#rin wasn’t supposed to kill him and kakashi wasn’t supposed to die

[equill]

It always ends with two.

#naruto #naruto fanart #obito uchiha #rin nohara #kakashi hatake #jinchuuriki #art #drawing #fanart #my art #sketch #digital art #everything is the same but rin stays and kakashi doesn’t #imagine rin and obito fighting each other when they meet again #obito leaving regardless of how it happened #in obito’s mind everything is still a nightmare #rin wasn’t supposed to kill him and kakashi wasn’t supposed to die #Anyways practicing the side profile has me combusting into flames #also playing with art styles

[the-letter-horror-lover]

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 27: Preliminary Round Two

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“You saw them kissing?” Rin asked, putting her hand over her mouth in surprise.

“I don’t think they want us going around to everyone-“

“It wasn’t just a friendly sort of kiss?”

“I don’t know. Things are- I don’t really know how things are between them.”

“Do you think it’s because… I don’t want to say it.”

“What?”

“No, just watch the match.”

They were at the promised next match after a lot of unnecessary preamble. The elders were momentarily busy with the issue of the kid who attacked Asuma and everyone had a moment to themselves. Obito thought that before he left, and while nothing else was going on, he could have a look at the rising sun over the bamboo forest and apparently he was not the only one. He caught sight of them on the beach, and from the footprints he judged that most likely they sneaked out early, or had trouble sleeping at all.

A sound ninja was going up against a member of Anko’s team, the one she called Ha, and he ignited himself almost immediately, revealing the strength of his flame chakra. His opponent, identified only as Kagero, had pale green hair and a dispassionate expression. She avoided his blustering charges and he seemed to have to stop to catch his breath. The match was not being called because one of the competitors was not demonstrating any ability, but had not used virtually any chakra, and arguably had the better strategy.

“He’s going to die,” Kakashi predicted.

“Really? He won’t just run out of chakra?”

“No, that much heat will kill him before he exhausts his chakra. You would normally shut down before killing yourself like that, but he’s got some seal that keeps him going.”

“That’s really dangerous. That’s…” He had nothing else to say. It was impressive that the sound ninja was managing to avoid him for so long, and perhaps against anyone else he would have scored at least one hit, but Kagero was committed to evasion.

“Well, at least we have a good chance of the alliance with Oto working out,” Rin said. “I had been worried that one of them would get killed and then they would sour on us.”

“If they soured on anyone, it would have been Cha, but they’re our allies, so that’s the same thing,” Kakashi said. “Everyone’s holding their breath, and now we’re looking at holding it longer.” He sighed, as if to defy himself. “Better than war, I suppose.”

There were those who seriously wanted war, but Team Minato did not make three of them. They did not look away as Ha practically disintegrated himself in front of them. Perhaps the match was not called before because there was no stopping it; perhaps it was simply because his opponent had never taken any action against him, allowing them to give the victory into her hands. Either way, it killed him.

“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Asuma said as he took the field. The last member of his team to fight, perhaps there was something significant about the fact that he was going up against the teammate of the guy Ibiki beat in his place. They were both from Konoha, but far outside of the hidden village; they spent most of their time in their home town where they were trained by their parents, who had been Jonin. Their teammate, who had not gone yet, was a cousin of theirs.

“Is it normal to have family members on the same team?” Obito asked.

“No. I doubt the Hokage would even permit it if they tried that within city limits. It’d be ridiculous if we didn’t let them participate in the exams, though. We already know the allied villages are getting up to the same kinds of tricks, and we allow them to participate.”

Asuma had his knives out and was circling the enemy.

“So I’m clear, though, it’s not supposed to be a situation where everything stays in the family.”

“That’s correct. Madara thought it was obvious that clans would still want to be clans first, and citizens of the village second, but they’re not supposed to be training their own ninja and promoting them according to their own standards. If you wear the leaf, you have to follow the Hokage.”

He had never particularly thought that there were those from the countryside or from small towns who wanted to be ninja, but could not just pick up and move to Konohagakure. Even if, though, all the founding clans had moved to the area where the village was founded, back in the days that it still made sense to call it a village, there would still be some people from outside that who had some interest in using chakra for various purposes. Perhaps there were even those who wanted it for some reason other than being ninja.

Asuma exchanged a few cautious blows against the enemy and then asked him to concede. After a while, the enemy actually did concede, as much as it seemed to bother him. Obito thought that he was exercising genuine mercy to spare the enemy from charging in and slam him against the ground, or better yet, have him go straight home after theat. The other ninja had wanted to fight, and the Hokage’s son was expected to fight, but it ended without a single drop of blood hitting the ground.

“Do you think Kurenai would be excited about that?” he asked, not knowing how else to respond. “Their whole team made it through.”

“I thinks she might be happier about the fact that he was nice to the other shinobi, even where it was not required. I don’t know, though. I’ll have to talk to her again?”

“There will be plenty of time for that during the break,” Kakashi said as a word of caution. “Watch the next match.” His teammate, the cousin, was going up against Anko.

All eyes were on her, and she seemed to be drinking it in. She enjoyed the attention. It seemed to have the opposite effect on her opponent, both of whose teammates had lost already. That, however, was something he shared with her. Neither of them were looking at terribly good odds, but they took it differently. For the kunoichi, she was being given the chance to redeem her whole team, but her opponent seemed to see it as an obligation.

Stopping short of verbally taunting him, demonstrating that she was at least taking it seriously, she beckoned him forward without a word, only a smug look on her face. The boy was nearly invisible when he closed the distance, only to get kicked in the head unceremoniously. Knocked flat on his back, he looked more surprised than hurt, but he managed to roll out of the way of a pair of kunai. Using a strange jutsu, one that Obito had never seen before, he blew smoke out his mouth. Was it a fire release? Wind? It was clearly a move of desperation, because the quantity was not only getting to his opponent, but to the spectators. She tried to hit him with another kunai, but in the smoke he could avoid it. Coughing, she was annoyed, but patient. Her opponent was basically putting all of his chakra into an attack that would run him out before it would kill her, or anyone. It was probably a better escaping tactic, or one that would allow someone else to hit him while her vision was obstructed. She was observant enough to roll out of the way of a kunai thrown back at her. The match was called unexpectedly.

“Because the smoke is not providing an advantage to either competitor, and is instead floating over to the medic ninjas in the temple, this match is at an end.”

“Who won?” someone demanded.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. Everyone turned back to the arena, where the smoke was clearing. The young ninja who produced it was on the verge of collapsing and Anko was fine.

“I don’t think that’s…” Obito started, mostly to himself. “If he was willing to keep going…”

“Smoke can be a serious problem for the medic ninjas,” Rin explained. “I don’t know why they’re so close to the active fighting, but I guess that’s how it is during wars sometimes.”

“Anko would have killed him,” Kakashi said. “The question is, why didn’t she use her techniques, even when he pressed her with something unexpected?”

“She must’ve been confident she could outlast it,” he responded, blinking. “No one wants to-“

“That time in the last round, she only used that snake technique because she was trying to kill us. We were never supposed to see it and live to tell about it. I asked around about Iroha, her teammate, and basically the Hyuga clan practically disowned him, but they wouldn’t say why.” He shook his head. “They’re all up to something.”

Then next few fights were between Guy’s team and this one team made up of Uroko Yakumo, Iburi Oki, and Utatane Sakura. Not only was it interesting that the team they were facing was also from Konoha, but they were all girls. Rin frowned.

“That doesn’t happen unless someone’s pulling strings again,” she said. “Kunoichi train together, but they’re supposed to go on separate teams.” That was always the way it seemed to him, even at the time. He did not, at that point, know that there was a requirement for it, though. Either way, Ebisu lined up against Iburi Oki.

“I know I’ve heard the name before, but what do they do again?” he asked, getting no answer. Perhaps no one knew.

The girl was cute, but that was quite common; as far back as the academy there were classes on blending in and changing one’s appearance, and some took them more seriously than others; some practiced the skills more than others. She closed the distance quickly and put her arms around the opponent, who was too stunned to react, but disappeared, revealing he had been saved by a substitution jutsu. The kunoichi looked annoyed, but effortlessly dodged a blade thrown at her and returned with a few of her own. She closed the distance again and found yet another substitute; apparently Ebisu had managed to switch himself with an explosive tag. Looking especially vexed, she said nothing as the match was called after the explosion.

Strangely, though, she looked to be unharmed.

“There’s something up with her,” he said. “What ability could allow you to survive an attack at such close range?”

“I know there’s an earth release technique that allows you to turn your body into mud, temporarily, but there would have been hand signs. We’re looking at a kekkei genkai.”

“At least we won’t have to go up against her in the next round.”

“Well, you might have to fight someone related to her. That’s where you heard the name before. Iburi Gotta is on one of the teams that was passed without conflict.”

He had little enough time to think about that as Genma lined up against Utatane Sakura, who was apparently immune to his charms when he suggested they should not fight. She was skilled in taijutsu, an expert, arguably; her chakra control was incredible. The fighters were muttering things back and forth, but no one else could hear them.

For better or worse, they kept up with each other after trading only the lightest of blows, and, breathing heavily, the girl drew a long dagger out of her jacket. No one needed to say that she was putting all she had left into the next attack. The boy looked tired as well, but he literally had a trick up his sleeve. Loading his wrist with senbon needles behind his back, so that only the audience could see him, he threw himself out of the way when she charged, practically flying across the fighting area, and in the act of dodging, he punched her in the neck before she could get him on the backswing. Completing his roll, she was bleeding heavily and the match was called.

“To think,” she started as a medical ninja landed next to her. “-that you’d hit me on the neck.”

“It’s the only part of you that isn’t covered with armor… and I couldn’t hit you in the face.”

He was right; the girl was dressed almost entirely like a standard Chunin, with a flak jacket matching her long, black hair. It was hard to see from a distance, but she was also wearing a thick layer of chain mail. Barely supporting herself as she was taken away from the battlefield, Rin wondered if she was like Guy, restricted to taijutsu.

“I don’t know about that,” Obito said. “If she were really focused on physical attacks, wouldn’t she have won? It’d be one thing if Genma used something else against her, but…”

“A while back, one of our teachers said boys would almost always try to make it a battle of taijutsu. It makes sense, but you could also say that they want to prove they’re better at something where they’re expected to be better. It’s nothing if you win, but it’s especially embarrassing if you lose.”

“I guess that makes sense. Is that why she would stick to physical attacks, though?” he asked. “Just because it wasn’t expected?”

It did not seem practical, but the point was moot when Guy took to the arena against Uroko, who looked a few years older than her teammates. Deciding that she would have been a Genin before the formation of the team, he suspected that she had something to do with why the team was formed. Shrugging, he thought that she should at least be a good match for a taijutsu expert, though he could tell even just by looking at her clothes that she was not one herself. The girl wore a long kimono of grey and dark blue, reminding him of a thunderstorm.

“I do not know what trick you have up your sleeves!” her opponent confessed. “Your sleeves are long and could be hiding anything. All the same, I will defeat you!”

As if to prove it, he charged forward, only for her to ignore him as he rushed past. It was not that she dodged, he went the wrong way. Bounding off the wall with both feet, he came back after her, but she refused to get hit a second time. It seemed for a moment like she intended to run him out of chakra, but after a few hand signs, it became clearer what she was doing.

“She’s a genjutsu type,” he observed. “That’s how she’s avoiding him.”

He could not tell exactly what Guy was seeing, but he was intent on attacking it, and it was not his opponent, who approached him silently. She drew a dagger out of her sleeve.

“I knew you had something up there!” he shouted, bouncing off the wall after charging into it. Obito was moderately impressed, but he guessed that his friend was better than anyone probably realized at figuring out what was going on. His opponent surrendered immediately.

“How did you see me?” she asked. “I have never fought or trained with anyone of your age who could see through my genjutsu.”

“I knew I was in an illusion because nothing can shake my confidence that I would have hit you on the second try at the least. I could believe that I missed the first time because I always respect my opponent. After that, I only knew that you had something up your sleeve.”

“Did you see the impression of the dagger?” she asked. “Hiding weapons happens to be a specialty of mine. I can even change the appearance of my arm, slightly-“

“No,” he answered, smiling. “Earlier, when you were watching your friend, you were keeping one arm at your side the whole time; only the other one moved.”

Everyone in the temple’s courtyard was silent, and Obito not the least of them. They were all there to observe everyone else’s abilities and behaviors, and apparently Guy, whom no one regarded as brilliant, had been watching even the spectators and their reactions. There were even those who had said that he was not a real ninja, because he was not capable of ninjutsu, and with his every action and word he disregarded them.

“Hey, that was a really good fight,” he said, catching up to the taijutsu expert, ignoring everything else that was going on. “For a minute I was worried they’d give it to her when she surrendered, because that was the right move.”

“It could be said that I was no closer to getting a hit on her,” he conceded. “-but I would not have given up, not while I still had breath in my lungs.”

“I’m glad that so many of us are getting through to the next round. It makes sense, because a lot of us have been to the exams before, and I guess a lot of the people who got knocked out were first timers, but I’m still happy about it.”

“There’s nothing else you need to think about it. Come with me; I have something to show you, Obito. Your teammates can catch you up on what happened later.”

The two of them went to the roof of the temple, where there was a pair of marks on one of the shingles. The investigators had used them to say that a ninja had to have been resting there. He looked around to see what else he was supposed to be seeing, but nothing was coming up.

“I know it was suspect that Asuma got taken out of the competition right as he was about to go up against someone who would’ve beaten him,” he said. It was hard to deny that Ibiki was more experienced, even if his opponent had a distinguished pedigree. “It’s just that he’s also a likely target. Someone trying to assassinate someone here would definitely go after the Hokage’s son?”

“I thought about that. Why is he still alive?”

Guy had a way of accomplishing a lot with a few words, and Obito had to admit he had a point. If the target had sensed the threat, he could have avoided it entirely. If not, the perpetrator could have hit him in the heart. There were cases in which people were aware of the threat at the last second, and only managed to prevent it from hitting a vital organ, but that was mathematically unlikely, and Asuma had said nothing about it. According to the elders, they asked him if he knew anything of value, and he said that the projectile came out of nowhere.

“Do you think he asked someone to attack him?”

“Why would anyone have done it?”

That was another excellent question. If he remembered correctly, it took him at least thirty seconds of thinking about it before he responded. The Hokage had significant resources, but officially, the son could not promise any of those to anyone; the villages had been meritocratic from the beginning.

“What do you think happened, then?” he asked after a moment.

“I do not know. I can only say that there are those who would use this evidence to say that he had something to do with it.”

“I don’t know what this evidence is, exactly.”

“The Sarutobi clan boasts a variety of jutsu, but one of their lesser known secrets is that the know how to make chakra reactive metals. No one has been able to reproduce the results.”

“Not even if they got ahold of the metals?”

“They would not have said anything if they did get one of the metals, or one of the finished products. The fact is, it has not appeared. No one has used such a powerful weapon.”

“You could use it, couldn’t you?” he asked. “That’s why you’re getting so serious about it.”

“I have never been allowed to try,” he said.

Somehow that seemed worse than a valuable resource being kept from him, but he knew why the Hokage would not want any aspect of the secret to the metallurgy getting out. The world was full of secrets, but in a world that was just as full of sensor types, the only way those things remained secret was with extreme caution and plenty of death. Guy might be a generally trustworthy person, but the standard for information security was that there had to be a knife to his neck.

“This was why Hashirama wanted the clans to cease to exist,” he said after a moment. “Even if Sandaime wanted to trust someone like you with the secret, he doesn’t actually have the authority if he’s not the leader of the clan, and he can’t be if he’s the Hokage at the same time. Madara insisted that clan authority-“ He cut himself off. There was no point in reciting commonly understood history at this point.

“I do not know whether Asuma is guilty of anything,” Guy said after a moment. “What I want you to ask yourself is who was right.”

“Is it because I can’t awaken the Sharingan?” he asked. “The Uchiha haven’t turned their backs on me just because of that.”

“It’s because you have a good heart, Obito.” The taijutsu specialist smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know nothing of your clan politics.”

As he went to rejoin his friends, he could practically see the old battle happening in his mind, though he was not there himself. It was the last time that the leader of his clan and his old friend ever fought, and it was because Madara did not trust him, not when he had never experienced a loss like the death of his younger brother. Precisely what had Hashirama sacrificed?

Despite his ability to control the Kyubi, the old Uchiha was countered hard by the wood manipulation that his opponent used. Defeated, he had no right to insist on having his way, but he did, and the leader of the Senju clan stabbed himself with a kunai, ending his life almost instantly. There was nothing either his brother nor his old friend could have done. Grieved for different reasons over the same body, they wanted his sacrifice to mean something.

As it had been agreed that Madara was the second choice, the alternate Hokage, the supposedly equal founder, the elders felt like it was in line with the wishes of the late Hashirama to appoint him as Shodai, though he would have given up the job to have his old friend again. No one believed him. There were many who claimed he essentially murdered him for the position. The Senju clan leaders insisted that at every turn, they had forgiven, they had acted wisely, and at every turn the other founding clan had wronged them, and nothing would ever be enough, even as their leader quietly groaned that it was too much. It was agreed among the elders and the village in general that Madara would only be the first Hokage as long as someone from the Senju clan would be the second, and he agreed without even thinking about it; he championed it as soon as someone suggested it.

With Madara as the first and Tobirama preselected as his successor, the clans were begrudgingly okay with the arrangement. It was like offering one party the ability to divide the halves of something where they both had a claim, and the other the first choice. Shodai could not do anything that Nidaime could not reverse, and for that reason the two thieves struck an honest bargain. As much as it was part of Hashirama’s vision that the clans would cease to exist, neither of them felt it was practical, if for different reasons. His dream of a world where shinobi had loyalty only to their villages was never entirely fulfilled, and a fragile peace persisted within Konoha.

Notes:

And, here we are with the dramatic reveal, the manner in which the first Hokage became Madara. Obito knew that this happened in history the entire time, but like most of us, he doesn't think about it unless something prompts him. Regarding history in general, obviously the ninjas are suspicious of what they're told, but if enough people who would have been there swore by one version of events, then they don't have a specific reason to dismiss the official account.

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 28: Promise

Chapter Text

With only a month to train before the final round of the Chunin exams, no one wasted time patting themselves on the back, not when they already had an idea of the competition. Of course, some people had been lucky, and had passed through so far without really being tested, but Team Minato knew that as hard as it had been, they might still be some of those people. Fighting hard against Team Chouza, all six of them were worn out and staring up at the sky after their most recent training session.

“Hey,” Genma said. “If you three want to go get something to eat, I’m willing to bet our teacher is going to get the bill.”

“He takes you out to lunch?” Obito asked.

“It’s an excuse for him to go out himself. He’s also married already, so he doesn’t have to take his wife out all the time.” He looked over at Rin, but she had no visible reaction. “Anyway, you guys have been a huge help and I don’t think it’d be hard to justify thanking you.”

With that, it was decided. The restaurant, with finite rooms available, had split them up when seating them, so Kakashi, Genma, and himself ended up in one with three older ninja, and they would find out where their teammates went later. Aoba and Hoheto hardly reacted to their joining, but Tenga greeted them.

“So, you three made it through to the finals?” he prompted.

“It’s not the finals,” Hoheto said. “It’s not the finals until the last two fighters. I’m going to be one of them.”

“We’ll see about that,” Genma said. “Do us a favor and don’t lose to any of the tea ninjas; they’re getting uppity these days.”

“Our whole teams made it through,” Obito said, answering the original question. “We don’t have a clue what the bracket is going to look like. They’re probably deciding it the same way they decided the matchups in the preliminary.”

“Don’t be so cynical,” Aoba said, smiling slightly. “You need to focus on fighting the enemy in front of you, not why they match you up with one or another.”

“Of course,” Kakashi said. “There’s nothing to be done about it, anyway.”

When the raw meat and vegetables came out, they put as much as they could on the grill at once. Time was of the essence, and their haste manifested itself clearly in everything. As relaxed as some of them were, they needed to recover their strength and get back to it. Consistently, the best way to train at anything was to get out there and actively do it, and that applied to show matches as well. Quietly, Obito and his teammates had already decided they would fight to win in each round, not to impress the elders; getting through to the second or third level of the bracket would be plenty impressive and if they did not focus on the fight, they had a chance of being dead as a result.

“This is pretty good,” Tenga said. “I can’t believe we’ve never been here before.”

“Do you guys live in town?”

“No, I grew up in the countryside and I still go back there. I had to run to and from the academy every day; did wonders for my chakra control.” The others had similar stories, though Aoba had moved to a small house in the city with the contract money.

“We can’t wait to go up against you in the last round,” Tenga said.

“Yeah, sure,” his teammate agreed. Hoheto was paying for the three of them, so he said nothing. Generally, what was implied was that they were hoping Team Minato would do well, as it was improbable that they would all be fighting each other in the first level of the bracket, just by the numbers, even if the examiners did have some special way they wanted to arrange the fights.

They met up with the other three, and even when he looked back on it, he could not imagine there had been any point to the conversation, but he remembered it for some reason. Perhaps it was nothing more than one of the countless pointless memories, that he was sure consumed some of the space he needed for something important, but perhaps it was just because it was so rare that he got to enjoy a simple conversation, especially during training.

“We were sitting across from the sound ninja. Two of them made it through; the other was stuck with them, helping them train,” Rin had said. “I couldn’t tell you what they were doing in Konoha, but it might have something to do with the alliance.”

“It’s closer than going all the way back home,” Obito supposed. He caught sight of an old lady in the street who seemed to be struggling with something heavy. “Hey, don’t wait up; I’ll catch you guys later,” he said, leaving without a second thought. He doubted the ninjas from Oto had said anything interesting; it was likely enough that they were all under orders not to talk about anything that might put their country in a worse position, especially not with other shinobi.

The old lady was Nara Ento, the grandmother of one of the competitors he had not seen, evidently. He could only think that Daen must have been fighting whenever he was talking with Guy, not that he was going to mention that. While helping the old lady with the package, he entertained her questions about the exam half-heartedly, easily able to tell she had witnessed more than a few exams, but she had never been in one. There was something about the excitement, he supposed.

Apparently, the old lady had worked for the second and third Hokage, but she had recently retired, grateful to have a few more years to spend with her family. So many could not say the same. He understood that the Nara clan dealt in medicine when not on contract as shinobi, and basically used their skill and knowledge to their advantage whenever possible. They made up one of the most respected families in the entire country, and there was no sign of them going away.

“Thank you so much, Uchiha Obito,” she said when he delivered the heavy package, still wondering what was in it but too polite to ask. “Do you have something on your mind?” He did, but there was an excuse to ask something else.

“How do you know my name?”

“Oh, you’ve become quite well-known among my generation.” Right. He should have guessed.

On his way to catch up to his teammates, he wondered if the Uchiha were giving their former leader’s concerns too much credit, but if they were, the Hyuga were basically doing the same thing, for what that was worth. There were families, like Nara, within the city that did not carve out their own neighborhoods and insist on intermarrying, and yet they were showing no signs of going away. There were even those among them willing to marry foreigners. All the same, he had an idea of how the conversation would go if he broached the subject with Dramada.

“Hey, Rin, how are things going?” he asked, seeing her and no one else around. He always kicked himself, looking back on those opportunities to get to know her better, or really anything. “Where is everyone?”

“They’re hiding. I was found first.”

“Isn’t that more of a second round thing?”

“I got out-voted. I don’t mind, though; we still need to do it.”

“How are things going in your life, though?” he asked. They had only recently returned from Cha, and before long, they would be going back. Officially, they were not to be assigned even short contracts during the month-long break, so it was a chance to catch up with her family.

“Well, there was another incident. They won’t tell me much about it.” She looked back at him, and then back to the trees. “It doesn’t have anything to do with my sister’s wedding; that’s still happening, I think. For the most part, people have forgotten the business with my uncle.”

“That’s what I’d been hoping. When it’s just one guy who did something, then there’s no reason to take it out on everyone else.”

“What complicated things was the fact that it was a corruption case. It was a conspiracy, not something one guy just randomly decided to do on his own. Suspicion always lands on the family. It’s like rain.”

There was this unspoken idea floating around that he was lucky because he had no immediate family. Even if the Uchiha did something, he was a link broken from the chain. Perhaps that was why there was an effort to integrate him into the community. It was not, of course, as if everyone was doing their level best to get him to come to meetings; he was sure there were some who even disregarded him entirely. They had reason enough to doubt his loyalty and too little reason to invest in him, not when it had not been proven he was useful.

“Do you like Sagara?” Rin asked out of nowhere, or at least that was how it seemed at the time.

“No. She’s… I don’t want to get into it.”

“Oh. I thought you might like someone who was… similar to you.”

“She’s not similar. She’s just… I don’t know, a member of the same clan. She’s completely different. She’s nothing like you.”

The training exercise ended when no one could find Kakashi, as was always the case when he did not want to be found. Resuming the open fights, they kept up their efforts until their teachers came to get them. Obito was staring up at the canopy of leaves above when Minato’s face looked down with a gentle smile.

“When did you get here?” he asked, breathing heavily.

“Only when you looked. I come bearing gifts.”

The young Uchiha sat up with labored breath and the internal sinking feeling that came with chakra exhaustion. Looking over a scroll he was being handed, he could see that it was a complete bracket of all the fighters. He decided it would not be terribly smart to show it to anyone else, because as it turned out, he was fighting Ebisu in the first round.

“It looks like they picked some soft targets for the Oto guy,” he muttered. “I hope they’re happy.”

“It doesn’t really matter if the land of sound is seen to win or lose. We do, however, want them to have the chance to demonstrate their skills. Do you recognize the team from Yu?”

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Those were the guys we beat in the last Chunin exams. We kept them from getting to the third round.”

“I hope you know what this means.”

“Yeah,” he said after a longer moment. “They’re going to be breaking out their strongest attacks right off the bat. They only have an excuse to kill us if the jutsu is something they couldn’t tone down at all, but they’ll have plenty of those techniques. It looks like Rin is going up against one of them first.”

“Don’t worry about that. I want you to concentrate on beating your first opponent. After last time, he’ll probably be trying to make it more of a fight. Just knock him out.”

