Chapter Text
The town they happen upon is small but it still has an inn with an attached hotspring. Rin insisted that she could carry on, pushing forward with all the determination a chunin of her experience should have, but Kakashi wouldn't hear of it. He'd seen, in the oppressive dark of the cave, the way Rin's hands shook — and then, in the morning when Rin's vicious withdrawal symptoms had waned away, her hands still shook. She kept them moving, unwilling to let him see, but it was a lost cause. Kakashi had seen worse at the warfront than a shaking little girl but didn't feel inclined to let it go.
"Come on," he said quietly, all but forcing Rin to lean hard on his shoulder as they made their way out of the cave. It was still pouring, just the same as ever, but neither of them commented on it, simply trudging over the mud-slick ground.
And now, the town.
Kakashi wonders what the woman managing the inn thinks when the two of them enter — dirty and soaked-through, walking up to her with determination. Her lips part and he wonders if she's going to ask (Where are your parents? or Are you all right? or even What have you done?) but then her lips fall shut once again.
She doesn't know that Kakashi and Rin are ninja — they'd both taken off their gear and forehead protectors for the barest semblance of a disguise — but she also knows that it's been less than half a year since the war ended. She knows that children are dangerous, and that she should know better than to question any strange ones she comes across.
"One room?" she rasps, and Kakashi hears a voice ravaged by acrid tobacco smoke.
"Yes," Kakashi agrees. "Two beds."
Rin stays silent all the way up to the room, and continues to stay silent after the woman has left.
Kakashi waits.
Rin goes to sleep almost immediately and Kakashi leaves her to it — he suspects that the past few days have been just as stress-inducing to her as they had been to him. He, instead, retreats down to the indoor hot spring, roughly rinsing the debris off of himself before relaxing in the warm waters. This is one of the few luxuries of such low-level C-ranks: even after losing several days of time, there's still more than enough left to relax and complete the mission. Rin could do with a night of rest on an actual bed, and he could do with a bath.
The hotspring is entirely enclosed, allowing not even a peek into the outside world, and Kakashi can almost pretend that he's back in the Village. As hard as he'd campaigned to take Rin on a mission outside of the Leaf, as restless as he'd become with being trapped inside its walls…suddenly, being outside of it, of the bubble of safety it had provided, is unsettling.
Years of war and suddenly Kakashi is scared of a neutral country? Pathetic.
Maybe it's because Kakashi has barely been in Iron Country before, and certainly not this deep into its interior. The two wars that had encompassed the vast majority of Kakashi's life both saw Iron Country as a steadfastly neutral nation, promising to not ally with any ninja village as long as it could manage. Due to its strategic location and the unique skills of its samurai-based military, no one was willing to take the chance of it allying with anyone else — thus, in deference to Iron's will, ninja never stepped foot inside if they could help it. If they couldn't, like Kakashi couldn't on three separate occasions, they would stay in its hinterlands and leave as quickly as possible.
The citizens of Iron Country do not like ninja, and ninja (who don't like what they don't understand) do not like Iron Country.
But for a moment of peace and quiet, it does the trick.
When Kakashi finally exits the hot spring, he no longer feels like he's constantly soaked through the bone and the ever-present chill has left him. He retreats up to the room, finding Rin awake and perched on the bed, freshly showered and struggling to wrap bandages around her thigh. She startles the moment he opens the door, always seeming to sense him even when he's dead silent.
"O-Oh," she says, turning her head towards him, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "Hi, Kakashi…how was the hot spring?"
"Good," says Kakashi. He looks at Rin's shaky hands, which have ceased their movement. The bandages look slack around her thigh. "I can help."
Somehow, Rin's cheeks manage to grow even redder. "No, it's fine! I just need a second. I got them on in the cave, you know, so I can get them on here!"
"It'll be quicker if I help," Kakashi says stubbornly, advancing on her.
Rin's body sags before she finally, reluctantly, agrees. Kakashi, satisfied, unwraps the bandages before starting again, making each turn tight and functional so that it won't come off during combat. It's a bit of a give away that she's a ninja but as a (former) medic, there's no way she would go without her chakra-enhanced bandages in easy reach. Kakashi himself plans to wrap his around his shins like always, standard practice to keep anything from getting on his skin by going up his pant legs.
As he continues his methodical work, Rin allows her upper body to fall backward until she's staring up at the ceiling, arms splayed wide across the bed. She says, "I really do like you, Kakashi."
