I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out. My eyes are wide and my legs are shaking underneath me, threatening to collapse. He's got a new mask, one that's orange with hypnotizing swirls encircling the single eye hole. I can see his sharingan glaring at me through the dark hole.
"I didn't know what I was pledging myself to, Obito. People do crazy things when they're on the brink of death," I try to argue back but find myself feeling small under his glare. I shrink down and regret not bringing my weapons with me on my night walk.
His hand is on my throat in a split second, squeezing the breath from my lungs as he lifts me, my toes just dangling above the floor."Don't you ever call me by that name," he snarls, voice angry to match his dark presence.
I choke, pulling my hands to my neck and struggling to find breath. He holds me for a few long, agonizing seconds before dropping me. I gasp, taking the air in greedily.
"Okay, so why are you here? To take me back? To kill me? If you wanted to kill me, you should have just done it already."
He shakes his head in long, drawn-out motions. I narrow my eyes at him in frustration. "I have simply come to remind you," he whispers viciously, words floating through the air like snakes, "of our pact. You must not tell anyone about me, not even your little friend Kakashi. I see you getting closer every day to the people in this wretched village."
"Kakashi Hatake is not my friend!" I counter, lunging forward but ultimately stopping myself. He doesn't even flinch. Also, I have no weapons and I probably couldn't kill him if I tried. "How long have you been spying on me?"
"I'm always watching, Mitsuki," he uses my fake name, as if to taunt me further. "So I will know if you ever say anything about me to anyone."
I step back but run into a shelf of magazines. A couple fall off the shelves and onto the street.
"If you do, I will kill you. You have my word."
A few long seconds pass between us and I wonder for a moment why he doesn't just do it; kill me, get it over with. He has every reason to get rid of me, with the knowledge I have of him, and no reason to simply allow me to stay in the Leaf village. I'm his enemy now, a Konoha shinobi fighting against him, yet he doesn't once draw any weapons or jutsu on me.
His words are sharper than a thousand daggers, though, and I can sense that there's something deep down, holding him back. Something drawing a line between the merciless murderer known as Madara and struggling boy named Obito Uchiha.
And, despite my brain telling me, screaming at me, to stay silent, the words fly out of my mouth.
"You question my choice but haven't stopped to examine your own."
He just looks at me from an arm's length away, arms limp at his side and never flinching. He could kill me. He could reach out right now and strangle me to death. But he stands completely still, unmoving, listening to my words without resistance.
"You know, people care about me here. Even people who don't know my name smile at me in the streets when I pass. It makes me sad to think about the life you're living. I mean, really, truly sad. I feel bad for you. You've gone through shit and crawled out on the wrong side.
"You once taught me that power is everything. You trained me to be strong and independent, but with that kind of power comes darkness. I've always wondered what it means to be a shinobi. Hell, I still wonder. If shinobi didn't exist, it might be a more peaceful world. If people didn't fight, they wouldn't wind up dead, right? Like your friend, Rin. If she weren't a shinobi, she'd be alive today."
I can feel Obito's anger rising.
I'm thrown out of my thoughts when I feel a hand around my neck. It sends me back in a hard push and I feel the back of my head collide with the wall. It sends strikes of pain through my whole body and I grunt.
When I open my eyes, strangled and struggling to breathe as I'm pinned by the neck with my feet dangling above the ground, I see his sharingan looking into my soul from behind the orange mask.
His words are no more than a whisper, but deadly nonetheless.
"You'll never understand me, even with those memory-manipulating eyes of yours, Misaki Kumara."
Past his shoulder from behind, I see a bright flash of lightning that crackles sharply through the air. The sound is screeching and makes the pain in my head from the hit worse. Just before his chidori collides with my strangler's back, I see Obito's eye change, taking on a mangekyo sharingan. Obito disappears in a rapid swirl of gravity revolving around his eye and Kakashi stops short, heaving for breath and whipping his head around, looking for him.
