As soon as the Konohagakure Ninja Academy was ready to accept its first class of students, Kagami's father had rushed to sign him up. "You have such an opportunity here!"

"I do?" Every Uchiha in history had learned jutsu and how the shinobi world worked from either a parent or another member of the clan. He greatly admired his father and wanted to be a proud and powerful Uchiha, just like him. Would an Inuzuka sensei manage to help him accomplish that?

Deep down, a part of the boy wondered if this was simply a novelty program: another attempt to force the clans together and turn allies into artificial friendships. He didn't recognize a single name on his list of classmates: just their surnames. Some of those surnames didn't leave him feeling very comfortable, either. There were three Senju in the class, along with a Nara and a handful of other clans he'd only ever recognized as enemies of the Uchiha.

"Because I'd rather train and learn under you, otou-san. I don't know what Unubore-sensei's going to be like."

The building approached: a large, wooden structure with the fire symbol proudly displayed at the banner. A hand-painted sign sat on a sandwich board outside. Greetings, First Class of Konohagakure Ninja Academy! You're about to make history! Kagami's nose wrinkled a bit at that, but he didn't say anything.

"Do you want me to go inside with you?" The question surprised Kagami, since it was the first time he'd heard any anxiety over this arrangement from his father. Deep down, the man still worried that something horrible could happen to his child. He'd be surrounded by traditional enemies. Chances were he'd probably even battled against the parents of some of Kagami's classmates.

So the best Kagami could do was smile and reassure him everything would be fine, even if he didn't believe it himself. "There's no need. I'll be okay." And that seemed to be Konoha's entire attitude: fake everything until it felt real. If he pretended he wasn't scared, then maybe he wouldn't be.

But if that were a valid way to approach life, then why did walking down the academy hallway feel like going into battle? He clutched his bag of school supplies a bit tighter, walking faster to make it past the other people in the hall. A Nara here, a Senju there…

It almost became a morbid game of trying to guess who belonged to what clan. Some, like the Hyūga and Yamanaka, were obvious. Others, not so much. A pair of boys were running down the hall: racing each other to see who made it to the classroom first.

'They're completely unafraid. Maybe I should be, too.' Taking one last deep breath, Kagami marched into the classroom and found each seat had a piece of paper with a name at its corresponding desk. To his relief, his desk was on the back left with a window view of the playground. From here, he could see everyone and the other students would really need to crane their necks to see him.

The floors groaned a little when the boy assigned to his right made it up the stairs. 'He's huge!' Kagami's eyes went wide because he was fairly sure this kid—obviously an Akimichi—had at least twenty kilos on him.

Apparently, he hadn't been subtle about staring. The boy narrowed his tiny black eyes at Kagami and frowned. "What?" All the Uchiha did was squeak and try to unpack his things.

More kids came into the room. Some were being friendly with each other, like the two boys who raced to the classroom. Others, not so much. The Hyūga boy in their class had already managed to pick a fight and wipe the floor with his Utatane desk-mate.

At the front of the classroom, a paunchy Inuzuka man with an equally fat dog made his way to the podium and blew a loud whistle. The whole room fell into silence and all the children silenced themselves. "I know a lot of you are wondering why I assigned seats. It's to get you better acquainted with kids from other families. You're not your parents. You're not living in your parents' world. You're living in the golden age of shinobi, children! These aren't your old enemies, but your new friends."

"Called it," Kagami grumbled.

"I'll start by introducing myself. I am Unubore of the Inuzuka Clan, and this is Yokoito: my canine partner of five years." The dog barked and happily wagged his tail. A couple of girls in the back cooed over the animal, calling him cute. "For most of the morning, I want you to talk to a kid from another clan and get to know each other. Let's break barriers, kids. That's what we're here for!"

Almost immediately, Kagami watched as the two racing boys went back to excitedly chattering to each other. The brown-haired one was talking so fast that it was hard to read his lips. The fact he accentuated his words with bombastic gestures made the whole thing almost comedic—or at least funny enough for his black-haired friend to roll his eyes and gesture at the rest of the class. 'He acts like a monkey.'

