There was darkness - and there was darkness, a living, breathing menace out to end you the moment you let your guard down. And this darkness, it knew him. It remembered him and hated him. It groaned in displeasure when he opened his eyes and made the surroundings respond in kind: a deep gravelly grinding that made his skin crawl and his hair stand on end.

Quite frankly, Kakashi had never been more scared in his life. He could do nothing against the shivering of his limbs, the chattering of his teeth - nothing but feel ashamed of his weakness.

The sheer terror of waking in such darkness, not knowing how much time had passed, not knowing how he had gotten here - only knowing that things had gone wrong, very, very wrong.

Kakashi brought his shaking hand to his eyes, touched his brow. Nothing. I can't see. I can't see anything, am I blind? He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't… he was choking.

"And that's how you die?" a taunting voice addressed him. "Pathetic."

Obito? - Kakashi gasped, shocked and surprised, stale air flooding his lungs.

"I always knew you were weak," his friends scoffed. "Weakling Kakashi. Nothing without the Sharingan."

"What do you mean…"

A sudden memory: Of lying on an examination table, of light shining into his eyes. They took my Sharingan. When? Suddenly, everything shifted in his head, tilted, re-adjusted itself, making him doubt any of this was real. He knew this place, didn't he? How many times had he woken up in here, like this, in panic?

"I would never have given you my eye in the first place had I known you'd give up so easily," Obito taunted him. "And maybe I never should have. It was always only a loan - as you well knew. You just chose to get a little too attached to Uchiha fame and powers."

Another memory came to Kakashi, a string of words, flung at him in anger: You bastard! You won't get out of this Genjutsu. No way. You no longer have your Sharingan, we took it away from you. Nobody escapes me. Nobody.

"Get a fucking grip," Kakashi told himself, the sound of his own voice providing an anchor in the black void. He forced himself to move his limbs that felt impossibly heavy and useless. Genjutsu, she had said. He had escaped an ultra strong Genjutsu. That explained it. The panic. The inability to hold on to what was real and what was not. He knew this condition, he had had the bad luck of going through it more than once in his life.

"It's just Genjutsu," Kakashi said into the darkness, listening to how his voice echoed in what seemed to be a large chamber. "Nothing more."

He had lost his Sharingan - but he had gotten himself out of a Genjutsu without it. So… not all was lost. He just had to shake this horrible feeling of absolute despair and the way ahead would open up.

"See?" Obito's teasing voice hit him like ice cold water. Okay, he obviously wasn't quite out of the Genjutsu yet. "That's how you do it. Just a Genjutsu! Keep telling yourself that. Nothing you, the mighty Kakashi, cannot vanquish."

"Shut up, you're not real, you're dead!" Anger was good, it was different from the heavy weight of fear, it proved that he was alive, that blood was flowing through his body.

"Ha! Like you haven't spoken with the dead before."

"That was my dad!" Kakashi bristled.

"And I'm your best friend."

Kakashi couldn't disagree with that. But a dead best friend was not exactly useful, was he? And neither was the other initially dead best friend who had come back from the dead as some kind of scheming alien.

"You know what, Obito? Sweet, little Rin… she either fooled us big time or someone took advantage of her in ways that I cannot tolerate."

"Yeah," Obito sighed into the darkness. "And I was so looking forward to living with her in the afterlife."

Kakashi sat up and turned his head from one side to the other. He realized that he imagined his friend not as he had last met him, not as Tobi, his body half-destroyed and reconstructed by Hashirama cells, but as a young boy, annoying, loud, willful… and his frenemy, from day one. Like Naruto. Which made him… a type of Sasuke. That thought made him smile.

"Sweet, little Rin," Obito said ruefully. "First, Kiri seals the Three-Tails into her to make her a timebomb. Then, you kill her to prevent Konoha's destruction. And then…"

Yes, what had happened then? Would they ever know? This Obito, a figment of his imagination, couldn't know any more than he did, could he?

"It was Madara who took her body to his hideout," ghost Obito claimed the next second. "And left her to wake up alone."

"How do you know this?"

"I just know things."

It was possible, Kakashi surmised. That Madara has set in motion another calamity, long before his demise. Had Rin not said: I woke up here, all alone. Deep down in the earth here and there was nobody, nobody there to tell me where I was - or that I was still alive.

"The labs in this place… you've never seen anything like it," Obito continued. "When Kabuto joined the cause, man! He almost fainted from joy."

