Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. If it was then my favorite character wouldn't have been killed. Twice.

Okay, so this chapter has a lot of information in it and it's sort of slow. Thankfully with all of this done the next chapter can have a short time skip, and then a longer one if everything goes how I have it planned right now.

Also, at the end of the chapter I'm introducing my first Omake!

Thank you everyone for your reviews.

And thanks to my beta ECDL.

Last Time

With Kakashi

There was quite a bit of silence, and when it had stretched for too long he looked up, and only had time for his eyes to widen in alarm as the last hand sign was finished and the man in front of him slumped before everything went bright white.

With Obito

It also wouldn't do for him to further alienate himself from the clan.

"What am I supposed to do for two days?" he demanded.

He earned another icy glare, "That is not our concern. We have given you ample time to prepare other lodgings for the duration of the ceremony," he stated. Without giving Obito any time to respond, he turned and left quickly, obviously not wanting to stay around Obito more than he already had.

With Ninken

When he was a few feet from his partner he could see that the man was bleeding heavily. He saw a flash of metal and before anyone could react he used his last bit of strength to launch himself in front of Toboe.

He felt multiple weapons pierce his right side before everything went black.

Inoichi's POV

Through his actions, Kakashi had confirmed that he knew the blonde boy from the picture, and while he'd said the boy was a civilian, Inoichi had clearly seen the forehead protector in the memory that he'd witnessed. He hadn't put it on in the picture though, leaving it out as a secondary test in case he had missed any scenarios for why Kakashi would have the memories.

He'd doubted that Kakashi would lie to him about the boy's identity anyway, but it seemed he'd been wrong. His hypotheses had all been proven false, and Kakashi obviously was trying to hide the existence of whoever this was. Kakashi hadn't experienced these memories when someone else had entered his mind and somehow passed the memories over. They were his own.

Despite the lie, he was still convinced that Kakashi didn't have any ill intentions towards the village, he was just trying to protect someone.

That wasn't enough to prove that Konoha wasn't in danger though, and Inoichi had to be completely sure.

Entering Kakashi's mind was his last ditch effort to protect him. If he didn't find anything this time then he'd have to treat Kakashi as a threat to the village.

Thankfully the silver-haired boy hadn't suspected anything from him, probably thrown enough by the picture that he wasn't too focused.

Had Kakashi tried to stop him, he would have immediately subdued him and taken him to the T&I Department without question. Now though, he had until he stopped the technique to find his answers without fear of Kakashi somehow escaping.

That was how he'd found himself in the most disturbing mindscape he had ever witnessed. The horrors he'd seen in the minds of war veterans and torture victims had never reached this level.

In fact, most of those mindscapes had started to break down before they could reach this level. There hadn't been much present in them when they'd begun treatment.

Even so, the first time he'd entered into one he'd had nightmares for over a month, and even after four years of doing the same, he still felt ill after entering one. The individuals with those mindscapes though, were always sent to him for treatment, either through routine consult, or from mandatory orders for any number of psychological disorders.

In a few of the cases that Inoichi had personally dealt with, the individual never recovered.

In Kakashi's mindscape, the area around him was dark, with the only light shining from a moon that was much too close to be realistic. Despite this, he could see everything clearly.

The atmosphere around him was a hazy red color, and he marveled at the fact that he could even smell the scent of blood and decay all around him.

The ground was worse. Corpses, unrecognizable due to the damage, were strewn across it with debris from what was probably buildings and rubble mixed in. Most of the bodies were just pieces, constantly moving in the liquid that they were immersed in.

He shuddered at the feel of the liquid that flowed over his feet when he attempted to take a step, pretty sure that this was supposed to be blood as well. He moved his foot back to its original position immediately when he went to step down, feeling something under his feet that was likely some sort of flesh from how it felt.

Swallowing hard, he turned on the spot and observed around him.

As far as the eye could see it was the same, except for one small difference when he turned back to his original position. A figure moved through the mass graveyard, not in any direction in particular, back turned to him. He too seemed to be looking around, which made Inoichi start to have a sinking feeling.

