Work Text:
_
You took me to your favourite place on earth,
To see the tree they cut down ten years from your birth.
_
It was a warm and sunny day, wind lightly blowing in their faces from the east as Team Minato decided to take a rest under a big acorn tree on their way back to the village. Their last mission had just ended successfully and neither of them had been injured majorly, which always delighted Rin and when Rin was happy, all the others were also uplifted from her good mood alone. They were now half way back home and as long as the sun continued to shine like this the rest would be equally as pleasant as the journey so far.
The three children sat down and leaned against the large tree, all of them sitting side by side so close together that they could have almost held hands. Kakashi still shied away a little from physical touch, but his aversion to it had already improved quite some since he had become their teammate. Rin sat in the middle, otherwise the boys would have never agreed to sit so close together, though they both still enjoyed it.
Minato-sensei sat not far from them in the shadows, cleaning out his special kunai. He enjoyed having them fast and at hand, for him every second counted. He didn’t get his nickname for nothing. The Yellow Flash really was the fastest shinobi around. Kakashi had wondered if there was even anybody out there who could ever match him. It seemed unbelievable to him that Minato would ever be late to anything, which was partly the reason why Kakashi couldn’t understand why sensei would allow someone like Obito to delay travel plans all the time by coming in late.
“I’m just so happy ”, Rin said out of the blue and into the silence, a big smile on her face “With you guys, you know? With us. ” Kakashi kept his eyes closed, but he silently agreed when Obito let out a confused: “Where is this coming from?”
Rin shifted a little so that she could pull both boys into a closer hug. Kakashi’s head bumped into Obito’s and he opened his eyes to glare at the other boy for a moment before Rin spoke again: “I just think we are well matched, you know? I don’t think any mission with the three of us together could ever go wrong. It hasn’t in the past and I’m positive it won’t in the future!”
Both boys started their usual rebellious murmuring, too embarrassed to admit that what she said was true to some extent. Kakashi was always annoyed by Obito’s constant questioning and lateness and general loudmouth, but the loud mouth and questioning had gained them intel more times than he cared to admit. Plus, he knew Obito admired Kakashi’s skill and they worked well together when they were fighting in sync. They had trained with each other so often that it had become second nature.
“With him ?” Obito said loudly and turned his head away. “Never! I wish we could have someone our age in the team, not such a baby.”
“Pah,” Kakashi spat back instantly, “If there is a baby here it is you. At least I don’t need glasses to not cry all the time.”
“I have sensitive eyes, alright?” Obito waved the hand that was not pressed against Rin around and frowned.
Kakashi rolled his dark eyes: “Always the same excuses. You can’t even own up to-”
“Guys!”
Rin for some reason was never annoyed at them bickering, in fact, it seemed to just make her laugh when they did. It was magical, they could fight about the smallest things when they were alone, spit and bite and scratch each other, but as soon as Rin turned up they buried every argument instantly. So instead of scolding them she just laughed heartily and said: “You guys can never slow down, can’t you? That is why I like being in the middle of both of you. Somehow you get along better when Minato-sensei and I are around.”
Kakashi couldn’t argue with that, as much as he wanted to throw another slight at Obito. Instead he enjoyed listening to Rins laugh. “I just think it is a one in a million chance” the girl continued, “A Team like this, you know? I know they match us up according to relative skill, but others didn’t find together as easy as us” Nice of her to ignore every issue Kakashi and Obito continued to have with each other, Kakashi thought.
“Minato-sensei is also such an excellent shinobi, heralded as a hokage candidate by many. I got so lucky, we got so lucky. It is almost like it was destiny. Like we are soulmates, you know?” Rin pressed both boys against her side again.
Kakashi and Obito exchanged a look, the older boy grumbled: “D-Don’t be sappy, Rin.” He had a slight blush on his cheeks. Kakashi almost agreed, but held back not only because agreeing with anything Obito said was against his nature, but also because Rin seemed happy and when she was happy all of them were happy. Maybe she really believed in what she said and if she really did, Kakashi felt like taking it away from her just wasn’t right.
Instead Kakashi let his eyes wander over the field in front of him, the grass moving by the wind. They found Minato-sensei still working on his kunai, a content smile on his face. The way he seemed so at peace with himself reminded Kakashi suddenly of his father in a way he couldn’t quite explain. He closed his eyes and thought of Sakumo and though the pain still stung a little it felt far away now.
He didn’t notice how relaxed he felt here with Rin and Obito by his side until he fell asleep.
_
Our fingers traced in circles round its history,
We brushed our hands right back in time through centuries.
_
They moved on a few hours after that, Kakashi didn’t know how long it was exactly, but the sun had moved over the sky to the west slowly. Minato woke all three of them with a kind smile, explaining to them that if they left now they would all make it back to Konoha before dark. So they packed their stuff together and left the safety of their shady, comfortable acorn tree.
Obito was in a good mood now too, chatting away about whatever his mind could latch onto. Today’s topic seemed to be his personal growth as a shinobi since he had taken the chunin exams a few months ago. He neglected to mention that he had failed the first time around and just barely made it the second time too. “I’m going to be the greatest Hokage”, Obito said, banging a fist against his chest, “Everybody will know my name, they will fear me.”
Kakashi rolled his eyes and cleared his throat audibly. Obito put up a finger at him: “What do you want, bakashi? ” Kakashi theatrically shrugged his shoulders like he always did when Obito started getting aggressive at him. It was sort of like a routine they were going through for the fun of it.
“You won’t ever be Hokage,” Kakashi yawned, “You’re never going to be strong enough for that, no matter how much you train.” He paused to watch the effect his words had on Obito, who’s face moved into a frown, with his finger still raised in the air. Kakashi looked away to prepare for the final blow: “You don’t even have the sharingan yet.”
