When Kakashi regained consciousness, he was standing in the middle of a dark room with no recollection of how he'd gotten there.
"Ryoji?" he called hoarsely. "Sakura?"
"Over here," Sakura said, but there was something about her voice that was off.
He couldn't peg it, so he followed the voice anyway. He wandered for a bit, hands out in front of him, searching. Still, he found nothing.
"Sakura, where are you?"
A beam of light flickered into existence behind him, and he whirled to face it. Sakura was standing there, the harsh light making her naked skin glow.
Only it wasn't the Sakura he expected. Her hair was long and straight, all the way down her back where he expected it to stop at her shoulder blades. Her breasts were entirely flat, her nipples usually so sensitive to temperature change nothing but pink dots despite the chill of the air. His eyes traveled down, looking for her scar to make sure it was really her, but it wasn't there. Neither were the toned muscles that made her torso look longer than it was. Even the swell of her hips had disappeared, usually so pronounced.
And yet she stood in just the right way, one foot turning inward, knees slightly bowed as she looked down in shyness.
"Sakura, drop the genjutsu. It's not funny."
She looked up, brows knit. "What genjutsu? You haven't taught me any of those, Kakashi-sensei."
Kakashi scowled. He remembered distinctly the last time she called him such a thing, remembered telling her not to. Was she doing this to teach him a lesson? About what?
He took off his overshirt and handed it to her, refusing to give in to her goading. "Here."
She took it from him, but instead of putting it on, dropped it to the ground. "Now take off the rest."
He took a step back. "Stop."
She advanced on him, reaching for the band of his pants, which stretched out as he took another step back.
"Why are you being so shy all of a sudden?"
She looked up at him, pouting, her face much farther away than he was used to.
"Aren't you going to fuck me, Kakashi-sensei?"
"Stop." He knocked her hand away.
"Why? You know you want to."
She grabbed his pants and yanked them down.
"Are you afraid? Fuck me, Kakashi-sensei."
"Pedophile."
It sounded like Gai was whispering in his ear, but when Kakashi whirled around, Gai was nowhere to be found.
"Pedophile."
This time, the voice brought with it an image: he saw himself fucking Sakura, just as she'd asked for. She was spread out on the ground and he was gripping her around a waist that was straight as a board, pounding into a hairless pussy that nevertheless was wet for him –
"Pedophile!"
His vision cleared and Sakura was before him again, rubbing her naked body against him as she slowly pulled down his briefs.
"I said no," he growled, and pushed her so hard she fell to the ground.
Only then did he realize that this was the Sakura he knew so well looking up at him. Her face was leaner, her parted lips fuller, her waist tapered, her legs long and chiseled.
"Kakashi, what –?"
The feigned confusion compelled him to yank her upright so he could look her in the face. "Do you think that was funny?"
"I don't know what you –"
"You know what you did. Whose idea was the genjutsu? Did someone put you up to it?"
She smiled, reaching for him again. "Let me make it up to you, Kakashi-sensei."
Something within him snapped and before he knew what he was doing, he smashed his fist into Sakura's face.
She didn't fight back, letting him pummel her all down her body.
"What did I do? Tell me what I did," she mewled, soulful eyes pleading.
"You know what you did!"
"What did I do?"
He hit her again. "You made me a pedophile!"
She struggled for the first time, fighting her way to his mouth, locking him into a kiss. "Let me make it up to you."
His vision going red, he raised his fist again. Gai appeared in front of him, grinning.
"Put the slut in her place."
Kakashi faltered. "What?"
"She manipulated you into her bed. She made you into something you're not."
He looked down at Sakura, blood trickling from her nose, smiling in spite of a swollen eye. "It's okay. I deserve it."
"Put the slut in her place."
Kakashi launched himself at Gai, tackling him.
"You piece of shit," Kakashi said, dropping into attack position, circling Gai. "You piece of shit."
"What right does a pedophile have to call me a piece of shit?"
He flew at Gai again, landing more hits than he ever had before despite Gai trying to block him.