Kakashi's hands stutter but they don't stop. "I know," he says. Not mean, just factual.
After a beat of silence, Rin continues, "I'm sorry about everything."
Everything is a loaded term. Is she sorry she has a crush on Kakashi? That's unreasonable — she can't really control it. Is she sorry for throwing away her medical career? It's not like that directly impacts Kakashi. Is she sorry for always crashing on his couch, or for saying hurtful things to him, or for needing him to take care of her? As far as Kakashi's concerned, it's his duty to deal with all of that. He could say it became his duty when Obito told him to protect Rin but really, really, it was his duty the moment they were both placed on Team Seven. That's what it means to be a team. (That's what Obito would say, anyway.)
So, he says, "It's fine. As long as you're better now."
"I don't know if I am."
"Then I'll help you again," Kakashi says, neatly tying off the bandages. He rises from his kneeling position by the bed and then looks down at Rin, whose eyes are glued on the light hanging from the ceiling.
"You shouldn't have to —"
"Who said I have to? I'm doing it either way." He holds his hand to her, palm open, waiting. "Okay?"
Rin observes Kakashi's hand, and then his face, and then the ceiling again. "Yeah," she says eventually. "Okay." She takes Kakashi's hand and allows him to haul her up until she's steadily on her feet. Her hand, grasped in his, doesn't shake as much, as if she's drawing fortitude from him. When their hands part, it's her who lets go, and her hands shake again but she doesn't seem to mind. "Let's get something to eat."
Kakashi relaxes, relieved. He'd been starving.
This little town doesn't seem to be known for its culinary prowess, boasting all of three restaurants and two roadside food stands. Kakashi, who has his opinions on food but isn't opposed to eating something that disagrees with his palate, allows Rin to choose where to eat.
"The sushi probably isn't fresh since we're so far inland," Rin muses as they wander down a path in the middle of the town. "And I'm definitely not in the mood for some omelette…" Her eyes brighten as they land on the last restaurant. "Oh, it's a barbecue place!"
Kakashi eyes it skeptically. "It doesn't look very well kept."
"You said you'd let me choose," Rin responds.
Kakashi considers her. Personally, he'd prefer the ramen shop two streets over — it's hard to mess up ramen, after all — but he had said he would go wherever she chose. It's a little bit jarring, though, seeing a completely sober Rin stubbornly standing her ground against him. Some part of him had associated disagreement with her not being in her right mind, but clearly that's not the case. Giving in, he nods, and Rin smiles.
The waitress seems baffled by their age and lack of guardian but seats them at a small table all the same, Rin gleefully ordering a hearty meal of meat and vegetables to be grilled and dipped in soup. Kakashi lets it happen, admitting that the restaurant doesn't look as bad on the inside as it does on the outside. It's not like he's picky but getting food poisoning in Iron is not his idea of a good time.
"See? It's fine," Rin says happily. "It's been a while since we had a real meal together, huh? The last time was…"
"Before Kannabi," Kakashi finishes. The last time Kakashi and Rin ate together in a restaurant was before Obito's death, back when Team Seven was still active. They'd had ramen then, sitting alongside Kushina, Minato-sensei's girlfriend, at Ichiraku Ramen. Kakashi had to all but be carried there by an ever-present Minato-sensei. He'd been convinced that he had better things to do, that eating lunch with Stupid Obito was a useless endeavor. He couldn't have known how little time they had left.
In hindsight, he feels shameful — why had he always hated Obito? Why had he treated him so badly? He was childish, yes, but he was kind. Kakashi was just too cynical to see it, and now Obito is dead.
The living always have a million regrets when their family has left the earth.
"You're thinking about him again, aren't you?" Rin asks.
Kakashi looks up, blinking away his dark mood. "What?"
"Obito. You always look so sad when you think about him." She smiles at him but it, too, looks sad. "I miss him too, Kakashi. I…I miss him a lot. No, it's like I miss him all the time." She shrugs, her gaze going out the window opposite to her. "He was always so silly, and he hesitated so often, but he really cared for all of us. You, too, even if he never wanted to show it." She swallows, gaze still far away. "I know it's different for you. You're actually…I don't know, tied to him. But I swear I miss him, too, Kakashi. And I know he told you to protect me. I promise I'm not trying to make it hard for you, or to disrespect him, or —"
Rin's voice cuts off, her expression sharpening as her gaze catches something through the window. Kakashi tenses, hand instinctively going to reach his thigh pouch, only to realize it's not there. He ventures farther downward, gripping a shuriken he'd hid in his sandal.