That was something of an open wound for Obito. Other Uchiha had developed this innate ability already as children, but he was entering his teenage years without having it yet. Kakashi had seen him stare intensely at his own mirror image to somehow cohere the sharingan out of hiding, but to no avail. Obito took a step forward at Kakashi now, both hands pulled together in fists. “I’ll show you how strong I am, damned scarecrow”, he said.
Before he could land a punch Rin had already stepped in between them, one of her hands grabbing Obitos lifted arm and the other grabbing Kakashi’s wrist. “Guys,” she said sternly looking with furrowed brows from one boy to the other, “Enough.”
Her voice was clear and there was no room left for arguments, just the way she always talked when Obito and Kakashi were close to using their fists to settle their arguments, but Kakashi could clearly see the corner of her mouth was raised just a little. Rin somehow got endless pleasure out of the four of them doing anything together, even if it was arguing.
“Apologise for what you said Kakashi,” she said and pulled on Kakashi’s sleeve. He really didn’t want to. “What I said is the truth”, he murmured instead of the asked for apology. Obito’s reply came immediately: “Ha!”
“Apologise!” Rin repeated, a little more sternly this time and Kakashi gave up his fake resistance. “Sorry Obito,” he said and didn’t even try to sound sincere. “I’m sure you’ll get your sharingan someday between now and your deathbed, which, when you consider all your “skills” probably is soon.”
Obito waved the hand around in a fist that was not held down by Rin and started throwing out a tirade of reply insults, but Kakashi wasn’t listening. Rin shook her head dramatically and sighed. “Minato-sensei”, she called for him and the teacher turned around to look at all of them. “Do you think the two of them will always be like that?”
Minato laughed at the question, a sound that always was good coming from him. He had such a sunny face that was at its best when it was either focusing on a target or smiling, or both. Kakashi admired his teacher secretly, which went all the way back to him appearing right after the funeral of Kakashi’s father. “I think the two of them will still bicker with each other when they are old and long retired,” Minato laughed and waved with his hand. “And you, Rin, will always have to be there to get them to stop.”
Rin sighed deeply at that reply, but then she grabbed both boys’ arms a little tighter still: “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Once again Kakashi felt it impossible to disagree with her statement. Too long after Sakumo’s death had he felt nothing but emptiness inside, but since he was with this team on mission he suddenly could feel things again. He wouldn’t mind keeping this forever.
–
As you held me down, you said:
–
Minato-sensei pulled them all in a big hug once they had safely made it back home. He looked with a wide grin from one to the next and back. “I’m so proud of our work together,” he said and sounded like he meant it. Kakashi usually hated these public displays of affection his teacher forced on him, but today he was in a good mood. On the way home Rin had continued having her arms linked to him and Obito, dragging them along to force them to no longer fight. It felt homely.
“When Kakashi finally becomes Jounin and I can’t lead you guys anymore I will miss you so much,” Minato continued and let go of them to give them a moment to breathe. There had been rumours for a while now that Kakashi would be promoted quite soon, the council just wasn’t sure if they should allow a 12 year old to take the tests that were required for it. They weren’t worried about his skill, but more of how emotionally ready he was for the task.
Obito groaned and threw his hands behind his head. “Why does Bakashi , who is by the way younger than me, get promoted before me? I think that’s not fair.” He mentioned this everytime the topic of Kakashi’s promotion came up.
“You took two times to become Chuunin, what makes you think you could pass this exam easily,” Kakashi bantered back and raised a brow provocatively. “While I did it on my first try and I was only 9!” He would have probably done it earlier than that if he’d been allowed to take the exam right after his graduation, but the council had decided in this case that he needed to wait a few years.
It was once again Rin who stepped in between them, taking both their hands and making Obito blush in the process. “Minato-sensei”, she said with a smile to their teacher, “We will also miss working with you.” She pressed both boy’s hands to indicate that she was not allowing any disagreement to her words.
Minato smiled and put his hand over the top of her head: “You will have to look after yourselves.”
“Don’t worry,” Rin said and a self assured smile painted her face, “There is nothing we can’t do as long as we are all three together.”
And though Kakashi hated this public display of affection he could not deny that what she was saying was true. They worked together better than any machine. Minato-sensei was a big part of that machine, but he wasn’t all that was needed. The three of them could always get out of any situation, as long as they stuck together and relied on each other.
Yes, Kakashi thought a little bitterly, that also included the idiot Obito.
_
“I’ll see you in the future when we’re older
And we are full of stories to be told.
_
There was so much dust everywhere. A big cloud hung low over him, and he coughed to free his lungs from it. Kakashi’s ears were ringing still from the sudden, loud noise that had encompassed him just seconds before and his head was hurting as if it was split apart. Clearly, the wound around his eye had opened up again, he could feel the blood flow out even with the bandages on. He would need to ask Rin to drape it new once he came back to his senses.
Slowly, very slowly, as if every little movement hurt more than the last, he finally opened his functioning eye and through the blur that was still laying over it he could see Rin right in front of him. That meant she had made it out in time, which was good. He scanned the crater behind her and couldn't see an enemy. Maybe they had gotten rid of them. Sounds slowly returned to his ears and he could hear shallow breathing not far from him.
What he saw was so hard to believe that he blinked two more times to take it in. Obito laid next to him, half of his body crushed under a large boulder. There was blood right under him and dripping out of his mouth. Kakashi froze as he saw this, his heartbeat loud and steady in his ear. This was not real, he thought. It had to be a genjutsu.
