Author Notes: Hello, lovelies! This is another plot bunny that decided to bite me sometime last week. I used it to try my hand at writing in the Present Tense. I hope I haven't messed up too badly. (If I have, please let me know. Writing is a way to practice my English and being corrected - gently, always gently - is the only way to improve.)

It can be considered a sequel (or a prequel?) of Rin and the dimensional travelers, taking place in teen!Kakashi and Obito's word, but to understand one you don't really need to have read the other.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It should be obvious.

This story has also been posted in A03 (kurosaki_ami)

Crashing down

Heavy.

This is the first thought that comes to Obito's mind as he regains consciousness.

The second is Rin.

He remembers her looking down at him, tear tracks running down her face but eyes bright with steely determination. The green glow of her medical chakra was soothing and terrifying at the same time, because it indicated the countdown to his death.

His death.

Why is he still thinking, if he is dead?

More alert after that thought, Obito focuses his senses and tries to identify where he is and in what condition.

The first thing he notices is that he's still in that cave. He can't know how much time has passed since Rin transplanted his left eye but… it shouldn't be much. If anything, it can't, because if it were, he would have died from blood loss. It's a little bit startling that he hasn't yet, but even in this desperate, impossible situation, Obito is still himself and a naturally optimistic person.

But… he's alone, and he can't lie to himself and believe he can get out of there without help. Half his body is crushed and his left eye is missing, so his vision is completely…

It should be completely gone. By all rights, he shouldn't be able to see anything from his left eye.

Why, then, can he make out something in front of him?

Confused, he tries to focus – how can he focus when he hasn't got an eye, he cannot explain – and he is trying to decipher what is whatever he is seeing when suddenly there is light, where there shouldn't be because he is in a cave and it's dark and…

Trees? The sky? What is this?

Suddenly, the angle changes and there's Rin. And Minato-sensei. They look sad and worn and weary but they're alive.

Rin approaches him cautiously and moves her mouth, asking something that Obito can't hear and then she's applying healing chakra to his eye.

It hits him then. He's seeing through the eye he gave Kakashi. He's seeing what the other boy is seeing as if they both were in the same body. Why? Is this normal? He knows a handful of people – not Uchihas, because Uchihas are too proud of their bloodline to risk their eyes or need a transplant – who have eyes that were transplanted and not one of them has ever said anything about seeing what the other is seeing.

Maybe it's a secondary effect of having donated the eye with his dojutsu active. It's a possibility. And it's not as if there has been any cases similar to his own to serve him as background. It isn't as if he was thinking of any possible consequence when he made the choice to give his eye to his teammate. He had been dying, and Kakashi had lost his own left eye protecting Obito, and Obito hadn't wanted to die without giving his teammates reason to remember him.

Because, for all his cheerfulness and optimism, Obito is alone, has always been alone, except for the times when he is together with his team, and being forgotten is one of Obito's biggest fears.

When he told Kakashi that he would be seeing the future through that eye, he hadn't mean it literally. It was a simple figure of speech.

But here is the proof that it's true, and he wonders if it's something that only he can do or if Kakashi could see whatever Obito was looking at with his Sharingan, too.

And isn't that an awesome idea?

For some weird reason Obito hasn't died yet, and if he just could – somehow – move and see something…

He may still be able to be Hokage.

He may still have the chance to ask Rin on a date.

He may still be able to become friends with Kakashi.

He may still be able to live.

His heart is beating madly inside his ribcage, and it hurts a little but he doesn't really care because he has hope, and it is so much more than what he had just seconds before that he would be jumping for joy if only he could.

He wriggles beneath the boulder that is closing on him, drawing on strength he didn't know he had left inside, trying to get free.

After a few minutes, he pants, exhausted. He doesn't have enough energy, the boulder is too heavy and the blood loss is eating away at his vision. He feels his remaining eye fill with tears of frustration, and Obito is surprised when Kakashi's eye does too. From what he can discern before his vision goes black, Minato-sensei is just as surprised as he is.

Kakashi lets Rin apply her medical chakra into his newly acquired Sharingan eye. Obito's eye.

Just the thought makes him feel ill and anguished in a way that he hasn't since his dad committed suicide. He remembers the blood then, over the tatami mat. He remembers freezing in shock and just staring at the cooling body before his brain was finally able to process what was it what he was seeing. He had felt so much pain, horror and disbelief. Because, his father wouldn't have left him alone in a village that didn't hide his scorn for the Hatake name, right? He couldn't have.

But he had.

And Kakashi was left alone to fend for himself.

He doesn't think he can ever really forgive Sakumo for that.

For his actions regarding that disastrous mission, though, he can forgive the man. Obito was right, and Kakashi is grateful that the boy made him open his eyes and realize what he had been doing and thinking was wrong, that those who abandon the mission are scum but those that abandon their friends are worse than scum–

But Obito is dead. Just when Kakashi decided that opening up again and making friends was something that wouldn't be so bad, the boy who made that decision possible saved him and died for him and the agony is the same he had felt then, six years old and looking at his fallen father.

Obito's eye fills with tears and Kakashi is surprised, because he can't be crying. He has not cried in a long, long time and as sad as he feels he doesn't believe he is capable of doing it.

What is it, then?

Minato-sensei looks at him with concern and a hint of surprise.

"Kakashi-kun?"

"It's nothing, sensei. I must have dirt in my eye," he says, and it resembles so much one of the excuses their lost teammate used to tell that it hurts inside and makes him want to choke.