"Did Madara make several Rins from the original Rin's cells?" Kakashi asked his imaginary friend. It was his favorite theory, but he had no clue how such a thing could be done. Or if. How could they have been made to live?

"It's sad, really." Obito's voice was suddenly very airy and Kakashi had to tilt his head to hear him better. "Them having to struggle so much to survive. Indra and Asura were real bastards for treating their sister like they did."

What?

"Madara did horrible things to Rin's body."

"How do you know all this?" Kakashi whispered, suppressing a shudder. Whatever the answer, Kakashi didn't like the implications. Either he had really gone insane. Or he was dead himself. Or…

"You know why," Obito chuckled, "don't you? You know why I'm here… and you know what happens if you follow me."

"Do I?" Kakashi wondered, swallowing in unease.

The silence that followed was deafening. Obito was gone. But was he? Kakashi felt a whisper against his skin, almost like a touch, a little breeze as if a door had been opened and closed. And Kakashi remembered and missed the imaginary child who looked a lot like him and with whose help he had made it out of the Genjutsu.

He had broken through three layers of seals in his own mind to find the clue he had left for himself. A single blossom, swaying gently in the spring wind, inviting his touch, capturing the yearning for a sweet, innocent life that …

"Sakura!" he gasped. Kakashi came to his feet, his heart beating fast in yearning. His Sakura.

The clue.

"Obito," Kakashi whispered, "where did you come from?"

There was another clue. Buried deep inside of him for how many years? If he followed Obito, he would understand why he knew so much about resurrected Rin's past.

For the moment, his mind was clear. He remembered everything from before: Going to the Capital, assuming it could be a trap - putting the village on high alert. Taking one of the Rins along, like they had wanted him to, to double cross them and inject her with the serum and the tracker. Turning into … the thought of what he had turned into sickened him. Over the years, they had managed to fashion him into a soldier-puppet who obeyed her every wish.

Well, almost.

Rin had directed him to kill Micha. He had not. She had directed him to kill the Fire Daimyo and his offspring. He had not. But he had wrecked the room completely, leaving them enough time to flee, hitting a few of the Noharas in the process. How he had enjoyed that.

And most of all he had enjoyed that his mind could not be controlled the way they thought it could be.

Sakura's serum had purged almost all of the Uchiha blood from his system by now, which meant he had full control of his mind again: All the rooms. All the memories. Each door leading to a part of him he had put to the side to study at leisure, to come to terms with it. All his sadness. All his loneliness. Everything that could break a child, that could break a man, locked away temporarily until he had the strength to heal himself.

And then Sakura came back into his life. He had let her into his mind rooms. The healing had started on the day he had seen her look at him in the hospital room in the Anbu high security facility and it had continued ever since.

But Sakura wasn't here. But he knew he wanted to be where she was so he better got his act together and made that happen fast. He and Micha had planned to inject Rin with a tracker, activate it, and let Konoha's forces finally find the secret hideout of their enemies.

Well. That had not worked.

Sitting around and moping wasn't an option. He needed to find out where he was and then he needed to get out. Whoever had brought him here had not removed his pouch. His fingers found the scroll with no issue, formed the necessary signs and... slam. "Summoning, Earth Release - Tracking Fang Technique!"

Only a few moments later, his pack of ninken gathered around him, excitedly licking every part of his skin they could reach. It must be raining outside. Kakashi had never been happier to smell wet dogs.

###

There were whispers outside her door and Sakura turned her head all the way to hear better. Since yesterday, the hospital staff whispered for her sake because Tsunade had instructed them to let Sakura have all the rest she could get before she would return home soon. And so she took all the rest that she could get, putting her legs up at an angle to reduce the pressure on her cervix when she didn't walk around slowly like Tsunade had ordered her to.

"Mrs. Nohara," she could hear. And "critical".

That was nothing new, Mrs. Nohara was in a coma and in a critical condition, but the two people whispering - Sakura was sure they were nurses - sounded excited about the piece of information they were sharing. Something about Mrs. Noharas status had probably changed?

Once they had walked on, Sakura sat up.

"No need to be afraid," she whispered to her baby as she swung her feet over to the side of the bed, "I will stand up now, okay? Hang on tight. I promise I will rest plenty afterwards until you're even stronger than you already are."

She was overly careful. Tsunade had quite happily told her only this morning that her injuries were almost entirely healed and that it looked like the crisis was over.

