito lounges on the engawa. He's been quiet today, not that he's particularly chatty to begin with. The looks he gives are long and thoughtful, but Kakashi can’t say he knows what’s going on in his old friend’s head. He does his best not to wonder.

Sealing has never been an interest of Kakashi’s, no matter how useful it is. It was Minato’s field of expertise, and Kushina’s heritage, and once both died, there was no one left to teach it. Even before then, he never thought to ask, as there was a part of himself who wanted to follow his father’s footsteps, wielding a tantō… But that didn’t last, either. His focus switched from kenjutsu to ninjutsu, and his fighting style became something completely separate from the White Fang’s.

Sukea may have chosen sealing because of how different it was from their father’s style of combat. He wonders how Sukea would have fought during the war before the switch, and if his ninjutsu is comparable to Kakashi’s. Unlike his world’s Obito, he doubts Sukea can use Mokuton…

Still nothing. Sukea’s emotions are dead in the water, and Kakashi accepts that, at least for a while, he’ll have the emotional intelligence of a dying fish.

“What’s going on with you?” Obito asks. “I thought you hated that book.”

Kakashi looks over at him and smiles. “It’s incredibly dry. But there’s merit in dry reading, too, I suppose.”

His friend eyes him, then scoots off the engawa and crouches by his side. When Obito leans close, catching glimpses of the text, Kakashi tilts the book towards him. His heart doesn’t race, and he doesn’t hold his breath.

The face Obito makes as he reads one of the passages next to an illustration of a flower is amusing, even if Kakashi currently has the mental depth of sandpaper. “Why are you so interested in this? Is it for the garden?”

“In a way.” Honestly, Kakashi just needs more hobbies, and learning to seal with plants is a fun side-project… if his new Sensei will ever forgive this morning’s transgressions. He goes back one page and points to a berry bush that’s common in the forests outside Konoha. “What do you say to planting a few of these?”

Obito scratches his chin. “I mean, do what you want. Not like I’ve put any thought into it. You saw what it looked like when you got here.”

“Maa, don’t feel bad. What would a plant know about gardening?”

“Oh, fuck off.” Obito swats away the hand poking his arm and rolls his eye. “I’m not a plant, I just—I just have less needs to fill, or…”

Kakashi smiles his sympathy as his warden rambles on, trying to justify something he shouldn’t need to. “You’re self-conscious about it,” he decides, feeling Obito tense. “But you really don’t need to be. There’s nothing wrong with the way you are, and I wish you weren’t so ashamed of it. The fact that you’re sitting here with me is enough.”

Obito looks at him, hunched over and drooping like a wilted flower, and then to the book that is now resting open on the grass. “Really know how to mess with me, don’t you?”

Kakashi sighs. “I’m not trying to mess with you, Obito. I’m being genuine right now.”

“I know,” he mutters. “That’s why.”

Kakashi doesn’t understand. He remains quiet as Obito picks up the very bland, technically-written plant directory, skimming through the pages. Perhaps something Kakashi said is being misconstrued? Because his own feelings are so dull right now, he might not be as empathetic, or able to convey his intentions properly. The last thing he wants is to say the wrong thing, and break the fragile bond between them. He goes to apologise, but can’t find the words.

“I feel better under the sun like this,” Obito confesses. “In the winter, I get lethargic, and when I stay inside, I get tired. I don’t actually need to sleep much if I spend a lot of time outside.”

Obito thumbs the corner of a page, decidedly not meeting his eyes.

“Guess I am a plant.”

Kakashi blinks. Tension leaves him, and he leans against Obito’s side, throwing an arm around his shoulders. Obito’s embarrassed, impossibly awkward, and awaiting judgement, and all Kakashi can do is smile.

“I quite like plants,” he states, proudly gesturing to the garden. “They’re my favourite, in fact.”

Obito turns away, and the tips of his ears are just a little pink.

“Shut up, Kakashi.”

What a relief. Kakashi thought he crossed a line somewhere and overstepped his bounds, but apparently not. He feels that relief, too, as it washes over him, dull but still present, growing in his chest. It’s nice to know that this emotion, at least, is his own.

“Why that bush, anyway?”

Kakashi is confused, at first, distracted as he feels out his condition. Oh, right. “The berries are edible, which would make a good snack, I suppose.”

“That’s not all that convincing.”

Well, the real reason is because plants that produce food have an additional, recurring chakra source to use, but Kakashi isn’t sure that’s a satisfactory answer. Instead, he shrugs. “I think it would be nice to make a vegetable garden in the plots by the fence, too. It would lessen the burden on you for our grocery runs, and it’d keep me happy.”

Obito makes an indiscernible face, then sighs. “Yeah, okay. Whatever you want. We can pick up some more starters soon, I guess.”

“Thank you.”

“You better maintain it all,” Obito cautions. “If they overgrow and damage my property, they’re going. I don’t care how happy they make you.”

“But Obito, they’re your siblings.”

Obito pushes him over, which is entirely fair.

Kakashi stares at the sealing pad, the fountain pen in hand, and recreates the seal from last night. He hopes it’ll nudge Sukea into initiating another lesson, but it doesn’t. Bridges have been burned, and yet here Kakashi is, trying to cross the vast ocean between them.

Obito is… somewhere. He’s in the house still, upstairs, doing something-or-other that Kakashi can’t be bothered with. There are no chores to do, they’ll be picking at the mysterious soup again for dinner, so he doesn’t have to cook, and Kakashi already spent several hours perusing a very dry book, so he doesn’t want to read. All he really has left is sealing. If Sukea never forgives him, perhaps he could ask Minato… Ah, but he’s the Hokage, and he’s impossibly busy. Are there any other seal masters in this Konoha? Likely not. Even if there were, they wouldn’t want to teach a known terrorist how to be more terrible, would they?

Hm.

Kakashi’s bored. Impossibly bored. He’s so bored that he misses Sukea’s fantasies about his old friend. At least those were entertaining.

“Kakashi.”

He looks up, finding his warden has returned from the second floor. He’s got two sealings scrolls at his hip and he’s robed in traditional Uchiha garb. Usually, he keeps to his fatigues, at least around Kakashi.

“Let’s go.”

Kakashi blinks as he caps the pen, sets it down on the kitchen table, and follows after his warden. Where are they going?

Outside, apparently. Obito slips on his sandals and nods for Kakashi to do the same, so he does. They’ve already visited T&I today, much as their session went terribly, and Kakashi rarely gets to leave for anything else. The hospital, maybe? Something unpleasant could have shown up in the results of his exams that they forgot to mention. With how poor Sukea’s care of their body was, it wouldn’t even be surprising.

As he steps outside, his stomach is in knots, but he can’t understand why. He needs to focus and retreat inward if he wants to parse his feelings, and as he does so, he realizes that he’s nervous. No matter how terrible his role is in this world or how bad the circumstances, Kakashi likes being here, seeing these people he’s lost and living through it. Were something to happen to this body, and his time here came to an end, he would mourn.

Kakashi wants to live, even like this, when he’s made the whole world his enemy.

He pulls free of his thoughts and is more confused when they reach the front gate and no ANBU are there. Obito isn’t bothered, taking a left down the street in front of their house, and Kakashi follows along. To get to both the hospital and T&I, they should have gone right. Even the prison is in that direction. What is this, then, and where are their guards?

As they walk, Kakashi catches a glimpse of an ANBU on the roof, and eases up. Okay, so their entourage is still here, but they’re being discreet about it. Kakashi’s fine with that. Making a scene every time they go out is excessive, especially as he’s gained more trust.

“Minato made it public today,” Obito says. “Who you are, and what’s going on with you, I mean.”

“Why would he do that?”

“So that you could leave the house.”

He frowns, not understanding, then looks down at his hands and realizes that Obito never put the cuffs on him. He’s still chakra-bound, but has full mobility of his arms. That’s… odd, to be sure. Kakashi hasn’t left the house without them even once since arriving in this world. Sure, they’ve been taken off at the hospital, and in the interrogation room, but he’s never been trusted with travel.

Minato should trust him less after yesterday’s display, and yet, here they are.

“No one would believe him,” Kakashi says next, bringing his arms down while staring at his friend. “It’s an absurd story.”

“You underestimate the faith we have in our Kage.”

Kakashi doesn’t protest that. People are loyal to Minato, and they know how honest he is. Never has there been a more transparent leader than the Fourth Hokage. Still, this is ridiculous. How did Minato convince the other Kage to let him share this with the masses, and why bother? Most people won’t care if the one inside the vessel is someone else. All that matters is what this body has done, not who did it.

Finally, he has to ask, “Where are we going?”

“Groceries,” Obito says. “You said we gotta restock the fridge, right?”

“Oh.”

Obito looks at him, then, and sighs. “We’re worried about you,” he admits. “Minato said you were influenced by… ours. And that it spooked you. You didn’t eat dinner yesterday, just laid on the couch like a dead thing. I’ve never seen you skip a meal.”

Well. He used to. And as Hokage, he still does when work has him losing track of the time. But cooking keeps him from getting stir-crazy in this world, since he’s trapped in the house all day, and sharing meals with Obito is… pleasant, he thinks, even without Sukea’s fondness there to overwhelm him.

“Maa, if you know I was influenced, all the more reason to keep me locked up, don’t you think?”

Obito rolls his eyes. “Most people would just, you know. Accept the freedom.”

“Most people aren’t terrorists.”

“Shockingly, neither are you.”

Kakashi waves away the technicality.

The subject drops there and they continue walking alongside each other, making their way toward the heart of the village. Well, this isn’t total freedom. Tenzō’s ANBU team is as vigilant as always, although they’re being quiet about it. The chakra binders are still there on his wrists, Obito is still playing guard dog, though he doesn’t show it like he used to. Kakashi’s eyes are sealed, but still visible, announcing the role he played in the war. They aren’t letting their guard down in the ways he fears they might. He just wishes that, after yesterday, they would handle him with an abundance of caution.

If only Sukea would pry his way into this moment between them. No doubt, they would enjoy this time with Obito more that way. As Kakashi checks on his emotional state, he finds himself calm. That’s nice, too.

They near the market, and there are more people out and about. Naturally, Kakashi draws a lot of eyes. Some people loathe him, their anger burning in earnest, but others are simply confused, or unsettled. That’s fine. They’re entitled to their opinions of him. But despite the harsh looks and whispers, Obito carries on without a care in the world.

“Well?” Obito asks, turning on him. “Let me know what you’d like, and we’ll get it.”

Kakashi points to himself, head tilted.

“Yeah, you. Who else would I be talking to?”

Long gone are the days when this man glared at him with the hatred of a thousand suns. These days, he doesn’t even remember what Obito looks like when he’s truly angry or upset. He thinks about it as he steps forward, inspecting the wares of each produce stall in earnest. The owners all hate to see him, and if he wasn’t accompanied by a well-known jōnin-sensei, he doubts they’d sell to him at all.

Ah, yes… Obito’s a jōnin-sensei. In this world, he’s fulfilling a role similar to the one Kakashi once did.

He gives the uneasy old fellow manning the stall a friendly smile, then turns it on his warden. “You said your team visits now and then. Would they still be allowed, even with me there?”

Obito frowns, crossing his arms. “Well, yeah, I don’t see why not. Why?”

“I’d like to make ramen if they come over,” he says. “Maa, not that I think I can make it as well as Teuchi does, of course. But I would like to try.”

Kakashi knows Obito’s staring at him but pays it no mind as he very politely requests specific amounts of certain ingredients he knows the kids like in their ramen. If they could, it would be nice to add some pork belly… but he would need to know a few days in advance if he wanted it to keep. Thinking about it, he hasn’t shared a meal with his kids in… a long time, actually. Kakashi used to go out with them at least once a month, but with Sasuke out of the village more often than not, all the S-rank missions Naruto is sent on, and Sakura’s back-to-back shifts at the hospital… And he’s Hokage, on top of it all. His kids have kids of their own now, too, and when Kakashi’s not working behind a desk, he’s talking to students at the academy, attending Kage summits or discussing matters with the council. The free time he gets besides that, he tries to give to his ninken, or Tenzō, or Gai…

Gai has been strangely absent from his life here, and it hurts a bit. Kakashi saw him once, as he was bound and walked to the village by a very embellished entourage, and never again. He’s alive, at least, and his body is whole. Kakashi imagines being called out to by a loud, exaggerated voice demanding an obscure challenge… That wouldn’t happen here, though, would it? In this world, Kakashi has been gone for so long, only to return as a monster.

“Humans can do terrible things all on their own, but they’re still human.”

He doesn’t know if he still thinks of Sukea as a monster. It’s hard to make that call when they’ve become a melting pot of thoughts and experiences. But he would not, even for a moment, blame Gai for feeling that way.

Obito pays for the produce, and they move onto the next stall. He thinks up a few recipes he knows and makes a mental checklist of everything they’ll need, testing yet more produce for their quality. Soon, there are four bags hanging from Obito’s arms, even though he very well could carry them himself.

“You planning on feeding the whole village?” Obito grumbles, adjusting the handles on his arms. “This is twice what the ANBU bought last time.”

“Maa, what if we have an unexpected guest? I would be remiss not to feed them.”

“They can get their own damn food at their own damn house.”

“You’d make for a terrible host, Obito. Shame on you.”

It’s nice that they can talk like this—that even here, in this world where everyone hates him, he still has people to tease. But even though he loves all these familiar faces now returned to him, it would be a lie if he said he didn’t miss his old world, just a bit. When he thinks of the absent rival he has yet to meet here, he then wonders about his own Gai, how he’s doing back home, and if he’ll find someone else to go on that retirement trip with. When he sees his kids, he remembers they’re not really his, and that the team he proudly raised is older and off on their own in a world several years ahead of this one.

And when he smiles at Obito, his heart breaks, remembering the last smile he ever saw on a too-tired face, feeling the dirt on his knees as he fell to them.

Their walk home is meandering as they drag their feet. It’s late, and he’s glad they have Obito’s unsettling concoction to eat because he doesn’t feel much like cooking with the sun going down. Meal prep can eat hours out of the day.

“Hey, Kakashi?”

“Mm?”

“Why do you wanna make ramen for the kids?”

Kakashi tilts his head. “Well, because…” What a strange question. “They like ramen.”

“No, I mean…” Obito sighs, sets one of the storage scrolls in through a belt loop to free up his hands, and rubs the back of his neck. “Did you know them in your world, or something? I realized I don’t really know anything about you. I know about our Kakashi, and… you don’t talk about yourself.”

Well, he doesn’t. When they first met in this world, Kakashi was all too ready to die so that their reality could know peace. He never expected to last as long as he has, or that the people here would open up a tiny space for him to exist. There are things he’ll bring up now and then, but Minato only knows his history because of Inoichi’s jutsu, and Obito only started attending those sessions recently, while they focus on Sukea. But he doesn’t really want to share if he can help it, worried the question of his Obito will crop up. His Rin, his Minato. Anyone. All these people that he and the village failed.

Kakashi stops and smiles at him. Not long ago, this Obito denied his very existence, telling him ‘Kakashi wouldn’t do that’ as though he already knew the truth. Now here he is, asking after him, wanting to know more.

