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Chapter Text

The scent of ozone is thick as the lightning fades. Shouts and cries sound from the battle on the shore far below, but Kakashi can’t make any of it out. He is drained, exhausted, and he can’t fight it anymore. He can only pray that his attack was worth it.

He stumbles, hand numbly reaching for any sort of purchase, but he already knows it’s no use. His legs can’t support his weight, no matter how much he wills them to, and his knees crumple.

Kakashi barely avoids blacking out, and when he comes to his senses a moment later he’s already slipped into open air. The open maw of the sea is rising hundreds of feet below.

He can distantly hear Hikari’s alarmed cry as he tries to avoid blacking out. Wind whistles around him, louder than he’s ever heard, and there’s nothing he can do. There’s nothing left for him to reach for, no miracle jutsu to save him. The turbulent waves rush up to meet him, and Kakashi loses his struggle with the oblivion trying to claim him just before deadly impact.

Just like concrete.

Ever since the end of the Fourth Great War, Kakashi had never dared hope for an eternally peaceful afterlife. After all, he had been the Rokudaime Hokage of Konoha, the Copy-nin, the Master of 10,000 Techniques, and one of greatest shinobi ever to come of his village. No, Kakashi wouldn’t have been surprised at all if he had been revived at some point after his death by some cursed reincarnation technique to once again rain death down on the world. After all, if even the First Hokage could be taken from the Pure World, then Kakashi knew that he wouldn’t be able to avoid its pull.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little cheated. Even if he had long since moved past the chronic suicidality that had characterized his Anbu years, he had still expected to be able to see his loved ones again for at least a little while. He had looked forward to reconciling with his father ever since forgiving him during Pain’s assault, and had longed to apologize to Rin and Sensei for even longer than that. Even if Kakashi had never quite known what exactly the Pure Lands would be like, he knew that they were supposed to be a place where he could see all of his loved ones again. A paradise for the fallen.

Kakashi was decidedly not in paradise. His mind-splitting headache was a helpful indicator of that, as was the bone-deep chill that was just shy of bitter. Thankfully, though, he didn’t think he was in hell, either.

Kakashi struggled to consider his situation as he lay flat on his back, staring at the blue sky above him. His thoughts felt backwards and sluggish. The grass around him was long and untamed, swaying in the breeze and nearly wrapping around him like a cocoon. Rather than irritating or itching, though, it felt soft, offering a cushion against the hard dirt and rocks below. He could hear birds chirping in the distance, and altogether the scene was rather peaceful. Kakashi was reluctant to stir and break the atmosphere. Besides, when he tried to get up, it hurt like hell, so for now he was content to take a breather and think while he recovered.

Where am I?

Heaven, hell, or oblivion. Those were the only three post-death destinations Kakashi had ever really entertained. After all, what else could there be? Kakashi knew that when he died, he’d either still be there or he wouldn’t. If he wasn’t, well, that was the end of that. If he was, he’d either be in a good place or a bad place. Kakashi had always leaned towards believing in an afterlife, a belief which had been cemented during the Fourth War. However, wherever Kakashi was, it certainly didn’t seem to be the Pure Lands. Kakashi twitched a finger, and it felt mostly fine. He tried flexing his arm, and it hurt, but he repeated the motion, working through the pain.

Kakashi was aware that he was lying in a field, but how exactly he had come to that awareness was unclear. He hadn’t felt as though he had woken up at any point, nor was there any memory of a sudden appearance. In fact, Kakashi didn’t even remember realizing that he was in a field. It was more like he had been laying in the grass forever, and had always been aware of that fact, and that it was only sometime in the recent past that he became aware that he was aware of it. It was almost like a dream, where Kakashi would find himself somewhere and not feel anything wrong about being there, except that Kakashi was familiar enough with reality to know when he was in a genjutsu or dream. No, wherever Kakashi was was real.

Kakashi drew a knee up, gritting his teeth as he did so. His arm was starting to feel better, and so he started working the other. His muscles felt as though they were atrophied, and yet they recovered remarkably quickly, feeling relatively normal after only a minute or two of use. At least, the muscles he had used so far felt better. Kakashi tilted his head to the side, scanning for any potential threats. The thick grass around him obstructed his vision, and he couldn’t even lift his head to see over it. He would hate to have to fight like this. Was there even anything here to fight?

He had died. At least, he was pretty sure he had. The memory came with the sort of detached fuzziness that made it feel like it was a long time ago, but it was the last thing Kakashi remembered before the field. Had he known it was coming? He did remember with clarity the realization that it had been a few seconds since his heart last beat, and the wave of peace that came afterwards when he realized that he was fine with that. He remembered closing his eyes to Sakura’s quiet sniffling, Naruto’s smile, Sasuke’s carefully blank expression that was betrayed by his clenched fist, Tenzo’s quiet vigil, and the phantom of his Eternal Rival’s brilliant smile, which had shined for the last time not an hour earlier. How long ago was it now? How long had Kakashi been in the field? Did time pass after he died?