“Well, sure, but… where’d you get this?” he asked. Minato disappeared before he could have answered. “That answers that,” he muttered, rolling up the scroll and stuffing it in his pack. The others, who were conscious, watched him do it, but did not ask to see it themselves. Perhaps they had their own assumptions about what he saw; he never asked.

“How much time do we have left?” Genma asked. “The days have been running together.”

“Not long. There’s nothing more we could do, though,” Kakashi said. “We would have to know what we’re fighting.” Obito thought for a moment and decided that he could at least tell his own teammates, even if it was something of a conflict of interest to tell their other friends. It was not as if he had anything against them, but he badly wanted to win and against someone of roughly equivalent skill, he knew he would need any advantage he could get.

“Hey, Rin, do you know that thing we were discussing earlier? We should bring Kakashi in on it. Let’s take care of it at my house this evening.”

“It’s better if we took care of it at my house; it’s closer. I think I wouldn’t be allowed into the Uchiha compound. At least, I shouldn’t push it.”

“They really wouldn’t let you take your teammates home with you?” Genma asked. It seemed Guy and Ebisu were taking the valuable time to rest, which was critical to their training. “That seems extreme.”

“I guess I don’t know that they would, but I don’t mind meeting at Rin’s house,” he said. “Let’s do another training exercise before we call it for the day, though.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Evasion,” he said. “There are going to be some of us, probably, who get assigned to people we could never beat, or maybe we get past the first round and then have to fight them anyway. Tekka is beyond me. There’s nothing I can do that he can’t do ten times better. He has the Sharingan, but I can’t see him using them in a public match unless he has to.”

“Well, what’s the issue?” Genma asked. “If we’re going up against someone who would literally just kill us, then we surrender and move on with our lives.”

“They might not reveal their strength before it’s too late,” Rin said, picking up on the idea. “They’re going to conserve their chakra and hide their best techniques in the first round, and we can’t go and research all of them.”

“We’d need someone strong for this. Do you think we could get Chouza? Minato looked busy.”

“Yeah, I think we could,” his student said after a moment. “I just have to make sure he’s not doing something with his wife today.”

It was more or less arranged, and there were no other complications, if he remembered correctly. In those days, he thought more than he used to about what went into training exercises, and he was grateful that they could get it done without the adults to drive the whole thing. Having to spend multiple years by themselves probably made them more independent, though, and they were already pretty incredible for their age, which became clearer to him as he met more young ninja.

When at last the training exercise was done, they staggered to the Nohara house, exhausted from fighting against the Jonin who was blatantly going easy on them. He was much faster than any of them had expected. It was also impossible, at least from what they knew at the time, to tag him unless he was in the middle of attacking them. Rin was sealing up an open wound as they walked.

“At least he seemed to avoid my face,” she said. “He definitely showed us how bad we are. That wasn’t exactly the point, but it was a welcome lesson.”

“Did the scroll contain information about the bracket?” Kakashi asked.

“It was the whole thing, as far as I could see. I didn’t say anything about it with the others because I’m fighting Ebisu first thing.”

“That means I’m fighting Guy again?” his teammate asked as he knocked on the door.

“I didn’t look before putting it away. I wanted to go over it together.”

“How did he get ahold of this?” Rin asked as they were invited in. Her parents were always perfect hosts, and it was something he should have figured, even based off what he knew at the time, that they were excited about their daughter potentially getting promoted to Chunin.

“Welcome, Obito and Kakashi,” the father said before he could awkwardly answer that their teacher had never said how he got the scroll, which to him indicated that it was information they were really not supposed to have. “We’re happy to have you here.”

“We just thought we’d go over something in confidence,” he said. Technically it still would have been better for them to get into the Uchiha compound, since he had repurposed all the fuinjutsu for his own house. He would later learn that Kakashi had done the same for his, and came up with exercises in which he would try to break into the place.

“Oh, go right ahead. We’ll set something out for the three of you in a few minutes,” Rin’s mother said. He had only exchanged a few words with him, and yet she acted like she knew him, which suggested her daughter had a few stories. Was that normal? He had never thought his grandmother would be all that interested in hearing about his adventures.

He rolled out the scroll on the coffee table, and their eyes all went straight to Kakashi.

“Genma?” he asked for everyone. “Do they think you’d have a better chance against him?”

“They might, but look at where Guy is. He’s fighting Maeden, one of the Yu guys. If I remember correctly, he was the one with the hot water apparatus.”

“Why’d he need that?” Obito asked. There was no point in wondering whether or not Kakashi remembered correctly; he always did. “Can’t they all use jutsu that produce hot water?”

“It’s the results that matter, not how you get there. To be honest, I don’t know what his deal is, but we’ll find out.”

“We should tell Guy,” Rin said. “They want a grudge match with us, and they’ll do anything to win in the initial rounds.”

“If we told him, they’d know why we weren’t telling his teammates anything. It looks like you’re going up against the girl from that team, Miku of the lost clan. Are we supposed to know what that lost clan is?” he asked.

“It’s probably just what she wrote on a form somewhere. They wouldn’t have known what else to call her,” Kakashi said, running a hand over his eyes. “It’s not important. The grouping tells us that they want a fight between some of the competitors from the previous exam. This isn’t based on skill or anything.”

“Does that mean that they don’t want to promote any of us, unless one of us turns out to be the best?” Rin asked.

“No, Cha would have had the final say on the bracket. I can’t see them having any reason to have a grudge against us. Also, even if you don’t win, you can still get promoted. It’s not about being the best, just being good enough for the standard.” Something Minato told him a long time ago came back to the surface.

“If they did want it to work out like that, it would explain why they let you, a Chunin, apply for the exam,” he said. “Apparently, that was a split decision.”

As the Noharas brought out snacks, to the tune of juice and deviled eggs, they went over the controversy regarding allowing existing Chunin to apply again with their teammates. It was obvious that they had plenty of applicants this time as opposed to last time, but it was not as if they needed a certain amount of applicants and no more, and Kakashi had not been given the chance to gain in experience except alongside his Genin teammates, so there was an argument that he had no particular advantage. There were also those who were older and more experienced who had failed to make the rank last time.

“We really can’t even guess their intentions behind a decision like this,” Obito said after a while.

“To be honest, I don’t know whether or not this was even a rule before,” Rin said. “I don’t know of anyone who had passed the exam being allowed to take it again, but what if Cha can decide certain things like that when they’re the ones hosting it? Wouldn’t there have to be an agreement between all our allies if we were to make the rule apply to all exams, no matter where they were taking place?”

“The actual officials might explain it to us,” Kakashi said. “It’s not a concern, though. I already have my rank, and they’re not going to take it away unless I perform well in this exam.”

“It says here that the other guy- Oyashiro En- is going up against someone strong. It’s Tekka.”

“The Uchiha you know?”

“They had to put him somewhere,” Kakashi said with a wave of the hand. “It’s not important when he gets eliminated.” He started making predictions about the bracket with a pen while eating with his other hand. There were a few matchups about which he had no idea and skipped them, but he gave Obito a vote of confidence, which put him up against Kagero in the second round.

“I wish I knew more about her,” he said. “She just avoided that idiot until he burned himself to death.”

“You’ll be able to see her first match, and that should push her more, but she’ll still be able to win. It’s against Kurenai.”

“Why do you think she’s going to lose?”

“Their team has had Raidou on it the entire time, and I find it had to believe that he hasn’t jumped out ahead of them more than once. It’s a matter of experience. Obito has to train to beat whichever one is a harder fight, so even if Kurenai does win-“

“I get it,” Rin said, annoyed. “She and Asuma are still stronger than people realize. It’s common for teams to have imbalances, but because of the stronger team members, the weaker ones get challenged more.”

“Yes, if they allow themselves to be challenged. Anyway, that’s all I’m saying about this for today. Predicting beyond the second round is probably a waste of time, but here’s one thing I do know. Everyone is going to be going all out. There’s time between rounds to recover your strength and everyone knows it. If they entered into the Chunin exams, we can presume that they want to make rank, and they’re going to be doing all they can to get it.”

Kakashi left.

“Oh, I forgot to ask before, but have you been adapting the seals that we found in the village of bubbles to use in your own house?”

“My parents wouldn’t let me, basically. They said that there are already seals on the house, and that was the end of it. I didn’t mention anything about it because- well, nothing happened.”

“It sounds like you have a lot of trouble with your family,” he said after a moment.

“I’m not jealous of you,” she said, smiling back at him. “I have to go upstairs for a moment and- I’ll be back soon.”

He waited as he heard her footsteps carry out her promise. Her mother walked over picking up the glasses they had just used even as he was about to move them himself.

“Thank you so much, Obito.”

“Huh?”

“Our daughter was such a sweet girl, and we worried that all these experiences would harden her. We’re glad that she has such good friends that she can trust.”

“I- uh, I can’t take too much credit,” he said, looking down. “Our teacher is really…”

“There’s no need. Take care in the final round of the exams. There’s always one family rooting for you.”

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 29: Level One, Part One

Chapter Text

The competitors were all assembled, without exception, on the appointed day, and they verified who they all were with their ninja registration with the exam officials. There could be no mistake, and he had yet to learn any way that he was wrong about this. The bracket was announced, and from the lack of surprise among some of the candidates, it seemed they had already heard about it as well. Silently, he supposed they would have heard it at the same place that Minato did.

“Uchiha Obito and Ebisu!”

“Huh. They’re wasting no time,” he thought to himself. After a moment, he decided it was probably pointless to conceal the fact that the two of them would be fighting in the first round, since they had traded blows countless times already. Essentially, both of them had trained as hard as they could to beat each other, and he was not able to do anything more with the information. It was annoying that he felt like he was not much stronger, even with a month to prepare, but he had made progress on the scroll that Minato had given him, even if he had not made progress on the Sharingan.

“This isn’t going to be like last time,” Ebisu said as soon as they lined up.

“I know. I’m going to make sure of it.”

They both used a Katon, and it was funny, because the fire did literally nothing to fire, and they were too far away for it to make a difference. In the flash of flame, however, Obito made two shadow clones, and one charged forward through the fire, drawing a kunai. Having timed the charge forward to when his opponent would most likely either move forward himself, or try something else, he was not too surprised when his opponent had stopped using the fire technique. Surprised, he blocked the clone’s initial flurries while the real Obito circled around him, the other clone going the other way around.

Because it was a challenge to get a clone to perform any complex actions, the crowd probably thought that he had charged forward and his two clones were the ones closing in from behind. Tricking them further, he used his other clone to run through some basic hand signs and closed in from the other side himself, easily dodging the shuriken that Ebisu threw right after taking out the first clone, and punching him hard in the head.

It was impressive the way his opponent managed to go limp and keep going, rolling in the air and landing in a fighting stance. His vision was probably blurring and he would not have been able to tell the difference if Obito rushed forward with more shadow clones or not, but when they met in the center, he used a genjustu to appear to be making a hand sign when in reality he was punching low, hitting the opponent in the belly while taking a blow himself.

Both fighters staggered backward and Ebisu got ready to use a desperation jutsu, but was interrupted by a pair of kunai too fast for him to dodge in a weakened state, except by going to the ground, which allowed Obito to jump and land on him with a downward kick. His opponent did not exactly surrender, but by the time he got up, the examiners informed him he could no longer continue, and he did not disagree with their assessment. The crowd cheered at the opening match, though he did not imagine that many of them cared about the result, only that it was a spectacle.

The second fight saw Degarashi Hojicha up against Hyuga Hoheto and it began immediately. Using the Byakugan, the Konoha native avoided a spearing attack that looked like it came from a thin tree the moment before it faded. Closing the distance, he used what had been described as the Eight Trigrams Sixteen Palm Rotation, a series of attacks targeting the chakra of his opponent, who responded by opening the first of the Eight Gates, much to Guy’s amusement. As much as Obito had enjoyed winning the first round, he was happy to be back with his teammates and friends, and it seemed his opponent bore him no ill will, though he was frequently silent like that.

“Die!” Hojicha shouted, lashing out quickly with what looked like a machete right as his opponent thought it was advantageous to move forward. With the dojutsu still active, however, Hoheto ducked under the blade, bending backward, only to get kicked straight in the balls when he could not have possibly seen the attack coming; his own body was in the way of it.

“He must know something about the Byakugan,” Kakashi observed as the fighters scrambled back to their stances. “It’s a nearly 360 degree field of vision, but there are some attacks that can get through it.” Hoheto avoided another murderous slash with the machete, this time expertly grabbing at the hand on the hilt and using his enemy’s fixed position to kick him in the stomach from the ground. Wrestling the weapon out of his possession, he stood up in time to avoid another needle of what looked like wood.

With his back against the wall, Hojicha summoned a wooden stake to his hand and stabbed at the enemy, only to have his hand cut off, which prompted the match to be called. Obito did not think he had ever seen anything as sad as the ninja breaking down and crying over losing a hand, but there was no blaming the Hyuga; it was a fight to the death and he chose to end it in a de-escalation. Tossing the blade on the ground, he walked out with an angry expression, though maybe that was just his eyes. The mood of the crowd soured further when the defeated shinobi grabbed the blade with his other hand and stabbed himself before the examiners could stop him.

“That’s terrible,” Rin managed, putting her arms around Kakashi. He put a hand on her head, surprising Obito with his apparent ability to feel something, if only sympathy.

“That’s all that’s left for him,” he said. “He can’t use most ninjutsu, and he’s dead in the water if he tries to keep it to taijutsu.”

“Those Cha guys really go all out,” Obito thought aloud, his voice a pained monotone. “In every fight it seems like they’re always making it a fight to the death.”

“That’s because it always is,” Kakashi said as his name was called out. He separated himself from Rin and went to the arena down the stairs along with Genma. With they took their places, he seemed to say something under his breath to his opponent, who shook his head. Rather than forming a clever comeback, though, he launched into it. Throwing a senbon that was narrowly avoided, he briefly traded blows with his opponent, the first to close the distance while creating a shadow clone, but it quickly became clear he was losing. Despite his skill in taijutsu, Kakashi was as good if not better, and not surprised by the trick of summoning a needle to his hand. Grabbing the other boy by the shoulders, he threw him down hard and used an earth jutsu to practically bury him. Genma fought his way to the surface only to get a low kick to the head.

The match was called and a reminder was issued that the examiners would call a match as soon as it looked like one fighter was surrendering or could not continue. Obviously, in the fast pace that many matches were conducted, it was a challenge to stop the battles before they turned lethal for anyone, but competitors were expected to try to preserve the lives of other competitors.

“What a load of-“ Rin shook her head. “We’re killing each other. We can’t just not fight harder than the other guys.” Never would that be clearer than in only a moment.

“Nohara Rin and Miku of the lost clan.”

It hardly took a moment for the fight to begin. The kunoichi from Yu was carrying two swords now, but only used one at a time. The one from Konoha used a kunai to block each strike at the last second. It was not a flashy way to fight, but Rin was fundamentally more patient than anyone watching, and her opponent, whose slashes only grew more frequent, each bouncing off the angled edge of the kunai, which she could hold firmly even with one hand.

Trying something more extreme, Miku strained her own blood vessels and charged forward faster than before, scoring a graze on Rin’s side, but her speed was a product of her own blood rushing through her body more quickly, probably with some bizarre variant of a hot water jutsu, and no one picked up on that before Rin did, throwing herself between the enemy’s legs right as she raised her sword for a downward stroke, which awkwardly continued into a backswing as Rin stabbed her in the butt, causing her to bleed violently. Somewhat trapped, she had little choice but to keep stabbing her enemy while narrowly avoiding the sword being brought down on her.

The examiners called the match due to extreme injury and a possible violation of the rules that needed to be judged by the officials, separating the two fighters with a pair of Tokubetsu Jonin. Miku loudly protested that she was right about to stab her opponent to death, and that she clearly had the superior position, but passed out from blood loss almost immediately after saying as much.

“Bitch,” Rin muttered. It was quiet enough that no one could hear it from the stands, but Obito could see her face, and that was probably what anyone would have said. The arena, this time, was more like a stage, with a central platform of hardwood surrounded by a wooden seating area that he was calling ‘the stands’ in his mind only because that was what he knew.

“Are you okay?” he asked when she got back. “What are they deliberating?” He thought for a second. “Since when are there rules here?”

“Well, there are rules, like how you’re not supposed to attack an opponent after a match is called, but they mostly don’t have to say anything about that. I think they might have a problem with the fact that I stabbed Miku in the butt.”

“How is that worse than cutting off someone’s hand?” he asked after a second of making a confused expression.

“It’s not the damage you do to your opponent,” Rin said, sighing. “It’s what you’re showing to the audience.”

“They don’t have a problem seeing someone’s hand get cut off-“

“I never brought up the rules because I never had any intention of following them myself, and I don’t expect you to follow them either.”

“Of course,” Kakashi said. “You can’t follow the competition rules and the Shinobi Rules at the same time.”

“We weren’t talking about-“

“He’s right, Obito; we’re trained to fight seriously and that one hundred percent means that I should be ready to stab someone who’s messing around with her own circulatory system in an area that’s highly concentrated with blood vessels. I know there were a bunch of people watching, but I really didn’t care when she was about to kill me.”

He tried to think of it another way. If there were a technique that happened to be especially crude or vulgar and compromised effectiveness to that end, then he could see a competitor getting removed from the exams just for that. At the same time, Rin was training in medical ninjutsu and she had probably seen naked bodies before, as weird as that was to him.

An exam official appeared behind them, and they all turned around with a start.

“Have you made a decision?”

“It’s split between a few of us. We just need to talk to one of your teammates before it goes to the next match.”

“I’m not doing this,” Kakashi said.

“Uh, sure, okay,” Obito said when the official looked at him. It was a wonder they were asking him, since he had every reason to say whatever it took to get his own teammate off the hook. They walked out of the stadium.

“Tell me about Nohara Rin. Does she get along with other girls?”

“Not all of them,” he said after a moment. “Why?”

“We’re just trying to determine a reason for her to use such an attack. Was she trained to stab people like that?”

“Sort of,” he said after a moment. “She’s working on medical ninjutsu, so she knows there are a lot of blood vessels that go through there.”

“I see. I see. I hate asking these kinds of questions, especially under the circumstances, but does your teammate prefer the company of boys or girls?” It was not just for the wording that Obito did not understand what he meant, but he thought about it for a second and decided to answer anyway, since he was trying to get Rin off the hook.

“Well, she’s on a team with two guys, like a lot of kunoichi, so sometimes, well…” he trailed off. What would make her sound better? What did the official want to hear?

“I think I have what we need. This should put their undue suspicions to rest.”

As the elder walked off, there was nothing to do but go back to the other two and tell them what happened, and they said that the guy from Cha actually died; it was announced there was nothing they could do to save him after he stabbed himself. Kakashi had difficulty imagining why they would try terribly hard.

“I think you’re out of the woods,” he said before briefly relaying the questions. Rin put a hand to her face. He would later feel foolish about it, but she understood everything.

“He was asking about whether I was- ugh, why would you even ask that?”

“Well, he said he didn’t like asking it.”

“Wait, so if it had been a guy, then I would have been in more trouble?”

“I don’t know-“

“Well, unless it mattered, why would he have asked? That must have been what they were discussing!” She turned away from him, which turned her back to the stage. Upon a second inspection, the place really looked like it was more for theater than fighting, but perhaps that was the same thing, to the people who were just watching.

As he stood there waiting for the next two fighters to come out, with Guy facing Maeden, he felt like if she had been there, she would have realized how hard the official was trying to get her off the hook. Not only had he picked a teammate of hers, when he would probably represent it as testimony from ‘someone in her village’, he seemed to be accepting any answer that he could interpret as helpful for her case.

“You have no chance against me in the springtime of my youth!”

“Will you please just shut up?”

The shinobi from Yu did not wait to see if his request would be granted, he fired hot water from his apparatus a moment before the match was officially started, but Guy avoided it easily, quickly detecting that it was hot enough to seriously injure him.

“It’s good that he’s not an idiot,” Obito said. “That guy looks like he really means business.”

“For most ninja outside of Konoha, I think that’s how it works,” Rin said. “Strength gives us the luxury to teach kids to be merciful- they don’t directly tell us that, but they don’t make us run laps for not going for a kill shot. You should hear about how they do things in the mist.”

He already had. They all did, at one point or another on the three year mission. They should have realized that there was something unusual about how much some of the people there knew about Kiri, and perhaps the other two did, but he got absorbed listening to the stories. In the village of the bloody mist, students of the lowest caste were treated with suspicion and were forced to fight to the death to prove their loyalty to the village. For some reason, however, they had not heard anything about that happening lately.

Guy rolled out of the way of more attacks with water, probably refraining from attacking because he had to know that the apparatus was hot. Most likely, the ninja using it was running the risk of heat exhaustion if he kept it going and kept putting out more, but his opponent was running out of stage. It had not been explicitly stated that they needed to remain within the wood of the stage, but Guy was just going to take that as a personal challenge. He caught a graze as he nearly made it past a blast of water, and then his skin went red after a moment of concentration. It was strange that he remembered it as too much of a coincidence for his skin to be red for some reason unrelated to getting scalded. That, however, was probably why the opponent failed to see the next attack coming.

“Reverse Lotus!”

Charging forward, the taijutsu specialist expertly avoided the next and probably final blast of water and punched the hand of the hand of his enemy, knocking the launcher out of the way then kicking him, his feet moving too quickly to be seen. A rabid succession of blows followed, and then the ninja from Yu surrendered.

“I’m not here to kill you.”

“You would not be doing a good job of it.”

“Our next combatants are Wasabi Jin and Tenga.”

It was a strange turn for the first level of the bracket, but he supposed that they were about the same age. There was an implication that everyone on Inoichi’s team would go on to work in intelligence, and perhaps that applied to the youngest member, but he would have to be able to fight people of the same skill level if he wanted to make rank.

Jin kicked the stage without saying anything, and a sprig of wood came out of it, and she strung a green plant fiber, making a bow on the spot. Kicking it again after a few more hand signs, wooden arrows sprang up, and Tenga watched with casual interest. It was unusual for shinobi to use bows, at least somewhat, because they were impossible to conceal, but Obito supposed that if she could use a nature transformation to make one wherever there was wood to be used, then it was different.

“How is she doing that? I thought wood release was rare,” Rin said.

“I suspect that she’s using tea release,” Kakashi said.

“That’s a real thing?” Obito asked.

“They call it that because they can use some combination of hot water release and wood release, and both of those are combinations themselves. There’s a suspicion that cells from Hashirama were taken from his body after he died, and they were presented to the land of tea to fortify their wood release.”

“Is that how we negotiated an alliance with them?”

“There were other things we had to offer; this was a bonus.”

Tenga avoided the first few arrows that were fired at him, but it was doubtful he was really wearing down his opponent’s chakra. She looked moderately annoyed, but was willing to keep shooting as long as he intended to keep dodging, or until the match was called out of boredom, and most likely it would be in her favor. At a certain point, though, he started walking forward, still managing to avoid her arrows.

“Is he using some kind of genjutsu?” Obito asked, leaning forward and trying to see better. “How can he tell-“

“He’s predicting her moves,” Kakashi said. “Over time, he figures out the way an enemy thinks and then he turns it back on them. Even his own teammates aren’t safe from it.”

Two arrows flew at the same time and he avoided the real one, allowing the illusory one to hit him straight in the chest with a grin. He took out a long kunai and slashed at her bow, and for a moment it seemed she was so shocked she had no idea how to react, but she kicked down on the ground next to one of his legs right when he slashed forward and he screamed, an arrow coming out of the stage into his foot while his interrupted slash was caught.

Twisting around the kunai in his hand, she grazed him with it as he was trapped, and the match was called. There was a brief break as the kunoichi, Jin, was asked to put the stage back as she found it and Obito had to agree at least in part with his own teammate, who was calling the whole thing ridiculous. He turned to her, seeing that Guy’s teammates had joined them.

“Is he all right?”

“He’s unconscious. It’s the first time he’s opened the third gate in a real fight. Well, as much as this was a real fight,” Genma said. Ebisu nodded along. He would later wish he realized the reason the other boy was so quiet sometimes. It was less a matter of not having anything to say; he enjoyed a quiet confidence. It was similar to Aoba, who was taking the stage at the moment. Shiin was right across from him.

“Ishibari!”

Coming right out of the gate with a powerful ninjutsu, needles of chakra flew across the stage, sticking in Shiin almost immediately. As he reappeared on another part of the stage, though, it was revealed that he was rather skilled in genjutsu, in that it appeared he was not even close to where he actually was. Aoba smiled slightly before rushing forward.

“What’s that technique?”

“It’s a paralysis technique. It can cut off the electrical signals going from your brain to the rest of your body; they use it to restrain people sometimes.”

In their brief flashes of taijutsu, it looked like Aoba was winning, but Shiin drew a flute from his sash once he got a feel for his enemy’s movements and began to play it. The spectators could tell what he was doing, but they were too far away to hear any of the notes, which was probably for the better, because even he knew that there was no way the effects would be good.

The ninja from Oto was keeping out of range of all physical attacks, but that was precisely what the Konoha ninja had in mind; he used the needle technique a second time right when he determined exactly where Shiin would dodge, paralyzing him in place. He was about to move himself, or it looked like it, but all of a sudden he was stuck. Halfway turned, his hand reaching for a kunai, he did not get it out and finish the fight, and everyone stayed there quietly for a moment, looking between him and his opponent, who still had his flute to his mouth, though he had stopped playing.

“Wait a minute, are they both frozen?” Obito asked.

“They are,” Kakashi said. “That doesn’t mean it’s a draw, though. Look at Aoba’s feet.” He did, and he saw an explosive tag that had been left on the ground at some point. “They really use everything they’ve got in Oto.”

The explosion was not fatal, but it definitely injured one of the fighters, and though the other was paralyzed as well, he was uninjured, so it was decided that he won. Whispers went through the crowd about his ability and it was quickly deduced that the sound of the flute could paralyze his opponents, which was not going to surprise anyone who went up against him in the second round.

Obito silently ran through countless plans, but there was no point; his next opponent was yet to be revealed. He still could not say exactly how the first level of the bracket had been selected, or how Minato and apparently some other Jonin leaders knew about it. The thought crossed his mind that they figured it out, but if that was the case, he had no idea how.

