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Despite the turn of his stomach, and the scream of his heart through mountains of scar tissues, Kakashi pushed a determined breath through his nose and opened the large door before him. Inside, Lady Tsunade sat rigidly at the small, round table that had been used for Kage meetings over the past few days, in Kumogakure. From the massive windows wrapping around the cliff-side tower, thousands of shinobi and samurai troops could be seen below, preparing to enter the impending action of The Fouth Great Shinobi War. Tsunade's eyes, though squinted, were glassy, reflective of their absence, and the nail of her thumb stayed tight, clenched between her teeth and a scowl. Off her shoulder, as expected, stood Shizune, with their pink and pudgy pig, Tonton, in hand.
“Tsunade-sama, you summoned me?”
“Yes.”
Though she had answered, a flat, emotion-less statement, Tsunade’s eyes remained miles away, and the nail of her thumb pinched tight. Shizune shifted on her feet, mouth opening briefly before closing again.
Seconds dragged slower, seemingly louder in their silence with each descending tick, and Kakashi wondered, if the thunder through his chest was something that could be heard through the ears of the medical geniuses in front of him.
“Turtle Island arrived not long ago,” he said delicately. “What intel is there that you have summoned me to hear alone?”
Finally, Tsunade’s thumb left her lips, and her eyes forced themselves to meet with Kakashi’s single, dark and desperate one. She drew a breath, and with it, tensions for a moment longer, and then, at last, spoke the dreaded words that Kakashi had, most regretfully, come to expect.
“The enemy has taken Yamato captive. Kabuto. Kabuto attacked Turtle Island, with a reanimated Deidara of Akatsuki, in an attempt to take the Eight and Nine Tails captive. Meeting the defense of the Tsuchikage, his guards - Kurotsuchi and Akatsuchi, Aoba, Motoi from Kumo, and Yamato, he failed in his mission to retrieve Naruto and Killer Bee. Both remain safe on the island, and Naruto remains in the dark to knowledge of the war. As he was being apprehended, Kabuto escaped Yamato’s mokuton hold and took the Captain with him. Their whereabouts are currently unknown. Nor were they pursued.”
She paused, gaze no longer able to hold on to Kakashi's in front of her. Shizune’s eyes found the floor, too.
“I’m sorry…”
Captured. Not killed. Not yet. But, captured. And un-pursued.
Kakashi swallowed his emotion.
“I’m ready to receive orders.”
The air hung once more in a weighted pause, and with it, Shizune’s face softened with pity.
“Kakashi-” Tsunade started, quickly cut off by impatient demand.
“Give me my orders to pursue.”
“If I could, I would,” Tsunade answered simply, though not without somber ache. “You know as well as I that the Allied Shinobi Forces needs you here.”
Kakashi gave a short shake of his head.
“Then send someone else. Send a small team.”
“We are on the precipice of war, Kakashi,” Tsunade went on. “We cannot divide regiments and assets before we even know who we will need to place where for the upcoming battles.”
“We have the entirety of the shinobi nations - as well as the samurai. You mean to say that we cannot spare even a small team to reclaim one of our most valuable assets?”
“This is Kabuto - the man that has evaded us for years. The man absorbed the might of Orochimaru. He is likely taking Yamato back to a hideout with Madara himself - and whatever forces they have, and who knows how many more reanimated Akatsuki! Any team that we could form and send without the sure knowledge of sending them on a suicide mission, would be the entire team of generals we have assigned and likely all the Kage - combined. Even still, there would be no way to estimate a favorable success rate.”
Kakashi's teeth ground quickly against a rising growl, and a stifling rage began to rise in lengthy flames through his throat, by necessity, burning up the hopeless, helplessness of grief that he knew he couldn't not face again.
“So, we abandon him to the enemy for torture and destruction?”
Drawing a single, staying breath, Lady Tsunade fought to maintain calm diplomacy.
“Yamato knew the risks of his duty and has still chosen to accept and execute it for years.”
“He's ANBU - he’ll kill himself before he’ll allow the enemy to obtain intel," Kakashi retorted indignantly, voice starting to rise with the suffocating smoke dizzying his head. "And they will still probably drain his corpse for use of the mokuton! Every second spent arguing here is one closer to that reality!”