"Rin?" he asks mildly. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Mhm," Rin hums, suddenly far more composed than she'd been a moment ago. "Just saw a woman in the prettiest clothes I've ever seen. That kind of cloth is only made in Iron, I think…Kakashi, I need to get some before we go home."
The curtains hanging at the entrance of the restaurant move with a rustle of fabric and the acrid stench of blood hits Kakashi's nose. The other patrons of the restaurant go quiet. In the silence, Kakashi hears what he thinks is the sound of breathing, though it's muffled and tinny, along with the faint whir of…machinery? A robotic voice calls, "Well, is anyone gonna serve me?"
Immediately, the same waitress that had seated Kakashi and Rin rushes forward. "Sorry, sir," she says, and though she looked frightened as she rushed past, her voice doesn't tremble. Kakashi hears the wrinkle of fabric as she presumably bows to the bloody man before she continues, "Just this way…we have an empty table for you."
And of course, because the universe hates them, the only empty table at the restaurant is the one directly behind Kakashi and Rin's. At least Kakashi finally catches a glimpse of him, seeing his tall and broad build and the blood soaking the bits of fabric on him, staining his armor as well. And it's a lot of armor — thick, metallic, and bulky, almost reminiscent of the old armor popular with ninja during the Warring Clans Era. The man's armor is black rather than red, though, and it's exceedingly elaborate, with delicate flowers and animals carved into the metal plates. Covering the man's head is a full-coverage helmet that does not even leave the face open, though there are several vertical slits where his mouth should be, and it's from those slits that Kakashi can hear his breathing. It almost sounds like a pipe releasing exhaust.
Before the man sits, his hands reach up and lift the helmet off of his head, revealing pale skin and dark brown hair. "Thank you, young lady," he says, his gravelly voice no longer impeded by the helmet and whatever mechanism is within it. He's facing away from Kakashi but the smarmy smile is unmistakable even from his voice alone.
When he finally sits down, his back is to Kakashi and Rin, and after he gives his order, he doesn't move again. Some of the other patrons leave but others still stay seated, cautiously continuing their meal.
Kakashi makes eye contact with Rin.
The unmistakable conclusion in her eyes echoes his own: Let's get the out of here.
Neither of them want their relaxing C-rank to be interrupted by a rogue samurai. They've already paid for their room and they have all of their stuff in storage scrolls sealed in their pouches so they can leave the town quickly — and then they'll run, fast and far, and no longer take peace for granted.
A rogue samurai was not a foreseen complication but now they'll react accordingly.
Before they can twitch a finger, though, the man leans his head back and to the side until he's peering vaguely in Kakashi's direction. "Correct me if I'm wrong," he drawls, "but I believe I heard you two talking about fabrics specific to Iron Country?"
Neither Kakashi nor Rin startle. Kakashi smiles sweetly from behind the medical face mask he's sporting, letting his one visible eye — the other one wrapped in bandages as if he has an eye injury — crinkle. "Well," he says, trying to sound nervous, "it's our first time in Iron Country, sir, and…we're seeing all sorts of new things."
The man hums, finally twisting his torso to actually face Kakashi. "Show the girl some spider silk robes," he says. "That'll really wow her. I got some family up north who make it — say what, I could probably get you a bolt of the stuff for cheap."
A rogue samurai and a child-scamming textile merchant? The situation is not looking good.
"Um," says Kakashi, shifting in his seat. "I don't know what it looks like."
"Lovely is what it looks like," the samurai insists. Then he turns toward Rin, who meekly leans away from him. "You'll love it, sweetie."
Rin all but curls in on herself, looking between the samurai and Kakashi. She, too, is trying to think of a way out of this — luckily, the still-unhealthy pallor of her skin is a boon. He doesn't know what she does exactly, probably some sort of advanced chakra control technique, but her face begins to go green. "I need to use the bathroom," she squeaks, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as she flails her way out of her seat.
"Rin!" Kakashi says, voice high and anxious. He bows quickly to the samurai before following Rin as she flees to the back of the restaurant where the bathroom is situated. If Kakashi were a bit younger, no one would care about him running into the girls restroom, but at thirteen years old, someone would start a fuss. Luckily, he doesn't plan to stay there for that long. By the time he enters the bathroom, Rin is already halfway out the small window, and Kakashi quickly follows suit.