At the moment, he hoped that was the kind of thing he could work out as he went.

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 30: Level One, Part Two

Chapter Text

“Uchiha Tekka and Oyashiro En are the next fighters,” an examiner announced as both of the previous two were carried off the stage. It looked they were exchanging words, but no one could tell what they were saying. In short order, however, both jumped backward and threw kunai at each other, dodging as quickly as they were throwing them, and some of them were thrown hard enough and from a low enough angle that they went in the direction of the seating area, having to be caught by examiners.

Perhaps Tekka realized that the battle was not as simple as he had hoped, and that he was up against someone who was fighting as hard as he could. There was a chance, otherwise, that he felt like he needed to impress the crown. Whatever the reason, he activated his Sharingan and backed up to analyze the situation. It was the strangest thing when his opponent’s eyes also changed color, though no one could properly see what they were from such a distance.

“What the hell kind of dojutsu is that?” Obito asked.

“I don’t know,” Rin said. “It seems like he was waiting for the other guy to activate his own, though… why would he do that?”

“Our clan’s kekkei genkai basically gives the user highly advanced powers of observation in the base form. If he was really waiting for Tekka to use it, then I’m betting whatever he does works through eye contact. The Sharingan would have detected the other dojutsu as soon as it started, which must’ve been the point.”

“Hypnosis,” Kakashi summarized. One of the fighters had been still for the entire time, with the other advancing forward. “If you have to fight this guy, count yourself lucky you haven’t managed to awaken the kekkei genkai yet.”

Oyashiro En was laughing at his enemy and approached with a drawn kunai, with the match being called right as he got close. He said something no one else could have heard and shrugged, putting his weapon away. Silently, Obito resolved to get a word in with Tekka to see what happened.

“Yuuhi Kurenai against Fuma Kagero.”

The two competitors made their way to the stage after the hot water ninja who won the fight was commended for ending it decisively without hurting the enemy. It was obvious to everyone watching, however, that he did not do so out of the kindness of his heart. That the same mercy would be shown to anyone else in the bracket was incredibly unlikely.

“You were the one who got lucky getting here,” the sound ninja said.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Kurenai responded. “But didn’t you get through the second round because someone decided to light himself on fire?” Drawing a kunai, she smirked as she changed her stance. “It looks like we both have something to prove.”

“It looks like I might have a hard time wearing you down.”

Kagero charged forward only for a cloud of flower petals to appear in her path, and she slashed out randomly as if caught in a genjutsu, and that was probably what it was. Her opponent threw three shuriken in quick succession and one was blocked by a blind strike, another hit the target in her side, and the third missed after she twisted out of the way. Getting out of the petals in a roll, she found the next two shuriken were easier to avoid.

The sound ninja closed the distance quickly and managed to deal three painful-looking blows with her bare hands, forcing the leaf to burn chakra getting away again, finding herself at the edge of the stage. Both fighters made hand signs.

“Doton: Arijigoku no Jutsu.”

Kurenai remained silent and Obito only saw the tiger being repeated, which looked like a mistake, but he knew for a fact that some techniques required non-sequential repetition of certain signs. Kakashi seemed impressed by her quick thinking, but Obito was too absorbed to listen to his analysis. A hole appeared under the stage and the wood started cracking, but there was another flurry of flower petals, and this time she seemed to use them to get behind her opponent and kick her in the spine.

The match was called, oddly enough for the same reason she got through the preliminaries. Though she had taken more hits, she knew how to hit the enemy decisively from a superior position. None of the spectators could tell whether the earth technique was the best that Kagero could use, but evidently it was something that the leaf ninja could avoid, if only because of the stage.

“She might’ve used that to collapse just a corner of the stage,” he observed quietly. “No one would have seen that coming.”

“I think it’s kind of sick the way that they pit almost all the kunoichi up against each other in the first round,” Rin said. “It’s like they think we all have the same skill level.”

“I don’t know that skill level ever went into it,” Kakashi said. “Look at this next matchup.”

Asuma was going up against Ryochu, a local, a bigger young man with a wild mane of reddish hair, who had just lost one of his teammates, though the other had made it through. In the full context, Obito might have worried that the Chunin exams might have an overall negative effect on relations between the allied nations, but he was too focused on the fight itself, as were the spectators. Perhaps he should have realized that their view of the exhibition matches represented a substantially greater population.

“Futon: Fujin no Jutsu!”

Only just giving the enemy a chance to use the same hand signs as one of his teammates, making a weapon out of a cracked part of the stage, the wind technique blasted him with dust, forcing him to roll out of the way. It looked a little like an escape trick, but in context it was easy enough to see that it had offensive capabilities. The fact that the target avoided was worth something all by itself.

Ryochu was not going to be as bold going forward. Holding up what he had drawn from the ground, as if to throw it, Obito could tell that it was a spear or a pike of some sort. The weapon was also rare among ninja because they were hard to conceal; he supposed the technique had its advantages. He did not look forward to going up against anyone who could make metal weapons appear out of nowhere, or out of some nearly ubiquitous metal surface.

Having used a lot of chakra in an admittedly impressive jutsu, Asuma switched to his trench knives. The obvious difference between him and his opponent was reach. The tea ninja charged forward and created two shadow clones in the process, but his opponent slashed only twice, first cutting the his weapon in half and then creating a long gash across his chest.

“Wind release,” Kakashi muttered. He was reminded that Guy had been saying they could infuse chakra into the metal, so it made sense, and it was possible that he had in that found a vulnerability to the spear transformation strategy. “It’s clever. He let the Cha guy think that he had the range on him.”

After Asuma rolled out of the way of a blast of hot water, he was surprised by a spear flying at him much faster than expected, and he only just managed to get his arm up in time to keep it from hitting him in the chest. Obito realized with a start that it was almost the same trick.

“He’s throwing it inside a gust of wind. How’d he learn that, though?”

“He might’ve copied it from someone else,” Kakashi said. “He’s particularly talented at elemental manipulation, but it’s rare for someone to have the knack with more than one. It’s more likely he saw it at some point and managed to reproduce it.

Though his teammate was probably right, the chance that it had happened exactly like that was slim to none. Copying the jutsu of an enemy required that the enemy would slow down so the copier could see each hand sign, and then he or she would probably still have to practice it. Clearly, however, Ryochu was practiced with what he had learned. Throwing another spear, he was moderately impressed to see it split in midair.

“That’s interesting,” Rin said. “Did he just use one wind technique against another?”

“It’s the law of cross breezes,” Kakashi said. “Wind is one of the elemental releases that you can counteract directly.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“I made it up.”

It was becoming a longer battle than anyone had anticipated, and the tea ninja had only just avoided a shuriken by disappearing into a cloud of tea leaves. It was clear that he was the most talented out of all of the competitors from his village. Already, it was really something that Asuma managed to stand up to him when Tenga was defeated and nearly killed by his teammate; it was a wonder that he was hesitant to get close; the Sarutobi heir had every reason to be afraid of a spear coming through his own foot. That was precisely what surprised him about the fact that he charged forward right when his opponent was bringing up a new spear. Bringing his knives together, he intercepted the weapon while it was in flight, splintering it, and then throwing one of his knives unexpectedly.

Ryochu managed to catch the knife by grabbing the handle where there was no danger, but the challenge of that was probably a distraction, looking back on it. Asuma used a basic Katon a mere moment after throwing the knife, and the wind carried the flame forward, hitting outside of what would normally be the effective range. The examiners called the fight and put out the fire that was making trouble for the lose, though he insisted that he could keep going.

“If you burn the tea, all you get is hot water that tastes bad,” he said. “Your Shodai was wise to reach out to us, and demonstrated great confidence in the strength of his own clan, in light of what we could become with a modicum of assistance.” One of the examiners put a hand on his shoulder and he glowered. “I’m not pleased with the result, but I’m glad your village hasn’t been handed over to weaklings.”

“It doesn’t seem like he’s angry about Hoheto cutting his teammate’s hand off,” Obito said as they escorted the fighters off the stage. Asuma was weak from chakra exhaustion, even if he was still in a condition to fight with his other knife and probably could have closed the distance while the enemy was blinded and distracted from the pain of the flash of fire. The stage had to be fixed again.

“He knows the Hokage’s son doesn’t have any influence over that. They’re not even on the same team,” Kakashi said. “He seems like someone who admired Madara and more or less modeled himself after his example. I imagine you get a few of those in your neighborhood.”

“Yeah, more than a few.”

The way he saw the one time leader of their clan, he was a monster of passion. He turned against his friends for family, an understandable, but in his heart ultimately wrong decision. Even when it was presented to him by another Uchiha, he could not see Shodai as being completely in the right; he was more like one of those old tragic heroes, bound by a fatal flaw that compelled him to fail in his aspirations. In his own writings, he confessed that he would die in suffering, as long as his old friend was not around to see their vision realized. At the same time, he could see why there were those who idolized him.

“Iburi Gotta and Namiashi Raidou,” an examiner called out. Both of the shinobi took the stage, their differences apparent. One was substantially older than the other, perhaps by about three years, and dressed in simple clothes with only a pouch of shuriken to serve as weapons. His opponent, however, was not inclined to long range combat, as made evident by the long, black blade that he drew and held out in front of him. If they had one thing in common, it was that they had no desire to say anything before getting into it, but silence did not make one stand out in a world of ninja.

After dodging several attacks from Asuma’s teammate, Gotta seemed to be reaching back for a weapon, but not finding it; there was nothing there. Obito squinted, but it did not look like he had ever worn a scabbard on his back, not that he could tell. The subtle movement distracted Raidou, but only for a moment, and he kicked forward anyway, and missed inexplicably. His opponent used a basic Katon from close range, and he angrily slashed with his sword, but when the smoke cleared, he was the only one who got burned.

“That was way too close,” Rin said. “That sword strike should have killed him.” She thought a moment longer. “That’s why he was so angry; he didn’t want to have to use a fatal strike just to win the first level of the third round of the Chunin exams. It’s a terrible reason to have to kill someone.”

“I could see why he would get annoyed at that,” Obito said after a moment. “He really doesn’t have any choice; he can’t just not take the chance and lose.” Even as he said as much, though, it still made him think. Did all the competitors want everyone else to give them an excuse before they killed them?

Gotta avoided a series of slashes without so much as a nick. He was careful and fast, to be sure, but even the best picked up some cuts here and there; there was simply no one who was that good- even Uchiha with the Sharingan could only avoid so much. Was it an illusion? Where was the real body? Why had the illusion not broken yet?

The match ended with a punch that should never have connected, but when it hit, there was more than enough force behind it. Raidou was carried off the stage unconscious, and while everyone was marvelling, Obito was counting on his fingers.

“Hey, wait a minute, isn’t there only one fight left in the first round? Who was it again?”

“Oh, that’s right,” Rin said. “You went off with Guy, so you didn’t see this.”

“Mitarashi Anko and Suzume,” the examiner called out.

“Wait, what?” Rin asked. “Did I have something mixed up?”

“They’re both supposed to be here,” Kakashi said. “We should focus on the fight.”

The two kunoichi could not have approached with more different attitudes. As it would become clear in short order, they could not have had more different skill levels, lending credit to his teammate’s complaint from earlier. In a matter of seconds, Anko closed the gap and won with taijutsu after faking a handsign to mislead her opponent. Silently, he supposed it would not count as terribly impressive if one combatant overwhelmed the other with superior close-range skill, but it would get her through to the next level.

“Is there going to be a break, or do I have to go up right away?” he asked. “Oh, and they didn’t fight in the order that we thought.”

“No, but the matchups were all there. I think there may well be a break. Whatever system they used for the first lineup, they’re going to use it again, not just have it go by the coincidence of the initial lineup,” Kakashi said. “Most likely, you won’t be fighting Kurenai, like we thought.”

“If I remember correctly, you thought he’d be fighting Kagero,” Rin said.

“It was a close match. If you feel like it, tell your friend she impressed me.”

“Are they just using this as an opportunity to pit the girls against each other again?”

“I don’t know,” Obito said. “Couldn’t you say that they also pit the guys against each other?”

“I mean, maybe, but my point is that almost all of the matchups were the same gender, and that can’t be a coincidence. Whatever their exact reason is, I don’t like it.”

There were a few different explanations that occurred to him. One was that they might have thought the kunoichi would all get wiped out in the first round if they were paired up against the opposite gender, and they wanted to avoid that, even though Tenga lost to Jin. When he thought about that, though, it was an expected result. The loser was a couple years younger than the winner, and apparently he was kind of an intellectual type. His abilities were applicable even for close-range combat, but he had slim chances against a more physical type who was not an idiot herself.

What was clear to him, if not the methodology for determining the matchups, was how they got to a two-to-one ratio of boys to girls, even as far back as the academy. Not only was Rin probably right about someone having to stay home for the kids, she had a point about how they were treated by the elders, even if it was arguably favorable for them. What did she want, anyway? They had not been treated the same as the boys even in the academy, where there were separate classes. Why go so far into the system to start getting annoyed by it? Was it anything so clearly defined?

He knew Kakashi had never shown her any mercy, even though Minato probably did, but it was hard to tell how much he was showing her because she was a girl when he was already going easy on all of them, because he was powerful enough to make short work of all of them. Obito knew that it was pretty common for students of any given teacher to think that theirs was the strongest, but he had at least introduced himself to most of them, and there was no doubt in his mind.

“I can see why they’d want to make us fight each other at night, but the spectators wouldn’t go for it,” Rin said, ruling out any chance that they would be launching right into the next round of fights. The sun was not exactly setting yet, but it would by the time they were done, factoring in the time it had already taken to pick the next matchups. Genma and Guy joined them.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Kakashi said. “Best of luck in the next round.”

“Thank you,” the taijutsu specialist said, giving a thumbs up. “If it’s you, I will defeat you this time.”

“It might be,” Rin said. “A fair few of us have gotten through, and they’ve wanted us to fight so far, but they’ll probably put me against Kurenai, then pit Obito against Asuma as a smokescreen.” She sighed a little. “At least people might be less likely to think that Raidou was dragging them along, considering he didn’t get to the next round.”

“There’s something we wanted to ask about that,” Guy said. “I trust you told your teammates about what we discussed?” He nodded. “We think the ship has sailed.”

“So, nothing’s going to happen?”

“Unfortunately, it seems just as likely that someone could have been framing him for setting himself up,” Genma said, shrugging. “Whoever it was must’ve figured that he would get through no matter what, so there was no harm in making sure. Let’s hope we finish up this first round before the sun sets.”

“What?” Rin asked. “I thought they were calling it now.”

“Really? That’s not what- never mind, it doesn’t matter. With thirty two of us, it’s no surprise that the officials would take any chance they could get to turn it into a two or three day competition. The elders have reason to drive tourism income.”

“Does this account for a lot of their tourism?” Obito asked.

“Yeah, the majority of the people like to keep people out most of the time. They like to have their own quiet little garden where no one else tramples the flowers or tea leaves or whatever they have here. They like the tourism money, though, so they put up with it for the exam and stay on guard whenever people are invited here.”

“I didn’t know they were so isolationist.”

“That’s the wrong word for it. They’re not afraid of taking part in foreign conflict; they’re just very protective of their own culture.” Genma sighed. “Imagine if a ton of people from Rai started ordering ramen from Ichiraku; don’t ask me how that works. They only eat it with vegetables, so they only order it like that. Most of us shrug and think ‘more for me’, at least at first, but if they ever got to be more of the customer base, more of the demand market, the shop really only develops vegetable dishes from then on. It’s a little bit of a contrived scenario, I suppose, but it’s the kind of thing that Cha wants to avoid.”

“Huh. I didn’t really know that about them.”

“I didn’t either, but I started talking to a few of the locals.” He looked over his shoulder, and then back. “Speaking of, you want to see what they have for supper?”

He looked at his teammates and they went along with it. The three of them had planned to camp out with some of the other students, so they could avoid paying for an inn, but they had not known how much food to bring, so it made sense to try the local flavors. They met up with Ebisu, who had been talking to some of the officials, and went into the nearest town, the sun setting behind them.

“It looks like nothing’s open,” he observed after a while of walking around. “Do they really just shut off all their lights and go to bed, even in the middle of town.”

“That’s another thing,” Genma said as they took a turn down another street. “When the population of a town goes up enough, you eventually reach a point where enough people are up at night that it makes sense to be open, and then you have all these garish lights everywhere, and the people here are adamant about not getting to that point.”

They saw a bar that looked open and Obito took a moment to be thankful for drunks.

“It sounds like you don’t think they’ll succeed,” Rin said.

“Hey, they’re welcome to try.”

Sitting down in the bar and ordering whatever they had to eat, Genma chuckled when they were served fish cakes that had been fried on sticks, but the sticks had been removed and they were elegantly plated with slices of fresh cucumber before serving. Guy’s expression seemed to ask what was so funny as the food came out.

“Even the drunk food is refined here,” he said. Refined or not, it was good, and they all paid what was asked, probably more than what a local would have, but that was tolerable; it was actually less than they would have paid in Konohagakure, at that time of night.

Looking back on the whole experience, Obito did not remember the casual unfairness or the feeling of being a bother as well as he remembered the conversations they shared. It felt like they were just having a good time as friends, nothing more. Perhaps it was well enough that he could not have foreseen the next day.

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 31: Levels Two, Three, and Four

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

As expected, they resumed the first level at the top of the next morning. Obito had slept hard and had to stretch to make sure he was limber enough to fight, and he was still rolling his shoulders as they called out the first matchup. Silently, he wondered how many other people had thought the first round was over the previous day.

“Morino Ibiki and Funeno Daikoku.”

The match went about the way he had expected, with the former defeating the latter, but it seemed the loser demonstrated a lot of different abilities in the process. It was nothing special or overly powerful, but all the techniques were well-executed.

“He looks like he’s been in these exams before,” Kakashi said. “Last time he got to the third round, I’m betting he didn’t get promoted because he fought too conservatively. Depending on how he placed last time, they might give it to him this time, who knows.”

No one had a response to that. They watched the next fighter, Nara Daen lined up and waited for his opponent to arrive. Gekko Hayate showed up, apologizing, but it seemed no one was overly bothered. Drawing a sword, he was restrained by the shadows coming from his opponent.

“He must have never gone up against an enemy like that before,” Rin said. “He’s a good swordsman, but all his abilities rely on getting up close.” She sighed. “Even when we were just looking at the scrolls, we knew that this matchup was going to be… I don’t know, unfair.”

“Maybe they wanted to show off the shadow ability,” Obito suggested. He had heard of it, but never seen it himself. “They must’ve figured he’d use it against a dude with a sword.” As he spoke, Daen got out a shuriken and prepared to throw it, prompting his opponent to surrender rather than taking a hit and having the match get called just like that.

“Shadow clones are useless against the Nara clan’s kekkei genkai,” Kakashi observed. “Even if you’re not touching the ground, it can still reach you.”

The next match saw Tokara going up against Minazuki Yuki, and it went much like the first match of the morning. As expected, the latter was older than the former, and had probably been in a previous exam, and Obito briefly checked through his memory to see if he could discern any consistency with the order in which the names were called out, but he shook his head after a moment. There had been so many matches, most of them on the previous day, that he had forgotten little details like that. Despite the fact that Tokara was younger, he managed to win with taijutsu and demonstrated mercy when it seemed like the other combatant was not about to make it a fight to the death. It was one of the refreshing matches, at least for the nerves of some of the spectators. The rest were disappointed.

The final match of the first level was Akimichi Shitou, who must have made it through along with Daen when Obito had not been watching, and Inuzuka Gaku, whose tattoos made him squint. He looked over at Rin.

“Is the Nohara family related to his family?”

“No, we were enemies once. During the clan wars, we were squared up against each other in this deadlock for a small valley, and the face tattoos were a way of telling us apart.” She sighed. “Since we come from the same place and look similar, or some of us do, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some affairs, but we’re not recorded anywhere as being family. It’s strange. We still do the tattoos, even though we’re not enemies anymore, and now people think we’re distant relatives.”

Gaku had brought with him a dog named Aomaru, to whom he called out right as the fight began. It seemed borderline unfair that they were allowed to bring in ninken, but he supposed that the Inuzuka clan had been there since the founding, and everyone else was allowed to use summons, which were almost the same thing. They seemed to be trying to save strength against the Akimichi until he used a rather bizarre technique to grow three times his original size.

“Ostentatious,” Genma observed from behind them. “If you guys go up against him, you’d better win it.”

“I don’t think that’s very likely,” Kakashi said right as Gaku used a fire technique on the wooden stage, reducing the amount of area available for both of them. Keeping out of the way, he only had to wait for the boards to crack for an opening, at which point he ran up his opponent’s body and punched him in the head a few times. The match was called and that was it for the first level of the bracket, and as the next matchups had probably already been chosen, the second level could go ahead and start.

“That ended pretty quickly,” Obito said. “I know it doesn’t depend on the matchup, but…”

“The length of a match is hard to control. Most of what determines it is their standard for a victory condition, but even then you can have people dragging out actually hitting each other properly like Kurenai and Kagero. The venue just has to be flexible around matches like that unless they want to impose a time limit, which has never been received well.”

“Why not?” Rin asked.

“Well, what usually happens is they spend the entire time demonstrating their techniques, even those that wouldn’t work in combat, and it becomes more like a competitive display than a fight,” Genma said. “Don’t worry about it, though. A lot of us have a good chance of becoming Chunin, given that we made it here at all.”

“I mean, I guess the last round was pretty hard,” he said, thinking on the Forest in which he narrowly avoided meeting with his own death.

“It’s even better for us if you do well, though, so my fate’s tied with yours, Kakashi. You’ve got to win it all.”

“We’ll see.”

The officials explained that all the combatants from the previous round were willing to continue for the next, and it would start immediately, with Oyashiro En and Iburi Gotta. Obito’s first thought was that they were trying to get rid of the one hot water guy that made it through, but he supposed it had been an impressive display against Tekka.

“They didn’t ask us if we were willing to continue,” Rin said. “I guess there’s no point, though.”

The two fighters took the stage, but it looked like there was someone they really should have asked. Despite Gotta’s ability that he had demonstrated in fighting and winning against Raidou, who was still the star of Asuma’s team, even if he did not entirely carry it, he looked frightened. No one could tell what they were saying, but the body language was like a lit sign in the dark.

“Are they working out some kind of deal?” Kakashi asked. “What’s the point of all this back and forth?” The spectators looked about as restless.

“Do they ever call the match just because two people have no wish to fight each other?” Obito asked.

“Maybe, but this looks pretty one-sided,” Genma said. “Hey, Ebisu, what did the officials say that one time?”

“They said they have nothing against pitting teammates against each other in the later stages. They must not be trying to hide that they decide the matchups at every level of the bracket.”

En was the only ninja on the stage in a matter of minutes, and the spectators deduced that his opponent had surrendered either out of fear or some agreement. They wore confused expressions, and were probably even more put out that they did not know what happened than the fact that they did not get to see a fight.

“Hatake Kakashi and Might Guy,” an examiner called out.

“I change my mind,” Genma said as soon as they left. “Guy can beat him if he wants.”

“This is obviously a grudge match,” Rin muttered. “I mean, there is no use at all in complaining about it, but it was around four years ago, I think, when they last fought. Do they really think that those two are rivals?”

“They are,” Obito said. “It’s just that they don’t really say it.”

The two fighters took the stage and did not disappoint the crowd. Based on what he had done in his previous match, it was easy, at least for him, to tell that Guy was taking it seriously and opening some of his gates right off the bat, and Kakashi surrounded him with shadow clones. Without access to the earth beneath the stage, he could not make use of his elemental manipulation, but he was still a bag of tricks that could surprise anyone.

Rolling into a catch when the taijutsu specialist threw a kick, the White Fang’s son stabbed his opponent hard in the leg with a kunai before making a clone behind him disappear, but if this had been a trick to get his opponent to think that he was a shadow clone himself, it did not work. Kakashi took a solid punch, though it hit his jaw rather than his head, probably due to a last-second shift.

“You’re lucky to get a second to dodge,” Obito observed. “Nothing to do but make the most of it.” Moments later, he attempted to disguise his presence among clones, but Guy was fast enough to make each of them disappear, and his opponent had said something at one point about having relatively low chakra reserves. The air crackled around his hand as he jumped out and attempted another attack, surprising everyone, but his opponent managed to open another gate and kick him square in the chest, knocking him against the stands. The crowd went wild, seeing the first exciting match of the day.

“Nohara Rin and Sarutobi Asuma,” an examiner called out.

It was a matchup that no one among them expected, least of all the actual competitors. The other team was watching from a different section of the seating area, and a few shrugs went up between them before Asuma took to the stage. It was clear enough that they had expected it to be Kurenai.

“Do your best,” Obito said, leaving out that Sandaime would probably be embarrassed if his son failed to make it past the second round, and against a medic type no less. Rin’s chakra control was superb and she could evidently hold her own in a fight, but basic fire release jutsu were not going to cut it. Their predictions were fulfilled almost immediately. Rather than using wind release that she could exploit, he charged forward with the knives and to his credit managed to identify the real opponent out of the smoke clones that she made. Forcing her into a backwards dodge of his blade, he kicked her hard in the head and the match was called.

From the stands, no one could quite determine if she lost consciousness, or for how long, but they were instantly murmuring that the Hokage’s son should have been more careful. Kakashi rejoined him while the medic ninjas were looking her over before moving her. At the very least, she was making things easy on them, anticipating their procedures.

“She should be okay,” he said. “She’s gotten back up from this before.” He looked back at his other teammate. “What was that jutsu you were trying to use against Guy?”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

He had no answer for that, or not one that would make any difference. Rin was pronounced okay and allowed to return to the stands, while her opponent looked relieved. Obito had something on his mind.

“I hate to say it, but do you think they wanted him to win?” he asked. “We know she didn’t have any advantages that she could exploit. It’s not supposed to matter who wins, but…”

“It’s possible,” Kakashi said after a moment. “I don’t think we should mention it to her, though. She’s probably satisfied that she didn’t have to fight Kurenai.”

