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Chapter Text

~木木木~

The Banquet Invitation

~木木木~

Kakashi watched, ready to jump in for support as his student attacked the man in the orange mask. The man just stood there, defenses wide open as Naruto lunged for him, wielding a rasengan. 

Naruto just…fell through him. As if he were a mirage, or a genjutsu.

Naruto crashed to the ground, then immediately got up to attack again. The masked man jumped down toward him, shouting in a high-pitched voice.

“You’re so full of yourself! Just what can a kid like you do?!”

Well, a kid like him could pulverize Akatsuki terrorists with rasen-shurikens. But that was beside the point, since Naruto couldn’t use that jutsu at the moment.

The masked man moved in a blur, kicking Naruto so that he crashed to the ground a second time. That kick proved he wasn’t an illusion. He had to be dodging using some kind of technique.

Kakashi’s team—comprised of his students Naruto and Sakura, his friend Tenzo, Sai, and the chunins from team eight—seemed just as confused as he was, since none of them moved to attack.

The man in the mask piped up. “Hmm? Are you guys analyzing my strength right now? You hidden leaf folks sure are clever. But for a newbie, I’m pretty good, don’t you think?” He giggled.

Tenzo spoke to Kakashi. “He dodged every one of Naruto’s attacks.”

“He’s toying with us. But what is he after?” Kakashi responded. The fact that he was stalling to keep them separated from Sasuke and Itachi was obvious. Could he be stalling for another reason? Was there an ambush on the way as well? If he could really slip through attacks, that would be a jutsu powerful enough to take on his team of eight ninjas easily. But he wasn’t attacking. Maybe it was some kind of an illusion after all, and he was not strong enough to take on all of them. 

No; even if it was an illusion, it was clearly a very effective one. Enough for all of them to be in serious danger.

The voice of the masked Akatsuki broke Kakashi’s train of thought. “Now what shall we play next, Hidden Leaf Folks?”

Naruto, ever the hothead, shouted back. “We don’t have time to waste on the likes of you!”

“All right everyone…let’s finish this quickly.” Kakashi glanced at his students and gave a nod.

Tenzo nodded as well. “We’ll go with Formation B, everyone.”

“Oh-ho-ho? Seems you’re serious. Well, I’d better get fired up!” The masked terrorist began doing stretches, of all things.

“You jerk!” growled Naruto, glaring at him. “Quit kidding around!”

Sakura moved in, steadying her teammate. “Naruto. Concentrate on the formation.”

“I know.”

She flung him high into the air. He hurtled up into the canopy of the forest, past the masked man. 

“Wow. That girl has some monster power!” He turned around to watch Naruto continue to fly upwards.

As soon as the man looked away, Kakashi and four others broke away and dashed into the distance, leaving Kiba, Naruto, and Sakura to keep the Akatsuki’s attention. He had to hope that those three had also realized how strong this man was, and would try to draw him off instead of risking their lives.

Kakashi leaped through the trees, putting as much distance between him and the skirmish behind him as he could. He had to reach Sasuke before—well, there were several different ways a fight against Itachi could go, and Kakashi didn’t like the thought of any of them.

He refocused on the present moment, and the strange Akatsuki member. He couldn’t remember the last time an opponent had made such a complete fool out of him. It was ironic, considering how the fellow made such a fool out of himself.

The sudden appearance of the fool in question signaled the failure of the attempted distraction.

“Sheesh!” squeaked the man. “You said you guys were all going to attack together. And I believed you!’

This man had to be aware just how much of an advantage he had over Kakashi’s team in both strength and morale. He combined his uncanny ability to slip through direct attacks with masterfully weaponized insolence, calling gibes, making himself look weaker than he was—most likely to goad the younger members of the team into attacking recklessly. Kakashi hoped they wouldn’t take the bait.

“Keep it up!” He reassured his team as they landed behind him, not taking his eyes off the Akatsuki for a moment. “Split up, and force your way through his defenses.”

Naruto, Sakura, Tenzo, and the rest all dashed off in different directions. Kakashi leaped over the masked man and bolted at top speed through the trees.

Surely he won’t be able to corral all eight of us, Kakashi thought. At least some of us should make it through to Sasuke and Itachi.

But would that be enough? Itachi was among the most powerful men he knew, and the masked fool…he very well might be just as powerful. The eight of them were already struggling to take him on when he was hardly trying. Somehow, Kakashi needed to find a way to permanently remove the masked Akatsuki from the situation as soon as possible.

The masked man popped up directly in front of him like a korok from a puzzle.

“TAG!! You’re It!” he shouted gleefully, slamming a hand to Kakashi’s chest.

