Yang Dimension - Lightning Hound

The red tint of his Sharingan shone through the darkness. The spinning tomoes captivated the prisoner's attention. No matter how hard he tried to avert his gaze, his eyes kept drifting back to it every time. The clarity from the prisoner's eyes eventually faded, a glassy look clouding their vision as the genjutsu took hold.

Kumo #94 was what they called him. Names were of no importance, not even on the list of things that Kakashi was sent to find out, yet it was the very first thing that slipped from the prisoner's mouth when the genjutsu forced him to speak.

That piece of information was quickly dismissed, shoved to the recesses of his mind as he began the interrogation. The information spilled freely from Kumo 94's lips and less than an hour later, Kakashi walked out of the cell with all of the details of Kumo's plan to ambush Konoha.

They were far too early for that. Maybe in another hundred years, when they had the time to fully recuperate from losing half of their shinobi forces the last time they laid a siege on Konoha.

Kakashi strolled out of the cell. Making eye contact with Bird, who was currently on guard duty, he simply jerked his thumb back into the cell, where he had left Kumo 94 bleeding from a slit throat. Bird nodded, slipping past him to retrieve the dead body.

Kakashi ambled on, making his way up the winding set of cobblestone stairs to the first floor of the Hokage Tower. Guards were stationed everywhere all along the length of the hallway. Guards that could hardly be differentiated because they all wore the standard Anbu attire just like he did. The only noticeable features were the intricacies in the design of their mask, but most wore the most basic Cat, Bird, and Dog masks, which denoted their ranking.

His was the Wolf mask, the only of its kind. Although everyone's chakra flickered briefly as he brushed past them, indicating that they recognized him, no one acknowledged him. Even if he was one of a kind, one of Danzo's best captains, the reality was that they were all the same.

Just another shinobi carrying out their duty without much fanfare. Lurking in the shadows, identity obscured by the porcelain mask, emotions locked away in the cage of their heart, they were just one of many.

Ruthless and menacing, the Akatsuki called them. Yet it was with this method, and under Danzo's guidance, was Konoha able to finally end the war that had dragged on for two decades under Hiruzen's leadership.

Ruthless and menacing, but efficient.

Three quick knocks in succession, followed by one with a longer pause in between, then closing out with a sharp knock. His code, the method that made Danzo aware of his identity. Pushing down on the door handle, Kakashi swung the door open, just as Danzo swiveled around to face him.

A creak sounded as Kakashi shut the door behind him. Without needing to be asked, his fingers flew through the sequence to put up a high level sound barrier, one that he learned after stealing the Uzumaki's scrolls on fuinjutsu.

Danzo leaned forward, clasping his hands together as his forearms rested against the edge of the desk. Danzo stared directly at him, despite having both eyes wrapped with bandages. Once eerily empty eye sockets now filled with a dead man's eyes.

The thought would make even the most seasoned and hardened shinobi shiver. But not Kakashi. Not when his left eye was also a dead man's eye. Or was it a woman's?

It didn't matter. Shinobis like him couldn't be bogged down in finding the answer to such a trivial question.

"Wolf. Report."

When asked to deliver Kumo 94's severed head back to Kumo to serve as a warning, Kakashi didn't even bat an eye as he sealed the head into a storage scroll, tucked it in his right pocket, and travelled with it for five days. Most would have been squeamish and disgusted, like how he could smell bile threatening to escape one of the throats of a guard donning a Cat mask as he stood in the same room while Kakashi sealed it away.

He had seen and experienced too many things to let such a thing bother him anymore.

Even deep in the heart of Kumo's territory, Kakashi was hardly bothered. It was hard to be, especially when he was utilizing a camouflage technique that he learned from the Uzumaki's fuinjutsu scroll. Applying the principle of air droplets that were practically invisible to the naked eye based on his knowledge of suijutsu, he improved upon the original technique to reach almost invisibility.

Of course, the technique would only work if the user was competent in stealth. Having spent twenty years of his life slinking around the Root headquarters and taking on a slew of assassination missions, stealth was hardly an issue for him.

It turned out to be ridiculously easy to stroll through their territory in broad daylight and track down their most populated area of town. Ducking off to one of the alleyways to avoid being bumped into by someone, Kakashi fished out the scroll. While no one was looking, he dropped the invisibility technique and morphed into a nondescript henge. Hands stuck in his pocket, Kakashi strolled back into the main street, blending in with the crowd.

He purposely allowed someone to bump into his shoulder. Pretending to be a civilian, Kakashi allowed the force of the movement to guide his actions, sending him stumbling a few steps back. As the scroll slipped from his fingers, Kakashi's thumb hooked to the underside of it, undoing the seal.

The scroll bounced harmlessly against the ground, unraveling itself with each movement. By the time the scroll settled, Kakashi was long gone.

