This is one of those "what ifs" that got a little out of hand. As per usual things have to go really badly for these boys before they get any better.
Author: esthete-of-the-world
Chapter 1: Drawn to the Blood
The moment he gained consciousness, Kakashi knew something was wrong. Terribly wrong. He could feel it, hot and acrid, pounding from his chest through his whole body. What was it, poison? Was he hurt? Where the hell even was he? Cracking an eye open he sat up. The room was small and empty with a earthen walls lit by a single candle; Kakashi had been collapsed on the ground. As he breathed the pain in his chest dulled and slowly memories returned to his muddled mind.
He'd been on a mission with Rin and a pair Chunnin. They'd split off from the other two to restock at a nearby base when Kiri had attacked. It had been all he could do just to distract them until Rin escaped. Which meant- fuck. He was alive, which meant Kiri caught him. Did they get Rin too? She should have been able to get away but Kakashi wasn't about to take any chances. Not with Rin.
Hauling himself shakily off the ground he listened at the heavy metal (locked) door for any indication of where he was. From the rough stone walls and the smell he was underground. A few more memories came back to him: a long tunnel, a cavernous room shaking with an unearthly roar, a feeling like being stabbed through the heart... Shit, no, just concentrate on getting out of here. He needed to escape and make sure Rin was safe. And besides that Kakashi wasn't about to be interrogated or used as some bargaining chip with Minato-sensei, or whatever Kiri had planned.
Before he could plan his escape any further, he heard a sound and tensed. A section of the earthen ceiling began to crumble. Though obviously all his weapons were gone Kakashi was prepared to fight. But no enemy nin appeared. Instead-
"Pakkun!" Kakashi said hoarsely. His throat was dry as hell, probably from whatever they'd drugged him with.
The little dog shook dust off his coat. "Took us long enough to find you, idiot."
"Us?" Out of the hole in the ceiling dropped Urushi, panting happily, followed by Rin, dirty and ragged but all in one piece.
"Rin too? What are you doing here?" He was relieved she had gotten away, but coming back for him ruined the whole point.
She put her hands on her hips. "Rescuing you, duh. I'm not always the damsel in distress you know."
"Did you bring back up at least?"
"There wasn't any time. I've just the dogs you left with me. They tracked your scent from the surface."
Pakkun snorted. "Not as easy as it sounds with all the Kiri people around, and your smell is off."
"Yeah, I think they drugged me. I'm fine Rin." He shooed the medic away from her checking him over. "Can we just get out of-"
A nearby explosion shook the walls. Rin looked up sharply.
"That's our cue. I set some distractions to keep them busy."
Rin helped him up the hole; he wasn't prideful enough to refuse, or stupid enough to not realize that whatever Kiri had given him, it was still in his system. He told himself it was just some tranquilizer, but it just felt… wrong. The skin over his heart itched and he rubbed it absently. It would be alright once they got away. Whatever Kiri had done to him, Rin could fix it.
"Kakashi, come on! We have to get out of here!" Rin grabbed his hand and tugged him through the sparse forest glowing in late afternoon sunlight. He stumbled once or twice, not used to being led around like this. Where even were they again? His brain felt scattered and there was a rushing like water in his ears.
Rin glanced back at him. "There's a Konoha base not too far from here, alright Kakashi? How are you feeling?"
"Right. Okay. I'm fine," he said, even though his gut was telling him that he was most definitely not fine. Kakashi just tried to get his head together and think. It was his job to get them out of here, not Rin's. He was the Jonin and he was the one who'd promised Obito.
"There he is!" A voice not far behind them chilled his blood. They'd found them already? Rin hurled kunai trailing explosion tags behind them.
"Pakkun! Urushi! Go find reinforcements!" Kakashi barked, taking a kunai from Rin. If they could just get some backup, maybe they could make it out of here. The dogs veered away from them, and almost immediately a hail of weapons rained down on them. They disappeared in puffs of smoke before anything connected.
Three masked Kiri ANBU were behind them and another two were coming in from the left.
"Go right!" said Rin, an edge of panic in her voice.
"The sea's that way. We'll never get away if they trap us on the water!"
"Do we have a choice?"
They really didn't. Just barely they were able to dodge a water jutsu from the left. Rin was practically dragging him along. Kakashi's genius mind worked furiously through the haze surrounding it, trying to find a way out of this mess. He knew they were being corralled against the shoreline to trap them against more shinobi on the sea, though a part of him welcomed being close to the water… but Kiri knew more water jutsu than he did, water was a bad thing! Soon the trees cleared out and they found themselves on a rocky outcrop.