"So…" the Akimichi boy murmured a few things under his breath Kagami didn't catch. "You're an…Uchiha, right?"

"And you're an Akimichi?" When the boy nodded, Kagami felt a bit better. "I kind of figured with the big build that would be the case."

"Other ninjas can't be fat?" the boy quipped back. "I saw your clan head's daughter before. She isn't exactly dainty."

He supposed that was fair. Kazusa was a butterball. "Sorry. It's just that all I know about your clan is that they're fat, eat a lot, and can temporarily super-size some of their body parts." But judging from the way his desk-mate looked at him, Kagami couldn't shake the feeling they were probably going to duke it out in the playground after this and fight for real.

"And all I know about yours is that they're fire-breathing maniacs who copy other people's jutsu." Oh wow. That was even more harsh! "Did I get that wrong?"

"Yeah, by a lot!" So that was the point of the exercise, wasn't it: to see the people instead of the stereotypes? "I'm Kagami, by the way."

"Torifu."

…

By recess time, most of the boys and girls in Unubore-sensei's class came to the same conclusion: their parents had the wrong idea about these other families. "That didn't take long," Torifu murmured as he nibbled on an apple. He had a second one in his bag, which he offered to Kagami. The Uchiha boy delightfully accepted it.

"What didn't?"

"Everyone was on guard when we came in this morning. Now they're fine." Well, for the most part. Hyūga Taiyō was still acting like an entitled ass, but some people couldn't be helped. "I think everybody's going to go home with a new best friend."

"I think I have," Kagami admitted, nudging his shoulder to Torifu's. The Akimichi laughed and took another hearty bite of his snack. "Unless you mind, that is. If so, then—"

"Hey there!" It was a different kid this time: the brown-haired boy who ran down the hall earlier. "I'm trying to start a tag game, but only Danzō's agreed to play so far." Kagami assumed Danzō was the black-haired kid rolling his eyes at his friend in the background.

Kagami turned toward Torifu. "How about it? Wanna play?"

He didn't even have to ask. Torifu was already getting up and heading over there. This other boy, Hiruzen, managed to round another eight kids into joining in on the fun. By the time the bell sounded and it was time to return to the classroom, Kagami was out of breath and had been "it" a total of four times. People just kept tagging him.

…

And if he couldn't be Torifu's tag-team on a mission like this, then who could? Most days, he felt like the only person who genuinely cared what happened to him. As many times as Danzō had been disappointed with how things turned out, Kagami had never been disappointed in his team. They had a great dynamic once, and he'd been right. In many ways, they did outperform the Hokage's team.

The only one of them who continued to see their squad forever in second place was Danzō. Ambitious, high-aspiring Shimura Danzō: forever chasing Hiruzen's shadow in the hopes of being seen as the best at something, anything. The older they became, the more Kagami started to see that side of Danzō as pathetic, even a tad pitiable.

Were his insecurities really so bad that he always had to compare himself? He'd seen for himself how badly Danzō took rejection, but nothing topped that moment after the battle with the Kinkaku Squad. If he closed his eyes for too long, he'd remember the corpses and how Danzō stabbed each one, asking like a maniac if anyone was still alive.

Torifu told him what happened to that girl and how she died a horrible death in Torture & Interrogation. Leave it to Danzō to pick a weak and impressionable child: anyone or anything that could make him look strong and frightening. But also leave it to Danzō to act weak and remorseful if his plans fucked up. He wanted all the credit when things went his way, yet played it off like it was all out of his hands when things soured.

For the past four nights, it had been warm enough that the men could get away with sleeping without a fire. This also meant Torifu and Kagami could stay as far away from Danzō as made sense for a mission. They only talked to each other, only answering his questions with a word or two if he asked one. They'd let him lead this, as Hiruzen made it sound like he'd indeed be leading, but both expected failure.