His black eyes narrowed. He had not specifically said it, but he highly doubted his teammate was interested in sparing Rin’s feelings, if that was what he was implying. The next pair of fighters was announced; Hoheto was going up against Jin, the Cha kunoichi with the bow.

“Oh, this one might be good. I really can’t say who is going to win this one.”

Rin rejoined them as the two competitors took to the stage, and they watched as the Hyuga used a mass shadow clone to practically fill the stage up. His opponent slashed out with an arrow to clear the area around her, but even as she drew and readied a shot, each of the copies of her opponent made the two hand signs for the shadow clone technique, and right as she appeared to single out the real one, Hoheto used a basic Katon and the match was called before he burned her to death. Immediately after, he passed out from chakra exhaustion.

“That was a bold strategy,” Obito observed as the examiners looked over the competitors. “He really pushed the envelope on that one.”

“Yeah, and if he doesn’t recover his chakra before the next match, he’s going to have a hard time with it. It’s probably going to be today, so he should really only have a few hours.”

It was his turn next, and the sinking feeling started right around then if he remembered correctly. He was going up against Shiin, from Oto, who was without a doubt more powerful than he was, and he felt like he had nothing up his sleeve. With another month, if he worked with the others, he felt certain that he could work out the secret of the technique of the scrolls Minato had given them to study, but he had been extremely busy to say the least.

“Maybe I should just focus on demonstrating techniques and not worry about winning. I’ll have to get close to keep him from using the flute. Can I get it out of his hands?”

Taking to the stage, he knew that making shadow clones was futile. The sound technique was going to work on all of them at once, and he doubted that drowning it out would work. The ninja from Oto had a smug expression as he took out the flute and Obito remembered in a flash that the other guy was only paralyzed after listening to a certain amount of the song, which itself had to be a series of musical seals.

Screaming, he charged forward and threw a series of punches. The enemy might have been capable in taijutsu, but he had trained against the especially slippery Rin and he had two of his hands occupied. While playing the flute, he summoned some monster that there was no time to properly observe, and Obito only just managed to avoid getting flattened. Against a wall, there was no point in conserving his chakra and he used the strongest fire technique he knew.

“Katon: Ryuka no Jutsu!” he screamed, creating a massive flame that the summon was forced to absorb himself rather than allow Shiin to get engulfed by it. Throwing three kunai with the last of his strength, he managed to get a lucky strike on his enemy’s shin at a low angle, hitting him from between the monster’s burning legs. Looking back on it, the only reason he had managed it was because the summon obscured his enemy’s vision. Running around, he jammed his fingers in his ears and kicked out with his feet, but his opponent had the height advantage. They traded blows once before Obito started to use another fire technique, sucking the air up, then aborted it right as the enemy missed a note. Launching himself forward, he grabbed the enemy and punched him hard in the face, wrapping his legs around his body to hold on and continuing with the relentless punching. Having thrown the three kunai he had on him at the time, his opponent’s search for a weapon on him did not produce results before he was knocked out.

The result was unexpected to just about everyone watching. The victor was exhausted and ignored the response of the crowd as he fell on his back and had to be carried back to the stands by a thankfully recovered Kakashi and Guy. It was with complete disbelief that he made it to the third level along with the taijutsu specialist who was congratulating him in his usual spirited manner, though he was not exactly listening. Rin was healing him from the few hits he had taken and he smiled and thanked her.

“The next two are Kurenai and Anko,” she said, looking up briefly. “You need to rest rather than watch this. We’ll fill you in if you miss anything.

He was grateful, to be sure, but he was already thinking about surrendering rather than fighting through the next match. Getting to the third round along with Guy, En, Asuma, Hoheto, and probably Anko was plenty impressive, and he would like to test himself further, but he knew there was something else going on and he would need to be strong enough for that. In a few minutes, his suspicions were confirmed.

“Is Kurenai all right?” he asked, still lying on the ground.

“She’ll be fine,” Kakashi said. “She called it before it could get that bad. I think she only wanted to burn the enemy’s chakra. There were a few impressive genjutsu.”

Obito could not have said what it was, but he went red when Rin looked over him again. He no longer remembered enough about what he might have been imagining or what it felt like, but he knew that it distracted him from hearing about the next matchup. He knew from asking later that it was Tokara against Daen. It seemed better to try to focus on recovering.

“That’s what the officials said?” Genma asked quietly. It seemed he was having his own conversation with Ebisu. “As long as they can’t do anything about it-“

“Cha and Yu have both been our allies for decades. We have no reason to suspect either of them. Oto, however-“

“Even if they’ve been working with us, they’ve been on the point of a knife for that long,” Genma said. “In the first world war, we were even on good terms with Suna. An alliance is just as suspect as neutrality. The only thing we can trust is that our enemies want to kill us.”

“Is this about Uzu-“

“There’s very little that can’t be made about them. They were all buddy-buddy with Rai once upon a time, and Kumogakure still acts like they mourn the loss of the Uzumaki. They still act like they took in refugees. It costs them nothing to-”

Both of them looked over at Obito, who was not trying to disguise the fact that he was watching. He frowned.

“It’s not as simple as we thought, then,” he said. “Do you think Cha is trying to set us up?”

“I still think we should suspect our actual enemies,” Ebisu said. “We should not underestimate their ability to infiltrate our Chunin exams. When all eyes are on the matches-“

“There’s security here,” Genma said. “We even sent our own exam team to watch the perimeter. Any threat is coming from the inside-“

Guy and Kakashi seemed to take notice of the conversation, at which point it was over. Obito had not thought about it, but looking back on it, he realized it should have been obvious that all the other teams were putting on a front just like his own. They acted like they were united, but really they were just keeping their problems hidden.

“The match is over. Tokara managed to win at the cost of taking several hits before his fire jutsu forced Daen to surrender.”

“That’s good to know.”

“I realize you and Ebisu are knocked out at this point, but it’s still a learning experience. The candidates here are putting powerful techniques on display at the risk of losing their secrets.”

Kakashi’s explanation made perfect sense, but it was obvious, even at the time, that he had something else in mind. Was he put off by the lack of trust that Genma was showing? Something that made the Shinobi Rules difficult to follow was the apparent contradiction between rule 10, which forbade trust, and rule 13, requiring that a ninja follow his commander’s orders. Were they meant to trust their commanders or not?

“Thanks,” Obito said. “With a little luck, they’ll put me against Tokara and give us both time to recover.” He was having a hard time imagining how the fight against Daen would have gone, but basically it stood to reason that someone who could counter close range attacks would have more trouble with mid to long range fire jutsu. “What’s left?”

“It’s just Ibiki and Gaku. They’re taking the stage now that the medic ninjas are looking over the other guy.” Getting up, he decided it would not take too much energy to watch them, especially if he had to fight one. Right as he got to the railing, the Inuzuka was using a transformation jutsu, joining with the dog to result in a bizarre bipedal beast. His opponent responded by summoning metal spikes.

“That’s definitely not a nature transformation,” he said, mostly to himself. “I haven’t heard of anyone who can use metal release anyway.”

Gaku managed to avoid the spikes after the initial shock, but moved with a limp as he raced around, jumping at his opponent with a series of animal attacks that proved just as difficult to avoid. Even the spectators could tell the fight was going to end bloody, and they were cheering. Obito scowled. Why was the general public even invited?

“Hey, Genma,” he asked as the ninja and ninken were forced to separate. “I know you said that the people of Cha want to preserve their own culture. Does that mean they hate us?”

“If you’re wondering why they’re cheering when they see two of ours tear each other apart, they’ve been doing that for almost all of the matches.” He seemed to think for a moment. “No, I don’t think they really hate people from Konoha, exactly, but they might hate us if we make a mess of things.”

Ibiki grabbed the dog, ignoring it when the animal pissed on him, and was about to bring him down on the spikes when the owner surrendered. It was a move that probably would have made him exceedingly unpopular among the spectators, as he gathered from the hush that seemed to have fallen.

“What?” Obito asked. “Seriously? If he tried to kill a dog, then-“

“They also got like this when I stabbed that kunoichi from Yu in the butt,” Rin said. “Oh, it’s fine when we’re killing each other, but when something happens to an animal, or a girl’s butt, then it’s serious. It’s not all fun and games anymore.”

It was a day earlier, but he could perfectly recall her standing there with blood on her face, and he realized that part of what set her off was looking around at the stands. By her own admission, Miku had been trying to kill her, and that might not have excited the crowd. It was doubtful they wanted to see Rin’s organs, had she not managed to avoid a downward sword stroke, calculating that the blade would get stuck in the wooden stage for a moment. The crowd had to have been aware that the alternative to victory was death, so what was the problem?

“I don’t get using ninken,” Guy said after a moment. “Are they able to protect themselves as well as human partners?”

“No, but your damage output is substantially higher,” Kakashi said. “There are all sorts of other uses for them, like tracking and diagnosing seals. The only problem is if you’re not capable of sacrificing them.”

There it was; the difference between the shinobi and everyone else, yet again made evident. In the village, there were those who insisted that normal people and their normal ways were getting in the way of teaching kids the Shinobi Rules. Kids were growing up with this unspoken understanding, for example, that their emotions were morally relevant.

“I mean… sure, they have to be able to sacrifice the dogs in a war, but who’d sacrifice them just for the Chunin exams?” Obito asked after a moment. “That’s probably why some of the people watching were so shocked- Ibiki was about to kill the dog just to win the exam. I’m not going to get onto him for that; Gaku obviously brought him here, but I think a lot of the spectators don’t realize how serious the fights are.” He sighed. “I don’t think a lot of them are aware that kids and teenagers are trying to kill each other.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. Is it only necessary in war, though?” Kakashi asked. “They don’t have to be able to sacrifice the ninken for a B or C-Rank mission?”

“I don’t know, but they’re the owners of the dogs, so there’s nothing to do but trust their judgement. If they seriously think the dog is worth more than the contract reward, then you can’t say they’re not being rational.”

“There’s more to it than that,” his teammate continued. “The Hokage recently gave us missions that entrusted us with the peace of the known world. Our commanders need to be able to trust us to follow the Shinobi rules, and that’s not just when the mess is already made-“

Their conversation was interrupted when an examiner announced that everyone who made it to the third round was invited to a complementary lunch during the midday break between the rounds. Quietly, he supposed it was a way of raising the anticipation, and quite possibly giving everyone outside the time to realize that the tournament was heating up.

“We’ll see you when you get back,” Rin said. “Stick close to Guy; I don’t like your odds against some of those jerks by yourself.”

“Yeah,” he said, thinking of En. If Tekka had so much trouble in the first round, he knew he had no chance. “Can you find out what happened to people who got knocked out while we’re gone?”

“Sure,” she said, not seeming concerned with his reasoning. She had her own, as it would turn out.

He walked with Guy and they kept pace with Anko as soon as they saw her, keeping an eye out for her teammates. Having half-expected his eccentric friend to sprint all the way to the restaurant, he was surprised at his restraint, and then a little annoyed at himself. Of course he could save his strength when it was time; he had only just opened some of his gates against Kakashi.

“Hey, have you ever had any problem obeying the Shinobi Rules?” he asked. “That might be a weird question.”

“No,” Guy said after a moment. “That does not mean that I never shall, though.”

“I guess it’s the same for me,” he said. “I guess I’m already thinking about having a conflict with the rules and what I’m going to do when I get there.”

They knew that the rules were developed during the clan wars, so after Ninshuu had already effectively fallen apart. What surprised him somewhat was that people as far away as Kiri would know about the rules, when he could have sworn that Madara had come up with a few of them himself. It was also strange that they knew the rules when they claimed to be the true practitioners of the religion, even if they called the Mind of Water.

Obito walked along the clean streets and admired the old wooden constructions of all the houses and other buildings, assuming there was some code that prohibited any other material and style. It was starting to sound like a real pain to set up in the land of tea, but he supposed as long as the locals thought all the red tape was worth it, then it was. Ibiki was waiting at the door when they arrived just behind Anko, and silently he was thankful that he could probably count on him to side with Guy and himself if things suddenly turned violent for some reason. A voice in the back of his mind asked him how he was so certain, if he doubted that the Morino had any moral character, and at least by that night, he would admit to himself that it was because the young man had unflagging loyalty to Konoha and always obeyed the rules.

“Table for eight,” En said as soon as he showed up. “I’m sure there’s already a reservation.”

“There is,” the older waitress said, squinting at Tokara, who must have been held up by the medical ninjas. “We were just making sure all eight of you recognized each other. I can’t tell you how many times one of you sneaky little bastards have tried to use some trick to get out of paying.”

To his moderate shame, he had never done it himself, but Obito could think of several different ways he could effectively disappear from a restaurant. It was a way of passing the time whenever he was waiting for his food to show up, and it was an exercise, in a sense, much like how Kakashi would test himself with traps and getting out of them. He was silent as they were led to a private room, and one of the white-robed elders joined them, but with only eight seats, he supposed it was just to make an announcement.

“That’s why they called us here, then,” he muttered to himself as Tokara apologized for being late. “They wanted to make sure we heard this, and they thought they’d get us feeling indebted while they were at it.”

“Chunin candidates, I would like to congratulate all eight of you for making it so far into the bracket,” the elder said. “To have made it this far, you really have to be among the best.” A few eyes flitted toward Obito and Guy. “For this reason, all of you have effectively made rank already.”

#naruto fanfiction

[wind-becomes-lightning]

Someday you will be loved.

This is the shortest thing for KakaObi week and my last thing too ~ Thanks for following around this week.

I had the idea after listening to the song "Someday you will be loved" by Death Cab for Cutie.

Pairing: Hatake Kakashi / Uchiha Obito

1246 words.

No warnings. it clean.

Ao3 link [x]

For @kakaobiweek Day 6: Grave

In his moment of death, Obito lets his mind wander about how things could have been and how things will be.

"I love you" Obito wanted to say, but the words wouldn't quite come out. Not now, he thought, not now that he was dying, for real this time. The confession would only serve as another thing to haunt Kakashi and he already had enough ghosts following him. No, Obito did not say it, not now. Not ever.

From the core he felt himself disintegrating, slowly, as if seconds had become minutes, giving him time to think and reminisce, eyes fixed on Kakashi. His old friend stared at him, eyes wide in terror. Don't worry, Obito wanted to say, this is fine. It's not your fault.

Maybe Obito had always been a little in love with Kakashi, way back from when they were kids, a lifetime ago for him. Seeing him as a rival to watch with envy from the sidelines, a companion to work with, but not agree with, no other person as fascinating as Kakashi. They'd just been children in a war, emotions high, suppressed below the surface. Maybe he'd always loved them both- him and Rin- but Rin had been easier to admit. 

No matter how hateful Obito had felt in all his years of crusade, the other lifetime he had lived, he could never kill Kakashi. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it. There had been opportunities, so many of them, but Obito had never had the heart. He was in love then too, probably, he thought, just a rage filled, maddening, desperate love that could ruin the best person. Ah, being an Uchiha was quite the experience.

He didn't want Kakashi to keep looking the way he did now, sad and desperate. It is ok that I'm going, Obito thought, as parts of him slowly disappeared, I have run my course. You have to stay, Kakashi, you have to live. You're not burned, you're not your past mistakes, you're good.

Kakashi needed to know that he wasn’t at fault for this. That Obito had decided all by himself to die for his friend’s future. That was how one loved another, making sure that they were happy, that they became the person they were supposed to be. Kakashi should love too, not the guilty, painful, sharp love he had felt for Obito and Rin so far, but pure, supportive, warm love. A part of Kakashi had to die for this to be possible, the part that was still attached to Obito.

Obito was sure that Kakashi had had many men and women back home in the village. Still did. A guy like him certainly. He didn't need Obitos love declaration to mess him up, he needed someone who stayed and loved him fully. Something Obito, even if he wasn't impaled and dying, could have never given him.

For a moment he dared to imagine the future they might have had together. Kakashi as Hokage and Obito right by his side, advising, supporting, always looking out for him. Sunshine in Konoha, a warmth at his heart that he hadn’t felt since he was a kid. Kakashi would lower his mask and kiss him. Like the tsukiyomi, just real.

The scenery in front of his eyes changed. The smiling faces turned into angry stares. His name a whisper on the lips of the people passing him. “He did it”, they mumbled, “He killed them all.” Cold again, sharp pain in his heart. No, he would never make Kakashi happy. He’d only bring more suffering. Kakashi needed to be free.

There would be someone who would love him the way he deserved, Obito thought with a smile. Maybe not immediately, but eventually it would happen. Kakashi wouldn't believe him if Obito had said it out loud, still he knew it was true. There was love in Kakashi's future and only death in Obito's - it stung in his heart but that was exactly how it was.

Kakashi deserved to live, to live happily and to love freely. Obito would always be with him, some way or another, coating him like a shield from misery and pain. He'd no longer be haunted, he'd be washed clean. Finally free to use his hands to hold another tight. A warrior retired, no longer a child soldier.

He’d never be alone, draped in admiration, friendship and love and Obito wanted it for him so badly that he knew he needed to go. Kakashi could only be himself if Obito left, if his ghost was no longer haunting him, if he’d die right here as a sacrifice, as the war hero he always pretended to be. Kakashi would be happy and Obito would support it from a distance. A far, far distance.

Obito searched his friend's face for details to remember, if one could even remember after dying. Kakashi had given his eye back to him, being freed from the curse of his name, his past that still followed him. It was better this way, Obito concluded, now Kakashi of the sharingan died with him and a new Kakashi had the opportunity to be born. Strong willed enough to show emotions. A worthy hokage for the village he loved so much.

All the years Obito had watched him go about his business, work through his trauma and ANBU, softening up at the sight of his students and then becoming a stern leader, ready to die for his convictions at any turn. Truth to be told, Obito knew Kakashi wouldn’t have minded dying right in this moment, dying right here with his old friend. He’d been ready to die from a young age.

But Obito knew better, he knew that Kakashi needed to stay. Now he could be happy. Meet someone that would assure him with soft touches and good words. Lie next to him at nights and hold him when the nightmares come. Soon Obito would just be a faint memory in Kakashi’s mind, a person of the past, someone to remember on birthdays and death anniversaries.

He couldn’t say the words of love out loud. There were other things to say, support to express, but maybe Kakashi knew anyway. Maybe the way Obito looked at him said enough. He would always be watching. Just like Rin had. They would both cheer for Kakashi from the sidelines.

Obito knew it was time, that even the longest seconds must end eventually. He turned to say some words to Naruto, the boy who was so much like he had been all those years ago. In vain he had tried to heal Obito with his strange powers and was failing outwardly, in truth, Naruto had healed him, just not visibly.

There was a weird ease in his heart, as if all his open wounds had been closed by a soft hand with stitches. Half of him was gone, flying through the air like cherry petals in springtime. Obito smiled to himself. He always loved the spring, how nice to see it one more time. With each loosened piece he felt lighter, more free. It was time to go. 

He turned back to Kakashi, eyes locked on the greys he knew so well. Don't cry, Obito wanted to say, reach out his arm and touch him. It's fine. You deserve more, you deserve better. He smiled and could feel a growing warmth in his now non existent chest. I'm glad it was you, Obito thought, I'm glad you were the one I loved. Now go and love too, Kakashi.

Then there was nothing but dust.

#kakaobiweek2022 #hatake kakashi #uchiha obito #obkk #kakaobi #eh i did it i finished them all #im so tired and i need a break oh well #fanfiction things

[sunnywritesstuff34]

Illusions

(Yayyyy. Another one. It’s been a while, sorry. just wanna preface this by saying that like... I usually don’t really give a shit about Obito, but I figured this was a natural progression of the story and I kinda wanted to try and dive into Obito’s psyche a little so. here we go. tell me what you think. @ghostjellyfishheart here’s the next chapter lol. pls mind the tw’s)

TW and CW for: MAJOR UNREALITY, seriously stay safe, Obito is kinda spiraling a lot, grieving, struggling with morality, drinking, alcohol, less then stellar coping mechanisms of all kinds, don’t do this kids, child death, ghost child, dead kid, you don’t like... see her die but Rin is very much not alive, references to suicide, implied suicide, the uchiha massacre is its own warning, murder, its bad. its just. its just bad. did I mention unreality? a lot of that, death of a family member, obito is having a hard time with feelings, probably dis@ssociation, pretentious symbolism, scratch that, definitely dis@ssociation

Obito Uchiha is upset. 

And that is, frankly, ridiculous. Obito does not get upset. What does upset even mean? Is he sad? Mourning, perhaps? Or is he just worried? Either way, its borderline impossible. He shouldn’t be feeling anything. Obito doesn’t feel anything. Sure, he plays at it, when he’s Tobi. He feigns and pretends, he’s good at that. That is what he is, that is all he is. To Itachi, he is Madara. To Konan and Nagito, he is Obito. To everyone else, he is Tobi. Obito has taken on mask after mask after mask on in his life, both figuratively and literally. Sometimes he doesn't know where Obito ends and another begins. Obito does not feel anything, not for anyone that isn't Rin. Never for anyone that isn't Rin, and he left her behind a long time ago. And yet this boy, this child, has him reeling somehow. Has him… well, like before, the only word he can use is upset. He is rattled. And it has been so long, so long since he’s felt anything at all, that he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to fix it. He kept seeing Sasuke in his head, kept remembering memories from years ago when he thought about the kid being gone forever. He remembered the first few years Itachi brought Sasuke to the compound, he remembered spontaneously discovering his obsession with tomatoes by accident with Kisame (who would not stop laughing. He had just never seen anybody. Put an entire tomato in their mouth. And Sasuke did it like it was the most natural thing in the world! Kisame wouldn't shut up about it for at least a week). He remembered helping the boy train with his newly forged chokuto, he remembered the grim determination towards his family and how much it reminded Obito of himself, he remembered all of it. And none of that should have mattered, because it wasn't real. None of it was real, the next world would be. The next world with Rin and Kakashi and Minato-sensei still alive, a world without… without Sasuke. Or any of the other Akatsuki. And that was what he wanted. He was sure that was what he wanted. Only in his room could he show the weakness tightly coiled in his stomach. But there was a knock on his door and it made him straighten up, instantly putting the mask that he just took off back on his face. He walked to the door and opened it, only to find the older Uchiha brother staring back at him. Obito blinked. 

“Itachi-san. What are you… what are you doing here? I- uh… come in.” Obito and Itachi sat down at the small table in Obito’s room and stared at each other awkwardly. “So… how can I help you?” Obito tried to ask, unsure of whether to say it like Tobi or just let his guard down and talk like himself (whoever that was). Itachi cleared his throat. 

“You are the only person in this godforsaken place that has sake that's worth a damn,” Itachi explained calmly. He looked away. “It has… been a long week.” Obito could tell the truth in that statement just from his cousin’s voice. Itachi sounded exhausted, and the perpetual mask of indifference had begun to slip when his little brother went missing. The two of them looked at each other and came to an understanding. For the next few minutes, there was no talking. Obito grabbed some glasses and poured his strongest sake out for the both of them, and they drank in silence. They only actually picked up a conversation once they were both drunk enough for the awkwardness to melt away. 

“He’s likely not dead,” Obito commented bluntly. Itachi only sighed. 

“If he is, I have no idea what I'd do,” Itachi grumbled casually, like it was an ordinary thing to say. “Certainly wouldn't stick around here. Probably follow in Shisui’s footsteps.” Obito only nodded, knowing better than to pry on that particular bit of insight into Itachi’s life. They were silent for a few more minutes before Obito spoke again. 

“The massacre,” Obito started. “I was long gone by the time it happened. What… are you and Sasuke really the only survivors as the rumors say?” Itachi nodded, throwing back another glass. Obito thought about that bitterly, about his grandmother who wouldn't have been spared. Itachi sighed. 

“Right. I've never really talked about this with anyone, and Sasuke and I don't speak about it much. You know how sharingan awakening works, yes?” Obito nodded, mind involuntarily flashing to his own experience. 

“Well I made some genuine friends on my genin team. It was the first time I ever had any friends.” Obito closed his eyes and took another sip. Friends, sharingan awakening. Being crushed under a boulder with your crying teammates looming over you. Thinking, no, don't cry, it doesn't hurt. It really doesn't hurt. I can't feel anything, please don't cry. Watching a particular white haired individual (a traitor, that traitor) desperately try to save you. Losing a part of yourself, a part of yourself you didn't even know you had, and giving it to someone else. Forever living with that, knowing that your other eye is somewhere, because you can still feel it, but not knowing much else. The aching absence that grows from that. He opened his eyes again. “I watched them die, right in front of my eyes. That awakened my Sharingan, and when I went home, my father congratulated me. He congratulated me. It was a nightmare and he was proud. I don't know, that always stuck with me. But anyway,” Itachi paused to drink more sake as the room spun. “Sasuke’s eyes woke during the massacre. I didn't get there in time. He watched our parents die, managed to hide in the closet and keep quiet the whole time so they didn't find him. I got there in time to stop them from killing him, and realized his sharingan had awakened because of everything. I wasn't able to save anyone, but I was able to save him, and that's all that matters.”

“I understand,” Obito replied evenly. “I know what it's like to be too late.”

Itachi’s eyes slid over to him. “Yeah well… whatever. The Uchiha had been planning a coup for a while. Danzo, he gave me a choice. Either kill everyone myself and have Sasuke be spared to live happily in the village. Or, to let them kill everyone, Sasuke included. I didn't… I refused either option and tried to get there but I was too late. They killed everyone in one night, a bunch of Anbu who were deployed for the massacre. Like I said, Sasuke managed to hide. I knew that Danzo would be after us, so I grabbed Sasuke and we got the hell out of dodge. He didn't speak for months afterwards. Not a single word, other than screaming during his nightmares. It was probably a little selfish, but I… I missed him. There was no more ‘Itachi, look at the score I got at the academy!’ or ‘Itachi look, look I learned a new move!’ There was just… nothing. He was so vacant. If he's dead- if he’s dead after everything we’ve been through, I don't- I have no idea what I'll do. We have to find him, and we have to kill the people who took him away from us. We have to.” I know, he wanted to shout. I know, I feel the same way, but I don't know why! Itachi left not long after that, stumbled back to his room, and Obito fell asleep in his armchair. That night he had a dream, a dream of Rin. it had been years since he dreamed of her, usually they were memories and bits and pieces, but this was different. He opened his eyes in his dream to a dark plane filled with ink, darkness stretching in every direction. It was a frequent setting he found himself in, usually the dream would be about him sinking into the oily substance until he couldn't breath. But this time it was low enough to wade in, his feet touching the ground, whatever that was. In the middle of the expanse, there was a bone white skeleton of some creature he didn't recognize, and Rin. He staggered towards her, and she hugged him without a word. In dreams like this he was always covered in blood, the Obito from years past. But now he was just him, and he was maskless.