Outside, the brief stint of dryness has once again given way to rain.
"You have everything?" Kakashi murmurs.
Rin nods. "You?" she asks.
Kakashi nods, as well.
And then they're off.
With lunch ruined, and with a renewed sense of caution, Kakashi and Rin hunt for some food in the forests, eventually settling on a sizable lizard that stuck its head out of the ground at the wrong moment. Rin has to set up a makeshift shelter while Kakashi coats the area in warm chakra to keep it dry so that they can properly cook the meal, casting a light illusion to ensure the firelight doesn't reach past the shelter. The two of them huddle together to strip the lizard of its leathery skin and set aside its venom glands so they don't accidentally ingest them.
And then they eat.
"Maybe we shouldn't have gotten barbecue," Rin says mulishly. "Then we'd have actual food to eat, and not…" She waves her stick of lizard meat.
Kakashi shrugs, though internally he can't help but think: This never would have happened if we went to the ramen shop. It's hard to mess ramen up, after all. But realistically, there's no way either of them could have accounted for that situation, so there's nothing to be done about it except be more vigilant in the future. The rogue samurai likely doesn't know they're ninja and even if he does, why would he chase them? And even if he did, the rain has long since washed away their scent and they haven't left any tracks.
Everything is fine.
Kakashi finishes his portion of the meat first, consuming it in quick bursts when Rin isn't looking. Not that she's looking — she seems entirely concentrated on eating her food. When Kakashi discards his stick into the fire, though, she speaks to him again: "I'm sorry."
"You couldn't have known about the samurai," Kakashi responds. "There's nothing to be sorry for."
"I guess," says Rin. "I have a few soldier pills if you think the lizard wasn't enough."
The lizard wasn't enough but it's not as if Kakashi is going to starve. Soldier pills are meant for dire situations only — he's seen Rin snacking on them casually and it's always confused and concerned him. He says, "I'm fine." And, just as expected, Rin shrugs before eating them herself.
He's grateful she doesn't seem to mind them; it made it easier to feed them to her while she was going through withdrawal. That's as far as his sympathies go.
Kakashi watches for a moment in disgust before coming to a stand and declaring, "I'll be back."
Rin says, "I'll start breaking down the shelter."
And Kakashi exits the shelter, venturing a bit away until he's just out of sight before deciding it's a good enough place to go to the bathroom. On his way back to the shelter, though, he hears the snap of a twig. He pauses.
Dammit.
With vicious precision, he pulls a kunai out of his hip pouch and hurls it in the direction of the sound, the ring of metal against metal dimmed by the rain as it bounces harmlessly off of a plate of armor. The rogue samurai emerges from the thicket. "Little ninja babies," he muses, head once again covered by his helmet and voice filtered through whatever machine is inside the mouthpiece. "I figured. It's uncommon for children to wander without their parents in these parts."
Kakashi, crouched with another kunai in his hands, grits his teeth. He knew they'd been obvious but he hadn't foreseen having this much of an issue. That's on him — he'd gotten careless, and now the mission is compromised. Rin is compromised.
"Should have taken up my offer on the spider silk," the samurai continues. "Then I would have let you go. I gave you a headstart, though — felt wrong to go after such cute kids so soon."
Kakashi looks at him, distrustful. "I'll buy that bolt of fabric now, if you want," he says lowly.
"Too late — I can already tell you don't care," the samurai says. He reaches his arm over his shoulders to his back and the armor there makes a mechanical whir before, from what Kakashi can tell, the panels part and something emerges from inside the armor. The samurai grabs onto it and pulls, unsheathing a large sword.
"I," says the man, "Katsuro of the Foothills, will slay you and bring honor to the land." As he levels his sword at Kakashi, he says, "Speak your name and I will honor you after your death."
Damn samurai and their honor. At least it makes them talkative. The Shadow Clone Kakashi had made under an illusion sneaks up behind Katsuro and sticks an exploding tag onto his back, the width of the man's helmet keeping the rain from smudging the ink, and the clone activates it with a spark of chakra. The resulting explosion is instantaneous and wide-spread, but Kakashi had been anticipating it and immediately performs the Body Replacement Technique, switching with a stray rock several paces away.