With each blow Kakashi landed, Gai said it again.
"Pedophile. Pedophile. Pedophile. Pedophile."
"What is that?" Kakashi roared. "You've said it so much it isn't even –"
Gai grinned. "Vulture. Molester."
Kakashi hit him again, trying to knock Gai's pearly teeth out of his foul mouth.
"You're sick, depraved –"
Kakashi hit him again, but over and over, Gai said it.
"Pedophile. Pedophile. Pedophile. Pedophile."
Kakashi stopped mid-strike, cradling his head in his hands, but still, Gai didn't stop. His voice became more strident, almost a squawk, as he went on.
"Pedophile. Pedophile. Pedophile."
"Shut up!"
Kakashi looked up as he screamed, but Gai was gone. Instead there was only a parrot, an exotic type of bird he had seen once on a mission.
"Pedophile," it said once, and then flew away.
Kakashi whirled around, looking for where Gai had gone, but instead the light shone on Sakura. She was standing in the same shy stance, one foot turned slightly inward. All evidence of his earlier blows were gone.
"What did I do?" Her voice was timorous, but had the timbre he knew now, not that of her twelve year old self.
"I don't know," Kakashi said, staring at her.
He took a tentative step toward her. "Are you really an adult?"
She met his eyes, but didn't say anything. Without breaking their locked gazes, she brought a single finger up and traced the line of her clavicle, trailing down to brush the underside of her breast, up the curve to draw a lazy circle around her nipple, which jumped to attention at her touch, forming a pink peak.
Then she spread her hand flat, slowly dragging it between the valley of her breasts, over her ribs, her navel, then lower, lower, to tangle in the coarse hair that was only a few shades darker than the hair on her head. As she worked her fingers, she threw her head back, mouth open. Her other hand tracked up the flat of her stomach in the opposite direction to cup her breast. Her torso slowly torqued, emphasizing the line of her waist and the generous swell of her rump.
"How do you prefer me?" she said in a throaty voice, all meekness gone.
She smiled at him, more of a quirk of the lips, teasing. She knew the answer already.
She withdrew her fingers from herself, taking each one into her mouth, cleaning the slickness from them one by one.
"What did I do again?"
Kakashi's mouth was as dry as if he swallowed cotton. "Nothing," he rasped.
"Are you sure about that?"
He wanted to say yes, but it stuck in his throat.
"I did something, didn't I?"
Kakashi tore his eyes away from her body to look her in the face. She was still teasing, smiling that almost smile, as if she knew something he didn't.
"What was it? What did I do?"
"You lied to me." He didn't remember thinking the thought; it fell from his lips of its own accord.
She didn't seem surprised; her gaze stayed on him, steady. "How do you feel about that?"
He gave her the only answer he had. "I don't know."
The light faded from Sakura, and Kakashi whirled, trying to find it again. When he did, it was shining on a dining room he didn't recognize.
Kakashi himself – or someone who looked exactly like him – was dressed in a type of formal kimono he'd never worn in his life and was sitting at the end of a long table. He wore no mask, only a bright but stiff smile that showed teeth straighter and whiter than his own.
Sakura entered the room and set food in front of him, wearing the female equivalent in clothing and smile alike.
"I hate myself and want to die," she said, mouth moving as little as possible so her grin wasn't disturbed. "Was the dinner served on time this evening?"
"Precisely on time," Kakashi's facsimile answered, still beaming.
Impossibly, Sakura's smile grew even wider. "Sometimes I contemplate killing myself. How are the dumplings?"
"They are too doughy. I am displeased," the other Kakashi said, though he ate the dumplings anyway, grinning.
"I apologize. I will try harder next time," Sakura said, bowing, but her smile did not falter.
Kakashi watched incredulously as the pair ate dinner listlessly, never dropping the grins. He walked toward them.
"Hey, she said she wanted to kill herself. Are you just going to ignore that?"
For some reason, Kakashi thought they wouldn't be able to hear him, but his facsimile turned to him.