“Just what have you gotten yourself into now, Obito?” she asked, and it sounded just like her. It wasn't her, he was fairly sure of that, he was dreaming for god’s sake, but it sounded like her. It seemed like her, and that was enough. “It's okay to be worried about the kid,” she said, running fingers through his hair while he tried to calm his breathing. 

“It's not real,” he managed hoarsely. “None of it. Nothing in this world is real, I shouldn't feel anything. So why… Why do I…”

“Does it matter if it's real?” she asked. “It feels real. Maybe it is, Obito.”

“Obito is dead,” he whispered. “At least the one you knew- Obito doesn't exist anymore.” Rin only shook her head, looking past him at nothing at all and smiling sadly.

“I don't believe you,” she said evenly. “You're still Obito. No matter how many names you take or how many masks you wear, I know who you are. And I think you do too.”

“It's not real,” he tried again, weakly. 

“If it's not real, then why do you help Konan with the dishes? If it's not real, then why do you want to save Itachi’s brother so badly? Why do you make plans for Nagato’s dream in the supposed next world when you don't have to? Why do you stick around Deidara to make sure he doesn't get killed? Why do you help Sasori with his puppets? Why, Obito?”

“I can't be Obito,” he muttered quietly. “He’s dead. He died with you.”

“He is right here. He is sitting here with me. You're still you. You'll always be you.”

“B-But…. But Madara-”

“Madara is dead,” she said with finality, shaking her head. “Madara is a dead man now. You are the only thing that can bring him back, and you have a choice.”

“I've never had a choice.”

“You do now. Madara isn't here.”

“This is all just an illusion.” She smiled sadly. 

“I'm an illusion, Obito. Your world is not.”

His dream didn't fade out from there. One second he was sitting in a dark dreamscape with his dead friend, and the next he was in the Akatsuki lair, laying in an armchair, sitting up and gasping for breath. His back hurt and his neck was aching from the weird position he dozed off in, and Obito could already feel the nausea of an inevitable hangover coming on. Still, he sat up properly, stretching his neck and running a hand through his short hair. Itachi was probably passed out in his room or throwing up already, and Obito had a hunch that he’d be feeling the same way pretty soon. He looked down at the floor and forced his eyes to focus. He didn't have time for a drunken hallucination within a drunken hallucination. But when he turned his head, he felt himself recoil and raise his hands to his face. The orange plastic from the ground winked back at him. Obito had taken his mask off. And now it was cracked. 

#yeahhhh #lol anyway #was this short? #maybe #Obito knew most of those details about the massacre #obito #obito uchiha #uchiha massacre #akatsuki #kisame #Sasuke Uchiha #itachi uchiha #uchiha itachi #naruto #naruto fanfiction #naruto fanfic #naruto au #unreality tw #madara uchiha

[naruto-v2]

Kakashi

With Minato’s inheritance and all the ANBU jobs Kakashi was taking, Kakashi was determined to let Naruto live a satisfying childhood. If he wanted something, Kakashi would save up for it. If he got hurt, Kakashi would find revenge. Kakashi finished up his daily training and wiped his forehead. His eyes widened slightly as he found the sun starting to set. Last time he checked, it had been the crack of dawn. Kyo, their assigned ANBU caretaker, was going to scold him again for forgeting to eat. Kakashi gritted his teeth at the thought of that man. Just like everyone else, Kyo did only the minimal amount of things to keep Naruto alive: a plate of food each meal, make sure he is not attacked or provoked (Meaning no training with other kids, only with certified teachers, if they even bothered) , housekeeper duties, and the basic allowance each month. If Kakashi was not there, Kyo most definitely would have settled with a cup of  instant ramen each meal, killing the boy soon enough with all its MSG and lack of nutrition. It was Kakashi who taught Naruto transformation jutsu so people would stop taking advantage of him, and it was him who bought Naruto all the paint he needed to satisfy his creative needs. So Kakashi must live on, for the boy.

After eating dinner with Naruto, and making sure he did his night routine of showering and brushing his teeth, Kakashi retreated to his bedroom. Just as he closed the door, his breath caught in his throat: his hands and arms were  covered in blood again. Working in the ANBU for so many years, he’s been hardened to it. At least, he would like to think he is. He could smell the coppery tang and it made his lungs icy. He choked down a sob as he bolted through the window to the bathhouse. 

It didn’t come off no matter how hard he scrubbed.

It had only been a few weeks since this last happened. His hands stung at every stroke now and new blood trickled down his hands. Even after hours of scrubbing, the blood stuck stubbornly to his hands. Kakashi yelled in rage and pressed down harder even though subconsciously he knew it could not come off.

Suddenly, large hands took the sponge from him. Kakashi stiffened and got into a defensive stance, ready to kill the intruder to relinquish his sponge. But he recognized the blond that peered down at him: Minato.

“You’re bleeding,” Minato murmured gently. Kakashi felt a stab of pain through his heart but ignored it.

“The blood won’t come off Sensei...”

“It’s not real, remember? You’re just imagining the blood is there. Though, your scrubbing has opened the wounds you created last time. Please, Kakashi, seeing you do this hurts me.” Kakashi let his arms fall limply at his sides as Minato helped him was his hair, like they always did. He watched with a slightly disconnected gaze as the damp, silver strands stuck to his cheeks, dripping water onto the rest of him.

-----

Kakashi first met Namikaze Minato when he was four, just after he started at the Ninja academy. He was a prodigy and father often took him on missions. This time, however, it was an A rank and required a team effort. Kakashi first noticed the strange brilliance of his golden hair and the warmth of his smile. Just like father, he was a respectable, strong, and kind man. Unlike father’s other teammates, Minato allowed Kakashi to sit with them as they planned for their mission. As always, father treated him as an equal even though Minato looked much younger that him. Not many ninjas were as old as father, which made Kakashi proud because it meant father was an exceptional ninja, surviving even to his age.

Kakashi had bowed and smiled back at the stranger because his father always emphasized the need to be polite. He knew father would praise him for it later.

People always boasted how he was born a natural at everything. But their words meant nothing compared to father’s, and Kakashi knew his prowess was mainly due to his field experience. Kakashi had always thrown himself enthusiastically into the Samurai training sessions with his father just to spend more time with his role model.

Father had even made sure to come to his graduation after two years despite being really busy, gifting him his own sword. Dad was so proud, which made Kakashi happy too.

He was too young to go onto a normal genin team, but Kakashi liked it better this way. He trained with one of Dad’s friends, getting stronger and better. By the time he was nine, Kakashi got to test for Chuunin. And he passed. He was the best. The greatest!

And then Dad failed.

 -----

 Minato knows how to comfort him. How to make him feel less worthless.

“Stay with me,” Kakashi whispered desperately. Of course, he knew Minato was not one to abandon him, yet something felt of. Kakashi dismissed it. Nothing else mattered when Minato is putting him back together piece by piece, mending him together with his comforting words. All Kakashi can do is hold on tightly. He needs them. He needs Minato.

“Please,” Kakashi whispered. 

He didn’t know what exactly he’s asking for. To be held? To be reassured? To die?

At some point, his sharingan eye, Obito’s eye, had begun to cry.“Shh.” Minato stroked his white hair soothingly as Kakashi leaned onto him.

-----

 Kakashi stood at the living room entrance, staring at father sitting at the edge of the porch. Father had never looked so weak before, father had never failed before, father was supposed to be the one everyone admired. Kakashi grimaced as he felt his father’s shame weigh on the air.

Father only got worse. Kakashi tried not to care. He ignored the other Chuunins gossiping about Dad and that failed mission, about how he was a disgrace to ninjas and if he went on another mission, he would make the same mistake. When the mounting pressure got too heavy to bear, he committed suicide. When Kakashi saw the sword sticking out of his bowed back, he vowed to live strictly by the ninja code.

That was the same year he was put on a team. Kakashi hated them. They were too slow, too weak-hearted, too stupid. Obito didn’t know how to shut up and he and Rin would flirt at every off chance they got. Kakashi didn’t need a team, especially this team.

But it was headed by Namikaze Minato, one of the best Jounins in the village. So Kakashi decided to tolerate it for a while and see what would happen. He might just learn something useful.

-----

Kakashi had always been a master at time management, cramming as much productivity as possible into every minute of his life. Books, television, friends were all useless. He studied enough to pass, said enough to avoid enemies, and rested enough to be healthy and alive. Yet, after the nine tailed fox’s attack, time has become muddled and confusing.

“Easy,” Kushina murmured softly as she placed a gentle hand on Kakashi, who had begun gasping for breath. It's all Kakashi can do not to jerk away and scream. The blood was back.

Kakashi’s nerves are too ragged to think properly, so Minato caught his wrists, giving him a moment to realize the blood was just red hair.

“Easy,” Kushina repeated quietly and, for a moment, Kakashi is terrified that he’ll see pity in her gaze. But he doesn’t. He sees concern and love, the same look a parent would give their child.

Kushina’s soft hands cupped his face as her thumbs brushed away the tears. He can’t help but lean into her chest as he closes his eyes. 

He’s here. He’s with them. He’s fine. He’s fine.

-----

The first time he was dragged home with Minato, much to Kakashi’s displeasure, Kakashi did not take much liking to Kushina. Just like the dullard Obito, she was loud and brash and did stupid things. And he was fine that she disliked him back. But after he had left for the bathroom and come back, he found her gazing at him with a strange gentleness that ignited rage within him. He told her boldly that he hated the way she talked.

Annoying. Stupid. Too compassionate.

He hated the soft way everyone looked at him despite his efforts to appear brash and cold. Obito, Rin, Kushina, and even the man he respects. Kindness was what got you killed on the field. 

Kakashi glared at them as they laughed and chatted lightly. He leaned against the wall, arms folded over his chest, and watched as Obito and that woman made fools of themselves while Rin giggled and Minato-sensei beamed.

His chest tightened. Maybe he did want to be a part of this...

Content. Happy.

Kakashi hated these feelings.

-----

But he ended up loving them didn’t he. He ended up relying on them. And look where he is now, back at square one. His loved ones are all dead.

Dead…

He lightly touched his face to feel the porcelain mask, dragging him back to reality. Kushina and Minato faded from his sight. He was hallucinating again. How much enhancement pills had he consumed last night?

He feels no heat from these apparitions, yet he continues deluding himself. Sometimes he tries to grab onto them, unwilling to let go. Don’t disappear… Don’t leave me alone again...

“Stay,” Kakashi whispered to nobody in particular. His heart pounded out of control and he vaguely considered sleeping pills. Those were harder to get as you had to be prescribed them by the doctor. But he knew they would find out about his nightly intake of enhancement pills. And they would take that away from him too, wouldn’t they.

His dead eyes unfocused again as he slipped into another memory.

---- 

When Kakashi became a Jounin, he had expected this. His friends had thrown him a party. Obito had patted him on the back, saying that it was about time his skills were recognized. People commended him for his youth, being only thirteen and having this title. Kushina, however, was angry, and protested against his promotion, saying that he was too young for those missions. Her words seemed idiotic to him. If you were strong, then no matter the age, you should be allowed to prove yourself.

Kakashi’s first mission as team leader wasn’t exactly easy but he had confidence in his skills. He would show his father he could do better than him. That he was worthy of the title of Jounin even that young, despite Kushina’s displeasing words.

But the mission went to hell faster than he could cope. He lost an eye and, soon after, his team too. 

Kakashi had failed. Rin and Obito were never coming back. Dead. Dead. Dead…

Dead like father, lying on the floor, surrounded by his own blood and with his own sword jutting out of his belly.

When Kushina sat beside him at the hospital and reached over to touch his hand, Kakashi broke down for the first time. Tears poured from Obito’s eyes.

----

Kakashi glanced at the watch he always carried. It was no help, it was already two in the morning, meaning time had eluded him again. When had he arrived at the bath house? Eight pm, he was sure of it. His wrinkled hands dragged the towel over his body and he stood to head home. 

Before going to bed, he swallowed another two pills to quiet his growing discomfort. 

Feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline through him and pinprick of pain, Kakashi murmured their names, one by one, like a prayer. When the rush died away, he drifted into an uneasy sleep.

----

There was no celebration for making it into the ANBU. Kakashi stood in front of the memorial in his uniform to show Obito and Rin. Obito and Rin beamed at him in his mind and that made Kakashi smile because it was painful and he didn’t want them to see his suffering.

When he met Morino Ibiki and got a painted mask, he was elated. A new name, a new story. Maybe he could let go of the past… But when he got back from his week-long mission, the hallucinations only worsened and every once in a while he found himself covered in blood.

The smell of blood made it all seem real, sickening him and making him vomit. He would spend the night trying to scrub it off, until he would collapse with exhaustion and hope the next mission would keep him occupied.

Not long enough. He slipped and fell deeper and for a few weeks, he managed to forget them until he’d returned. He almost dreaded coming back to Konoha. Coming back to Naruto, his brother, the son of his dead parents. He tried to think of them as Minato the Hokage and Kushina the former Jinchuuriki, . Sometimes he managed.

Kakashi never managed to forget the blood and the screams and torturing a lone ninja for information he desperately needed. It filled him up in the quiet of the night, when the boisterous little boy rested.

When it finally became too much, Kakashi found himself at the memorial, letting who knows how much time escape him.

----

Kakashi didn’t remember waking up or doing his morning training. All he remembered was standing over a man, twisting his arm out of proportions. “Don’t touch Naruto.” He growled out. He vaguely recalled the man shooing his brother out of the library, calling him a demon brat. It clawed out Kakashi’s heart to hear that.

“It’s all right,” Minato murmured as he ruffled Kakashi’s hair. Kakashi let go of the man to see Naruto scurrying away. He looked back to glare one last time at the man, pale and shaking with fright.

“You’re okay,” Kushina echoed from behind him.

He was tired. So so tired. But he must live on to protect Naruto. He must ensure Naruto becomes a great shinobi and leaves his legacy before Kakashi can finally rest in peace. Minato’s last mission- protect Naruto- he will honor it to his dying breath. Kakashi reluctantly placed his fingers on his white hound mask to anchor himself. The images disappeared as they should.

That night, Kakashi cornered Naruto again to apologize for scaring him. When Naruto finally nodded, accepting the apology, Kakashi made sure the ANBU caretaker made adequate food for his brother before heading off to get some fresh night air. He saw how Naruto flinched as he neared the dining table, eyes looking everywhere but at him. He will let him sleep on it; Naruto will forgive him tommorow. He always does. At least he’s safe. Kakashi felt a sense of pride as he thought of the strict schedule he set up for Naruto to ensure he would never be in danger. It made sense to Kakashi: stay indoors between 7am to 6pm unless supervised by someone trusted, which so far only included Kakashi himself. 

Nearing ten pm, Kakashi slipped back into the apartment and checked up on Naruto. He had buried his face into his spare pillow, hugging it to his chest tightly. He’s safe.

Kakashi flopped down wearily onto his bed in the master bedroom he and Kyo shared. He had given the separate bedroom to Naruto for privacy and so he can personalize it. Their apartment took up the entire top floor of a building in Konoha, allowing it to be rigged with the distortion seal, making it seem this floor does not exist. Early on, Kakashi had trained Naruto on to use the small open air courtyard to slip out from above without much detection. 

Kakashi turned his head to gaze out the window. A ghost of a smile danced on his lips. Even in death, Minato was always watching over them from the Hokage’s momument.

From outside the window, you could see the seventh hokage, Minato Namikaze, in all his glory, watching over Naruto and him. 

It still pained him, but he knew it would get better in time. Maybe. For now, two pills, and restless sleep.

#headcanon #naruto #fanfic #fanfiction #naruto uzumaki #kakashi hakate #anbu kakashi #kakashi #anbu #family #angst #depressed #pills

[copycaat]

ignipotent - presiding over fire

     Legend has it, Shisui used to say. Legend has it the Dragons live where the Naka springs from the ground in the mountains. He would sit Sasuke down with the rest of them around a low-burning oil lamp and tuck one of their cloaks around his shoulders when they pretended to ninja-camp in the backyard, and he would peer around at the team with a mischievous tilt to his mouth. 

          Legend, Kakashi would always think wryly to himself, has nothing to do with it. 

     When he was nine years old and a freshly blooded jounin and reeling after the loss of one Uchiha Obito and the acquisition of one of the most coveted dojutsu in the Land of Fire and the subsequent constant drain on his chakra that nearly and should have killed him, he was brought before a council of elders of the Uchiha Clan. He thinks, bearing all of that in mind, his total silence before them as they argued over what to do with him was justified. Minato had tried to come with him to the trial as a guardian, but he knew what to expect and he knew his sensei wouldn’t be able to handle the proceedings without major upset. Besides; Hatake Kakashi was an adult in the eyes of the law-- it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to bring a chaperone. 

     They were perfectly happy to discuss him as if he weren’t even there. Many argued for the removal of the eye-- and he thinks that one was the worst. It would be a mercy, in their view, to take away the last thing Obito had ever given him and the promises he’d made in exchange. He would have preferred death, and plenty of the eldest among them argued for that one as well. He expected it: the Hatake brat, a little monster from a family of pariahs? Proof that the sharingan could survive outside of the Uchiha bloodline, even with the only evidence being that it hadn’t killed Kakashi yet? It was unacceptable. He needed to be made an example of, to declare to the rest of the village that their abilities were not to be bought and sold and traded from corpses. This was an argument he understood. 

     Old clans have old ways, after all; the Hatake had secrets of their own. He did not want to die, but he understood that it was a distinct possibility that he might. Uchiha Fugaku, the future clan head himself argued that Kakashi be allowed to live on with it, though his voice was shouted down by dozens of others in that loud room. They deliberated for hours until Kakashi could barely keep his head up and his eyes-- his eye-- open, until an old crone of a woman that had been as quiet as he had stood, and a hush finally fell over the room. Her hair was thin and grey-white and she’d leaned heavily on her cane when she hobbled over to stand before him. He kept his eye fixed firmly on her feet until she thumped the cane against the ground meaningfully, and when he met her gaze her eyes were milky and sightless, but her voice was the rough burr of a field commander. “We will ask the dragons,” she said. 

          We will ask the dragons. 

     You see-- when Shisui would tell the story he always did it respectfully, with an air of bestowing knowledge of great importance on the youngest member of their little rag-tag group, reverent even when he would adapt great and exciting sweeping gestures and laugh joyfully at some parts of the tale. Uchiha Shisui was a true believer in the way most of the Uchiha were true believers: tales of gods were not things to be passed down and eventually forgotten. They were warnings as much as they were a living heritage, colorful and warm and alive and terrifying. Tales of massive scaled beasts that breathed fire into the sky and knew unfathomable things that had given the Uchiha the gift of Sight in exchange for their dedication were not tales at all; they were history. They were beings of wrath and honor and dignity and they were a lesson. 

     And so when the old woman suggested his case be taken to the dragons she was not met with scorn. Instead a thoughtful silence reigned until more than half of the room had agreed, and thus it was decided. Jounin of Konohagakure, Hatake Kakashi, aged nine, was to be taken to the dragons. Jounin of Konohagakure, Hatake Kakashi, aged nine, took this news about as well as one might expect. 

     Silently and without complaint, he let them set him up in a spare bedroom and spent the night in the compound under guard and he didn’t sleep a wink. He stared at the ceiling all night and he thought about the patrons of the Hatake and how they always seemed so lifeless when he read about them on paper-- the White Ones with their quiet, feral dignity, and Raijin with his penchant for mischief and destruction reduced only to strokes of ink. His father had only taken him into the shrine once when he was very young, and he’d showed him how to light the lanterns and leave offerings and he’d shown him where they’d kept the clan histories and secrets and when he’d went back to lock the place up after Hatake Sakumo’s death he’d sat in there for a very long time and read through histories that felt as cold and dead as the rock and the paper and his father and himself. He thought about the wild joy in the chase and the madness that sparked in him during a storm, and he knew: the Uchiha did not believe their gods are dead. It wasn’t all that difficult to wrap his mind around. 

          But he’d left his family’s shine untended for so long. He would get no help from his own patrons if he really was about to face his judgement. 

     They led him out in the pre-dawn light on a long trek along the river, upstream along a well-worn path. Mist clung to the slow-moving waters and swirled around their feet until it was burned away by the sun mid-morning, and by noon they reached the foot of a mountain inlaid with thousands of steps-- so high that the stairway disappeared into the clouds, and his armed guard stopped at the base of them and sent him the rest of the way alone. 

     One foot in front of the other, he climbed the steps. The constant strain on his chakra from Obito’s eye left him fatigued from what would have otherwise been considered light exercise, and every stair felt like a struggle. He climbed the stairs until the retinue he left behind looked like ants and he kept climbing, the stone path planted neatly next to the river that rushed and crushed on its way down. He followed the stairs all the way to a great plateau, and the air was thin and cold in his lungs and sweat clung to his forehead and left him shivering in the frigid breeze and the exertion left him burning with fever, and on the edge he saw the mouth of a cave and from the cave came the river, the water tumultuous and churning as it spit itself into a long waterfall. 

     A wash of hot air came from the mouth of the cave, and for a brief moment he considered turning around and walking back down the stairs and not looking back. He closed his eye and he steadied himself and pressed a fist to his rib cage like that might still his wildly beating heart, and then he walked forward. All the way to the mouth of the cave and straight onto the rapidly changing surface of the water, keeping his chakra leashed carefully and his steps light, following the river into the dark. A great cavern opened up before him and he came to a standstill on the water, peering into the dark with his one eye and finding that he could see nothing but knowing that there was something there with him anyway. The cave smelled like serpents, like sulfur, and the air was hot and there was a great heaving sound like a sigh, and he kept himself still even as a great red eye with three swirling tomoe flickered to life before him. 

     The red glow cast light on a great shifting mass of scales and whiskers and teeth and five-ten-fifteen-onehundred-onethousand eyes cracked open with the same lazy sort of judgement and they stared at him and they shifted in the dim red and he could pick out black and white and red but no other color. Hatake Kakashi stood still on the water with his shoulders straight and his hands steady and he watched a snout bloom from the mass and lower itself to watch him from twenty feet away-- the dragon’s teeth were as long as his own body, and its head was the size of a house. 

     Its mouth did not move but its voice still echoed loudly in the massive cavern. It said to him: Let us see. He averted his gaze from the end of its nose and lifted his hitai-ate and then lifted his chin once more, Obito’s eye burning in his skull when it showed him in perfect detail just how massive and how powerful the creature before him truly was. The air around him vibrated with the voice when it came again, this time saying: You are no Uchiha. 

     “No,” he’d agreed, because lying wouldn’t fly here and there was little else to be said. A creature like this would not care for a dead boy’s plea and the survivor’s promise. The head drifted closer to him and he was forced to crane his neck up further to keep his gaze on it. 

     Bold little thing, it had chuckled. We gave our gift of sight to the Uchiha because they agreed to abide by our laws, child. You, we have made no such bargain with. 

     Kakashi had grit his teeth but kept his shoulders relaxed, and instead of saying ‘not yet’ or ‘i would strike a bargain with you if that is what you desire’, he said, “I already hold agreements with others.” At the creature’s snort, he swallowed hard. 

     Agreements you have broken, have you not? To you, there is no pack. Its tone was considering instead of mocking, and he did not allow himself to flinch from the truth of it. You are already an oathbreaker, so what use do we have for a wretch like you? 

     It’s not a question he truly had an answer for-- after all, they were right. Hatake Kakashi had thrown his bonds to the wind and abandoned those he was supposed to care for: his father, first, and then Rin, to the cost of Obito’s life. Betraying Pack like that is the gravest of sins a Hatake can commit and he’d done it more than once, and the gods do not care for excuses and platitudes. But it had been Uchiha Obito that made him see the error of his ways, albeit a little too late to save his life. And Kakashi had sworn to him that he would live for the both of them and protect Rin, protect their family, so meeting his death in a flash of fire or teeth today was not an acceptable outcome. So he blinked slowly, his hand fisted tightly over his gut, and finally he replied, “you have no use for me at all.” 

     The stillness that lingered in the air then had raised the hairs on his arms like the moment before a lightning strike, and the great beast’s eyes had narrowed at him and a great, deafening snarl had ripped out of its throat and he had just enough time to think guess that’s the wrong answer before something struck him between the shoulder blades and lit his whole world up with bright white light and then left him once more in darkness. 

     He’d woken again out in the middle of the plateau feeling like his joints were locked in stone, limbs trembling, nose and ears bleeding. The air was frigid except for the great, hot gusts of air rolling out of the cave that made the mouth of the Naka river, and some sense told him he would not be welcome were he to go back inside. Kakashi had stood up, fallen back to his knees, and stood up again, and then made his way toward the steps on legs that trembled worse than a fawn’s. He sat heavily on the first stair at the top until his ragged breathing slowed, threw up off to the side until the only thing that came out of his mouth was stinging bile, and then he’d watched the sun set. 

     By the time he made it back down the stairs, staggering heavily, it was midnight. The only ones waiting for him were the ancient old woman and Uchiha Fugaku, who watched with unreadable faces as he made it all the way down the stairs and stood before them, and then fell straight onto his ass. The woman waited a moment, and then as she turned away she said, “he may keep the eye, then. It’s been decided,” and then limped off down the path into the dark. Fugaku had pulled him to his feet and caught him when he stumbled hard enough to crash face-first into his gut, and carefully steered him all the way back to his apartment without a word. 

     And if Shisui had a look of respect and wonder on his face whenever he spoke of the dragons to their little circle of murderers and a child, whenever Fugaku stood on the back porch and watched them he always had that same unreadable look he’d had that night, with his arms crossed and his brows furrowed, before he turned his back and headed inside. 

