Yin Dimension - Lightning Hound

Minato made sure the two chunin guards kept their mouths shut about the whole ordeal. All it had taken was a bit of intimidation on his part to get them to nod furiously. While Minato felt a twinge of guilt for scaring them, the ramifications of the leaked news snuffed out that doubt.

Chaos would ensue. Nevermind the uproar that would entail if the general population found out that the announcement of his death had been a lie, many of them held personal grudges towards him. Minato wasn't even sure of half of the things that Kakashi had done to make so many people harbor such hatred against him...and he didn't want to take any chances with angry shinobis attempting to kill him.

Especially before he could figure out exactly who this Kakashi was.

Kakashi was locked in a maximum security prison with the latest version of chakra suppressing chains with two Anbu guards at the door for their safety as much as his own.

Minato dismissed the two guards from the remainder of their three hours shift, knowing that their interrogation session was going to take up the bulk of the time. There were too many questionable points, and clearly, neither of them knew the answers.

That was what Inoichi Yamanaka was here for.

For the first five minutes, Inoichi studied a bounded, unconscious Kakashi in silence. Finally, Inoichi spoke. "He looks just like him."

Minato nodded in agreement. "I think it is Kakashi, or at least his body. He even has my Hiraishin marking on his lower back. However, I don't think he's the Kakashi that we know."

"You said he thought Hiruzen san was the Third Hokage?"

"Yeah, he was so sure of it too. Not to mention the fact that Kakashi seemed convinced that I was an imposter the entire time. This is why I need your help, Inoichi san. I need you to figure out what is going on inside of his mind."

Inoichi nodded. Minato stepped forward, sticking the key into the padlock and twisting it. A soft click emitted through the silence. From the years of abandonment, the metal door swung open with a high-pitched squeak, the noise ringing in both of their ears.

Inoichi took the first step inside the damp cell. Squatting down to reach Kakashi's level, Inoichi placed his right hand on the top of his head. Trading one last glance with Minato, who gave him a nod of assurance, Inoichi began to channel his chakra into Kakashi's mind. His eyes slid shut as he felt the familiar tug that yanked part of his soul into Kakashi's mind.

The darkness was frightening. Over his years as the Yamanaka clan head, Inoichi had been inside hundreds of minds, but none of them had been quite like this. Completely pitch-black. Not a single shred of light was anywhere to be seen.

Yet beneath his feet, Inoichi felt a strange pulsing sensation. The pulse seemed to thrum in tandem with the pattern of his breathing. Strange. This vibration wasn't anything like he'd experience in anyone else's mind, but considering who he was dealing with, Inoichi would consider this to be relatively normal.

Although it was dark, Inoichi navigated expertly around Kakashi's mind, having imprinted the layout of the human mind into his memory long ago. It didn't take long for him to reach the part of the brain that contained a person's long term memories. His hands groped blindly in front of him, fingertips reaching to feel for the familiar touch of the memory scrolls. A few failed attempts later, his fingers skated across the rough edges of one of the scrolls. Taking a step forward, Inoichi placed both hands on the scroll and began to dig in.

Flashes of Kakashi's childhood appeared before his eyes, yet most of the depictions were blurry and distorted. Vaguely, Inoichi could make out instances of him training against a wooden post as a child, sitting in the Academy, and a few flashes of his father. Kakashi met many people in his childhood, ranging from his classmates to adults, but all of their features were warped. So distorted that Inoichi was unable to make out their identities. Only Sakumo's trademark white hair in a ponytail had tipped Inoichi off on his identity. The rest of their identities remained unknown.

Kakashi's way of rejecting his past?

Inoichi sped through the rest of his early years, quickly losing interest after watching Kakashi live his days following the same monotonous routine every single day. He had been skimming through it so quickly that Inoichi flinched when he saw a streak of red flood across the screen. Slowing the replay, Inoichi backed up to the part.

Sakumo laid on his side, curled up into a semi-circle position. His tanto was pushed clean through his stomach. Blood pooled around his body, staining the end of his ponytail that dipped in the crimson liquid. Streaks of lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the horrific sight.

