Chapter Text
Blue.
The screeching of a thousand birds surrounds Kakashi, his hand buried deep in Rin's chest, through her decimated heart, and blood dribbles down her chin in a way that completes the picture of devastation on her face. Proud Rin, dangerous Rin, reduced to a weak, strangled cry of his name.
All he can think about is that the entire memory is stained blue.
He jolts awake, limbs trembling and tense where he's still laid on his futon drenched in his own sweat. His mind takes a moment to catch up with him, for half a second wondering if he hadn't cleaned up after a mission.
(For some reason, the flash of an ANBU mask accompanies the thought. Kakashi doesn't have the time to think about it, because it's as soon as he registers it that the contents of his—nightmare?—make their reappearance.)
He scrambles up, blindly reaching for his (always pre-packed, always ready) weapons pouch. It's only once he's in his uniform (sans flak jacket, which he'd neglected to find in his frenzy) that he realizes he... doesn't know where he's going. The only thoughts that had plagued him were Rin, Rin, Rin and Please not her and Obito both.
But. It's the middle of the night, Rin and Obito are both alive in their homes, and quite frankly he's been nothing but distant to them; he has no good reason to seek them out so abruptly, much less about a nightmare. He's seven, not three, and part of the reason he has such an issue with those two is 'cause they're nine-and-ten and refuse to not see him as a little kid to start with.
His fingers twitch as his arms hang limply at his side. He stands at his own door, directionless but itching for something he can't put a name to. The nightmare (as loathe he is to call it something so childish) isn't fading, the sensation sticky on his hands like blood.
It's exactly like every dream he's ever had of Sakumo.
Kakashi feels like puking, but instead of the bathroom he rushes to the kitchen. It feels like habit, ingrained in his muscles, as he steps onto the stool he keeps under the sink, opens the faucet and runs his ungloved hands under the sink, scrubbing hard. It burns, and his nails scratch at skin softened by the hot water. He doesn't register it, vision blurry as the blood—Rin's blood—doesn't budge.
He has the good sense, at some point, to plug the sink and turn the tap off, simply scrubbing his filthy hands in the pool left behind. They weren't getting clean anyway. What use is there in wasting resources he can already barely afford now that Minato-sensei's stupid genin team is forcing them back to almost exclusively taking D-ranks?
He hates to admit it to himself, but this... also isn't the first time. The dreams have happened for... a while. They started out after his graduation, when he came home to find—
They started after his graduation.
At first, they were mostly benign. Dreaming about overhearing a conversation Minato-sensei had with his loud girlfriend that he actually did end up overhearing later on. An announcement from the Hokage that the war was looking hopeful, to assure the civilians more than anything else. He'd ignored them, because they were all common enough. His dreams probably weren't even accurate, memory of them augmented by the confirmation bias of reality.
But then the dreams started getting... specific. The battle that led to Kakashi's field promotion to chunin. The tense awkwardness as Minato-sensei introduced him to Rin and Obito, the fresh Academy graduates he would've never glanced twice at otherwise.
All of those had left this same feeling, sticking to him like blood (like a memory), and they'd all been right.
What the hell is he supposed to think of the dreams where Rin, Obito, Minato-sensei, and Kushina are dying? By his own hand, by the fall of boulders and the wrath of gods, impaled on the Kyuubi's claw?
When he finally glances up at the clock on his wall, Kakashi realizes with a start that he needs to get properly ready for training. He doesn't usually bring his chunin vest anyway (it's multiple sizes too large, which is humiliating, so he avoids it when possible), but the rest of his usual training clothes are a haphazard mess anyway.
His consciousness rattles out of him as he moves around, feeling half-asleep in the absent way his body brings him through the motions of his morning routine. It's better than forcing himself to be present for such a dreary affair, so he doesn't bother trying to shake himself out of it.
He ignores the part of him that complains about how a good shinobi is always vigilant. He is vigilant. Vigilant of the future that can't seem to leave him alone.
He leaves for training at 5:30 and throws his entire weapons pouch at the innocent trees around him with as much force as he can muster, then picks them all out and settles under a tree to sharped them. Minato emerges from the trees at 5:50, a smile already on his face. Rin is, as usual, there at 6:00 on the dot.
Something uncoils in Kakashi's shoulders at the sight of her, carefully suppressing his relief from view despite the way it floods his every thought. Almost hysterically, he huffs out a sharp breath and confirms to himself that she's tinted not even the slightest shade of blue.
Kakashi counts the minutes that pass as Minato makes idle conversation with Rin, the girl giggling about Obito's typical tardiness while he asks about what she's been up to in her free time. Six. Six-oh-five. Six-ten. Six-fifteen. Six-twenty.
No Obito is forthcoming, and Kakashi is running out of weapons to sharpen. This doesn't make him anxious—why should it? Obito is late every day, getting here on or around 6:20. It's not a stretch that he'd push to 6:25 or even 6:30 eventually. Clearly he doesn't have his priorities as a shinobi straight.
He tries not to think about how the dreams didn't tell him anything about the change. They don't tell him anything. They usually show him something random, from his far adult future (and he can't help but be surprised to find he makes it to adulthood, on worse nights), or something related to what he'd gone to sleep thinking hard about. It's difficult to make the dreams targeted like the latter option, but they're assuredly the most useful.
Why should his probably-prophetic dreams tell him if Obito shows up a little later than usual? It's not like he's trapped in some cave near Iwa, Minato-sensei occupied at the frontlines and no chakra left between the three of students of Team 7 to save him from the tumbling waterfall of stone. It's not like a horned goddess in white looms behind them, rods of bone flying to pierce Obito, turn him to dust and memory once more.
Obito runs up in a cloud of kicked-up dust and Kakashi realizes that his hands have stopped sharpening the kunai he was holding, shaking as he stared with glazed eyes at the space Obito just filled.