#drabbles. #putting this under a readmore bc it's long as fuck #alternately titled kakashi has a crisis of faith all the time #netsurai #thank u to rob for helping me consider this a few weeks ago and also sending me the perfect prompt that gave me an excuse for writing it

[depressedkakashihatake]

Kaka-shi- restaurant AU (+/- bonus KakaGai)

Kakatenz- in the Uchiha Kakashi AU (+/- bonus KakaShi)

It is very long since there are two so i am going to put it under the cut so people don’t end up with just this ridiculously long post on their dash

i apologize XD

Restaurant Au (KakaShi)

·        Kakashi owns a nice little Sushi shop handed down to him by his father.

·        He asks his best friend/boyfriend Gai to help him with the place, knowing that Gai is better with customers and publicity.

·        Shisui is hired as a Sushi chief and is easily one of their best, as well as being very showy and popular with their guests.

·        Only a week after Shisui starts working there, people begin to come in just so they can see him make Sushi because he is so talented at putting on a show and making some of the best sushi they have ever tasted.

·        Kakashi doesn’t go to the store on a schedule and he never informs anyone when he’s going to come in. He usually just goes in to do paper work that he can’t do at home or to check in and make sure that everything is clean and health and safety codes are being followed. Gai, thankfully, is already pretty hard core on those as are all of their managers so Kakashi rarely ever has anything to correct.

·        One day he comes in during Shisui’s shift. Shisui hasn’t met him before and thinks that Gai is the only owner, so he thinks nothing of flirting with the cute business man who sat in from of him for food. It’s a dead hour so reservations are not needed to sit in front of Shisui.

·        Shisui spends half an hour flirting with Kakashi when Gai comes out of the back and spots him. He’s immediately at Kakashi’s side, getting in real close and flirting as though he doesn’t have someone standing directly in front of them, making Kakashi blush like crazy.

·        Suddenly Shisui feels very awkward, especially when Kakashi and Gai start talking about the business. Clearly he has missed something.

·        He is especially confused when Gai leaves for a moment and Kakashi turns back to him and continues flirting with him as if he wasn’t just being cute with his boss.

·        Not wanting to make things awkward with his boss, Shisui excuses himself to do something else and watches from afar as Gai returns and keeps talking to the cutie.

·        It’s only two weeks before he see’s the cute guy again, this time walking in with Gai in time for the place to open.

·        What confuses Shisui this time is that they seem to be talking about a date, but between Gai and someone named ‘Genma’

·        Kakashi takes a seat in front of Shisui again to do some work while Gai heads into the back.

·        Shisui, being a nosy shit with a lot of questions he really needs answers to, decides to ask Kakashi is he’s dating anyone.

·        Kakashi huffs at that and reply’s “of course I am. I’ve been with Gai for three years”

·        Shisui’s sad about that answer for a second before becoming really confussed. “but didn’t he just say he had a date with someone named Genma?”

·        Shisui can’t tell if Kakashi is actually smiling under his mask, but it seems like he is. He legit looks like he might be smiling. It take’s a while for Kakashi to explain, but as he’s listening to Kakashi telling him about their polyamorous relationship and how Gai likes to go on dates with his old classmate and sometimes even sleep with him, Shisui sort of starts to understand.

·        Which leaves him with one more question.

·        “if he’s dating other people does that mean…”

·        Kakashi laughs before Shisui can finish his question. “You didn’t think I was flirting with you to be a tease, did you?”

·        That’s how Shisui finds out that Gai has plans with his other boyfriend that evening, making Kakashi’s evening completely free. And he is A-Ok with that since he didn’t have any other plans for his evening.

·        Shisui ends up going on a date with Kakashi to the local BBQ place (since neither of them wants to be going on a date to the place Kakashi Owns and Shisui works) and talking about everything. Shisui even ends up telling Kakashi that he wants to open up a café of his own with his Cousin Itachi, he just has to save up enough Money. Kakashi offers to help him with any paper work or business understanding he needs help with, which is how Shisui ends up learning that Kakashi co-owns the sushi shop with Gai and is in fact the one it was handed down to.

·        They end up having a great night, and Kakashi even takes Shisui for a walk down towards the river while they keep talking.

·        Shisui’s still a little iffy about dating his boss, but Kakashi assures him that Gai takes care of everything within the store. Kakashi has no control over who gets a job, promotion or fired. It’s all up to Gai and the managers he picked. Kakashi just take’s care of finances and all of the background paperwork. It’s why the shop is so well run. The jobs are split perfectly based on who’s best at what, and Gai is definitely best at people.

·        Kakashi starts making more of a habit of coming in to visit Shisui on his shifts and flirting with him, sometimes even making date plans with him around Gai’s dates with Genma.

 Uchiha Kakashi (Kakayama)

·        Kakashi has had his Sharingan since he was five years old. Only Hiruzen and Minato know about it. Hiruzen because he’s one of the first to show up to the scene when help is called and the only one Kakashi looks at directly rather than trying to hide his eyes, Minato because he is made aware of this fact as soon as Hiruzen decides to make him Kakashi’s Sensei.

·        Danzo doesn’t find out until years later, shortly after Minato’s death when he tries to take Kakashi into Root. When Kakashi turns his back on him and tells Hiruzen what Danzo is planning, he ends up facing Tenzo just like in Canon. Except this time he activates his sharingan in order to dodge the Mokuton users attacks much easier.

·        When Kinoe tells Danzo of this, Danzo is furious to find out there was an Uchiha with the Sharingan activated that he did not know about. He could have gotten to Kakashi sooner if he had known and used him.

·        He continues to try and get Kakashi to join Root, Using Kinoe a lot of the time because he immediately see’s that Kakashi has a fondness for the younger kid.

·        This…does not work the way he wanted. Kinoe ends up forming a bond with Kakashi that he’s not supposed to, and when Danzo gets fed up with Kakashi refusing to join Root and orders Kinoe to kill him, he’s not so ok with the idea. Kakashi’s not known as the friend killer here because his sharingan actually allowed him to see Rin’s movements fast enough to dodge (where as obito’s eye was still new to him and he was still learning how to use it) So Danzo doesn’t really have a reason for Kinoe to follow orders other than ‘I said so’ which doesn’t work well.

·        Just like in Canon, Kakashi helps Kinoe escape Danzo’s influence and find a place for himself in the world.

·        Kakashi and Tenzo become Anbu’s most effective team, becoming known as the top shinobi in Anbu and Hiruzen’s favorites to send out on some of the hardest missions. Because of this, they spend a lot of time together.

·        This leads to them both developing feelings for each other as they get older, Tenzo developing feelings for Kakashi when he’s about 14 which go from crush to respect to full blown love by the time he’s 20. Kakashi on the other hand doesn’t really think of Tenzo as more than a friend until he’s a friend and Tenzo takes a really bad hit for him on a mission. When Kakashi demands to know why he would do that, Tenzo just smiles and tells him that he loves him and because of that he would die to protect him.

·        Kakashi, being a demiromantic adorable, starts to realize slowly that his bond with Tenzo is so deep and strong that he really can’t imagine his life without tenzo and that slowly starts to develop into romantic feelings.

·        Kakashi hasn’t been able to imagine his life without Tenzo for years of course. He adores Tenzo and trusts him completely, but suddenly it feels different. Not only can he not lose Tenzo, nights without Tenzo start becoming hard to deal with, missions away from Tenzo feel empty. He hates not having Tenzo around.

·        By the time the Uchiha Massacure is about to happen, Tenzo and Kakashi are actually starting to settle in together as a couple.

·        It’s a little difficult for them because neither of them have ever been good with emotions for different reasons so they definitely have their issues, but somehow they manage to make it work and neither of them could imagine their life without the other.

·        During the massacre, Itachi is informed that in order to meet his end of the deal he has to kill Kakashi. Itachi thinks this would be easy, but when facing Kakashi finds he can’t do it and instead asks Kakashi to kill him for what he has done and to take his and Shisui’s eyes and deal with Danzo. (Idea given to me by @itachi-uchiha-deserved-better )Kakashi does this, accepting the nickname of ‘friend killer’ from the village because he knows that’s exactly what he is.

·        After the Uchiha massacure, Kakashi is pulled out of Anbu and made a Jonin Sensei, though he still doesn’t get a team for a few years. During this time, him and Tenzo find it’s harder to spend time together because Tenzo is now a team Captain going on Anbu missions, while Kakashi is going on completely different missions. Kakashi’s guilt from killing Itachi doesn’t make any of this any easier, and in fact makes him push people away from him once again.

·        He does keep his end of the deal with Itachi though, which involves finally taking Danzo down. He plans to do this alone, but Tenzo refuses to let him when he finds out what Kakashi is going to do.

·        The two of them face off against Danzo, and after a long very difficult battle, finally manage to kill him. Kakashi knows that this could come with the result of being branded traitors for the murder of an elder, but Kakashi also knows why Itachi did what he did and he tells Tenzo as much.

·        When Hiruzen tries to punish them, Kakashi make’s it known that he’s aware of Hiruzen’s role in the Uchiha massacure and that he can make sure everyone in the village knows. After all, who’s not going to trust the man who killed Itachi Uchiha, vs the one who ordered him to slaughter his own clan? Kakashi may be a friend killer, but that friend was a traitor in the villages eyes.

·        Hiruzen ends up having to step down from his post as Hokage, taking his elders with him as Kakashi doesn’t want that corruption anywhere near the new Hokage, and immidiatly Kakashi sends Tenzo out with Gai to locate Lady Tsunade. After hearing what has happened, Tsunade reluctantly agrees to take the job and heads to Konoha with Tenzo and Gai.

·        With Tsunade in place as hokage, Kakashi steps down from his spot in Anbu and decides for himself to become a Jonin Sensei, wanting to be there when Itachi’s little brother becomes a Genin so that Sasuke can be trained by an Uchiha.

·        Kakashi ends up taking team 7 a few years later and things become even more strained since he’s always going out on missions with them. The D missions only last a few months thanks to Naruto being an impatient demanding little shit who ends up landing them a mission way too overranked for a bunch of new genin (though honestly, that’s definitely on the guy who requested the mission)

·        When Kakashi comes back from the land of the waves he is in a really bad place. He ends up going to Tenzo’s room at the Anbu barreks and waiting for him to get home, which is possible since Sasuke is in the hospital healing after the fight. When Tenzo does get home, Kakashi is a mess and Tenzo can barley get through to him when Kakashi starts apologizing because he just can’t get out of his mind. Tenzo sits with him all night and listens to him tell him all about the land of waves mission and Zabuza and Haku. Tenzo decides that day that maybe Kakashi needs someone with him to help train the kids and take care of himself, and decides to approach Lady Tsunade in the morning.

·        She has no problem with Tenzo’s request, and instantly takes him out of Anbu and puts him on team 7 with Kakashi. This allows him to be there in case anything happens with Naruto, help Sakura with her training and realizing that she has the ability to use Mokuton, and to make sure that Kakashi is alright.

·        Kakashi and Tenzo never tell Sasuke what happened to Itachi. He knows that his brother killed the clan and died shortly after, but neither of them are brave enough to tell him how Itachi died, and Tenzo respects the fact that Kakashi really doesn’t want his student to know him as the man who murdered his big brother.

[writer-and-artist27]

One Bet

Because I’ve been feeling particularly angsty and dark and I felt it better to write it out before it could spiral out of control. Lang and Os would be on my case otherwise. It already gets lonely studying. So. 

Possible S&S scene in the future, go. 

------------------------------------------------------

It was a simple question. One bet. The only bet I ever made in my life. Everyone was conversing on what to do in preparation for what would happen October Tenth. 

We could’ve called it the “Fated Day” from how it was in Canon. It was the day that started everything, after all. In the old world, the brainwashed Obito would have succeeded in extracting Kurama from Kushina-nee and go on to ravage Konoha. And just when Minato-san would’ve won, Obito would target the baby Naruto on Madara’s — no, Black Zetsu’s — orders and both Minato-san and Kushina-nee would lose their lives to protect their son. The Third would take back power, and then dominos would fall one after another.

It couldn’t happen here. Things were different now. Kakashi wasn’t alone. Obito was still loyal to Konoha — he was still the Obi I grew to love as a best friend. Rin-chan was here too. And Kei. She was the jinchuriki to Isobu now, and she was the one to bring us all here, in the Hokage’s office, to plan.

We weren’t alone this time in trying to change things.

It felt like it was the right time to ask. 

I had done enough, but Black Zetsu was still a problem. No matter what we were going to do, he was going to target me. My chakra was a threat. 

To him, I was a threat. I was going to die by his hands, no matter what. That was how Canon would’ve written it. So, if I was going to go anyways… 

“What if… what if you all used me as bait to lure Black Zetsu out?”

WHA— 

I bet on saying it. To see if I could actually make a change that was worthwhile this time.

Every single ninja, friend and acquaintance alike, turned to look at me with wide eyes. I took a breath, shut my eyes, steeled myself in spite of Hisako’s impeding yell session, and continued. “B-Because no matter what we do that day, we’re going to be targeted. I-I know, with my chakra being the way it is, with how it just touches everyone without me even wanting to, I’ll just be killed by him, so if — if I was just used instead —”

Maybe if I died first, no one else will have to on the Tenth. 

Honey. Hisako was quiet. You underestimate the Power of Love. 

Eh? 

“No.” Kei said first.

“Absolutely not.” Kakashi added.

“NO WAY IN HELL!” Obito yelled. 

“Just, no!” Rin finished with an unhappy voice.

My heart leapt out of my chest as my eyes flew open, and Kei’s fists were clenched at her sides as she gave me a hard stare. “Also, ‘hell no,’ ‘fuck no,’ and ‘fucking hell no.’”

“But.. but…” I took a breath and a step back. They were all staring. Why were they protesting? Why were they so determined at saying “no”? “Th-That was a lot of cursing, but for Black Zetsu, what else is there we can do? He’s more slippery than Orochimaru, and Orochimaru isn’t exactly dead now… He… he lived way longer than any of us, and—” 

Your defenses are weakening, Tomoko-chan. Hisako’s voice was softer now. 

“And Rin died four months ago, except she didn’t.” Kei finished for me, and she nodded her head just as Ricchan took a step closer to me. “Look, I think we should plan for something happening when Naruto’s born, but that’s different from deliberately throwing you into the deep end against someone whose powers don’t seem defined.”

My lip quivered. It was probably about time to give in, but the word left my lips before I could think on it further. “Really…?” 

I don’t have to be the sacrificial lamb like every single girl is in Kishimoto’s stories? 

“You’re not worthy of anything.” 

I shook my head. Yeah. Ty was right. I wasn’t worthy. To hear this. 

Then something proceeded to barrel into me hard, and I looked over the newest shoulder to find a familiar medic clinging to me. “Yes, really,” Ricchan said vehemently in my ear, and the hold on my ribs tightened significantly as she shook her head against my shoulder. “Isn’t it okay to be scared sometimes?” 

“Eh?”

Someone else was coming in too, and I found a wince leaving my mouth once it became obvious Obito was hugging us both now. “Tomo-chan, it’s okay to be scared,” he said, almost uncharacteristically gentle while bonking my head with his chin. “Sure, Bakashi complains about the shinobi rulebook and how we’re not supposed to cry, but it’s okay.” A hand was patting my hair that wasn’t being occupied by Obito’s chin, but who was it? “It’s okay to be terrified and unsure sometimes. I am all that, right now!” Obito laughed heartily, and I blinked as the group hug closed in on me. Why was this happening? “We’re human, Tomo-chan. Don’t cut yourself out like a martyr when you’re important to us too.”

…

Sniffle. 

“O-Obi…!” left me in a hasty moment, and Hisako sighed as the first tears started bubbling in my eyes. 

You’re horrible at bets, Tomoko-chan. 

“Oi, there’s no need to cry now,” said Kakashi, and the hand that was on my hair started stroking it — so it was him. “The future isn’t decided yet.” His voice turned hard. “You’re not going to die. I swear it.”

“None of us are going to let you die, Tomo-chan,” Ricchan added angrily, her nose poking into my shoulder as she huffed. “We love you too much for that. So ignore what Kakashi said and cry as much as you want.”

“Hey,” Kakashi protested, but the hand on my hair still kept stroking.

“We made it through Kannabi, Tomo-chan,” Obito added, still quiet while rubbing my head with his chin. “What says we won’t make it through Kushina-san’s pregnancy?”

“B-But Black Zetsu erased ninshu to begin with…” I squirmed, trying to shrink only to find myself feeling even more trapped. “H-He could already know about us, about this, about trying to stop—”

One more person finally joined the group hug and I didn’t have to look up to see Kei’s messy cowlicks to know it was her. “That’s still no reason to go looking for trouble,” she whispered vehemently, and my ribs creaked from the pain with everyone crowding in, yet for some reason, I couldn’t find an ounce of myself caring. “Even so, he can’t know everything. And I doubt he has feelers where we’re going.” 

“Wh-Where—” sniffle, “are we going?” You know what to do?

Kei gently bonked the side of my head with her cheek. “You’ll find out when we get there. Now just accept that we love you and hug back, you goof.”

My vision blurred. In the other world, this would’ve been impossible. But, right now…

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

I dunno, Ty, I thought, hugging them all back as hard as I could while holding back a sob. You tell me what’s wrong with you because I feel just right here. 

Hisako, for all the things she could’ve said, didn’t really add on with much. All she did say was accentuated by a small sigh and a shake of her head. Really, honey, she mused quietly, you’re horrible at gambling. Don’t try betting your life away when there’s more than just me who will tell you not to. 

It was something.

#writing #the sea and stars #hoshino tomoko #extended Team Minato #long post #I probably need to go study now #dark doom spiral conquered #no Tomokos were harmed in this writing #keisuke gekko #nohara rin #uchiha obito #hatake kakashi #hisako #black zetsu

[rinrinp42]

I assumed the jinchuriki became a thing because Madara showed they could be controlled that was Hashirama's way of preventing them from being controlled. And an awful way it is. Also there's the fact that Mito AND Kushina chained up Kurama for NO REASON. Mito had to have known that Madara what controlling they Kyuubi so she was being a bitch. Kushina has no reason for chaining (emphasis on chain.) him seeing as she wasn't alive when Madara attacked. (1/2)

Rin’s seal was made to destroy Konoha yes but there were 3 seal masters that I can think of off the top of my head at the time of her death. She could’ve waited to see if they could fix it and if they couldn’t she should have killed herself or found someone who was willing to do so instead of traumatizing Kakashi(2/2)

Hm. I’m going to start this off with two things.

1) I really feel like you’re trying to get me to hate Kushina and Rin especially with the language used and I don’t appreciate it.

2) I don’t have an encyclopedia knowledge of Naruto canon and probably forgot things so some of what I say might be wrong.

ok.  now that that’s done.  yea Mito had to Seal Kurama because Madara’s Super Sparkly Special Eyes could control the force of nature that was already running around (and probably causing havok by accident/nature).  And because Konoha had a jinchuriki, to keep the peace by basically creating a Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) situation, Hashirama had to give/help capture the other biju for the other Villages (except Sand which already had one (how, we… don’t really know if I remember exactly.  Just that there was a priest and a tea pot involved) so they wanted supplies instead).  By needing to keep a dangerous weapon out of reach of Precarious Sanity Thy Name Is Madara, Hashirama was giving Konoha way too much Actual Fighting Power, and he (like a Smart Man) didn’t want World Domination so he needed to make sure that there wasn’t a war over his wife (and Kurama).  Was keeping the jinchuriki in place a great plan? idk.  Depends on how the Seals used worked.  If they were all the same level where they’re pretty darn strong and almost permanent (save for birth) then you’ve got at least a generation to figure out what to do.

Except people die at different points so Jinchuriki 2-A dies while the rest of the first generation (Jinchuriki 1:9-A) are still alive, which means Village 2 has to re-Seal biju 2 so that they can keep the balance with the rest of the villages.  So once it started it kinda…. had to keep going until something else was figured out/hands were forced.  You’re kinda missing the whole political aspect of the jinchuriki (reasonable because Kishi sure did)

And if Kushina was cruel for keeping Kurama Sealed, then so was Naruto.  But you haven’t mentioned him or called him a bitch so idk.

As to Rin.  I don’t agree with how she did it.  It was horrible and screwed up a lot of things including her teammate’s mental states.  But she didn’t know how long she had, none of those 3 Seal Masters was in the vicinity and she was basically a walking bomb at that point.  She took her enemies victory away at the cost of her own life.  While she and Kakashi were being pursued by enemies that were driving them back to their allies.  Was she supposed to ask the very people who had done this ‘oh, please don’t attack while one of the Very Important People In This War takes time off to make sure I don’t explode like you want me to?’?

Beyond which, they could have Sealed anything with enough explosive power into her with a broken/designed to be explosive Seal and sent her back for the same effect so any issues you have with jinchuriki are automatically excused for Rin.  She doesn’t count in your anti-jinchuriki crusade.

#rinrinp42 answers #jinchuuriki #*squints at language* #hmm #ninja politics

[2334242xiao]

Fic? What fic? It sounds interesting!

Here’s the fic: I’ve also posted it on FF. Net and will soon on AO3. 

AN: This story will not be extensive actually. It will shedlight on the PTSD that Kakashi had acquired from both the death of Obito andRin and will merely ghost through that topic. The ending will be asunfulfilling as how Kakashi would feel.

 Red. Vermillion. Velvet. Mahogany. In the end it all meantthe same. All held the same significance and one was not above nor below theother, but rested in an equanimous line. In the dreams of the only Hatake,where darkness would be ubiquitous and silence pervasive, where there lie nochirp of a bird, or croak of a frog, where the air would be cold and yet hisskin would remain warm, when there were so much words to verse and yet nonegood enough to say. It all remained condensed in his tiny body, casting avendetta against himself. He felt it again, how his hand slid through herwintry body, a quick stab against her chest, taking out her heart as theobstinate chirping of the electric blue Chidori would cast itself between her flesh,leaving nothing but a hollow hole. He would allow her cumbersome body to restagainst his and nearly he could sense the Sanbi’s unwieldy weight, and yetdespite the toilsome weight would he allow a free arm to wrap around her body,growing colder and colder in his arms. Tears would streak down his face andnearly he would become a prisoner of his own mind, shackled down, unable to beliberated. No, with this hand, with that jutsu, would he never be able tovindicate himself—and he would allow the darkness to consume him whole, like hewas merely a sail in the midst of a tempestuous storm, tenuous and feebleagainst the casting winds.

Drip, drop.

His eyes would slide open and welcome the golden morning,shining upon him intruding on his sleep. Shifting in his place, limbsstruggling to shelter themselves beneath a thin sheet of blanket, he would awaken,one eye charcoal dark and the other a horrid red. He wondered if Obito couldsee what he saw, felt the pain and the lamentation that plagued the rest ofKakashi’s days. If Obito was spared from his scourge, then he would gladlywelcome the maltreatment if only if allowed his friend a moment of repose. Thislife—it was *meaningless.* Pushing himself up using his elbows, he would wipethe sweat that had collected on the broad of his forehead, pushing by lightstrands as he heaved a sigh. The sun was so bright today; what a repulsivesight.

He would occupy himself with missions, something to take theweight off his mind, and yet whenever he would drill his hand through theirchests, smell the mordent scent of blood and the faint resistance they wouldput up, would he only be reminded of her. She was a benevolent kid, a cheerfuland upbeat individual whom Kakashi had adored inside. She had forgiven him; hewas sure, and yet he couldn’t shake off the feeling of his sin coming by towatch him as he’d find his way to her gravestone.

Body fatigue and barely alive, blood soaking him from top tobottom—not his, but someone else—he would crouch in front of her grave mark andtrace the meticulousness of her printed name against a frigid cold slab. “Rin,”He would croak, his voice raspy from his reticence, from his distance, from hisloneliness. “How have you been?” Gloved fingers would be met with firm stoneand yet the wind would only answer a brief hello and an empty goodbye.

Once he had returned to the safety of his bed, feeling thesoftness underneath him, he would allow himself to retire for the night, onlyto be awakened by the sickening urge to regurgitate, that or the scrubbing ofcalloused and battered fingers would commence, scrub, scrub, scrub until the last pints of bloodwould clear, and yet to no avail. It was mostly ghostly pains nowadays, at mosthe would spend the maximum of five hours cleaning in between his fingers,trying to scratch it off. It happened often and something that he had learnedto loathed and yet was engrossed in, as every tick of a tock would pass by.

Empty.

He felt that all the time, every time he would turn hisbody, move a limb or muscle would he feel detached, aloof and austere, his eyesthat would be filled with insouciance. It was like he was another person,something that lived in the wrong body or he supposed he did. It was supposedto be Obito. He was supposed to live, next to Rin and to Minato who although;watched Kakashi from afar was not able to sift through his predicaments.

Obito only had one wish and that was the wish to protectRin, because she mattered and yet her sacrifice was in vain. Kakashi didn’tfeel like living anyways. What was the point? When everyone in the village wasconditioned a fighter, a soldier, then what was the point of living? If thestrong protect the weak, then who would protect the strong? Weren’t they allpawns in a cruel game of chest?

The shinobi world was unfair. He knew that much.

He would be faced with old familiar faces, friends that hehad distanced himself from and they would smile at him with glee, try to wrestthe dismal out of him and yet they would come out unsuccessful. A moody stare,or a distant leer, those would be the only thing they would receive as thelatter would stuff penitent hands into the weavings of his pockets.

What as life?

To live, to die? What was the point of it all?

He could make up a mask; he could build up a fortress, impeccableeven to the most formidable of men, and yet it wouldn’t change his composition.He was still himself in the end of the day, wasn’t he? The same man who killedhis friends and his family.

Sometimes, when he would stand in front of her gravestone,flowers in hands, his eyes downcasted, he would hear the conversation of thebreeze, and sometimes, at the back of his mind, he could discern it.

“Wearing a mask doesn’tchange who you are Kakashi.”

“it doesn’t erase thethings you’ve done. “

Purposely, it wouldhit Kakashi in the core where he was soft and recovering and he would draw outa sharp breath, like a sinner ready to repent for his sins, counting, “how manydays until Hatake Kakashi dies?”

What was the point when he felt so

Empty?