Well, that’s only fair. Kakashi learns more about this man every day. So he scratches his cheek, a little embarrassed to be divulging this after so long, and says, “I was their jōnin-sensei.”

Honesty never killed anyone (which is probably a lie). Obito deserves this much, at least.

Chapter Text

Obito wakes up to the screeching of his alarm, and blindly feels around his nightstand to silence it. He drapes his arm over his face to block out the cheery morning sun, and wonders if he might be able to get away with staying like this for the next forty minutes. Unfortunately, when he sets his alarm, there’s always a reason, and that reason happens to be directly across the hall.

After rolling out of bed, he drags himself to Kakashi’s room and immediately goes to open the door, but stops. Privacy is something a prisoner doesn’t see much of, and Obito’s barged in on him several times in the past. But sometimes, if he waits long enough, he gets a treat.

“Maa, you can’t ignore me forever,” Kakashi says, muffled through the door. “It’s been a week. Haven’t you forgiven me yet?”

The Kakashis are fighting. It’s been like this for a while now, and though Obito doesn’t know what it’s about, their world’s Kakashi is being stubborn about it. Lately, Inoichi’s digs into their mind have been fruitless, and taxing for everyone involved. There’s another one scheduled today, along with Kakashi’s next medical exam.

He’s known for a while now that the two of them talk. Sometimes, when he’s coming down the hall, he’ll hear fragments of a one-sided conversation. There are times when Kakashi doesn’t bother to hide it, too, like when he’s watering the garden or pulling weeds in the courtyard. It’s… strange, yeah. But knowing their situation makes it easier to understand.

Obito hasn’t talked to his childhood friend in a great many years. There are so many things he wants to say, but he won’t say them. It’s not fair to make the stranger their buffer.

“Sukea,” Kakashi calls, a little strained, “I wasn’t going to say it. You know that.”

Sukea is the nickname the stranger gave their Kakashi, apparently, which makes it a bit easier to differentiate between them. Obito hates it, though, drawn back to their encounters with Akatsuki, staring up at the sickeningly sweet man in the painted mask, how pleasant he acted as he phased through their attacks. Sukea was endlessly polite, and horribly cruel. He’d carved a seal into his mask that placed an illusion on him, so those who looked upon him couldn’t remember the fine details of his appearance. If they had, they would have seen the Sharingan eye and the obvious silver hair, and put two-and-two together. But Obito only noticed after he set the mask ablaze, and Kakashi pulled it off. Even now, all their prior meetings are indistinct in his mind.

He waits for a stretch of silence to open the door and poke his head in. Usually, Kakashi sleeps in pretty late unless Obito comes to him wake up, and he takes frequent naps on top of that. He’s been bored lately, almost melancholy, but Obito doesn’t know what to do.

Mismatched purple and red eyes find him, and Kakashi sighs. “Maa, you really should knock, Obito. What if I was in the middle of something?”

Obito rolls his eye and leans in the doorway. “If you’re gonna masterbate, put a sock on the door handle or something.” He pretends not to notice the uneven patches of red spreading across Kakashi’s pale skin. Kakashi’s quick to blush, just like he was as a kid. “We’ve got a hospital exam in two hours. Sensei thinks he has a key for your seal now, but he wants Rin to double-check your condition before he tries it.”

“I’ll be ready.”

Obito eyes him one more time before shutting the door, and waiting. He listens to the shuffling behind it, the sound of footsteps moving toward the closet.

“You’re back now, then?” Kakashi asks quietly. “Can we call a truce?”

He lingers, but the one-sided conversation dies, and he skulks back into his room to fish for a change of clothes. Kakashi started doing laundry lately, and Obito finds everything neatly folded in his dresser. He cooks, and cleans. Gardens. Obito hasn’t done a single chore all week. If he tries, he finds his prisoner already up to the task, desperate for something to keep his hands busy.

How long can they stay like this? Kakashi’s quick to smile, but he passed stir-crazy long ago, and is quickly moving into depression. They rarely leave the house together unless it’s for business, and even when Obito suggests things they can do, Kakashi declines. ‘You really are too lenient on someone who tried to end the world,’ he’ll say. ‘Even chakra-bound, I could still be a threat.’

Kakashi hasn’t raised a single finger against them since he arrived in their world. He’s no more dangerous than a kitten. And Obito—

Obito’s worried. He thinks of the visits he made to Konoha prison, and how bright and alive this man looked. With each passing day, a little more of that fades. He wants Kakashi to be happy. That’s all he’s ever wanted. But Obito’s only ever been responsible for his kids.

He thinks Kakashi might feel something for him, but isn’t sure. The bastard’s always teasing, and it’s hard to know when he’s being serious or playing a bit. That only makes this harder to watch.

But what does Obito know? He’s just a plant. Or something.

Obito waits with Kakashi in the exam room, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. He looks mad but isn’t, too busy brainstorming ways to enrich Kakashi’s experience to register how miserable he seems. ‘Enrich his experience.’ Sage, it sounds like he’s thinking about a dog, not a person.

“Something wrong?” Kakashi asks, leaning forward on the exam bed. “Are you constipated?”

“What? No. ” Ugh. Fucking menace. This is payback for the masturbation comment, isn’t it? But he likes the way Kakashi laughs after he teases, and how his mouth curls when he smiles.

“What’s with the face, then? You’ve been moody all morning.”

And you’ve been a sad sack all week, he doesn’t say. Instead, he slouches on his chair and crosses his arms, staring at the half-open door. Rin’s running late, as usual. It’s like she wants to make them wait—like she knows how much Obito hates the hospital, and is punishing him for it. “It’s nothing. I’m just thinking about stuff, I guess.”

“A dangerous task for Dead Last.”

“Oh, fuck off. You know how many years it’s been since anyone called me that?”

“To your face,” Kakashi corrects lightly, and Obito kind of wants to punch him.

It’s nice to see him lively today. He’s more like himself than he has been in days. But as Obito spots the tail end of the word ‘traitor’ carved into Kakashi’s collarbone, peeking out from beneath Kakashi’s gown, he wonders how long it will last.

Rin clears her throat, and they both turn away from one another. She holds a clipboard to her chest, looming in the doorway as her eyes track from one former teammate to the next. “Am I interrupting your squabble, boys?”

Obito waves her off. “Just get on with it already.”

“Someone’s in a mood.”

He’s not. He swears that he’s not.

“Alright, Kakashi. Let’s see if you’re faring any better than last time.”

While Rin works, Obito slips out with some vague excuse he doesn’t remember, and wanders the hall. Usually, he sticks by Kakashi’s side during exams. Kakashi doesn’t talk about himself, so it’s the only way Obito can keep up-to-date on his needs. But it’s hard sometimes, knowing how poorly Sukea cared for that body, and how shrivelled his will to live was by the end.

Look at him. He’s acting like his friend is dead when, in fact, he’s multiplied. Maybe he is a bit miserable.

Obito finds Rin’s office. Sakura’s working under her as an apprentice, so she’s sharing the room right now, carving out her own little space in Konoha Hospital. This is the next leg of her training after finishing her time with Lady Tsunade, and though she’s more than proven herself, her skills mainly extend to those of a field medic. Rin came from the same background, and is the perfect fit to get her experience with more complex cases.

When he pokes his head in, he sees her at her desk, unwrapping the cloth around a bento. Rin must have put her on lunch; no one besides her and Obito are authorized to attend Kakashi’s check-ups.

“Oh, Obito-sensei,” she greets. “I didn’t expect to see you today.”

“Kakashi has a check-up. You on break?”

“Yes,” she sighs, lifting the lid off her bento. It’s a bit of a mess on the inside, so she certainly didn’t make it. Naruto’s been trying to cook, though… She’s a better person than Obito if she’s willing to eat that. The only thing Obito would trust that kid to cook is instant ramen. If that can be called cooking. “The shifts are so long, Sensei… I love it, but I’m exhausted. Rin-sensei is a real slave driver.”

Obito smiles, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind him. “Oh yeah. She’s a monster with her apprentices. I hear all the ones from last year quit.”

“Don’t tell me that… Aren’t you supposed to encourage me, or something?”

“You can do it,” he says blandly. “Don’t die trying.”

“Thanks…”

While she eats, Obito claims one of the chairs by the wall, and stares out the window at the sky. Soon, he taps his fingers, and bounces his leg. When Rin first moved into that office, she was where Sakura sits now, bent over a paperwork-laden desk, shovelling food into her mouth with bags under her eyes. Now, her name plate stands proud at the front of the room, her name carved into polished stone.

“Wanna stop by?”

Sakura doesn’t immediately reply, and his lead-in could have been better. Obito has never invited the kids to his place; they show up of their own accord, and he has the decency to humour them. He loves them, but when they’re all together with no training to focus on, they’re absolute terrors. Either their fighting, or they’re up to something, and he never knows which is worse.

“You don’t have to,” he backpedals. Outside, dark clouds roll in, eclipsing the view of the sun. “He probably makes you uncomfortable, right? I was like that, too.”

“Stop that. I didn’t even say anything.” Sakura sets her chopsticks down and swivels her chair to face him, propping her arm up on the desk.

The village knows about Kakashi now. Minato’s been forthcoming with their findings, and that someone else is living in his body, though they’ve kept it under wraps just who this someone is. The world-hopping mayhem that is Kakashi Hatake doesn’t need to be explained to the masses, and in a village familiar with Lord Second’s ridiculous experiments, it’s easy to imagine a jutsu trapping one person in another’s body. Most shinobi are familiar with Orochimaru’s work, too, and his habit of seeking out a new host body every few years. None of that is strange.

By extension, Sakura knows now, too. And Naruto. Sasuke. They know that someone else is in that body, but not who that someone is.

“It doesn’t bother me,” she says. “He’s pretty nice, actually, and he smiles a lot. I like that about him.”

“You spoke with him in the prison, right?”

“A few times, yeah.” Absently, Sakura taps the butt of her pen against the desk, and it reminds him of Kakashi’s new toy, stolen from Obito’s study. He’s been drawing seals with it lately, basic ones that even Obito can read. For some reason, he keeps lining a really simple light seal, as though it’s the only one he knows. “I wouldn’t mind stopping in one day, but I’m surprised you asked. You acted like you hated him.”

Obito never hated Kakashi. He hated himself.

He rubs the back of his neck and lowers his eye. “I think he’s lonely. He’s been quiet lately, and I thought maybe having company over would do him some good. Kakashi’s not really the type to share his thoughts, you know? I’m trying my best, but…”

Man, how awkward. Obito’s supposed to be the sensei, but here he is confiding in his student. Sakura’s always been better at feeling people out, though. Obito hasn’t had a good read on anyone since Kannabi Bridge. After he lost Kakashi, and his limbs, after the synthetic tissue was grafted to his body… Things changed. Everything did, really. And even now, decades later, it still feels like he’s trying to find his footing.

“Are you inviting the guys, too?” Sakura asks. When he looks up at her, she’s smiling. “I bet they’d like that. Naruto kept trying to sneak him hot water for his ramen, but the guards wouldn’t let him through. Sasuke was ready to boil it with a fire jutsu.”

Obito snorts, imagining the trouble those poor guards must have had with his monster brats. This is the first he’s heard of it. All that time Kakashi spent in prison, and Obito’s only privy to the parts he was there for. The only information he has about the man inside that body is that, at one point in his life, he was a jōnin-sensei. That he joined ANBU after losing his teammates, and that, at some point, he must have retired from it. It’s petty of him, but he finds it unfair.

It would be nice to learn more, even just a bit.

“I planned on it,” he says. “Mind asking them for me? You’ll probably see them before I do.”

“Sure thing.”

He waits out the end of the hour there, chatting with Sakura until she finishes her meal and shoos him away, then skulks back to the exam room. It looks like they’ve finished up, and Obito goes to collect his charge before Rin grabs his collar, pulls him out of the room, and shuts the door with a quick, “Gimme a sec with your warden,” to Kakashi.

Obito makes a face, unsure of what he did to earn her ire. “What? Is something wrong with him? Is he sick?”

“No,” Rin sighs, releasing him. “Kakashi’s doing well. He’s put on some weight, and his heart’s strong. There shouldn’t be any concern if Sensei removes the seal in his chest.”

“Then what?”

“Remember what I asked you about before? About his Sharingan.”

Ah. That. When Kakashi was in prison, he apparently made a request for his Sharingan to be returned to its owner. Obito doesn’t really want it, or need it. It was a gift, and no matter what kind of bastard Sukea grew up to be, the fact remains that, at least back then, they were friends. Even if it didn’t always feel like it.

Obito refused when Sensei asked. Then Rin came around, wore him down, told him that it was better he have it than a terrorist, and he caved. Only if they found a donor, he said. He wouldn’t leave Kakashi with one eye.

“Well, we found one. We’re preserving it for now, but the longest we can do is two weeks,” she says. “Make up your mind before then, okay? Talk with him about it.”

He should be happy. For the first time since Kannabi Bridge, he won’t have to cover his face with his hitai-ate. But there’s something sad in taking back his gift, no matter how it’s been used, that leaves a bitter aftertaste.

“Understood.”

Obito’s getting sick of seeing the same faces at T&I every week. He’s even more frustrated with being shown the same damn memories, again and again. They may be a small glimpse into the stranger’s early life, but Kakashi is too young in those memories for Obito to glean any insight into who he was in the other world.

When this session goes no differently, and he sees the same despair he feels on the faces of the interrogators, Obito sighs.

“Hey,” he calls, drawing eyes to him, “could we take a break? I wanna have a word with him.”

Inoichi frowns, but doesn’t protest. He pulls away, the chakra projector goes dark, and the lights go on. “That may be for the best. I think we could all use some fresh air.”

Everyone files out of the room, save Kakashi and Obito. Kakashi has in his hand a cup of warm tea that one of the assistants offered him. He gets along well with the employees there, and always apologizes for how difficult he’s being, even if it’s not his fault. For all his easy smiles, Kakashi looks tired of this, too.

How many times has he re-lived his father’s death?

“Hey,” Obito calls, twisting on his chair to face his friend. Suddenly, he’s all awkward, wondering if what he’s about to do is stupid, and pointless, and if he should have kept his damn mouth shut. But Kakashi waits for him to gather his wits, and doesn’t press. “Would you mind if I spoke to him?”

Kakashi arches a brow. “Maa, we can’t switch,” he says lightly. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“Through you, I mean. If it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t.” But I think he still cares about me, and that he might listen.

Usually, Kakashi’s ready with quips and banter, even when he’s down. But he’s silent, his eyes searching Obito as he nods. “Go on.”

Obito shifts on his chair and leans forward, folding his hands together as his mind finds the image of a little boy wracked with fever and chills. Sukea was beyond sick the day they met, but even though he was flopping around like a half-dead fish, he was one-minded, determined to complete his D-rank mission. Obito was so sure the brat would keel over before they caught that damn cat, and the moment they did, Sukea collapsed. What a pain.