When the dust and debris clear, Kakashi finds a clear sight of Katsuro…who is still standing, and only slightly singed. The last memories of his clone come flooding into his mind, confirming his initial assumption: the armor is able to withstand even explosions. Scarily strong and resilient.
"Underhanded tricks," roils Katsuro, zeroing in on Kakashi's new location immediately. "As expected of ninja. A child such as you…you have no innocence left. I will bring honor to you with your death."
Every armor has its weak spot, but Kakashi doesn't know what Katsuro's is yet. If he had to guess, though…
Kakashi hurls himself from his position, advancing on Katsuro, and blade meets blade — the sheer power Katsuro puts into the sword, no doubt aided by its own weight, is immense, and Kakashi has to fortify his muscles with chakra to keep from immediately collapsing the moment the sword makes contact with his kunai. He parries the blade away, his arm immediately burning from the pain of the chakra he pushed into it, but he presses onward, using a second kunai in his non-dominant hand to slash at the fabric between the plates of armor in the general area of the man's armpit. Katsuro is quick, getting out of the blade's path, but —
Kakashi draws blood.
Katsuro's mouthpiece lets out a metallic hiss as he rolls his arm out. He readjusts easily though. Kakashi knows that he only managed to nick the man, but if blood can be drawn then he can die of blood loss, at the very least. The brachial artery can be reached through his armpit with a very deep strike. Kakashi scans the rest of the man's body, noting any other gaps in armor, which largely appear at the joints. There's a crease near his groin, where the thigh meets the hips, and Kakashi should theoretically be able to reach the femoral artery from there.
Ninja don't tend to be this heavily armored so this is certainly a novel experience for Kakashi. Hopefully, he'll live long enough to learn from it.
With a sword as big as Katsuro's, Kakashi is unlikely to be able to get in close for a strike, meaning the man has to be immobilized.
As Katsuro launches forward towards him, Kakashi's hands blur through seals before slamming into the ground, summoning a wall of dirt out of the earth. Though the ever-present rain has rendered it to mud, it's so densely packed that Katsuro's sword doesn't make it through, though it does briefly get stuck inside.
With an enraged roar, Katsuro rips his sword out of the wall before grabbing the top of it to vault over. "Desecrating my motherland," he spits. "You ninja are despicable!"
But Kakashi is already gone, hiding himself under an illusion as he circles Katsuro. Strong and agile, the man makes for a terrifying opponent…but he talks too much.
It's under an illusion that Kakashi launches himself forward again, kunai aimed towards the crease of the armor between the man's thigh and groin. Somehow, though, he notices, helmet turning Kakashi's direction and — well. Kakashi isn't sure how the man does so quickly and effortlessly, but he dispels the illusion the moment Kakashi begins moving, sword arm lashing out. More importantly, the man grazes Kakashi's left arm, sending the sting of pain up it, the king of pain enhanced by chakra.
Kakashi jumps away before eyeing the sword more closely, this time with the sharingan, and it is only then that Kakashi truly notices the infinitesimal characters inked over the blade: seal script. Whatever the man's sword has been enchanted to do, it's causing Kakashi's arm to go numb.
He should have expected this — samurai do not meddle with elemental techniques the way ninja do, they're more inclined towards utilizing chakra through physical instruments. According to Minato-sensei, it has something to do with chakra's so-called "corrupting influence," though neither Kakashi nor Minato-sensei really understood what that meant. Here, now, the reasoning behind it doesn't matter, but Kakashi forgetting to account for that may cost him his life. He'd been too quickly lulled into a sense of familiarity by the man's mechanical reliance; he didn't think that chakra was going to enter the equation.
With the little amount of feeling he has left, Kakashi shoves his arm behind his back and under the cross straps he wears on his upper body. It's a tight fit but it'll keep his left arm out of the way for the rest of the fight. When Katsuro comes after him again, Kakashi jumps further backward still, feeling slightly vindicated to see Katsuro slip and stumble in the mud.
Clearly, the man is not used to such wet battlegrounds. That would make sense — if he truly is from the northern foothills, then he's native to a relatively arid region of Iron Country. That also makes his spider silk obsession more reasonable, since animal-based textiles make up the majority of the industry in that area, one that has been hit relatively hard due to the previous two wars.
In an ideal scenario, Kakashi would cast water style techniques or liquify the ground with an earth style technique, but with one arm out of the equation he can't exactly cast anything complicated. There are a few jutsu that he can use without handsigns, and a smaller number that he's managed to perform with only one hand, and that's all he can use from now on.