He doesn't tear his eyes away fast enough, because Obito meets his gaze with a scowl. "What're you staring at, Bakashi?! It's not like the world is gonna end 'cause I was a couple minutes late to training!"
How would this ever turn into the monster Kakashi's dreams showed him? Was it Rin's death?
But then, no. That—Uchiha Madara, the Mad Founder—he was involved in what Obito became. For god's sake, Obito claimed the man's name for years.
Kakashi's hands shake as he sits there and stares. Did he eat this morning? He sometimes gets the shakes when he skips too many meals in a row. He doesn't tremble when he kills anymore; he's done it too many times for that.
"Kakashi?" Is it Rin's voice calling him? His spine stiffens. It's familiar, familiar in the most awful of ways, and it's only because he has the control of a steel trap over his blank facade that nothing shows on his face when he turns to her.
(No blue. This is Konoha, reality, far from the stain of grief that those Kiri-nin had brought at Madara's behest.)
"Did you sleep enough last night?" she asks, brows drawn together with a firm expression already on her face, hands glowing as she prepares to pat him down for hidden injuries. It's a forceful show of care, but one she's imposed on him since he 'forgot to mention' a large gash up his side from a training mishap and ended up with an infection. He learned quickly how to stitch his own wounds after that.
(From a memory of doing it during his tenure as Hound, but... that's hardly important.)
He stands, putting the kunai away with his other weapons as he dodges her reach. Carefully, he quashes the emotions clawing at his throat down like dying bugs, and his voice is neutral when he states, "We should start training. It's already late."
Minato has been watching Kakashi.
...It sounds really creepy when he puts it like that.
"Damn right it does," Kushina ribs, affectionately bumping that shoulders. "You only got that kid a year ago, and he's already been a whole heap of trouble for ya, huh?"
Minato protests, feeling obligated to defend his tiniest student's honor. "It's not that he's causing trouble! Honestly, he seems to be making an effort to not pick fights with Obito or Rin as much as he did when we first started out with them."
Kushina snickers. "Told you the little brat was jealous, ya know!" She's just teasing, but Minato is still quick to wave it off with a half-hearted smile. Kushina's jovial mood dampens when she notices how serious he's being.
"I just..." he starts, then stops with a sigh. "He's so rigid, you know? But then I got Rin and Obito and he seemed like he was loosening up, but I guess it went too far and now he's just so absent and I just know there's something wrong but I don't know what and I feel like I'm failing him because I—"
"Woah, woah," Kushina cuts him off, one finger pressing over his lips in a way that makes Minato's cheeks flush. "Easy, pretty boy. I think you're getting a little worked up."
Minato takes a deep breath, gaze dropping to the counter of Ichiraku's new ramen stand (which is quickly becoming a favorite of his date-spots with Kushina) as he tries to organize his thoughts. "I'm just worried. He never... got help. After what happened to Sakumo." What happened, as though Sakumo hadn't raised his own tanto against himself. Minato tries not to think about it. "I know clan kids do things differently, and he was already a legal adult as a genin, but he was still five. And any other clan kid would have the support of... well, the clan, but obviously the Hatakes..." Have been whittled down to Kakashi alone.
"So you think this absentmindedness is the trauma finally catching up to him?" Kushina clarifies. She can certainly sympathize—she left everything behind in Uzushio, and Minato was the exception, not the rule, to exactly how welcoming Konoha was to her. The hostility of civilians and shinobi alike to Sakumo's next of kin, being the last of his line—she gets it.
Minato frowns. "I don't know for sure, though. There's also the stress of the war. I mean, he's barely hip height and he's killed enough to be promoted to chunin on-field."
"They promote faster in wartime, ya know," Kushina says, trying for comforting.
Minato meets her with a rare, withering glare. He's more than aware. Kushina winces, realizing belatedly her poor word choice. She sighs, deflating. Minato's inconsolable when he gets like this; absolutely unable to be negotiated with in blind protectiveness of that little brat.
Completely understandable when she catches his tiny face watching her with big puppy-dog eyes as she talks over his head to Minato, but right now she's trying to be the voice of reason and keep Minato from worrying himself to death.
She does a mental list of the options. Minato could force Kakashi to see a Yamanaka. He'd listen, intent on following the rules as he is, but likely nothing would come of it and he'd never trust Minato (or Kushina) again and that might actually be Minato's final straw.
No Yamanaka then.
He could... try to have Kakashi withdrawn from active duty. His genius brain and good reputation could definitely convince the Hokage. Kakashi? Less so. Would probably result the same as the Yamanaka option.
More frequent invites to dinner to socialize him better? Well-adjusted shinobi are usually less... mentally unbalanced.
He already refuses nine out of ten times, if not always. Inviting him more would probably make him clam up completely. And before she can even consider it, she concludes that surprising him with a larger meal gathering would probably result in him never accepting a single dinner invitation ever again.
Check-ins? See if he's doing okay at his apartment? He'd probably take it as an intrusion, and getting past the defenses he has on the place would only make him paranoid.
Gods above, this kid is difficult.
The only other thing Kushina could think of, which she'd be hesitant to suggest to begin with, is, "What if you... sat him down and talked about it?"
It seems to be the right thing to say, though, because Minato brightens like the sun rising in the early morning. Kushina basks in his radiance shamelessly. "That's a great idea!" Suddenly invigorated, he jumps out of his stool, hurriedly leaves the required payment (and then some) on the counter, and pecks Kushina on the cheek. "Thank you! I love you!" he yells behind him, already speeding off overzealously to the training ground Kakashi can always be found at at this hour.
Kushina's face burns as red as her hair. That moron—he doesn't even realize he's said I love you for the first time!