He remembers that same boy poking around the Uchiha district, and how he ran off whenever Obito spotted him. It was cute, he thought, that some brat was idolizing him. That’s all it was, after all. Just a bit of admiration.

That wasn’t it, though, was it?

“Sukea,” he calls, because that’s what Kakashi’s taken to calling him, and Obito wants to be firm on who it is he’s speaking to. “Can you show me, please?”

Kakashi’s eyes widen.

“I know it’s uncomfortable, and I know you’d rather be anywhere else right now. But let’s forget about Inoichi and his little goons, and forget about this guy for a second,” he says, waving at Kakashi. “I want to know what happened to you. I don’t expect you to tell me, and I know that you won’t. So, could we meet in the middle here? Can you let up a bit?”

Thinking about it, there’s no reason for Sukea to hide his past, now that he’s been caught. His plan has been foiled, his war has been lost, and now all he is is the voice at the back of someone’s head. There’s nothing left to lose. So, Obito wondered why he so stubbornly kept his memories hidden and… It’s personal, isn’t it? All these people sitting here, watching his deepest, darkest moments. Those days when no one knew him, in the interim between the boy Obito remembers and the man he fought against in the war.

The room is quiet, and Obito scratches his head, feeling awkward and wrong. When he and Sukea used to fight, Obito never understood what started it. They only ever patched things up if they had a heart-to-heart, but getting Sukea to sit down long enough for that was like pulling teeth. He was a brat. He was shy, too, and didn’t know how to express himself. It made it hard for him to make friends, and harder to keep them. And with the attitude he had, anyone who stuck around long enough would get sick of him. But whenever Obito reached his limit, he remembered the little kid who used to follow him around, and his anger died in his chest.

Kakashi fidgets, but he’s not usually the type. Obito thinks back to what Minato told him, and wonders if their connection is particularly strong right now, and if those small movements are a bit of Sukea bleeding through.

“I’d like to have a proper talk, but that’s difficult right now,” he continues. “I know whatever happened won’t be pretty, and I know that I’m not going to like it. But I promise that whatever I see won’t be as bad as never knowing.”

He doesn’t mention that Sukea’s plan has failed, that they took measures to prevent anyone from attempting what he did ever again, and that Sukea has lost. That would only piss him off more, and then he’d really want to get away.

Kakashi doesn’t say anything. It gets a bit more awkward after that, and Obito decides to break eye contact because man, this is getting uncomfortable. He hasn’t used that tone in years, and already, he’s forgetting what he said. Did he make any sense? What the hell is his argument here, anyway?

But then a hand finds his, and squeezes it. Obito looks down at the pale fingers wrapping his own, the touch cool against his skin. Kakashi runs cold. Always has. On one mission, Obito’s sleeping bag came unclipped from his backpack and fell into a stream they were walking across. Sukea offered to share his. They squeezed in when it came time to sleep, just barely able to fit. Sukea’s hands and feet were cold then, too, like blocks of ice wedged up against Obito’s back. Obito ended up buying him thermal socks and gloves with his portion of their mission earnings. Sukea wore them every mission after that, right up until Kannabi Bridge.

Kakashi clears his throat. When Obito looks at him, he sees the same patchy red flush he saw this morning. “Maa, I’m not sure if he’ll relent, but you made him very happy.”

Obito arches a brow. He’s holding Kakashi’s hand with both of his, trying to warm it, and understands that the redness he sees is probably from Sukea.

“Sorry,” Obito says, but he’s smiling. Nostalgia’s a powerful tool. “He’s always been kinda handsy. Back when I knew him, at least. Do you mind?”

“No,” Kakashi says quickly, then hesitates. “Do as you please, if it’ll help. I’m a bit tired of reliving my childhood trauma.”

Obito frowns, smoothing over the backs of Kakashi’s knuckles with his palm. Finally, his hand is warming up. “Yeah, that’s not right. I’m not too pleased he keeps putting you through that, either.”

The hand twitches, and he eyes it. “You said you can’t switch. But this is him, right? What’s that about?”

Kakashi is quiet for a moment, and it feels like he might divert, or write it off. But for how much he keeps to himself, he isn’t the type to lie. “I feel when he wants to do something if our connection is strong, and can lean into it. It’s still me, but while under his influence, let’s say. That’s what happened when Sensei was last over.”

Obito makes a face. That’s… strangely convoluted, but he kind of understands. “Does he feel what you feel?”

Kakashi nods. “He experiences everything I do, but can’t control our body.”

“I get it. Then, when you—”

The door opens, and Obito swallows his curses. Great. There they are, having a nice conversation, and Inoichi has to ruin it. Whatever. He said his piece, and there’s nothing stopping them from continuing this back home. It’s been a while since they just… talked like this, and shared pieces of themselves, so he was enjoying it.

“All set?” Inoichi asks as he and his assistants ferry back into the room. One is little more than an errand boy, and the woman transcribes the details of the memories they view so Inoichi can focus on his jutsu, and prying apart the memories he finds.

Obito tries not to look bitter as he twists around to face the projector, his hands falling away from Kakashi’s. “Just about.”

“And you?”

Kakashi thinks about it for a moment, then holds up his cup. “I’d like a refill, if I could.”

Errand boy goes to the rescue while the rest of them get settled. Soon, Kakashi has his hot tea, the lights are out, and the chakra projector is back at work.

It starts off as a lot of the same. They follow Sukea’s memories to the death of the White Fang and the aftermath that came from it. Obito remembers the funeral, and meeting Minato for the first time while they both wore mourning clothes. Obito wasn’t especially close with Sukea or his father at the time. But one day, the little runt who kept tailing him disappeared. Obito used to sneak up behind him sometimes, or try to; Sukea was hard to catch off-guard. They would share snacks that Obito got as gifts from the elderly folks he ran errands for. He might’ve been a bit jealous that the brat was already a genin while Obito was attending the academy, but there was something fond there, too, seeing him run around the village doing his D-ranks.

He learned of the White Fang’s death two days later, the day before the ceremony. They never met, but Obito pieced together who Sukea was through context clues, and felt he had to attend. The villagers were spitting on Sakumo’s name even in death, and there was no way Obito would let his little buddy listen to that crap all alone.

Sukea didn’t really look at him that day, or any of the days after. There were no more visits to the Uchiha district, no shared treats by the river or climbing up trees together to retrieve Tora the cat.

Like all the times before it, there’s a snag after that, and Obito sees repeats of the other Kakashi’s memories starting to bleed through. Maybe his heart-to-heart didn’t reach his old friend. Maybe he could have tried harder.

Maybe he still can.

Obito twists back around to face Kakashi, his arm draped over the back of his chair. “Remember when Rin and I joined your team?”

Kakashi’s mouth twitches, and on the projector, that day is displayed through his eyes, lingering on his two new teammates. It’s hard to tell whose memory it is at first, but as it plays out, it shows the end of their first training session together. They sat side by side under a tree, and Obito rambled on and on about whatever came to mind, from being too late to attend his own graduation to getting flowers from the old ladies he helped in the market. Having seen it for himself already, Obito knows that their other-world counterparts never had this conversation.

This memory is Sukea’s. The furthest along they’ve seen so far. Obito tried to coax them forward in other sessions but it never worked, and now…

Now, Sukea’s letting up a bit. Just as he asked.

He doesn’t smile. Making a big deal about this seems like a bad move, so instead, he hunkers down, and gets ready to guide them forward through the next leg of memories. “You were always so mad at me. I didn’t get it. At first, I thought you had a crush on Rin, or something. Remember our first trip outside Konoha together? Middle of winter, and to wake me up for night watch, you rolled me out of my sleeping bag. Who does that?”

On screen, the memory jumps forward several months, and Obito sees himself sleeping. A small hand lightly taps his shoulder, then pulls away, but nothing happens. Then again, a little more aggressively. When that doesn’t work, it pokes his cheek, shakes his arm, tugs at the strap of the goggles he’d forgotten to take off before bed. Still nothing. A voice, young and annoyed, calling his name, telling him to get up, that Sukea won’t take his shift again tonight, he’s tired too.

It culminates into the image he described, Sukea unzipping his sleeping bag, and unravelling him across the cold, frozen ground.

A fight starts. The bickering is loud in the quiet room, and on screen, the rest of the team wakes up.

Obito clears his throat when the assistants turn to him, and looks anywhere but at Kakashi. “Didn’t realize I was such a heavy sleeper.”

Kakashi only sighs.

Over the next twenty minutes, Obito continues to guide them through their short years together, and it’s nostalgic, re-living these far-off days. He sees them getting closer, even if they still argue, and in the spaces between what he remembers, he sees those moments he never knew, when Sukea’s eyes lingered on him, or when Sukea spoke about him with Rin, like after his first bad wound suffered on a mission, when he got burns on his arm from an enemy’s jutsu.

“He’ll be okay, right?”

“I think so,” Rin says. “It’s bad, but it’s not over any joints, at least. Mostly, it’s just painful.”

“Will it scar?”

“Well, maybe. But what shinobi doesn’t have a few scars? He’ll be fine; stop worrying.”

“I hate it when he’s hurt. I feel useless.”

Obito doesn’t look at Kakashi. It feels a bit unfair to see all this, and then corner him like that, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. So, to offer what little privacy he can, Obito focuses on the reason they’re here.

With Kannabi Bridge, they reach the end of their shared memories. Obito doesn’t remember much of it, really, beyond being pinned on his left side by falling rocks, staring up at his little buddy whose eye was cut through, and bloody nails trying to pry him free. He begged Rin to give Kakashi his Sharingan, because he’d rather give it some use than let it die with him. Maybe, with that, a part of him would still be there, moving forward.

It’s different like this. He sees the moment Sukea leaves his side, and the hate-fuelled rage with which he wields Chidori, impaling their pursuers on the tips of his hand. He sees a tantō slice through skin like paper, and the moment bodies fall. Rin’s gone, told to retreat and call for Sensei.

But Sukea goes back to the cave. He goes back to Obito’s unconscious body, chakra exhausted from an eye his body isn't built to hold, and tries once more to dig his teammate out. His hands are bleeding and bruised, and his panting breaths echo across the interrogation room. The cave is dark, the rubble is endless, and Sukea doesn't have the reserves to attempt any more jutsu.

When the world shakes, and more rocks fall, Sukea throws himself over Obito. A strangled noise escapes him as the roof of the cave breaks across his back, burying them alive, and the cries he makes as the rubble settles are sounds Obito's never heard from him before. But he doesn't bend beneath the weight, his trembling arms holding firm as Sukea hovers over Obito, just a breath away.

Sukea’s bleeding from the head, droplets falling onto Obito's face.

“Please don't die,” he pleads. “Please, Obito, don't die. I can't do it. I won't.”

When the screen goes dark, they can't connect this memory to the next. Sukea’s had enough, and his cooperation ends here for tonight. That's fine. They've made several years of progress, which is more than can be said for the last several sessions, so everyone's a little less grim.

Their walk home is quiet. Kakashi doesn’t doesn't banter, and Obito can't find words. It's sunset. Obito might not feel hunger, but he knows well enough how often someone should eat, and the only thing Kakashi’s filled up on since breakfast is an alarming amount of tea.

“You wanna grab dinner somewhere?” he asks, daring to break their vow of silence. “There's a sushi place nearby that Rin always talks about.”

Kakashi hums. “That sounds nice.” Usually, he declines Obito's offers to venture beyond their home for more than a grocery run. “But can plants eat fish?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Kakashi laughs, and Obito smiles. It's nice to see him like this again.

When a hand finds his, he doesn't mind. It's cold, like it always is, and he wraps it with his own.

When winter nears, he should buy a pair of thermal gloves, and matching socks.

Chapter Text

The day is long. When they return to the house after dinner, Obito goes off to the courtyard and Kakashi disappears into the bathroom. He locks the door behind him, sets his clothes on the counter, and stares at himself in the mirror. It feels like Sukea is staring back at him as he peels off his shirt.

Even now, his heart is fluttering, filled with all those pleasant moments they shared with Obito, from the warm hand holding their own to the idle chat they exchanged at the restaurant. Sukea’s endlessly happy, and despite their strong connection, hasn’t said much today.

Kakashi leans on the bathroom counter, pushing his weight onto his palms as he stares at himself. “Maa, if all we needed to do was have Obito flirt, you should have said as much,” he teases. “It would have saved the interrogators a lot of heartache.”

There’s nothing at first, and Kakashi sighs. Sukea may not have fully forgiven him yet. It shouldn’t surprise him that his counterpart is the type to hold grudges, considering his history.

The memories they saw today weren’t entirely new. Some of them were uncovered early on in their joining, all those months ago when their prison stay began, but were muddied and incomplete. Today, they were crisp and clear, detailed in the way Kakashi’s own are whenever Inoichi looks into them. He thinks Sukea might have been disoriented back then, and hadn’t fully understood their situation. That was why he couldn’t successfully hide his memories, and what made it so rare for him to share his thoughts. Now that they’ve adjusted, and this lifestyle feels normal, Sukea knows the limitations of what he can and cannot do.

I don’t want him to see what happened next.

Kakashi pauses in lathering shampoo into his hair, waiting for an explanation. Sukea’s never very forthcoming. “Madara, right?” he asks. “I know it’s not your best moment, but like Obito said, nothing is worse than not knowing. He’s trying to understand you. Give him that.”

It’s worse than that.

“In what way?”

Should I show you?

Oh, so it’s okay if Kakashi sees his ugly side, but not his crush? One would think Sukea would give more consideration to his ‘roommate’ than that. But, well. It’s not like they’re very good at hiding things from one another.

Will you be able to face me if I do?

Kakashi opens his eyes, staring at the ceiling. He’s soaking in the tub now that he’s clean, steam fogging up the mirror and his arms propped up on the rim of the bath. The heat is more extreme than what he usually likes, but he prefers it these days. He’s been chilled lately. Perhaps it’s the changing seasons.

“I know the end result, and the path you chose to follow. Knowing how you got there will only give me the context to understand.”

In some ways, Sukea seems young. There are five years between them, yes. But Sukea lacks the life experience of someone his age, and lately, it shows. Because of the seal, he’s only now feeling the longing and lust one gets acquainted with in adolescence. He spent years working in solitude, acting under a ruse, so he never improved his lacking teamwork, and doesn’t know how to resolve any conflicts that arise. Sukea has near boundless knowledge on seals and jutsu, he has a firm political stance and hard-set goals to reach for. But his heart races when Obito holds his hand, and he anticipates rejection like an anxious school child.

Sukea hasn’t really lived, has he? He was a boy, then a soldier. A terrorist after that.

When no response comes, Kakashi closes his eyes and relaxes into the tub with a contented sigh. If he doesn’t want to open up, there’s no use trying to force him. Kakashi isn’t in the habit of bullying unless it’s Obito, and only lightly.

Sukea’s anxiety fills him as though it were his own, and as the heat of the bath starts to get to him, he thinks it’s time to leave.

Sukea woke to a searing pain in his back. He dared not move, his body throbbing with the beat of his heart. When he opened his eyes, it was to the roof of a cave.