He couldn’t think properly, and trying to for too long made his headache worse. His thoughts didn’t flow how he wanted, and the lack of control over his mind was as frightening as it was irritating . He had tried three times to figure out where he was, but all he knew was that he was in a field. His thoughts kept slipping from his grasp, running in tangents about inconsequential things. It was like his mind was a river, flowing away from him, outside of his control. Switching to random things like thinking about river analogies instead of figuring out where the hell he was, like it was supposed to.

With a great effort, Kakashi rolled over and got his arms under him, straining to keep himself from collapsing as he pushed himself up. Forget thinking for now. Get moving. It felt like lightning was shooting through his limbs as new muscles were used, but Kakashi persevered. Lightning in his limbs was nothing new, after all.

His panting rang loud in his ears as he waited for the pain to pass. When the sensation in his arms had toned down from “unbearably agonizing” to “extremely uncomfortable,” he grit his teeth and pushed himself back so that he was sitting on his knees, biting back a grunt as the stabbing returned. He turned his head to the side slightly, trying to get a little better of an idea of where he was. All he could make out were some trees before the pain made him turn his head back down. His neck had not liked that at all. He bit back a growl of frustration and returned his focus to stretching.

For the next little while, Kakashi methodically worked every muscle in his body. Slow, easy stretches, not unlike what he had done after his muscles had actually been atrophied after his coma.

The repetitive action helped occupy his mind. Stretch his arm across his chest until it hurt. Hold it there for a few seconds. Bring it back. Repeat. Roll his shoulder until he couldn’t. Roll it the back other way until he couldn’t, and go then back again. Repeat. Reach for his outstretched leg until his core or hamstring stopped him, hold it, and slowly bring it back. Repeat.

Stretch. Hurt. Ignore pressing existential questions. Repeat. Ow.

Kakashi continued the motions until he felt confident that he'd at least be able to escape from a fight without collapsing from pain, if he had to. An uncomfortable soreness lingered throughout his body as he settled down onto a slab of rock in the ground, but it was bearable.

Unfortunately, that meant that Kakashi could no longer put off thinking about where he was. He stared up at the sky, and let out a long, slow sigh. He lifted a hand and inspected it thoughtfully, tracing every curve and crease of the skin with his eyes as he pondered. His skin was smoother than it had been in decades. Old scars were nowhere to be found, and none of the wrinkles that had come with age remained. If he wasn’t mistaken, (which he knew he wasn’t,) his already pale complexion was a few shades lighter than it always had been.

Kakashi lowered his hand and let out a shaky breath as he clamped down on his emotions. He had died. He had a new body. He wasn't in the Pure Lands. Purgatory?

He looked around once again, in a better state of mind to actually process what he was seeing now. Whatever fog had clouded his awareness had largely dissipated as he had stretched, and although he still felt like he was running a half-step behind where he should be, he could at least form thoughts now. The headache was thankfully gone, as well. A distant part of Kakashi’s mind was fascinated with the exact mechanics behind waking up from death and what it did to one’s mental processes, but most of him was focused on the immediate tasks ahead of him. It didn’t matter exactly where he was in the metaphysical sense. He had more pressing things to worry about.

Kakashi stood up to his full height, carefully not thinking about how it was a few inches shorter than he was used to, and scanned the area. His “field” was little more than a small clearing, he realized. Dense woodlands surrounded him on all sides, but the vegetation was like nothing he’d seen around Konoha. The trees around Konoha tended to be hard as iron, leafy, and most noticeable of all, massive. Most were hundreds of feet tall, with thick branches capable of supporting the weight of shinobi rushing across them daily. The trees surrounding Kakashi were tiny by comparison, with skinny trunks and dark, needle-like leaves. They looked more reminiscent of something found in Snow Country than anything local to Fire Country. Kakashi could smell the sea nearby, though, which erased the possibility of him being anywhere in Snow, and it wasn’t quite cold enough for him to be near the northern coast.

He was clothed in a thick wool undershirt and pants, and had some sort of leather and fur monstrosity over that that might have looked normal in the red-light district. Certainly not what he had been wearing when he had died, although he supposed the wool was fine enough considering the environment. Still, the bagginess and general impracticality of whatever he was wearing made him want to retch.

Kakashi closed his eyes and let out a breath. There was a lot to unpack here.

He realized a couple of things fairly quickly. One, was that his body, though much younger, was weak. He estimated it to be around 14 years old, nearly identical to when he joined Anbu, minus the scars. Despite that, he had the strength of a civilian. It was a tad embarrassing the first time he tried to leap onto a tree to get a better vantage point, only to jump into it face-first when he only rose a few feet off the ground. Of course, he could always augment his muscles with chakra, if it wasn’t for issue number two.

Something was wrong with his chakra. It felt stagnant, and Kakashi couldn’t figure out why. He didn’t seem to be under the effects of any genjutsu, chakra poison, or seal that he was familiar with, but something was still off. When he formed the hand signs to attempt (and fail) a summoning jutsu, chakra raced to his fingertips as normal, and he could circulate it throughout his body with just a thought as always, but when he didn’t focus on making his chakra move, it just… stopped. Chakra was always coursing through a shinobi’s body, swirling and flowing and circulating just as blood did. Now though, it felt as though all of his chakra had stagnated-- as if a river had simply decided to stop flowing.