Sensei wears a pained expression that tells Kakashi that it affects him, too. He doesn't even want to look at Rin, because he knows that she'll have broken down in tears of her own, full of sorrow for the death of her best friend.

He tugs his headband over the eye instead, and pretends he doesn't hear her muffled sobs. He isn't good at talking to people, much less at comforting them. In the past, he wouldn't have felt anything but vague disgust at her display of emotions, but now he only feels useless as he doesn't know what can he do to alleviate her pain, if anything at all.

The blond jounin looks at him with understanding and briefly squeezes his shoulder in comfort, before going to Rin and hugging her to his chest. She clings desperately to him and gives voice to her heartbreaking cries, unable to keep them in anymore.

"Why?!" She screams between sobs. "Obito!"

He doesn't look at them and closes his eyes tightly, fists clenched at his sides with so much force that he won't be surprised if he makes himself bleed. He fights to keep the lump in his throat from rising. He can't break down now. He needs to be aware enough to detect if an enemy nin approaches, because he needs to protect what remains of his team.

He needs to let Rin and sensei mourn.

It's okay. He'll break down later.

When Obito wakes up next, he's disoriented and in pain but it's dulled from the last time he noticed.

He opens his remaining eye carefully and has a little trouble adjusting to the light. It's not too bright, but he hadn't been expecting it so it takes him some effort to focus and try to make out where he is.

There is a man watching him and Obito startles, not having sensed him when he woke.

Later, he discovers his name is Madara.

Later, he discovers what has been done to him.

Almost a year has passed and in that time, while he has been adjusting to his new body and powers, Obito has forgotten about the discovery he made in the cave before being rescued.

He has new abilities now, and has found somebody who is willing to teach him: a man many years his senior, an infamous Uchiha who has had a lot of practice with the Sharingan and a shinobi full of farfetched ideas. Because of this and in spite of Madara's slightly terrifying character and weird dreams, Obito is… not happy, exactly, but he thinks it's alright to stay for a while in that place before returning home.

It's a slow, arduous process, but he clenches his teeth and puts up with it because the memory of his comrades is fresh in his mind. He needs to get better soon, so he can go back to them.

Go back to Konoha, to his dream of becoming Hokage, to Minato-sensei, to Kakashi – his hopefully new friend…

Go back to Rin.

One day, Madara lets him leave, with news that his teammates are in trouble.

He runs and runs and runs but he doesn't reach them in time and he sees what he has feared the most during his months of rehabilitation: Rin dying.

He sees Kakashi killing her.

The worst is that he can see it double, from different angles, because Kakashi has his Sharingan bared and he's looking at her and Obito is looking at them form the distance and something in him is coiled tight enough to snap. He doesn't doubt for a second that he's going to. He feels his eye prickle, but he ignores it in favour of preparing to attack, maim, kill and then… then he watches, through the eye he gave Kakashi, how Rin's colourless lips form the words forgive me, Kakashi-kun before she falls backwards to the earth below.

Obito is in pain and he's angered beyond belief, but he's not insane yet and those words hint at the possibility of something else, at nothing is what is seems and there's a reason, an explanation, and he hopes it's true because he doesn't know how he is going to survive if this is not the case.

He sees Kakashi fall, too, and he's tempted to go to him and demand answers, but they're surrounded by mist shinobi and that also implies that there's something more going on here. Whatever that is, these people must be one of the causes of Rin's death and he's not about to forgive them any time soon.

He charges at them without holding back, destroying them with his new mokuton abilities and an unexpected but welcome new power that makes him intangible. He'll avenge his crush's death while distracting the enemy from attacking the two fallen figures on the ground.

He'll take care of them both later, after he had done away with the garbage.

Kakashi wakes up with the sun in his face and lead in his heart. He doesn't know how he returned to Konoha, and he doesn't care.

Rin is dead.

He had killed her.

So focused had he been on protecting her from the other shinobi that he didn't even notice what she was trying to do until he hadn't had a chance to stop.

The image of his hand impaling her chest right through the heart is one that has been engraved to his memory. He wishes he can forget, but he relishes in the knowledge that he won't ever be able to. He deserves the punishment.

He's in agony. Pure and undiluted agony. This is the second teammate, the second friend who has died for him. Because of him. Is he cursed? He believes so. First his father, then Obito, now Rin… Maybe he should just keep his distance from Minato-sensei from now on and scare Gai away. Being close to him only gets people killed.

Bonds and friendships are something that a cursed person like Kakashi doesn't deserve.

He hasn't bothered to open his eye yet, because he knows what he will see: white sheets, white walls, maybe a medic nin or perhaps sensei.

He doesn't want to confront the last member and leader of team Minato and tell him he killed his student. He can't.

"Oi, Bakashi," someone in his vicinity says and Kakashi's heart stops. Nobody calls him that! Nobody except… "I know you are awake, idiot. Open your stupid eye and look at me. You have many things to explain."

Surprised, and scared of the possibility that he's only being delusional, Kakashi opens his right eye and turns. There, sitting cross legged in the only other bed in this white hospital room, is a ghost. With his black hair longer that he has ever seen it, and ragged deep scars tugging at his face, the boy gives him an unimpressed glare.

"Said the pot to the kettle," Kakashi answers in a barely audible tone, gray eye cataloging each line on that scarred, familiar face. A small smile is his answer, one that is barely there and is quickly concealed.

"Yeah, well." Uchiha Obito shrugs noncommittally. "I guess we both have stories to tell."

~ The End