Standing, Tsunade pushed back from her chair and crossed around to place a hand over Kakashi's shoulder.
“It’s likely a reality that’s already come to be…" she said solemnly.
Kakashi yanked his shoulder free.
"And I’m sorry…”
Tsunade let her hand fall, leaning back on her heels to grant Kakashi space, when a bitter whisper from the Jonin struck her still.
“A pitiful leadership, that would do nothing when one of their own has been taken…”
In Shizune's tightening grasp, Tonton wriggled uncomfortably. Never had Kakashi been one to contest authority in so many words. He'd share his opinions, sure, and had even disobeyed orders a time or two when he believed a comrade to be in danger. But, as far as verbalizing disrespect so directly, that had been his first. Tsunade sighed softly. Through her memory flashed the sight of Kakashi's back, silently leaving her office in pursuit of Sasuke and Naruto after her firm orders to accept an alternative missive. She couldn't afford such a loss now, despite how she might've also seen the images of Dan, Nawaki, and Jiriaya, too.
“Kakashi, I know this information is personally distressing," she attempted to empathize. "It’s why I summoned you to hear it first, before alerting the other generals.”
“I’d believe the heart of your intentions genuine were they coupled with the same consideration towards Tenzo," Kakashi snapped back, unmoved.
“Despite the shocking intel, as it may be," she went on. "I need you to execute your duty in the same way Captain Yamato did.”
For a moment, Kakashi only scoffed, his head shaking once more in disbelief, before abandoning all sense of decorum, and losing himself to passions.
“My duty," he fumed. "Is to my fellow shinobi - to my friends - to those I love!"
He was shouting then, a thundering sound that boomed from his chest and might've rattled the windows as if it were its own attack.
"A shinobi that abandons their comrade is worse than scum!”
"This isn't abandonment - it is situational necessity."
"Bullshit!"
Tsunade whipped around, cheeks hot and nostrils flared wildly.
“Remember your place, Hatake Kakashi-”
“No - you remember yours, Tsunade! As the drunk that ran away - unable to perform medical ninjutsu for the fear of her loved one's blood on her hands!”
Immediately, Shizune charged across the room, Tonton left behind, hands raised to strike. Were it not for the Godaime's overwhelming strength restraining her advisor's arm at the last second, Shizune would have undoubtedly activated the physical retaliation of an unhinged Copy Nin.
“Shizune!" Tsunade barked. "Stand down…”
The two long-time companions shared a lengthy, communicative stare, and within it, exchanged remorse, gratitude, anger, understanding, and surrender.
"Yes, Tsunade-sama..."
When the moment passed, Shizune found her elbow released, and retreated behind her Kage's shoulder once more, yet, not without the most cutting of glares shot back unto Kakashi.
Tsunade batted quick blinks over welling moisture in her eyes before opening her mouth a last time.
“Dismissed, Kakashi.”
She turned, striding slow and slumped through her shoulders to gaze out the conference room windows, Shizune close in her footsteps.
Watching the floor where the Godaime stood, Kakashi clenched and unclenched his fists in time with his teeth, holding between them a seething breath, and the very last of his self control.
“This has been their first move, their first attack in this war…” he murmured in a gravely, low growl. “And you all have sat around in your conference rooms at your tables and decided to let it happen without repercussion…”
He turned sharp on his heel for the door, needing to make himself go.
“Had you not waken,” he concluded first. “And I were wearing the hat - all units would be mobilizing in immediate response…”
His palm shoved hard on the looming door in front of him, body shoving through with it. Rage was leaving, having burned up respect and rationale on it’s way out. What was settling thereafter, was the charred and ashen heap of his heart once more, sizzling and suffocating him with it’s wisps of thick smoke.
More than anything else, he wanted to run. Run from the room, from the battle camp, and titles. Run from the reality of yet another war in his short life, where his renown would force him to carry the responsibilities of life and death, for shinobi and civilian, for the world at large. Barely had he ever been able to carry the weight of his body above his own two feet.
Not three paces from the conference room, stood the Kazekage, leaning against the wall, dark and heavily-lidded eyes closed with an anguished scowl contorting his brow.
“Kakashi-sama,” he called softly.
Regretfully, Kakashi stopped his flight, and turned to answer.