It was disconcerting. Maybe it was because he was a genius, or maybe he was a genius because of it, but Kakashi had always been in tune with his chakra, ever since he first stuck a leaf to his forehead at three years old. For as long as he could remember, he had felt that thrum beneath his skin, as constant as the blue of the sky. The feeling of flowing chakra was a little like breathing. You don’t really feel it while you’re doing it, but the moment that you can’t , it’s the only thing you can feel.

Thinking about it made a sticky feeling rise in Kakashi’s throat. He made a half-ram sign as he walked, molding a bit of chakra just for the familiar feeling.

That first day, Kakashi had set off in a random direction into the woods until he found a running creek. Freshwater was most important in a survival situation. By his best guess he had about a week before starvation would begin seriously negatively impacting him, and shelter wasn’t an immediate issue, either. The weather seemed clear, and whatever clothes he was wearing provided decent insulation. He didn’t want to start a fire, not without knowing exactly where he was and who might be around to notice, but even still he could keep his temperature up with chakra if he really needed to.

It wouldn’t do to trek for a day only to realize that night that he’d wasted a day’s travel in the wrong direction, so, without any immediate threats to his health, he’d hung around the area until nightfall. He scouted around a little to see if he could find anything useful and to keep his temperature up, but mostly he’d conserved his energy until dusk. Unfamiliar local geography aside, Kakashi knew the night sky intimately. He’d stared up at it on sleepless nights from every corner of the Elemental nations, had it burned into his brain by Obito’s eye from every angle. Even without his personal experiences, every chuunin worth their salt knew how to navigate by the stars. Kakashi would wait until nightfall, figure out where he was, and then he’d be on his way home.

A brilliant plan, all the way up until the darkness fell and Kakashi didn’t recognize a single star in the sky. Because of course it wouldn’t be that easy. He had a brand new body, which he still wasn’t thinking about. He might as well be given a brand new sky to boot. Because why not.

Another week passed after that failure of a day, and he fell into a routine pretty quickly. Wake up, follow the creek downstream in hopes of finding civilization, and take mental note of anything interesting or potentially useful. Well past dusk when the moon was high in the sky, he’d tuck in a ditch and sleep, not trusting any of the trees to hold his weight, and wake up before sunrise to repeat the cycle. When the creek eventually dumped off a hundred foot sheer cliff into the sea, he turned around and followed the creek back upstream until he reached a fork. He followed that branch until, a few days later, he once again reached a cliff, nearly thirty miles away and facing an entirely different direction.

After another week of exploration, Kakashi was pretty confident he was on an island. A decently sized one, with enough water and game to sustain him, but an island nonetheless, and one that appeared to be uninhabited.

His summons had failed. He searched his connection, but his beloved ninken were out of reach. He mourned their loss, but tried to take comfort in the knowledge that they were well and with each other in the summons realm. Unlike Kakashi.

Kakashi was truly alone. Alone, in an unfamiliar world, for a different world was all it could be.

Reincarnation, Kakashi mused, legs dangling idly in the air from where he sat over the edge of a cliff. He was just under a mile from where he had first woken up here. He scanned the empty horizon, searching once again for anything other than sky, ocean, or mist. Waves crashed against sheer rock a hundred feet below, painting the cliff face with salt and spray. From this height, it would be like falling onto concrete.

Sixty-six years old. Mature for a civilian, positively ancient for a shinobi. Kakashi had lived a full life by any metric. He had many lows, a surprising number of highs towards the end, and while he wasn’t exactly happy with what he had accomplished in his life, he was satisfied with it in the end. He had raised three and a half adorable little students who were well on their way to fixing the broken world they inherited, he had made peace with his demons in the Fourth War, and by the time the Shinigami came knocking, he was ready for it. Kakashi was ready to move on.

And then he didn’t.

So now what?

Kakashi glanced down at the water below, following an especially large wave as it approached the rocks below, just a few seconds away from breaking against the jagged stone.

A sudden shriek sounded from the sky. Kakashi’s head shot up, eyes narrowing as he followed the white blur quickly approaching the island. He grimaced and covered his ears as another ear-splitting shriek came from its tumbling form. It was some sort of living creature, Kakashi could tell, but not any animal he recognized. It didn’t seem to be in control of its flight, either, even though Kakashi was pretty sure he could make out a pair of wings. Even calling the thing’s trajectory a glide would be generous- barely controlled free fall was probably a better term. it would be just a few seconds before it crashed into the island. Despite himself, Kakashi briefly glanced back at the ocean. The wave was gone.

He whipped his head back around as the creature sailed past overhead, screaming and tumbling the whole way. It disappeared out of Kakashi’s sight somewhere over the treeline, but the thunderous crash and pained cry left little mystery as to where the creature had landed.

Kakashi’s thoughts were stuck on one thing. It had wings. He wasn’t sure if the thing was a summon, some new animal native to this world, or something else entirely, but whatever it was, it could fly . A way off the island.