From the rooftop two buildings away from where the scroll was, Kakashi silently observed as a civilian woman screamed at the top of her lungs when Kumo 94's head poofed into existence. Her cries had garnered the attention of everyone in the vicinity. Those that were curious moved to take a peek at what caused her distress, only to turn away moments later, holding their throats in a gagging manner. Adults covered the children's eyes, ushering them away from the sight.

As the civilians dispersed, Kumo shinobis filed in. Most stayed a few feet away from the head, too disgusted to move any closer, but also bound by duty to not turn away. Soon, they formed a semi-circle around the head of their comrade, simply standing there. They shifted uncomfortably, glancing at each other to see who would make the first move.

Another Kumo shinobi arrived, breaking through the ranks of the semi-circle. Upon seeing the head, she immediately bursted into tears as she sank down by the head. The wind carried her cries to Kakashi's ears, the sound of her agonizing wail and the chocked manner in which she said Kumo 94's name registered in his mind.

Not an ounce of sorrow. Not a single bit of satisfaction.

Feeling completely empty and hollow, Kakashi turned away, knowing that his mission was complete.

Mission complete.

How utterly meaningless those words were to him.

No one wanted the job, so it fell to him. The mission scroll had been passed around, through at least five hands, until Fox shoved it into his hands. Since Fox was one of the few that had a higher seniority than he did, based on the number of years served, Kakashi didn't question it and simply shoved it into his weapons pouch.

Most likely Fox assumed that Kakashi would pawn it off to someone who was his junior, and it wasn't like he didn't have plenty of choices. The game would continue down the ranking until some poor rookie got saddled with it.

But what was the point of sending someone unqualified onto this mission? That would basically guarantee a wasted life for no reason.

Kakashi had only given the mission details a cursory glance when he decided that he would be the one to undertake the mission. It was another assassination mission, probably nearing the thousand range for him at this point. Under normal circumstances, an assassination mission was nothing that his comrades was adverse to, but this particular one had "suicidal mission" stamped all over it.

Like he said, he was basically one of a kind. The only who would willingly take such a mission. And probably the only who constantly has beaten the odds and made it home every single time. Everyone whispered that his luck would eventually run out, the table would eventually turn against him, but he didn't believe in any of that.

Odds and luck?

Only skills and instincts were involved.

Before the sun rose the next morning, Kakashi had already slipped out of the village. No one knew where he was going. Most likely, they wouldn't even realize that he was gone until he returned, covered head to toe with crimson stains.

And because he wasn't fond of appearing in public whenever it wasn't necessary, preferring to hole up in his dingy apartment or on the outskirts of the village or slinking along the Root headquarters, his absence could mean a number of things, not necessarily a mission. Even when it was a mission, Kakashi didn't bother letting anyone else know. Since the time he surpassed jonin level as a pre-teen, he operated as a one man team, making waves in the village for his extremely high success rate.

And if he were to die out there, no one would really know. Not that he planned on dying.

Of course, things didn't always go according to plan; however, this time, it was something that even Kakashi didn't suspect. Dying on one of these missions was always a possibility. A minor one, but still a possibility. Getting injured was regularly part of the job, so much that it was practically routine for him at this point.

Failing his mission didn't even cross his mind until that instant.

He managed to travel to the outskirts of the Fire Country. The forestry had lightened up considerably to the point where he could see more than just a few meters in front of him. However, he still had a little ways to go until he reached the point where the Fire Country connected with Kusa's territory. There, he planned to take a quick break while still having the advantage of the forestry as cover.

Only before he could make it to that part of his plan, everything went wrong.

It felt like a switch had been flipped on, one moment the sky was a light blue hue and the next, dark clouds had taken over. An eerie feeling sent a shiver down his spine as Kakashi veered off course to seek cover in a nearby cave.

Only making it two branches on his new course, a streak of lightning struck down, a few meters away from him. The lightning destroyed the branch that he had been standing and too slow to act, Kakashi could only tumble to the ground while his instincts kicked in to break his fall.

His feet barely touched the ground when another bolt of lightning struck, this time hitting its intended target.

Enemy jutsu was the only thought that flickered through his mind. Nothing else could be so precise. The analysis came too late. There was no strength left in him for him to counter it.

Darkness crept to the edges of his vision before it took him hostage and pulled him under.

A/N: Hi again!

Well this update came quicker than I expected...might have something to do with the fact I got a ton of writing done this week! I'm glad that you found this premise quite interesting and I hope what I have in store for you later on will keep that interest. :)

Here is an introduction to the second Kakashi. I'm trying to portray a contrast: Blood Hound is full of hot, burning rage, while Lightning Hound is empty and apathetic. Hopefully I did both of them justice!

Note: both dimensions are not canon, so there's reasons why both Kakashis turned out the way they did and will be revealed later on in the story.

Thanks for reading and let me know what you thought! Until next time. :)

-MM