Whatever jutsu the Akatsuki was about to unleash, Kakashi wanted no part of it. He panicked, throwing a tremendous amount of chakra into his legs and jumping back and upwards.

Unfortunately, the jutsu was already cast. A fissure in reality opened above his head and swallowed him up before he had time to react.

Kakashi felt his body and nothing else, not even air, but somehow he was still carried by the momentum of his jump. His view flashed from the green of the sunlit forest to dark teal and blue lights. It lasted for a split second, then total blackness ensued as he shot through something, still not having fully materialized, hurtling back and upwards.

Then, he felt the air again. Gravity took him instantly and he crashed to a floor of ice, sliding until he collided with a stony wall. Stunned, aching, and nauseous, he was slower than he’d have liked sitting up and rising to his feet.

He was in a series of crisscrossing tunnels encrusted in ice. Directly in front of him, stalagmites rose from the surface of a pool that somehow was not frozen like the rest of the landscape. Beyond it, a lantern hanging from the roof of the cave glowed with a soulful blue light. 

Kakashi approached slowly, stopping at the edge of the pool, looking down. Cracks scored the stone at the bottom of the pool, letting molten rock seep through. The heat from the magma must have prevented the water from freezing over. The surface of the water churned in a kind of reverse boil.

That looks like a strong undertow. I had better not go for a swim.

Kakashi’s legs felt abnormally strained. He felt…heavy. He attempted a jump, and barely went half the distance he had expected. This place…

Where had the masked man sent him? Kakashi had enough experience with the Tsukuyomi to be reasonably certain this was not a genjutsu. Perhaps the man’s dodges were some kind of transportation jutsu, and this was a heroic display of that transportation: he had been sent miles and miles away, to whatever bleak place the Akatsuki had chosen as their hideout. 

Whatever it was, it must have cost the man a lot of chakra. Kakashi hoped that that would give his friends a better chance against him. 

Thankfully, Kakashi did not need to swim the hot spring in order to progress. There was a branching tunnel just to the right that connected up with the main tunnel beyond the water.

He took that branch, keeping his eyes and ears open, careful to make no noise. 

He entered a large circular room carved entirely from the ice. There were archways directly in front of him, to the left, and to the right.

Something large was moving behind the left entryway. Kakashi crept toward it, then leaned out into the passage beyond.

Directly in front of him was a massive creature, several inches taller than Kakashi, so that it barely fit in the icy passageway. It stood on four thick legs, with gray fur, and its eyes were small and mean. Its great, horned square head was split by a toothed maw big enough to swallow him whole.

And it had seen him.

The thing bellowed, rushing at him, shaking the floor. Kakashi scrambled on the ice, struggling to gain his footing as he turned and ran in the direction he had come. He dashed out of the circle room and past the hot spring, then further into the tunnels behind.

He turned a corner to the left and hid, listening for sounds of pursuit. There were none.

Kakashi hoped that the sound of the creature’s bellow had not alerted the Akatsuki to his presence. This cave did not seem very lived-in, so it was possible that this was only the entrance to their base. Or perhaps he had just been sent straight to their version of a prison, to be sacrificed to that beast.

Wherever this was, it had some kind of jutsu that affected his mobility. He felt increasingly as if he was being crushed. He decided to infuse his entire body with chakra a little, which helped. 

To his left, Kakashi noticed an arch constructed of a dark brick. It was set high up on a stone shelf. He walked over to it, and barely saw over the top that there was an ornately carved stone door set further back on the shelf. Further to the left, there was a wall made of a strange, teal-black substance. Along the floor in front of that wall, Kakashi noticed, were gray stone plates. Pressure plates?

Kakashi put his hand up to the substance, taking care not to step on the plates. It reminded him of hardened tar, only thicker and smoother. It felt…alive. Something between sludge and plant, it was riddled with pulsing, bioluminescent spots.

Above the not-sludge was a wooden sign painted with glowing symbols. They looked strange to him, but somehow he could read them. “Exit,” they said.

He backed away several yards, and tossed a kunai at one of the plates. It triggered, and the door split in half vertically, retracting into the wall. 

Kakashi crept forward and stuck his head through the doorway. Directly beyond was a nasty drop, far enough that Kakashi could barely see the bottom in the darkness. He didn’t fancy falling that far, not with the enhanced gravity.

Retrieving his kunai, he turned back to the shelf, hoping to try his luck with the stone door. If he could climb up, that is.

He thought back to a simpler time, during his first days as a jōnin sensei, when he showed his students how to walk up trees using chakra. He had told them that of all the ways to infuse chakra, infusing it into the soles of the feet was the most difficult.