Steeling himself, Inoichi moved towards him.

"Hatake Kakashi?" he asked hesitantly.

The figure whirled around, weapon appearing in hand and poised to attack. Inoichi shifted to a defensive stance, but needn't have bothered.

The person in front of him, who looked like a cross between Kakashi and Sakumo, a man with a mask obscuring his face, lowered the weapon a second later.

Unlike both Kakashi and Sakumo he wore his slightly damaged hitai-ate (1) pulled down over his left eye.

His clothing differed from Kakashi's as well. Unlike the black outfit, and the simple fishnet armor at his ankles, this outfit was some sort of a cross between the standard ANBU uniform and customary jounin attire. The metal plated wrist and arm guards were a lot more like his standard, though they were longer to fit his arms better, but shorter than the standard ANBU gloves. Instead of the standard ANBU vest he also wore the customary jounin vest.

"Yamanaka-sama, why are we here?" Inoichi was right, he thought grimly.

This was actually Kakashi instead of just a mind guard or personality ghost (2).

He'd come across mind guards in a lot of minds, and in the ones he hadn't it didn't mean there wasn't one present. He suspected that only in children's minds would a guard be absent because they were so open and didn't see the need to hide themselves.

A personality ghost was the term that the Yamanaka used to define how a person acted, a mask. Individuals rarely presented fully as themselves, unless they were, once again, children. They put on masks to deal in different situations and sometimes there were faded images of them within the mind that couldn't be interacted with. Inoichi figured, based on the mindscape, that Kakashi would have more than a few, but there weren't any around them right now.

It wasn't rare for him to pull people into their own mindscapes when using this technique, they either showed up or didn't if he didn't focus one way or the other.

What concerned him was that the person in the mindscape always took on the form that they perceived for themselves, and Kakashi's was pretty startling. He supposed it should have been expected something like this however, given the mindscape.

He filed away the use of –sama, for later. Kakashi hadn't even tried to call him that when they had first met. In the mindscape though, a person presented exactly as they were, what his clan called a true person (3), so –sama must have been how Kakashi thought about him.

"What is all this Kakashi?" he asked. He had wanted to look for Kakashi's memories to try and make sense of them, but Kakashi would have to guide him. He couldn't dream of navigating this place since nothing stood out.

If Kakashi didn't cooperate it wouldn't matter, the boy's body had been incapacitated the moment Inoichi had entered the place, and if Kakashi wouldn't assist then that would be the final straw. Inoichi would take him in. He really hoped it didn't come to that.

"You shouldn't be seeing this," the visible portion of Kakashi's face showed that he was distressed, both at what he was seeing, and what Inoichi was being allowed to see.

"And what am I seeing?" Inoichi pressed. Kakashi tore his gaze away from a partially destroyed hitai-ate that had floated up from the bloody earth.

"The end," he stated.

"The end," Inoichi repeated.

"The end of what?" he asked.

He shuddered as something brushed up against his ankle, forcing him to move to his left.

Kakashi shook his head.

"Everything. Can we leave? I don't like it here," he begged.

Only now did Inoichi realize that Kakashi was shaking horribly, which was a positive in his book. It meant Kakashi didn't accept the state of his mind, which was always a good thing for recovery, and his mind proved he would have a long way to go to fix this.

Inoichi shook his head regretfully.

"I'm sorry, but I have to clarify some things first. Is everything here like this?" he wanted out as well, as soon as possible. He was sure he'd have nightmares for quite a while after this.

Kakashi shook his head in reply and pointed to his left.

When Inoichi looked in that direction he could now see that a light shone brightly from an area that had not been present before. It had a few trees, and he could make out a rock, as well as a portion of the marketplace and an apartment. The area was small, but the blood hadn't filtered into it. Instead there was a dirt road much like the village streets, and a patch of grass in front of the rock.

Inoichi nodded in thanks, moving towards the scene.