“Don’t call me that…”
Nodding, Gaara pushed off the wall and drew in nearer, not reaching a hand out from the tight fold of his arms across his chest, but sure to look up and meet Kakashi’s gaze.
“My condolences for what grief our new intel has caused you,” he said. “I am extremely grateful for Yamato-taicho’s service, and his successful protection of Naruto.”
Kakashi blinked away, offering his own slight nod and preparing to push onward.
“Forgive me,” Gaara beseeched, his plea for mercy far more filled with earnest humility than Kakashi expected of the young Kazekage. “I am far too unseasoned to have the position of leadership I hold, and often, my inexperience causes doubt to keep my mouth shut when I should instead call to action. Allow me please, to draw upon your courage as my senior, Senpai.”
Kakashi blanched more clearly at this title than the previous honorific, regardless of the the gratitude he might’ve somewhere felt inside himself for Gaara’s sentiment. Never did he want to hear that title from anyone else’s lips.
“Kakashi,” he insisted, gently as he could manage. “Please.”
“Of course. My apologies again,” Gaara dipped his head. “Excuse me.”
Before Kakashi could register or return the action, the Kazekage was gone, passing back through the doors of the Kage conference room. Alone then, Kakashi took his opportunity and flickered away, finding space atop the Kumo cliffs, far from the campsites, and hidden in the clouds.
The lack of oxygen, so high, felt right to his lungs, strained as they already were as they held desperately over the release of a scream. He clawed away at his mask, sucking freezing air through erratic gasps. His cheeks wet without his consent. And he swore, falling to his knees as the world spun, and the blurry speck of bright green could be seen growing larger as it drew nearer.
“My rival…” a voice called softly. “Kakashi…”
Strong, sturdy arms wrapped around his chest from behind, body settling in the dirt beside him. Kakashi’s eyes closed, and for the first time, he did not have the strength to shoo Gai off and away, as he broke under his grief, and wept.
Summons came with the next dawn. Every commander, general, and captain to meet with the Kage at once. And somehow, Kakashi pulled himself to standing, adjusted his mask, and answered the call. It is what his Tenzo would have believed him capable of.
Gai walked him there every step of the way, brushing off unwanted interruptions and attention, as well as grabbing for his dearest friend a canteen, a few food pills, and a strong pain killer on the way.
Once inside their meeting tent, over-crowded with ego and anticipation, Kakashi straightened his shoulders and looked to the coming of the Kage. Silence fell, and it was Lady Tsunade who stepped forward, opening her mouth to address the leaders of the shinobi world.
“The enemy, in an attempt to obtain the Nine and Eight Tailed beasts from Naruto and Killer Bee, have made their first attack in this Fourth Shinobi War,” She started. Murmurs between surprise, dread, and outrage rippled through the tent.
“While valiant efforts made from the team assigned for Naruto and Bee’s protection were successful,” she continued. “One valued member, and the sole inheritor of Lord Hashirama’s mokuton, Yamato-taicho, was taken as a prisoner of war.”
In her pause, Kakashi felt Gaara’s eyes fall on him, and the bodies of his comrades stiffen.
“In response, The Allied Shinobi Forces is moving into immediate action.”
Kakashi felt his cheeks grow hot, a warmth that quickly spread down entirety of his body. It wasn’t a sensation quite as violent as the flames of his rage the evening before, nor as devastating as the torrent of his tears had been just hours earlier. But, perhaps it was a warmth that registered some level of comfort through its needling sear, like a blanket wrapped too tight around his body.
“Scrolls are being issued to each of you, outlining recent intel we’ve received from Hidden Leaf shinobi in regards to the enemy’s whereabouts, their troops, and the immediate commands for each of your regiments.”
A scroll filled his hands somehow, Shizune passing from his presence and onto the leader next.
“You are to review your orders immediately, and prepare your regiments for battle. Dismissed.”
With that, Tsunade gave the sharp nod of her head to the tent, and turned to leave with the rest of the Kage. On her way, however, she caught Kakashi’s eye, not by accident, for the briefest of glances.
“Gaara-sama…” Kakashi called, following after the trail of the Kage as soon as they had left and the tent began to buzz.
“Just Gaara, please,” The Kazekage answered, a hint of a smile through his somber expression as he turned back to meet Kakashi’s company. “And thank you, for your courage.”
