Yang Dimension - Blood Hound

For every single second of the day, there were at least two guards standing in front of his hospital room. That didn't include the guards that were crouched on the rooftops of the neighboring building, eyes glued to the window.

The window was located on the top most floor of the hospital, in the right most corner. Normal civilians were not aware of the existence of that wing. Very few shinobis knew of it too and even fewer had the privilege of having stepped foot into that space.

Privileged or cursed? That was a debate for another time.

Metal bars blocked the guards' view of who or what was inside of the room. All they knew was that whatever it was, it was frighteningly dangerous. Rumors of how pale Inoichi had walked out of the hospital room that day spoke volumes. Whispers spread like wildfire among the elite shinobi group, yet they were careful to contain it to just jonins.

The last thing they needed was for chaos to erupt into flames.

Minato sat atop of the rooftops to the Central Tower. His mind played Inoichi's words on loop, yet he was no closer to figuring out exactly what he had meant by calling Kakashi insane, than he was fifteen minutes ago. Inoichi refused to divulge into the details of what exactly he had seen. The frightened expression etched across Inoichi's face made Minato bite his tongue.

That didn't mean he wasn't curious.

A familiar face plopped down next to him. Rather than sitting cross-legged like he was, his unexpected visitor had chosen to dangle his legs off of the ledge of the rooftops.

"Yahiko!" Minato greeted, surprise etched all over his face. "What are you doing here?"

The other man shrugged, a grin splitting across his face. "My sixth sense was telling me that you had a problem, so I decided to pay you a visit to see what was up."

It was a joke. Minato knew it was a joke, but he couldn't muster the energy to laugh. Not when Yahiko had hit the nail on its head.

The grin was immediately wiped off of his face. "You really ran into a problem?"

Minato grudgingly nodded. "It's a long story. What kind of issue have you run into? I hope yours will be easier to solve than mine."

"Well, remember last time I told you that Hanzo was colluding with Danzo?" Minato nodded, remembering their grim conversation. Although it wasn't something unexpected, their allegiance made everything much harder. Now they were faced with enemies on both sides; Konoha to their south and Ame to their north. Kumo, who was located northwest of them, had formed only a temporary truce with Rougyu since they were the enemy of their enemy [Konoha]. Yet Minato wasn't quite sure how long that pact would last.

After all, his encounter with Ay during the war still left a bitter taste in the Kage's mouth.

"My spies reported seeing Anbu Root members in Ame. Hanzo is also amassing an army of shinobi as well. We suspect that they will strike soon. With our current forces, we won't be a match for them."

"Do we have any information on when they will strike?"

Yahiko shook his head sadly. "Our spy has been killed. Now they're going through the ranks to find any other rats, so I ordered them to retreat for their safety. At the moment, we're completely blind to their movements."

A flash of silver flickered in Minato's mind, but he quickly shook that thought out of his head. There was no way that it was going to happen.

"And what about us? Do they have eyes on us?"

"They certainly do," Yahiko admitted solemnly. He clasped a firm hand on Minato's shoulders. "Be careful who you trust."

After all, blind trust was what had gotten Jiraiya sensei killed, were the unspoken words that lingered in the silence between them.

"We should call a meeting," Minato suggested. "We need to devise a countermeasure. Better yet, we strike before they do." Minato was ready to get going, having already formulated a mental list of people that he was going to hunt down for their impromptu meeting. Yahiko raised a hand to stop him.

"Be careful who you trust," Yahiko repeated. "We have seen how manipulative Danzo is. He managed to brainwash Hanzo to turn against the Akatsuki. Even the people you think you can trust, you really can't. I suggest you test their loyalty."

"A test?" Minato echoed. "How?"

Yahiko smiled.

Despite the fact that his mouth was full, Obito took another bite of his dango. He chewed rapidly, swallowing the sugary treat down his throat in a matter of seconds. Rin handed him a napkin.

"Slow down or you're going to choke."

Obito waved off her concern. His response came out as a garbled mess of words, but Rin had known him for so long that she could decipher its meaning. Obito was in a hurry because he was supposed to have shown up to his meeting fifteen minutes ago.

Rin shook her head in disappointment. When would Obito learn to show up on time? The only reason why Rin hadn't dragged him to the meeting herself was the fact that Obito was meeting with Minato. Their sensei had gotten used to his tardiness over the years. Chances were Sensei was too busy to even notice that Obito was late.