He kept quite a distance from Kakashi, though he didn't think he had anything to fear from the boy at this point since he hadn't immediately been attacked. He was more worried about this place. The mind was highly unpredictable after all, and this one had the potential to be the most dangerous mind he'd come across.

Kakashi followed along at a casual pace.

The short walk was made in silence, and soon Inoichi stood on the dirt path watching Kakashi, back to a few trees.

Kakashi was now looking at the rock, which he could now identify as the memorial stone.

While he was occupied, Inoichi did a quick glance around to see what exactly was here, noting the words Ramen Ichiraku draped down above the door written on cloth hangings. There were a few stools there as well. He didn't recognize the specific apartment, but there were a lot of apartments in Konoha with basically the same format. This was likely Kakashi's safe place; these objects would have been something that he had a connection to.

On the one hand it was good that this was here, but on the other, the memorial stone was unmistakably a symbol of death and loss, and to have that included was worrisome.

With those brief observations done, Inoichi turned back to Kakashi who seemed to have forgotten he was there as he sat in front of the stone and gently moved his hands over the names on the object.

He frowned when he examined the stone and moved a few steps closer to get a better look. It appeared completely identical to the one in Konoha in shape from how he remembered it, which was odd considering Kakashi shouldn't have been around the object that much to replicate it so exactly.

After taking another step forward, his eyes widened. He could now read the names on it, and unlike the original, these names were different.

"Uchiha Obito?" he read off from the first line, and Kakashi turned rapidly to look at him, visible eye wide. Inoichi frowned, turning to him, "Nohara Rin? All of these people are alive, Kakashi," he stated.

Kakashi said nothing so Inoichi turned back to read more.

"Yama-," he was cut off abruptly as the stone blurred. Around him the wind picked up harshly.

"This is none of your concern Yamanaka-sama," he said sharply. His tone and expression gave away how panicked he was feeling and Inoichi's eyes narrowed. He was more confused than he had been upon entering this place.

Hoping to make sense of at least something, he allowed those questions to drop for a moment. From how Kakashi was acting he wouldn't be given much information anyway, he seemed to be able to control his mindscape quite well which would make it hard to find anything.

Inoichi would ask a few more questions, and then he would have to give up on continuing to try and help Kakashi.

"What happened to your eye?" Inoichi finally asked after a bit of silence.

Kakashi fidgeted.

"Nothing," he said after a moment.

Inoichi raised an eyebrow at that. It was much harder, if not impossible, for most people to lie in their own mindscape and while he was surprised that Kakashi actually could, the boy obviously wasn't skilled enough to hide the fact that he was indeed lying.

This was another negative. Unless Kakashi frequently went into his mindscape somehow, the ability to lie here would have had to come from one of his personality ghosts, and overshadowing of the true person was definitely not good.

"Look, lying isn't helping you out here. It's either tell me, or go to torture and interrogation. I guarantee you, I'm much nicer in this setting than that one," he informed the boy sitting in front of him.

"What exactly do you want?" Kakashi demanded finally, looking up to meet his gaze and then standing quickly. Around them the wind picked up further.

"Why do have a picture of Naruto? And why are we even in here?" he growled.

"Naruto?" Inoichi asked, immediately linking it with the blonde boy.

"Sensei, you're gonna teach me a cool technique right?" he turned to see the image of the whiskered boy tugging on Kakashi's arm.

Then the image shifted. "But ramen's the best. Why do I have to eat all these foods anyway sensei?" he was holding an apple and pouting. Kakashi in the memory reached out and ruffled his hair, seemingly ignoring the fact that it earned him a scowl.

"Run, I can handle this," this Naruto was much older, the baby fat from the earlier images having faded.

He was no longer wearing the bright orange that Inoichi had seen, but now wearing a black sweatshirt with dark orange down the sides, a red cloak covered it, and the boy's eyes were showing an unnatural fire-orange with almost a plus symbol instead of his regular blue pupils. The marks on his cheeks were a bit more pronounced now, and he had teeth sharper than most Inuzuka that Inoichi had come across.