"It is none of my concern."
"Why?"
Kakashi turned to Sakura for an explanation.
She beamed at him. "I'm a liar. I lied."
Kakashi turned back to the other man. "Is that why? Because she lied to you?"
"I don't like what she did very much. It makes me angry."
"You don't look angry," Kakashi said, frowning.
The other man was still smiling brightly.
"I have no feelings."
"But you just said you were angry."
The man's grin grew wider.
"I don't like being angry."
"Then why don't you do something about it?"
"Because I am you and I am angry."
And all of a sudden, Kakashi was angry; he could feel it licking at his insides like a flame.
"You're not me. I have feelings."
"That makes me laugh. Ha. Ha. Ha." The other Kakashi's laughter was as wooden as his smile. "You are a proper ninja."
He slammed his hands on the heavy table. "I still have –"
The other Kakashi eyed him disapprovingly at his outburst. "A shinobi must show no emotions."
"Then how am I feeling something right now?"
"I think you make me angry. I don't know if I am angry. Am I angry?"
Kakashi stared at the man, unsure how to respond.
The other Kakashi forgot his disapproval as quickly as it had come. "Are you angry? Are we angry? What is angry?"
"If you're not angry at her for lying to you, then why don't you care that she wants to die?"
"I thought I loved her, but then I realized I don't have feelings, and that makes me sad." The facsimile's grin still stretched across his face. "Or maybe it makes me happy."
The man's eyes began rolling in his head like the brightly lit slot machines back in Otafuku Gai. "Am I happy? What is happy?"
"You thought you loved her?" Kakashi said, looking at the blank smiling face that looked like Sakura.
"What did you think of Rin, when she loved you?"
Kakashi took a step backwards.
The other Kakashi grinned. "A ninja must never show weakness. Isn't that right?"
"It's part of the shinobi code," Kakashi said, looking between the two, wondering where the trap lay.
"When she loved you, when she broke the twenty-fifth rule of shinobi conduct by showing emotion, what did you think of her?"
"I thought she was weak," Kakashi whispered, wanting to close his eyes, to run away, but unable to override his instincts to turn his back on whatever this man was.
"And when you thought you loved her?"
Kakashi hesitated. "I was weak."
"Is that why she rejected you? Because you were weak?"
Kakashi took another step back. "I don't know."
"Don't you?"
"She said love was foolishness, that it got Obito killed."
"Was that the truth? Or was it because you didn't really love her and she knew it?"
Kakashi's stomach was turning in knots. "I – I did love her."
"Did you really?"
"Stop." Kakashi tried to make his voice commanding, but it came out wavering instead.
"Did you love her the way a man should love a woman?"
Kakashi backpedaled again.
"Did you love her the way she loved you?"
Kakashi finally gave in and closed his eye to spare himself from the brightness of their grins. "No."
"Of course you didn't, because you're a proper ninja, and ninja must not show emotion."
Kakashi's eye snapped open and he rushed the mockery of himself, punching it in the face.
"How about pain? Do you feel that?"
The other Kakashi put a hand to his cheek. "Pain. Is this pain?"
Kakashi hit him again. "Does showing pain make you weak?"
"Yes."
"Show it or not, you're still feeling it," Kakashi said, smashing him in the other cheek.
"A proper ninja must not be influenced by outside factors. No manipulation."
It was Kakashi's turn to smile right in his copy's face. "What isn't an outside factor? What doesn't manipulate you?"
Kakashi hit him again. "Pain can make you squeal."
Kakashi raised another fist and the other man flinched, smile faltering for the first time.
"So can seeing a threat. Or smelling blood."
The other Kakashi dug his fingers into his eye sockets, and his eyes popped out and rolled along the floor as if they were made of glass.
"I will not be manipulated!"
The facsimile tore his ears off, and then his nose.
"Even touch will not influence me!" he announced triumphantly. "I will be a proper ninja!"