Kakashi leapt up from the ledge and ran in the direction that the crash had come from. He sacrificed a bit of speed for stealth- he didn’t know what the thing might be capable of, after all- but even still, it took him just a few minutes to reach where it had landed. Right in the middle of the clearing where he had first woken up.

Kakashi ducked behind a tree as soon as the white mass came into view, careful to avoid every loose twig on the sandy ground. The creature alternated between pained keens and frustrated growls, a stark contrast to the absolute silence of an ex-Anbu captain.

Kakashi slowly moved his head from behind his cover, finally getting his first good look at the creature, and his perfectly silent breathing nearly faltered.

A huge quadruped lay collapsed in the center of the clearing, broken trees laying all around it. Kakashi estimated that it was nearly thirty feet long. Snow white scales covered its entire body, and two massive white wings sprouted from its back, one bent at an unnatural angle. Its short limbs sported fierce claws, though one of its forelegs was bleeding severely, and what little of the creature’s angled head Kakashi could see screamed predator. Its whole body was thickly muscled, and its vaguely feline build promised predatory grace.

Its lean, aerodynamic frame was clearly built for speed, and Kakashi could imagine how it would soar through the skies on uninjured wings. An apex predator if Kakashi had ever seen one.

It all came together to form what must have been a beautifully lethal creature, one of the most gorgeous animals Kakashi had ever seen.

He was stunned. Enough so that it wasn’t until the wind shifted that he remembered that, as a hunter, the thing likely had an acute sense of smell. The creature perked up in a flash, wide nostrils flaring, and its head whipped around to fix Kakashi in a sharp, clearly intelligent gaze before he could duck back out of sight.

Electric blue eyes met black, and everything exploded into blue flame.

Chapter Text

Kakashi was already moving when cobalt fire came spewing from the creature’s mouth. It reared its head back again, and Kakashi dove behind another tree to avoid the second blast of flame. A piercing whistle built from where the creature was, and Kakashi hit the ground as a wave of heat crashed over him. The tree exploded behind him, the wood fragmenting into pieces as splinters buried themselves into Kakashi’s clothes and flaming chunks sailed over his head, propelled by whatever force had impacted the tree.

The whistling was already building up again. With no cover immediately available, Kakashi didn’t even try to dodge it, instead taking the moment to observe the attack as he raced through the signs for a mud wall. The creature’s narrowed eyes were locked on him, and it opened its mouth wide. A blue glow emanated from the thing’s throat as the whistling noise peaked, before flame shot out. Whereas the first two attacks had been massive streams of blue fire, similar to any other fireball jutsu, this one came at him as a single bolt, much faster than before. It almost looked as if it was made of plasma. He could certainly imagine that it would have some kick behind it. It would explain why the tree had been obliterated, rather than just catching fire.

Kakashi slammed his hand to the ground and pumped in the little bit of extra chakra needed to finish the mud wall, only to feel all of his molded chakra unravel and slip away from his control. His eyes widened as the missile raced towards him. New plan, less chakra--

Kakashi watched from behind a boulder on the other side of the clearing as the log he had substituted with exploded into splinters, seemingly confirming his theory about the attack type. The creature whirled in place immediately, apparently looking for him, and Kakashi noted that the injured leg seemed almost entirely nonfunctional. The beast wasn’t turning so much as it was throwing its weight over its shoulder and dragging its body with it so that it was ultimately facing a different direction. He crouched back behind the boulder before the creature spotted him.

His jutsu had failed. He'd felt his control unravel in a way he'd never experienced before. It hadn’t been like drugs or chakra suppressants, which made chakra lethargic and hard to mold- his chakra had been working fine at first, but then just seemed to... fall away. It was alarming, to say the least.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t work around it, though. His jutsu hadn’t failed when he released it, it had failed when he added more chakra before releasing it, and the less chakra-intensive substitution had worked just fine. It seemed to be more tied to the amount of chakra used, or perhaps too sudden an influx in chakra, rather than jutsu usage itself. Since his chakra wasn’t flowing normally, he had to push it through his coils manually. Maybe his new body had some sort of limit on how much chakra it could move at once, or how quickly it could do it.

Something for later. For now, Kakashi had a monster to subdue.

After copying ten-thousand techniques, Kakashi was bound to collect some repeat effects. He had about three dozen jutsu in his arsenal that could consistently paralyze a target. About two thirds of those were likely to work on non-humans, and only half of those were likely to work on something the size of the animal in front of him. Only three of those would be safe to use without risking permanently crippling the creature’s nervous system, and only one of them was light enough on chakra that he felt confident using it with whatever was going on with his coils.

Unfortunately, he needed physical contact close to the target’s neck to actually use the technique. He could use a longer-ranged technique variant, but it would require more chakra. Not a risk he was willing to take.

Kakashi peaked around the boulder to make sure that the creature wasn’t already facing his way. Stepping out from cover only to immediately get killed because the enemy was ready for you was something only genin did.

Seeing that the coast was clear, Kakashi stepped out and started running. He was too far away from the animal to reach it before it could fire, but the gap in between shots was long enough that he could reach it if he dodged one blast first.

The creature immediately spotted him and whirled to face him, but didn’t otherwise didn’t move towards him. Kakashi figured that its leg was too badly injured for it to even try.