Worse than that, they expected sabotage. If he could do it to an innocent woman he barely knew, then he could certainly do it to a pair of men who rebuked him in public.

"How upset do you think Hiruzen would be if we fragged him?" Kagami whispered to Torifu. "We've both seen more than mere warning signs from Danzō. This is getting out of control. First, the girl. Then your wife. Then Morirama. Now this."

"You can't talk like that. That's treason. I just committed it by not killing you on the spot for thinking it! You heard Hiruzen. Like it or not, that thing that used to be our friend is our second-in-command. If we come back to Konoha without him, we're fucked."

Kagami tried to get a better look at what Danzō was doing. He'd gone into the woods. A faint rustling noise was soon accompanied by a light thump and the groan of a dying animal. Danzō crouched over, picking something up. Once he was upright again, Kagami saw him return to camp with a dead rabbit in hand. Once he found a clear area, he began skinning the creature.

"I don't know how you plan to eat that," Kagami told him, "because I'm not using a katon to cook it for you."

"The only rations we have left are those nasty bouillon cubes," Danzō replied coldly. "If you'd rather sip watered-down broth until you die from malnutrition on this mission, that's your prerogative. I'm not going to starve."

For the next two hours, Danzō attempted to set a fire using nothing but sticks, but they were too damp to be of any use. Had it been daytime, he could have used the sun and his magnifying lens to ignite some kindling; but that wouldn't be for another six to seven hours.

The only creatures that dined that night were some lucky rats and ants.

…

They sat in their pre-selected genin groups: proud first graduates of the Konohagakure Ninja Academy. Each genin in the room was anxiously awaiting to find out who would be in charge of their growth as shinobi. Some rather important names appeared on the list—such as Senju Toka, Uchiha Hikaku, Sarutobi Sasuke, Yamanaka Osamu, and Uzumaki Mito—but one name rang higher than the others.

Rumor had it that the Hokage planned to mentor a genin team, with his brother serving as his backup on busier days. For a new shinobi, studying underneath the Hokage would be a dream come true.

Kagami's father had voiced a lot of interest in making sure his son would be one of those students, even though he continued to voice his dislike for the Senju Clan at home. An opportunity was still an opportunity, and that one was a sure-fire way to guarantee more people saw the Uchiha Clan as powerful and influential.

Personally, the Uchiha boy didn't care which jōnin mentored his group or who the third genin on his squad was. He was simply happy to have his best friend on his team. Finding out he and Torifu were paired together was a relief. As nice as some of the other kids in the class were, those bonds were nowhere near as strong.

He and Torifu went camping together in the wilderness and kept each other awake late at night with horror stories of the old days. The woods used to be a place where people lost their minds and killed themselves. There was an old shrine hidden somewhere among the trees where travelers were allegedly safe from the monsters lurking in the wild.

They'd stayed at each other's homes a few times. Torifu was blown away by the intensity of the Uchiha Clan's fire release, but that was nothing compared to the might of the Akimichi Clan. After watching Torifu's mother punch a wall into granite, Kagami was inclined to agree.

Torifu was going to be a powerhouse someday, maybe even a future Hokage. Kagami was delighted to be in on the action and was sure that their third teammate, Shimura Danzō, would come around to the same realization later.

For now, their third member seemed more than a little disappointed that he wouldn't be sharing a team with his best friend. He kept turning his gaze over toward Hiruzen, who looked equally bored by Koharu and Homura. Out of the corner of his eye, Kagami saw Hiruzen whisper two words to Danzō: miss you.

'Being partnered off with us isn't exactly the end of the world. Get over yourself.' Kagami nudged Danzō in the ribs lightly with an elbow and gave him his friendliest smile. "You got a better group than he did," he whispered. "Nobody on his squad has a kekkei genkai."

"I don't have one, either," Danzō reminded Kagami.

"Yeah, but both of us do. I even managed to awaken my sharingan!" Though everyone knew why. They had still been in Academy when the kyūbi went on the rampage…and the head of Kagami's clan tried to destroy Konoha. The Uchiha were in far from the village's good graces these days. And although Kagami had nothing to do with Madara's actions, he saw a flicker of fear and hesitation on his new teammate's face.