With that, he began to peel the flesh off his face. Kakashi stared in horror as the copy of himself melted into a puddle.
He turned to Sakura, who was still smiling. "Are you all right?"
She didn't answer. He grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to shake the foreign grin from her perfect features. It didn't work. Her head toppled off, still smiling, and fell to the floor where it shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. She was made of porcelain.
Kakashi backed away, unable to tear his eyes away from her body, which still brought food to the emptiness where her head used to be in mechanical motions, dropping it onto the stump of her neck where it dribbled onto her kimono.
He ran further into the house, where it was light, unable to face the darkness from whence he came. He tore through several empty rooms, searching for some sign of life. When he reached the drawing room, he stopped short.
Rin was face down in a pool of blood. All of a sudden, Kakashi realized why he knew his way around this house so well. It was a perfect copy of the clan home he used to share with his father.
"R-rin?"
He tried to inch toward her, to check her for a pulse, but he couldn't do it. It was no use. He had done this before, with his father, and Kakashi knew she was already dead.
He fell to his knees, his hands landing in the outer edge of the dark pool that was quickly seeping into the floorboards. He knew the stain would never come out, would stay to mock him until one day, he just left the house and never came back.
Kakashi heaved and scrambled for his mask, smearing blood across his face in his haste to yank the fabric down. Even when the contents of his stomach were splattered on the floor, he kept retching, though nothing but emptiness was left inside of him.
Rin's hand twitched. Kakashi froze, staring at it, shocked even out of dry heaving.
"Rin?"
She sat straight up and looked him in the eye, and it took Kakashi a second to realize what was wrong. She had been face down, and her spine was bending the wrong way. It didn't seem to pain her, though, her clan marks moving with the apples of her cheeks as she smiled at him in a gesture so familiar it hurt.
"Kakashi-kun, what's wrong? Are you ill? Why didn't you come see me earlier?"
He stared at her face, refusing to look at her grotesquely contorted torso. "Yes, I'm – sick. But you can't help me. You can't… Rin. You're not real, are you?"
She laughed lightly, reaching out to touch his face. Her hand felt warm as it caressed his cheek, but it was a lie, a lie, she would shatter, she would explode, she would melt, she was dead –
"Don't be silly, Kakashi-kun."
No one had called him that in so long, so long, and he had hated it at the time, but now – and it was so tempting to lean into her touch, but he pulled away. "You died. I saw your body. You – your back was broken. Your spine was severed. They showed me, I saw, they showed me –"
"You're being foolish again. You've been doing that a lot lately, haven't you, Kakashi-kun?"
He wanted to close his eyes against the sight of her smiling face, but he couldn't. It was mesmerizing, the image clear again after the years had faded his memory's portrait.
"I know I'm a fool. Your last lesson to me, I couldn't listen –"
Suddenly the smile on her face snapped into a frown, jerking the purple rectangles downward.
"My last lesson to you? What about your last lesson to me?"
Kakashi could only stare. "I never taught you anything worthwhile. Some team leader I was."
She dropped her hand from his face, struggling to turn and face him better with her mangled body.
"You're wrong. Kakashi, you're wrong, I –"
"I know I was wrong. I never should have tried to – you always knew, didn't you? You knew it was the wrong thing for us. I couldn't listen. I resented you."
Rin's eyes flashed in an anger she'd never shown in life. "You fool. You fool! You couldn't learn from me, could you? You had to go and repeat it all –"
She broke off, a tear slipping down her cheek. "You fool."
The light in the room went out suddenly.
"Rin, I'm sorry. Rin, please, come back, I just need –"
He groped for her in the dark, but his hands found nothing, only the wetness of blood and vomit. He stood, almost slipping, and searched for her.
"Rin. Rin!"
Eventually, he fumbled into a doorway, into the next empty room, and then the next. When Kakashi found the light again, he couldn't even bring himself to be surprised.
Obito was in the library, squinting at a jutsu scroll.
"Reading with one eye isn't all it's cracked up to be."