He shot up. A cry tore out of his throat as he curled in on himself, every piece of his body screaming. Where was Obito? He remembered the cave-in, and his teammate’s body pinned beneath endless mounds of stone. Sukea didn’t know any earth jutsu. He clawed at debris with his kunai, then his nails, trying to dislodge something— anything. But nothing worked.

This wasn’t the same cave. He stood, and his knee buckled. Down he went, hitting the dirt, the energy gone from his body. He didn’t know where he was or how he got there, and only now realized that his right eye remained closed. There were bandages wrapped over it and across his head, and he thought it might have been bleeding, because the cloth felt damp as he brushed his fingers over it.

Obito’s scent found him, and none of that mattered. He forced himself to stand, marching toward it. Each step hurt more than the last, but if he was in that much pain, how much worse was it for his friend?

He found Obito lying on an old, filthy mattress. It was stained and threadbare, reeking to the Pure Lands of blood and other fluids. Sukea dragged his leaden body over and leaned on it, pressing his fingers to his teammate’s pulse point. When he felt a weak, unsteady pattern beneath the skin, his eyes stung. Obito survived.

Then he saw the left half of Obito’s body, and his stomach lurched. His arm and leg were gone, his torso was crushed, and clinging to his injuries was a strange, writhing substance that seemed to be alive. Sukea stumbled closer, knelt on the mattress by Obito’s head, and brought his hands together. Whatever that was, he needed it off—

“I wouldn’t.”

At the foot of the mattress stood an old, withered man, his hair long and grey, eyes sunken as though he were on death’s door.

“If you burn it away, your friend will die. His organs were crushed, and the Zetsu cells are the only reason he’s still with us.”

Sukea searched his person, but there were no weapons on hand. His gear was stripped off him while he slept, and his chakra was depleted. It was a mystery how long he slept for, or how in-depth the medical treatment he received was.

“Who are you?” he asked. There was no calling the stranger’s bluff; if he was telling the truth and Sukea separated that substance from Obito’s body, Sukea would be sentencing him to death.

“It doesn’t matter,” the man said, wandering over to the far side of the bed. He looked down at Obito, at the writhing white cells that spilled out from his chest. Obito was hooked up to a strange machine. There was something over his nose and mouth, breathing for him, and he was sickly pale. “I’m looking to reconstruct him. Perhaps he’ll be useful in his later years…” He held Sukea’s gaze. “Or you will be.”

Sukea swallowed his protests, his eye falling to his friend. He pressed the backs of his knuckles to Obito’s cheek and found it strangely cold.

Obito was going to die.

Obito was going to die, and Sukea could only watch.

Obito would die just like Dad, because Sukea wasn’t good enough. Because he made the wrong call. Because he was weak, and useless. His father’s son.

“You can save him?”

The man left, and said, “That all depends on you.”

Sukea collapsed on the floor, panting heavily as his session came to an end. There was damage to his back and arm from the cave-in, and rehabilitation was a merciless affair. The Zetsu assisted in his exercises and offered their encouragement, but he found them off-putting, unsure of what they were. He thought they may have been made up of the same substance that kept Obito alive.

His head fell left, to the entrance of Obito’s room.

He needed to make contact with Konoha, but there were always eyes on him, be they from the Zetsu or Madara, and he couldn’t risk Obito’s safety by raising alarms. Madara had plans for them, but he didn’t know what they were or what faction of the war he allied with. Sukea remembered hearing Madara’s name from old texts dating back to the Founding Era, but wasn’t sure if that man was one and the same. Records showed that he was killed in his battle against Lord First. Regardless, Sukea would comply in the meantime to gather information. Madara hadn’t questioned him about the village or the war. He hadn’t so much as asked for Sukea’s name. At least for now, compliance didn’t clash with Shinobi Code, and he wouldn’t be considered a deserter. When he better understood the situation, when Obito was stable and both of them could walk…

Later, he told himself. In a week, or a month. They would survive, and one day, they would return to Konoha.

But he wondered what awaited them when they got back.

When his strength returned, and with the help of one of the Zetsu, he got to his feet and wandered into Obito’s room, where he knelt by the bed. Two weeks passed, but Obito hadn’t woken up. “Hey,” he greeted softly, “how do you feel today?”

Across Obito’s stomach, the cells were spilling out again. It was a sign of rejection, according to the Zetsu. What Sukea was seeing was the matter that was supposed to be inside Obito’s body, repairing the damaged sections of his organs and tissue. If it were working correctly, the cells would be flush with his skin, leaving his abdomen smooth and scarless, with only the seam line between natural and artificial tissue remaining. Sukea never saw that happen, though.

Madara said if this happened again, he might try removing the damaged organs altogether to fully replace them with the Zetsu cells. But there were more risks involved with that, and Kakashi dreaded it.

Distantly, the hiss of the ongoing storm met his ears.

“It’s raining outside,” he said. “We were in the village last time it rained, weren’t we? I wonder if Matsuda’s garden will survive this time…”

Sukea folded his arms over the mattress and rested his head on them. His eyes found the stray white cells extending off the residual limbs of Obito’s left side, watching their attempt to regrow the missing arm and leg. It never worked. After a few days of growth, they would collapse into a puddle on the mattress, struggling to reform.

Day by day, Kakashi’s hope shrank a little more than the last. The cells weren’t taking. Obito could breathe on his own now, but then suddenly, he wouldn’t, and on days like those, when the rejection started, his teammate became a living corpse. Sukea couldn’t go through that again. There were already so few reasons to wake up in the morning.

When Dad left, Sukea wondered who was at fault. He thought it was Dad, putting his teammates before the mission, jeopardizing the safety of the village to do so. The White Fang broke Shinobi Code and paid the price for it.

He didn’t think there was someone alive who thought what his father did was honourable. All of Dad’s former teammates spat on his grave, the soldiers that once praised him dragged his name through the mud, and the village hated him so much that it offered him nothing but an unmarked grave.

Then Obito was there, calling him a hero. And something in Sukea broke.

But if Dad was not at fault, then who was? His teammates, who were in need of rescuing?

Or was it Konoha?

Sukea watched as the cells shuddered and the half-formed arm dripped onto the sheets. He sighed, hung his head, and let all that heartache wash over him.

If Obito left, then he would, too. 

Saying goodbye felt a little like dying.

One night, when he fell asleep, he found himself in the forest. He was running from something, Rin by his side, but had no control over his body. It was as though he was seeing through someone else’s eyes, forced to live through their decisions. Something was wrong with Rin, he could sense it, but no matter how desperately he wanted to ask, his mouth would not move. They were being pursued by enemy shinobi, and finally, he turned to face them. Chidori sparked to life across his hand as it surged forth—

And came out through Rin’s back. He felt her blood warm against his arm, the crunch of her bones as they shattered, and the weight of her body as it lost its strength, held up only by the weapon she used to kill herself.

She used him to end her life, and smiled.

She smiled.

When Sukea woke up, days had passed. Obito’s Sharingan burned and bled, and chakra exhaustion left him bedridden for longer still. He didn’t know what happened or why—how that dream felt so real.

Madara saw something in him then, and new thoughts took root.

Obito’s condition was declining, and before Madara could bring voice to the conclusion they both came to, Sukea got on his knees and begged.

“Please don’t give up,” he said, hanging his head. “I can’t lose him. I’ll do anything.”

Madara smiled, and said, “Of course.”

That night, a seal was placed on his heart, one that he could not read, and did not understand.

“Carry out my will in his stead. Prove to me how useful you are.”

“Obito,” he whined, collapsing on the bed next to his unconscious teammate, “I hate this.”

He waited for an answer that wouldn’t come and buried his face into one of the pillows. Something was shifting in him thanks to that seal, but he didn’t know what. It was small, and weak, barely more than a whisper. But he worried it would grow, he would change, and no longer would he be the Sukea who Obito remembered.

If it was to save Obito, he would endure.

He heard the steady drip drip of the cells breaking apart again and sighed, shifting to get a look. A puddle was forming beneath Obito’s arm, and Sukea watched as yet another attempt to grow it failed. He pressed his hand over it, pulsing chakra through the tissue. The mass was frenzied by his call, and he watched as the loosening cells knitted themselves back together. It was a temporary fix, bound to fail, but it slowed down the degradation.

How much longer could they keep doing this? Sukea was numb now to the days when Obito’s condition worsened. Fear still had its grip on him, but it was like something in him broke, and now, he was resigned.

“You’re not going to wake up, are you?”

Almost two months passed. Madara wasn’t keeping an eye on Obito’s condition like he used to, despite his promise to Kakashi. It felt like he was scammed.

Madara wanted peace. He said there was a way to end all suffering and war, and to finally bring the world together. But for all that it sounded nice, Sukea couldn’t believe it.

Nothing saw the end of war. Not even the dead.

Sukea curled up on the bed with his knees to his chest and his arms around his legs, watching the cells once more spill out of Obito’s chest. Rejection again. It was bad this time, bubbling up out of his skin like boiling water. Sukea thought, this is it, this is how I lose him, and wondered what the point of all those endless weeks was.

There was one last hope. It was risky and dangerous, because he didn’t know if he had the chakra to pull it off.

Ever since his nightmare about Rin, his Sharingan had been strange. If he pushed enough chakra into it, he could open up a portal to a dimension of darkness and stone. And if he opened up another, he could come out on the other side, wherever he desired to be. It took up most of his reserves and left him weak. Madara called it Kamui, and helped him train it, but—

But he thought he could pull chakra from somewhere else. Despite barely clinging to life, Obito’s reserves were full, untouched in as many weeks as they’d been stuck in that cave.

The first time he tried it, he opened the smallest hole, pressing his hand to Obito’s chakra points. He used a seal Sensei once showed him to siphon it, and saw Konoha Hospital through the other side. That was a few weeks ago, and through his spying, he knew that Lady Tsunade was due to make a stopover in the village soon.

It couldn’t wait any longer. Madara didn’t care what happened to him, and Kakashi wouldn’t let his teammate wither and die without at least trying. With one large push of chakra to his eye, he opened up a portal wide enough for them both, unhooked Obito from the tubes and wires attached to his skin, and carried him through.

They landed in a storage room at Konoha Hospital. Obito’s arm and leg gave away, splattering across the floor, and Sukea did everything he could not to panic. It was okay. Obito didn’t need an arm or leg. So long as he was alive, so long as he could breathe.

This was their last chance. If the goddess of medical ninjutsu couldn’t save Obito, then it was all a waste of time.

Someone approached the door from the hall, and Sukea stepped back through Kamui. He shrank the portal significantly, no longer able to siphon his teammate’s chakra, and wasn’t sure how long he could hold it before exhaustion hit. Running stressed fingers through his hair, he watched as a staff member entered the storage closet and jumped when he saw Obito.

Please, he begged, save him. I don’t know where else to turn.

It was days later, when Obito rested safely in a hospital bed, finally stabilized by Lady Tsunade’s jutsu, that Sukea wondered why he fled. He wasn’t a fugitive. He wasn’t a criminal. If he stayed and told them what happened…

But something in him would not allow it. It told him to return to the cave, and so he did.

On days when he saved up enough chakra, he would open a small portal to Obito’s room and watch as the staff cared for him. Then, one day, Obito woke up.

Sukea broke down, curled up on a filthy old mattress, as his bleary-eyed teammate looked around, confused by the pair of medics rushing to his aid, dizzying him with a flurry of questions. Obito was in terrible shape, looking like fresh hell. He was malnourished and underweight, half his body crushed and the altered cells Tsunade developed barely taking, but he was alive.

Everything was worth it.

When Madara died, Sukea felt nothing. He woke up and saw the old man sitting in the same place he always sat, his head bowed, overgrown hair falling in loose strands across his face. Sukea observed using the Sharingan and saw his empty pathways, the remnants of chakra breaking apart in the body.

He closed Obito’s eye, looked deeper into the cave, and beckoned, “Tobi.”

One of the Zetsu slunk forward, tilting his head at the sight of the two humans. “Oooh no. Finally happened, eh? I wondered how long he would last. Such a shame.”

“Remove him, please? He’ll start to smell soon.”

Tobi gave him a mock salute and shuffled forward, grabbing Madara’s corpse under its arms and guiding it off the chair. Another Zetsu hurried over to leverage Madara’s legs, and they both dragged him toward the mouth of the cave. Sukea didn’t care what they did with it, so long as it was out of sight.

He wondered if the seal might let him step out of the cave now. Eight months passed since Madara etched it onto his heart, and with the passage of time, the restrictions of it reared its ugly head. From what he gathered, it affected his mood. There wasn’t much to it at first. All those months ago, his loyalty to Obito was strong enough to push beyond its influence, and he managed to get his friend to the village. But that was the last time he left the cave. Even when disappearing into Kamui, Sukea could only leave from the same place he started.

It was maddening.

Each day, Madara would wax poetic about his feud with Lord Hashirama, the struggles they faced and the war that was lost in Madara’s effort toward peace. Even to Sukea, the peace he sought was laughable. Rather than rid the world of suffering, he wanted to hide from it—to mask reality beneath the benevolent light of a grand-scale illusion. Genjutsu. Imagine that.

The goal Madara had for him was to continue his efforts, and he supposed the seal was manufactured to make him act in accordance with the caster's will, or something. Sukea wanted to pry it open and read its contents, but hadn’t yet figured out how to do so with a seal he couldn’t physically touch or see. There was always a chance the effects of the seal might prevent him from altering it, too, if it clashed with Madara’s goals. For months, it kept him stuck there, stewing in that cave. If he tried to leave, his body froze up, because Madara’s plan required him to remain where he was.

When the Zetsu carted off the corpse, Sukea stepped up to the mouth of the cave and toed it. Nothing. He shuffled closer, taking one step forward, his sandal brushing against the unruly grass beyond his prison, and his heart raced. He could leave.

But just as his excitement began, the seal burned in his chest, smothering it. He grabbed the front of his shirt as though to pry his traitorous heart from his chest, and sighed.

There was something so bleak about finding freedom, and feeling nothing.

In the days that followed, Sukea was able to visit the nearest village. The seal refused to let him return to Konoha, but had no qualms about him ridding himself of his prison now that Madara was gone, and he wondered about that. Regardless, he was able to take up odd jobs to keep himself fed, and saved up any extra ryō he earned to purchase books on sealing in the capital. But no matter where he went or how far he travelled, within three days, he found himself back at that cave.

Training Kamui was exhausting, but the better his chakra control, the more efficient he got. Spying on his teammates helped, he supposed, as whenever he settled in to read more sealing texts, he would open the tiniest of portals to watch them through Kamui.

Getting settled with his most recent acquisition, he activated his Mangekyō and found Obito and Rin in Konoha Hospital. The tissue Lady Tsunade developed improved over time, and as he watched his teammates chat, he stared at the fully-grown left arm resting over Obito’s blankets. It was stable, and solid. So was the leg. Rehabilitation was long and hard, but Obito was slowly learning to walk again, and one day, he would thrive.

Sukea didn’t feel the warmth he once did while watching Obito’s improvement. All the more reason to figure out the seal, he supposed.