He jumped forward quickly and reached out to Obito’s free hand and pressed it. “Obito, no-” he whispered and pulled on the other boy, but no matter how much he did, the body would not move. This couldn’t be. Kakashi could feel hot tears in his eyes and shook them away. He was the leader of this mission! He had a responsibility to bring his entire team back home.
Just like Minato-sensei had predicted, he had been promoted to Jounin not long after their last mission. It was war time and as such young soldiers were always needed and Kakashi was seen as mature for his age so he had been given this privilege. But this mission, his first mission as leader, had gone horribly wrong as soon as Rin had been kidnapped. Obito and Kakashi had argued, gone separate ways and then found each other again anyway. But his indecision had cost Kakshi one of his eyes.
Rin had always said they were at their best when they were together and maybe she had been right and it had been Kakashi’s mistake from the beginning to break that up, maybe he deserved failing his first mission as a Jounin so hard that he lost one of his eyes in the process. But Obito did not deserve to die here, not to save Kakashi, when Kakashi had been so bad at taking care of him.
Somehow Obito seemed completely calm in his current position. He let Kakashi hold his hand without as much as a word and watched him from below. Once more Kakashi felt like his polar opposite. In his head the chaos reigned. He was going through all the jutsu he had learned in his young years and wondered if there was one that could crush a boulder as large as this one. His chaka had been depleted a lot already though, he had overdone it in the fight to free Rin.
“If only sensei were here,” Kakashi could feel the sobs coming in, the tears choking up his throat., “If only it wasn’t me who was leading this mission. I did everything wrong, I’m so sorry Obito, I’m so sorry.” He continued apologising a few more times until Obito weakly pressed his hand and shook his head so little that it was almost invisible.
Rin let out a wince. She was standing not too far from them and looked as if she was frozen in place, unable to come closer to look at the wreckage in front of her. “Don’t worry,” Obito said and his eyes went from her to Kakashi, “I don’t feel the other side anymore. I’m actually not in pain at all.”
Kakashi felt sick at seeing him so content. He wanted to turn around and throw up. His eyes were spinning violently and he could not help the images flooding in. His father, blood everywhere, laying on the floor to his feet. No warmth, no smile, no breath, nothing. Dead. The moment Kakashi had decided to become the perfect shinobi, to never make mistakes and now? Where had that gotten him? To just another corpse.
The pain filled him up and it felt like he was going to drown in it. Obito had said the White Fang was his hero, he had put Kakashi back into his place, and showed him what really was important. From The beginning he had been the better shinobi. Kakashi with his static keeping to the rules was nothing in comparison..
-
Cross my heart and hope to die,
I’ll see you with your laughter lines.”
-
Still, Obito kept the smile on his face through his friends' helpless sobs. Rin now took his hand away from Kakashi and held it, Obito gave her a loving look. “I had so much fun with both of you guys,” he said and coughed a little. The blood was still spilling from his mouth. “If you see Minato-sensei, please tell him that he was a good teacher and that I hope he will be Hokage as they say.”
Rin leaned forward and nodded against Obito’s cheek. The boy smiled over her shoulder at Kakashi, scanning his face as if he was trying to remember it for the future. “Oh, bakashi,” he started and Kakashi could feel his heart sting at the old nickname, “I didn’t give you a present for your Jounin promotion, do you remember?”
“You don’t need to. I’m terrible at this job anyway. They should demot-” Kakashi began but Obito cut him off with a laugh. “No no, I remember you holding out your hand to me and saying “Where is my gift”, well I have a gift for you.” He paused to give Kakashi time to come a bit closer. “You shall have my sharingan.”
Kakashi stared at him and needed a second to digest the news. “I can’t accept that”, he said out right. “I do not deserve something like that Obito, this is the sacred tradition of your clan.”
Obito chuckled: “It is not like I can use it after this, you know.”
It was Rin who stepped in for the two of them, pulling Kakashi by the sleeve just like she had done so many times. “Come here Kakashi”, she said sternly, “I will transplant the eye for you.” All the time they’d been a team together she’d always taken charge when Obito and him had not agreed on things and this was no exception. It was extraordinary when one thought about it hard enough, that Rin could perform a complete transplant at 13 years of age, but Kakashi only really realised that when he was older.
It took them about five minutes to get the procedure done, then Kakashi blinked and could see through his new eye. His vision was back, but sharper and more draining. The sharingan burned in its new socket as if it knew that Kakashi was not the rightful owner to carry it. Rin had put a cloth over Obito’s now empty eye as if he was already a dead person waiting for burial, but Obito did not complain - when did he ever complain about something Rin had done.
“I wish I could have stayed with you guys a little longer,” he started and pressed Rin’s hand again, “I really would have loved to see how we develop next to each other into adulthood. But now, Kakashi will have to be my eyes and show me the world through him. You will do that, won’t you Kakashi?”
Kakashi almost choked on his spit because he tried to reply so fast: “Yes, of course Obito. I’ll record it all for you to watch later.” It was naive to assume something like the afterlife existed, but that was not the point at the moment.
Around them the earth was shaking and more and more stones from the side were rolling in over them. “It is collapsing”, Rin stated and covered her face with an arm. Kakashi looked from her to the surroundings. “We should go”, he said and hated every word of it. Letting Obito choke to death all alone and blind under a large pile of rocks was not one of his favourite ideas. More and more sides caved in and he knew they didn’t have another choice.
“Go,” Obito said weakly, “I’m almost gone. Promise to take care of Rin for me.”
Kakashi reached out for Rin as the walls kept tumbling down. She cried and held onto Obitos’s hand. He could feel the tears on his cheeks now too, but he had a promise to uphold now. “Rin!” he exclaimed and then a little softer, more pleading: “ Please.”