Kakashi’s mouth opened behind his mask. What had he even wanted to say? Suddenly he couldn’t remember. Yet, it was not a thing that mattered, for Gaara stretched out a hand and clasped it over Kakashi’s shoulder, and it was enough mutual understanding for the Copy Nin to let his mouth close. Instead, he simply offered the bow he hadn’t been able to before.
Gaara returned it, and permitted his subtle smile to spread, ever-so-slightly to the corner of his lips.
“Now, go,” he ordered, and released his touch. “We’ve duty to fulfill. For the ones we love, yes?”
“Yes,” Kakashi agreed in a voice tiny, broken, and fragile. Then, with a shaky inhale, he echoed more clearly, “For the ones we love.”
It had been a only a few hours, since the release of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, and the dust of war still clouded the morning air, along with the stench of blood, and the wails of the wounded. For Kakashi, this would always be the most difficult part of any battle, no matter the scale. The at first bright shine of victory dulled quickly when the shadow of its cost inevitably fell soon after. The following days, months, even years were the ones spent accounting for the dead, attempting to save the wounded, and in efforts to rebuild. And for those now with comrades and family members lost - the shadow would stretch behind their footsteps for a lifetime. So too for all those with fresh blood on their hands.
Still, never-minding his extreme exhaustion, and the emotional hurricane he’d experienced in the past few days, Kakashi put himself to work as best he could. Better to stay busy, he thought, than to lay on a recovery cot with only the company of his thoughts.
They’d found Gai early on. He was doing quite well for a man that had burnt himself to a crisp with the sheer might of his own radiant soul. Sai found the team quickly too, having woken from the Infinite Tsukuyomi without a problem, all well and ready to help in any way possible. Many of the others had been identified, thankfully including most of the kids Kakashi had watched grow from academy genin to war veterans. Neji’s body was recovered, and wrapped to be brought home with honor. The more identified and solidified things became around him, the more Kakashi found himself drained of any, and all hope that victory had brought them just hours earlier. In it’s place, the rising of a truth and grief that he knew would soon become completely unavoidable, likely to swallow him whole.
He wished, closing his new matching pair of eyes, that Obito would have allowed him passage home, too, and that he might have been able to leave this new dawn to the generation surviving him. The thought however, was cut short. A slimy wriggle over his toes pulled Kakashi back onto the smoking battlefield, and down to the sight of the white slug demanding his attention.
“Kakashi-taicho,” Came the voice of Katsuyu, Tsunade’s slug summon. “Yamato-taicho has been found.”
Kakashi’s body fell into static shock, his whole heart dropping through the pit of his stomach and down into the very feet where Katsuyu looked up with antenna eyes.
“Status."
“Alive, though, barely. Suffering extreme chakra exhastion. Tsunade-sama is there doing everything she can.”
“Where?”
“By the fallen God Tree. North-Eastern side.”
Kakashi didn’t wait for Katsuyu to finish her directions before scooping her up, onto his shoulder and starting into the best of a sprint his body could offer.
“Kakashi-taicho! Where are you going?” Sai called after him, standing from the wounded Suna shinobi that lay receiving treatment from Sakura.
“They’ve found him.”
Sai’s eyes went wide, not void as they often still were, but wrought with too many feelings for anyone to be assaulted with all at once. Immediately after, Kakashi heard Sai’s footsteps catching his.
“Kaka-Sensei,” Sakura bellowed in shrill protest. “Slow down! You shouldn’t be trying to run like that.”
She wasn’t wrong. He really shouldn’t have been walking around for long periods of time, much less forcing his broken and spent body into the messy, stumbling, sloppy sprint he was managing. A few yards more, and his vision began to dip black at the corners of his vision, head pitching forward in a dizzy spin. Instead of earth slamming into his fainting form, Kakashi found himself gently caught in arms of sand that materialized in a soft, swift whir around him, and then under his feet in a solid mound, moving him far faster than before.
“I’ve got you,” called the Kazekage, drawing up beside the Copy Nin on his own sand mound.
Kakashi’s allowed himself to be held, a thankful grin drawing between his lips as the world steadied it’s dizzy sway behind closed lids.
“Gaara…” he murmured reverently, eyes opening once more. “Thank you.”