A chilling feeling seeped through his clothing, eliciting goosebumps up and down the length of his arm. The feeling was amplified when Kakashi's eyes swung to look at the mirror. A child...looking barely five years old reflected back. Glassy, empty black eyes stared back at Inoichi with such intensity he felt like Kakashi was peering into his soul.

Inoichi could have sworn he saw a flash of red reflecting back at him in the darkness…

And then the scene changed so rapidly that Inoichi almost got a whiplash in his attempt to keep up.

Kakashi knelt in front of a gravestone, fingers lightly tracing over the kanji carved into the rough surface. There was a light drizzle overhead, the droplets weighing down on the petals of the bouquet that laid at the base of the headstone. Long, overgrown weeds tickled Kakashi's sleeve. Inoichi watched as his fingers slowly curled up into a tight fist.

I won't become like you. That's my promise.

Footsteps sounded next to him, garnering Kakashi's attention. When he looked up, both Kakashi and Inoichi were greeted with the sight of an old man dressed in drabby robes. His left hand held a wooden cane, the sharp tip sinking into the soft soil. Bandages were wrapped around his forehead. Pieces of brown hair fell over the white cloth.

Kakashi's eyes clashed with his brown ones.

"Danzo," both of them whispered together. Danzo Shimura...the first facial features that Inoichi could make out clearly since he began digging through Kakashi's memories. Why was that the case?

"Kakashi Hatake, the young son of the legendary White Fang," Danzo's raspy voice recited. "The youngest child to ever graduate from the Academy at the age of five. The council has no idea what to do with you. Some say to put you on a genin team with the older kids, while others seem to think that you should be individually placed under the care of one of the jonins. What do you think?"

Kakashi remained silent.

"I have a third suggestion. Join me, be a part of my Anbu Root force." Danzo extended his right hand forward, gesturing for Kakashi to take it. "I will provide you with all of the training that you will need to get much stronger than you will ever become in the regular shinobi forces. Besides, there are many others out there that are like you...an orphan.

"I can give you a home."

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. That was until Inoichi saw Kakashi slowly raising his tiny arm and placing his hand in Danzo's. Inoichi had been so enraptured by the scene he hadn't paid much attention to the pulsing sensation beneath his feet. He should have noticed the vibration was getting more frequent, with no rhyme or rhythm in each beat. The second that Kakashi's hand made contact with Danzo's, a bright flash of light exploded, chasing away all of the darkness.

By the time Inoichi realized that it was some sort of fuinjutsu, designed to keep secrets, it was too late. An invisible force pushed against him, only his sheer willpower was keeping him rooted in his position. Making the most of the last remaining seconds, Inoichi quickly sped through any remaining memories that he could possibly retrieve.

Less than a minute later, Inoichi found himself forcibly thrown out. His eyes snapped open. Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead. The final blow from the invisible force had been a punch in the gut, leading him to wheeze for air and keeling over from the impact.

It was worth it though. Inoichi had gotten some crucial information in the process.

"Are you alright?" Minato was hunched next to him, grabbing his arm to help him into a standing position. Inoichi was grateful for the assistance; he felt like he could topple over at any moment with how wobbly his knees felt at the moment.

"What happened?" Concern swam in his cerulean eyes. "One moment you were fine and the next, you just fell."

"There's something that is preventing me from gaining access to his deeper memories," Inoichi explained, still slightly out of breath. "The moment I tried to access some critical information, the seal activated and caused an invisible force to brutally kick me out of his mind. I didn't get to spend enough time to figure out exactly who this Kakashi is, but I can confirm that this isn't the Kakashi that we know. Or at least, this mind isn't."

Minato's interest piqued. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, instead of becoming your student after his father died, Kakashi became one of Danzo's subordinates."

"What?" Minato was completely shell-shocked. Except, that didn't seem to be the biggest piece of information that Inoichi had extracted. When Inoichi finally dropped the bomb, Minato felt like his breath had been knocked away.

"In his world, you're the traitor. You spearheaded a coup against Konoha."

Drip. Drip. Drip. The chilliness seeped through the thin fabric of his civilian clothing. The heavy, metal chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles weighed down uncomfortably on his skin. Kakashi shifted slightly, the rattling noise of the metal chains alerting his guards' of his consciousness. Within seconds, both of their heads swung to look at him. They eyed him warily, hands already poised on their weapon of choice.