Obito tried to roll up the scroll, but struggled when only half of him cooperated.
"Come to think of it, neither is reading with one hand."
"Obito."
Kakashi should have known he would see Obito next, but it still managed to knock the wind out of him.
Obito gave up and knocked the scroll aside.
"Kakashi, you know, you always were a jerk."
"I'm sorry. I never –"
"I thought you were going to show me the future with that eye. You promised."
Kakashi was still rooted to the spot, staring at his friend who looked exactly as he had the day he died.
"All I see is the past. We're at war with Rock – again – and you left your comrades to rot – again."
"No," Kakashi whispered. "I didn't. We got them all back, all of them. We –"
"You didn't, did you?"
Kakashi's eye focused on the open scroll where it had clattered to the floor. "No."
"You played footsie while your girlfriend did more to get them back than you did. Isn't that right?"
Kakashi's gaze snapped back to Obito's face and his eye was immediately drawn to where his skull was caved in, the spongy pink of brain matter seeping through the cracks.
"I – I trusted her, and she –"
"Isn't that right?" Obito interrupted, voice harsh the way Kakashi had only ever heard it once before, when Obito was calling him trash.
"Yes," he admitted, shoulders slumping. "That's right."
Obito stood shakily, thumping towards Kakashi on legs that could barely support his own weight.
"What is the village?"
Kakashi was torn between the urge to help Obito walk and to run away before Obito could come any closer.
"What?"
"What is Konoha?"
"It's a ninja village."
"And what is that?"
"A collection of clans and families that live and work together to –"
Obito shuffled forward slowly, so slowly.
"And what is it called when people work together?"
"A team, but –"
"So Konoha is a team. Which makes its ninja what?"
"My comrades," Kakashi said with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
He was about to relive the worst moment of his life, he could just feel it –
"You're worse than scum," Obito said. "You're trash. I never wanted to believe it, but it's true."
Kakashi closed his eyes. "I know it was my fault. They were just following orders, my orders, and –"
"You still don't understand. You don't get it. What makes a team?"
Obito was snarling now, angrier than ever before. Kakashi's eyes stay closed, unable to look at Obito this way.
"Sensei said – teamwork makes a team."
"'Sensei said.' Like you listen to him anymore. Like you ever did. What makes teamwork possible? What did sensei say?"
"Trust."
"Protecting your teammates is only half of being a comrade. What's the other half?"
Kakashi squeezed his eyes shut even more tightly, Ibiki and Obito's faces floating in his mind's eye. "Trusting them to protect you and one another."
"You said you trusted your teammates, you trusted Konoha, to get your comrades back, but did you? Or do you still feel guilty?"
"It was my responsibility," Kakashi whispered.
"How can everything be your responsibility? I gave you half of myself – half of my Sharingan. And you only ever learned half of what I tried to show you."
Without looking at Obito again, Kakashi turned and fled. He wanted out of the house, out, out, out –
The seldom-used servant's entrance was closest, and Kakashi slammed into the kitchen on his way to it, but stopped in his tracks at the sight that greeted him.
Sakura was rifling through the kitchen drawers, pulling out various implements – a spoon, a knife used for chopping vegetables, a melon baller – but they were all rusty. She was whistling while she worked.
"What are you doing?" he said.
"I have a surgery to perform," Sakura said.
"On whom?"
Sakura rolled her eyes at him. "On myself."
"No," he whispered.
She ignored him.
"No," he said, louder this time. "Don't do that."
She seemed utterly unperturbed, idly trying to scratch a spot of rust from the spoon. "Why not?"
Kakashi struggled to articulate a reason for the dread pooling in his gut, but failed. "Because I said so."
Sakura frowned into the spoon. "I outrank you medically, you know."
"I outrank you in every other possible way. I – I order you to stop."
Sakura swept the spoon and all the other rusty utensils into a bag and smiled pleasantly. "I order you to go fuck yourself."