So long as he could get to Konoha, he was confident that Sensei could fix this. All he needed was time.

On the day Sukea uncovered the key to open up his seal, he watched phantom ink spill across his skin, fanning out from his heart. He removed his shirt and walked over to the cracked mirror against the cave wall with a pen and paper, transcribing everything he saw on his skin. It faded quickly, and he needed to key the seal several times in order to write it all out. It was big, long, and extensive. His head was swimming, trying to recognize the more complex characters that he never studied under Minato-sensei. Some of it he could read. Most, he couldn’t.

It confirmed that the change in his emotional state wasn’t natural. But as of yet, he had no desire to follow Madara’s plan, or place the whole world under some meaningless illusion.

Kamui was open, as usual. He’d been watching Obito’s efforts to walk, silently cheering him on. Last night, Obito cried over the memorial stone, spilling his name in a broken sob. It was his first visit, and apparently, Sukea’s name was carved there now. Wasn’t that funny? Konoha gave to its honoured hero nothing but a nameless stone marker, but for his son, who died in battle, there was honour.

They thought he was dead. Sukea wondered if he may as well have been. Seeing Obito cry used to break his heart, but now, well. It was the seal, he told himself. When Minato-sensei fixed things, he would be himself again, back where he belonged with his people.

“It’s a pity,” someone said. Sukea looked up from where he was translating sigils and found that Obito was gone from the room on the other side of the portal. In his place stood his physiotherapist, who was leaving, and two nurses, who just said their goodbyes. “He’s still so young, and has such potential. But… I don’t know. I doubt he’ll be able to work as a shinobi again. You didn’t hear it from me, but Lady Tsunade should have stuck him with real prosthetics. I just don’t think that… stuff… has the strength it needs.”

“Haven’t you read his records? His injuries are too extensive; without the artificial cells, he’ll die. Most of the internals of his left side are made from it, and normal prosthetics won’t take.”

“Such a shame,” the first nurse sighed. “His friend says he wants to be Hokage. That’s impossible for him now, I suppose.”

The paper crumpled in Sukea’s hand, and his blood boiled. How dare they? The fact that Obito was breathing was such a tremendous feat, and that he was relearning how to walk showed just how determined he was to—

Sukea closed his eyes, shut the portal, and took a calming breath. Rage, he found, was stronger than it used to be. Disgust curled in his gut, and if he kept Kamui open any longer, he was sure the nurses would have felt his bloodlust.

Obito would be Hokage. Sukea would be proud to stand at his side when that day came.

But then he wondered why Obito should bother. What good would it do to protect villagers like them?

Konoha loved shinobi for as long as they were useful. So long as they kept their heads down, completed their objectives, and never showed weakness. But the moment one of their own faltered, its people were on them like vultures to carrion, ready to tear them apart.

Sukea wouldn’t let them do to Obito what they did to his father.

***

Sukea’s eye itched a lot, now and then. Whenever it did, he saw visions of another place, looking out at the sky through a window or staring down at mismatched legs. Sometimes, Rin was there, and others, it was Minato-sensei or Kushina. He realized quickly that he was seeing through Obito’s Sharingan. The foreign cells were hard to mistake. It wasn’t something to control, and was more a nuisance than a genuine problem, so whenever it happened, he would close both eyes and wait it out. Lately, Obito had taken to sunning himself. He rarely ate the food he was offered, saying that he lacked an appetite. The medics thought it was depression. But when he sat under the sun, his energy came back to him, and he started to feel alive. Sukea liked watching him in those moments, and accepted the bittersweet reality they faced.

Obito was like the Zetsu now. He was perhaps a bit more plant than human. That was fine for Sukea, of course; he loved Obito no matter what form he took.

But for Obito, it was alienating. When those around him ate, he would sit there and stare at his food. Eventually, when Kushina invited him over, he started making up excuses. He had rehab to do, or needed to train. They wouldn’t let him back on the field if he didn’t prove himself.

It would only be for a little longer, Sukea promised. Once he altered that seal, he would go back. He would make Obito feel comfortable and welcomed. Perhaps he could introduce Obito to the Zetsu, and show that he wasn’t alone.

Until then, they would wait.

One night, Sukea was roused by visions from Obito’s Sharingan. Obito was back on the field now, over a year after Kannabi Bridge, and he was stumbling through the forest, running as fast as his legs would allow. Sukea rubbed his eye and yawned, waiting for the vision to pass. He was impressed by Obito’s control over the foreign cells and the speed at which he ran, something that felt unimaginable months ago. Next to him was someone else. Rin, he noticed when Obito looked back. They were in uniform, armed, as they ran from their pursuers. A mission? Moonlight glinted off the hitai-ate of one of the shinobi at their back, where the symbol of the Mist was proudly engraved.

Sukea sat up, eyes wide as he stared into the darkness of his cave, drawing the attention of the Zetsu.

A nightmare found him of Rin’s body hanging limp from his Chidori, the wet heat of her blood cooling in the open air.

Sukea threw the blanket off his legs and leapt through Kamui as Obito’s vision played endlessly in his mind. He’d been there before, in that nightmare, and hoped that was enough for his Mangekyō to latch onto.

Rin stopped, fell back. She told him—there was a seal, incomplete—

She had to die. She wouldn’t be the reason Konoha fell. Obito refused.

Sukea, even more so.

When Obito rounded on the enemy and chose stand and fight, she tried it—what she did in the nightmare—

Sukea saw the moment she leapt forward, and saw red.

He didn’t remember what happened from there. His chest burned with the heat of the seal, like molten lava spreading through his veins, and when it left, his teammates had fallen into a heap at his feet. The ground pooled with blood, his arm thick with it, and all those Kiri-nin lay strewn across the earth, motionless. He was panting, his chakra reserves near empty, as he knelt down and checked their pulses.

His friends were alive. Rin was still in one piece, burns across her skin from where she must have tried taking Obito’s fireball jutsu head on. Sukea didn’t know if she stepped out of the way, or if he pushed her.

Lifting her shirt, he found the seal poorly carved onto her stomach and read the sigils. It was a time bomb, unstable. Contained within it was a tailed beast, and soon, it would burst free and attack anything in its wake. Sukea stared at it, then the blood-soaked battlefield on which they stood, and the unconscious faces of his teammates.

And laughed.

Sukea fell to the ground and covered his face with his hand, waiting out the fit he’d fallen into. He couldn’t stop. Laughter tore painfully from his lungs, cramping his stomach, and there was no time, he needed to alter that seal before it failed and took Rin from them, but—

But this was the reality of war, wasn’t it?

This had to be Obito’s first real mission back on the field. He was still grappling with the changes to his body when Kiri took Rin. They took her, put that wretched, half-baked seal on her, and set her free. Because they knew that her comrades would take her home, and that she would be the reason her own people fell. Unprepared, Konoha wouldn’t have the manpower to fight back an assault from the Sanbi, and even if the village still stood by the end of its rampage, it wouldn’t get out unscathed.

Rin knew. She wasn’t stupid, and had a fuinjutsu specialist for a jōnin-sensei. Even though Obito came for her, even though he was adhering to his nindo, she couldn’t return with him. But he wouldn’t abandon her. His loyalty was what drew Sukea to him in the first place.

She had a choice to go with him and risk the whole village, or to die at the hands of her best friend, whom she loved and adored.

So, Sukea laughed. He laughed at the absurdity of their war, and the disgusting lengths both sides went to for victory. He laughed because the light of Obito’s life was made to choose between herself and the whole, backed into a corner. She was only a child. They all were. They were kids forced to grow up too fast and shoulder the burdens of the generation before them. They were numbers, corpses to count on the field and faceless soldiers to fight in the Kages’ wars.

It would never get better. It would never change. Konoha had been this way since its founding, seizing power through the sacrifices of its people, pursuing power over the wellbeing of its own.

Heroes like Minato-sensei were named such because they were convenient tools. They protected nothing but the bottom line of their superiors, and every drop of blood they shed was one more ryō in the pockets of the council. But where was Minato-sensei when they needed him at Kannabi Bridge? Where was he when Obito’s body failed, when Kakashi had Madara’s brand of loyalty carved onto his heart? Where was he now?

He knew then what he refused to admit all this time.

Nobody was coming to save them.

His fit drew to an end, and he stared at the girl who almost brought his most precious person pain. “What a rotten world,” he thought. “What a horrible time to be alive, hey, Rin? Obito?”

Drawing breath, he leaned forward, glowering at the corpse of the nearest Kiri-nin and kicking the man’s skull in anger. How dare they? Vultures. Parasites.

Sukea excused himself as he lifted Rin’s shirt again and read the sigils. It was a basic seal, which was the main reason it couldn’t hold something as powerful as a tailed beast for more than a few hours. Kiri wasn’t known for their sealing, but in this case, their shoddy work was intentional, which made it worse. He mouthed along the translation of each sigil and etched out some alterations in the dirt. If he worked carefully, he could perhaps alter it into an eight trigram seal. Minato-sensei was fond of those. They were sturdy in a way a lot of seals weren’t, with failsafes in place to keep the beast contained. That would be important going forward, as if it was released, it would likely take Rin’s life. Sukea would mourn her, perhaps, even with the effects of the seal on his heart, but Obito…

Obito would be devastated.

Rin had to live.

If he altered the seal already present, he could mitigate any nasty backlash. The problem was that he didn’t have the chakra for something as complex as an eight trigram seal, seeing as his use of Kamui these past few days left his reserves low.

Then he looked at Obito and sighed. Crawling over, he turned Obito’s palm and found the etching of a year-old seal, barely there on the skin, like a scar soon to fade.

Obito’s hand was warm in his, no longer icy like it was back then. He pressed the knuckles to his cheek, breathing in a scent he longed for in their time apart, and closed his eyes.

“Mind if I use you as my battery again?” he asked. “It’s for Rin’s sake. I’ll save her for you.”

Bringing the hand down, he pushed their palms together, drew chakra through the seal, and pressed his other hand to Rin’s stomach.

As he concentrated on the formation of the sigils altering the existing seal, hoping this would work, he came to understand Madara’s perspective. This was a world that made children kill each other. It tore apart families and ravaged the lands with conflict, all for a bit of profit. If money and power came before the lives of the people fighting for it, then what good was their broken shinobi system?

One day, the Third War would end, and there would be peace. But it wouldn’t last, would it? Because humans were greedy, and selfish. The founders tried for peace, and look where it got them: three wars across the nations, children on the front lines as young as six years old. Konoha’s indoctrination started young. From the earliest moment he remembered, Sukea wanted to be a shinobi. To choose that path was honourable, like his honoured father.

Konoha’s White Fang, the hero of the Second War. A man who put his comrades first, who valued life and was condemned for it. He was shunned until he spilled his guts across his family estate, desperate for his son, at least, to recover from his shame.

The glow of his jerry-rigged fuinjutsu tapered off. Sukea released Obito’s hand and carefully read the new seal on Rin’s stomach in search of errors, but didn’t find any. He released a breath, ran a hand through his hair, and stared out at the field.

Corpses, far and wide. The result of his madness, no doubt.

Sukea was no better than those he was condemning, he supposed. He was deserving of punishment in much the same way the Kage were, and the councils.

They were different. Rin, and Obito. When he looked at them, he saw what this world could have been, and all the ways it failed them. An illusion wasn’t good enough for his most precious people, no. But something had to be done. If Sukea returned to Konoha and pretended all was well, then one day, it would be Obito where the White Fang stood, or Rin sending her children off to war. The cycle they grew up in was one that wouldn’t end, and the horrors of the past were waiting there in the future.

For as long as they were complacent, this wouldn’t end. Change had to come from within. If it was within his power to do so, Sukea would break that cycle with his own two hands.

If only he knew how.

Sukea was in the mountains. His shoulder wept lazily, and he covered it with his hand, unsure of where he was or how he got there. The more he looked, the more it reminded him of the view of the Mountain’s Graveyard from the fields below it. Kamui wouldn’t heed his call, and he felt a strange chakra drain in his left eye rather than his right. When he looked down, he nearly fell.

ANBU gear covered his arms and chest. He felt older, taller, his arms thick with muscle he had yet to gain. Ignoring his wound, he reached behind himself and felt the hilt of a tantō. There were pouches at his hips, more gear on him than he carried since his Konoha days, and…

His heart was light and calm. The weight of his misery was a distant echo, not the all-encompassing thing it had grown to be.

He shook himself and focused on finding the cave. When he did, he could scan himself, and the Zetsu could do a patch job on whatever injury was leaking all over the grass. Damn it, he’d lost a lot of blood…

When the cave came into view, he sighed. It had been a long time since he felt so weak, and all he wanted was to lie down on the stone and never open his eyes again.

But someone was in the cave when he climbed up to the mouth of it. A boy stood there. A man.

A yellow-orange mask, a black and red robe. Long, uncut black hair. And when he turned to Sukea, a sole eyehole on the right side.

The man sized him up silently, drawn to the bleeding cut in his shoulder.

“You’ve come far,” he said, muffled by the mask.

He called himself Tobi when he treated Sukea’s wound, and Sukea knew it was a lie. He stared at the unnatural white tissue of the man’s right side. Sukea couldn’t help but watch, afraid to say the stranger’s name, or ask who he was.

“They put you in ANBU,” Tobi muttered. “Enrolling a traumatized kid in the black-ops unit. What a farce.”

Sukea stared at his uniform, and wondered where he got it. He was dreaming, he supposed, of a world different from the one back home. And though he dared not say Tobi’s real name, he knew it in his heart, and felt the warmth of it through to his bones.

For so long, that warmth was locked away from him. He missed feeling the flush on his cheeks, and smiling at the sound of that voice. It was older now, deeper. Quiet, too, in a way it never used to be.

Tobi tied off the bandage on his bicep, and clapped him on the back.

“All done. You can get out of my face now, Kakashi.”

Sukea glanced over his shoulder at his friend, so strange and different from the boy he knew, and spotted the weaving of the Sharingan through the eyehole. Tobi intended to use it. “Can’t I stay?” he asked. “It’s nicer here than it is over there.”

“How so?”

“You’re here, for one.” He placed a hand over his chest, where the phantom grip of the seal lay. “And I feel like myself again.”

Tobi watched him, head cocked to the side and nothing showing from behind his mask. Sukea wondered where he got it from, and why he wore it. “Very far, I see. You’re not ours. Has this happened before?”

Sukea looked to the side, rubbing his arm. “I think. Yeah.”

Tobi crossed his arms. “Your real body. It has a seal?”

He nodded.

“But you don’t feel it now?”

Another nod.

Clicking his tongue, the man in the mask scratched at the high-collared shirt around his neck before rising off the floor. He fished around the endless things in the cave, which looked significantly more lived-in than the one Sukea knew, and pulled out paper, a brush, and ink. Sukea watched as he painted out the familiar sigils of a fuinjutsu practitioner. It was different from Minato-sensei’s style of sealing, but didn’t resemble his own, either. This was something new, and different, and…

Beautiful.