About to be very late if he didn't get going.

Rin snatched the last stick of dango out from under Obito's nose. He protested with an indignant "hey!" but it was too late. She had already taken first bite of the dango, relishing in Obito's crestfallen and resigned face. Chewing and swallowing the last bits of dango in his mouth, Obito reluctantly bid her farewell. He stood up, already on his way out of the quaint tea shop when something, or rather, someone caught his eye.

An unknown figure was bolting down the street, clutching what looked like a scroll to his chest. As he ran, his eyes constantly darted over his shoulder to gauge the distance between him and the shinobi chasing after him. The thief continued to sprint at top speed, the size of the muscles in his calves telling of how much strength each step was backed with.

Meanwhile, the chunin was struggling to keep up. Both sides of cheeks were completely flushed red from the exertion, beads of sweat dripping down the edge of his jaw. His mouth was parted wide open to intake some air as sheer will prompted him to keep placing one foot in front of the other. Eventually, the last bit of adrenaline had worn off. His steps became smaller and smaller before eventually slowing to a halt. Remaining in his position in the middle of the street, the chunin had hunched over, propping his hands on his thighs.

The chunin lifted his head, eyes locked onto the thief's backside growing fainter in the distance. His jaw clenched. He managed to muster up enough energy to take two more steps when Obito intercepted him to understand what was going on.

Normally, Obito was the type to act first and ask questions later, but he was too conscious of how late he was. Or was going to be. He wanted to confirm before he subjected himself to a wild goose chase.

The extra head start wouldn't even make a difference. Obito was just that confident.

The chunin raised a finger, pointing in the direction of where the thief had gone. In between intakes of ragged breaths, the chunin spoke. "Top. Secret. Scroll. Stolen."

That was all Obito needed to hear before he took off down the street. Having noticed the commotion as well, Rin fell into step beside Obito, easily keeping up with his longer strides. As they sprinted, their eyes met. Without the need for words, they reached a mutual understanding.

They continued running side by side until they reached the split path up ahead. When Obito gave her a firm nod, that was her cue to split. Obito kept going straight, while Rin made a sharp left into one of the hidden alleyways, intending on taking the backstreets to corner the thief.

With a little help of his chakra, Obito closed the distance between the two of them. Gradually, the thief's backside came into his view. Obito had eventually gotten close enough that he could make out the thief's frightened eyes as he turned around and noticed that there was another shinobi hot on his heels.

Only this time, the thief had met his match. Obito was hardly going to give up that easily. If there was one thing that he was known for, it was his never diminishing energy and stamina. With the adrenaline coursing through him, Obito felt like he could run for days.

Not that he would need to. Five minutes, that was all he needed.

The thief made a sharp right turn. Obito flew past the turn and then proceeded to backtrack and get himself back on course. That had cost him a few precious seconds that allowed the thief to increase the distance between them again. That feint was more than enough to elicit a smug smirk on the thief's face.

The corner of Obito's lips also curled up into a smirk. It was far too early for him to be so arrogant. Not when he remained unaware that there was someone else coming after him. Even if there wasn't...Obito wasn't going to stop until he took this man down.

Obito gave chase. Although he could have easily closed the distance between the two of them once again, he wanted to lure the man into a false sense of security.

Tch, enjoy your last moments of arrogance.

While he ran, Obito mentally calculated Rin's approximate location. If it was indeed as he thought, any minute now, the two of them would cross paths and surround this man from both sides.

And then Obito would be the only one left smirking.

A flash of brown appeared. Rin planted herself squarely in the thief's path. The man abruptly halted, the heel of his sandals leaving a pile of upturned dirt. His eyes swung wildly around the area, searching for his way out. Yet with Rin in front of him, Obito behind him, and two walls on either side, the man was trapped.

Obito casually strolled up to him.

"You have two choices right now," Obito informed him. He held up two fingers. "You can either hand over the scroll and let me take you into custody." Obito lowered one of his fingers. "Or I can kill you and get the scroll myself. Now, which will you choose?"

The man flinched at his threat, but the fight within him wasn't gone yet. He clutched the scroll even tighter, holding it closer to his chest like it was his most prized possession.

Obito took a menacing step forward. The man took a step backwards.

His dark eyes flickered to Obito before falling back down onto the scroll. Everything happened in a split second. Red filled his vision as the scroll flew through the air towards Obito. His hands shot outwards, catching the scroll in mid-air.

