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Beta'ed by Lohis, thanks!
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
4. To Dust
The sky is aflame.
There is a furious, demonic aura everywhere, wrapping around the forests and the village and the air itself. That aura of rage and blood-thirst reaches and freezes every citizens' – both ninjas' and civilians' – hearts without mercy. It is like some horrible beast stalking around you, clawing at your chest, its growls filling your mind. Just the aura is enough to make even the most battle-hardened shinobis want to make themselves as small as possible and disappear from the face of the Earth.
Kakashi stands in the woods alongside his peers and stares at the flaming red horizon.
The Kyuubi.
He still can't believe it. The Kyuubi, the Nine-Tails, the Demon Fox is right there, about to flatten his home and crush his life. And it all had happened so fast. Just today his morning routines had been cruelly interrupted by a horrible ruckus as Obito had been – by the sound of it –trying to break down the door so he could ask if Kakashi had any toast. Everything had been so mundane, so normal and suddenly the world had fallen into a nightmare and there was a bogeyman ready to crush every single being in the Village. And it is able to do it, with just a few sweeps with its huge tails.
And Kakashi could do nothing to stop it.
The older ninjas had immediately brought them here to the forest (to safety, they had said, as if anywhere would be safe now) in order to stop them from "interfering and getting themselves killed". They have been here for only a moment and already Kakashi is horribly restless as his instincts scream at him to rush and aid the others.
From the outside he appears to be calm as ever, arms crossed and grey eyes sternly fixed at the direction of the battle. But inside he is bristling with contained nervous energy. Mentally he is pacing, shouting in frustration, fearing for the worst every passing second. But he is a jounin, he is a Hatake, a prodigy – he has to do better than that, he has to be better than that.
His fingers dig into his arms as he tightens his hold unconsciously. He is a jounin, he isn't supposed to just stand here and do nothing while the others sacrifice their lives for the Leaf. But the elder generation is unyielding in this matter, and Yuuhi Kurenai's father's determination doesn't waver. The younger generation is trapped here.
He hates it, hates to just stand here with nothing to do. Is everyone okay? Is Kushina alright? Is Minato-sensei okay? Obito has just gone to fetch Rin so they all three will be ready to dash to the battlefield as soon as the chance comes. But before that he is alone.
Alone.
A deafening roar from the demon splits the air like one of the monster's deadly tails, making his ears hurt. His mouth is a thin line; his eyes betray nothing of his inner turmoil. Not yet.
"Kakashi!"
The Hatake's head whips around. Obito Uchiha is running towards him, his spiky hair looking even more ruffled than usual.
"What is it, Obito?" He asks, frowning. The dark-haired boy looks very distraught as he comes to a halt beside his friend. Scratch that, he looks downright hysteric. "What's wrong?" Apart from that huge demon fox threatening to tear the Village apart, of course.
Obito's onyx eyes dart around and he is speaking so quickly that Kakashi has trouble following.
"Kakashi, I- I looked around but… but she's not here, 'Kashi, she's – "
"Obito, calm down," Kakashi says sternly, turning to face his friend properly and trying his best to ignore the unsettling feeling his friend's ramble has caused to flare inside him. "What are you saying?"
"Rin! I can't find Rin!" Obito shouted, looking frantic.
The young jounin feels like one of the demon's tails has just pierced his chest. Actually, he feels worse.
"What do you mean?"
"What do I- Kakashi, she's not here! I've been checking over and over again but she's not here!"
"Calm down," Kakashi tells him again, but his own heart is beating madly in his chest. "Have you asked around?"
"Of course, I asked everyone but – but –"
Kakashi steps forwards, grabbing his friend's shoulders and shaking him slightly. "But what?"
There are tears in Obito's dark eyes. "Someone thought they saw her earlier – running over there."
He points straight at where the Kyuubi is raging.
Kakashi simply stares at him for a moment, before taking a step back, his hands dropping from the other boy's shoulders.