Kakashi shot them a deadpan stare.

What was there to be afraid of when he had chakra suppressing chains on? Not to mention, the metal bars, the only thing between him and his freedom, were made out of a special material that was designed to be resistant to chakra damage. Although the dark ink was a bit hard to see in the dim lightning, Kakashi could make out some sealing formulas scribbled over the metal bars. Minato's work if Kakashi had to guess.

Kakashi received the message loud and clear: he wouldn't be breaking out of here with brute force alone. That didn't mean he didn't have any alternatives.

Despite the numerous precautions they had taken to prevent him from escaping, Minato made two mistakes: the chakra suppressing chains were proven to be outdated and they didn't place a blindfold on him.

Craning his neck over his shoulder, Kakashi examined the structure of the chains. Although appearance wise, they looked suspiciously similar to the upgraded version that he invented, the shape of the lock gave away its age. They were two versions outdated. Its weakness?

Lightning users.

After an entire squad of Kumo captives had broken out of maximum security prison two years ago, the entire village erupted into chaos. At the time, Kakashi was tasked with leading the tracking team to hunt down all of the escapees. None of them made it home alive. With a little help from his Sharingan, Kakashi learned how they had broken out of those chains.

Kakashi was no scientist, but he had gotten the gist of its weakness. After spending months being the test subject of the newly upgraded chains, Konoha's laboratory finally created a version that wasn't weak against lightning users. Or any other affinities for that matter of fact. Almost foul proof, except there was no such thing as perfection. Whatever the flaws were with the latest version, they would deal with it, when the time arrived.

For now, Kakashi was going to take advantage of this weakness.

Kakashi tried to channel a bit of chakra to his fingertips. Good. He could still feel his chakra. Although there was a strain on the usage of his chakra, it certainly felt nothing like how chakra suppression was supposed to be.

The guard on the left shifted slightly. Kakashi paused, wondering if he had caught on. Only when the guard began to speak to the other did Kakashi relax marginally. Keeping an eye on both of them, Kakashi began the arduous process of moving chakra bit by bit towards his wrists.

Kakashi tuned out their mindless conversations, channeling his entire focus towards manipulating his chakra. By the time Kakashi had gathered enough chakra in his wrists, everything happened so quickly that Kakashi wouldn't have been able to keep up if not for his Sharingan. With a strong burst of chakra, the chains broke underneath the pressure. The conversation halted. The guards whirled around in surprise, fumbling with the lock and key to get to him. The suppressing feeling at his core snapped, releasing his chakra to flood back through his system. Diverting chakra to his left eye, the Mangekyo pattern appeared right as the metal doors swung open.

The guards were far too late. Using his Sharingan's ability, Kakashi found the left side of his body being sucked into an unknown vacuum. This wasn't what was supposed to happen. For a moment, Kakashi resisted the pull until he registered the guards getting closer to him.

Whatever. The alternative of ending up in the middle of nowhere sounded more appealing to him than being stuck in his damp, moldy cement room. His defenses fell, allowing the space to suck him into the unknown. The wind that rushed in his ears drowned out their shouts for back up.

Everything happened in a span of less than thirty seconds. By the time it was all over, Kakashi found himself lying flat on his back, staring at an unknown plane of grayness. Pushing himself into a sitting position, his black eye surveyed his surroundings while his hand clutched his throbbing left eye. The tips of his fingers rubbed away the trickle of blood. He shut his left eye, making a mental note to refrain from using until he knew what was going on.

For as far as he could see, there was nothing. It felt like it was confined in a room, but a room with no way out. What was the place? How did he get here?

The Mangekyo Sharingan was the most logical explanation, but this wasn't his Mangekyo ability. His fingers rested lightly on top of his eyelid. Then this couldn't be his eye. His lower back bore Minato's teleportation marking. He had woken up, wearing clothing he didn't even own. His body reflected injuries resulting from falling off of a cliff, not being struck by lightning.

As far-fetched as the idea seemed to be, there was only one logical conclusion: this body wasn't his. This person may have looked like him, but this was entirely a different Kakashi.