The still-wet seal was then shoved at Sukea’s face, and he had to lean back to read it. It was a finicky seal, with a few too many moving parts—not complex in the way of Sensei’s sealing, but a bit convoluted in its own right.

“Use this,” Tobi said, tapping the page with his finger. “Memorize it. The moment you go back, paint this over the seal, and trigger it.”

Sukea took the paper between his hands, reading it over carefully with a frown as he committed each brush stroke to memory. “Why?”

“If it’s anything like mine,” Tobi said, “it might help.”

Then, Tobi also…

He couldn’t use it on himself, could he? Sukea would do it for him, then. But when he looked up to make his offer, Tobi’s Sharingan was already working. His eyes got heavy, his body went limp, and Tobi caught him before he fell.

“I’ve got you,” Tobi said. “You’re okay. I won’t hurt you.”

Sukea wasn’t worried about that. By his nose was a familiar scent, one he thought of fondly, promising they were safe. He wanted more time, though, in that world where he felt human again.

Sukea opened his eyes and felt the chakra drain of the right. He threw his arm over his face and sighed, longing for the dream that found him while he slept. For once, he wasn’t in the cave, but somewhere further south, camped by the water. On his lap sat a porcelain mask, one that strongly resembled Konoha’s ANBU designs, and he vaguely recalled plucking it off a corpse he found in…

His stomach lurched. He stole that mask off a Konoha-nin. A comrade.

No longer was he loyal to Konoha. His plan was bigger than his village, and anonymity would be necessary going forward. Konoha placed seals on their ANBU masks to hide the identities of those who wore them, and Kakashi was in need of that. Down the road, he could replace it with something new, design a stronger seal. But for now—

The mask hit the dirt. He stared at his shaking hands, nausea turning in his gut, and passed fingers through his hair. What was he doing? This wasn’t him, this was—he didn’t want this—

He wanted Obito, and Rin. Minato-sensei, Kushina. Sukea was so tired of being alone, walking down this path he never chose, numb to the poisonous thoughts that found him at night. Once, he tried to die, but the blade stuck by his throat, and he couldn’t get his hands to move.

“Use this. Memorize it. The moment you go back, paint this over the seal, and trigger it.”

It was a dream, but a vivid one. Sukea patted himself down in search of sealing ink—he always kept it on hand—and found some in his back pouch. There was a brush in his bag, and a mirror there, too.

He removed his shirt. The bristles pressed against his chest, lingering there as he recalled the sigils he memorized in the dream. But as he looked into the mirror, his arms fell to his sides, and he couldn’t do it.

I don’t want this, one part of him insisted. I’m fine as I am, said another.

This isn’t me. I hate this. I miss my home, and my team. I want to go back.

If you do, nothing will change. This world is rotten from the inside. Look what it did to Obito, to Rin. Dad. Look what it took from you. Before you hit puberty, you were taking lives on the battlefront. You were too young to know what death was, yet they drowned you in it.

There has to be a better way.

But there isn’t.

The brush hit the dirt, ink splattering across his pant leg. The storm raging in his head continued, even while the sun rose to the early morning birdsong. Already, the details of the dream were leaving, and those carefully-memorized sigils started to fade.

His chest felt hot, and he hated his reflection, how calm it looked in the face of his failure. If only he tried. If only he was stronger.

The path he walked was dark and lonely. If he continued that way, there would come a time when he became a source of suffering for the people he held dear. But no matter how hard he dug in his heels or how loud he screamed, every day that turned over was one more battle lost.

He thought that if he was a traitor, he should be branded as one.

The characters carved below his collarbone were deep in the hope they would scar. He etched them backwards so that in the mirror, he could read them and remember all he was, and where he came from. Maybe it could be a warning to those who looked at him, a red flag that trust was not something he could have.

Too bad, he thought, for his tendency to wear high-collared shirts.

Ah, well.

It is what it is.

“Kakashi.”

Someone nudges his shoulder. Sukea groans, far too tired to move right now. His neck aches, and his back. His shoulders, his tailbone. Did he fall asleep on the cavern floor again? It’s happened a lot lately. Working toward the end of the plan, he hasn’t stopped to rest, and…

“C’mon,” a voice sighs, exasperated, “you can’t sleep here.”

Begrudgingly, he wakes, squinting against the fluorescent light overhead. There’s someone in his face, and as he blinks away sleep, he sees the tall man crouched next to him, face partially obscured by the eye patch he wears, familiar scars down the left side of his face. Warmth spreads across his body, and he reaches up, passing his thumb over ridges of scar tissue, and smiles.

Obito makes a face, peeling away the hand caressing his cheek. “Kakashi,” he calls again, leaving no room for argument, “get outta the bath.”

Sukea looks down, and it’s only now that he notices the cold water he rests in. His fingers are pruny and he feels a bit shrivelled, like a snail bathing in salt water.

Obito rises and offers a hand, which he takes. He’s unsteady on his feet, still fighting off the nap he took, and climbs over the rim of the tub. His friend wraps a towel across his shoulders and closes it over his front, watching him with a hard-set frown.

“Yes?” he asks, leaning back a bit. Obito’s unrelenting stare feels awkward, and heat blooms across his skin. He’s naked which, while not the first time Obito’s seen him, is a bit mortifying.

Obito scratches his head, sighs, and turns around. “Get dressed and head to bed, okay? You look exhausted.”

“Sure.”

Left alone, Sukea towels off, wondering how long he was in there for, and locates the night clothes he finds resting on the bathroom counter.

Push back, something tells him, or I’ll take over.

He pulls on his pants and frowns at his reflection in the mirror, feeling those words out in his mind, trying to understand.

As he picks up his shirt, his eyes catch on the jagged, messy lines carved below his collarbone, traitor.

It clicks. As though doused in cold water, Kakashi stares wide-eyed at his face, the mismatched eyes of the body he inhabits, and the cuffs on his wrists. He covers his mouth with his hand, breathing through the revelation, and fights down nausea.

For four minutes, he and Sukea were so entangled that he couldn’t recognize himself.

From within, he feels Sukea’s relief.

It’s ten minutes before he calms down. He sits on the edge of the tub, gathering his thoughts. The dream keeps playing over and over again, so vivid and real. Sukea was trying to show him all that before he fell asleep. But dreaming made it vivid, and he lost himself.

“Well,” he says, clapping his hands, “I hated that. I’ll thank you to never do that again, please.”

If it was on purpose, I wouldn’t have called to you.

Fair point.

Obito pokes his head back into the room, concern on his face as he eyes Kakashi. “Hey, is everything alright with you? You’re starting to worry me.”

Well, he has just spent an additional fifteen minutes in the bathroom. Kakashi smiles at him and stands, wrapping his arm around Obito’s shoulders and guiding them both into the hall. “Maa, I’m fine, Obito. You worry too much.” When his fingers brush against the artificial skin of Obito’s left, his thoughts find a young boy on a filthy mattress, falling apart before his eyes. But it doesn’t bring him grief like he expects it to. Instead, he shares in Sukea’s relief that across all these years, Obito’s found stability. He’s healthy and thriving, even if he’s become a bit of a plant.

Obito lets himself be led up the stairs, looking like he wants to protest the clinging, but doesn’t. “You sure about that? I was banging on the door for like six minutes, but you wouldn’t answer. I had to force the lock.”

“Really? I hope it’s not broken.”

His little plant friend groans, loudly, and it fills him with glee.

“Do you never take anything seriously?” Obito asks. “I thought you—”

He cuts himself off. Kakashi waits at the top of the stairs, brow raised, but is met with silence. “What, that I drowned? In the bath?”

Obito looks to the side.

Kakashi wants to tease and say that would’ve been even more ridiculous a death than the Sixth Hokage falling down the stairs. Obito’s bath is shallow, so much so that Kakashi was barely submerged above the waist. But he sees the way Obito refuses to face him, and swallows it.

He’s genuinely worried, isn’t he?

Kakashi releases his victim in an act of mercy once they reach their bedroom doors. As Obito grumbles a ‘goodnight,’ looking much like a wilted flower, Kakashi lingers there.

“Maa, Obito?”

His friend glances back at him.

Kakashi ducks into the room, pulls a book off his shelf, and wiggles it between his fingers. “Would you read me a bedtime story? I’m sure Sukea would appreciate it.”

Obito reddens when he finds the title, Icha Icha Tactics, and bites out, “I’m not gonna indulge in your porn addiction, Kakashi.”

Kakashi pouts. “Aww, really? But it would make us both so happy.”

He expects Obito to bark a few more words at him and slam the bedroom door in his face, shy as he is.

When Obito snatches the book from his hand and stomps into Kakashi’s room instead, he’s not sure what to say. He prods Sukea for an explanation, but Sukea’s just as lost, and when he pokes his head into the room, he finds his warden on the bed, propped up against the pillows. Obito’s red to the tips of his ears, looking like he might die if Kakashi so much as blows on his neck.

Obito notices the staring and curls in on himself even further. “Well? You want me to read, or not?”

It’s strange. As Kakashi climbs onto the bed and gets settled, and as his roommate gathers the wits to open the romance novel to its very first page, he thinks back to the day they met on the battlefield. Kakashi ripped out Obito’s heart that day, and stepped on it. He knows, because that’s what it felt like for him on that day, five years ago. He remembers the anger, the vitriol, the hurt. Even as recently as the day he brought Kakashi home, Obito has maintained a level of distance.

Lately, something’s changing. He sees smiles he thought were relegated to the past, and teasing remarks he was so sure they would never share between them.

Obito is bright and alive. He can’t sit still for longer than a minute, fidgets like a restless academy student, and is as loud as he was at twelve years old.

And somehow, in this world where Kakashi has failed him, he still finds it in his heart to show warmth.

Obito reads the first line, and Kakashi blows on his neck. The fallout from his teasing is worth it.

Sukea agrees.

Chapter Text

In the morning, Kakashi finds a guest in his bed. He rolls onto his side, staring at the sleeping face of his warden, whose hand is lazily holding the book they read last night. That familiar warmth bubbles up inside him as he brushes the bangs from Obito’s face. His hair is in need of a trim. Kakashi’s finger brushes against the scars there, and it brings him back to a too-vivid dream, the way those wounds, still fresh and scabbed, felt against his hand.

He understands why Sukea might not want to share that part of his life with Obito, now that he’s lived it. Months ago, Kakashi found this world brilliant, and couldn’t understand why, when so many of his comrades survived, his counterpart would fall in line with Madara’s plan. But it wasn’t only his own trauma that Sukea lived through, was it? During Kakashi’s worst days, there was someone else alongside him, living and breathing the same horrors he did. They learned together that death was not the worst thing that could happen to someone.

“You thought about him a lot back then, didn’t you?” he asks, hushed as he tries not to disturb his bedmate.

Every day.

Obito was the glue that kept Sukea together, at least for a while. But the stronger the pull of that seal, the less his thoughts turned to the people he left behind. That steady stream of poison warped him into what he was at the start of the war, when Kakashi interfered.

Reminding himself that it isn’t polite to watch people sleep, Kakashi sits up and stretches. Something pops in his back, and he realizes how sedentary he’s been as of late. Their body is no longer malnourished and underweight, but it isn’t the picture of fitness, either. He hasn’t kept up with training because, as a prisoner, he knows his ANBU guards might see it as a challenge. What does he have to train for now that he’s a glorified housemaid? He can’t access his chakra and wouldn’t want to anyway, knowing how it would look to those around him.

General exercise would be fine, wouldn’t it? To keep his body fit. Surely, Obito wouldn’t object to that.

He wouldn’t object to training either, if that’s something you decide to do.

Kakashi sighs, slipping out into the hall. “I suppose you’re right. He didn’t say anything about sealing practice.”

I’m embarrassed you consider that sealing.

“Maa, my sensei left me high and dry, if you recall. You didn’t even leave study material.”

In truth, Kakashi does know some basic sealing. There’s a baseline level of fuinjutsu that survived the loss of Uzushio which is taught to ANBU, but it’s mostly used for concealment, breaking or sealing certain types of curse tags, and other things like that. It was how he sealed the curse Orochimaru placed on Sasuke back in the day. (A lot of good that did, in the end.) But the type of sealing Minato and Sukea do is very different. Instead of using premade patterns, they break down seals to their most rudimentary sigils and build them from the ground up. They’re intrinsically aware of sealing language, how to read and write it, and which characters will produce which results. Kakashi never learned to read more than a few basic, common signs; Konoha’s fuinjutsu uses kanji because it’s easier to memorize.

As he does every morning, Kakashi makes breakfast. He gets everything out of the fridge and moves across the kitchen, only half paying attention as he goes through his daily ritual. His mind is still a cloud of that dream. There are so many parts he wants to ask about, so many inconsistencies to address. While he sets everything to cook, his thoughts are on a mask he never saw before, and words he never shared. Sukea once said that he never got to meet the Obito of the other world. But that was a lie.

For a long time, I really did think it was a dream. In all the times I crossed over, I never saw him again.

Kakashi hums an acknowledgement, setting the timer and taking a seat at the table. Once, during his early days in ANBU, he blacked out after a mission and woke up in bed with his wounds already treated. He assumed that he passed out from chakra exhaustion and was carried back by his team, but in reality, he went missing. They said he’d wandered off and no one could find him.

“How often did we switch?”

Now and then. A few times a year on my end, at first. Your time period was always ahead of mine by random intervals. We usually passed them off as dreams, I think. They rarely lasted more than minutes.

“Do you know what caused it?”

Our Sharingan, most likely. Kamui. It can be finicky after a transplant. My working theory is that it has something to do with my teleportation, and the fact that you and I had opposite eyes. Like a connection formed somehow and tethered us together. It often happened when I stepped through a portal, or when you triggered your Mangekyō.

“How convoluted.”

So, they had this supposed tether, and it triggered during the war, pulling Kakashi into Sukea’s body. But Kakashi no longer had the Sharingan and lacked the ability to complete the swap, so Sukea became confined in his own head as he is now. It’s… strange. Bizarre, and a bit nonsensical, too, for their separate versions of Kamui to connect like that. But Kakashi has developed enough jutsu to know that when things go wrong, it’s usually unpredictable, and rarely does it make sense.

It’s an explanation, incomplete as it is. And it means that for as long as their chakra is blocked, Kakashi might be stuck here.

Care for another lesson?

Kakashi arches an eyebrow, checking the timer. “You would take me back, Sensei? After my cold-hearted betrayal?”

I am nothing if not merciful.

Kakashi laughs. It feels like Sukea would have, too, a surge of amusement washing through him. It’s so rare for his counterpart to play into his teasing.

Rather than learning a new seal, when Kakashi leans into him, Sukea writes out the most common sigils used in his sealing language, alongside their translations. Kakashi memorizes them in between tending to breakfast, glancing at the list as he turns off the stove. Just as he’s finishing up, his roommate drags himself down the stairs, scrubbing at a tired eye.

Kakashi sets the table for them. “Yo, Obito.”

Obito grumbles something under his breath and sits down, looking like he was barreled over by a horse. They were up late. Right as they were turning in, they reached the first chapter of smut, and Kakashi whined and teased until his poor friend, bright red from embarrassment, read words he probably never before said out loud. For all that Obito is crude and has more life experience than Sukea, Kakashi doubts he had many sexual relationships over the years. He’s far too innocent.