Kagami took a deep breath, hoping he wasn't making matters even worse. Danzō had been so impressive in assessments earlier that Kagami had briefly forgotten that his wind release—which was rare in its own right—wasn't a kekkei genkai. Then he brought up that he had the same eyes as Madara, in effect. Danzō had seen a classmate die that day.

"And Torifu's really strong. You're on a powerhouse team, okay? And your ranking was second in the class. You scored better than us!"

At long last, there it was: a faint smile. "You're right. I think the three of us will accomplish more." But Kagami noted something else: Danzō's nails were badly chewed. Just how anxious was he over this? "Out of all the groups Unubore-sensei called out, ours is almost overpowered compared to the others. It probably means the Hokage plans to choose us. How would you feel about that?"

"Hm?"

"Considering your clan's history with the Hokage's, I mean. How would your family react it if you came home with a Senju mentor? There's also a chance it could be the Hokage's cousin…or wife…"

"Considering my father isn't Madara, I think he'll take the news with grace."

"Mine are hoping we get stuck with Osamu or Sasuke," Torifu informed the other two, wanting to redirect the conversation before it got any more awkward. "Considering what happened to the Yamanakas and Naras in the class, that means Hiruzen and I each have an equal chance of getting stuck under Osamu. Maybe us more than him, because I doubt he'll get stuck under his own father."

"Sasuke-sama's pretty great," Danzō confessed. "I've known him since I was little. He's a magnificent jōnin, an honorable clan head, and Hiruzen adores him." Kagami could tell there was a bit more Danzō wanted to say there, such as admitting he wished his own father were more like Sasuke, but Danzō didn't elaborate. "I wouldn't mind studying under him."

'I bet you wouldn't,' Kagami thought, trying to hide a smirk. 'It would mean you'd see more of your best friend.'

Unubore trotted back into the classroom with a scroll in hand. "Alright, kids. Alright. Sit down and we'll begin! Just because I hate suspense, I'm going to go ahead and call out the Hokage's team first. Once your number is selected, you may leave and meet your instructor outside. Team Hashirama/Tobirama will be…"

This was it. Kagami leaned forward in his seat. Torifu kept eyeing the door with suspicion. Both could hear the light clicking sound of wet, chewed fingernails being snapped apart and pulled by young teeth.

"…Team Alpha."

The chewing stopped. They were Team Beta.

…

One last chill from winter hit the ground, making it too cold to sleep without a fire. At long last, Kagami needed to tend to the needs of the whole group rather than just Torifu and himself. All three men sat around the glow, trying to warm the numbness out of their hands.

"Think you could find another rabbit?" Torifu asked.

"I think I can manage more than that," Danzō replied. "These woods are ideal for deer." All three stomachs growled, Kagami's most of all. "We could have had meat three days ago, if somebody wasn't acting so petty."

"Woooooow. You're accusing somebody else of being petty? What a world we live in!" Kagami sat his chin on his knees and continued to curl up, watching his flames grow higher and higher. "You know, in my clan, we never leave someone behind. If an Uchiha dies on the battlefield, we light them like a candle until nothing but ash remains."

He saw concern on Torifu's face, but they were all starving. Tonight was the last of the bouillon cubes. Beyond that, any other sustenance they had until they purchased supplies in a town would have to come from the wilderness. Kagami had never felt this close to death before.

"I just wonder, if the ANBU did that to their own, we never would have gotten into this mess." His eyes drearily turned toward Danzō. "Don't you agree? Shouldn't your program start doing that? Leave no trace behind?" But now it was Danzō's turn to be silent. All Kagami got from him was a slow nod and a cough. "You're still cold?"

"Cold…hungry…wondering if we're just waiting for the inevitable and going to die from starvation…" He got up after that, staggering into the woods.