She spun on her heel and walked out of the kitchen, Kakashi staring after her hopelessly. He could run her down, but what then? They'd argued so many times, and he couldn't see the benefit in instigating one more. When it came to physical strength, she overpowered him by far unless he wanted to hurt her. All he had were words, and what good were they? Sakura was going to do what she wanted to do, regardless of his opinion. She'd made her point on that score.
Kakashi stood in front of the servant's door, staring as if transfixed, all urgency to leave forgotten. The door jamb was scored time and time again with height marks of the different Hatake, done by different servants throughout the years. Kakashi's uncle, who had died before Kakashi was born, was well known for his deep kunai marks in the wood, even as a young child. Kakashi's father's marks were lost in the myriad of the rest. Kakashi's eyes settled on the small lines of white paint that the cook had used for him, as a child. She had large, soft breasts and belly that swung when she walked, and her eyes were kind when she brought out the paint.
"There, now you're special," she said every time, and afterwards, she ruffled his hair.
The white lines stopped far down the jamb, for Kakashi's father had fired all the servants when things got bad, supposedly in an attempt to spare them shame, but Kakashi knew even then that his father just couldn't face them anymore. The cook had cried when she said goodbye to Kakashi, measuring him one last time.
"There, now you're special," she had said.
"Who will measure me next time?" Kakashi asked.
"I'll leave the paint for your father," she said with a watery smile, knowing his father would never think of such a mundane task.
"Where will you go?"
"To my sister's in the capital. Maybe I can find work there."
"Don't go," Kakashi said. "I'll hire you back as soon as – as soon as my father gets better."
"It's not that simple, little man," she said, and ruffled his hair like she always did.
Kakashi never saw her again. Not long after that, his father killed himself and he was all alone in the large clan house. As soon as he made enough of his own money to rent a tiny apartment, he left the house to fall into ruin. Eventually he had it torn down for scrap, servant's door and all, so that he never had to pass by it again.
Shaking his head, Kakashi remembered himself and pushed through the door. He had to get out of here. He rushed through the gardens, not wanting to smell the sweetness of the flowers that were all wrong for the truth of the season, and into the private training grounds. He had spent the majority of his childhood here, with his father. Gentle in every other aspect of fatherhood, Sakumo was a harsh taskmaster here.
"Do that in the field and you're a dead man," was his favorite phrase, and his face was always hard when he said it – except for his eyes, which were pleading.
They had trained together almost every day Sakumo was home, since before Kakashi could remember – until the day when Sakumo came home from that mission and they never trained together again.
Kakashi stepped beyond the confines of the training grounds, into the tree line, and the dappled summer light fled as suddenly as if someone had turned it off with a switch, leaving stars in Kakashi's eyes.
Kakashi kept walking straight forward, noting that the forest was gone as well but not sure what to do about it, until he encountered the single beam of light again. It was shining on a baby Naruto, naked and squalling, the seal on his stomach fresh and bloody.
Naruto opened his tearful eyes and stared right at Kakashi – but instead of the blue he expected, Naruto's eyes were pure red and pupil-less.
"That's not how it was," Kakashi whispered.
"How would you know?"
Kakashi whirled towards the voice, though he recognized it. The light shone on Minato now, dressed not as Hokage but as he used to when he was Kakashi's sensei, just in a simple uniform and flak jacket.
"How would you know how it was like? You weren't there for him." Minato's eyes, the blue that Naruto's lacked, drilled into Kakashi in accusation.
"I didn't know."
"Kushina disappeared for months. What did you think happened to her?"
"A long mission –"
"Really long, don't you think?"
A spike of anger struck through Kakashi. "You didn't trust me enough to tell me –"
"You never even asked." Minato's eyes were clear of accusation now, his face filled with its usual serenity. "Did you care?"
Kakashi's gut clenched, and he stared at this stranger. Minato had always been quietly understanding towards Kakashi, never condemning, and only gently correcting where it was warranted.
"Of course I cared. She was your wife."
"When I told you I was marrying her, you looked at me and said, 'Why would you do that?'"