Finally, she seperated herself from Obito and took Kakashi’s hand out of the crater. It wasn’t a moment too late, because it all fully caved about ten seconds after they had made it out. Both now stood at the top of it, completely out of breath, tears streaming down their faces. Obito was gone. The reality of it didn’t sink in until much later.
Later, when they were standing side by side at a makeshift memorial they had put up for Obito, Rin would say that it felt like a part of her soul had died with him. She had mentioned before that their team felt like soulmates that were destined to be together. Always the three of them, from now until forever and that the fact that one was taken so early meant that the others would suffer all the rest of their lives.
Minato, who had arrived just after the cave had collapsed and taken both children home, was standing right next to them, pulling them both into his arms just like he’d always done with the three of them. From now on they would take care of each other, he said. They would stay close to one another. This was, after all, what Obito had wanted them to do.
-
Changes on our hands and on our faces,
Memories are mapped out by the lines we’ll trace
-
When he was 13 his voice cracked for the first time when he spoke and Rin mentioned off handedly that he was outgrowing her easily now. Kakashi couldn’t really see it, mostly because he did not like looking at mirrors and if he did always saw either his father or Obito staring back at him and so he wasn’t used to his own image. He didn’t realise that he was changing until his voice cracked all the time.
Rin was changing too, he could see that change much more clearly. Her hair grew out a little and her facial features became more refined, sharper in a way. The lines on her cheeks grew longer as her face grew and she started being more aware of the way she moved and the way she spoke. Teenage girls, Gai told Kakashi, were always self conscious, even though they need not be. But nobody ever needed to be self conscious if Gai were making the rules.
It was now only a matter of time until Minato-sensei would be named Hokage. The possibility had been in the air for many years, but now it seemed like the actual date would approach within the next year. Rin and Kakashi were excited to hear that and Kakashi especially knew that Minato would be a good choice. The war was still going on outside of village bounds and Kakashi had gone back to leading missions that were no failures, though the memory of that first mission laid heavy on him.
The three of them visited Obito’s grave a lot. There still wasn’t an actual, full scale grave for him. His body had not been found after Minato had returned to the cave, so he couldn’t be burned according to Uchiha rituals. The higher ups in the village promised that they would build a memorial stone with the names of all the fallen once the war was winding down, but it seemed like that would still take some time, so the team kept their makeshift shrine up.
They would always talk to Obito about their missions. Kakashi knew rationally that talking to a dead person was useless, as evident from the many conversations he had had with his father at that grave, but Rin was at ease and smiling just like she had before when she was around Obito’s grave and so he indulged her. Keeping her safe and happy was Kakashi’s only responsibility now and he took it very seriously. Obito was not to worry.
Gai joined their three man squad on missions together and that was great, because Gai had an endless amount of energy to keep them both up to spirits. Kakashi noticed that Rin always smiled a little more genuine when Gai was around to compliment her skills and her soft spoken nature and Rin noticed that Kakashi could not shut out Gai’s aggressive advances for spars or other challenges. He was good for both of them and that showed when they went on missions together.
With Kakashi a Jounin that could technically lead the squad, Minato was often assigned more dangerous missions that he did on his own. Still, he did sometimes find time to train each of them individually. Kakashi needed more training to adapt to one of his eyes being covered and needed instruction in how the sharingan worked. Not that Minato knew this very well on his own, but books helped out. He also sometimes dropped by at the house of the clan leader of the Uchiha’s, Fugaku, whom he was friends with. This might also be the reason that Kakashi could keep his eye in the first place. Kakashi figured as much at least.
In her freetime Rin hung out with Shizune a lot, a girl her age, who never really liked talking to Kakashi much. Both of them were very fascinated by Shizune’s aunt, the legendary Sannin Tsunade and were dreaming of being taught in advanced medical ninjutsu from her. Kakashi remembered the Sannin from when he was young and connected it with his father being alive, so he really didn’t want to think of them too much. The last thing he needed was someone asking him how he was doing with pity in their eyes.
-
As you held me down you said:
-
Soon after Rin’s 14th birthday Kakashi and her found themselves back to back surrounded by enemies, while Gai was held by one of them. One of the attackers reached forward and grabbed Rin, faster than Kakashi could react. “Let’s see how well you can handle this,” he snickered and infused Rin’s arm with his own chakra. Chakra mixing wasn’t easy to take, especially to an untrained person, but Rin was unbothered. In fact, she could convert the foreign chakra to her own.
It was a gift, a skill she had been born with. Healers needed perfect chakra control to find and close injuries even in the depths of the human’s body, so it was not completely surprising that she had that gift, but it was something to be celebrated nonetheless. Eventually they fought their way out of the situation, with the opponent shinobi unfortunately being able to flee the scene, but as long as Rin was safe, that was all that mattered to Kakashi.
Now that Rin had this new speciality, so many options opened up for her, especially in the area of medical ninjutsu. Kakashi and her talked endlessly about it to Obito’s grave and discussed what the future might bring. It would now be undeniably of opportunity if she could train under Tsunade, since there was nobody out there with as much expertise.
“Let me try!” Kakashi said one day and offered his hands to Rin. He was really curious about how foreign chakra on his own felt.
Rin frowned a little and lifted a finger like a warning: “I don’t think that is a good idea. Normal people would just faint.”
Kakashi was adamant. He slowly had regained the confidence in his own skills both as a friend and as a leader. So Rin infused her chakra into his hands.
He fainted.
Once Minato invited them both over for dinner and his girlfriend Kushina-sensei was also present. Kakashi liked to see them both together as their positive energy was hard not to rub off on others. It was no secret that Kushina adored Obito above the others in the team, but she doted on all of them.
