It's the last grey hour between dawn and sunrise and Hatake Kakashi is whispering.
"I just don't think I can do it. I want to do my part I really do, but these kids... They're like all the others, failures before they start... and I don't even like them."
Obito cocks a nonexistent ear from his perch on the stone. Flexing his treeroot fingers and swinging his ivy legs. Long twisted vines covered in leaves with twigs for toes. Kakashi stares into one ruby eye and one gaping hole and tries to ignore the yellow fungus on his friend's face.
"What do you think? Should I tell him that I'm just not up to it? That I'll never be up to it?"
His eyes dart up before Obito can whisper back and he buries a flash of anger, recognizing the presence. The academy teacher, so it's one of those days. And is it that late already? Usually he'd be long gone before the other man arrived to pay his respects.
"Oh Hatake-san, I'm sorry. No don't get up, I'll come back later."
Umino Iruka starts to turn away and the breath from his words is falling, falling as gentle mist in the moist air.
Suddenly Kakashi is glad that he's stayed too late.
"No no, it's quite alright I expect I should get going anyway."
Iruka smiles, lips and eyes shining in the sun's first rays. He stretches out a hand to help pull him to his feet.
"I've seen you here before Hatake-san. It's important for us to acknowledge the past, for me especially since I spend so much time with children, with the future."
Kakashi grips the offered fingers. Living fingers of warm flesh.
"Yes of course, the children, they are our future. And I suppose someone has to train them."
Obito smirks at his old teammate, at his measured grace as he rises and brushes some dew from a loose stand of the teacher's hair. Then he melts back into the forest, becoming one with its forked branches and spreading roots.
He won't be needed here again.