#fanfiction #kakashi #hatake #hatake kakashi #kakashi hatake #naruto #ptsd #no recovery #contemplation fic #nerozhilai #ask

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Hokage Sakumo Au

During the faithful mission, Sakumo still chooses to save his friends over completing the mission, leading into the third great Shinobi war. A mistake he has to live with, and that still earns him the ire of his superiors and other shinobi.

Except, this time, everyone’s smart enough not to shun one of their best shinobi. They recognize Sakumo allowed his emotions to affect his mission and that’s not ok, but to lose someone as strong as The White fang when a new war has just started would only end in further disaster.

While Sakumo is scolded for his actions on that mission, he is not shunned and made to feel like a complete failure. Sakumo continues to take missions going forward, being relegated to solo missions to avoid any further incidents.

Kakashi still has to hear villagers and Other Shinobi’s judgments of Sakumo when he’s out in the village, but being able to go home to his father and learn from him slowly makes him hate his father and the choice he made less over time. Sakumo is also able to talk to his son and explain why he made the choice he did. How important his team is to him, and how he believes protecting his teammates is just as important as completing the mission.

Able to still do missions, Sakumo slowly makes his name back. He's still a feared shinobi around the world, and he's capable of taking care of a lot of missions on his own.

He's also able to be there for Kakashi when everything goes wrong in his life. After the Kanabi bridge, Sakumo's there to see his son come home with a new scar over his eyes and a Sharingan where his old eye used to be. As well as a broken tanto gathered up in his extra shirt, and heavy guilt weighing down on his heart.

Sakumo takes days off from missions to be there for Kakashi. He knows his son needs him at that moment and nothing else comes before him. No one can convince him to leave Kakashi alone during this time, no matter how important the mission is.

It's even worse when Kakashi comes back home with Rin's blood still staining his uniform and a haunted look in his eyes. Sakumo is certain he has never seen his son so broken before, and he refuses to let Kakashi be alone after suffering through such a huge trauma.

This is good because this also happens to coincide with the time Hiruzen decides he wants to step down.

The meeting is five hours long, with Danzo fighting venomously for Orochimaru to get the spot of Hokage and Hiruzen refusing. Ultimately, a compromise is reached. One Danzo isn't too fond of, but Hiruzen and the two Elders can accept. The new Hokage will be Hatake Sakumo.

Danzo is obviously not happy about this, but if he wants to do something about it he's going to need time. For now, he'll just have to sit back and come up with a plan.

Hiruzen calls Sakumo into his office to give him the news, and Sakumo's genuinely not sure if he should accept the job at first. It's not until he's talking to Maito Dai about it later that evening that he realizes he might actually have a chance to change the system. To make a better future for not only his son but every other kid as well.

The next day Sakumo accepts the promotion, and within a week the Hokage's hat is being handed off to him in a big ceremony. The only problem is that Kakashi isn't enjoying the whole thing. Partially because of his new trauma regarding Rin's death, partially because he genuinely doesn't understand why his father would want to take this position.

the topic of Sakumo moving into the Hokage's residence is of course brought up, but Kakashi shoots that down right away. He refuses to leave his family home for the Hokage's residence. Enough in his life is changing and he's not ready to make that big of a chance along with everything else. Thankfully, Sakumo agrees with him.

It's not long into Sakumo's time as Hokage before Minato informs Kakashi of Kushina's pregnancy. Some pretty big news that Sakumo definitely thinks is worth celebrating. After all, his Son's sensei is going to have a kid. He remembers having all of his students around when Kakashi was born, so there's no doubt he's going to make sure Kakashi's there when Minato and Kushina's child is born.

The events of the Kyuubi attack still happen the same. When Kushina is ready to give birth and the seal is at its weakest, Obito strikes. Obito still faces off against Minato while Sakumo focuses on protecting the village as much as possible. And in the end, Minato and Kushina still die trying to protect the village and sealing the Kyuubi into their son.

Sakumo arrives just in time to hear Kushina's last request for him to make sure Naruto is taken care of, and unlike some people *side-eyes Hiruzen* Sakumo actually aims to keep that promise. From that day forward, Naruto is a part of the Hatake household and Sakumo refuses to allow anyone to hate him for something he had no control over.

Of course, knowing that the Hokage has now taken in the villages Jinjuuriki and isn't dead from the attack, Danzo's pretty pissed. He was hoping at least that Sakumo would parish in the attack as well so that he could gain some control in Konoha. Perhaps take the Hokage's seat for himself. This calls for drastic measures.

Danzo doesn't approach Kakashi at the memorial stone. that would be nothing but a mistake seeing as the Hokage, the man Danzo wants to kill, Is Kakashi's father.

Instead, Kakashi finds out about the attempted assassination of his father by eves dropping. He feels like something is off in the village and decides to follow around the Anbu. He may not be Anbu trained here, but he's good enough to get by without being seen. They don't give up much information, but enough to make him leery. So he goes to his father and explains that he doesn't have any proof, but there's a gut feeling that there might be an attempt on Sakumo's life. Which is how Sakumo and Kakashi come up with a plan. Sakumo isn't the biggest plan of Kakashi taking his place in disguise, but he knows his son can handle himself while he confronts Danzo.

Kakashi still ends up facing off against Tenzo when Root operatives try to attack what they think is the Hokage, and Tenzo isn't sure how he's supposed to deal with this. Clearly, something went wrong if their plan was discovered.

Meanwhile, Sakumo confronts Danzo in the Hokage's office. And Sakumo isn't as nice as Hiruzen. Danzo has committed treason and Sakumo won't stand for that. This is grounds for a fight, and Sakumo has every intention of winning.

The fight ends up being the spectacle of all of Konoha when Sakumo chucks Danzo through the window out of his office, and no one is really certain what they're supposed to do.

One thing of importance does happen. To try and win the fight, Danzo finds himself having to expose at least the one Sharingan in his eye. And upon seeing that, Fugaku loses it. Kakashi getting the Uchiha's Sharingan was a gift from Obito. An Uchiha. But Fugaku would have heard of Danzo being gifted a Sharingan, even if it was after the fact. Knowing he wasn't informed of this tells him that Danzo was not given the Sharingan willingly.

Which instantly pits Danzo vs Sakumo and every single Uchiha plus a good chunk of the village. Even if Danzo was to win against Sakumo, there is no way he'd survive the entire village squaring off against him.

Danzo knows this is a lost cause, and makes's a run for it. Leaving every single Root operative under his command out to dry.

He does try to go for Tenzo, since that's an important power to have by his side, but he's blocked by Kakashi. Someone who would be easy to take on at this point, except for the fact that Tenzo sees this kid desperate to protect him and clearly starts to question his loyalty to Danzo then and there.

So Danzo leaves Konoha, intent on sorting out a plan and coming back to take down Sakumo. This is far from the last the village see's of Danzo, but for now they know they're better off. And Sakumo realizes he has a bit of cleaning up to do in the hierarchy of Konoha.

@loadbearinonion

#Long Post #Hokage Sakumo #Hatake Sakumo #Sakumo Lives

[nikkigrand]

Fic Start-up Dump

This is a long one! But here are all of my stories I started and probably never will continue lol

Sakura-centric “Sakura is a necromancer.”

When Sakura had been born, a crow had crashed through the window to then die at the foot of Mebuki’s hospital bed.

She’d never believed in bad omens; but as she held her precious minutes old daughter closer to herself—her mother in law whispering prayers in the background and Mebuki’s own mother hastily disposing of the dead bird—she knew that fate would only make it so that she’d soon believe.

--

Sakura had been four when it first happened.

Mebuki and Kizashi had gotten their precocious child a puppy for her 4th birthday. Mebuki had been accosted and begged for a pet for nearly three months before she and her husband gave in and bought a puppy from a neighbor. They didn’t even know what breed it was; but it was a small thing, quite the runt of the litter, and Sakura had loved it dearly.

When the poor thing soon died from what the Inuzuka’s diagnosed as the parvovirus, Mebuki and Kizashi thought that it’d be a good opportunity to introduce the concept of death to their little girl. After all, they lived in a shinobi village and death was their people’s livelihood.

If she had known that doing so would induce such horrible sequence of events, Mebuki would have told Sakura that the damn thing had run away and be done with it.

The couple went home with the dead puppy nestled tenderly into a nondescript, white shoe box. She’d carried it with a heavy heart, knowing that she’d soon be witness to her precious child’s first heartbreak.

Of course, when they told Sakura, the small pink haired girl had wailed and sobbed for nearly an hour. To appease her, Kizashi suggested they hold a small funeral for their smallest friend, and it was the only thing that had made Sakura stop crying.

Mebuki watched over Sakura as she gathered flowers from her mother’s garden, then as she scribbled the puppy’s name in her childish writing—backwards characters and all—on a flat stone. Kizashi gathered the other members of their family—which were only her mother and grandmother—before he then began to dig a small hole in the backyard in silence.

Sakura, with her small, innocent hands had laid their pet to rest. She’d adjusted the shoe box lovingly into the ground, bowed her head to say a choppy prayer she must have overheard from her grandmother, and then swept the soil over the box.

Mebuki had never been more proud of her daughter as she’d been on that cool spring afternoon. Her daughter, who held such compassion and love in her small body that the only way to stop the flow of her tears was by giving her first friend a proper burial.

The family collectively said a prayer for the puppy whose life was so brief then shuffled back inside their normally cheery home. She’d only chanced a look back when she noticed that Sakura was not with them, and saw that the rosette child was still gazing sadly at her makeshift tombstone.

“Sakura?” Mebuki had called, “Let’s go back inside, sweetheart.”

Sakura shook her head, her short locks sticking to her baby tearstained cheeks, “Not yet, Mama. I need to say good-bye.”

Nodding, Mebuki’s lips curled into a small smile and she headed inside to make her baby girl some lemonade and her favorite treat—umeboshi. Maybe that would cheer her up.

She must have been in the kitchen for only ten minutes when the sound of Sakura’s cheery laughter made her fumble the knife in her hand. Cursing when the sharp blade sliced into her palm, Mebuki hastily wrapped a napkin around her hand to stop the bleeding before curiously peeking out the kitchen window into the backyard.

Mebuki’s face paled, her jaw going slack, at the sight of her precious baby playing with their deceased family pet.

KakaSaku Age Swap “Sakura-sensei awoke the beast”

In Kakashi’s, admittedly short, lifetime, he’d never paid attention to the fairer sex. He didn’t find anything wrong with them, but he didn’t find them interesting either. Where Obito gushed over Rin’s pretty hair or pretty eyes, Kakashi complimented her medical ninjutsu and usefulness to the team. To him, girls were just boys with different parts. He didn’t see the point in crushes when he could be training; he didn’t understand why Naruto-baka-sensei got all tongue tied around his pink haired teammate, or why his father’s eyes lingered on Ayame-nee’s chest.

He understood attraction, in theory, but it just didn’t rank high in his list of priorities. There was too much to do, too many jutsu to invent, too many records to break. Girls and their soft parts were just another distraction he didn’t care for and Kakashi had been content with his feelings on the matter.

But then his stupid, dumbass, idiot, sunshine happy sensei came down with a bad case of the flu in July and everything had just gone downhill from there.

“I’m sorry, guys,” Baka-sensei sniffled, blowing into a handkerchief. “I’m really sick and won’t be able to teach you guys for a bit.”

Rin gasped, the dramatically empathetic thing she was, eyes wide as she asked, “Will you be alright, sensei?!”

Naruto-sensei nodded, loudly blowing his nose. “Yeah, but Sakura-chan says I should be resting and she’ll kill me if she knows I’m out here with you guys instead of—”

“That’s right, Moron, you’re supposed to be in bed.”

 ItaSaku Soulmate AU

It was a truth universally acknowledged among shinobi that no one wanted a soul mark. 

It was always too painful, no matter the circumstance, to have someone's dying words branded onto your skin. Some people never knew their soulmates, others until it was too late, and it always took a piece of them when the only other soul meant just for them was beyond their reach. 

 It wasn't so bad, in reality. Most people went their entire lives without ever receiving a soul mark, and it gave them the liberty to pursue and love whoever they pleased. But you could almost always tell who'd been marked—they always had an air of such sorrow about them. 

 The moment Sakura first heard about soul marks as a child she'd wanted one. Up until her father died, she'd thought that having a soul mark meant finding her one true love and living happily ever after—not losing them. But she'd never forget the crash of fine china as a plaintive wail pierced the warm afternoon silence of her childhood home; she'd never forget the face of her mother's agony as the words 'Mebuki, my love, my wife' seared along the delicate skin of her neck. 

 After that, she hoped with all her heart that somewhere out there, wherever they were, her soulmate was safe. 

 So when she felt the telltale searing of her skin during a spar, three years after Sasuke's defection, she immediately panicked and ripped off her vest to watch as words appeared on the pale skin of her chest.

 Naruto, who firmly believed that Sasuke was her soul mate, was beside her in an instant with tears shimmering in his ocean blue eyes. Whether it was for her loss, or Sasuke, she'd never know, but everyone knew that the appearance of a soul mark meant the death of . 

 When the words fully appeared, they were as red as its originator's bloodline, and Sakura burst into tears as Naruto stumbled back in horror. 

 Kakashi averted his eyes in pity, for he knew of only two people in the world whose soul mark manifested as the glaring red of their clan's bloodline—and it wasn't Sasuke. 

 As Sakura shakily zipped up her vest, poorly suppressed sobs tumbling from her lips, Kakashi watched as the words disappeared beneath red cloth. 

 Forgive me, Sasuke, there won't be a next time..

 How cruel was fate, he thought, to give and take so easily without remorse. 

 --

 When Sasuke saw her soul mark, they'd been at war for months and her shirt had been torn just above the chest by an errant wind jutsu. 

 He'd caught the words only by grace of chance when a quick dodge of a kunai made flaps of cloth expose them. he'd gone still with shock before hurriedly killing their enemies and grabbing her arm and unabashedly ripping the rest of her shirt to reveal her soul mark fully.

 "Hey!" Sakura cried, angry at his audacity, "Let go of me!"

 But he'd ignored her, eyes glued to the words he had inadvertently placed there.

 "Aniki..." He breathed sorrowfully, eyes finding hers and she nearly growled at the pity she saw there, "Sakura...I didn't..."

 Jerking her arm out of his grip, she glared at him as she moved away. "It doesn't matter anyway, he's dead." 

 But he followed behind her angrily, uncaring of the bodies he callously stepped over and on, and jerked her to a stop.

 "He was my brother, Sakura." He said angrily, as if it were her fault she bore the mark of his guilt. 

 Whirling around testily, she hissed with saccharine sweetness, "Yes, and you've killed him, and I didn't know him so it doesn't matter."

 Sasuke looked as if she'd struck him by reminding him of what he'd done, and Sakura refused to let herself feel regret. Itachi had been destined to be hers, and like everything else, Sasuke had taken him from her. 

 But it was hard to mourn someone she didn't know, even if her soul would never feel complete for as long as she'd live, and she found it hard to hold a grudge against him. 

 As she walked away, she casted her eyes towards the horizon, remembering the one other time she'd seen Itachi in passing and feeling her very being yearn for him. She'd been horribly confused and flinched when his cold disinterested stare passing over her made him feel like home.

 She hadn't dared spare him another glance, choosing instead to chase after another, so she'd missed the sharpness of his gaze when he, too, felt that comforting warmth. 

 It would trouble him until his death—these thoughts of what could have been.

  KakaSaku “Prompt: it serves to reason that, with how dramatic Sakura was and still is, their child would inherit her penchant for theatrics.”

Kakashi had always known that Sakura was an eccentric, if not dramatic, girl. She wasn't eccentric in the way Naruto wore orange as if he had a personal vendetta against humanity's corneas, or in the way Sasuke spouted promises of vengeance like a particularly annoying broken record. He'd always thought her eccentricity was subtle, less prone to surfacing unless she was around Sasuke-kun or Naruto's greater moments of idiocy. 

 But that was when he didn't really know her, and how dramatic she could be, and Kakashi found it hazardous to his health.

 He'd come to learn that Sakura solved all things she deemed annoying, troublesome, or scary with her fists. Or her screams. 

 She'd been twelve, almost going on thirteen; and he remembers only because she had been not so subtly dropping hints in Sasuke's direction about her upcoming birthday, and wouldn't it be nice if a cool, handsome boy would take her out on a date?

 They'd been on a simple mission outside the village gates, not too far from patrolling ANBU and safe within all reason. So, when Sasuke ignored her hints like he ignored his therapist (who, in hindsight, should have had their license revoked the second that boy learned the word revenge), and Naruto shouted that of course he'd take her out on a date, Kakashi wasn't too concerned when Sakura howled at the boy to mind his business and then angrily stalked off into the surrounding tree line.

 To regroup and strategize her next approach, he presumed. Sakura was smart like that; if she didn't have a career in the field, she'd have one in intelligence. 

 He was concerned, however, when a horrified scream of heart stopping proportions pierced through the raucous bickering between his two male charges and his job of not doing a thing to stop them.

 There wasn't a clear, defining moment from where his ass left the soft grass to where his feet barely touched it as he sprinted to his sole female genin. He had been terrified, he remembers, because of course he'd been given the team with the uncanny ability of attracting trouble and of course one of them would die within two months of knowing him.

 That's usually how things worked with him, he'd say.

 But it wasn't fair, because they weren't in times of war and who'd attack a pink haired little girl??

 His keen ears picked up Naruto and Sasuke's rushed footfalls behind him, and when another one of Sakura's terrified half scream half sobs rent through the air, he left them in the dust.

 With the way she was howling and screaming, he'd expected to find her dismembered and dying, but no. He found her flailing and sobbing and brushing at herself (her arms, her legs, her hair) frantically and wailing, "GET THEM OFF GET THEM OFF GET OFF GET OFF GET OFF!"

 Putting away his kunai, Kakashi was decidedly unamused as he approached her in an attempt to calm her. But, to his surprise, it was like she was blind to him and her surroundings in her desperation to brush off the hundreds of infant spiders crawling and falling off her skin.

 It appeared that she'd walked into a cluster of spider's nest, and like most teenage girls, she was deathly afraid of them. Kakashi's eyes widened in alarm when her hand violently grasped the zipper of her dress to pull it down, his hands slapping over both of his male charges' eyes as they crashed through the underbrush and ignoring their pained yelps.

 There was the type of relief you felt after stepping into an air-conditioned building on a hot day, and then there was the type of relief you felt when you crashed into bed after a long mission, but nothing compares to the relief of seeing twelve-almost-thirteen-year-old Sakura step out of her dress and finding her decently clothed in a tank top and shorts. 

 Sakura-centric “The Mantis Program. Designed after the praying mantis who kills her mate.”

From the moment she became a kunoichi, Sakura always knew what was expected of her. It wasn’t blatantly spoken of, but the underground rumor mill was powerful and everyone knew the responsibilities of clan-less kunoichi. So, she supposed that when Tsunade called her into her office at the age of 18, it had been a long time coming.

What she hadn’t accounted for, however, was the actual truth to the rumor.

“I know it’s not what you want to do,” Tsunade said, her voice taking on that soothing quality she often had when speaking to cancer patients. “But it’s a requirement for…civilian kunoichi.”

Sakura licked her lips, the only part of her frozen body that could move, and thought of how fucked up Konoha’s archaic method of teaching kunoichi still was. Her shishou had wanted to do away with the program, but was overruled by a council that was still governed by old traditionalists who still upheld the ancient ways of the ninja.

“I’ve tried to keep you from it for as long as I could, but you are now a woman of 18 and I can’t anymore. I’m sorry.”

She wanted to rage and scream and cry, but she understood. Tsunade couldn’t keep her from the program any longer without accusations of favoritism, and while she had never attended, Sakura knew that her mentor was loathed to make her go. Not for the first time in her career, she cursed being born to civilians though she loved her parents.

Tsunade sighed, her right hand coming to rub the tension building between her eyes. “I’ll call in your team—you know the procedure.”

“Yes, Tsunade-sama.”

As Sakura waited for the rest of Team 7 to arrive—including Tenzo and Sai—she thought of what it meant to be a clanless kunoichi. She thought of the unfairness of it all, of how scathing words spat by children who knew nothing could still define her.

Because, from the moment she had entered the academy, Sakura was destined to become a Mantis. It was her responsibility, after all.

As described by Tsunade, the Mantis program was designed to produce masters of seduction, be it male or female, and was required of clanless shinobi. Shinobi would be sent away to an obscure academy in an unknown section of the Land of Fire to learn how to seduce their targets, extract information, and then eliminate them.

The Mantis program was two years spent with other recruits, isolated from the rest of the world. Their focus would be on learning the intricacies of desire and sex and were expected to shed their modesty and morals. They would learn to think of their body as a tool for the village and abandon the sanctity of intimacy with another human being.

No one knew exactly what was taught in the Mantis program, but Sakura had heard whispers. When male shinobi were drunk, they’d spew songs about golden pussy and honey tongues, then leer at kunoichi they assumed were Mantises.

It was widely considered invasive and in poor taste to ask kunoichi about their clans, as no one really wanted to know who had gone into the program. After all, they were the village’s whores and the stigma of being unclean would remain forever.

She felt a little sick to know that once she became a Mantis, she would always be a Mantis.

Konoha might be considered the softest village in all the Elemental Nations, but Sakura had learned that it was also the darkest in the ways that mattered.

Loud laughs sounded from behind the doors to the Hokage’s office and Sakura tensed. She was dreading this part of the meeting, knowing that her clan born teammates would not understand and would be outraged on her behalf. Also, she wasn’t quite sure how to feel about five other males learning of what she would have to do.

The doors swung open, Naruto’s exuberant shout the first to mark Team 7’s arrival.

“Baa-chan!” He cried with a joyful grin, arms akimbo as the rest of the squad trailed in behind him.

Then he caught sight of his teammate and swept her into a bear hug that left her breathless and choking. Casting a look over his shoulder, she observed the rest of her team. Sasuke had moved to stand by the window, hands in his pockets and looking as bored as ever. Sai, with his ever present stiff smile, stood beside Yamato whose eyes were focused on the Hokage. Kakashi had his nose buried in his porn but lifted a hand in greeting anyway.

“You called for us, Hokage-sama?” Yamato asked curiously, hand reaching over to snatch at Naruto’s collar before he touched any of Tsunade’s expensive baubles she had on her book shelf.

Tsunade looked at them evenly and something in her gaze must have sobered them, for the atmosphere in the room changed. The blonde sighed and reached into the bottom drawer of her desk, pulling out a bottle of sake Sakura had sworn Shizune had hid.

As she poured herself a glass, she said, “There’s no easy way of saying this, so I’ll cut to the point.”

She surprisingly pushed the glass towards Sakura and said, “Sakura will be entering the Mantis Program, effective immediately.”

There was a weighty silence before Naruto burst out, all sunshine and rainbows as usual, “That’s so cool, Sakura-chan!”

His fingers came to scratch at his cheek, eyes narrowing. “Is that some kind of cool, secret division in ANBU?’

“No, Dickless, she is going to whore school.”

The subsequent silence was deep enough to hear a pin drop, the weight of Sai’s words impacting each shinobi differently. Sakura reached for the offered sake and, with a shaking hand, brought it to her lips to choke it back. It was the only motion in the room.

Those few scant seconds where no one spoke felt like an eternity for her, but she would not dare to peek at anyone’s expressions for fear of what she’d see.

“Tsunade-sama, what does Sai mean?” Sasuke asked, surprising her. She’d never pegged Sasuke as someone to ask questions concerning herself.

Tsunade opened her mouth to speak, but Sakura felt that since she was the topic of conversation, she might as well participate. Her involvement in this was non-negotiable, she had to go. She had no other choice. It wouldn’t do to show fear and uncertainty in front of them. For all her fears and doubts, Sakura didn’t want them to think her weak and incapable.

In some way, she didn’t want them to worry for her—she didn’t want them to think she’d be broken.

So, before her shishou could speak, Sakura clarified, “The Mantis program is designed for honeytrap missions. I’m sure you’ve heard of them, Sasuke-kun.”

Sasuke’s brow furrowed as his eyes settled on her before his eyes pinched angrily. He was a smart man, she was sure he’d figured out what types of things she’d be learning and doing in the program. At the same moment, Kakashi started pacing around the room agitatedly. He stopped by the window and exhaled deeply. He, no doubt, knew exactly what the Mantis program was—even if he’d never been a part of it.

“Sakura-chan,” Naruto said as he stepped closer to her, “I still don’t understand.”

She sighed, thinking that Naruto could be dense at the worst times.

“Sai’s right,” She said, jaw clenching angrily. “I am going to whore school.”

“Sakura!” Tsunade reprimanded, hands coming down angrily on her desk.

Sakura whirled on her, feeling all of the righteous fury that came from being trapped rise up like molten lava as she spat, “That’s exactly what it is, shishou and you know it.”

But Tsunade didn’t rise to the bait, instead sitting back to level her with stormy, yet disappointed, eyes.

“Do you think you’re the only one to have gone through this?” She asked simply, and Sakura suddenly felt ashamed.

Because she wouldn’t be the only recruit at the Mantis academy. She wasn’t the only one who’d have to lose her dignity and pride for Konoha.

#my fics

[elenathehun]

The Hyuuga Clan: what not to do

So I promised a separate post on the Hyuuga Clan plotline after I wrapped up the Chuunin Exam arc, and as promised, here it is.  It’s been a long time coming, so let’s get started, shall we?

To recap the Hyuuga Clan plotline, the whole thing starts when Neji and Hinata, previously introduced separately earlier in the Chuunin exam arc, face each other in the preliminaries.  It’s an unpleasant, vitriolic match: Neji brutalizes his cousin in the course of their fight, and comes damn close to killing her.  The only reason Hinata doesn’t die right then and there is due to the intervention of the Leaf jounin-instructors.  Fandom often attributes this to Naruto’s support, but I would argue that’s unfair to Hinata; in one of the few self-motivated acts she does, she tells Neji he’s wrong about her, about the world, and most importantly, himself—which enrages him to the point of going for a killing blow.  