“You should open a hospital when you are older, y’know,” she said, waving a lentil around that made the others duck. “Give relief to the Konoha hospital which is already so full and overworked.” With war going on there just wasn’t enough capacity for all of the patients that needed treatment. Eventually, if peace time came around, it should all go back to normal. Kakashi was hoping that it was soon. Right now the hospital was very ineffective.
Minato scratched his head and then put his hand in Rin’s hair: “Whatever you will do, you will be excellent at it.” He smiled fatherly down on his two remaining students. “This new skill you have gained is going to change the future for all of us, I really believe that.
Rin beamed from the praise. Too used to being cast aside as “only” a healer and not a “real” fighter. Only a few people knew that medical ninjutsu actually was more draining to the body than most other jutsu types. The world just prefered a flashy hero who could hit shuriken into 10 different goals without looking. People just liked Kakashi’s arrogant way of fighting more than Rin’s selfless healing.
“I think Kushina should teach you from now on,” Minato said once they had all finished their food. Rin looked up and over to Kushina-sensei and found her as surprised as she was. “Kushina has knowledge about large amounts of chakra. I’m sure she can help you better than I ever could.” For some reason he winked at Kushina after saying that.
Kakashi hadn’t known that Kushina-sensei had large storages of chakra, but she had never directly trained him, so how could he have known. Kushina at least seemed excited at the prospect, as her three students had already moved on to other projects.
“I’ll make you as strong as the other girls!” she exclaimed. “Nobody will call you weak anymore, because that is just wrong, y’know!” Kakashi smiled beneath his mask, but frowned immediately again when he noticed Minato was looking at him.
Their teacher laughed a little to himself at the sudden change in Kakashi’s demeanour. Instead of calling him out, he filled everybody’s glas with sweet soda again. They had added a chair to the table, for Obito, Rin had said and so Minato had also filled a glass for him. If Obito was here, he would surely be proud of their ability to slowly move on from his death.
Minato lifted his glas: “To Rin’s bright future!” He smiled.
“ To the future ,” they all said in unison.
-
“I’ll see you in the future when we’re older
When we are full of stories to be told
-
There was so much blood everywhere.
“ Ka-kashi, ” Rin could barely get a word out.
He couldn't feel his hand. It was like it was a foreign object that was currently attached to his arm. The dangerous and heavy hand that was now pierced full through Rin’s chest and heart, leaving blood all over his harness and face. Everything had happened so quickly that he hadn’t even gotten a chance to realise what had been going on.
Rin stared at him, her eyes dead and far away as if she was looking at something in the distance. But Kakashi knew she wasn’t looking anywhere, because after the last coughed out words the last life that had been in her had left. She was only a corpse hanging on this foreign hand that was somehow attached to him.
She had cried before she died, tears still wet on her cheeks and visible. And then there was the blood. There was so much of it coming out of the hole that was now her lower body half, running and running, as if her body had not yet caught up with the fact that her heart had stopped beating. As if her body was still trying to keep the system working that was already broken beyond repair.
After their recent string of successful missions, Kakashi had thought he was safe from death. The war was clearly dying down, slowly, but surely and soon they’d have full peace. This should have never happened. Someone, somehow, had known that Rin had better chakra control than other kunoichi her age and abducted her on the way to her usual training session with Kushina-sensei. Kakashi was sent to chase her, get her back and though Kushina had insisted she’d join, Kakashi had set out on his own.
Maybe he had been wrong to do that, but Kushina was not as fast as he was because she was taller and heavier and so he had counted his chances higher if he just went alone. After all, his skills over the passing year had improved quite a lot. On top of that, Kakashi knew that Minato-sensei was in the area not far from here and could probably jump in the second he heard about their issues.
But Rin had been easy to find, maybe a little too easy. She was under genjutsu and needed quite a while to regain her memories. She had mentioned that there was something wrong with her, but she could not explain exactly what it was and it seemed that she could not fully remember. That was when they were suddenly attacked by opponents.
He had led the way forward into the forests of Fire country from Water country, crossing the border with ease and without much issues, just holding the opponents off. But Rin had slowed down and distrubed his fighting with a pulls to his sleeve more than once. There was something she had wanted to say, Kakashi realised now, but he didn’t have the mental capacity or time to let her speak.
Somehow, Rin seemed like she was hindering their return to Konoha, as if she didn’t want to return. Kakashi didn’t have time to ask and clarify, there were enemies in pursuit that needed defeating and while the look in her eyes was very similar to the look she usual carried when she was being stern and close to scolding him, he just didn’t have the time to listen to it right in this moment.
They reached a clearing together, out of the forest and into the open. It was worse for fighting but better for the chidori, as he could take on two or three enemies at once. Kakashi made sure through glances over his shoulder that Rin was still safe and unharmed where he had left her. Her eyes were on him whenever he looked for her and her hands were fists.
-
Cross my heart and hope to die
I’ll see you with your laughter lines.”
-
There had been so many enemies at once, it felt like they were circling him from all sides. Kakashi was jumping from one to the other, knocking them out because he couldn’t quite get the deathblow off, but they kept coming. There was dust in the air from constant movement and while he stayed in Rin’s general area, he at some point lost orientation to where he was exactly. Had he killed most of them already and new shinobi were coming in or had he missed the killing move and still the same people were fighting?
His chidori was fast and deadly, that was what he always used it for, why he liked using it so much, and he had not seen her, hadn’t noticed her body jumping in the air until his fake hand impaled her right through it, put her on a spike right in front of him. Rin must have jumped on her own somehow, there was no way he strayed from his path so much to accidentally hit her like this. No, it must have been deliberate. But, why ?
Kakashi pulled his arm out of the dead girl. His head was spinning violently and he could feel his stomach turn. He felt suddenly so very tired, as if someone had completely knocked him out. He staggered backwards and held one hand to his head, smearing blood all through his silver hair, and one hand to the stomach to prevent himself from throwing up on Rin’s body.