"I came to the wedding, didn't I?"
"To stare impassively, give a stiff congratulations, and leave halfway through the celebrations."
Minato crossed his arms, a small hint of agitation leaking through his body language. Kakashi swallowed, mouth dry. Minato got married so soon after Rin's death, and to a comrade no less. It felt like a slap in the face to Rin: disregarding her views on romance with no proper mourning time. Kakashi hadn't much felt like celebrating anything, let alone something as meaningless as marriage.
"You told me you understood," Kakashi said, voice smaller than he would have liked. "You said it was okay."
"Should I have expected your support when it came to having a child, then? Why?"
"Why not? I –"
Minato looked him straight in the eye. "Would you not have been jealous?"
The hard truth hit Kakashi like a kick to the stomach. Minato had been the only constant in Kakashi's life since he graduated from the Academy. Kushina had pulled Minato away when Kakashi needed him the most. Kakashi's jaw flapped as he froze in place, searching for some kind of reply, when the light faded, leaving Kakashi in the dark once more.
"Minato-sensei?"
There was no answer, only another squall from the baby Naruto, whom Kakashi had forgotten.
"Sensei? Hokage-sama?"
Still, no one answered. Kakashi dropped to his hands and knees and felt along the impossibly smooth floor for the infant, scared to step on him. Finally, his hands brushed tiny, naked feet. The cries reached a fevered pitch.
Nervous, Kakashi cradled Naruto, unsure of how to hold him. Kakashi pressed the tiny, squishy-looking head to his shoulder and attempted to comfort the baby, but the cries only increased.
Kakashi noted how badly the seal was bleeding, blood running in rivulets as if the boy had had the design sliced into him with a knife. It didn't seem like a lot of blood, or wouldn't if Naruto wasn't so little, but the way his face was screwed up and he was screaming seemed like he was in agony.
"Shit," Kakashi swore, and then winced as he realized he probably shouldn't say such things in front of children. What was he going to do? Naruto was in pain, and babies weren't known for being the sturdiest of creatures. And his unnervingly red eyes...
"Sakura." She was here somewhere; she could probably stop the bleeding, at the very least.
Kakashi turned back and went the way he had come, hoping to find the house again, but the darkness seemed to go on forever. With every step, Naruto's squalls grew louder, until the opposite began to happen, until eventually they were so weak he was only whimpering.
"We'll find her soon," Kakashi said, clutching the baby tighter. "Don't fret."
"It won't do you any good to find her now," a voice said. Kakashi froze in place, extending his senses immediately.
"What do you know about this place, Sasuke?" Kakashi asked cautiously, keeping his back towards him – better to shield the baby.
"What do you know about this place? Aren't you supposed to be the teacher here?"
Kakashi didn't have to see Sasuke's face to know it was sneering. To most, Sasuke's voice might sound monotone, but if you knew him, you could sense his mood through it.
"It doesn't make any sense. If you're here, too – it doesn't –"
"Doesn't it?"
The light flickered on, shining on a fully grown Sasuke, somehow in front of Kakashi despite his best efforts.
"I always made so much sense to you, didn't I?" Sasuke said. "You thought you had me all figured out."
Kakashi's arms tightened around the baby, who squawked.
"So I guess you knew I was going to leave the village, huh? Didn't try to stop me, though, did you? Only Sakura showed up. Like she could have done anything, weak as she was."
"I didn't know," Kakashi whispered.
Even at his lowest, Kakashi had never thought Sasuke would leave of his own volition, and so soon. He thought he had years to keep working with Sasuke – time. He didn't think Sasuke would be stupid enough to think he could make it on his own, that he had a chance of taking out his brother any time soon. Everyone else blamed it on the curse mark, but Kakashi knew better. The source of Sasuke's arrogance was Kakashi himself, fostered to try and make him see he could be great if he stayed in Konoha.
"The great Sharingan Kakashi, blindsided by a boy," Sasuke sneered.