"He's gone," I manage to force out, but I think my windpipe is destroyed from his grasp on my neck.
Kakashi's chidori trickles out and he falls to his knees, eyes wide as he stares at me. My own legs give out, causing me to slide down the wall and hit the ground with a thump.
We just breathe, starting at each other and catching our breaths on the cold ground.
He lowers his eyebrows and I search his face. His eyes are firm but there's no anger in them. Still, almost by instinct, I gather chakra in my fingers, feeling the buzz of lightning and water waiting to be released in a moment's notice. His eyes don't change. He opens his sharingan eye slowly, noticing the chakra I have gathering in my hand but doesn't move.
"I know who you are, Misaki." I flinch when he addresses me by my real name. "I know what you did all those years ago," my fingers buzz with electricity. We keep eye contact. "We've both done things we regret, and I think we both have more to our stories than meets the eye."
I let the chakra in my hand disappear completely, the comforting buzz fading to a lingering tingle. Our eyes still watch each other carefully.
"My name is Mitsuki," I say, but I know he sees through my lie. I don't even know why I try to keep up my facade anymore. "I don't know anyone named Misaki."
"You resemble her an awful lot," Kakashi says, continuing in a collected manner. He plays along with my lie, even though I think he knows I've given into it. "Six years ago, I befriended her. I trusted her and she betrayed me. My sensei and his wife died that night. The village was almost destroyed," he says, looking around at the dark sky. Again, I search his eyes for signs of anger but there is none. He seems different than before.
"But since that night, I have changed a lot. I used to be so caught up in anger. I was living in complete darkness. I know what I did and it haunted me every day. The Fourth Hokage thought assigning me to the ANBU would take my mind off it but it only made things worse.
"I lived every day in anger towards everybody and everything. Especially my father. He sacrificed a mission to save his comrades and the village ridiculed him. He committed suicide shortly after."
"Kakashi..." I whisper. I feel guilty for ever judging him. It's true, he's done terrible things, but so have I and people forgave me-The Third, and even Kakashi, with all he's gone through.
Kakashi speaks quietly, voice laced with emotion. He tells me the truth, and uses no deception. And despite the fact that telling me must be difficult for him, he continues anyways. "After my father died, I decided I would put the mission above all else. I turned cold, desensitized. I turned away from my friends. I wouldn't listen to anyone.
"When the white-haired girl entered the village, I thought her to be a spy. But my sensei and the Fourth Hokage trusted her so I did too. Minato Sensei was all I had left. He was the only one who saw past my struggle.
"She betrayed us and my sensei died, and I was so filled with hatred that I tried to kill her." He stops suddenly, eyes on me. I pull the long glove off my arm, throwing it to the ground-that's the only part of my ANBU uniform I continue to wear because of the way it perfectly hides the scar. He watches carefully as I pull the glove down, starting just above my elbow.
He jolts when he sees the scar on my left forearm. He remembers, I can see it in his eyes. He gets to his feet and takes a step back, eyes trailing the lightning scar.
"I did that," he says, holding his own hand like it's foreign to him.
I nod and open my palm, tears well up in my eyes. "And I did this."
The scar from my own kunai stretches from my thumb to my pinky. The memory replays in my head when I look at it, and it never gets easier.
"This scar on my hand is a reminder to me of that night. The night I betrayed the village that was only ever kind to me. The night I betrayed my first real friend. And, even though I failed my mission, I still can't forgive myself. I messed up real bad."
Kakashi steps towards me, putting a hand on my shoulder. His eyes are sensitive and reassuring.
"And now, even after the Third Hokage gave me yet another chance-a chance to start over, a new life and new identity-I can't... I can't," the tears are falling freely now as I stare at the scar on my palm. The baby's face appears in my mind.
"You don't have to." Kakashi says, taking his hand away. My shoulder feels cold without his hand. "You don't need to suffer alone. Everyone does things they regret. You have to forgive yourself, Misaki. Focus on what really matters."