Rin lay still in front of him. She had fallen on her face to his feet. Kakashi looked at her through watering eyes and blurring vision. This was his fault, he thought. Another friend that he let die. He had done this - again . The pain crawled up his throat like a poison filling his mouth with a taste of iron and bitterness. He had thought they’d be safe. He had thought as long as they were together nothing bad could ever happen to them. Pain, so much pain, so much pain.
That was when his last reserves of power left him and he fell backwards, losing consciousness immediately.
Once he woke up, he was drowning in a sea of blood. It took Kakashi a moment to realise where he was, for the memory of Rin’s death to get back into his mind, but then he sat up, kunai in his hand like he was ready to continue fighting for his life. He didn’t know how long he’d been out.
Around him was a mountain of dead bodies. Face down in the water, bled out against the rocks, or impaled into something that looked like wooden spikes in the sky. Kakashi was full of blood from top to bottom. Who had killed all of these people? He looked around in a panic, but it took him just a quick scan to realise that he was completely alone.
“Who did this?!” he said out loud, as if there was a person hiding in the nearby forest who could hear him. “Who killed all these people?” There was no reaction from the dark trees ahead or the stone cliff behind.
Kakashi pulled himself up to his still shaking knees and took a step forward. Rin’s body was still there, though she was turned on her back now. Whoever had killed all the people here had closed her eyes and touched her face - and he had kept Kakashi alive by choice. It must have been a friend of Konoha, otherwise Kakashi could not explain it.
Rin was still when he picked her up to hold her in his arms. Her hair was stained and dirty and Kakashi went with his fingers through it to clean it out. Once she’d said that she loved him, but who could love someone like him who allowed soulmates like her to die and promises to be broken. The pain gribbed at Kakashi again and he screamed into the night.
That was when Minato arrived. Like a flash of sunlight on a rainy day he appeared in the clearing, his blue eyes wide in horror at the scene that unfolded in front of him. When he saw Kakashi with Rin’s body he took a leap towards him. “Sensei, I-” Kakashi started but Minato made “shh” and took the boy into his arms.
Minato led them back to Konoha after Rin had been sealed in a body scroll. It would take him days to get out of Kakashi what had happened that night and even more days to finally hear the truth that Rin had deliberately jumped in front of Kakashi’s lightning to kill herself. The second suicide of one of Kakashi’s loved ones. Minato remembered very well the little boy with the silver hair that had worked himself to exhaustion after his father had taken his life. The boy that had wanted no support from the village or his friends or someone like Minato and just soldiered through.
Back then Minato had decided not to force himself on the young boy. That Kakashi needed grieving time alone. But this time Minato knew he would not let that happen again. This was his last surviving student and he would protect that one all his life. This last child of his team would remain close, Minato would make sure Kakashi would no longer be sent on solo- missions. After all, they did say he’d be hokage soon.
-
Ashen faces in cold breeze
All the stories you will leave
-
After the ceremony that officially made Minato-sensei Hokage, he summoned Kakashi to the new office he had moved into. Since Rin’s death he had not been assigned any mission and was told to stay back to heal the bruises on his soul, as if a few months off really helped that. Instead it got the boy itching for something to do, left him alone with his thoughts one too many times. Kushina-sensei could only so often look after him, she had her own duties and Minato was busy getting ready for the transition in power.
“I want you to join my ANBU squad” Minato said and got no reaction from Kakashi. “You will be in the division that directly works under me and does tasks exclusively for me.” Some of ANBU worked directly for the Hokage, but most also did tasks decided by the council or elders of the village. Being an operative directly working with the Hokage had a higher kind of status. Kakashi knew he should have been grateful for the promotion, but he felt nothing. Instead he just nodded his head and left.
The ANBU compound was dark and closed off and they gave him his uniform without much question. The greys looked exactly like he felt and when he put the mask on his face he couldn’t help but feel relieved by it. He was Hound now and nothing else. Hound was nothing but one in a group of many operatives. Hatake Kakashi was no more.
He didn’t know what Minato-sensei had expected once Kakashi started going on ANBU missions, maybe he had hoped it would help him somehow to learn to rely on his strengths again, but Kakashi’s first few missions in his new squad turned out to be a disaster. It seemed like his body was functioning on auto-pilot, killing everything that was in his sight and an opponent. He had lost his rationality, one of his teammates whispered to another behind his back.
That was not the only thing he had lost. The lightning between his fingers now gave him severe panic attacks to the point that he could not control or use it anymore and even if he did, he was haunted by dreams of Rin’s dying body hanging on his arm at night. Sleep never let him rest. He walked around constantly exhausted. In those times, not even Gai could help him out of the slumb. Kakashi cut himself off from everyone.
They had finally put up a memorial stone for the people who died in the Third War. Kakashi alternated between it, to let his fingers run over Obito’s name, and Rin’s grave that was in the general graveyard. He would spend hours standing with his eyes looking at her name engraved in the white stone without saying much other than updating her on what was going on in his life. It was useless, of course, he still didn’t believe people in the afterlife could hear him, but Rin had been so happy to do this for Obito, so he needed to continue the tradition.
Sometimes when he visited her grave in the morning and returned in the evening the flowers he had left there were gone. He assumed that one of the other Noharas that wasn’t happy with the way her life had ended were taking them away after he placed them. That was only fair, after all, they did call him “Friend-Killer Kakashi” and they weren’t wrong.
“I will assign you a new task”, Minato said one day after calling Kakashi into the Hokage office again. The boy knew his ANBU squad had complained about him, about how uncooperative he apparently was, and they reminded him of the first team he had had way back when he graduated from the academy - before he was assigned to Team Minato.