The Kakashi in the memory had moved towards the blonde boy, but a growl forced him to stop.

"It won't do us any good if you die too. Now go," he gave one last warning before turning and racing in the opposite direction, towards what Inoichi could see was a lot of death and destruction, with what he guessed must be the enemy making its way towards them.

These images flashed abruptly through the area around them.

"Who are you?" Inoichi demanded when the memories finished.

He forced a bit more chakra into his technique and focused, throwing the man back into the stone and holding him in place tightly. This was Kakashi's mindscape, he was sure, and most of the memories from when he'd entered Kakashi's mind the time before had belonged to the boy.

However, there was no way that a ten-year-old would have ever been in any position to witness these things, and definitely not this ten-year-old from what his file indicated. Plus Inoichi had never seen the blonde boy before, but he seemed to be a very prominent figure in this individual's memories, enough that there would be a record in Kakashi's file about him had Kakashi truly ever met him, especially considering he was a ninja.

Obviously Inoichi's first theory had been partially correct and the man in front of him had somehow passed his memories into Kakashi, and was likely a presence that was biding his time in order to use Kakashi for some purpose, most likely to harm Konoha in some way.

Despite how rough he had thrown the man, Inoichi made sure not to cause any damage around them as he questioned this individual. If the real Kakashi was still around here somewhere then Inoichi could cause him serious harm if he affected anything.

"Hatake Kakashi," the man ground out in response, struggling against the force holding him in place.

Inoichi added more pressure.

"Who are you?" Inoichi snarled again.

"Hatake Kakashi," the man said back firmly.

Inoichi's eyes narrowed and he moved forward. While most people could actually control their mindscapes to an extent, Inoichi and his clan members were able to manipulate pretty much anything that happened to their victims and override any control those individuals held within their own mind, and it was working against the invader as well.

With that in mind he pushed up the man's forehead protector when he reached his captive. Immediately everything went hazy before going black.

Tsume's POV

She had just checked on the animals in the clinic, fed them and the clan dogs, and then had opened up the door to the store for the day when an ANBU burst in.

"What happened?" she demanded immediately, ignoring any pleasantries. It wasn't as if ANBU used them anyway, and the man reeked of blood and her father's scent.

He had a porcelain boar mask with black spiky hair sticking up. The man also wore the standard ANBU vest and attire, black clothing with a gray flak jacket, metal arm guards and gloves, and sandals with spikes on the bottom. Unlike most ANBU, this one did not carry a sword strapped to his back (4).

"A border ambush. Your father is in the hospital," he stated monotonously, giving as short a report as possible to relay the information.

"And Isamaru (5)?" she asked urgently. Usually the ninken would be brought to her if he was unable to stay with her father.

"The dog was killed," the ANBU told her.

This time he allowed some condescension to seep into his voice at the word dog that made her bristle.

Kuromaru, who had been lying by the counter, shot to his feet.

"What happened?" her ninken demanded.

Kuromaru hadn't been close with Isamaru, but the Inuzuka ninken considered each other pack all the same, and Isamaru was definitely a ninken to respect after all he'd done in his missions.

His involvement in a high-ranked mission had been the reason that several men had made it back to Konoha. The Hokage himself had given him an award for it, something that had been unheard of when it came to ninken.

"I am uncertain," the ANBU replied dismissively without even turning to him, making Kuromaru bare his teeth at the disrespect. He knew he couldn't do anything to the man though, and refrained from attacking.

"Your father requests your presence," he told Tsume, gave a short bow, and quickly left. Kuromaru growled.

"Had Isamaru been human he would know more," he shook his head in irritation before turning to Tsume.

"I will locate Hige to take over the store. Go see your father," he told her, making his way out the door the ANBU had left open upon his exit before she could respond.

Shaking her head to clear it, she immediately locked the door and took off towards the hospital to do as Kuromaru had ordered.

Inoichi's POV

He winced as he woke.