Within a matter of seconds that seemed quite like days, they reached the far side of the fallen God Tree, and Kakashi caught sight of Tsunade working with a determined scowl through her brow over his most precious Tenzo.
Sand released him to stand, and Kakashi closed the last stretches between himself and the man he loved, before falling to his knees in time with the fall of Tenzo's thin, labored breath.
“Tenzo!" Kakashi exclaimed, voice finally reaching past his burning throat and through parted lips. "Tenzo…”
His normally wide eyes screwed shut, sunken into their sockets. Skin that was normally sun-kissed and shining pulled over diminished muscles and protruding bones, pale and nearly translucent, and chestnut hair lay matted in sweaty tangles over his furrowed brow. He was breathing still. Weakly. But he was there, and breathing.
“Tsunade-sama?” Kakashi asked, in need of a more detailed status report.
“Hush! He’ll be fine," the Godaime insisted, though more to herself, it seemed, than to Kakashi.
Slowly, through much doubt and fear that the sight before him might not actually be real, and that he were instead caught in the Infinite Tsukuyomi, Kakashi reached a shaking hand forward, and laid it over Tenzo's cheek. Dream or not, the reward he received in turn sucked the air from his own lungs, and broke silent tears through a gasped ring of laughter. Tenzo's eyes popped open at the touch, instantly softening at the burry sight of silver hair hovering over him.
“Tenzo, I’ve got you…"
"Kakashi!" Tsunade objected, wobbling to keep her flow of chakra treatment steady as Kakashi haphazardly scooped her patient's head into his lap, and dipped his own head low, squeaking whispers out through tears that dropped onto Tenzo's cheeks.
"I’m so- I’m so sorry… I'm so sorry, Tenzo..."
It was all he could say. Sorry. Sorry for everything. Sorry for not coming to rescue him. Sorry for not being the one to find him. Sorry for the pain he'd endured. Sorry he was still suffering. Sorry he had drug his feet for so long and not shared his true feelings. Sorry he had caused this damned war. Sorry it was not him lying there, clinging to a last shred of life. Sorry they'd ever been shinobi, and not kids that had lived and grown and fallen in love on dates and late night strolls, not married and led peaceful lives with restful sleeps, and fights only over house chores and schedule miscommunications. Just sorry.
In his hands, the tiniest of movements shook Kakashi free of his down spiral - the slight turning of Tenzo's head in his lap, side to side. No, he was saying. And through parted lips, chapped and cracked, an apologetic croak countered, “I’m…”
Above Tenzo's chest, Tsunade puffed steam from her nostrils.
“Both of you are going to be sorry if you don’t shut up and let me focus," she warned. Regardless of her need for complete concentration, she hadn't any capacity to listen to the passing of blame any further, when she felt such a great shame of her own in the matter. And though Tenzo wasn't leaking blood in pools beneath his body as Dan had been those many years ago, Tsunade still saw the red on her hands as she worked.
"Sakura,” she called instead, sensing the presence of her protege as she and the rest of their team reached their former Captains. "Your assistance.”
“I’m here too, Taicho…” Sai said stiffly, moving to kneel off the side of Sakura’s shoulder as she settled in to work over Tenzo as well. “It’s me, Sai…”
Keeping their distance, were Naruto and Sasuke.
“Hey - what’s Kaka-Sensei doing with Yamato-taicho?” Naruto whispered loudly with an elbow into Sasuke’s side. Though he was plenty close, the knuckle-headed nin squinted hard, trying to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him.
Sasuke simply shushed his dearest companion with a hiss through his teeth and the aversion of his eyes.
“Shut up, Dobe…”
Kakashi wasn't sure how long they stayed like that. Tenzo's head in his lap, the greatest medical shinobi of their time bent over Tenzo's chest, the bright burn of ninjutsu flowing from their palms, trying desperately to tether Tenzo's soul to his body. For Kakashi, it felt a bit like being back in Itachi's Tsukuyomi - a place designed to break his will without time, and a few seconds in reality stretching into seventy-two hours trapped in torment.
Tenzo closed his eyes once more, sweat forming in a sheen over his skin as his breaths became more shallow, and erratic.
“Tsunade-sama…” Sakura cautioned, almost through a hushed sob.
Tenzo's chest stuttered, and the Godaime ground her teeth and eyes.