You're one to talk.

That's different; Kakashi's married to his work.

They eat together without fuss. Obito no longer grumbles about not feeling hunger, and one time, he craved yakisoba. Kakashi made enough to feed a small army that day.

“How's Sukea?” Obito asks, his attention firmly on the table. He sees the notebook with the sigil translations and pulls it over, flipping through it curiously. “I wanna check in after yesterday.”

Wonderful. Brilliant. Lean into me again? I want to hold his hand.

Kakashi will not. He got enough of Sukea’s gleeful excitement yesterday, and is scrubbing clean his infected mind. Obito's lucky he isn't subjected to this man’s love without a buffer. All it took was Obito saying that name—Sukea—for his counterpart to suddenly be okay with it. That's just his name now, he decided, and Kakashi can keep the old one.

“A bit down,” Kakashi lies, “but I'm sure he'll be back to normal soon.”

Obito frowns. “Should I talk to him? Would that help?”

Yes.

“Maa, he just needs time. I wouldn't worry.”

Today, more than ever before, I hate you.

Sukea will get over it.

After they clear their plates, making idle chat as they go, Obito gathers their dishes into the sink and goes to wash them. Kakashi follows. “I can do that,” he insists. “No need to trouble yourself.”

Obito doesn't protest as he's guided to one of the island stools, but Kakashi feels him staring. The drone of the tap saves them from an uncomfortable silence. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Hm?” Kakashi slides on the dish gloves and scrubs at the residue on their plates as though he’s scrubbing away their sins.

“You're not happy, are you?”

Kakashi pauses, setting the plate down and leaning on his hands. He shifts his weight and looks back at his friend. “I'm a bit lost,” he admits. “You could say I was always busy back home. At first it was novel, not having any duties to uphold… But yes, it’s getting to me.”

Obito isn't surprised. He folds his arms atop the counter and leans forward, his lips drawn into a frown.

“I am happy, though. I like being here, seeing you, Rin, and Sensei. But I do feel trapped. As a prisoner should,” he teases.

“How can I help?”

The sweetest thing about Obito is how willing he is to offer his hand. For all that he can hold a grudge, he’s still the caring boy he’s always been. Beneath the scars, the age, and layers of artificial cells coating his body, Obito hasn't changed.

“Maybe let me break something?”

Obito laughs. It sounds wonderful.

Kakashi can hardly sit still when he hears the knock on the door, taking deep breaths to ground himself while Obito answers it. Minato pokes his head around the wall. He and Sukea both want to run over there, grab their teacher’s notebook, and break the seal themselves.

Sukea thinks he’s known how to break the seal for years, ever since that far-off dream of a masked man. But its influence kept him from doing anything about it, and when Sensei decided to have a go, he figured it would be fine to leave his old mentor to figure it out on his own. Sukea is a seal master in his own right, but no one is as detail-oriented as Minato. They can trust he won't miss anything in his haste to remove it.

Kakashi sits on the couch as his sensei lays out page after page of seal work across the coffee table. It's extensive, and Kakashi realizes that he can read some of the sigils now, thanks to the lesson this morning. It's not enough to read the intention behind the seal, but it keeps him occupied in the endless minutes of silence.

Obito observes them from the armchair, bouncing his leg, unafraid to showcase the anxiety they're all feeling.

Minato kneels in front of him, readying his brush. He smiles, warm and reassuring, just as he was all those years ago. “Take off your shirt for me, please. And tell me if our Kakashi notices any discrepancies in my seal work as we go.”

“Maa, he prefers to go by Sukea these days, Sensei. But I'll be sure to let you know.”

Minato looks to Obito for an explanation, but all he gets is a shrug.

The process takes hours. The seal itself is complex, and the lines of code needed to negate it are just as intricate. Kakashi can’t speak for fear of his movement messing up Minato’s brush strokes, so while they sit, he and Sukea have a chat in their head. Their time is mostly filled with empty words, but now and then, Sukea will conjure up a memory to share.

He sees the aftermath of the kyūbi attack, the day Obito first donned his ANBU mask. Sukea watched through Kamui as Obito smoothed his thumbs over white and red porcelain, a freshly-inked tattoo red and glaring on his bicep.

I was furious that day, Sukea says. I wished so strongly that Sensei had died with Kushina. That decision proved to me who he was, and how little we mattered to him.

Kakashi stares down at their sensei, who has spent countless hours crafting a specialized counter-seal to free the student who took his wife from him. How Minato could do that for someone who destroyed his family is hard to say. He’s always been kind-hearted.

Is that really what you think?

It is. Minato has been like an older brother to him since his father died, the only mentor he ever knew and the one who kept his head above water when he felt like he was drowning. Maybe not every decision he made was right, and there were things he lacked as a jōnin-instructor. But he was only a boy, too, when he took on his students. He was young still, lacking the experience to set his team on the right path. Kakashi couldn’t fault him for that.

Therein lies the problem: he was an immature teenager they entrusted with the lives of children. Konoha saw his prowess and the asset he was in battle, and turned a blind eye to his age. You understand. We were just like him, killing before we knew the value of life.

But it was war. Times were desperate, and though Kakashi wouldn’t wish his childhood on anyone, many of the older shinobi were already dead. It fell on the younger generation to protect the village.

By the sage, you’ve got it bad. I would expect nothing less of a Kage.

“What would you have had them do, then?” he asks as Minato inks his arm, starting from his shoulder.

In a perfect world, I would have abolished the shinobi system long before there ever came a need for war.

Kakashi struggles not to sigh. Those words are easy to say, but without the shinobi system, Konoha loses the bulk of its income. Their village thrives off jobs outsourced from across the nations, doing work for the daimyō and various governing bodies in Fire Country. In this perfect world where theirs is not a shinobi village, how would they sustain themselves? As dark and seedy as their missions can get, not all of them are bad. Most often, they’re hired as bodyguards or couriers. They target bandits, protect the vulnerable civilians of smaller villages, or retrieve stolen goods. Not every aspect of shinobi life is cruel and warped.

But Kakashi understands that part of it is, and that there is something fundamentally wrong with putting weapons in the hands of kids who are still growing. He’ll concede that point.

Let’s play a game, Kakashi. He doesn’t want to. It feels like he might lose. Close your eyes and think back to Kannabi Bridge.

Kakashi finds himself there, in front of that cave, his eye bleeding from a fresh gash. Enemy-nin flank him, and they have to save Rin, but he has a blind spot and is losing blood. Obito’s loud voice breaks through the pounding in his ears from his racing heart.

Where was Minato-sensei back then?

He was on the front lines. Kakashi was a recently-promoted jōnin and the captain of their team, so by all rights, Minato didn’t need to be there. Kakashi should have been able to lead that mission without an issue. It was his own fault, and the fault of his twisted morals, that everything went wrong. If he went with Obito to retrieve Rin, if he did a better job of scouting the area. If they chose a different formation, or if they were more cautious.

Let me remind you: you were eleven.

He was, wasn’t he? That meant that it had been five years since his promotion to chūnin, and he had five years of experience to fall back on. Five years of complaints from his squadmates about his poor teamwork, five years to work on his personal failings.

Tell me: at eleven years old, would you have entrusted Naruto with that mission?

No; of course not. Naruto didn’t make genin until age twelve. Even if he had, he was immature and flighty, and though he was a legal adult in the eyes of Konoha, training him in those early days was akin to babysitting. That went for Sakura and Sasuke, too, of course. They were bright kids with big futures ahead of them, but they were still just kids.

So why do you set different standards for yourself?

He isn’t sure.

You shouldn’t have been at Kannabi Bridge. None of us should have. Even if Minato-sensei stayed, and even if he didn’t feed us to the wolves, we were far too young to see a battlefield. But we didn’t realize that. Not even Minato-sensei did. Because to us, who lived and breathed the shinobi way, that was normal.

They sit heavy in his stomach, these words that he finds himself understanding. Minato’s brush is right below his collarbone, tracing over the self-made brand carved deeply into his skin. Kakashi keeps perfectly still, refusing to be at fault for the failure of the counter-seal. What unnerves him is that Sukea isn’t angry or upset. He’s not monologuing about his ideals or burning with hated the way he tends to when he gets heated, he’s just—

Talking.

They’re just talking.

Sukea is conversing with Kakashi in a way he never used to, articulating his thoughts without malice or prejudice. He isn’t trying to sway Kakashi like he did when they first began sharing this body, much as it sounds like he is. Yet everything he says sticks with Kakashi more than anything before it.

What’s most curious, though, is how none of these talks have circled back to the Eye of the Moon plan. Sukea hasn’t justified his life-long mission in anything he said.

“The Infinite Tsukuyomi wasn’t your goal, was it?”

Sukea doesn’t answer.

Minato pulls back, carefully reading over the hundreds and hundreds of seals across Kakashi’s chest, arms, and back. Once the ink is cool, he sets down his brush. “Why don’t you look in the mirror and see if I missed anything?”

Kakashi offers a mock salute. “Anything for you, Sensei.”

As he leaves the room, he glances back to see Obito rolling his eye.

He stares at himself in the mirror, finding the scarred word, traitor, inked over and barely visible beneath the sigils. Kakashi can't read all this nonsense on their body, but he scrolls carefully through it so Sukea can, taking his time on each line, every symbol.

I don’t hate Sensei, Sukea says. I don’t hate the village, either. I’ve missed it, and the people I left behind.

Kakashi doesn’t take a jab at him this time, or imply that he could have just returned, because he knows that’s not true. Sukea tried to. He wanted to so badly that he taught himself advanced fuinjutsu just to take a look at the inner workings of Madara’s curse.

I hate what it stands for. I hate what it’s become. But I don’t hate the pieces that make it up.

“Do you regret it?” Kakashi asks. “You took Kushina from her husband and son. You killed so many people who were just living in this system, and had no power over it.”

They may not have chosen that system, but they were complacent. I regret it only as much as you would regret killing an enemy shinobi.

“Maa, but they weren’t enemies, were they? They were neighbours and friends. Kushina helped train us. She would make lunch for us and bring it out to the field.”

I never said I didn’t love or miss her. But I don’t value the lives I’ve taken after leaving the village any more than the ones I took while a part of it. All those enemies you killed had lives just like she did, and they were cut short because of the choices you made. The least you can do is give their deaths meaning.

Kakashi presses his lips together and holds his tongue. This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Today, they can finally set aside the fear of the seal’s influence. But all this talk is turning his heart to stone.

He doesn't resent Sukea in the same way he doesn't resent the Obito he lost. To dismiss them as evil or label them monsters is to fall into the trap of othering them. But even the kindest soul is capable of the cruelest acts. The moment one forgets that is the moment they become the monster.

“Humans can do terrible things all on their own,” Obito had said. “But they're still human.”

Kakashi thinks he understands.

Thank you.

He stares into Sukea’s eyes, brow raised. “It would be nice if you could leave me the privacy of my own thoughts. I know you’re listening in, but you could at least pretend you're not.”

Not that. You can think of me however you like. If I'm a monster, so be it.

“Then for what?”

For being here, I suppose. Giving me the opportunity to be close to them. I never thought I would have that.

Sukea expected to die in the war, like Obito. It was why he readily linked himself to the Gedō Statue, why he discarded his eye and let his body fail. The future he fought for was one he never planned to see.

“Maa, are you asking me to sign a lease and move in? Should I plant roots here for your comfort?”

I wouldn't hate that.

It’s meant as a joke. Whether Kakashi leaves this world or stays is beyond his control.

There’s a knock on the door. He looks back to see Obito standing there, leaning against the frame. “Everything okay?”

“Perfectly,” Kakashi assures as he goes back to scanning the sigils. He takes a breath and tries to hide the effects of Sukea’s honesty. All day he’s been an open book and it’s, well. A lot. Sukea’s only ever difficult, even when he’s cooperating. Every action he takes is one more headache for Kakashi to deal with. “Just making sure we don’t miss anything.”

The seal is fine, Kakashi. We can start.

Kakashi nods.

As he goes to leave, a wave of longing ripples through him, and he freezes midstep. Their tether is strong right now, and he pointedly looks past Obito as he retreats into the hall. “All good. Let’s break this seal.”

He feels Sukea prodding but won’t rise to the bait; it’s not the time to demand Obito’s affection or take advantage of his kindness. They have a seal to break.

And yet, as he tries to return to the living room, he realizes that his hand is warm with the touch of another. He looks back, seeing the way he traitorously latched onto Obito, and curses Sukea in his head.

Obito looks at him curiously. Calloused fingers close around his own, unburdened by his touch. “Sukea?”

Kakashi looks away, his heart hammering wildly in his chest. “He’s nervous, I suppose.”

Obito gives his hand a squeeze. “It’ll be okay; Sensei’s the best seal master out there. He’s not gonna mess up.”

There it is again, that wave of longing. It pushes him forward, stumbling closer, and without any prompting, Obito wraps an arm around his back and pulls him in.

Kakashi doesn’t remember the last time someone held him. He thinks the closest thing may have been when Naruto hung off his shoulders after getting drunk for the first time when he turned nineteen. Before then… Well, he isn’t sure. Obito’s heat leeches through his clothes. His hand is firm between Kakashi’s shoulder blades, keeping him steady.

“You’ll get through this,” Obito says. “And tonight… Ugh. We can read more of that damn book before bed. Sound good?”

Oh, yes. Most definitely.

Kakashi clears his throat and finally, finally, their connection weakens. He gently pries free of Obito’s one-armed hug and smiles, swallowing his nerves. “I’ll hold you to that. No backing out.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Obito huffs. “Get that seal off you. Then we’ll talk.”

He’s grateful for the escape. As he returns to the living room couch and gives Minato a cheery thumbs-up, and as chakra passes through the ink on his skin, his eyes follow Obito across the room. Even with Sukea pulling back, his heart is still pounding, and his body is warm.

Damn it.

Minato presses his hand to the heart of the seal, and Kakashi’s whole body seizes. For ten seconds, his lungs refuse air, his heart won’t pump, and his eyes won’t move. And then—

Nothing.

He gasps for breath, doubling over, pressing a hand against his chest. His arms tingle and his whole body is weak, as though he’s been running at full speed for eight hours straight. But when he scans himself, he can’t find the rerouting of his chakra pathways through the seal, or the constant presence of something foreign in his body.

The seal is gone, just like that.

Minato does his own inspection, a much more thorough dive that takes another twenty minutes out of their day. But even he can’t find the traces of it.

Sensei gives his shoulder a squeeze, and smiles. “All good now,” he says. “No need to worry.”

They celebrate with alcohol, and for the first time, Obito’s a bit miffed that he can’t feel the buzz his roommate so clearly is. By the time goody-two-shoes Lord Fourth, who is too pure to accept more than one cup of sake, has left them alone, Kakashi’s face is a patchy red. He doesn’t flush evenly, and Obito watches from across the kitchen table, his chin propped up on his hand. Kakashi insists that he has a high tolerance, but he’s feeling it now, no doubt, even if his voice is even and his eyes are mostly focused. That patchy flush spreads down his neck, and Obito finds it cute. It reminds him of the flustered genin who used to follow him like a duckling through the village streets.