In ordinary circumstances, Kakashi would have been able to walk up this wall like it was nothing. But since it seemed that gravity itself was stronger here, infusing enough chakra into his feet to hold him up would be extremely difficult even for him.

He wandered around to the right side of the shelf, and decided to try jumping the distance. That too would require a tremendous amount of chakra, but it would be easier to infuse his legs than the soles of his feet.

Suddenly, the doors ground slowly open. He could hear a voice on the other side. 

He brandished his kunai and crouched, shrinking into the corner, out of line of sight of the entrance.

And waited.

~❅❅❅~

Etho passed through the stone doors, checking his Decked Out compass.

“Level Four! We’re going down…And I am 95% sure I know where the exit is now.”

He quickly looked to his left for ravagers—nothing—and then hopped down into the dungeon proper, making his way toward the campfire berry bush a little further into the twisting caverns.

“ꜱɴᴇᴀᴋ.” The dungeon announced the first played card from Etho's deck.

“Huh, that’s weird,” he remarked, one eye on his map. “My clank block didn’t show up.” Pulling up the in-game chat, he noticed that all the other hermits, including Tango’s alt account, had all logged off at once a few minutes ago.

“Guess this run is map-less, then. It’ll be a little inconvenient going to Level Four not knowing when I have clank block and treasure queued up, but I can still manage.”

He made his way around the corner and into the nook where the campfire and the berry bush sat. He bent down to pick the berries, but was interrupted by a cold touch to his neck and an unfamiliar voice.

“動かない.”

Etho nearly jumped out of his Minecraft skin. “WHOAA! What the—”

He glanced over his shoulder to see a near copy of himself. Just an armor stand, then.

Etho chuckled, picking the berries, then brushed away the knife that had been at his throat. “I gotta admit, Tango, that really got me. I think your custom audio got corrupted, though.”

He turned around and moved to walk past the figure, but was quickly cut off as it raised its knife again, adjusting its stance to face him. No armor stand could be animated with that level of sophistication. Did a hermit put on Etho’s skin?

“Nani yatsu…” the player said, staring at Etho’s face. “...what sort of fellow are you?”

Etho looked at the fellow more closely. His headband bore an odd swirled design instead of Etho’s own maple leaf, and it had been pulled down to cover his right eye. His left eye regarded Etho with distrust, but determination. His hair and jacket were both sharper than Etho’s own.

And the way he spoke…well, that was the strangest thing about him.

~▣▣▣~

Six Minutes Earlier

~▣▣▣~

primeGrumbot()=true;

bootloadBrain()=true;

floodMayoralReservoir()=true;

//Security breach detected. Running diagnostics on self and on server status.

//Analysis: Unauthorized dimensional rift.

//Scanning...

//Location of unknown rift ascertained to be Frost Ember Shop in Deepfrost Citadel. Unidentified player detected in the Frozen Crypt.

//Evacuating unaffected players. . .

//Unknown agent closing rift. Seizing control. . . 

//Stabilizing. . .

//Stabilizing. . .

//Rift stabilized. Will remain open until unidentified player(s) are dealt with. 

//Engaging security protocol to prevent further intrusion.

AdminFxnOverride UserXisumavoid set = GrumbotPrime;

Set gamemode()=hardcore;

//Launching missive detailing instructions for return of foreign player.

~❅❅❅~

“There’s no way you’re actually Kakashi,” said the strange shinobi.

ᴍᴏᴍᴇɴᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴄʟᴀʀɪᴛʏ. The surrounding caves echoed with the words. The loud voice didn’t make Kakashi jump this time as it had before. He kept his kunai steady against the man’s neck, but stayed alert in case the owner of the voice attacked from behind.

“Answer my question,” Kakashi demanded. “Who are you? You’re dressed like a Hidden Leaf shinobi, but I’ve never seen anyone with that symbol on his headband.” Nor someone who looks so much like me. Complete with a transplanted sharingan. If it even can be a sharingan, since it has no tomoe.

“I’m Etho,” came the reply. “And you don’t seem like you should be here! You don't have a player nametag. You don't even seem like a Minecraft player. What I don’t understand is… a lot of things, but especially: what you say sounds like Japanese, but I understand it in English. I don't even know where to start with you.”

“First: what do you know about the Akatsuki?”

“If Dawn is like an enemy or something, you don't need to worry about that. But seriously—”

The strange shinobi cut off, looking down, seeming to focus on something that Kakashi couldn’t see.