Taking advantage of Obito's momentary distraction, the thief had spun on his heels. He charged straight at Rin, probably thinking that she was an easier target to bypass. Yet his escape ended less than three seconds later when Rin pinned him on the ground, having twisted his right arm behind his back. Obito winced as he heard an audible crack.

There was a reason why he never underestimated kunoichis.

When Obito had shown up to the Central Tower for his meeting with Minato, an hour and a half late, his sensei's eyes were twinkling in amusement.

"What's your excuse this time?"

Obito rolled his eyes, hating how his sensei thought so lowly of him. "Hey! In my defense, I was chasing down a thief. It wasn't my fault it took forever to drag him to T&I because he struggled the entire way."

Minato raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, well maybe I was already running late before that encounter," Obito admitted sheepishly. Minato nodded in approval.

"That's more like it. So where is the scroll?"

"Scroll?" A few seconds passed. "Oh! The scroll." Obito dug out the red colored scroll from his weapon's pouch and handed it over to Minato. "Wait. How did you know about the scroll?"

"Well there's something I need to tell you…"

Now that they no longer had spies in Hanzo's forces, the Akatsuki were operating completely blind. Before Danzo and Hanzo formed an allegiance, they took comfort that they were facing two separate threats. After they did, they took comfort in the fact that they had ways to keep tabs on Hanzo's movements.

And now, they didn't even have that.

All while everyone at the round table wracked their minds on what they could possibly do, completely stumped, Minato couldn't stop thinking about the fact he was probably the only one at the table with a solution. Probably an idiotic solution, but still a solution.

Even Shikaku's brilliant mind was no use when faced with too many unknown factors and variables. At least, the meeting hadn't been a complete waste of time; they did restructure their defenses to prepare for war.

Subtly, of course, to not alert any potential spies.

Even after the meeting ended, the flawed, idiotic sounding solution still wouldn't leave his mind. For the next few hours, it plagued every crevice of his mind to the point that Minato was simply just looking at papers, and not processing a single thing.

At this rate, Minato would get absolutely nothing accomplished.

In the end, Minato gave up trying to pretend he could focus. Before he knew it, he found himself in front of the door to Kakashi's hospital room. The two guards each greeted him with a slight nod of acknowledgement and shifted out of the way to let him through. He entered the room, a cold draft instantly hitting his face.

Much to his surprise, Rin and Obito were already there. They had been in the middle of a conversation, or had it been an argument? A scowl was etched across Obito's face. The usual cheeriness was visibly lacking from Rin's features.

Minato decided that his life would be much better if he didn't question it. Playing the mediator for his two students hardly sounded appealing, especially not while he had so many other things plaguing his mind.

"Minato sensei! What are you doing here?" Rin's greeting had been too high-pitched, sounding a bit too eager to jump at the distraction. An argument, for sure. Minato pretended to be none the wiser.

"I-uhm." How would Minato go about explaining why he was here? So he could get rid of the stupid thought out of his mind? His students would probably wonder if his mind finally cracked under the pressure. To be honest, even Minato wasn't too sure of the answer himself. "Just wanted to check up on his condition."

A safe answer. Also a bullshit answer because Rin saw right through him from the moment the words left his lips. "Same as always. Nothing is going to change until I wake him up from the coma."

And nothing is going to change until you give me the orders, was what Rin really meant to say. To be fair, the thought did cross Minato's mind more than once today. That was only because in order for his idiotic plan to work, that involved a conscious Kakashi.

At the same time, an awake and functioning Kakashi posed too many variables for Minato to be comfortable with the risk. If anything went wrong, it would be on his conscience.

"Yeah, and he better stay that way," Obito grumbled under his breath. Then, he raised his voice. "What's the point of keeping him alive? We can't get any intel from him, so we should just kill him. Saves us all the trouble of having to guard him."

When Rin shot a sharp glare at Obito, who pointedly ignored it by not looking at her, Minato instantly figured out what they had been arguing about. How ironic that his students held views on opposite sides of the spectrum, while Minato precariously straddled the middle ground. As the leader, he should have been the one calling the shots and not being so fucking indecisive. Maybe speaking to his students was exactly what Minato needed.

Obito would knock some sense into him. Rin would probably offer some logical advice.

"What if Kakashi…" Minato began slowly. When he saw Obito's eyes narrow, Minato was quick to shut him down. "Hear me out, Obito, before you say anything." The younger boy slumped back down into his seat. He was no longer looking Minato directly in the eyes, but Minato knew he was still listening.