Kagami reached for a kunai, thinking this was the perfect moment. Torifu stopped him once again. "Why are you defending this piece of shit?" he whispered. "He killed your wife. And I can't shake the feeling that something even worse is going to happen if we keep him around. He's not our friend anymore, Torifu. He's—"

"He's still our teammate," Torifu reminded Kagami. "I'll never forgive him for what he did. My friendship with him may have run its course, but that won't stop me from being able to work with him. I'd rather have the both of you alive than see Danzō dead and you tried for treason. Do you understand me, Kagami?"

True to his word, Danzō came back with a buck: young enough to only have a couple of buds on its skull. Torifu got up, reaching for his sharpest knife. "You caught it. I can clean it. Kagami?"

"…go ahead. Use the damn fire."

…

Just as they had been the first class to attend the Academy, they were also the first group of youths to participate in the Chūnin Exams. The other great nations had set up villages and schools of their own, complete with the same one-jōnin-to-three-genin platform for introductory teams.

It was a chance to prove themselves as elite on a grander scale. The exam was supposed to be a war on a smaller scale: a chance for the other villages to see what Konoha was capable of and win honor for home. Many Daimyo agreed to watch the matches, curious to see what the many allied clans could do.

But more importantly, several representatives of the different clans came to observe. Clan heads, parents of participants, family friends: Kagami saw a large turnout on his side and happily waved. Getting this far hadn't been easy. The written test questions were intentionally difficult, but at least his team managed to pull through.

It had been a closer call for the Hokage's team. Although Homura left the written test with the top score, he hadn't helped his teammates and simply allowed them to continue struggling. Koharu's aggravation over her teammate's selfishness was so obvious and disruptive that the whole team was almost pulled from the test. Kagami had a feeling Danzō would have preferred that, seeing as Team Hashirama/Tobirama and Team Osamu were the only two Konoha teams to proceed to the combat round.

"I was worried this would happen," he told Torifu as they grabbed food from one of the vendor carts set up outside the stadium. "Until Danzō beats Hiruzen in a match, it's never gonna be over."

The Akimichi rolled his eyes. "He really needs to take a deep breath and get over it already. Sarutobi's in a category of his own." Go figure they weren't going to watch his match, but Danzō was. Even from the bottom level, next to the food carts, they could see him watching with wide eyes in the front row.

When Kagami squinted, he could see a delighted smile on Danzō's face. "Huh. He never smiles like that when we're around."

"Holy shit. He smiles around you?" Torifu snorted a laugh and went back to his seat. "Come on. Let's be good friends and watch."

He and Kagami both had already fought their matches and lost. Torifu's match gave the Kirigakure genin who fought against him, a Hozuki, a strong advantage. The Akimichi's juggernaut tactics and heavy Taijutsu couldn't do much of anything to some asshole who kept turning himself into a human puddle. As for Kagami, he'd been knocked down by a girl from Iwagakure who moved so fast his sharingan couldn't keep up with her. She'd hit him so strongly in the lungs that he lost his breath and felt a couple of ribs crack.

Danzō had yet to fight, but the odds weren't looking so great. Only a handful of other participants hadn't fought yet, and none of them looked like they'd be easy.

"Hey. We thought we'd keep you company." But Kagami noted just how much of his teammate's attention was diverted to Hiruzen's fight. Danzō didn't even hear him. In that moment, that entire arena may as well have been empty because all that registered to Danzō were Hiruzen, Hiruzen's opponent, and himself. It was actually a little cute to watch. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you had a little man-crush," he teased. Danzō said nothing this time. He was entranced.

At first, Hiruzen appeared to be doing well, even though his opponent was nearly twice his weight and most of that was raw muscle. He moved quicker, but things took a turn for the worst when he twisted his ankle and landed in one of his enemy's set traps. The whole audience gasped, Danzō included.

"Looks like your luck ran out, golden boy," Hiruzen's opponent gruffed, reaching for a sword. The boy tried to move away, but it hurt to use his right leg. The sword glistened and gleamed in the light, soon crackling with an electrical current. "Prepare to have it run out forever. If I off one of the Hokage's students, I'm set."