So, he swaps with a rock when Katsuro charges at him, and then again when the man corrects his course. Back and forth they go, the Replacement Technique useful and not eating up much of his chakra when used over such a short distance. Katsuro quickly grows frustrated, Kakashi can see it in the minute tremors of the man's arms, the tightening of his hands around the hilt of his sword.
The sword itself is an interesting specimen — the flow of chakra that circulates through it…it seems almost alive. The more he looks at it, the more he suspects that its chakra is deadlier than its blade.
It's also…enticing, in a way. Slowly, carefully, Kakashi disrupts the chakra in his free arm, miming the circulation he sees in Katsuro's sword. It hurts, the press of the chakra against his nerves making them misfire incessantly, but it's not causing any permanent damage. So Kakashi stops swapping with the rock and instead stays motionless for one moment, allowing Katsuro close enough to land a hit — one he intercepts with his arm instead of his kunai.
And when the chakra in the blade surges forward to the impending point of impact, Kakashi's follows suit instantaneously.
And the blade stops short, not even so much as piercing Kakashi's skin, though he suspects the sheer strength Katsuro had put into the swing has broken Kakashi's forearm. He doesn't acknowledge it, though.
"What is this?" Katsuro spits. He presses down harder with his sword and Kakashi collapses to his knees, struggling to hold his arm in place against the samurai's sheer strength. As the man pushes him farther and farther downward, Kakashi becomes aware that once he's flat against the ground and there's nowhere else to go, Katsuro may very well rip his arm off through sheer strength, regardless of his sword's inability to pierce skin.
"This blade was forged by the monks of the central plains," Katsuro says. "It's strike is absolute! Your arm…"
So the monks are the sealing masters responsible for this monstrosity? Kakashi grunts with effort but otherwise doesn't answer, which upsets the man even more. It's through his distraction that Kakashi manages to kick his leg out to the man's knee joint, definitely breaking it and forcing him to his knees as well. Katsuro, seemingly uncaring, leans more heavily forward, until Kakashi is flat on his back — or as flat as he can be with his left arm curled behind him — and his forearm is pressed to his chest.
For a moment, he considers redirecting his chakra from his arm to his torso — he'll absolutely lose his arm to the blade, but better that than his entire body. But then Katsuro freezes. His grip on his sword slackens as both he and it topple sideways, finally allowing Kakashi free.
He gasps, staring blankly up at the sky as raindrops splatter against his face. When he turns to Katsuro, he finds the man entirely immobile.
"Kakashi!" cries the unmistakable voice of Rin. Her form comes closer, brows creased in worry. "What hurts?"
Everything really, but all Kakashi responds with is: "How?"
Rin tugs his left arm out from behind his back, laying both it and his right one at his sides. "Remember the lizard's venom glands?" she murmurs. "Decided to try dipping some needles in the venom — no need to let it go to waste."
With effort, Kakashi turns his head to spy Katsuro's body again — and there, in the man's ankle joints, which are free from the rigid armor to allow for easier movement, are three different needles. Rin must have shot them at him when he bent over after Kakashi kicked his knee out.
"Stay still," Rin orders before all but throwing Kakashi over her shoulder. She staggers to a stand, not used to bearing his weight, but she still begins moving in the direction of the still-undemolished shelter they'd made. "I'll get you dried off so I can take a look at your arms."
Ever the medic, even when her certification has run out.
Finally, Kakashi slips his sharingan eye shut and instantly the chakra exhaustion hits him. He barely has the wherewithal to be alarmed before losing consciousness.
Kakashi gasps awake, forcing himself upright. Rin's warm presence is missing and his clothes, previously wet, are now perfectly dry. He looks around, distrustful, only to freeze.
Splayed out before him is the same barren landscape that had featured in his dream that night, all harsh edges and unforgiving forms. The sourceless light casts a clear but eerie glow to it all. More importantly, though, infinitely more pressing, is the human form crouched beside him.
Obito — healthy, whole Obito — is there, looking down at him in concern. "You look like shit," he says, but his voice is tinged with concern. Before Kannabi, Kakashi would have scowled at such a sentiment coming from Obito of all people, but now…now Kakashi just stares at him, wide-eyed. His dreams do not usually occur like this. Obito isn't looking upon him spitefully, or with the infinite wisdom and kindness that Kakashi has posthumously assigned to him over the last few months. No, Obito simply looks…scared.