Her eyes turned to the picture on her bedside table. Naruto had brought it yesterday. And a bag of sweetened nuts that she had devoured like she had not eaten for days. The photo showed a silver haired Shinobi, smiling broadly, with his hands on grumpy Sasuke's and blustering Naruto's heads with Sakura in the middle, looking like she was about to burst from happiness.

"We will surprise your Papa when we see him again," she whispered to her baby, extending a hand to touch the smiling Shinobi's face. "Kakashi."

She was getting better at remembering the name. So good that Sakura no longer believed that her memories of him were truly gone. She would get them back, soon, she promised herself. And if not, they would make new ones.

"You won't win, you bitch," she hissed, imagining how she would kill Rin in the most gruesome way possible. "Sorry, munchkin," she quickly addressed the baby, "I shouldn't use language like this in front of you. But that woman…"

Sakura exhaled. Better calm herself, she didn't want the baby to be burdened by her hatred. Pulling herself upright with help of her drip stand she stood and waited for her legs to adjust themselves. Then she walked to the door and into the corridor.

It was deserted. Today was the day Sasuke was heading out with a medium sized force of Konoha and Kiri soldiers to search for Kakashi. Naruto had been told to stay and be in charge of the village's defenses, much to his displeasure.

"It's always Sasuke who gets to be the hero!" he had complained when he had visited her.

Which was bullshit, as she had told him. Besides, everybody waited for him to become the next Hokage. To hear that had pleased Naruto to no end. Even though he still did not approve of "that Kakashi-lovey dovey stuff", as he had put it, he quite enthusiastically renewed his assurance of ever-lasting friendship between himself and Sakura, calling her his second favorite female in the world.

Smiling to herself because of Naruto's antics, Sakura walked along the corridor towards the intensive care units.

"I work here," she whispered to her baby, "it feels good to move around like I used to."

Sakura found Mrs. Nohara in the second unit. She was not lying underneath a healing dome, which could only mean two things.

"Mrs. Nohara?" Sakura asked cautiously and bent over her. "Can you hear me?"

The woman's eyes opened and focused on her… before they closed again. Not dead. And out of the coma.

"This is not a Genjutsu," Sakura told her, touching her shoulder. "Focus on my voice. Do you hear it? It is real. You want to open your eyes again and look at me."

Mrs. Nohara did.

"Good," Sakura said, "listen to my voice. Mrs. Nohara, do you remember what happened?"

For a while, it looked like Mrs. Nohara had lost her voice. She tried to speak but no sounds came out. Whenever she closed her eyes, Sakura brought her back. Focus. Focus was everything, she had learned as much from her own experience.

"You must forgive them," was the first thing Mrs. Nohara said. "Please."

As if! Sakura pulled an angry face. She couldn't imagine any death that would satisfy her cravings for revenge, however gruesome she imagined it.

"Mrs. Nohara," she said sternly. "You know I am a doctor. You see what your daughter did to me? She sliced up my face and brought me to the brink of insanity. And for what?"

Mrs. Nohara turned her face to the side, one large tear dislodging itself from her eye.

Damn, and now she was beginning to feel sorry for the old woman?

"She took over your mind too," Sakura continued, "she controlled you thoroughly, for what could be weeks!"

"My lovely girls," Mrs. Nohara said. "What I did to them is unforgivable."

Oh yes, that was right. Girls. There were two crazy maniacs. One who posed as the nice one and made sure Kakashi left and the other with her horde of oni-masked murderers who used the opportunity to attack Konoha and go after Sarada again.

"If anything happened to Kakashi, I'm going to kill you all even more slowly and painfully than I am already imagining," Sakura seethed.

"No, we do not hurt our protectors," Mrs. Nohara said dreamily.

Huh? Sakura bent a little closer to look into Mrs. Nohara's eyes. Hugely dilated pupils. Was she high on something?

"Mrs. Nohara, do you know where you are?"

"He will keep them safe," Mrs. Nohara began crying again, making ugly, pitiful sounds, "he is compelled to, like all the ones before him. He killed her by mistake, it was only a mistake…"

"Are you talking about Kakashi?" Sakura murmured, feeling quite creeped out by the old woman's ramblings.

"My sweet, naive child. You always believed you had a choice when there was only the one Hatake offspring to be had."

Definitely talking about Kakashi. In ways that Sakura did not like at all.