The familiar feel of being outside his body immediately presented itself, and what had occurred rushed back to him.

"So you're an Uchiha?" Inoichi asked, tone more of a statement than a question, looking at where the imposter Kakashi sat, still in front of the memorial stone, but now facing him, eye once again covered.

The stone was much further away than previous, and he definitely couldn't read the names now. It seemed the mindscape had adjusted according to this man's wishes.

He was being held tightly against one of the trees in the mindscape with some sort of restraints. A check for his chakra told him that he wouldn't be able to use any.

There was no doubt in his mind that this imposter had to be an Uchiha, the sharingan as well as the control over the mind was something only found in the sharingan users, at least within Konoha.

The chances were slim to none that this man was from some foreign village with similar techniques and had entered Kakashi's mind when he'd been on a mission, the last time he'd exited the village being almost a year ago.

"No. I've already told you, my name is Hatake Kakashi. This eye came about through unfortunate circumstances," he stated testily.

Inoichi frowned, the man was looking him over expertly, trying to read him. If he wasn't careful he wouldn't make it out of Kakashi's mind alive.

"Then how are you able to manipulate this place with a sharingan?" Inoichi demanded.

Kakashi frowned at him before shrugging.

"I'm not. This is my mind, and it's probably much like the reason we're both breathing in here, even though it's completely unnecessary, at least for you since your mind isn't in your body. I'm used to using my sharingan to copy techniques and cast genjutsu, so my mind's probably allowing me to do the latter, even though it's not really a genjutsu, just a bit more control over my mind. Like when you're dreaming and you're flying or something, and then you realize it's a dream and suddenly can't anymore because your mind knows that it's not logically possible," he explained.

Inoichi's eyes narrowed, that was a very simple explanation for something that was highly complex, and only someone with experience in the mind arts would have even been able to easily make that connection.

"Those memories then. If you're Kakashi you're too young to have them. Your file states that your B-rank and C-rank missions have never reached that level of danger," he reasoned, referring to the last memory of Naruto that they'd seen.

The man was silent for a moment before giving a sigh and shaking his head.

"That wasn't a mission Yamanaka-sama. That was the Fourth Shinobi War," he stated, voice sounding much more tired and defeated than he'd sounded since Inoichi had entered.

Inoichi kept his face impassive.

"The Fourth Shinobi War? Are you telling me you're from the future?" he asked skeptically.

The man nodded.

"From about twenty years," he clarified.

"I didn't want anyone to find out, well, I told my ninken, but other than that I figured people would think I was insane or an imposter, like you do. I figured somebody would find out everything soon since I'm acting so out of character, and I wouldn't have told you anything, but we're in my mind and if I don't explain things there's a really high chance you'll get me locked up and tortured. Not that there's still not the chance of that happening now," he added a moment later.

Inoichi was still unconvinced, but took another glance around them, seeing the destruction around them and finally looking back at the stone which he still was unable to read.

"So, you're here in the past to change things and save the future from something horrible that happens then?" he asked, humoring the man for a moment.

What he received in response however, made him start to doubt his initial impression. The one visible eye was glaring at him and the man moved to his feet, turning back to the memorial stone.

"To change things? Save the future? I shouldn't be here," he whipped back around to face Inoichi.

"I'm supposed to be dead. I was the only person still left, well, aside from him but he sacrificed himself to send me here. It should have been him. It was my fault, but he sent me back and expects me to somehow have a second chance," he shouted, shifting in agitation.

Inoichi opened his mouth to respond but Kakashi's voice grew louder.