I'm suddenly angry again. It takes Kakashi by surprise because he steps back from me.
"What really matters?" my voice is sharp. I don't care about drawing attention. "You know, I'm starting to think nothing really matters! This life, this whole shinobi thing, it's all pointless! We train, we fight, we lose friends, family, along the way. And some day, we die and the world will still be in ruins. There will always be another battle to be fought, another war bringing destruction upon this horrible world!"
Kakashi doesn't respond. The air beats cold on my hot cheeks which are flushed with anger. The tears are drying on my skin. I get to my feet and my hand has formed a fist at my side. Kakashi stares at me from a few feet away.
His voice echoes in the night air. "I used to think that, until I realized-" he pauses, forming lightning in his palm. I'm not scared of it anymore. I just stare, looking on without a care in the world. He could kill me if he wanted and I wouldn't care. "I realized that shinobi life is so much more than killing and being killed. It's about protecting those closest to you."
I close my eyes to see images of the mother and father I never knew. Their faces are empty, I cannot picture them. I never got to meet them. I was only a baby when they died. My grandmother was too old to take care of me herself so she gave me up for adoption. I visited her on her deathbed one day, asking her about the anonymous note.
"Did you write this?" I ask, sitting on the edge of her bed. She strains to read the small letters printed in black ink on the parchment.
"No, my little storm girl," her voice croaks. Her shriveled hand finds mine and holds it tightly.
"But I know whoever did loves you very much-like I do."
"Mom and dad," I whisper, gripping my grandmother's hand. "What were they like?"
She smiles sweetly and cups the top of my hand with her other one. "They were fine shinobi, my dear. And I know you will be one some day too."
My words come out in uneven chunks, voice cracking with every syllable. Kakashi frowns beneath his black mask. "All my life, I've wondered what it means to be a shinobi. Now, you tell me it's to protect those you're close with." The moon has appeared through the opening between buildings on the street, casting a blue-tinge over everything. "But I can't protect anyone close to me. Every time I try, they end up dead."
"My best friend Obito died saving me from a cave-in," Kakashi says, though I already know that. He doesn't know the figure he just tried to kill was Obito but I keep silent and let him continue. "He made me swear to protect Rin and gave me his sharingan." Kakashi's red eye shines in the moonlight. "But I couldn't protect her. She jumped in front of my chidori, refusing to let the enemy use her body as a jinchuriki. I couldn't save Obito and I couldn't protect Rin. I couldn't save my father or my sensei."
The tears soak my cheeks and I try to hold them back but they fall freely, like a waterfall.
All these years, I've wondered what my purpose could be. But I realize now, in this vulnerable moment, what I've spent too long in the dark to find that purpose. All my life, I've been running away from something.
First, I ran away from my duties as a shinobi. I struggled with fear of being killed and failed to realize it was holding me back. Then, I ran away from Hiashi-Sama as he was trying to steal my eyes. After that, I ran away from Obito because I feared being deemed useless. Then, for months on end, I ran away from my feelings as I tried to put a stop to a massacre I had no control over.
And now, here with Kakashi, I realize that I have been running away from the one thing I crave more than anything else; more than power, success, purpose...
Friendship. Suddenly, I understand what the Third Hokage meant when he said 'he needs you as much as you need him'. I've been so selfishly caught up in my own problems that I failed to recognize Kakashi's. I was brainwashed by Obito into thinking Kakashi was this dark, horrible shinobi who killed his friends but never stopped to ask him how he felt about the incident.
I feel pain again in my left palm and open it to look at the old scar. It's fading more as the years pass, but still prominent across my otherwise smooth skin. It still haunts me, the memory of that night. I almost killed an innocent child, and for what? For fear and selfish desires.
Kakashi killed his comrade Rin. He pierced her heart with his own chidori. The same one that causes me to panic probably haunts him more than I could ever imagine.
How could I have failed to see this until now?