“‘Your gamemode was set to hardcore by an administrator.’ This is getting weirder and weirder. Normally you can't change a world to hardcore once it's been created…”

Kakashi finally lowered his kunai from the man's—Etho's—neck. He kept his guard up despite the fact that Etho didn't seem to consider him an enemy.

Kakashi knew better than to assume Etho wouldn’t attack. Plenty of shinobi hid deadly skill or hostility behind a mask of flippancy; the masked Akatsuki member was the third example of this Kakashi had met, after Gai and Naruto. The fact that Etho had heard of the Copy Ninja, but seemingly felt no need to keep up his guard…it could imply hidden strength.

Another reason to be wary was Etho's appearance. Granted, plenty of clans in the Land of Fire had white hair, and it wasn't unheard of for some to possess red eyes. Kurenai Yuhi's eyes were red, for example. Etho's left eye didn't even have any tomoe, and he didn't cover it like Kakashi did his. Still, there were too many shared characteristics—same general clothing, same scar, same heterochromia—for this to be a coincidence. He wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a terrible one.

Suddenly, Kakashi's mind was flooded with information. At the same instant, Etho exclaimed in shock. Concepts crowded into Kakashi’s mind like hundreds of Naruto clones fighting for a seat at Ichiraku. He scrambled to parse the information about this place…this dungeon. This wasn’t an Akatsuki hideout. It was a game.

The portal Kakashi had come through had opened in the shop at the end of the game, directly behind Etho as he was about to jump into the darkness. That shop was now sealed behind a locked door, only accessible once an artifact hidden deep within the dungeon was sacrificed to it. If he wanted to escape, he and Etho would need to work together to retrieve that artifact first. And since the game was set to hardcore to prevent Kakashi from respawning at world spawn and infiltrating this world further, they would need to do it without dying.

“Grumbot can whisper us?” Etho rubbed his chin. “I hate to put a hold on our conversation, but I'm going to need a minute to read this.”

Kakashi needed time to process this himself. He subtly positioned himself closer to the entrance of the dead end.

At length, Etho finished thinking. “This makes a lot more sense,” he said to himself. He looked up at Kakashi. “I know exactly what this is,” he announced.

“I didn't drink enough coffee this morning! I’ve got to be asleep at my desk. I gotta admit though, this is a cool dream.

“Come on, Kakashi! I'll help you, but I’ll need your help, too. Both of us need that artifact to escape this dungeon, and I have only been to Level Four once before. We both have the best chances of success if you help. You're a cool ninja, right? I can't die and bail you out with my pickaxe, since the world is hardcore now, but I can help you navigate the dungeon with my experience. And you can help me dodge the wardens with your ninja powers. We've probably wasted a lot of my cards while we were sitting here chatting, but we can still make this. Follow me closely.”

Chapter Text

~❅❅❅~

The Frozen Crypt

~❅❅❅~

Etho started down the tunnel leading to the circle room. This was going to be a lot of fun. He hadn’t watched Naruto in quite a while, so he couldn’t remember a lot about Kakashi or his abilities, but he was pretty sure he remembered him being a chill guy.

“Hold on,” Kakashi called after Etho. “There’s a monster in that direction. Since I’m the new guy here, I’ll ask: what is the plan to kill it?”

“You’re not really supposed to. Those guys are all over the place here, but they’re pretty easy to dodge if you know your surroundings, and they lose aggro pretty quickly once you break line of sight.

“Also, I should explain: if we make too much noise, like eating or running, that will cause clank. Once we reach max clank, the spirits of the dungeon come out and make things a whole lot more difficult for both of us. So, move as I do.”

Etho adopted a running crouch, continuing down the hallway, and Kakashi did likewise. They rounded the circle room, and as they passed the northern entrance Etho noted that there was indeed a ravager inside. They made it around the room and swung down to the south side without catching its attention. Etho took the slope on the right, making for the berry bush by the berry-eating creek.

“The first thing we need to do,” he explained to Kakashi, “Is collect berries and look for a key to the second level. Oh, that’s something I should check, actually.”

He crouched by the bush, making sure to stand as close as he could without pricking himself so that the berries wouldn’t fall into the creek and get swept under the wall. He picked one of the berries and handed it to Kakashi.

“What happens if you eat one of these?”

Kakashi took it, and slipped it under his mask in a flash. A look of surprise crossed his face. Or, well, his right eye at least.

“I hit my head after sliding on the ice. The headache isn’t nearly so bad now, and I feel less tired.”

Etho gave him the rest of the berries. “Eat these one at a time until you’re at max health. Now you see why collecting these is so important. That way if we get hit by a ravager, we can potentially heal back up to full.”

ɴɪᴍʙʟᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴛɪɴɢ, announced the dungeon. 

“What is that voice?” Kakashi inquired, trailing Etho as they made their way to the side entrance of the Crypt. There was a berry bush there he wanted to grab.

“That tells me the name of the cards I’ve played. Basically, what power-ups are being added to the dungeon. Some cards trigger treasure drops, like this last card. That will help us find our key—ohh, snap, that’s a ravager.”

He turned on his heels and sprinted back the way he had come, then took them down a different tunnel. The ravager stumped after them for a little, then gave up, letting them continue further toward the side entrance. A shrieker went off, having detected the noise Etho and Kakashi had made when they stopped sneaking.

“Those,” Etho explained, “Are hidden sensors scattered around the dungeon. If you set them off, and you don’t have any clank block queued up, they’ll raise your clank level. I know the locations of many of them, but you really can’t avoid setting all of them off. With two people in the dungeon making noise, we’ll probably hit max clank by the time we head out.”

They reached the end of the ice tunnels, the room with the chasm in the floor and the entrance to the crypt. Etho hopped across the chasm to the left, and grabbed the berries. Kakashi jumped the chasm as well, and walked toward the narrow archway, peering into the crypt.

The door slammed in his face. 

“Aw, come on!” Etho cried, laughing. “Etho mode applies to you too? That’s so unfair, I wanted to go that way.”

Kakashi pried at the ice door with his fingers, but it didn’t budge. It looked just like part of the wall now.

“Hazard doors like that will continue to close the more time we spend here,” said Etho. “And so it becomes harder to dodge ravagers, since the paths you’d have taken to dodge them are sealed off.”

He led them back the way they had come.

“So, how is, uh, Naruto?” Etho asked as they dodged the same ravager that they had a minute earlier.

That seemed to catch Kakashi off guard. “How do you know? Why do you ask?”

“Where I come from, we have a TV show about him. It’s like a story that you watch. What I’m wearing right now, it’s like a costume of you from that show.”

“A fan of me, then?”

“Not exactly; I picked it because I liked the design. But people keep saying how fitting it is that I wear it and stuff and I wound up keeping it.”

~❅❅❅~

Kakashi stayed mostly silent as he followed Etho around the dungeon. The man kept up a steady commentary, making observations to Kakashi, explaining his thought process, reacting to their situation. Kakashi didn't mind, he just found it odd that anyone on a mission like this was able to make conversation. When maneuvering around dangerous beasts, surely even Gai and Naruto wouldn't be in a state of mind to crack jokes or give many instructions. Etho, though, moved expertly and efficiently through the dungeon, with mental energy to spare for conversation.

They grabbed some more berries in the ice caves past a room filled with explosives, and then traveled down some stairs into a large room with red candles suspended in the air. There was no snow and ice here. The gray and black stone walls were lined with bookcases, and a large table sat in the middle of the room. Clusters of small gold pieces, some round, some stamped in the shape of a crown, were scattered across the floor.

“There’s so much treasure!” Etho exclaimed, eyes glowing. “All that standing around at the beginning of the run let all that treasure queue up. Could you imagine if Bounding Strides played right now?”

ʙᴏᴜɴᴅɪɴɢ ꜱᴛʀɪᴅᴇꜱ, the dungeon said.

“Oh, that’s so nice! Now we can get our berries, and our key…” 

Kakashi felt gravity’s hold on him diminish considerably. Instinctively, he lessened the amount of chakra he’d been infusing throughout his body.

Etho walked to a ledge embedded in the wall, fully as tall as he was, and hopped up delightedly with barely an effort. There were two berry bushes in the nook at the top, which Etho harvested. Kakashi tried the jump himself, and was surprised at how easy it was. 

Etho pressed a button on the wall, and a golden key popped up out of the floor somehow. He scooped it up, then hopped off the shelf and made his way to the other side of the room.

“Sounds like there’s a ravager on the right staircase,” he said absently, then banked to the left.

Kakashi followed Etho up a stairwell on the left which opened into a large atrium made from stone. At the far side of the atrium lay a grand entryway, which framed the snowy caverns beyond in a picturesque way. Kakashi remembered the room it led to; it was a room with icy trees and a creek Etho had called “the River of Souls.”

To the left and right of the entryway were the beginnings of staircases, which climbed up to the second floor above their heads. They ran up the staircase on their left, only to be met face to face with a ravager blocking their path. 

Etho turned to Kakashi with a twinkle in his eye. “Want to see a trick?” he said, then stepped directly in front of the ravager and called out to it. “You’re clogging up the entrance! Go to your room!” He stepped backwards on the stairs a few steps.