A dozen more Kiri shinobi were waiting ahead. Dread settled in Kakashi's mind as they skidded to a halt. How could they escape? How could he get Rin to safety? Pulling his hand from Rin's he gripped his single kunai.
"I'll hold them off, Rin. Try and escape into the forest and make it to that base. They shouldn't follow you so far into-"
"No! I'm not leaving you again, Kakashi!" Her gaze was stern, though tears glimmered in her eyes.
"It's the only way to get you out of here!"
"I said no! We can figure something out."
Kiri had them surrounded in seconds. There had to be twenty or thirty and almost all were ANBU. Why the hell were there so many for just the two of them? And why hadn't they attacked yet? Kakashi's panic rose, and with it, the pain in his chest. He didn't let it show.
"Take the boy quickly and quietly!" a Kiri ANBU barked. "Do not kill him!"
Why were they being so careful about his life? Did they think he was that valuable a hostage? What was going on?
Kakashi breathed in. "Rin, we'll have to-"
Damn these humans! Kill them all!
"-kill the humans. I mean we have to fight. We'll have to fight our way out. I'll try to make an opening for you. They sound like they won't kill me. Just run for it." Kakashi exposed his Sharingan and stood in front of her, kunai at the ready.
"I didn't come all this way for nothing!"
"There's too many, Rin. You know that."
"We can figure something out! I'm not leaving you to be killed or worse, Kakashi. You came back for me at Kannabi, I'm not leaving you now!"
"That doesn't matter! I told Obito I'd protect you. I'm going to keep that promise."
Pathetic humans! I'll kill you all for disturbing me!
"What was that?" Kakashi looked around for the source of the booming voice.
"What was what? We don't have time for this!" Rin blocked a shuriken. The Kiri shinobi were approaching cautiously, too cautiously for just a Chuunin and poorly-armed Jonin.
"Listen. Kakashi." Rin stepped up to his side and smiled weakly, tears in her eyes. The expression wrenched at his chest more than his burning skin did. "Whatever you promised Obito… we're teammates. We don't leave anyone behind. He's the one that said that, right?"
"Rin… but you..." A shinobi darted in from the side, and Kakashi moved to counter. His Sharingan let him see the man's attacks, but there was something else. A shakey, hot energy bubbled in his veins, filling his head with the sound of waterfalls. Dodging, he punched the Kiri-nin hard enough to send him flying into the crowd.
What? Kakashi wasn't strong enough to do that. This was more than just adrenaline or panic.
"Rin, there's something wrong… ah!" Heat like a knife slid into his skull. He clutched at his head, trying to stay on guard but suddenly it was all he could do to stay standing. The blood in his veins boiled.
"Kakashi! What is it?" She grabbed his shoulder to keep him upright.
"No! Stay away!" Wrenching from her grip he backed away, trying to hold his head and his chest at the same time. Even the Kiri-nin were pushed from his mind as he tried to get ahold of himself.
"In my head it's- Rin I can't… help me!" Two more shinobi took advantage and attacked. This time he barely had to think; his attacks were instinctual, calling on the hot power that made him feel at once trembling and very still. With a single, wild blow each he hurled them away. Fatigue and fear and pain seared away like water on a hot pan. He felt so powerful, so alive. Food pills and adrenaline were nothing compared to this. The sight of his Sharingan blurred out but he barely noticed. Kakashi dropped the flimsy kunai and lowered into a crouch that suddenly felt much more natural.
I'll kill them all for sealing me!
What was that voice?
Smash them to bits!
He had to protect Rin.
Kill them, you runt!
A green haze filled his vision. Kill them and protect Rin.
They'll pay for this.
This time, he attacked first. He launched himself at the nearest thing that moved, batting them away like nothing. A water technique rained down from above. Instinctively he knew it wouldn't hurt him.
Destroy them!
Protect Rin!
Kakashi watched, distantly, as green-tinted energy dripped over his hands like slime and sizzled on the ground. Nothing within him thought to fight it. He needed to protect Rin and he needed to kill them for sealing him, all the humans needed to die!
It was almost too easy. They attacked with jutsu and weapons that might as well have been puffs of wind against his chakra shell. Anyone idiotic to get close he swatted with his tail, or burned with acid, or crushed with his chakra that could stretch out like vines. Nothing could hurt him. After some amount of time the humans hung back at a distance, indecisive.
Cowards!
