CHAPTER 6: I've lived for these few seconds.
Kakashi lay on his back staring at the ceiling of his cell. The other prisoners were quiet and he wondered how he had grown so used to the background sound of their presence that he actually missed it. The silence left Kakashi with only his thoughts, and for the Copy-nin, it was the truest form of torture. The bone-crushing clamps Rock was so fond of using, the mental domination Itachi had forced on him...they were nothing compared to the pain Kakashi could inflict on himself.
He would never forget that his Konoha cell measured nine by six paces. That there were forty bars across the door alone. The way the trailing crack in the ceiling resembled Sarutobi's silhouette. Anything to keep his mind busy.
"Yo! Get up, asshole!"
Kakashi raised a brow and let his head fall to the side. The strip of fabric he'd torn from his shirt at some point during the night to use as a makeshift cover for his Sharingan shifted, and he felt a stab of pain in his eye, already low chakra levels straining beyond their capability. The ANBU he still assumed was Genma unlocked the cell, his partner waiting patiently just out of range. There was no chance of escape--he was too weak--so Kakashi sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bench. Swaying as he stood, he leaned on Genma. Raidou--he guessed it must be Raidou--came around to take his other arm. The pair half-carried, half-dragged Kakashi toward the village...and, hopefully, toward answers.
By Kakashi's estimate, they were still roughly one half mile outside of the village when he first felt it: a twisting sensation that washed over him like a fog, filling his senses and magnifying the dizziness. His skin prickled. Sweat broke out along his neck.
Within one quarter mile of the village, he begged Genma to stop and yanked his mask down. He vomited beneath a holly bush, for the first time in his life uncaring as his hair tangled in gnarled branches, leaving behind long silver strands. His perpetual need to conceal his passing superseded by the need to find an outlet. The world around him wavered; Genma and Raidou appeared distorted, flickered, and then snapped back to normal. His headache compounded as he tried to stand.
"What...what is it?" He hoped they knew what he meant.
"Hn." Genma shrugged.
Raidou sighed and answered, "The Hokage."
"The Hokage," Kakashi repeated. Killing intent so strong would surely affect the villagers, even the civilians. For all that his mind resisted coherent thought, Kakashi tried to imagine what he could have done to earn such a reaction. He and Tsunade had always had their differences, but...He wracked his brain, fighting back another wave of nausea.
"What did I do? Why..." He stayed on the ground between his ANBU escort, aware that his well-groomed reputation would never recover from such weakness, but if he survived her wrath, he wouldn't care. When they didn't answer, he asked instead, "Why are we walking?"
Again, Genma made to ignore him, but Raidou cleared his throat and muttered, "For your own safety. And ours. We needed to give Hokage-sama a minute to calm down before leaving you alone in there."
"That's right." Genma lifted the bottom of his porcelain mask and spit to the side, apparently uncaring if Kakashi saw his face since he obviously knew his identity. Squinting, Kakashi weaved, and the image of Genma blurred at the edges before slowly coming back into focus. "Apparently, the Hokage's gonna interrogate you personally."
The pair lifted Kakashi off the ground and resumed their trek. By the time they reached the administrative building, he was fighting just to maintain consciousness, fully carried by his ANBU guards. His breath remained caught in his throat and he couldn't speak, scream, struggle...
He felt his fall to the ground, though it took many full seconds to penetrate his pain-hazed mind. Face pressed into crimson carpet, he knew it was the Hokage's office floor. The doors snapped closed behind him, a deafening sound in the silent room, echoing the cloying hate that filled the space.
Footsteps passed close by, and although he was so very near the edge and dropping into blackness, Kakashi still started at the voice that carried over the sound of blood pounding in his ears--"You don't look anything like him."
He knew that voice. Who? Someone...someone important. His mind refused to put a face with the sound, even as his eyes tried to fill with tears. They wouldn't. Something numb and cold inside of him refuse to give up fighting, refused to relinquish the last shred of control. He needed to know who it was. Everything hurt. If only he could think, he could...
The dizziness receded slightly and Kakashi was able to arch his back and neck, angling until he saw the speaker silhouetted by one of the wide, low windows. Light streamed through blond hair, leaving delicate features perfectly outlined.
The air stuck in Kakashi's lungs. It refused to move past, to allow him to voice his anger and hurt and confusion, and he was mute again. The man turned and Kakashi met blue eyes directly. Nothing could hold back his pain and it rushed to the surface, the tears finally finding release, trickling down to soak the edges of his mask. Obito's tears dripped from underneath the soiled cloth over his eye. His own tears ran freely. "Is this...is this some kind of sick joke!?"
The blond man glared. "I could ask the same thing." They watched one another--Kakashi on the floor, Minato at the window--neither willing to believe what he was seeing.
Kakashi could feel the change coming before it occurred--his body was finally giving in to chakra depletion. In his last coherent moment before losing consciousness, he could only mumble, "Did I save Naruto?"