Kakashi kept his attention razor focused on the beast, waiting for the telltale whistle or the glow in its mouth that had always preceded an attack, but it never came. Instead, the creature just snarled and snapped at him, raising its one good wing and clawing at the ground in front of it in what appeared to be some sort of attempt at intimidation. Kakashi slowed, and when still no attack came, stopped.

The animal kept snapping, snarling, swiping and screaming at Kakashi for all it was worth, but didn’t spit any sort of flame at all. Almost like it couldn’t.

It could have been a bluff, but Kakashi couldn't imagine a better opportunity than now to spring the trap-- he was standing still, completely vulnerable. And yet... nothing. That suggested that the simpler solution was correct- the creature was simply incapable of using its fire attack anymore.

Maybe it was out of chakra, or whatever substitute it might have been using to fuel its flames. Maybe the attack had some sort of recoil that limited the creature in how often it could use it. Either way, it was about as good an opportunity as Kakashi could hope for.

He took a step forward, and the creature roared even louder as it clawed at the dirt. Kakashi readied a hand sign and stepped again.

The creature suddenly lunged, teeth snapping to cleave Kakashi in two. He sidestepped, striking the animal’s exposed neck with an open palm as it sailed past.

“ Mutsumahi no jutsu. ” Kakashi hissed, voice raspy and out of practice.

Lightning arced from skin to scale, and the beast hit the ground hard as its muscles failed it. What was no doubt supposed to be a roar of righteous fury left the creature’s throat, but with its larynx paralyzed it came out as little more than a moan.

Kakashi watched the prone form carefully, making sure that the jutsu had worked properly. Making assumptions never ended well. Kurenai had once assumed that a missing-nin was fully sedated under her genjutsu, and now Mirai visited the graveyard every weekend.

Had visited the graveyard? Reincarnation was confusing.

Kakashi pressed a hand to the creature’s back, feeling for the lightning chakra locking down its spinal cord, preventing any electrical signals from reaching their intended muscles. Diaphragm and cardiac muscles generally diverged from the central nervous system above the base of the neck, so unless the creature’s anatomy was wildly different then what Kakashi was familiar with, it shouldn’t be in any risk of dying.

He traced his hand up the creature’s spine, confirming that the jutsu had taken hold properly. It felt fine, but Kakashi was still slightly concerned about the animal’s fire breathing ability. If it was chakra-based, then the creature might not necessarily need to move to use it, and even if it wasn’t, he wasn’t sure where exactly the mechanism diverged from the central nervous system, or if his jutsu would paralyze it. He’d have to keep an eye open for it.

Satisfied, Kakashi stood up fully and stretched. He couldn’t help but marvel at the creature once again. It looked a little like his water ryū given flesh, in a vague “giant apex reptile monster” kind of way, but much less snakey. If anything, it looked a little like a panther.

Kakashi slowly made his way around to the front of the animal. Its eyes tracked him all the way, locked in an expression halfway between rage and fear.

Kakashi lowered himself in front of it, meeting the creature’s gaze. It was striking. Vivid electric blue sclerae, like crystalized lightning, stark contrast to its pitch black slitted pupils.

The ryū continued to moan and try to bite at him with the little mobility it had, and Kakashi let it. He remained just out of reach, waiting for it to calm down and realize that Kakashi wasn’t retaliating.

“I don’t know if you can understand me,” Kakashi began. If it was a summons or a chakra construct the odds were decent. If not, then he had no idea. “But I’m not going to hurt you.”

The ryū continued to glare suspiciously, but didn’t otherwise respond. Kakashi chose to take that as a good sign.

Kakashi was stuck on an island, and he had no surefire way to get off it. He could try to waterwalk and pray that he could reach land before his chakra ran out, but that would be dangerous even if his chakra was working perfectly. The general turbulence of rough seas made waterwalking hazardous enough, and if he was caught in a storm his death would be guaranteed. The fact that his chakra was very much not working perfectly just made the idea that much less appealing.

His other option was making some sort of raft, which wasn’t any more appealing. It avoided the chakra problem, just barely, in that he didn’t technically need to use chakra once he was out on the water. Without wind manipulation, though, he would lose the guaranteed progress the waterwalking had. Currents and the weather could drag him out to sea, blow him back the way he came, or simply throw him right back against the jagged rocks surrounding the island. Waves and storms would still be just as dangerous as if he was waterwalking. That was all assuming that any raft Kakashi could make from what he found on the island would actually hold up once it was out on the water, which wasn’t an assumption he had any faith in at all.

His prospects either way weren’t great, and Kakashi had no interest in spending an entire second life alone on an island. But now, he had a third option of escape: flight. It was much safer than trying to navigate the tumultuous water, and since the ryū had reached the island in the first place, he knew that there was at least some other land mass within the range of what it could fly.

The only problem was convincing the creature to give him a ride. Worst case scenario he could genjutsu it; he’d had enough practice on enemies’ summons over the years that he was reasonably confident he could give the animal an order as simple as “fly.” Ideally, of course, the animal would carry him willingly and he could avoid the chakra drain, but Kakashi had slim hopes for an apex predator willingly carrying some random mammal just because he asked nicely. Still, it wasn’t impossible if the animal was some sort of summons creature. 