"Sensei, Rin, Kushina-nee-chan, Gai, they're all alive now. Everyone's worried about me, when I'm the reason they're all dead. You're helping me, when I'm the reason you die. Your teammates and family too but I can't say anything to anybody, because it might change things and if possible screw things up even more. I hate this. Everything's already worse. I'm taking up Minato-sensei's time. I nearly made things worse with Obito. My ninken are trying everything they can to help, but they can't understand that sometimes when I look at them, I see them being torn to pieces along with everyone else. On top of that, I find out that my father, whose death I'd already spent years coming to terms with, was actually implemented by a fellow Konoha ninja. The ninja around the village, I know them, but I can't talk to them like I did before because we either haven't met, or they think I'm a complete ass. But I can't change too suddenly either, because then everyone will think something's wrong or that I'm an imposter. I have no idea what to say most of the time. I have to think over everything before I open my mouth so that I don't make a mistake. I wanted to see everyone again, but not like this," he fell to his knees, landing in a puddle of the red liquid that had previously been absent from this area.

Only now did Inoichi see that behind the man the memorial stone was starting to crumble, the tree surrounding him, as well as the one he was tied to, were starting to wilt, and the two buildings next to him had large cracks running down the side as they started to collapse. The scenery was changing to match its surroundings.

"I can't do anything about it though," the silver-haired man continued.

"I'd upset people too much, even though it be easier for all of us if I wasn't here," Inoichi felt the illusionary bonds fall away, and quickly moved over to him.

There was no doubt in his mind that this had to be Hatake Kakashi. His emotions were the only thing that could warp this area so obviously, and the deterioration around them was due to changes in his current emotional state.

He should have realized it was true when Kakashi made the memorial stone and village section appear but he'd been too shocked by the presence of the strange memories to do so.

"Stop it," Inoichi ordered sharply, hoping to shock Kakashi back into awareness. He winced as one of the trees fell into the liquid, splashing him with the dark red substance, even as he grabbed onto Kakashi's arm, forcing his chakra into the man.

Within a second he'd pulled both of them out of the inner world.

As soon as he woke he realized he was panting heavily, his heart rate increasing to an unsafe degree as he tried to calm himself.

He had just made a rookie mistake, one he'd sworn never to make.

Speaking with people in their mind was alright, but upsetting them inside of it was extremely dangerous for their mental state. The mindscape reacted according to emotions at that particular moment, the person affected wasn't able to regulate their emotions as easily. If that individual's mental state had already deteriorated, the results could be disastrous.

He'd seen something like this occur twice before.

Two traitors had been apprehended in the village and after their interrogation it had been found that both of them had too much information to be allowed to live. The ninja had been popular among civilians in the village though, and they had fought to keep the two from being executed. Because the information was too sensitive, the civilian council had ordered his father to destroy their minds when the trial had continued long enough.

Inoichi had been present for both times, and it had been the only time that he'd seen his father reluctant to punish a traitor.

Thankfully the Hokage had been apprised of the situation and had deemed it inhumane so that the practice would never be repeated.

When Inoichi became fully aware he realized that there was a weight of something standing on his chest and hot breath against his face.

He was lying on his back on the floor. The ninken must have gotten angry and pulled him off the chair.

His eyes snapped open to see the bared white teeth and furious eyes of Kakashi's largest ninken, a growl issued from its throat when it saw he was awake and its teeth snapped threateningly.

"You better have a good explanation for this Yamanaka," the pug growled from off to his right. He carefully turned to see the pug nudging Kakashi in an attempt to wake him.

Kakashi was also lying down now, but on the couch instead of the floor. The ninken probably had moved him so that he would be more comfortable until they could do something to wake him up.

Without wasting any time, he shoved Uuhei off, sending some raw chakra through his hands and making the dog yelp as it was lightly burned.

Soon he was trying to shake Kakashi awake, adding a bit of chakra to stimulate his brain.

There was a snarl from Uuhei and he charged, but thankfully Pakkun gave a sharp.

"Stand down," making the greyhound freeze.

Obviously the pug was good at reading the situation and could see that Inoichi wasn't trying to harm Kakashi. Uuhei still watched Inoichi warily, tensed and ready to spring at him the instant Pakkun gave the command.

Kakashi's POV

When he woke it was to Inoichi's relieved expression.

Pakkun immediately tried to push the man aside.

"Are you alright pup?" he asked urgently.