"Hey," says Obito. "You go deaf or something? Don't ignore me!"
"I'm not," says Kakashi. "I'm sorry."
Obito's face contorts, eyes narrowing and lips pursing. "Something happened, didn't it? I don't — I don't know what happened. Why are you acting so weird, Kakashi?"
This dream is cruel. Up until now, Obito has always seemed aware of his own death, and if he wasn't, then neither was Kakashi. This unleveled playing field where Kakashi is the one holding all the cards, where Kakashi is the one who has to break the news…somehow, it feels worse than Obito scolding him in the dark damp of that cave. As Kakashi's silence lengthens, however, Obito's jaw tightens and his arm lurches forward, snatching the front of Kakashi's shirt before all but dragging him closer.
"I said not to ignore me, you bastard!" yells Obito, shaking Kakashi back and forth. Instead of answering — he can't answer, his throat is closed up and his eyes are watering — Kakashi waits until Obito pulls him close in one of the shakes before striking, launching forward to wrap his arms around Obito. The force is enough to send Obito back into a sitting position and Kakashi only holds him tighter, face pressed into the fabric of Obito's shirt.
This feels so real. It's like Obito is actually here and it hurts.
Shame and desperation whirl to life in him, battling against each other until Kakashi doesn't know what he's feeling so he just clutches Obito closer.
The other boy, meanwhile, freezes for several moments, inhaling sharply with shock. Then, he screeches, "What the hell are you doing?" His arms come up to grasp Kakashi by the shoulders before jerking him away. "Who are you and what did you do to Kakashi?"
"I am Kakashi," he responds.
"No, you're not, you —" Obito breaks off. Blinks. "You're crying."
Kakashi's hands shake as they come up to touch his own face, finding his face mask damp with tears. He has been crying. He hastily begins wiping away the rest of his tears before they drip down his face, pulling himself away from Obito. "I'm fine," he says.
Obito squints at him, arms limp by his sides. "Yeah, okay," he eventually responds, though his voice is tinged clearly with sarcasm. "Fine, you're Kakashi. Weirdly sad Kakashi." He stubbornly crosses his arms. "What is this place? Why did you disappear for so long? Why do you look like you were in a fight?"
Startled, Kakashi looks down on himself and realizes that, though he's dry and no longer in pain, he does still look like he's been in combat, clothes torn and caked with dirt. He looks up, baffled, and responds, "I was fighting a samurai."
"Eh? What was a samurai doing out of Iron Country?"
"I was in Iron Country —"
"What?" Obito cried. "Minato-sensei said we should never go into Iron Country!"
"Because of the war," Kakashi explains. "The war is over now. Rin and I are on a courier mission to rural Iron…we just ran into a rogue samurai with a grudge." At least, that's what Kakashi thinks. It's not as if Kakashi had talked to the man — he doesn't know why he'd been covered in blood, doesn't know if his assumptions about his family's destitution due to the wars are true, doesn't know anything at all. Does it matter? It never did during the war — but then again, everyone knew why they and their enemies were fighting back then. Now…now there is no guarantee, no good explanation.
Katsuro of the Foothills just wanted Kakashi dead, and Kakashi will never truly know why.
Obito looks at him oddly, brow furrowed. "What do you mean the war is over? It's still…" He trails off, gaze zeroing in on the scar running through Kakashi's left eye. A million emotions flit through his gaze, confusion to fear to anger and beyond. He leans forward again, right arm up, and Kakashi has to force himself to be still when Obito pries his eye open.
Kakashi can feel his sharingan spin. In Obito's right eye, the sharingan also comes to life, spinning in kind. They stare at each other, tomoe twirling, breaths evening out to the same rhythm.
Obito whispers, "Am I dead?"
Finally, Kakashi blinks and the unseen connection shatters. He turns away, hating the look of resignation on Obito's face — he's seen it a million times in his dreams, but to see it on this Obito, who seems so much more alive than all the others…it's agonizing. "Yes," he says. "I'm so sorry."
Obito inhales shakily. "No," he says. "It — it was my decision. I'm glad you're alive, Kakashi. You deserve it."
You deserve to live, too.