That was just how Obito was.

"What if," Minato tried again, this time with a little bit more confidence in his voice. "What if Kakashi could be of use to us?"

"How?" Rin inquired. Interest shone in her eyes.

Obito bit the bottom of his lip, restraining himself from delivering a scathing comment. He did promise Sensei that he would keep an open mind about it until he finished hearing him out. After that however, all bets were off.

"We need a spy," Minato stated. Although Rin hadn't been in attendance to the meeting earlier, he knew that Obito surely filled her in on the details. There were no secrets between the three of them. "Yahiko ordered his spies to retreat after Hanzo busted one of them. From what we know about Hanzo, that man is too paranoid to let anyone get close to him. If we tried to plant another spy by his side, it would be a completely fruitless attempt. But then I was thinking that we don't necessarily need a spy by Hanzo's side."

"You want to use Kakashi to spy on Danzo," Obito continued for him in a flat voice. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"That was what I was thinking," Minato admitted. "Who else is a better candidate than someone Danzo already trusts? Although I do know there are a lot of flaws in my plan, that's why I didn't share the idea at the meeting earlier."

"The biggest problem would be making sure Kakashi remains loyal to us," Rin deduced. "We know he's immensely loyal to Konoha. It will be an extremely difficult task for him to switch his allegiance. I don't even think the promise of sparing his life would be enough for him to work for us."

"Yeah, so basically impossible," Obito drawled, sarcastically. "Do you not know him? The moment he wakes up, Kakashi is going to attempt to kill us. Any enemy of Danzo is his enemy."

"Well, do you know him?" Rin shot back. Minato sensed that this was about to spiral into an argument so he conveniently interjected before the fight could break out. He wanted their opinions, not their bickering.

"Both of you have good points. It was just an idea that I had. Obviously, I haven't thought this through enough for it to be feasible, but I'm just contemplating all of our options here."

Obito groaned. "The only way this would work is if we had Shisui's Mangekyo Sharingan. His eye has the ability to place someone under an unbreakable genjutsu, giving someone the perception that they're doing this out of their own free will. Other than that, I don't see how we're going to convert a die hard Danzo loyalist to our side."

When Rin glared at him, Obito held his hands up. "What? Don't look at me like that. You know it's true. If Kakashi didn't like Danzo, he would have defected a long time ago."

"Fine, you have a point," she admitted. "Doesn't mean I think you're right for advocating for his death." Obito shrugged.

"What if…" Kami, Minato felt another onslaught of crazy ideas crashing into his mind. Crazy, immature, and hardly feasible, but his hyperactive mind couldn't help but at least entertain the idea. Even if just a little bit. "What if I create a seal that will force him to follow our orders? Sort of like how Danzo has the seal on his shinobi's tongue to prevent them from leaking information."

Obito looked at him suspiciously. "Are you sure Kakashi isn't above going against your orders and killing himself with the seal anyways?"

Right, Minato hadn't factored that into consideration. Most people quivered at the prospect of death, to the point where they were willing to go at lengths just for self-preservation. During his life, Minato had met plenty of those people.

Unfortunately, many of the Anbu Root shinobis he had encountered were outside of the definition of "most people." He hardly doubted Kakashi would be much different from their comrades, especially considering he was Danzo's right hand man.

If there was one person who wouldn't crumble under the pressure, it was him.

"...nevermind then. I will take it up to the-" Obito and Rin never found out what the end of that sentence was supposed to be. Not when a flare of chakra practically exploded in the room, the intensity of the chakra sending all of them stumbling backwards. The chakra suppressing chains snapped under the pressure. Broken metal pieces clattered noisily to the floor. The fuinjutsu cloth ripped at the seams, pieces of cloth scattering all over the hospital bed. Killing intent leaked into the room, with such ferocity that even made Minato freeze for ten seconds.

Kakashi's eyes snapped open, the sight of mismatched red and black made for a deadly sight. And then their eyes clashed. Blue onto red and black.

Kakashi lunged out of the bed, hardly displaying any of the weakness of a man who had been under a coma for four days. Coma...wasn't he supposed to be in a coma? Why the fuck was he-?

Minato had to activate the Hiraishin to avoid Kakashi's incoming attack. Even though he was only using his bare hands, Minato had no doubt that if Kakashi's attack had landed, severe injuries would have been involved.