"Hey," she exclaimed, "Lady. The Hatake 'offspring' is not for your lunatic girls to take. He is mine. And I'm his. End of story."

For a moment, Mrs. Nohara's eyes changed. She became aware of her surroundings, looked straight at Sakura with so much hatred, Sakura involuntarily took a step back.

"You," she hissed, "destroyed everything. You carry the death of an ancient line on your shoulders, do you understand? How can you live with that? What Indra and Asura couldn't accomplish, you will!"

"Indra and Asura?" Sakura gasped. "Will of Fire, Curse of Hatred, that stuff? I thought we're done with that now that Sasuke and Naruto won't kill each other but are best friends. History won't repeat itself: my generation fixed it."

"What fools you are," Mrs. Nohara said bitterly, "and we were doomed from the moment our mother set foot on this planet. Help? Why did we even believe we would get any from you! They made you forget her and forgotten she will stay, the sister, mother. The Touch of Light will die with the last of us, never to return."

And with that, Mrs. Nohara's whole body went slack. Sakura bent over her to check her vitals. Still breathing. Quite stable.

Sakura couldn't get out of the room fast enough. Muttering words of encouragement to her baby, she rushed through the corridors. She found Tsunade in her office, where the Godaime Hokage was sitting sprawled in a chair and looked out of the rain-splattered window pensively.

"Tsunade," Sakura addressed her, barely able to keep her voice steady from her excitement. "Tsunade, I think there was a third child. I think Hagoromo also had a daughter! Whatever those crazy Noharas want, it has something to do with their "line!""

And it had to do with the Hatakes, of which there was exactly one. And a half, considering the bean in her belly. What did the Rins think they had chosen him for? To… to save the line?!

"Shishou," Sakura gulped. "Shishou. I think it's not only the Uchihas and the Uzumakis that are embroiled into Kaguya's mess. I think it's also the Hatakes."

The scary part about reincarnation was this: you had to fight and beat fate. Sakura had seen that it took someone's entire will to break the connections between the present and the past. But what if you did not even know what inevitability ensnared you? Then, it was not possible to win.

###

Kakashi came across the methane shortly before coming across Kabuto, who scurried along the corridor with an apparent purpose. After instructing his ninken and finding his way out of that chamber he had woken up in, Kakashi had spent his time being giddily happy to be able to see things, even if he wasn't quite used to his new eyes yet. Slowly exploring the system of caves he found himself in, he had attained a good idea of the overall situation, the number of enemy forces - fucking oni masks, how he itched to kill them! - and the layout of the place.

Being able to follow Kabuto to where he was headed was quite the bonus. Him he didn't want to kill. Him he wanted to torture until he revealed everything to Kakashi.

The first destination was a lab. A huge lab with a wall of eyes: A gallery of Sharingans. It was this place. And Kakashi had been here before, of course he had, when he had received two Sharingans himself. Two Sharingans and Uchiha blood to make his body accept them - and to control him.

Kakashi watched Kabuto from the shadows, understanding that in his desperation after the war, he had taken what this person had offered, what he had believed would restore him to what he once had been, only to almost lose himself in the process. But Kakashi also understood that he had never intended to hurt Konoha, which held the bitterness at bay.

After doing this and that with vials, syringes and knives, Kabuto walked away through another door, down a different corridor. It was dark and got steadily darker. Kabuto muttered something under his breath and switched on a torch in his hand, the beam dancing over jagged, black rock.

Soon, the air was humming with a painfully dissonant energy whose only purpose seemed the merciless extinction of all life.

He had been here before too, Kakashi instantly knew. Of course he had. Not too long ago, with one of the Rins. A faint smell hit his nostrils, familiar and terrifying… and exciting because it meant he had arrived at his final destination: The God Tree Cave.

As quiet and unsubstantial as a shadow, Kakashi followed Kabuto into the chamber. He looked up: the eyes… they were closed. He looked to the middle of the vast cave, where the miniature version of the God Tree stood. White, crippled and with no foliage, a sickly organism whose destruction should be easy. Sitting neatly at the top of the biggest branches, extruding poisonous fumes: berry-like fruits.

It was them that Kabuto was headed towards. Extending a shaking hand, he plucked them from the tree. One. Two. Three.

One of the eyes above blinked lazily. Kabuto looked up and shuddered. Four, five. He picked much faster now.

Time to leave. Kakashi backed out of the cave as quietly as possible and walked back towards the neatly stacked containers of methane.