Kakashi couldn't really remember too much of what had happened, it was all blurry. There were flashes of death and decay, a few memories of Naruto, and finally a lot of pain. He immediately knew that Inoichi had discovered his secret though, and he tried to sit up.

"Careful," Inoichi helped him as he immediately felt dizziness wash over him.

"Pup," Pakkun whimpered, moving to sit on his lap and bracing his paws on Kakashi's chest as he looked at him in concern.

Behind him Uuhei's ears drooped slightly and his eyes shone with worry as well.

"I'm fine. My head's killing me though," he said, bringing his hand up to hold against his forehead. Inoichi pushed his hand aside and forced him to meet his gaze.

"I'm going to need to ask you some basic questions. Alright?" he asked.

Kakashi frowned but nodded warily.

These had nothing to do with his mindscape, he found. They were routine questions, asked after any sort of head injury. He'd been given this test several times in his ninja career.

Inoichi nodded in satisfaction when he finished the test before moving back to his seat.

"You should get some rest, however I'm going to tell you everything that happened when we were in there before I let you. I suspect you remember some, if not most of what happened in there, but I'm sure your missing some things. I expect you to fill in some information about what I found when I'm done," his tone left no room for argument.

Kakashi sighed, resigning himself to the interrogation that was sure to follow as Inoichi started to explain what had occurred.

Rin's POV

Since training had been cancelled for at least today, Rin had been practicing with her kunai and shuriken skills, hoping to see some improvement.

She wasn't too happy with how she had done. Her skills were below average in weaponry.

Kakashi's skills had drastically improved after graduation, enough that he became a chuunin.

Even Obito seemed to have made progress in the short time after becoming a genin. At this rate she had felt there would come a time when she would be holding them back, especially once their team started taking higher ranked missions.

This was what she did whenever training had been canceled, well, this and taijutsu training.

Regrettably she had been focused on her studies and training in the Academy and hadn't made any friends that way. She had been on good terms with a few of the students, but those students had never taken their ninja training seriously.

They had been from civilian families as just as she was, but had only wanted to become ninja because they felt it would be cool. After failing repeatedly, they had deemed it too difficult and had either dropped out or failed.

She would have liked to interact with the children from ninja clans, but they had always seemed unapproachable. They had established friendships with others in the class early on, or before they had even entered the Academy. Most of them didn't seem to even pay the civilian children much mind.

Now that she was on a team she'd hoped that her teammates would spar with her since teammates were supposed to train together.

Minato seemed to be focusing on teamwork more than basic skills, always getting them D-rank missions instead of conducting spars. She could see why though, with how her teammates had treated one another.

She had then hoped that her teammates might want to spar after missions.

Unfortunately Kakashi had initially been extremely cold to both her and Obito when they'd first joined. She hadn't wanted to upset him too much by asking.

And she'd made Obito angry, much to her surprise, when she'd asked him. He'd told her that he trained on his own, that he needed to master the Uchiha style and that he didn't need her help.

As far as Kakashi was concerned at this point in time, she figured he would accept if she asked, but since training was cancelled for his recovery she couldn't very well do that now.

Minato was out for much the same reason. He was looking after her silver-haired teammate, and she wasn't comfortable enough on the team yet to ask him for extra training outside of their assigned time.

Feeling that her training was done for the day, she made her way back home to get a shower.

When she arrived however, she was surprised to see her mother clearing the kitchen table of two plates and two glasses.

Her mother's name was Yuki and she was in her mid-thirties.

The two didn't look much alike. Rin had a very similar facial structure, but instead of brown hair and brown eyes her mother's hair was black and her eyes were an odd blue, almost violet color.

Rin looked more like her father, and the purple triangles on her cheeks were in remembrance of his clan. He hadn't been a ninja, but the rest of his family had been.

Unfortunately all of them had died, either of old age, or on missions so she had never gotten to speak with any of them about her father.

"Oh Rin, you're home," her mother greeted when she spotted her, looking a bit nervous.