"Shit," Torifu hissed. "He can't—Danzō? Danzō! What the hell are you doing?!"

Before Torifu or Kagami could stop him, their teammate jumped into the arena in an attempt to help his friend. It ended up being as close to a battle as Danzō managed to have in the exam, seeing as that kicked him out of the running…and blacklisted him the following time.

Everyone else passed the following summer. He had to wait until winter.

…

"The Raikage is recovering from the plague in a hideout three kilometers from here." Danzō pointed westward. "I used my summon last night to try to find signs of human activity. We may be looking at as many as twelve opponents."

"Those are four-to-one odds," Torifu remarked. "Fuck."

"That's assuming we make our presence known. If we're discrete, then maybe we can sneak in and grab the body without anyone noticing." Kagami was hopeful, perhaps too much so. It was clear that neither Danzō nor Torifu thought that was even remotely possible. "What's next, then? Barging in and causing a ruckus?"

"My vote goes for a bait and switch." Both men turned toward Danzō, curious to see what he was proposing. "I've been placing a delayed-activation genjutsu seal on some of the trees as we pass. Once activated, everything within range will turn silent, odorless, and pitch black. They won't be able to hear each other or see each other. If we keep the counter-seal on us," and as if to demonstrate, he rolled up his sleeve to show a mark, "we'll be able to pick them off without any problems."

"It's kind of a dick move," Kagami confessed, "but it could work. How many more seals do you need in order to complete the trap?" Danzō held up four fingers. "Okay. Good. That sounds doable, so long as we lay low until it's done."

But they had overlooked one thing. Just because there were twelve shinobi on the horizon, that didn't mean the shinobi were from the Hidden Cloud. A few steps further and Kagami's eyes caught sight of a flicker of chakra. It started small, then rushed like a bolt of lightning. "Danzō, hold back! That's a—"

There had been one mistake in Danzō's calculations and one that he miscalculated from the very beginning. The twelve shinobi sensed earlier weren't Kumo shinobi, but Iwa shinobi. The earth split itself wide open: vomiting up weapons, dirt, and demolished trees in a rushed explosion. Sharp shards of metal and wood rushed at the group, who only had a moment's notice to move.

And the last time such an attack had come at Danzō, he'd frozen momentarily in terror. Kagami wasn't sure why his feet moved, considering how angry he still was with his teammate, but he took one last moment to knock him out of the way. Another bomb went off, sending them nearly a hundred and fifty meters apart.

A chain reaction went off, one after the other. Boom. Boom. Boom. The entire forest fell apart, turning into nothing but destroyed trees and dead animals. Kagami smelled burned flesh and could taste the metallic cloy of blood in his mouth. If he opened his mouth, he heard nothing…nothing but that horrid, horrid ringing.

'Where are they…?' He decided in that moment that if all three of them came out of this alive, he could drop his aggression and work civilly with the rest of the team. He and Torifu could pretend he never made those remarks about Danzō, and Danzō never had to know. They'd never be friends again after what happened, but, 'Please…please, let them both be alright…'

The smoke was so thick that he could barely breathe. Kagami tried to call out, but could neither hear nor breathe. Dust and debris choked him as he gasped and coughed. Yet apparently the coughing helped him with his damaged ears, because he could finally hear Danzō. Nothing he said made any sense, but at least he could hear him and see him.

That's when Kagami felt something warm and sticky behind him. At first, he suspected pine sap. When he reached to touch it, he realized to his own horror it was his blood. His head had taken a terrible blow. Further down, a searing pain in his back refused to go away. His feet felt asleep.

The worst of it was in the front. His armor was annihilated, along with his shirt and undershirt. Ribs were jutting out, threatening to puncture and collapse a lung if he made a wrong move.

Kagami attempted to move his toes, only to realize he couldn't. That's when the wet, nasty gasps began. "Danzō…" He reached with his arm, only to flop over like a rag doll. Kagami was too weak to sit upright again.