Anyway, Neji is thoroughly unlikeable, and Naruto swears he’ll cut the other kid down to size during his match with other boy.  Blah blah blah, take a month-long break, time to fight.  As becomes usual for Naruto’s villain face-offs, they fight and Neji monologues: he explains why he’s so angry at Hinata (and the Main House) even though they’re family.  Essentially, the Branch house of the Hyuuga all have a seal on their forehead that destroys their eyes upon death, ensuring their valuable bloodline limit can't be stolen.  That actually sounds really cool except for one thing: it's also used as a method of brutal control by the Main House, who have the ability and knowledge to manipulate the seal's destructive capacity to inflict agonizing pain on those who bear it.  Moreover, Hinata and Neji aren't just people from the same clan—they're actually first cousins—and considering their respective fathers are identical twins, you could make a very strong case for them being closer to half-siblings than anything else.  

Neji is angry for two reasons, one abstract and one personal.  The abstract reason is this: Neji is a gifted prodigy in his clan's techniques, but because he's part of the Branch House, he's unable to get the training and, yes, recognition he deserves as a Gentle Fist prodigy.  Hinata is only average in the abilities the Hyuuga value—namely having advanced control over her bloodline and the combat skills to go with it—and if Neji's father had been born first instead of her own, their lives would be unimaginably different.  The personal reason is that ten years ago, Neji's father was sacrificed to appease some politically powerful bloodline thieves, who attempted to kidnap Hinata, presumably because she was young, had a good pedigree, and also had a womb.  Long story short, Naruto beats Neji up and tells him to "cheer up emo kid!".  The story doesn't end until Neji reaches some kind of catharsis with his uncle, Hinata's father, and decides he too will live free like a bird, blah blah blah.  Yay!  Story concluded, right?

Fandom didn't think so, and rightly so!  Konoha is revealed to have a large, politically powerful clan that is essentially enslaving a least half (and perhaps more) of their own population, and using it for unspeakable reasons.  Leaving aside Neji's sort of weaksauce resolution, Hinata, meek and unmartial, has a younger sister who is strong in all the ways she isn't; Just like with her father and his brother, will she have to brand her younger sister to maintain the right of absolute primogeniture?

And make no mistake, that is the real issue at the heart of the Hyuuga clan.  Everything else is just window dressing.  Even ignoring the stupidity of the Hyuuga sacrifice—Really, Sarutobi?  Really?! —the Hyuuga story always had more holes in it than good swiss cheese.  As I mentioned in my re-read summary post for volumes 11-13, the combination of "sealing most of the family" and also "preventing the sealed kin from learning the full extent of the Gentle Fist" only makes sense if the Hyuuga were alone in the wilderness, but in a village setting where the vast majority of sealed Hyuuga are supporting village operations, it sounds like a bad deal for the Leaf, since they're only getting half-trained soldiers in return for allowing the Hyuuga to live within their walls.  The entire purpose of Neji's story is just a clumsy way to highlight the injustice of absolute primogeniture as a method of both advancement, inheritance, and simple justice in traditional society.

I don't think it's an exaggeration that the "Clan Hyuuga eats its children" genre of stories was one of the more popular family-centered tropes in fanfiction in the pre-Shippuden era.  The sand sibs and Uchiha brothers might have had more written about them, but not by much.  How Hinata, Neji, and Naruto would grapple with the Hyuuga Clan's outdated social norms was the focus of a lot of stories and there was a lot of expectation about how Kishimoto was going to resolve this issue in part 2.  Now that Naruto has come to an end, we can all throw up a little in our mouths, because it's clear Kishimoto thought he already had.

Any of Hinata's character growth in part two comes from her relationship to Naruto; Neji dies sacrificing himself for her and Naruto, which seems damn empty given that we never see the cousins reconcile or really interact all that much. Hanabi is a non-entity.  The Hyuuga Clan, as of Chapter 700, is still presumably sealing and oppressing the majority of its members.  The only way to understand this extremely unsatisfactory turn of events is to see it as an intersection of two unpleasant trends in Naruto: women are always secondary to men in terms of character development and plot importance, and villainous motivations are tailor-made to whatever the hell sort of lesson Naruto is supposed to impart to them as the hero of this story.

Women, in Naruto, are almost always secondary to the men they are related and associated with.  Mito only shows up in context of her husband, never mind that she was apparently a master in her own right; like Sakura's relationship to Naruto and Sasuke, even the relationship between a man and his wife is secondary to the strong bond between her husband and Madara, his "best friend".  Kushina, again, was another cool character who could have been very interesting...except that she was immediately subordinated to her husband's plot, and then later her son's.  Kurenai's griefs and plots are centered around Asuma and Shikamaru; Sakura had the glimmerings of her own story, but it was always shoved aside for the Naruto and Sasuke thing.  Rin is probably the worst example; she literally only exists to traumatize Obito and Kakashi with her death.  Hinata is just another character in that tradition.

For the sake of argument, separate Hyuuga Hinata, clan heir from Hinata, Naruto's love interest.  Just pretend there are two girls with that given name in Naruto—actually, let's make it even easier. Hinata the girl is Naruto's love interest; Hinata the clan heir is a boy.  Hinata the boy isn't a bad person, but he's shy, meek, unassuming, and not very good at combat.  He is a constant disappointment to his father, who wanted a child much like Hinata's cousin, who is everything Hinata isn't: strong, capable, and ruthless.  In a different world, his cousin Neji would be clan heir—except their family practices absolute primogeniture as a method of inheritance.  Neji's father is younger than Hinata's father and was thus forced into the lesser branch family and blocked from ever inheriting.  Hinata has a younger brother, as well, who is also better than Hinata in all the ways that matter to their family, and one day, Hinata will have to brand his younger brother and cast him aside, all to uphold their tradition.  Hinata is despised by his cousin (and maybe his brother) because they both know they are better than him, but because of their family's stupid rules, they are forever subordinate to the lesser.  But Hinata has his own skills: in a family with eyes that see nearly everything, save for one specific blind spot, Hinata has the gift of seeing just what they lack.  Can Hinata find a way to prove that might does not make one right?  Can he show that it's not strength of arms that makes a good leader? Can he find a way to unite his broken family, and right the injustice they have perpetuated among themselves?

That's an interesting story, isn't it?  But Kishimoto wasn't really interested in writing a story about why absolute primogeniture is stupid; he wasn't interested in writing a story about what makes a good leader and how to grow up to be a just one, either.  Hyuuga Hinata, clan heir, was extraneous; that whole facet of her character could have been a separate one-shot character who just showed up in Neji's villain arc like so many others, given her importance as clan heir after this point.

Now that Naruto's over, it's obvious the whole horrible Hyuuga clan background was just another tragic villainous past for Naruto to defeat in a stupid fight.  It's infuriating because it's literally is a schoolyard fight—it's not exactly a demon trapped in a little boy, or the survivors of a brutal foreign war finding the only way to protect themselves is destroying everyone who opposes them.  Kishimoto didn't have to write a caged bird seal plotline; he didn't have to make the Hyuuga so brutal to their own kin. Neji didn't even need to try and murder his cousin, just beating the shit out of her would have been enough.  The whole thing could have been written as a simple family drama about the unfairness of absolute primogeniture, no seal needed, just the weight of "we've always done it this way".  Kishimoto wrote it for the explicit purpose of first making Neji horrible and cruel, then revealing, like all the rest of Naruto's villains, why he is deserving of pity for his "terrible" deeds.  

Ultimately, Kishimoto wrote the Hyuuga the way he did because he's almost incapable of writing a character who does bad things without having a sad past; and he's incapable of that because he's a lazy writer who doesn't want to go through the work of actually writing interesting characters.  The entire Hyuuga family plotline is the sort of manipulative asspull I hate in both professional and amateur writers, the sort of crutch a weakling uses to pass over another character’s flaws.  Hinata, in this story, only exists to show how fucked up Neji is because of her father's actions.  She certainly never gets any resolution to her father treating her poorly, or the fact that her cousin tried very hard to kill her in public view.  The central tension in the Hyuuga clan is between Neji and Hiashi, which is why the arc closes with Hiashi apologizing to Neji, and then Neji deciding to make his own way in life despite the seal, like his father did.

And Hinata, who is despised for weakness by her father; who is nearly killed for having the temerity to point out Neji's own blind spot; who is physically weak, but has the glimmers of a character stronger than both her cousin and father combined, if only Kishimoto had been interested?

Like Mito, and Kushina,  and Rin, and Kurenai, and Sakura, and Anko, and yes, Karin, and every other goddamn woman in this manga - like them, she's only a prop in someone else's story.  And in turn, that other person's story is just a prop for Naruto to defeat on his way to becoming a hero.  

#critical reading #reading is emotional #fuck you kishimoto

[rowdysakura]

fic title: Ocean Lungs

fandom: narutocharacters: nohara rin, hatake kakashi,chapters: 1/1warnings: talking about suicide, intent to commit suicide,summary: when rin inhales, she suffocates on the taste and smell of salt.

Rin is no stranger to death.

She’s seen more shinobi die under her hands than the amount of kills Obito and Kakashi hold combined. She’s dealt death just as much. Not in the field, not kills as such, because medic nin are not supposed to fight, but in the tents, the bases, and the village when someone cannot be saved and the only thing left is a quick mercy.

She’s not ignorant of her own mortality, either. It’s been too many years of instructors drilling into her head, long before she even picked up a kunai, that she can die and she will die (and maybe, if she’s unfortunate, she’ll even wish for death). The only mystery of it is how but even that has it’s limits.

It’s not a fact, not necessarily, but a niggling instinct in Rin always knew that she would die a shinobi in the name of Konohagakure. Unconditional loyalty begs its price, after all, and she accepts this in as much as any mortal can accept their own death.

Yet, as she and Kakashi flee with Kirigakure ANBU hot on their heels, Rin hesitates.

The choice, with the odds skewed so terribly against them, is obvious. Rin is a invaluable banana in a game of keep away between two monkeys. Currently, one monkey–her only remaining teammate, her comrade, her friend, Kakashi–is much, much smaller than the other. Outmatched and outgunned in every sense of the word. But, Rin knows as long as Kakashi lives he won’t stop fighting. (She knows that won’t–can’t–let her go). Nor will the ANBU stop. Not when Rin carries one of their most valuable assets. With neither of the monkeys backing down, the only way to end the game is take away the banana. Take away Rin.

Rin, in short, needs to die.

It’s the optimal choice, she thinks as all but crashes down onto a tree limb. Rin takes a breath, nearly choking on the taste of salt, and forces her aching muscles to push once more, sending her flying to the next tree limb. Her lungs burn as her body shakes and shakes from the foreign chakra burning through her veins. Kirigakure loses a tailed beast, reducing its power. Kakashi can survive, hide out without me giving him away. Our village is safe.

Shuriken fly at the two of them, and Rin only just gets a kunai up to deflect them. Kakashi leaps to her side, his own blade repelling the ones she misses.

It’s the optimal choice.

Kakashi slings an arm around her before pulling Rin close. Then, he triggers a body flicker. It’s ill-practiced, the two of them stumble out of it disorientated, but it gains them the small distance they need. They keep running.

It’s the right choice.

So, why can’t she bring herself to speak?

Her grip around her kunai tightens until her knuckles whiten. Kakashi has her other wrist in hand, dragging her along. He’s flagging, though, Rin can see it in the rapid in and out of his breathing, the sweat dotting his brow, and the way his hand shakes around her wrist. He’s running low on chakra, too.

Rin knows over a hundred ways to kill another human with her hands and chakra alone. It shouldn’t be hard to pick one applicable to suicide and do it.

It shouldn’t be. Not with Kakashi and her village on the line.

But, Rin hesitates. Her skin itching with the feeling of too much, too full, and her lungs full of salt.

Just do it.

It takes everything Rin has to dig her heels in and pull Kakashi to a stop. The boy spins around, words in the tone of concern, urgency, and well-blanketed fear drop from his mouth. Rin doesn’t hear any of it over the buzzing in her ears.

I’m going to die.

The thought isn’t as panicked as Rin thought it would be. Some small part of her still screams in existential fear, but most of her feels only determination.

Gently, she twists her arm from Kakashi’s grip before taking a small step back. Kakashi stares at her, bewildered, even as he begins speaking once more voice low and near desperate. None of his words reach past the roaring in Rin’s ears.

Rin licks her lips–salt, everything is salt–before she says, “Kakashi, I’m going to kill myself.”

Kakashi stops. Rin allows no room for recovery.

“Without me you can hide from the Kiri shinobi and get home safely,” she adds, the words spilling out of her in a rush. Her hands clasp together and shake with the overflow of chakra in her veins. “I…I can’t be the cause of both of my teammates deaths, please, I can’t…It’s the right choice. It’s the only one where one of us gets to go home. So, please understand–”

“No.”

Rin stutters, tripping over the sheer volume of emotion that Kakashi puts into that one word. Almost enough to engulf the ocean of feelings in her.

“Kakashi, please,” Rin begs. She isn’t sure she can stop him from stopping her.

Kakashi meets her gaze, mismatched eyes made of steel, and says, “Rin, no! We can make it back. We will make it back. I won’t let you do…do that. It’s not an option, understand? The only option we have is to make it back to Konoha!”

The boy grabs her wrist once more.

“Now, let’s go, they’re getting closer.”

The girl could break free. She should. She could overpower Kakashi. Especially like this, with the soul of a demon bound to her own–oh.

Rin twists her arm once more, ignoring Kakashi’s noise of protest, then clasps her hand around Kakashi’s arm in turn. He looks back at her as they leap through the trees, brow furrowed, searching. She pulls on a beatific smile. Gives Kakashi’s arm a little squeeze.

“Kakashi, thank you.” I’m sorry.

If Rin knows a hundred ways to kill someone, she knows a hundred more to put them to sleep.

A small burst of chakra and Kakashi crumples before he has a chance to look betrayed. Rin catches him awkwardly, fumbling with her aching, heavy body. She then drops down to the forest floor, making quick work of finding shrubbery to hide Kakashi away in. Once he’s concealed, Rin about faces, taking off in the direction she and Kakashi fled from.

Rin wants to kicks herself for being so foolish. The soul of a demon threads through her bones. It’s chakra pounding away at her own like an unceasing tide. If she wasn’t a weapon before, she’s certainly one now. It’s little wonder what she can do if lets the three-tailed beast’s chakra flood out of her.

The issue is, she’s not sure she’ll come back to herself or that she won’t lose control and injure Kakashi instead. Not to mention, letting the chakra out might be a death sentence as much as it will be the Kirigakure shinobis’ scourge.

Rin exhales to the sound of approaching shinobi.

She reaches down, down, down past her own familiar well of chakra to that vastness that is the tailed-beast’s chakra. Distantly, like crashing waves, she hears it roaring its vitriolic rage as Rin pulls on the beast’s chakra. It floods her readily, filling her to the brim with a vicious, tearing hatred that burns. Burns her chakra. Her skin. Her humanity.

When Rin inhales, she suffocates on the taste and smell of salt.

The Kirigakure ANBU close in.

A girl exhales and a demon howls in her place.

#foxfiction #naruto #naruto fic #nohara rin #rin nohara #anon #ask #i went through like eighty starter ideas before finally writing this #sorry it took so long anon and i hope you see this! #will also post on my ao3 #tw suicide

[myaekingheart]

The Hazards of Love

Part 7: The End

@naruto-fantasy-week Day 7: Free Day [Kakashi Hatake x Rei Natsuki (OC)] Sometimes fate has a funny way of bringing people together. And sometimes Mother Nature has a funny way of ripping them apart. [Inspired by the Hazards of Love by The Decemberists] read on AO3

               Once he got his bearings, Kakashi surged forward to create space between Obito and Rei. He wrapped his arms around his lover, drawing her to her feet, and in her relief she automatically crumpled in his embrace. She knew she could depend on him. She knew he would rescue her no matter the cost.

               “Are you alright? Are you hurt?” he asked, checking her all over. Rei opened her mouth to speak, to tell him that she was fine, but the words caught in her throat. Instead, all she could manage was a pathetic croak before breaking down in monstrous tears.

               Obito watched as he regained his balance, sneering. This was not the way things were supposed to be. He cursed himself for ever getting distracted or else he never would’ve lost his focus. But of course Kakashi had to come in and ruin everything like always. Rei had no idea of the animosity between them, the tragic history and their shared grief. Kakashi would’ve preferred to keep it that way but it seemed fate had other plans. He would have to deal with his past transgressions before redeeming the future’s rewards.

               Kakashi could tell things were going to get much, much worse before they got better. Turning to Rei, he brushed the hair out of her face and implored her, “Go find someplace safe. Get out of here. Now.”

               Rei shook her head, growing frantic in response. “Kakashi, no, I-I’m not leaving you. Come on, let’s just get out of here. Together. We can get away from everything, we can be happy and safe, it’ll be—”

               “Rei, no” Kakashi interrupted. There was a darkness in his eyes then that she had never seen before. “I need to take care of this. Just please…get to safety. I’ll find you when it’s all over.” Her anxiety skyrocketed, squeezing his hands and searching his face for any sign that he might change his mind. Instead, he cupped her cheek and kissed her hard, as if it might be the last time, and promised her, “Everything is going to be fine.” Without wasting another moment, he urged her toward the door and she ran on autopilot away from the impending destruction. Tears poured down her face as she departed and she prayed Kakashi would return to her safe and alive. She couldn’t afford to lose him. She needed him. This baby needed him. They were supposed to be happy.

               Once he was sure Rei was gone, Kakashi was finally given the space to fully comprehend the situation at hand. “Obito…” the name spilled from his lips, staring at the man he once knew. Nothing about this made sense. Obito was dead. He had watched him die. His left eye was firmly planted into Kakashi’s socket. This man before him, the man claiming to be Obito, had to be an imposter. “I don’t understand” Kakashi murmured. “How are you alive? How could you have fallen so far from the Obito I once knew?”

               Obito smirked, wiping the blood from his lips. If anything, Rei had a killer kick. “I got lucky” he began. “I was given a second chance by Kaguya. When I was given the opportunity for revenge, I couldn’t say no.”

               Revenge. Kakashi hated that word. There was truly no point in revenge. You waste nothing but time and energy chasing a high that never even amounts to anything. And when you finally succeed, you’re left with nothing. Emptiness. It was a hollow endeavor.

               “Don’t get so high and mighty” Obito sneered. “You could never understand. You don’t know the pain of losing someone. The pain that you’ve put me through.” Here, he ripped the portrait of Rin off the mantle and shoved it in Kakashi’s face. “Did you really think I would pass up the opportunity to destroy something so valuable to you after what you had done to me? To her?”

               Just the mere sight of Rin sent Kakashi shivering. It had been so long since he had seen her face, he had begun to forget the details. Looking at her now, every curve and line as sharp and vivid as they were fifteen years ago, he was almost reduced to that regretful little child he had been the day it happened. The day he killed Rin.

               “Obito…” Kakashi whispered, averting his eyes. He couldn’t stand to look at her. He needed to remain focused. He could not let the pain of the past influence his present and therefore destroy his future. “It doesn’t need to be this way.”

               Obito scoffed, throwing the photograph across the room. The glass of the frame shattered and dispersed across the floor like tiny ice crystals glistening in the firelight. “This is the only way!” he insisted. He revealed that one red eye, Kakashi’s twin. Locking eyes with one another felt so surreal, so unnatural. Two eyes, equally horrible, finally reunited. Across Obito’s face grew a malicious grin. “An eye for an eye, if you will.”

               Kakashi clenched his fists and tried to remain strong. He glanced to the portrait of Rin, the photograph torn on the corners and flopping over in what was left of the frame. The way Obito had destroyed it with no regard for the sentiment proved to Kakashi that perhaps it wasn’t Rin he really cared about. He was power hungry and drunk on making other people suffer. “Rin would never want this” Kakashi whispered. “She would never have wanted you to turn down this dark path.”

               “As if any of that matters!” Obito shouted. “What good is Rin’s opinion if she’s not here? Let her come and stop me! She has no say in the matter and never will because she’s dead.”

               This was growing tiresome and pointless. Kakashi sucked in a deep breath. He was standing at a crossroads now. There was a fateful decision to be made. “It seems there’s nothing I can do to change you” Kakashi resolved. “Right now, all I can give you…is death.”

               From down below, on the castle’s porch, Rei could hear their battle commence. She curled up behind the ramshackle fencing, trying to make herself as small and insignificant as possible. She understood the sick irony of this in her current state but she attempted anyway. All around her, she felt the eyes of the forest staring down at her. There was truly no privacy in the woods but she had accepted this and decided not to care. Right now, her focus was Kakashi. With each crack and smack, she wondered who was winning, how bloody the battle was, and if she had made the right decision. The tiny kick of her unborn child reminded her, however, that this was bigger than herself. That there was no longer room to be selfish. Her top priority was her child and whatever was happening up there was no place for a child to be.

               Rei pressed her hand against her belly and a sob broke past her lips. “Kakashi” she whispered, “Please come home safe. We need you.” A crack of lightning flashed across the sky and suddenly everything fell silent.

               The door creaked open as a steady rain began to fall. Rei squinted into the darkness as a figure emerged, tall and lean. When she recognized him as Kakashi, her heart leapt into her throat. He searched the castle grounds for her and rushed to her side once he spotted her by the fencing. She hoisted herself to her feet, laughing through her tears, as he ran towards her. He cupped her cheek in his hand, whispered, “It’s finished.”

               “I thought I’d never see you again” Rei cried, holding his face and touching his chest and running her fingers through his hair. She needed to touch him so she could verify that he was real. Kakashi tucked her long bangs back behind her ear and pressed his lips to hers, a solid confirmation of his tangibility.

               “I’m so sorry to have gotten you involved in this mess” he whispered. “Maybe you would’ve been better off leaving me for dead after all.”

               “Kakashi, don’t say that” Rei insisted, her voice cracking. “I love you. I need you. I can’t imagine my life without you. Please.”

               A small smile touched Kakashi’s lips. “Well…then I’m sorry for saying that, too” he whispered. He pressed his forehead against hers, held her close, before instructing her to climb onto his back. “Come on, let’s go home” he said. It didn’t matter that he had no clue where home was, exactly. They would create their own home someplace safe and warm. Someplace where they could raise their child—and any others that might come along—and be truly, unashamedly happy. A gust of wind whipped against them as they approached the raging river. Rei nestled into Kakashi’s arms as he waded into the river, holding on tight—a prayer for safe crossing. A flash of lightning struck the sky, Kaguya’s furious face appearing in the negative. The battle was not yet over. There was still one more fight to face. The air screeched like the oncoming of a tornado and then everything suddenly went black.

               A bright, blinding heat dampened Rei’s face as she furrowed her brow and blinked awake. She couldn’t quite recall what had happened the night before. Beneath her was a patch of scratchy, dry grass. She slowly sat up and surveyed her surroundings but nothing seemed familiar. Once she had rubbed the sleep from her eyes and the horror of the night before resurfaced in her memory, she had only one frantic, fearful thought: where is Kakashi?

               Rei scrambled to her feet and searched the surrounding area only to find a wounded wolf lying limp at the base of a tree at the base of a shallow decline. Her worst fears were no doubt being realized. She raced down the hill toward him praying that he was not, in fact, dead. He was beaten and bruised and when she pressed her ear to his chest, she couldn’t make out a heartbeat. But she refused to let things end this way. Through her tears, she tried every possible method to resuscitate him. He was not going to die. Not if she could help it. No, they were supposed to be a happy family. They were supposed to get everything they ever wanted. It was not going to end this way.

               Nothing seemed to work. Try as she might, Kakashi was gone. “Fuck!” she screamed, pounding her fist against the trunk of the tree. She buried her face in his fur as she wailed, hugging him tightly. Everything was numb.

               A panic rose up into her throat then as she felt a light surround them, a fresh air. Something wasn’t right. She was suddenly envisioning something akin to an alien abduction: watching his corpse float up into some unidentified ship in the sky. She was terrified she was going to lose custody of him, so she hugged him ever tighter. If she was going to lose his spirit, she refused to let his body be taken away, too. And then she felt it: a hand stroking the back of her head. His hand. She looked up and somehow…there he was. Kakashi.

               There were dark circles around his eyes and a pallor to his skin that for a moment made her question whether he was a ghost. But no, she pressed her hand to his chest and felt that symphonic beat of his heart. He was alive. Somehow, miraculously, alive. “Y-you idiot!” she shouted through her tears, slapping him hard on the arm. “You had me worried sick!”

               “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” he whispered, brushing the hair out of her face and kissing her nose, her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids. “It’s alright, Rei, I’m here now. I didn’t mean to scare you. You saved me again. We’re alright. Everything is alright.”

               He held her close as she wailed, allowing her to release her emotions in full. He wiped her tears and rubbed her belly both as a sign of love to the child as well as a sign of comfort to her. Once she had finally calmed down, he lifted her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. She wiped her blurry eyes and surveyed the forest with newfound focus. “Where are we?” she asked. There was so much light and color, as if autumn had been completely replaced by the fresh spring. “Is this paradise? Or are we dead?”

               Kakashi shook his head. “I don’t think we’re dead” he replied. He held her hand as he guided her toward the edge of a cliff. From where they stood, the entire forest stretching all the way to the village was visible, small and distant as a child’s model train set. Every tree had been charred bare and the smell of smoke still lingered.

               Rei could never truly know what had happened that night between Kakashi and Kaguya but when she asked, all he said was that he was finally free. The past, the forest, the curse no longer shackled him. Rei had saved him in every way in which he could be saved, and he to her. Together, gazing out at the destroyed forest, they stood on the precipice of a new life together. Kakashi intertwined his hand with hers, a soft smile on his face. He was truly at peace. “Rei…” he murmured, “This is only the beginning.” He turned to her then, pressing his forehead against hers, and caressed her belly, the promise of new life beneath his hands. The promise of a new beginning and a bright future. For the rest of her days, Rei would think back on this moment and remember what Kakashi said, the way it resonated with her and filled her with hope and faith and love and light. The beginning of their future, the epilogue of a tragedy that bridged the gap between the prologue of their fortune.

               These hazards of love nevermore will trouble us.

#super late to finish this hnnggg #ngl i didn't even proofread #i just wanna be done with this thing at this point lmfao #naruto fantasy week #kakashi hatake #rei natsuki #the scarecrow and the bell #the hazards of love #naruto #naruto oc #fanfiction