"Did you have company?" Rin asked curiously. Rin had always been a bit worried about her mother being too lonely. She hadn't interacted with many people since Rin's father had passed away, even the parents of other Academy students when they'd have parent's days.

Her mother hesitated. "Well, yes," she said, before shaking her head.

"I suppose you're going to find out eventually. How about you take a seat and we can talk," she offered, setting the dishes on the counter and then moving to take a seat as well.

Rin frowned, her mother was rarely this nervous and Rin hoped it wasn't anything serious. She reluctantly took a seat as well.

After a bit of hesitation, her mother started to explain.

"You have to understand sweetheart, I loved your father, and I still do. I would never want you to think I was replacing him, but I met someone in the village a while ago and we've been seeing each other. He's a trader. A wonderful man named Mandou Shin," she explained.

Rin didn't answer for a moment before she smiled, completely relieved, and happy for her mother.

"That's great. Can I meet him?" she asked eagerly.

Her mother looked startled.

"You're really okay with this honey?" she questioned worriedly.

Rin nodded firmly.

"Of course I am, and I would never think you were trying to replace Dad. He died a long time ago. I only remember him a little, but he would definitely want you to be happy," she replied confidently.

Her father had worked in construction and had died in an accident when she'd been about three.

She didn't remember too much about him, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had loved both of them.

A strange expression crossed her mother's features and Rin almost thought she'd said something wrong before her mother smiled and shook her head affectionately.

"I keep forgetting that you're growing up. Speaking of which, if I remember correctly someone's turning ten next month," she said teasingly.

Rin smiled and the discussion changed to her birthday plans.

Omake (Alternate mindscape)

As soon as Inoichi was able to view everything in the mindscape he promptly cancelled the technique.

Waking up, he shifted to sit up, feeling dizzy for some strange reason.

Across from him Kakashi had woken up as well.

"So, did you get the information you needed?" he asked.

Obviously he'd been pulled into the mindscape as well and had seen what Inoichi had witnessed if his smug expression was anything to go by.

At that point the door to the house opened, Minato had returned.

"Oh, sorry, are you still…" he trailed off, staring at Inoichi.

"What?" Inoichi asked, confused at his fellow jounin's expression.

Across from him Kakashi snorted.

"Your nose is bleeding," he told him, taking some sort of sadistic glee in embarrassing him.

"Um, I actually think we're done here. I need to go," Inoichi said, rising from the couch.

"Are you sure you're okay Inoichi?" Minato asked, looking at him in concern.

"Yeah, do you have any idea what might have caused that?" Kakashi asked, the sheer innocence in his voice told Inoichi that it was definitely feigned.

He didn't rise to the bait.

"I'm sure I'm fine. I should probably just go lie down," he replied to Minato's question and quickly made his escape from the house, wiping away the blood as best he could.

If his fiancé ever found out about what he'd seen, regardless of the fact that it wasn't his fault, she would brutally murder him. Honestly though, who would have ever expected that the mindscape of a ten-year-old boy was pretty much a giant orgy with a banner actually declaring it Icha Icha Paradise?

Thanks for taking the time to read. As always I'd be grateful if you'd take the time to review.

(1) I rarely use Japanese in my stories unless it's a technique, a title like Hokage, or a frequently used term like katana. I figured hitai-ate, or forehead protector, was alright though.

(2) A personality ghost is the Yamanaka clan term for "the persona," which is part of a theory by Carl Jung that people wear masks to hide their true selves from the outside world in order to interact with others in society.

(3) A true person is the Yamanaka clan term for "the self," which is another part of the same theory by Carl Jung. It's pretty self-explanatory, every aspect of a personality and exactly how a person is without hiding anything.

(4) This isn't the same ANBU from the anime or manga, from how I see it ANBU are often replaced since they have such dangerous jobs and so this one likely died and was eventually replaced by the other ANBU.

(5) Isamaru means full of courage, it's also apparently a playing card in the game Magic: The Gathering which I don't have the attention span to play.