“Kushina is pregnant,” Minato smiled and put his head to the side. This got the first genuine reaction out of Kakashi since Rin had died. “Really?” the boy replied in surprise.
Minato nodded slowly, his blond hair shining in the afternoon sun streaming in from the window: “I want you to be her personal guard for the time of pregnancy. Who knows who could want to harm the mother of the hokage’s child.” Secretly Minato hoped that Kakashi’s proximity to Kushina, her ever so warm and excited spirit, might help Kakashi find his humanity again.
The plan seemed to work for the most part. Kakashi eased into his new guardian role very quickly, enjoying the time he was spending in the sunlight of spring and then summer sitting on the window sill of their apartment. He could watch the two teachers spend time together, enjoy and celebrate every movement of their growing child and sometimes Kushina-sensei would pull him inside for a meal or so. He could get his mind off the past for a little bit.
Their child would have great parents, Kakashi thought one morning in autumn. It was almost time for the baby to come and Minato had mentioned that it would be a boy. With parents like them leading the next generation, the world would eventually become a better place. The war had ended over a year ago at this point and there had been no more fighting, even if pessimistic people had predicted so.
Kakashi calmed down, the wind in his hair did him well and soothed his soul. Maybe the future wouldn’t be too bad. Maybe.
-
I’ll see you in the future when we’re older
And we are full of stories to be told
-
The roar in the air was so loud that it made the earth beneath Kakashi’s feet shake. Gai and him were running side by side in a vain attempt to figure out what was happening. All around them people were running and screaming, a chaos of shinobi and civilians panicking as far as the eye could see. Whatever was tormenting the village was big and dangerous, the killing intent chilled Kakashi to the core.
They bumped head first into Asuma, who had been running from a different direction with Kurenai following on his trail. Asuma was the son of the former Hokage and often knew things that were going on in the village. He was breathing hard as he pulled Kakashi back onto his feet. “We need to leave the village”, he said and his voice sounded urget. “Orders from my Dad.”
“What is going on?” Kakashi asked as they started running towards the grand gates. Asuma threw a look over his shoulder as he pressed on forward. “The Kyuubi. It has somehow escaped from where it was sealed.” Another roar echoed over the rooftops of the village as if to confirm what Asuma was saying.
Kakashi suddenly remembered something and his feet slowed down on his own. “What are you doing, rival?” Gai asked in a little panic, pulling him by the arm.
“Sensei’s child will be born today - was born today. I need to make sure he and Kushina are safe”, he felt his fingers shake, his head spinning. Someone needed to do something. He turned on his heels ready to get back into the village when Asuma pulled him by the sleeve. “You can’t go”, he said and furrowed a brow. “We are not allowed to assist in the fighting. That is the order.”
Kakashi had not met Asuma as someone who would be sticking up for the rules so this change in attitude shocked him a little. Was it really that serious? He looked the other boy into the dark eyes: “Why? Why can’t I, a Jounin mind you, go back and assist in the fighting?”
It was another shinobi who replied. An older Yamanaka that Kakashi recognised as Inochi: “Because young people like you are the future of this village and we have lost too many of you in the war. Now go and make sure to evacuate all the civilians you can find that need assistance. This is not your fight.”
Asuma pulled him by the arm on one side and Gai pulled him on the other and so Kakashi turned around and left the village with them. He thought about whether it was worth it to break the rules here and go back to help out. There was so much chaos around them that it wouldn’t even be too hard to slip away and even if he would be punished later as long as he made sure everyone was safe now, then it wasn’t too bad to be yelled at the next day.
“Rival,” Gai said next to him and looked at him as if he had seen right through Kakashi’s trail of thoughts. “Don’t go back, Rival. I’m sure Lord Fourth is taking care of it. He is a strong shinobi who will protect himself and his family.” A pause, then: “I don’t want you to go on any more suicide missions.”
Kakashi remembered now that Gai had seen him during the early days with his ANBU squad, that he had reported to the Hokage that Kakashi had trouble still with the trauma he had lived through. Gai had meant well then and meant well now, but Kakashi could not help the resentment anyway. If he were to die by saving Kushina or Minato-sensei, it would be all worth it.
Still, Gai kept pulling him, just like he always had back when Rin was still alive and so Kakashi let himself get lead out of the village with all the other shinobi under 16 and all he could do was hope that what he had said was true, that Minato was handling the situation well on his own.
“You’re the only one left”, he thought like a pleading young child, “Please..”
-
Cross my heart and hope to die
I’ll see you with your laughter lines.
-
It took hours before they were allowed to return to the village. Hours in which they heard nothing but screamed curses, the roar of the beast and collapsing houses. Kakashi was nervous, but Gai was the one pacing up and down in front of him. He was talking nonstop which made it impossible for Kakashi to form a cohesive thought. Maybe that was Gai’s goal in the first place, Kakashi thought much later.
As soon as they had the opportunity to return, Kakashi ran forward as fast as his feet could carry him. Sometime the Kyuubi had disappeared from the centre of the village and his roars had suddenly been audible from another place outside of it. Minato must have taken it somewhere, Kakashi deduced. Blindly he followed the destruction in the direction he thought the beast must have gone and when more and more older shinobi and ANBU also went that way he realised he was going the right way.
He knew something had gone wrong when he approached the scene more closely. There were so many people standing in a circle around three people on the ground. Kakashi slipped through bushes unseen and got to have a closer look. He saw the baby first. A blond boy, laying on his back on a little bed, was crying. Kakashi felt relief washing over him knowing that their son was safe and breathing.