Although one question was solved, a barrage of questions followed. Dimension travel into his counterpart's body? How did such a thing even happen? Where was his counterpart's soul now? Was it suppressed by his own or was he in his actual body? What happened in this world? What was the timeline?

Most importantly, why the hell did other Kakashi kill the Third Hokage?

Going off of the theory of dimension travel, most of the odd things made sense. This Kakashi was a missing nin, after having killed the Third Hokage. In this world, Minato remained loyal to the village. Was it possible that Danzo and his followers were the ones to defect from the village in this world?

There were too many questions and not enough answers. Kakashi intended to hunt down answers one by one, but first things first, he needed to figure out how to get the hell out of this unknown plane. That started by sorting out the mystery of the ability of this Kakashi's eye.

Sitting in a cross-legged position, Kakashi meditated. Replaying the sequence of events through his mind, Kakashi began to psychoanalyze every single action and break it down into bits and pieces of theories. After that, Kakashi strung those theories together, discarding the ones that didn't seem to make sense.

Kakashi didn't know how long he sat there until his eyes snapped open. Channeling chakra to his left eye to test his theory, Kakashi activated the Mangekyo Sharingan. The pinwheel pattern spun rapidly in his bloody red eye. The air shifted around him. He felt his shoulder unwillingly shift towards his left, an unknown force tugging on him.

During his escape, Kakashi hadn't placed much thought on where he wanted to go other than getting out of there. Although he wasn't certain of the mechanics of where this eye would take him, Kakashi figured it wouldn't hurt to picture his destination. Sending more chakra to his left eye, Kakashi concentrated even harder as he felt the mysterious force suck the upper half of his body in. His other half quickly followed.

Kakashi tumbled out of the mysterious hole, his shoulder bearing the brunt of the fall. A pained grunt escaped his lips as pain blossomed through the entirety of his arm. Just his luck to land on his barely healed arm.

The vacuum snapped shut, disappearing as quickly as it came.

Instinctively, his left eye closed. A warm liquid trickled down the side of his face, trickling into the fabric of his mask. Kakashi pushed himself into an upright position, feeling the disorientating aftereffects of being transported through space.

Or at least that was the theory that he came up with for the mechanics of this Mangekyo Sharingan's ability. Completely different from his, which specialized in mental manipulation, but this ability certainly came in handy this time.

While Kakashi rubbed his aching shoulder, he clambered to his feet. He took a quick sweep of his surroundings, noting that he was surrounded by nothing but tall stalks of grass. In the distance, he spotted a quaint, wooden house.

Perfect. Maybe picturing his destination in mind had somewhat worked, even if there was still a good bit of distance between them.

After wading through the stalks of grass and soft soil for fifteen minutes, Kakashi finally reached Misa's doorstep. His hand was poised into a fist, ready to rap his knuckles against her door when the door suddenly swung open. Misa stood on the other side, hardly looking surprised to see him standing there. She left the door open, an open invitation for him to follow.

Kakashi stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. Taking a seat on the rug, Kakashi peeled off his sandals, arranging them neatly next to Misa's shoes.

Misa was sitting cross-legged on the couch with a bowl of soup in her hands. When he approached, she glanced at him over the rim of the porcelain bowl. While Kakashi sat down on the other side of the couch, Misa set her bowl down on the table.

Neither of them spoke for a while.

Finally, Kakashi broke the silence. "You don't look surprised to see me."

"I knew you would be back."

"So you already knew that I was Konoha's most wanted when I left."

Misa nodded. "I didn't think you would believe me if I told you, so I figured that it was better to let you see for yourself. However-" Misa shot him a side glance. "I didn't think you would be back so soon. You didn't get caught?"

"I broke out," Kakashi corrected. "That's besides the point. Right now, I need you to tell me everything that you know about me."

Misa raised a questioning eyebrow. "So you really did lose your memory? I had a suspicion based on the things that you were saying but I figured that I wasn't the one to question it since all that I know about you are through the rumors."

Kakashi shook his head. "It's...complicated." For the lack of a better term, since Kakashi was hardly sure what was going on himself. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you and I'm still in the process of trying to figure things out. Will you help me?"