He roared in anger, a screeching, guttural sound that shook the air. Was that really him? Kakashi wasn't sure. It felt like he was in a dream, watching from outside his body. All he knew were vague pictures of the scene around him, the vibration of crushing bones, and the command to protect Rin and kill the humans and protect her and kill her too, end them all for what they did-
"RIN!"
That voice. The shock of it was enough to make him pause. Why was that voice so important? Who… Kakashi rounded on the intruder, growling.
Obito.
But he was… Obito was an important person, but he was dead. Wasn't he? Kakashi couldn't remember.
"Rin! I'm coming!"
The person called Obito fought through the crowd. He used wood to attack. Kakashi's tail lashed indecisively. Obito was only getting closer to him and the person who he was supposed to protect, Rin.
Fight! Kill them or they'll kill you!
The others kept their distance. It was only him and the two people who he should not attack, or should, he didn't know anymore-
"Is that... Kakashi! Snap out of it! What happened? It's me, Obito! And Rin!"
Obito took a step toward him. That was a mistake. Kakashi grabbed at Obito's torso with his acidic green tail, burning through flesh. Wood spiked out of the other boy's body and Kakashi dropped him. Maybe he should be cautious dealing with this one.
"Oh no, Guruguru! Yikes, calm down Kakashi! It's just me!" Obito's flesh fell off him, no, it was just a shell, and he scrambled out of the sizzling white body.
"Obito, how? You're alive?!" Rin exclaimed, embracing him. Kakashi hesitated, unsure of how to react.
"Yeah, long story… I'm so glad to see you Rin. What happened to Kakashi? What is with his chakra? And his eyes?"
Rin didn't let go of Obito's pale arm. "I don't know. Kiri caught him and did something. Right after I broke him out he suddenly lost it. Obito, we have to get him out of here!"
"I know. Kakashi, you need to calm down." That was directed at him. Fuck that. His tail whipped at the ground in anger but didn't attack.
Obito grinned at him tentatively, palms facing him in a gesture of peace. "It's alright. I'm here now! We can beat these Kiri bastards together and go home!"
Home. What was home again?
I can't go home! Make them pay!
He growled again, this time not even recognizing the inhumanness of it.
"Hey hey, It's alright Kakashi, it will be-"
It won't be alright! They took my home from me!
The humans had to pay. All of them. His tail shot out.
"NO, OBITO!" Something moved into the attack.
His tail punched through Rin like paper. She hung suspended by the chakra for long seconds.
"No… not Obito… not… again..." Her words were barely a whisper.
Something cold seized his heart, freezing over the burning power. No. The tail turned to steam and she slumped to the earth. No.
Rin was dead.
But he was supposed to… He didn't protect her. He had… he had…
What had he done?
"Rin!" The anguish in Obito's voice snapped the rest of the haze away. He held Rin in his arms. The green cloak receded. It couldn't be, it happened too fast, he didn't mean to…
He killed Rin.
Killed her. Kakashi dropped down to his knees, left eye burning with pain he barely felt.
Obito lowered her to the ground and stood up. For a moment Kakashi hoped he would kill him, let him follow after Rin. But Obito walked right past him.
Obito's lowered voice, "I'll kill them," was the last thing he heard, and Rin's body the last thing he saw, before Kakashi finally collapsed.
The greenish mist was thick and Kakashi moved through it like water. Nothing in particular was guiding his drifting but he had to be going somewhere; though to where he wasn't sure.
It wasn't long before a shape appeared and clarified in the mist; a towering wall, magnificent and almost beautiful, woven of curving silver cables stretched out in all directions. Kakashi couldn't resist the impulse to touch the bars. The cold burned his fingers and he flinched back.
A gargantuan roar blasted his ears and blew the mist away. On the other side of the woven silver cage, half-submerged in sloshing water, crouched the massive demon. Demon was the only word he had for it. It was covered in a scaly green shell, red muscle showing in the gaps and three tails raised threateningly behind it. One closed and blood red eye with a clouded yellow iris bore down on him.
You brat! Roared the monster.
"What is this? Where is this?" Kakashi demanded.
If you can't figure out that much, you really don't deserve to be my vessel, pest. It growled.
Kakashi narrowed his eye. Was it a Genjutsu? It didn't seem like it. This place didn't feel real… almost as if it was-
"We're in my mind," he said suddenly. He had no idea how he knew that so certainly. "Which means that… you're in my mind also."
Not for long, brat! I'm getting out of here, and when I do all you damn humans will pay!
