XXXI.
Someone was ready to confront them right when they reached the cave at the tree line.
He remembered him. The stealth specialist, the one who had taken their teammate. The young jounin wanted him to suffer. His desire became reality when, before the Iwa nin had even finished materializing for a surprise attack, he went down. Senbon needles were lodged in the man's eye sockets and wrists. The man screamed, the senbon having gone in only deep enough to leave him blind, immobilized, and in agony. There were times he'd felt bad for the victims of his teammate's ruthlessness. Now was not one of those times. All he could think when he looked down at the man was, She didn't use a numbing agent. Good.
"Do we need him alive?" Hakka asked, fisting the man's hair with a sharp jerk and putting a senbon to his neck.
Even through his pain, the Iwa nin snarled, "You'll die! You're dead!"
"No," Kakashi answered in a rumbling growl.
In the space of his eyes shutting and opening once more, the senbon had disappeared. The girl let the large man drop like a rock at her feet. The boy watched dispassionately as blood dribbled from the hole on the back of the Iwa nin's neck, just visible beneath his hair. He turned his gaze to Pakkun then. Nodding at the pug in gratitude, he dismissed him and caught Hakka's eyes. Signaling to her, they rushed toward the cave entrance.
Hakka would go first again. It seemed like their opponents had advanced skills in genjutsu in common, and her genjutsu skills would come in handy if they needed to dispel anything. He would stall to give her time to find Obito, provide whatever emergency first aid she could, and get him to safety before returning to be back up.
That had been the plan, right up until the last Iwa nin turned to face them with a kunai clutched in one of his bloodied hands. As he turned, they saw past him, and glimpsed the figure propped against the cave wall. Half their face, their neck, and the collar of their jacket with splashed with crimson and gore.
"Everyone's useless," the nin muttered, stashing the kunai and wiping the blood on his hand off on his vest.
Barely audible over the pounding in his ears, Kakashi heard a choking noise come from his female teammate. A flurry of senbon whistled through the air, but not a one hit its mark as the target blocked with the wicked looking blades he had on either forearm. Plink plink plink sounds of senbon being deflected and falling to the ground were jarring enough to snap him of his horror at the sight of their teammate. Hakka's usual strategy of taking the enemy out quick and effortless wasn't working. The man was too fast and skilled for that. They needed to work together to overwhelm him instead.
"Hakka!" he barked, throwing signals over his shoulder as he drew his tanto and a kunai.
He darted at the man. Right when he was close enough to be in the other nin's attack space, he reversed his grip on his weapons and leapt, funneling some of his chakra into his arms to brace them. Only just barely did he manage to hold the block that trapped the man's weapons as their blades met, the impact vibrating through him. He'd definitely torn the stitches on his shoulder, though.
There was a whoosh beneath him. He smirked to himself when the other nin's face contorted in fury and his knees began to buckle thanks to whatever Hakka had done. It was enough of a window for Kakashi to put the kunai in a shoulder and smash the hilt of his tanto into the man's temple. They went to the ground together.
Kakashi searched for Hakka then, and found her right where he had expected her to be at Obito's side. He dreaded her report, what she might say, as her fingers pressed to the other boy's neck.
"Alive…" he finally heard her breathe out, drawing the other boy close and cradling his head.
Shaking, he pushed himself to his feet and took a few staggering steps in their direction.
The sound of someone rasping, "Not for much longer…" had him halting.
A kunai whistled past him, and he heard it hit its mark with a thud and a wet gurgle. But it was too late. All around them, the walls were closing in.
"Run!" Kakashi yelled over the crashing and crumbling.
As he retreated, he glanced back and saw Hakka desperately trying to heft Obito up and carry him out. He skidded to a halt and prepared to go back and help her. Panic raced across her features when she saw him do so. It was gone in a second, replaced with grim determination. She stopped, planting her feet in a wide stance and pulling Obito over her shoulder.
Too late he realized what she was doing, as held out an arm, roaring, "Hakka, no!"