Misa nodded slowly, uncertainty still swimming in her dark eyes. "Alright. As you know, I don't know much about Konoha since I am pretty disconnected from civilization, but I had heard rumors about you before. Actually, let me show you something."

Kakashi waited patiently as Misa disappeared down the hall to retrieve the object. When she emerged, a small black book was in her hands. Thumbing through the pages, Misa stopped around the halfway mark of the book before handing it over to Kakashi. He accepted the book.

There on the page was his face splattered on the top right corner. Below were basic statistics about him, like his age, specialties, and affiliations. Working his way from right to left of the pages, Kakashi learned that he had a ten million ryo bounty on his head for assassinating the Third Hokage.

His last known location was Konoha. In this world, he was well renowned as Kakashi of the Sharingan while in the other, he was simply just Wolf or Lightning Hound as the enemies liked to call him. Apparently he knew over a thousand jutsus, the Chidori was his trademark jutsu, and he was adept in all changes of nature.

That sounded so much like him, yet at the same time, the description felt so foreign too.

"You hold the record for having the highest bounty on your head," Misa offered. "I know a lot of other shinobis are out for your head in order to collect the bounty, but most know they are not a match for you. From what I heard, anyone who has tried to hunt you down never came back alive, except for the Yellow Flash."

"Minato Namikaze," Kakashi murmured. "He was the one who killed me?"

"That's what the rumors are saying." Misa paused to look at him. "But clearly, you're not dead."

"But maybe I am," Kakashi muttered under his breath. "My counterpart died in that fight and when my soul entered his body, it revived him." After all, as much luck as a person had, Kakashi didn't think that anyone could survive a fall from that high. If not death by impact, then drowning would have done the trick.

"What did you say?"

Kakashi shook his head. "It's nothing. Did you hear anything else? Like why did I kill the Third Hokage? How long ago did this happen?"

"Maybe a year ago? Before you defected you were known to be extremely loyal to the village as one of the key members to ending the Third Great Ninja War and the student of the Fourth Hokage. All the rumors were saying that you suddenly snapped and assassinated the Third Hokage, but no one knows why."

"Student...of the Fourth Hokage?"

"Minato Namikaze," Misa stated in a matter of fact manner. Kakashi felt stupid for not putting the pieces together. That was why Minato was still in the village. That was why Minato was there when the Yamanaka tried to get inside his head.

He wasn't just a shinobi of Konoha. He was the Hokage. Figures. It seemed no matter which world, Minato was born to be a leader. The irony that they had to be pitted on opposite sides in this world too. This Kakashi had been Minato's student. Where had it gone wrong?

Perhaps, this gave Kakashi a direction to work off of.

"Thank you. I think I know what I need to do now."

Misa shot him a puzzled look. "What are you going to do?"

"Infiltrate Konoha."

A/N: Hi again!

When I was writing this story, I didn't realize the two Inoichi mind walk scenes would end up back to back, so sorry if it felt quite boring to read it for the second time. At least this time, Inoichi got some important info about Kakashi's backstory. :) In creating this world, I played around a lot with parallels and similarities so you'll be seeing a lot of those sprinkled throughout - feel free to point them out if you spot them!

Ari: Thank you for your review! Hmm to answer some of your questions (because some of the others will answered later on in the story), the raging fire in his mind was not the Kyuubi. My imagination pinned it more as a product of Kakashi's personal rage and anger towards the world. Does Naruto/his generation exist? I very vaguely touch upon this topic in future chapters - some of them do, but none of them really play a big role in this fic. Oh yess, your question about seeing the original vs alternative. The "darkness" is traces of the original Kakashi aka loyal Kakashi like it was shown in this chapter, his mindscape is pretty bleak. When the fire comes in, that's the other Kakashi, the missing nin one, who has now taken hold of his body. For the most part, the mindscape belongs to the Kakashi who's soul is residing in that body, but there are occasion instances where the original does make a brief appearance.

Anyways, thank you for your thoughtful review! I am glad to hear that you are enjoying it so far and the things that happened in the previous chapter!

My friend Asteroid_Duck (ao3 username) drew some awesome art for Lightning Hound and Blood Hound. Check out the new story cover! Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think. Until next time!

-MM