Obediently, the ravager lowered its head and trundled into a doorway on their right, leaving their pathway open. Etho looked at Kakashi to see his reaction to the trick.

“Ahhh,” he said graciously. “You’re even better at genjutsu than Naruto.”

“Whoa, better than the protagonist, even?” Etho smiled, then paused. “—What’s a genjutsu? That word didn’t translate for some reason.”

 Etho dashed past the right hand doorway before the ravager could catch aggro, and Kakashi did likewise.

“An illusory technique. Like the one you put on the ravager, making it imagine something it wanted in the side room.”

“That’s not what I did. It’s just a quirk with their pathfinding that I exploited.”

Kakashi thought he had seen a red flicker in Etho’s sharingan while taunting the ravager, but he let the matter drop.

The area at the top of the stairs was much warmer than the rest of the dungeon. The two men passed through a series of rooms and hallways lined with graves and sepulchres. 

“I want to get to level 2 before Bounding Strides runs out,” Etho mused, "But we really do need berries enough for two people…let’s get the berries.”

They entered a hall with wells of lava embedded in the floor, and a berry bush at the far end. Etho ran to the end for the berries, while Kakashi waited at the entrance for him.

Etho picked something off the ground. “What is that, double pumpkin…triple pumpkin?! I gotta bake me a pie, oh my goodness. We should probably try and turn those in, actually. We might need the pork chops.”

Kakashi was conflicted. He appreciated Etho’s calm but cheerful commentary, but it was overshadowed by anxiety for his friends.

Hidden Leaf intel had said that Akatsuki members usually traveled in pairs. What if the masked man had an ally and they were both ganging up on his team? His friends were out there, fighting, possibly dying, and he was stuck here collecting berries. He sighed.

More than worried, Kakashi felt guilty. It had been his idea to split up the team in the hopes of sneaking past the masked man. But that had played right into the enemy’s plans. The masked man had clearly wanted to separate him from his team—that was why he had spent so much chakra to send him here.

Kakashi had to reverse the transportation jutsu as quickly as possible. And he had to conserve every ounce of chakra that he could, so that he could save his friends when he arrived back in his own world.

Etho led him further into the crypt, toward a room in the back which he said had more berries. As they walked, Kakashi decided to try something.

Robot, he thought. Can you hear me?

A thought pried its way into Kakashi’s mind.

Grumbot.

You said you took control of the rift, holding it open. Can you see into my world?

Yes. Your world has no Mumbo. He cannot become mayor. Your world is of no interest to me.

Well—it’s not like your world is terribly interesting to me, either… Can you see a shinobi in an orange mask? Is he fighting my team?

He is playing whack a mole with them. He is the mole. Your friends see a copy of you he made. A multicolored man stayed to try and close the rift. He is less strong than I am. He is too afraid to come through.

So the masked man was playing the route of deception rather than all out attack. His goal was probably to prevent his team from discovering his absence for as long as possible, for fear they would come back and attack Zetsu. The fact he was taking these measures meant he feared they could gain the upper hand if they came back. That took a considerable weight off Kakashi. With any luck, they would figure out that the doppelganger of Kakashi—likely a transformed shadow clone—was a fake, and start looking for him.

During his conversation with Grumbot, he and Etho had picked up the final set of berries and made their way into a spacious room lined with columns. They stood at the back of the room, in front of a stone statue of a kneeling man. 

Etho took out the golden key he had collected earlier, and dropped it at the statue’s feet. A tune played, and doors on either side of the statue opened.

“Level Two!” he smiled.

Chapter Text

~⛰⛰⛰~

The Caves of Carnage

~⛰⛰⛰~

Kakashi hadn’t been subject to another’s leadership on a mission since he was a child.

Even then, he’d pushed to take the lead as much as possible, sometimes to the detriment of his team. He had grown past that, but as he followed Etho down the stairs, he still couldn’t help but feel like he should be doing more.

“Do you think we would find the next key faster if we split up?” Kakashi asked.

“The thing with splitting up is that you don’t have a lot of map knowledge,” Etho explained. “It’s hard to dodge ravagers unless you know where to go. Besides, you wouldn’t know where to meet back up with me.”

He considered. “Though, it would probably be a good idea to split up once we reach the ship area. As long as—ohh this isn’t good.” Etho stopped short at the bottom of the stairs, looking out into Level 2.

Kakashi stepped down and saw a long cave, the far end of which was brightly lit by a network of lava pools, casting orange light onto red walls. The near end of the cave was a circular atrium with a pillar in the center. Two paths split off from the atrium to the left: a wide empty slope, and a passage overgrown with mushroom trees.