A problem for later, anyhow. In order for the creature to take him anywhere, willing or not, it had to be able to fly.

“Your rear leg and wing are injured,” Kakashi continued, standing up. “I’m going to try to help you.”

Sphagnum moss, or what the civilians back in Konoha called peat, really was incredible. A survivalist’s dream for many reasons, it could be used in over half a dozen ways for first-aid alone. One of its many uses was as a way to transport water when no better container was available. Sphagnum could absorb and pretty reliably hold over twenty times its own weight in water, which made it ideal for transporting river water over a hundred feet away to clean the injuries of a giant immobile reptile when one had unreliable chakra and the inability to consistently use water jutsu.

Kakashi was pretty sure the Academy had never covered that as a potential use of the stuff, but the whole curriculum had been redone pretty significantly from when he was a student, so he couldn’t be sure.

“Relax, girl,” he muttered, squeezing the moss so that a slow trickle of water was running over the wound on the creature’s leg. Caked blood and dirt rinsed away, and the ryū hissed when the water entered the gash itself. “I know it hurts, but it’ll be worse if it gets infected.”

Kakashi carefully washed the wound clean, whispering soothing nothings to try to keep the animal calm. He couldn’t imagine that the ryū actually understood anything he said, but a lot of animals responded to tone. Hopefully, the ryū would as well.

The injury was like a documentation of the landing. Tiny slivers of wood from when the animal had crashed through the trees, bits of rock and grit from the impact itself, and smears of dirt and mud from when it had been thrashing on the ground were all gently flushed away under the cool water. It took two more trips to the river before Kakashi was satisfied with how the wound was cleaned, which took longer than he would have liked, but his options were limited with his chakra acting up.

Besides, it gave Kakashi an excuse to remain by the ryū’s side for longer than he would have otherwise, which gave the creature more time to acclimatize to his presence. He could only hope that the ryū was smart enough to understand that he was helping it, and not just associate Kakashi with a stinging sensation in its rear leg.

When Kakashi did eventually finish cleaning the wound to his satisfaction, he walked back around to the ryū’s front so it could see him.

Its glare was more suspicious than angry as Kakashi explained what he had done, and so he counted it as a win.

Kakashi returned to the clearing early the next morning with an armful of fish. Seafood was generally a delicacy in Konoha, far away from any ocean as it was, but the few local species stocking the rivers in the heart of Fire Country were abundant enough to be a peasant meal. The fish here were a bit similar to the salmon Kakashi was used to from back home. Maybe they were distant relatives?

A mystery for later, he thought absently, tacking it on to the growing list. It was a list that was getting very long very quickly.

He wasn’t sure what exactly the ryū ate, but based on its teeth and build, meat seemed like a fair assumption. Fish was by far the most abundant source of meat on the island, and since Kakashi didn’t exactly feel like spending an afternoon tracking a deer when he could get the same amount of food in a single morning at the river, fish would have to do.

He left a few on the ground in front of it for it to wake up to, and retreated a little ways away with the rest. He sat at the base of a particularly thick tree in plain sight of the ryū, placed the rest of the fish in a pile at his side, and waited for the ryū to wake.

It took twenty minutes for the creature’s nose to start twitching, and its eyes shot open a few moments after that. Its gaze locked onto the fish in front of it, and then Kakashi, and then the fish beside him, before returning its gaze to Kakashi.

Kakashi merely nodded at the fish in front of the creature, trying to convey his intention as best he could without making any sudden movements. “Fish,” he supplied, feeling just a little stupid as he did. “For you. You can move now. The jutsu should have worn off.”

The ryū gave him a look, and Kakashi was surprised at how clear the judgement was in its expression. He eye-smiled in response. The expression became a little more genuine when the ryū finally dug into its meal without trying to attack him.

It finished what it had in front of it quickly, and eyed the pile of fish by Kakashi’s side. He picked a few up and tossed them within the animal’s reach. The ryū looked down at the fish before leveling Kakashi with an unamused glare, as if it knew exactly what Kakashi was trying to do. Kakashi snorted, and shoved the rest of the fish towards it. The ryū quickly dug in.

“You really are clever, aren’t you?” Kakashi mused as the ryū ate its fill. The creature looked up at him briefly, but didn’t stop.

Kakashi sat by quietly for a few minutes, silently observing the ryū as it ate. It didn’t look at him again until it finished, when it gave him a single glare before turning away. Kakashi took the hint, and left to find a quiet area to meditate and try again to get his chakra flowing.

“You need a name,” he said when returned the next morning. The ryū gave him a flat look, but Kakashi ignored it. He dropped the fish he was carrying in front of the animal and watched it dig in. “I can’t keep mentally calling you ‘ryū’. It would be like you calling me ‘human.’”

A thought suddenly struck him. “My name is Kakashi, by the way.”

The animal snorted but kept eating. A minute went by and Kakashi snapped his fingers.

“Hikari,” he decided aloud. The ryū huffed without looking at him, and Kakashi glared at it.