“Shit…”
They were losing him. Kakashi blinked rapid and hard. Always did he know what to do. Always did he have a back up plan - did he have a clone or substitute to throw out to turn the tide and gain the upper hand. This time he had nothing, and so he begged.
“Please no... You can't give up yet..." he pleaded, no longer caring who heard or saw, nuzzling his nose against Tenzo's temple to speak directly into his ear. " I thought I lost you, Tenzo… I can’t… I can't lose anyone else... most of all, you... Please, I know you’re so tired… I need you to fight… Please fight, Tenzo... "
Suddenly he felt so stupid for his thoughts before. How dare he wish he'd died with Obito when Obito wished him still to go on, to fight. For every time he'd wished for death to release him from his anguished life, from the stab of agony that came on the other end of loving someone, Kakashi felt crushing, compounding regret. He'd do it all again - for a ride on his father's shoulders, for the tousle of his Sensei's hand through his hair, for a sweet smile from Rin, for the scowl of Obito - for this moment alone, Tenzo still breathing in his arms. For the hope of a future.
Light as a feather, Kakashi pressed his masked kisses onto a sallow cheek, a sweaty forehead, and tattered, parted lips.
"Please. For yourself. Fight... My beloved Tenzo, there are days ahead of us both... Fight..."
A gasped breath answered him, and the close of Tenzo's open mouth, weakly attempting to catch the kiss that still barely lingered there. More breaths came after, slower, forced through even lengths that Kakashi immediately recognized from their ANBU days - a ROOT breathing technique Tenzo brought with him, used for the purpose of making his body to push past its physical limit, and meet his mental demands.
"He's stabilizing," Sakura smiled in awe.
Behind them Naruto whooped, and Sai noticed the stream of his own tears with the escape of a sob from his chest.
"We need to keep him steady," Tsunade commanded.
Sakura nodded, understanding, and then turning her head slightly in Kakashi's direction.
“Kaka-Sensei, we’re going to have to put him under, our own induced coma. He needs time to regenerate chakra in the most severe way. But, I promise, he will wake."
Kakashi felt his head nod slightly, though his eyes stayed fixed on the man in his lap.
"It's going to be okay, Yamato-taicho," Sakura comforted. "Just rest now- Yamato-taicho! Save your strength!”
Much to the incredible shock of those hovering around Tenzo, was the sight of his hands lifting shakily with the opening of his eyes, to catch his Senpai in both. Kakashi's cheeks in his hands, his mouth opened, corners twisting up unmistakably as he croaked, “Senpai… s’okay…”
Nodding again, more vigorous and assured this time, Kakashi released his own sob through a smile. Without a second throught, he reached a hand to yank his mask away to press another, but now proper, kiss into Tenzo's lips.
The others looked away, and Kakashi held his beloved's eyes until they slowly slipped, peacefully closed into a deep slumber.
“He’s out," Sakura announced softly.
"Pulse steady," she added after a beat.
Both she and Tsunade sat back on their heels, chakra glow fading from their hands, and bodies swaying with their own exhaustion.
"We need to move him so that-”
“Where to?”
“Kaka-”
Tsunade was the one to cut Sakura off, raising her palm sharply, and shaking her head after. The medic in her hated to see Kakashi already standing, mask replaced over his nose, and having scooped Tenzo up to carry the man wherever necessary. For what it was worth, Kakashi likely needed to be put under for his own exhaustion, too. But, nothing in her could protest loud enough as to attempt and relieve Kakashi of Tenzo in his arms.
“Shizune was summoned and assigned the set up of medical tents," she ordered instead. "Take him there for monitoring.”
Swaying slightly on his legs as he adjusted Tenzo's weight for walking, Kakashi gave a single, last, appreciative nod toward his Hokage, and started a slow trod toward the medical tents. Despite how worn and weary he truly was through his bones, for the first time in too long, Kakashi's shoulders were drawn back, his chest puffed out, feet not dragging, but instead marching steadily onward, toward the future.
“Tsunade-sama," Sakura urged, watching her Sensei's outline grow smaller against the horizon. "Should we ask Gaara-sama to carry him again? In his condition, he really shouldn’t be-”
And again, Tsunade cut her off, this time with a slight raise of her own shoulders as well.
“He’s fine. Let him fulfill his duty.”