"Anyway," Obito continues, voice much lighter than before, "you said something about Rin? Wait, if you were fighting a samurai…Kakashi, did you leave Rin there alone? How could you?" He levels an accusatory finger at Kakashi.
"No!" cries Kakashi, horrified by the thought. "The samurai is dead — Rin killed him before he could kill me." As if he would abandon Rin to such a danger. "I promised you I would take care of Rin and…and I'm trying, Obito. I'm trying really hard."
"Well, if Rin's all right, then you must be doing fine," Obito responds. He scooches closer, pants somehow sliding seamlessly against the pebbly ground. "How is she, anyway? Does she work at the hospital now? Do you know if she's eating well? I remember her saying that her sister is getting married soon — did the marriage happen? Come on, Kakashi, tell me!"
Kakashi frowns. "Rin…doesn't want to be a medic, I think. And she wasn't doing very well after the war, but she's better now. The mission is helping us both feel better. I don't know anything about her family — they don't like me."
"What do you mean, she wasn't doing well? What happened? Was she sick?"
"Kind of," Kakashi says slowly. For some reason, he's hesitant to share the truth of Rin's struggles with Obito. It seems absurd — almost everything he's been doing since Kannabi has been for the other boy, and so much of his time with Rin has been focused on caring for her in Obito's honor, but…some part of him, deep down, does not want to share this vulnerable part of Rin. After all, Rin had only shared it with Kakashi — to talk about her business to someone else…isn't that a breach of trust?
But it's Obito. He loved Rin. And this is just a dream, isn't it?
Before Kakashi can so much as open his mouth, Obito says, "The way you're acting…is it a girl thing? Don't tell me if it's a girl thing!" A look of vague disgust crosses Obito's face at the mere thought.
Alcoholism isn't a girl thing, no, but the excuse is too easy to take. "Let's talk about something else," he says, and Obito takes it for the redirect that it is.
"Yeah, okay," he says eagerly. He gestures around them vaguely. "What is this place? It's so weird…and it was so boring when you were gone."
Kakashi peers around at the area to reassess it. The fact of the matter is, this place cannot exist in reality, not with its endless expanse and sourceless light and geometric shapes. In the distance, he spies what he suspects to be large pillars of all sorts, interspersed with empty chasms of space. If Kakashi were to assume that he and Obito are also on a pillar, then it must be a very large one, big enough to run on for several minutes before managing to reach the edge. Kakashi has never so much as thought of a place like this, making its appearance as a setting in his dreams confusing.
"I don't know what this is," Kakashi finally says. "I don't know why my mind made it up."
"Made it up?"
"As a background for my dream."
"What dream?" Obito demands. "This isn't a dream — I'm real, Kakashi."
Kakashi frowns. "You said you were dead. How could this be anything but a dream?"
"I don't know!" Obito says, but now he looks angry. "Maybe I'm dead but that doesn't mean I'm not real, dammit! So what is this place, why can you come and go from it, and why is it you that comes here, huh?" He stands up, all but towering over Kakashi's seated form, and begins pacing. "This just doesn't make sense. It's like I'm a ghost or something, but instead of haunting the real world or something…" He turns and points at Kakashi. "I'm haunting you! Why am I haunting you?"
Why would a dead friend haunt the one who still lives? Why does a dead husband haunt his wife? Why do the dead persist in tormenting the living, far past the time they should have quietly faded into memory?
Why does Kakashi's chest feel like it's collapsing in on itself, why do his eyes water and his hands shake? And why does Obito look so confused as to why he's haunting Kakashi of all people? Why does that one thing hurt most of all?
"Why wouldn't you be haunting me?" he asks.
"I just mean, if there's anyone I want to keep an eye on, it's —"
Rin shakes Kakashi awake, eyes full of concern. "You're crying," she says. "Are your arms still hurting? They shouldn't be, I freed your nerves from whatever happened to them."
The tarp-covered ceiling of the shelter they'd built stares down at Kakashi, the ground dry but unmistakably dirt. Sweat drips down Rin's face from the heat of the fire warming the area. As the silence stretches between them and the tears keep leaking from Kakashi's eyes, Rin bites her lower lip in worry. "Kakashi?" she asks gently.
…Rin is doing fine. That's all that matters. Kakashi slips his eyes back shut but finds himself unable to go to sleep.
Whatever had happened, it was a dream and nothing more. But even so, some small part of him wishes that, just once between all the times Obito had asked after Rin, he'd asked after Kakashi, too.