“What?” he asked, feigning affront. “Hikari’s a fine name! It’s pretty, fitting, and easy to remember.”

The newly dubbed Hikari ignored him. Kakashi turned fully to look at the animal.

“Hey now,” he said, shifting so that he’d be in the ryū’s line of sight. “You don’t get to make fun of my idea and then leave the conversation. Do you have a better suggestion?”

The ryū continued to ignore him, so Hikari it was. The ryū tried to bite him the next time he called it that, though, so he left it alone for the rest of the day.

A routine developed pretty quickly from there. Kakashi would show up every morning with food and water, ensure Hikari’s wounds were healing properly, and then hang around until the creature became uncomfortable with his presence and chased him away with a glare.

Kakashi knew from experience that when you were too injured to move, having people constantly hovering around you became irritating quickly, so he understood the sentiment. He was happy to note that the animal was tolerating his presence for longer and longer each day.

When he wasn’t with the ryū, Kakashi would try to be productive in some other way. Most of that time was spent trying and failing to get his chakra to function properly, but beyond that he tried to set up a better camp for himself now that he wasn’t nomadicly roaming the island. He built a small lean-to against a tree a little bit away from Hikari’s clearing to provide him a some insulation and protection from the elements at night, made a rock-ringed ditch of a firepit so that he could actually cook and safely eat some of food he was catching, and had even managed to scrape together a few tools from what he could find on the island. He had a pointed stick that he chose to generously call a spear for catching fish, as well as a crude flint knife, which made his life so much easier in so many ways. Cleaning fish, cutting wood for his structures, carving a bowl out of an old log so that he didn’t need to keep carrying moss back and forth for Hikari everyday… knives were useful. It really made him miss his kunai.

“You’re not my first animal companion, you know,” Kakashi started one day as he was checking Hikari’s leg. It was healing nicely, with no signs of infection. “Not even one of the first ten.”

Hikari glanced at him, but didn’t otherwise move.

“The first three were my father’s. Great white wolves, massive. Not as big as you, but most things aren’t.” Kakashi didn’t know why he was talking about this. It wasn’t important. It was irrelevant to survival or any of his current goals. The ryū probably couldn’t even understand him. He continued anyway.

“They left me early on. They were signed to the Hatake, but they were my father’s through and through. After he died, I never saw them again.” Meaningless conversation. Filler. “Maybe they couldn’t answer my call, my chakra too dissimilar to what they were used to. Maybe they ignored it in their grief. I’m not sure. But when I tried to summon Mai a few weeks after I found the body, a little pug puppy showed up in her place. That same dog appeared every time I tried afterwards.

“Pagu-kun, I called him at first. A title more than a name, honestly. But I summoned him often, whenever I needed a scent tracked, or an extra set of eyes in dangerous territory, or company on a lonely night. With time and familiarity, little impatient six-year-old me started dropping the middle syllable, and Pagu-kun became Pakkun. My first summon.”

Completely irrelevant to anything. Needlessly personal.

“I miss him. I miss all of them.” Kakashi sighed and closed his eyes as he dipped his head. He didn’t know why he was talking about his pack, but it felt nice to let something out.

Hikari gave a low rumble. Kakashi remained silent.

That was the first day that Hikari didn’t chase him away. Kakashi started talking to his new companion more after that.

Talking to Hikari was a little like talking to the Memorial Stone, only more real, somehow.

Talking to the Memorial Stone felt like a confession. It was ugly and reeked of grief, and for all of the darkness and emotion surrounding the task, it felt strangely impersonal. It was a duty, a vigil, a punishment. It was Kakashi paying penance for his failures. He didn’t talk to the Memorial Stone for himself. He did it because he had to. He did it for the dead.

Talking to Hikari was different. It was superficially similar in that he spent a lot of time monologuing at something that couldn’t speak, but that was where the similarities ended, because while the ryū may not have been able to speak, it could hear. Hikari could listen, not from across the mortal plane while Kakashi imagined cold judgement in place of a listener, but from right in front of him. Kakashi didn’t have to talk to Hikari. He chose to.

And while Kakashi was becoming increasingly certain that the ryū could at the very least understand the very basics of human speech, he found that it ultimately didn’t matter. Whether or not the ryū comprehended his stories of his village and team, it was clear that the creature at least understood emotion. Hikari would rumble, glare, or even occasionally purr in response to Kakashi’s stories, almost like an overly expressive cat might. Her responses weren't random, either. Quiet rumbles when Kakashi spoke of his late father, amused snorts when Kakashi described how Naruto once blew himself up while trying to extinguish a fire with a wind jutsu, and contemplative looks when Kakashi would mention one of his old friends- Kakashi suspected that the animal was just responding to his tone for at least some of it, but it was clear that Hikari was at least picking up on and responding to the emotions of his stories, if not the content.

Kakashi had enough to piece together a personality. Initially, all he got to see were hard edges. The ryū was proud, not wanting to be touched unless necessary and chafing whenever Kakashi treated it like an animal or pet. It was dry, too. Some of the looks it gave Kakashi when he did or said something it thought was dumb were droll enough that he could almost hear a condescending remark to go with them. Though, as the days went by, Kakashi got to see more and more of a lighter side, like when it would try to trip him with its tail and then act oblivious.

