Chapter Text
Iruka can still remember how it felt. A giant, screaming fox demon and its nine lashing tails wailing above his head as he’s hunkered down and sobbing.
“I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want-!” He mumbled, hands folded over his ears.
“Umino-kun!” An ANBU shouts, waving his arms and attempting to get closer. He’s short for an ANBU; probably a younger agent about Iruka’s age. “Please! Come away from there!”
And leave them here alone? His mother would be alone, burned and blackened here by the bleached-white bones of his father. How could he do that to someone he loved? Why would he?
And how did he know there was only one demon? What if one of them dressed in ANBU’s uniform and left their face as the animal mask? Iruka didn’t want to die (as he’s already established).
“Please come out! Umino-kun! Please!”
“Demons!” Iruka sobbed, bloodshot eyes big and brown. “You’re all demons!” He felt a hand graze his shoulder and screamed, hands rising in a blaze of turquoise chakra to push his assailant away.
“Please.” The voice was sad and quiet. “Please come out.” Iruka’s eyes swiveled towards the low voice to see a boy his age tug off his ANBU mask, eyes a wide black-red and topped with a shock of brilliant white hair. “My name is Hatake Kakashi.” Iruka’s arm tingled, the letters on his forearm swapping and flipping into a name he suddenly knew with terrifying clarity. “Will you come with me to the other survivors?” Iruka stared up at him with wide eyes. It’s you. And you don’t even know.
Iruka slowly dropped a hand into his soulmate’s waiting palm. As he was ambled towards a group of children, he suddenly remembered part of why he’d gone twitchy earlier.
His Etch had become khaki. It was brown. He was Unwanted.
Kakashi didn’t want him.
Iruka let himself wilt against Kakashi’s side, allowing himself a few moments of achingly familiar warmth before he was pulled away.
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It was a little while after he had pulled the trickster boy from the corpses of his parents that Kakashi allowed himself to sleep.
His dreams were bleak and empty, a stark-white pristine landscape that was striking in the aftermath of the fox's destruction. He turned in a circle, trying uselessly to find a sign or landmark or something.
There was something a little ways away: it was a child, Kakashi observed; a boy most likely. Its face was deliberately blanked away, yet tears rolled down its cheeks from invisible eyes.
“You...” the boy wailed, hands fluttering about his face in a panic, “you didn't want me! You left me for that fox, and now everyone I love is dead!” He collapsed onto his knees, droplets streaming off his chin into a puddle on the floor.
Kakashi stumbled forward, feeling deja-vu in a sudden instant before pushing it away. His mouth opened to question the child but he found himself begging, “Please. Please, come here. Come to me.” Beside the boy a shadow began to form, a dull, lightless thing with pure white holes in its face that served as eyes. It didn't move or speak, but he felt its laugh echo. Unconsciously he flinched back, not noticing the boy's face twist at his movement.
“I knew it.” The whisper was quiet. “The great Hatake Kakashi couldn't stand the thought that he might be tied to a mere mortal. So he cast his mate away, leaving me with a big, brown Etch!” The boy stood, glaring venomously.
Kakashi shook his head frantically. “No! No, I didn't, I swear! I thought you'd died!”
The boy blinked, then frowned. “Don't lie to me! I'm smarter than you think. In fact, I bet I can hide from you without you ever finding me again! Bastard!” Kakashi gaped, hands outstretched.
And then the boy was gone.
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“Iruka, Iruka, Iruka. It's okay.” Genma rubbed his back and let the waking boy sob into his shirt.
“He didn't want me! My Etch, it's brown-!” Genma's breath sucked in and he grabbed Iruka's sleeve, prepared to pull it down and figure out who was the culprit. Iruka twitched away: even Unwanted Etches were private. “No.” Iruka whispered, tear trails drying from big, wide eyes, “Don't look.”
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