Sasuke was right. Only Sakura saw it coming. Kakashi could never bring himself to ask her how she had known, or what Sasuke had said to her that night to make her wilt right before Kakashi's eyes like a cut flower in the sun.
"Did you think you taught me the value of love and friendship? You, teach me that? How could you, when you don't know it yourself?"
Kakashi glanced down at the baby in his arms. Naruto's breathing was shallow now. With his eyes closed, he looked like a normal baby.
"I know their value," Kakashi said, trying to soothe the pain from Naruto's face. "I know what it's like to lose them."
Sasuke scoffed. "But do you know what it's like to have them?"
Kakashi looked up, scowling. He was wasting time here. "Do you?"
"Do I? You tell me."
"You care for Naruto. For Sakura. You pretend you don't like a mask you wear, but it's obvious you do."
Sasuke reached up and dug his fingers into his hairline and began to pull.
"Sasuke, what are you –"
Kakashi watched in horror as Sasuke peeled his skin away, yanking it away like a snug fit. Underneath was another face, identical to the one he was tossing to the floor.
Sasuke smiled. "So, Kakashi-sensei – how long can you wear a mask before you become it? You should know, right?"
"Sasuke…"
Kakashi closed his eyes, the true weight of his failure descending upon him now as it never had before. He had distracted himself with grinding tasks, set his sights on bringing Sasuke home and correcting his own wrongs so he didn't have to think about them. Only that was so hard to do around Sakura, who made Kakashi's shortcomings so obvious when she struggled to smile at him, lips quirking up, down, then up again. She seemed happier around Tsunade, so Kakashi ruffled her hair and wished her well but was relieved. And she knew it all along.
"Are you in the right place?" Sasuke said, as if he sensed Kakashi's thoughts.
Kakashi's eyes snapped open to see Sasuke holding a kunai to his own temple.
"Sasuke, what are you doing?" Panic setting in, Kakashi looked around for a place to set the baby, but saw none.
Sasuke smiled serenely. "I'm cutting out the part of my brain that feels things… So I can finally become the mask."
Kakashi hastily set the baby down and rushed forward to stop Sasuke, but he was too late. Sasuke jammed the kunai deep into his skull and dropped to the ground, twitching. Even a quick look told Kakashi all he needed to know. Sasuke was dead.
Kakashi dropped to his knees and buried his head in his hands until he heard Naruto wheeze, and realized it was the first time he'd heard the baby breathe in a while. Kakashi scrambled to find the infant, but with the light only on Sasuke, it was hard to find him.
When Kakashi's groping fingers finally brushed across a tiny hand, it didn't reach for him. Carefully, Kakashi checked Naruto's chest. It wasn't moving.
"No," he said, feeling for a pulse and finding none. "No."
He wanted to try and resuscitate Naruto, but all he knew about it was that everything he knew wouldn't work on babies. Sakura was his only shot now. Kakashi gathered the child and raced back in the direction he thought the house was in.
Finally, he spotted the garden up ahead, and tore through it, trampling the flowers.
"Sakura!" he called. "Sakura!"
She wasn't in the kitchen, so he searched every room, one by one, until he found her in a third story bathroom. She was sprawled on the floor, naked, torso gaping open. Her makeshift tools were littered all around her, a butter knife clasped in her stiff hand.
He looked everywhere but her face. She had chosen a tile floor with a drain in it to perform the operation, so the blood didn't stay pooled. How like her, to think of that. So considerate in all the wrong ways.
Kakashi checked the baby one last time. Naruto was turning blue. A lone sob tore from Kakashi's chest and in his moment of weakness, he looked at Sakura's face. Her eyes were open, staring ahead, but at a spot on the wall, not at him.
"Too late," he said raggedly. "I was too late again."
Rin's voice whispered in his mind, shocking him stiff.
"You foolish man. It's never too late."
Author's Note: Thanks for the positive response from next chapter. I know many of you were looking for answers in this one, but I hope you all wanted to see Kakashi's side too... Heh. Answers will come in time, I promise.