No less than four ravagers were visible from where they stood. Two had been loitering around the pillar until they caught sight of Kakashi and Etho and rushed over. Thankfully the doorway was too small for them to fit through. The other two ravagers lumbered around in the area with the lava.

“Tango, this game is rigged!” Etho exclaimed. “I guess we can try another mind trick…You’ve got to stand out of line of their sight. That’s how they track you.”

Kakashi retreated with Etho a little way up the stairs, cutting off sight of the ravagers. They waited a little until Etho guessed they had lost aggro, then ran out the door.

And of course, the ravagers were still right in the way.

The two shinobi skidded to a halt, then bolted back to the safety of the stairway.

“Well—I’ll deal with them,” Kakashi said.

He lifted his headband, exposing his left eye. It glowed red in the dim light.

Kakashi turned toward the growling ravagers, who were pushing against each other in their eagerness to reach them through the doorway. He leveled a calm, unyielding gaze at them, spinning the tomoe of his sharingan. They soon lowered their eyes, turning away. One of them started bouncing idiotically.

“Ikuzo. Let’s go,” Kakashi commanded, pulling his headband back down.

Etho started down the mushroom path. “That is so cool.”

Kakashi ignored the compliment and followed. “You were going to tell me about the ship area.”

They wove their way through a grove of mushroom trees, jumping over the occasional ditch.

“Once we drop off the pumpkins, there’ll be a lake with a bunch of coves that are good for finding keys. You’ll need to watch out for One-Eyed Wille. He’s a drowned that lives in the lake and will throw tridents at you as soon as you touch the water. He throws very far and accurately, so you have to swim perpendicular to him as much as you can.”

“I haven’t been killing the ravagers because they’re easy to avoid, and I want to save my chakra for when it matters. But should I kill that guy?”

“Hmmm…Doesn’t matter in a dream, I guess. If you get a good opportunity, sure, but if you swim that close to him he might get a good few hits on you. He gets more dangerous and attacks on sight at night, so if you can kill him it might make our return trip a little easier. Here.”

Etho passed Kakashi a small handful of berries, as well as the three tiny pumpkins he had picked up.

“Eat the berries if Willie hits you. Put the pumpkins in the barrel in the house over there while I get these berries.” Etho pointed.

Ahead, the mushroom cave split into four ways. On the right, there was a mossy path. Directly ahead was a chasm, with some tall, thick-leaved vines growing up. To its left was a grotto overgrown with purple crystals. And to the left of that was where Etho was pointing—a cavern with an overgrown wood house sitting inside. Jack-o’-lanterns were scattered around it.

No sooner had Kakashi set foot in the cavern than an eerie melody split his eardrums. He started a little, but quickly regained his composure and continued to walk forward.

Etho chuckled. “Did that make you jump?”

Kakashi glanced over his shoulder and adopted a lazy expression, eye half closed. “Hm? Did you say something?”

“No, no, no, I know you heard me. Don’t you pretend to be all cool and stuff, I caught you.”

Kakashi regarded him flatly. The act usually worked. Even his students normally would gripe at him a little and then drop the joke.

Etho continued to chuckle with an insufferable twinkle in his voice. Kakashi tossed a mushroom at him, but it fell short. Darn gravity.

“Ah, you missed!”

The next mushroom hit Etho between the eyes.

“Ouch,” he exclaimed, but kept grinning.

Kakashi found the barrel inside the house just as Etho had described. He dropped the pumpkins inside it, one after the other.

More sound effects played, along with some clicking noises outside the front door.

“Mm,” Etho said from the direction of the amethyst grotto. “Sounds like we got some clank, but some good stuff too. Any pork chops?”

“One,” Kakashi told him. “As well as a crown.”

“Ah, I was hoping for a key,” Etho said, strolling up. “No key in the amethyst room, either. We really need a treasure card to play now. Anyway. How about you hold on to the pork chop and give me back like two of the berries I gave you.”

Kakashi complied.

“All right,” Etho continued, “Let’s take a look at the dripleaf parkour…and we’ve got hard parkour, noo! We’re going to have to do this one at a time, since the leaves tilt down when someone stands on them. I’ll go first and show you.”

At the bottom of the chasm before them were sharp stalagmites. The thick vines grew up from the bottom of the pit, each with a single large leaf at the top. On the other side of the pit, the cave opened up a great deal, and Kakashi could see the lake and the ship Etho had mentioned.

Kakashi raised his forehead protector and watched as Etho hopped onto one of the broad leaves. It began to droop under his weight, but he leaped to the next one.

ʟᴏᴏᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴄᴏᴏᴛ. 

Etho promptly tripped and fell into the pit.

Kakashi knelt down to watch as Etho scrambled to escape something fast and purple that nipped at his heels.

“Loot and Scoot!” he said in dismay. “My favorite card…turned against me…”

“Yare yare,” sighed Kakashi. So much for copying his taijutsu with my sharingan.

“Look, I would have done it just fine if Loot and Scoot hadn’t messed me up.”

“Hai-hai. Sure. Sure,” Kakashi said, watching Etho get knocked around by the whatever-it-was. He finally succeeded in grabbing a vine at the side of the cave and climbing it. He balanced on a small ledge in the rock wall, at the level of the dripleaves.

“I guess I can’t complain, since at least we have a treasure card now.” He pulled out a few berries and ate them.

Kakashi jumped to the first dripleaf, having successfully copied that move with his sharingan. He felt like performing the jump gave him a better sense of how to move in the increased gravity. He leaped for the second leaf, but narrowly missed it.

He landed on the floor in a crouch, then dove for the vine by the wall as the purple crustacean thing scuttled toward him.

“See? It’s not that easy.”

Kakashi climbed up beside Etho, who still stood on the ledge in the wall.

“I think the gravity here is different from my world. If you go first, I can copy your movements.”

Etho’s eyes lit up in understanding. “Oh, so that’s where the nickname comes from? That’s really cool.”

I suppose it is. He put a hand to his left eye.

“All right, here goes.” Etho hopped to the dripleaf in front of them, then to the next. 

Kakashi waited until the leaves reset, then performed the same series of jumps. Now, they stood in a giant domed cavern, on a stone beach of a still lake. At the center of the lake was the ship, red and brown and richly carved, driven aground on some rocks. Thin waterfalls flowed down from the walls and ceiling.

“Looks like we have daytime Willie…do you see him? He’s right there.” Etho pointed toward a bluish-green figure clad in brown, standing at the bottom of the lake several meters in front of them. He clutched a turquoise trident.

“Tell you what. I have more experience dodging him, so I’ll jump in first and check the coves on the far side of the ship. You stay on this side. You can check all the coves over here without hardly touching the water. Once Willie chases me to the far side of the ship, you can try and swim over and climb on the ship itself if we haven’t found a key by then.”

Kakashi nodded. Etho jumped into the water and swam as fast as he could to the left.

As Kakashi made his way around the right edge of the lake, he kept one eye on Etho.

The drowned trailed after him, launching his trident, but Etho swerved to avoid it. A new one appeared in Willie’s hand a split second later. He threw more and more, one after the other.

Try as he might, he couldn’t hit Etho, who kept up his serpentine maneuver until the two disappeared behind the ship.

ʙᴏᴜɴᴅɪɴɢ ꜱᴛʀɪᴅᴇꜱ. The gravitational pressure abated for the second time that day, and Kakashi welcomed the relief.

However, the cavern possessed an echo, and he could hear Etho worrying aloud to himself about the upcoming levels. It turned out that there was only one more Bounding Strides card in the deck, and they might need it on one of the lower levels.

Time passed, and the two checked and re-checked the coves around the lake for keys. Eventually, Kakashi swam to the ship and climbed up the side. 

In the hold, along with several coins and crowns, he found a triangular key of cast iron.

“I found one,” he called to Etho, who knelt by a berry bush in one of the coves.

“Nice nice!” Etho dove into the lake. “Stay on the ship, but when I get out of the water, jump off and follow me. Make sure you move as quickly as possible and keep running once you hit land. There’s a skeleton that will shoot you until you get out of line of sight.”

Kakashi walked along the side of the ship, trailing Etho as he evaded the barrage of tridents. At length, he climbed out of the water and dashed into a passageway.

Kakashi jumped off the port bow into the water, swimming to shore urgently before a trident could hit him. He took off after Etho further into the caverns, but something slammed into his shoulder and he grunted in pain. His legs felt unnaturally sluggish, and he stumbled down the passage.

Etho stood at a copper door framed in black. A dim blue lantern sat on a barrel, and a teal wooden sign bore the words “The Black Mines. Condemned.”

He regarded the arrow sprouting from Kakashi’s shoulder. “I see he got you. Let’s save the pork chop for later. You can eat these.”

He passed over a few berries. “Why don’t you eat one, and then I’ll pull it out. Hurts less that way.”

Five berries and one arrow extraction later, Kakashi surrendered the key to Etho. He put it in the barrel under the lantern.

The copper door slid open, revealing a stairway into darkness.