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“You’re not alone, Kakashi,” they used to say.
They were right. Someone was always there.
He was never brave enough to call it a hallucination. Maybe it was a memory manifested into a mirage. A trick of the Sharingan to a user that didn’t bear the Uchiha blood.
Or could this be his penance, hanging in the corner of his eye, so close, but not. A linger, a longing, of what he could have held, but instead, broke.
Obito was always smiling. Laughing. Wearing those stupid goggles that left indents on his face and made his eyes look like they bulged.
With that black hair that was chopped uneven, here, there, his fringe getting caught in the band of his goggles when he pushed them back. It always stood on end for at least an hour after. He used to keep pushing it down incessantly, until he just strapped his goggles back on.
He grew with him. Or what Kakashi imagined he might have looked like if he lived.
The smile would keep. The hair touch habit would stick. He’d refuse to cut it for the longest time until Kakashi tricked him into dragging him to the barber, or just doing it for him. Blue was still his colour. But he liked to wear purple sometimes. He enjoyed customising his eye patches. And he looked ridiculous in the combat vest.
Truth, is never as good.
When reality paints Obito’s face for the first time, it’s the only thing Kakashi can see. The shattered pieces of his mask suspended around his face as if time has stopped, as if it breathes, or it just no longer, exists.
He could count the pieces - and he does - one, three, seven - until time begins again, and they start to fall.
He starts to count the lines on his face. Thinner here, thicker there. They bear his failing and his faults. They may as well spell his name.
When he speaks, the voice doesn’t fit. He knows it. He’s heard it. He hears ‘Tobi’. He hears ‘Madara’. He hears lies.
He hears hurt.
When they clash, he moves as if on puppet threads, someone pulling, acting, guiding for him, because he has no sense left. He’s fighting a ghost. And it fights back.
He bleeds.
Clashing, body to body, they don’t move. They don’t speak. Kakashi can feel Obito’s ragged breaths against his face. His strength to his arm. They are so close. Eye, to eye.
But there’s nothing left, in there.
There’s nothing left.
“Who are you?” he can’t stop himself asking.
The man who is meant to be Obito blinks slowly, his long lashes tipped red, and purple. “A mistake I’m going to fix.”
It has been two days since the truth. Or it could be two weeks. Or a breath. And the war feels like it never ends. Blood saturates. It seeps. Bones break and grind. Hearts snap. Minds detach.
“You’re not alone, Kakashi,” they all say.
They’re wrong. There’s no-one there anymore.
No-one.
If he reaches out without looking, he might catch him. A blind grasp at the only thing he ever wanted to see.