Day by day, Hikari would let Kakashi get away with more and more. He wasn't sure if it was just the isolation and lack of human contact, but Hikari was beginning to feel less like an animal and more like a friend, and Kakashi found that he didn't mind that.

Hikari’s injuries continued to heal as the weeks passed by. Kakashi tracked the progress of the leg wound, making sure it was healing properly and checking for signs of infection, but there wasn’t much he could be proactive about on that front. He didn’t have the medical knowledge or expertise to even make a salve, let alone try something like the healing palm. He also didn’t know enough about the ryū’s anatomy to try to splint or set the wing, but it seemed to be healing well enough on its own, so Kakashi was altogether pretty happy with how things were going.

Naturally, the universe had to shake things up on him.

Kakashi returned to the clearing one evening after cooking a rabbit he'd caught, intending to spend some more time with Hikari. Not wanting to encroach on the ryū’s personal space or make it uncomfortable, he sat down on a rock a few yards away and began to eat. He made it two bites before the ryū got up, padded over to where Kakashi was sitting, and plopped itself down in front of him, before quickly falling asleep.

Kakashi blinked down at the creature in surprise, mentally shrugged, and went back to enjoying his dinner.

Hikari's progress continued, and although the injury wasn't completely healed, the ryū no longer had reservations about plodding around the clearing. Kakashi wasn’t sure if that had been Hikari’s first time trying to walk, or if the animal had been suckering him into bringing it food and water for the past few days, but he supposed it didn’t really matter either way. The important thing was that the ryū was clearly comfortable being around Kakashi.

Hikari still spent a lot of the day resting, but when the ryū was moving it spent a good half of its time following Kakashi around. Whether he was hunting, gathering materials, or sitting on a tree stump whittling, Hikari seemed content to lay down wherever he was, either observing him or simply sleeping. Kakashi supposed that he was probably the most interesting thing on the island, but still. It was a little strange having a giant fire breathing reptile tailing him all the time. Not that it had done all that much fire breathing lately.

Kakashi did get a little alone time, though. Hikari would occasionally wander off in some random direction and not return for hours, and since there was nothing on the island that could pose a threat to the ryū(other than Kakashi himself), he didn’t really worry when it would disappear for hours on end. He was a little curious about what the ryū was doing, though, and so he tagged along a few times. From what Kakashi could gather, it seemed like the animal was just exploring the island, now that it finally could. The ryū was also hunting for itself, which made Kakashi’s day a little easier. Today, it appeared, Hikari had even decided to hunt for him, too.

“Ah,” Kakashi blinked as a deer was dropped in front of where he had been whittling an atlatl. Hikari stood proud behind her catch. “Thank you?”

The ryū nodded at the dead animal, and then gave Kakashi an expectant look. Kakashi held out hope for a moment that Hikari wasn’t asking him to eat raw cervid, before sighing and pulling out his knife to cut a chunk off the creature’s flank. Hopefully the ryū would at least let him cook it.

It didn’t.

Even on the days the ryū would wander off, Hikari always returned to the clearing or nearby before sunset. Kakashi would usually regale the creature with stories of his life as he ate his dinner, or sometimes they would just sit in silence if he was tired or couldn’t think of a story he felt like telling. Even then, the silence was peaceful. The evenings were nice.

Kakashi wasn’t sure how close Hikari’s wing was to being fully healed. It looked fine externally, but that didn’t necessarily mean that it was flight ready. Still, Kakashi was content. He had shelter, food, water, the tools to sustain himself without much difficulty, a companion, and hopefully soon, a way off the island. Things were good.

Unfortunately, good things don’t often stay that way for long.

Kakashi woke up one morning and was immediately uneasy, his intuition blaring. He didn’t know what it was that was setting him off, but there was a sense of wrongness in the air that he couldn’t ignore. Something wasn’t right. He got up and quickly made his way over to the clearing where Hikari slept, on edge the whole way. The once peaceful quiet of the island was now suspicious, and any sense of tranquility in its atmosphere was now absent.

The ryū stirred as he approached, and got up with something close to a warble when it saw him, but Kakashi couldn’t focus on it. The feeling of urgency was getting stronger, and he could feel the beginnings of an adrenaline rush coming on. So he was already a little tense when it happened.

A shinobi’s instinct is hard to describe. It was the brain realizing something before the mind did, telling the body to act before it understood that it was acting. It was confusing, sometimes illogical, and honestly frightening when one truly thought about it, but it had saved Kakashi’s life on more than one occasion, and so he was inclined to trust his instincts when they so demanded. That’s why, when the mental scars of years of trauma and experience and prolonged hypervigilance screamed at him to move, he didn’t hesitate.

Kakashi’s arm snapped out faster than the eye could follow. A single, thick wooden arrow quivered in his grip, sunlight gleaming off of the razor edge of its polished iron tip. A viscous, purple-tinged liquid oozed innocently from a slit in the behind the sharpened point.

The arrowhead was mere inches from Hikari’s skin.