But she was already throwing Obito at him, and as they collided and went flying, he saw a flicker of a smile and her arm lift before all he could see was the world falling around her.
XXXII.
The sound of a howl woke him from unconsciousness. That, and the ache in one eye.
Had they finally released him from the genjutsu?
Voices, ones that sounded like his teammates, like his sensei, like Rin, had surrounded him. Calling him useless. A failure. A disappointment. So many words and ways to pick at him. It had almost hurt more than the torture.
The howl sounded again.
Slowly, he tried to open his eyes. With horrible understanding, he realized he could only see out of one. And as the scene before him became clearer, he wasn't sure he even wanted to see at all. He wondered, as his breathing stuttered, if he was actually still trapped in the genjutsu.
Another howl, torn from the throat of the silver haired boy, his teammate, his commander, as he slammed his fist into the rock in front of him, over and over.
There were words punctuating those awful sounds. At least, he thought they sounded like words. No. Move. Why.
His goggles and a tanto lay broken at the other boy's feet.
No.
The cave was collapsed.
Move.
There was a girl, face down, all but her head and one arm buried under rock.
Why?
He pushed himself to his hands and knees and started to crawl until he hovered wearily over her. Reaching out with one hand, he took hers, his heart clenching at its limpness. His heart gave another jump when her fingers twitched in his careful grip. Unable to help it, he squeezed her fingers, and whispered, "Hakka?"
"'bito..."
Tears welled in his only eye.
"Hai," he murmured, "It's me. It's me. You finally got it right."
"Obi-to," she whimpered, "'kashi-"
The sound of howls, fists beating upon stone, and broken words halted.
"Kaka- shi…"
"Kakashi," said Obito harshly, "Get over here."
He didn't hear him move, just felt him suddenly there at his shoulder. Hakka's arm twitched, and though she didn't release his hand, she kept reaching for something. Finally, Kakashi placed his hand on top of hers and Obito's. She calmed then, the agitation leaching out of her. Sighing, she pulled all three of their joined hands closer to her, and rested her head on them.
"More- more Iwa-" she managed to say before having to stop and take a few shuddering breaths, "Protec' each oth- oth-er."
"Hai," Obito promised, and saw Kakashi nod as well.
"Go." She pressed her face more firmly to their hands. "Should go. Be here- soon."
He felt Kakashi squeeze their hands before gently - more gently than Obito had ever seen him do anything - extracting his own hand from theirs.
"Stay with her," he heard the other boy tell him, before he disappeared.
Whether or not that was an order, he would follow it. It wasn't like he could leave anyway.
After a beat, Hakka pulled her hand free of his. His fingers tried to chase hers, hold them still, for a little longer, but she didn't let him. With what looked like great difficulty, she turned her head to the side and lifted her arm to pull one of the senbon that held her hair in its bun out. All of her hair fell loose around her face, but she paid it no mind. She held the hand with the senbon out. It took a while, but he finally understood what she wanted and took the senbon from her. Once it was in his hand, she pulled some of her hair away to bare her neck.
"Help me."
He shifted closer
"Tell me."
"Put it- 'ere," she whispered, and then touched a spot on her neck.
He flinched.
"No!"
"Please," she begged softly.
"I can't."
"Please," she said once more, "-no more. Hurt."
A sob ripped its way out.
"Hakka..."
"Can look away- just, please?"
Another sob wracked him, his body hunching forward until his forehead was pressed in her cheek. Even with dust and blood heavy in the air, he could still smell the sharp, sweetness of mint he always associated with her.
"I'm sorry," he chanted, over and over.
She dragged her hand over his head and let it rest on the crown.
"'s'okay-" she crooned, "Do it."
Refusing to close his eye, he stared straight into hers as he placed the senbon at the spot on her neck she had shown him. He kept mouthing apologies, and she kept running her hand soothingly over his head.
And then he pushed.
XXXIII.
It had been too long.