"Whoa Kakashi, we aren't your enemy-" Minato cried. Kakashi wasn't even listening. He practically flew across the bed to get to Minato, hands poised like Kakashi was ready to choke him with his raw strength.

Once again, Minato forced himself to move, narrowly ducking out of his trajectory. Why was the killing intent so suffocating, so deadly? Normal killing intent wasn't enough to make him freeze up like that but when faced with Kakashi's, somehow Minato found every muscle locking up.

In his entire career, Minato had never felt like this.

As if Kakashi suddenly going berserk in the room wasn't already bad enough, when his eyes swung to land on Rin, Minato's heart practically dropped from his chest. A chilling feeling raced down his spine. Eyes widening, Minato lunged forward to stop Kakashi.

His new target: Rin.

Yet Minato moved too slowly. Why was he moving so slowly? Damn it, move! His mind screamed that over and over again but it did nothing for him. Minato's muscles still remained locked in place, like it had been weighed down by a ton of bricks.

Oh no, Rin!

Somehow, Obito found the strength to move. He threw himself in Kakashi's trajectory, already armed with a kunai to stop Kakashi. The black coloring of his eyes bled into red, tomoes spinning rapidly. Completely poised and ready to fight, Obito was determined to take him face on when Kakashi faltered.

His eyes widened.

"Obito, you're still alive?" Those words were delivered with a raspy voice, yet it held such familiarity and disbelief. Kakashi's eyes rolled over and he fell onto the floor in an unconscious heap with an audible thud. Rin winced on his behalf.

Just as quickly as it came, the killing intent was washed away, restoring the former relaxed atmosphere. Testing his fingers one by one, Minato was relieved to know that his movements were finally back under his control.

An out of body experience was the only way that Minato could describe it. Only five minutes had passed, but to him, it felt much, much longer than that. The experience had been so jarring that Minato was still reeling from it, mind spinning so rapidly that his brain could barely comprehend what was going through it.

Obito crossed his arms over his chest. "See what I mean about Kakashi being too dangerous to keep alive?"

Kakashi was dangerous...that was a sentiment that Minato could agree with. However, there was one thing that Obito was overlooking. Or maybe, he was choosing to ignore it.

"Obito, do you know Kakashi?"

His student shook his head. "Why would you ask me that?"

"He said your name," Rin answered, now just finding the strength to pick herself off of the floor. She wouldn't lie; the experience had thoroughly chilled her to her core. "Remember what he said before he fell back asleep? 'Obito, you're still alive?'"

"He's just spouting nonsense," Obito insisted. "I mean why would he say something like that? There's no reason for him to believe that I'm dead. And even if I was, I doubt he would care less."

Logically, Obito's words made sense, yet there was something nagging in the back of Minato's brain. Why would Kakashi say something like that? And with so much familiarity and hurt and disbelief behind it, exactly like how someone would react if they found someone they cared for was alive after believing him to be dead.

Were those kinds of emotions something a person could fake? Minato wasn't inclined to think so. And especially not in his half delirious state.

"Are you sure you don't know him, Obito?"

"I'm sure," he responded, with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "No matter how many times you ask, my answer will still remain the same."

"What if-" There he goes again. Minato's hyperactive mind went into overdrive once more, conjuring tens if not hundreds of different possibilities that could explain Kakashi's strange words. Usually, his active mind was an advantage; it afforded him the capability for an endless amount of jutsu creation, even if they were often accompanied with strange names. Yet when Minato's mind started on the train of maybe someone else's soul had possessed Kakashi's body, Minato was quickly beginning to realize this was getting way too out of hand.

"What if this person isn't Kakashi?"

A/N: Hi again!

A little bit more worldbuilding for the current world and a tiny bit of crazy Kakashi thrown into the mix haha. I can't say I really blame Obito for wanting to kill Kakashi because he is dangerous lol.

Ari: Yes, the Kage differences (more specifically who the 3rd Hokage is) is one of the things that loyal Kakashi/Lightning Hound will be hunting down when he infiltrates Konoha, so it'll be a fun journey of uncovering the mystery bit by bit. Hmm canon Kakashi's mindscape...I haven't really thought about it but I'd imagine it to be quite dark as well and perhaps a tunnel of light? - depending on which era of Kakashi we're looking into. I hope you take care too! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts - I always look forward to reading them. :)

Thank you for reading! Which Kakashi is your favorite so far? Which world are you more interested in learning about? Until next time!

-MM