But Danzō heard him. He slowly limped over, then froze. Kagami wasn't sure what exactly he expected his teammate to do, considering he had occasional flighty and impulsive moments, but Danzō just stared. His mouth was slightly open and aside from a wound on his leg that bled rather badly, he was no worse for the wear.

With Kagami's gasps came a rattling sound. He'd kept a photograph of his family beneath his shirt, only for a torn part of it to become lodged in his burned, bloody, mangled chest. Danzō retched, but didn't manage to vomit. He composed himself enough, though still hyperventilating, and pulled the picture away.

Kagami grimaced. It hurt terribly. "Give it back…" he gurgled. Danzō was already strung out on adrenaline and that didn't help. Kagami may as well have tried to kill him for the amount of panic his words gave his teammate. "Give it back…"

"Kagami…" His voice stammered. "Don't move. Don't move! I need to find something to staunch the bleeding until we can get you to a medic."

Where? Was he out of his goddamn mind? They were in the middle of nowhere, near Iwa's Explosion Corps. Apparently the Tsuchikage didn't die in Morirama's ambush after all. Where would they find a medic? The enemy camp? "You're—"

"…yeah. I'm hurt, too. But it's just my leg. You need to hang in there and—"

"KAGAMI? DANZŌ?" Torifu was roaring as loud as he could, trying to find them. Kagami couldn't see him.

Then again, with how rapidly his vision was starting to blur, it was a miracle he could still see Danzō. "Get him over here," Kagami rasped. "I don't want your face to be the last one I see."

But Danzō either didn't hear him or didn't heed him. He tore off one of his sleeves, balled it up, and stuffed it inside Kagami's chest to soak up some of the blood. Kagami was too weak to cry out, but the pain was unbearable. At that moment, he wished he'd just go ahead and die.

'Did that little girl feel like this before we ripped the secrets out of her? Is this what my enemies felt when I killed them? Did the Hokage feel this when he died, all because I suggested a decoy? If so…oh god…I'm so sorry…'

"Danzō…" Please, he wanted to say. Please get my best friend so I can say goodbye. It became harder to breathe, harder to think about anything other than his family. He started to fade: hearing Danzō's frantic words in his wife's voice. If she'd been here, she would have screamed and lost her composure by now.

He thought about how loudly Azami screamed when he left: begging and pleading for him not to go. Each breath became harder than the last, despite giving him less and less oxygen. Finally, he couldn't hold his head up any further. As his body turned numb, he flopped over, shoulder pushing Danzō's. Why, of all people…why did it have to be him that he saw last?

He felt Danzō holding his hand, giving it a reaffirming squeeze. But he didn't go for Torifu. He stayed right where he was, giving the closest thing to comfort he'd ever given another human being. It was too little too late. 'I just hope you join me soon,' Kagami thought as his motor functions began to fail him. As he slid further, his head landed in his teammate's lap.

His memories played through his head as other parts of his body turned numb.

When the village was first founded, one of the higher ups in the Uchiha Clan told Kagami that his father was somebody to be ashamed of, as he'd been the first to kneel before the Senju Clan and admit defeat. He'd told Setsuna that he was wrong, that his father was an admirable man and simply tired of war.

His best friend was an Akimichi, not an Uchiha. While the clan head was far from happy about that and Setsuna called him a dirty little traitor, Kagami felt internally pleased with himself. Unubore-sensei's method of assigning seats and forcing the kids to interact had opened his eyes. He was sure that in time, his father and everyone else would make friends and allies in this wonderful place, too.

His other teammate suffered from anxiety and issues of inferiority: always jealous of a smarter, faster, more talented boy. Kagami tried to reassure Danzō that he was great, too, in his own way. Judging by how Danzō reacted, Kagami was almost certain it was the first time in the boy's life that somebody other than Hiruzen, the focus of his jealousy, ever acknowledged him.