Then his eyes moved over to the left because another head of blond hair caught his eye. There was Minato-sensei, laying on his back and thought Kakashi at first thought he could see him moving, he realised quickly that Minato’s body had been torn up through the middle, as if he had been impaled. Kakashi could feel his head spin and he needed to force himself to look away to not throw up. Rin appeared in front of his eyes as she hung dead and empty on his hand.
Almost inaudible, Kakashi could hear Kushina whisper to the shinobi that were around her. Lord Third was there talking and listening to her. Kakashi could not make out the words that were being exchanged but he knew that she wasn’t going to survive for much longer. He wished he hadn’t skipped all his medical ninjutsu classes, he wished Rin was here or Obito or anyone that could fix it all. Kushina’s head slumped forward and he knew that she too was gone.
The baby screamed when Lord Third picked him up and Kakashi also felt like screaming. They had told him and the other young shinobi that they had to stay out of the fighting to become the village’s future, but what future? If a baby like him, who had been so wanted and so loved before he was even born, had so much injustice happen to him on his first day in this world, what kind of world was this supposed to be? Why should a future for this world be necessary?
His head felt like it was splitting in half and he turned around to throw up.
-
I’ll see you in the future when we’re old.
-
For a long time, Kakashi did not go see the graves of all of them. After the funeral he decided to move into the shinobi apartments near the ANBU headquarters and away from his family home in the woods. He dedicated himself to the work he had to do and tried his hardest to keep away from everything else. In those times, he hardly spoke with most of his school friends or even squad colleagues. He was mostly just on his own.
It was already deep winter, snow laying in high layers over the entire village, when he finally went to see the memorial, Rin’s grave and the grave of Minato sensei. It was already dark and the streets were completely deserted. His steps left footprints behind in the fresh snow as he walked over the graveyard to see all of them. He left a single flower for Rin, another for Obito and then made his way to where Minato was buried.
The memorial stone was larger than others and had his and Kushina’s name engraved next to the leaf and uzumaki symbol. It was tasteful and beautifully crafted and Kakashi commended whoever made that decision. He ran his fingers over Minato’s name and bit his shaking lip. It was the first time in a long time he allowed himself to feel the pain he had been harbouring since october.
Kakashi’s knees suddenly gave in and he fell forward in the snow, his hands in fists punching around him. He couldn’t stop the tears from falling down, not like he had for weeks on end now and so he just sat there and cried for hours waiting for the tears to stop, but they just kept coming.
“How am I supposed to do this alone?” he sobbed, hands grabbing fists full of cold snow, “Sensei, I need your guidance.” But he had always known that talking to a gravestone meant nothing, that it changed nothing, and so his teacher did not reply to his pleas.
At some point he just repeated himself, his mind spinning. “We were supposed to be together. We were supposed to always always be together. We were soulmates. ” Why was the world so cruel to all of them? What made Kakashi so special that he was the only one who still had to live on?
The cries suddenly came to a stop when he was suddenly aware that there was someone not far from him, watching. He was sure he could hear someone breathing deeply and when Kakashi turned his head, someone turned a corner. He was embarrassed to have been watched this way, even when he had come in the dead of night. So he got up and pushed the snow off his clothes and went to his new home. He didn’t cry for years after that.
For a long while he only exited his apartment with his ANBU mask on, trying to disappear behind the anonymity of it. To him, Hatake Kakashi had fully ceased to exist the night Namikaze Minato died. He was dead and buried next to all of his other teammates. They were together in the world that came after death - if such a thing existed.
-
I’ll see you in the future when we’re old.
-
“I’m sorry, I’m too busy to come see you as often now,” Kakashi said apologetically and slouched with his hands in his sweats. “The kids need all the attention that I can muster and then I also need some sleep. Minato-sensei, were we also this exhausting? I can’t seem to recall.”
Kakashi was older now, he stood tall at his full grown body height (when he wasn’t crouching like he was now). The voice that had given him trouble for a few years had fully lost an octave or two and settled on a nice, dark vibrant sound that others complimented when they heard it. Eventually he had accepted Hatake Kakashi back into his consciousness and took off the mask and then eventually he had also given up the ANBU greys to let colour into his life again.
He had never stopped updating his teammates at their grave stones, though. This habit that had essentially been started by Rin now was an integral part of his daily and weekly activity. When he found some free time he would go over to the graveyard to speak to them. It was soothing. Maybe that was why Rin had liked it so much. Over ten years had passed since Minato’s death.
Lately Kakashi had gotten his own genin team. Three young shinobi who seemed to be difficult troublemakers that he had to set straight. He wasn’t sure if he was ever that bad, though he could remember arguing with Obito a lot. He liked the kids, they kept him on his toes and their carefree, naive ways made him feel carefree and naive again sometimes. At least when they weren’t accidentally stumbling into missions above their rank.
“I will make sure that they can stay by each other’s side forever,” Kakashi said and meant it. He wasn’t going to let any of his closed ones die anymore. “I’ll give them the time together that we should have gotten.”
It seemed like an easy promise to give. Since the Kyuubi attack there had been no major danger to the village. The war was long gone and the peace treaties seemed to hold up. The villages got along surprisingly well and would soon host the Chunin exams together as a joint effort too. The children nowadays were growing up in unparalleled peace time and that was a gift Kakashi was very happy they had.
“Part of you is always with me”, he said, putting his hand on the blue of the memorial stone. He could count the scars on his own fingers as he moved them over the cold material of the stone. Closing his eyes for a second he heard his heart beating against his chest, felt the air moving in his hair and the sun shine onto his neck. He felt how alive he was. “I think that is what Rin meant when she called us soulmates all those years ago.”
He took the hand off the stone and opened his eyes to put a smile into them: “I can’t wait to see you again when I am older and tell you all about it.”