"No, she can't – why would she –"
"You know how she's like, Kakashi." Obito's voice is frightened. "She knew there would be people hurt over there; she might have run straight to there without a second thought!"
"But – we couldn't get there, how could she have made it there before we were brought here?" Kakashi knows he sounds more like he was trying to convince himself rather than his friend but he can't really care less. Rin.
"The hospital, Kakashi," Obito whispers, and somehow his quiet voice sounds much much louder than the screams and roars. "The hospital is closer. She… She might have made it there with the others."
Kakashi's head whips around and he stares at the direction the Kyuubi's chakra is coming from. It might not be true, Rin could be perfectly safe somewhere, with other medics or their peers, anxiously waiting for news about the situation.
Or she might be at the heart of the battlefield.
"We have to go there," he breathes.
"How?" Obito sounds more than anxious, tugging his dark spiky hair.
"There must be a way, we have to –"
Suddenly the Kyuubi's chakra disappears, moving farther away from the village.
"What happened?"
"I don't know, Obito."
They stand side by side, waiting for something to happen, the barrier to disappear so they could finally go and make sure Rin is okay.
There is movement in the woods and another shinobi jumps from the trees to the ground, talking with the others.
"It was teleported away," Kakashi hears the ninja say, "they say it was Yondaime-sama, that he's fighting it right now…"
Kakashi closes his eyes. Obito draws a shaky breath.
It is probably just some fifteen minutes later that the demonic chakra finally disappears, but for Kakashi it feels like hours. During those torturing long minutes his mind plays over and over again all the possible scenarios for the battle, for Minato-sensei, for Rin –
And then the Kyuubi is gone.
The barrier is removed and Kakashi is moving before he even realizes it, racing through the woods, Obito right at his heels.
It feels like the ground is crumbling from under his feet. The basics of his life, the sturdy pillars that were holding up everything else, are shattering in the face of an earthquake and there is nothing he can do.
Sensei.
Rin.
Their faces are burning in his mind as he runs, urging him to move faster, faster, because he needs to know, needs to know they are alright, okay –
The battlefield is a chaos. People – civilians, ninjas, kids, adults, everyone – are running around, screaming and crying and shouting orders and there is so much death. Collapsed buildings, splinters of wood, so many dead…
A body, a young girl with auburn hair and violet marks on her cheeks, lying face down beside a dead brown-haired kunoichi. She tried to save her, tried to patch up that horrible gash in her back when the Kyuubi's tail whipped past and nearly cut her in half.
Obito sits on the ground, face buried in his hands and sobs, shoulders shaking violently. The Uchiha's hands are stained crimson from blood as he tried to help Rin but it was too late and the body was already cold and dead. Kakashi just stands by him, staring at the body(RIN) with a hollow gaze. He wants to close his eyes but he can't, just like he can't stop listening to the screams and cries around him, stop listening to the other ninjas talking (did you hear, the Yondaime, he's dead, oh Kami he's DEAD, died fighting the Kyuubi, saved us all, us all… There was a woman there too, for some reason, also dead… so many dead…)
Dead.
And suddenly his life is shattering to countless little pieces, the shards cutting his fingers and spreading everywhere on the floor and all he can do is just stand there and watch it all happen.
Everything crumbles.
Burns to ashes.
Turns to dust.
Thank you for reading! Please tell me what you think.
Warning: Author's Note contains spoilers up to chapter 605.
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AN: Sooo.. Sorry about the wait. It was like my brain just refused to work with the stories I should have been updating. But well, I'm back again and I'll do my best to update more frequently in the future. Thank you for your patience. ^^
About this chapter, yes I know that if Obito had survived, the Kyuubi attack wouldn't have happened. But the moment I got the idea for this story it was clear that it would go like this, so in this story Tobi is Madara. I did consider changing it but the upcoming chapters are somewhat based on the fact that Obito and Kakashi are alone so then I would have been forced to change the whole story and I really didn't want to do that.
Anyway, I hope you liked it. ^^
If there are any mistakes, just let me know and I'll fix them.