The few survivors of the frontal assault had been rescued once he had gotten there. But that had been a while ago. A longer while had passed since he had broken off from his students. There hadn't been a single summons through the kunai yet
His worry about leaving them on their own had alleviated some after his talk with Obito-kun had proven fruitful. Of all three of them, the Uchiha was the easiest to talk to, to advise. And he was usually the only one with the ability to shock Hakka-chan and Kakashi-kun out of their moods when push came to shove, meaning he was tricked into using it often. Someone might've had something to say about that tactic, but if it worked, then it worked.
No one ever taught you how to teach your students when you were given a genin team. He'd only been seventeen, a green jounin, when Kakashi-kun had first been apprenticed to him. It had seemed like barely any time had passed before two more kids had been tossed to him and he had to relearn how to teach, just when he'd gotten comfortable with his first student.
It was trial and error, making mistakes and finding ways to make up for it. Not a single one of them was like his own genin team under Jiraiya-sensei. He slowly learned that what worked for Sensei wouldn't always work for him. That each of them were different, and if he wanted to help them, he had to be different. And that maybe sometimes, he couldn't always be there for them.
He turned to the newly christened captain of the squad of survivors and informed them that he would be leaving them to collect his team. The captain looked for a moment like they would beg him to stay, but stopped after seeing his expression. She nodded in acceptance. The second she did, he threw out his senses. So many of his kunai were out there, but it didn't take long to find the special one he had given to Kakashi-kun.
Readying a few kunai and seals in case he was walking into a hostile situation, he pulled on his chakra and jumped.
Bodies littered the clearing he landed in.
Every inch of the clearing was covered in death and wafted the smell of burnt flesh. Immediately, he sent a kage bunshin off to secure the perimeter. He thought he would have to use his chakra senses, but another glance over the clearing and he was breathing a little easier at the sight of his team.
Two of them, he amended uneasily.
At first, all he could see was Kakashi-kun. Alive and slumped boneless against something, his eyes closed, head tipped back, and a kunai gripped loosely in burnt, blackened fingers. Looking closer, he realized the boy was leant back-to-back with Obito-kun. It was only when he laid eyes on the Uchiha. The feeling that had been growing in his heart when he noticed something missing exploded within him.
An exhaled, "No," was all he let slip before he had to pull himself together and approach the boys.
He called to them both, but only Kakashi-kun reacted to it. Obito-kun remained tightly curled into himself, his face pressed into his knees. The fingers the silver haired boy had on the kunai twitched as he cracked his eyes open and looked up at him.
"Sensei. I'm sorry."
It took everything he had in him to not let go at those words. He held it in, forcing his hand not to shake as he slowly placed it on the boy's shoulder, always keeping it within the line of his student's sight.
There were hundreds of questions he wanted to ask. 'How did it happen?' and 'Where is she?' were some of the most pressing ones. But he knew deep down that the answers he would get would only briefly satisfy his morbid curiosity, and ultimately leave him destroyed. There would be a time for that later, but not yet, not now. Especially not now, he thought, as he looked down into Kakashi-kun's flat, tired eyes, and over at Obito-kun's now trembling form.
Minato had failed his students today. It was something he could never make up for, no matter how hard he tried. The least he could do was help finish the mission and bring what was left of his team home safe, if no longer sound.
AN: A couple apologies, for different things. First, because I have taken so long with this chapter. I know how much it sucks to wait on a story, kept in suspense, and it's really uncool. I really struggled with this chapter, and with myself. At first, I was just having a hard time adapting to the weird direction canon was going and how big this chapter was going to be. And then the problems started being about me. To avoid over sharing, let's just say that some really awful things have happened to me in the last couple of months and I've been working through them, and leave it at that.
Thank you, all of you who have continued to read and have had kind and understanding things to say. Especially to those of you who gave me music. It always helps.
That said, I am also seriously sorry for this chapter, I cried multiple times through writing it, so I kind of shudder to think what I've done to some of you.