The Uchiha Clan was cast in a bad light again. Madara's name had practically turned into a swear word within the village, considering he betrayed it and went on a bloodthirsty rampage. Kagami was privately relieved the Shodaime could stop him, but that didn't make the funerals of the kids in his class who died from the kyūbi's rampage any less comforting. Kagami was fine with the vicious slurs for a while because he'd spend his life trying to change the way the Uchiha were viewed.

He fell in love with a girl in his own clan, despite never having really noticed her before he got his ass handed to him at the Chūnin Exams. She and Torifu helped him limp to the hospital and sat with him until a medic saw to his injuries. Until that point, he'd hardly paid attention to her at clan meetings and felt bad for asking her to give him her name again, but she did. He was so glad she did.

Kagami and Torifu had talked about getting homes on the same street and being neighbors well into old age. Both their wives loved the idea and when two nice small family homes hit the market, they seized their opportunity. As soon as one house was settled into, they helped with the other one. When it was all over, they poured drinks and sat on the lawn, just to look at the summertime stars. Torifu remarked that he'd like to watch both families unfurl from those homes. That way, they could still be neighbors as cranky old men. Kagami promised that nothing in the world would make him happier.

The Nidaime needed an escort unit to assist his team in watching him during a critical battle. In the end, Kagami failed. It was even his words that led the Hokage to his doom. What horrified him most was a combination of Danzō's fury unleashed on the enemy afterwards and, worse than that, his clan's almost jovial acceptance of the Hokage's death. Torifu reassured Kagami that he hadn't done anything wrong, but Kagami feared the ramifications of his actions all the same.

Maybe the Senju Clan was right about his clan after all. Maybe they were inherently evil.

He noticed an unwelcome change in Hiruzen and Danzō when Hiruzen became Hokage. Hiruzen—who had always been an upbeat, proud, positive man—was finally starting to show his own insecurities. He wasn't some infallible, unshakeable wunderkind like Danzō believed; but an anxiety-addled idealist who understood that if he failed as Hokage, the whole village would suffer for it. And either out of spite or in a genuine attempt to keep Hiruzen's lofty ideals rooted in reality, Danzō fed his paranoia.

Thanks to those two, Torifu would never be a father. Kagami would die before he saw his last child. He felt hot breath on his face: shaky and unsure. He heard Danzō's frantic whispers in his ear, telling him how sorry he felt for doing this; that he really was a wonderful friend, but he had to do it.

Then Kagami felt something sharp stab into his lower eyelid and move, peeling the flesh away like the rind of an orange.

One last burst of adrenaline rushed into Kagami's body, not giving him enough strength to scream, but at least enough to weakly grab at the blade and push it back. "Don't," his mouth weakly gurgled, even though blood replaced the last of his oxygen after that. He said it again, but no air came out, or in.

But with an eyelid gone, he couldn't shut his right eye. It remained wide open forever: stripped bare and exposed to the hot, stinging elements. With his remaining eye, Kagami saw the panic on Danzō's face…as well as an ugly, desperate determination to finish what he started.

'What the hell is wrong with you!? Did you ALWAYS look at me like that? Were you just waiting this whole time, just so you could take what made me so special?!'

Whatever strength he had left, Kagami held onto that knife and tried his best to push it away, but it wasn't enough. The pain didn't die down, and it only got worse with the upper lid. There was more tissue there: more muscles to cut. A finger pushed to where his severed tear duct once was and peeled the eye out with enough force to rip the nerves.

Then Danzō began with the second one. For this, he was much faster and far more brutal. The cuts weren't as surgical because Kagami's body was starting to go into shock. The sharingan was stronger when came from a living body rather than a dead one. Kagami twitched and Danzō pushed into him.

He could feel his former teammate on his lap: his own shirt and flak vest soaking up the blood from Kagami's ruined chest. Kagami couldn't breathe. When Danzō pressed, more blood came from the Uchiha's mouth until everything stopped moving. As the world turned black, more from blindness than from his own impending death, the last thing that still registered logically in Kagami's failing brain was Torifu's loud, profane screaming.