It’s quiet, and by all accounts too early for sake, but whatever. It’s a good day. Obito can’t get drunk and sees no harm in his prisoner letting loose on such an important occasion. Just knowing that the curse is gone and its influence will never reach them again is enough to leave him weak-kneed and crying. Not that he cries, of course. He’s far too jaded for that.

“The kids are stopping by this weekend,” he says, and mismatched eyes look up at him. The Rinnegan’s stare isn’t jarring like it used to be. At some point, that foreign eye became Kakashi’s in his mind, just as his own Sharingan is no longer his. “You wanted to make ramen for them, right?”

Kakashi lifts his head. He’s been flipping through the pages of Icha Icha, trying to find where they left off last night because they didn’t have a bookmark on hand and Kakashi refused to let him dog-ear the pages. Apparently, it’s a signed copy from Minato. Go figure. “Are they really?” He sounds so young, so hopeful.

A lopsided grin tugs at Obito’s mouth. “Saturday, yeah. Do we need to do a grocery run?”

“Maa, does Friday work for you? I want everything to be fresh “

“Kakashi, my whole job right now is to babysit you,” he teases. “Any day works for me.”

“Fair point.”

Kakashi gives up his search for the page they left off on and pulls over his sealing notebook. This morning, Obito noticed that several were taken up by sigil translations, and it’s safe to say that Sukea is teaching fuinjutsu to Kakashi. That’s fine; it’s not like they have access to chakra, and it keeps him busy. That’s more important than anything right now, with Kakashi’s growing restlessness.

Obito is trying to get second opinions on what he can do for Kakashi, but it’s hard to know who to ask. He took one of their ANBU guards aside yesterday, Tenzō, and wondered what he thought, but Tenzō just said that Kakashi seems perfectly capable of amusing himself. Yeah, sure. When he’s out with the ANBU, he makes a menace of himself by chatting with and teasing them, and has no qualms about blatantly dropping their names in public. It nearly gives them heart attacks every time. But inside the house, when it’s just the two of them, that’s when it hits. Because Kakashi can’t go for a walk alone whenever he needs to clear his head. He can’t wander off to train, or meet with friends. Every decision he makes is filtered through Obito, and—

What would Sukea’s life have looked like if he remained in Konoha? How has Kakashi lived all these years in that strange other world he’s from? Obito has only seen this guy’s history up to Kannabi Bridge. He saw himself left in the rocks and rubble, crushed without the buffer of Sukea’s body protecting him, and knows that the Obito of that world is dead. Kakashi mentioned that Rin died, too, and that he was put into ANBU shortly after. But other than that? He’s got nothing. Obito wasn’t around when Inoichi did his initial dig-through of Kakashi’s memories. Everything beyond that point is lost to him. And because he doesn’t know, he can’t help.

He raises an eyebrow as Kakashi, no doubt feeling a buzz, tears out a page in the notebook and uses his precious, exorbitantly expensive sealing ink to write out a grocery list. Shortly after he jots down the third item, Kakashi winces. Maybe Sukea’s lecturing him for wasting valuable resources; he was anal about that kind of thing as a kid.

When Kakashi finishes with his list, he sets it aside to let the ink dry, an absent smile on his face. At times like these, Obito forgets that this is the same guy who religiously hid his face.

“There’s something I want to discuss with you,” Obito says, and Kakashi looks at him. This might not be the best time, and he’ll ask again when Kakashi sobers up. But he needs to clear the air now unless he wants to push it off until it’s too late. “Do you still want to give up the Sharingan?”

Kakashi blinks slowly. “Would you take it?”

Obito scratches at the woodgrain of the table, looking away. “Can you tell me why first?”

His friend stares up at the ceiling and hums as he leans on the table, still fiddling with his modified fountain pen. “Maa, well it is yours, isn’t it?” He shrugs, swiping a hand across his brow. “Having this eye is a reminder of my shortcomings. I see it and remember the moment I failed you.”

It was a gift. It was supposed to connect them so they could see the world together, even after he was no longer in it.

“I spent most of my life covering up an eye that I could never fully utilize. I’m no Uchiha, so I can’t deactivate it, and my body couldn’t handle the strain. Sensei always said I had middling reserves, remember?”

That’s the truth, isn’t it? There are ink stains on Kakashi’s skin left behind by the counter-seal, all to negate a curse placed on him at some point in their history. Minato confirmed that Sukea had modified the seal to link himself to the Gedō Statue to siphon chakra from it during the war. It fueled him so that he could use his gifted Sharingan and stolen Rinnegan, these Kekkei Genkai that his body wasn’t designed to house. Even now, when Kakashi looks toward the light, he sees the glint of seals in those eyes.

It was a gift that became a burden, all because Obito lacked the foresight to realize that.

He hangs his head in defeat and sighs. “Rin found a donor, so if I take it back now, you won’t be left with one eye. The only caveat is that you need to decide within the next two weeks—”

“Take it.”

Obito huffs, glaring at the bastard. “Lemme finish, hey?”

“No, really.” Kakashi leans forward, his smile bright at the centre of his patchy red skin. “I want to see you whole again. Maa, and it's not much use to me now, is it? The eye is sealed, my chakra is blocked. If Rin has a new eye for me, then why not?”

Of course he would be on board. Predictable little shit.

When they were kids, Sukea fought and bickered and argued with him nonstop. Not at first, no. He was shy and quiet and straight-up cute when he was a genin. Sometimes, Obito would find him lounging in parks with a puddle of ninken pups or carefully counting out exact change when he bought rice cakes at the vendor by the Uchiha district. But then he was bumped up to chūnin, his father died, and they were put on Team 7. Obito’s sweet little shadow turned prickly and sharp, like a bed of needles buried underfoot, waiting for the wrong person to step on them. And yet despite the vitriol in Sukea’s voice as he hurled insults Obito’s way and Obito returned them, he was the first to crumble when one of their teammates got hurt. 

Obito took the brunt of a fire jutsu once, stepping in front of his teammates. He knew he could handle it; he trained with his clansmen all the time. But Sukea wouldn’t leave him alone for a week after that. Once more, he was Obito’s shadow, there to offer him whatever he needed. One day, when the medic-nin were applying ointment to the shiny patch of skin on his arm, Sukea earnestly asked if he could donate skin for a graft. The medics looked between one another, tried not to smile, and politely explained that Obito’s burn was not serious enough to need a skin graft. That if it was, they would take skin from an unaffected part of Obito’s body to prevent rejection. Even today, he remembers Sukea’s red face when Obito laughed at him, so eager to help when there was nothing for him to do.

Kakashi isn’t Sukea, but as they spend time together, the similarities are hard to miss. Maybe they don’t share the same history, but this man is still the type to offer every piece of himself if it means helping someone he loves.

Loves, huh?

Kakashi’s wrestling with Icha Icha again. Obito rolls his eye and plucks the garish orange book from between his fingertips. “I thought we agreed on reading it tonight,” he mutters. “It’s not even five, Kakashi. I’m not going to read this stupid book to you for the next six hours.”

Kakashi pouts like a kid half his age—it’s the alcohol, surely—and folds his arms over one another on the table, resting his head atop them. “But that sounds like such a wonderful six hours.”

“Haven’t you read this book already?”

“Of course. I’ve memorized it.”

Obito shouldn’t have asked. “Then why the hell do you want me to dictate it?”

“Your voice is alluring.” Obito chokes on his sake. “It makes every chapter feel new. And Sukea’s never read it. He likes listening to you.”

Right on cue, a pale hand finds its way to his own, curling slender fingers around his palm. The pad of Kakashi’s thumb smooths over his knuckles, and as Obito’s heart pounds wildly in his ears, it becomes apparent that Kakashi doesn’t realize where his touch has gravitated.

He thinks—

No, he doesn’t think. He won’t think. Because the thing he’s thinking is absurd and silly and entirely inappropriate, given their positions. It doesn’t matter if he knows how Sukea used to feel about him, or how he still does, and Kakashi—

Kakashi, he isn’t sure about.

Obito freely offers his hand to his companion, searching for a tell that isn’t there. Sukea didn’t used to be this tactile. He’s more upfront now that he’s locked away, craving whatever touch he can get because the opportunity rarely presents itself.

The thought that he wishes it were Kakashi initiating this contact crosses his mind, and he buries it.

Clearing his throat, Obito pulls over the grocery list and reads it to get his mind off the guy holding onto him like a lifeline. His warmth seeps into Kakashi’s cold hand, bit by bit. “So—you were a jōnin instructor?”

Kakashi shrugs, closing his eyes. “Not by choice. I didn’t make for a great sensei. I think you’ve done a better job than I did.”

Obito snorts. “Oh, I doubt that. I had some pretty bad fuck-ups in my run.”

“Sasuke defected,” Kakashi declares, pouring yet more sake into his cup. He tips the bottle upside down, shaking out the very last drop. His drinking etiquette is terrible. “Maa, he’s back now. But he was gone for years, Obito, and all I could think was how badly I failed them.”

It brings him back to a far-gone night, the slaughter of his family and the bloodbath he came home to. Obito was away on a mission when the Uchiha clan was massacred, far beyond Konoha’s borders, and when he came back, all that remained was one of his cousins, youngest son of the clan head, traumatized by the genocide of his people.

He stares at the hand holding his, nausea turning in his stomach. That same hand was used to slaughter his family. It took his aunt from him, and his cousins. The grannies he used to help out, and the couple that ran the dango stall. It left Sasuke alone in a world that felt entirely wrong.

When Obito learned that his clan was destroyed by order of Danzō, he damn-well snapped. It was one thing for Itachi to have defected and turned on them in a fit of madness. It was another to find out some masked madman joined him in the slaughter. But to hear that a high-ranking advisor for Konoha orchestrated the whole thing behind their Kage’s back, to end so many lives in the name of village security—

He would kill Danzō as many times as it took if it would mend Sasuke’s heart.

The hand in his is cold. It belongs to his friend, someone he loves dearly, and hates just the same.

“I took Sasuke in after the Uchiha massacre,” Obito explains, hiding the quaver of his voice. “Oh… Did that happen in your world?”

“It did,” Kakashi nods.

“Right.” He clears his throat and leans back, pulling his hand free. It’s hard to look at Kakashi right now, so he doesn’t. “Well, we were all that was left, so I became his guardian. He was in a bad place. I’m sure yours was, too. But I was always bringing him to Sensei’s place. He hated Naruto for, what, three years? Then, one day, they clicked. Just like that. And suddenly, he wasn’t lashing out. Started to smile, brought the kid home after class. Made friends. Whatever happened to make your Sasuke leave, I don’t think it was your fault. Blame the village, if anything. Blame Itachi, or Danzō, or—”

Or Sukea, he doesn’t say. Because if Sukea wasn’t there, who partnered with Itachi that night?

Kakashi looks around, more and more subdued as the minutes pass, his finger absently tracing the rim of his sake cup. “Why doesn’t he live with you?”

That’s a whole can of worms, isn’t it? Obito groans, stretching his arms, feeling like they should move out of these shitty kitchen chairs and onto the couch in the living room. “We had a fight when I became his jōnin-instructor, and he said that since he was a legal adult, he was going to live on his own. We made up the day he signed the lease. But, well.” He shrugs. “Having some space apart was good for us, I guess. His social battery is half dead ninety percent of the time, so having a space all his own to retreat to helped chill him out. When he got lonely, my door was always open.”

Another smile tugs at the corner of Kakashi’s mouth, displacing the beauty mark by his lips. He goes to open another bottle, but Obito snatches it away. There’s enough alcohol in his system to make him a fire hazard, and as his warden, Obito is going to be the responsible one. “That’s nice,” he says. “Naruto and Sasuke were orphaned in my world. I knew about them both… But I was in ANBU, and wasn’t allowed to take on a dependant. Maa, I think that was an excuse. Other ANBU have kids. Maybe they thought I was too unstable to trust with the jinchūriki.”

More and more, he wants to know what life was like for this poor, sad man. His friend, who talks to the plants he tends to and spends most days out in the garden, who reads terrible porn that somehow made Obito cry.

An hour passes, and Obito helps his company into the living room. Kakashi looks tired. He’s still as articulate as when he’s sober, but he’s chatty in a way he usually isn’t, and struggles to keep his eyes open. So, even though it’s not even six yet, they settle next to each other, and as promised, Obito opens that damnable orange book.

Kakashi presses against his side, his cheek leaning on his shoulder, and reads along while Obito dictates. They made it through the first leg of smut last night, thank the sage, so he isn’t immediately back to making a fool out of himself. There’s a somber note to the story that didn’t fit in with the silly, trope-filled first quarter of it. But now, it’s getting into the main character’s history, which isn’t as fun and whimsical. He’s a shinobi, after all. And surely, Master Jiraiya would know something about loss.

Obito clears his throat. “Aya told him once that if he loved the present, he could make peace with the past,” he recites, and pauses, staring at the words as they cut through his chest. Kakashi looks at him; he focuses on the book. “But he hated today more than yesterday, and he would hate tomorrow even more, because there was no future with her in it.”

Kakashi closes his eyes, a heavy weight against Obito’s side. Silence breaks across the room. Wind rattles against the panels of the window at their back, filling the open air.

“It’s my favourite book,” Kakashi says, and his words lack the clarity of before. “I was fifteen when Master Jiraiya published it. I assumed it would be like The Tale of the Gutsy Shinobi. It wasn’t. I thought about returning it at first.”

Obito licks his lips, lowering Icha Icha to his lap.

“Then I got to this part, and realized I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. We’re taught to bury our feelings. It’s not good for shinobi to be emotional. But Master Jiraiya wrote it all down, and that meant the world to me. ‘Oh, it’s normal to hurt like this. It’s okay to hold onto my pain. I’m not alone.’”

Kakashi shifts. Grey hair brushes against Obito’s arm as Kakashi tries to sit up, then aborts it, settling back down. Patchy red skin still blooms across his face, the visible parts of his chest. The clothes he wears were picked up by the ANBU on one of their shopping trips several weeks back. Kakashi hasn’t had a chance to wear what makes him comfortable. He’s been without a mask for most of his time here, and even though he’s adjusted, Obito can’t help but wonder how comfortable he is with that.

He doesn’t know when he became okay with this stranger’s casual touch, or why he’s content to sit here and waste the day catering to Kakashi’s whims. The palm against his forearm has the blood of his clansmen on it. This person took Kushina from them, left Naruto without a mother, set the kyūbi on the village.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kakashi mutters. “You’re here now.”

It doesn’t matter, he repeats while his pulse pounds in his ears. You’re here now.

Kakashi falls asleep. With a heavy sigh, Obito reaches across him for the throw blanket and pulls it over the man now using him as a body pillow. A flash of lightning fills the room, and he counts the seconds before thunder crashes over the house. Rain hisses at his back, beating against the window pane.

Kakashi always runs cold.