The demon swung its massive paw at the cage, and to Kakashi's horror the bars groaned and bent. They were too narrow, too thinly spread, he realized, to withstand the demon's attacks. In fact the closer he looked the more he noticed how flimsy and clumsy the thing was, with flaws and weak spots all over. All the roughly woven bars met like a web in the center where a chunk of dull scratched metal held it all together. It was etched clumsily with a curling symbol like three waves crashing towards each other.
The cage, the only thing separating him and the monster, was too weak to hold. That's the last thought he had before Kakashi was blasted with an acidic mist and woke, gasping, in the real world.
He barely had time to draw breath before he was choking, pulling his mask down to cough up sour-smelling water. Gasping, he cast around for answers. What had happened? All around him bodies lay scattered. Pools of bloody water and wooden growths marred the landscape and the stench of carnage and salt saturated the air. The fight- now he remembered. Pain, the strange chakra, killing Kiri-nin, Obito and Rin… Rin!
"Kakashi! You're awake." Kakashi tugged his mask on automatically. It was really him. It was Obito. The hair was longer, the smell was off and his face was scarred, but the voice was the same. His mind tried telling him that Obito was dead, that it was just another illusion, but somehow… he knew this was real.
Rin, lying murdered in Obito's arms, was also real.
"Obito, I… you're alive. How? What happened to all the Kiri?"
"Long story. It doesn't matter. I killed them all." His friend's words were hollow. Dead.
"But Rin…" Kakashi trailed off. "I killed her, didn't I?" He couldn't bring himself to look at her body.
Obito didn't answer for a moment. He brushed hair gently out of her face.
"She died protecting me. It's my fault too. I couldn't do anything. Kakashi... what is this place? Are we in hell?"
Kakashi half-crawled over and and skimmed Rin's cold fingers almost as if to make sure this was real. The ragged hole in her chest had nearly dried, ringed with cloth burned with acid.
"No. I don't believe in hell. If it was real hell would be on Earth. Maybe some people just have to suffer to balance all the good things in the world. Karma or something like that. But…" Kakashi looked up, away from Rin's body. The sun was starting to set. "You're here, Obito. You're alive. Miracles like that don't happen in hell."
"I… hey, are you alright?"
Kakashi was gripping his chest. It was burning again, "burning" being a meager term for the feeling.
"The demon."
"Demon? You mean that chakra..."
"Yeah. That power was the demon. I saw it. It's in me. " He said it like a death sentence. Really, it was.
"What do you mean, in you?"
Kakashi coughed again, suddenly feeling feverish. Without letting himself hesitate, he pulled up the hem of his shirt over the hot painful spot on his chest. Even though he expected something his eye still widened at the mark.
It was red, bleeding slightly and surrounded by purple bruising. Interwoven lines ringed the mark, and in the center was a symbol like three waves crashing inwards: the same mark that was on the lock.
"It's a seal," Kakashi said with a deadpan. His head was burning but his insides were cold with the realization of what this meant. What needed to happen.
"A seal?" Echoed Obito, "That demon is sealed… inside of you?"
"Yes. Not even well either. I saw it, the seal, inside of my mind- it's weak. It won't hold forever. We don't have much time."
Obito set Rin's body down, gently. "Much time to what? Minato-sensei and Kushina-san know sealing, they could fix it. You'll be okay." There was an edge of fear to his voice.
"No. I can't go back to the village under any circumstances. I'm too dangerous, I'll just kill people like I killed Rin."
"Kakashi... what are you talking about?" Obito asked slowly. Kakashi pressed on.
"Obito, you need to kill me. Now."
The Uchiha's single eye widened. "What...? No! What are you talking about?"
"I can't control it. The demon is going to go wild again, and it will kill. If you're really the real Obito, if you really are alive… then you have to do this for me. You have to take care of me before that happens."
"You… You!" Obito grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his feet. Kakashi didn't resist.
"You idiot! You dumbass!" Tears dripped down from Obito's one eye, twisting at Kakashi's chest. It didn't matter. He had to make him see that this was the only way.
He pushed Obito away from him. "I'll kill people Obito. This is the only-" he coughed again, tasting more stagnant water dribble into his mouth. It was getting more difficult to stay standing. "-the only way. I'm weak right now, so is the demon I think. If you could kill all those Kiri-nin then you can handle this. Kill me for Rin, or for the village, or revenge… just do it now, before it kills anyone else! Please"
Snatching Obito's hand, he pushed it on his throat. A stab of fear shot through his stomach but he tried to ignore it. This was best. To die protecting his village, at the hands of his friend… there were worse ways to go.
But Obito didn't kill him. Instead he punched him in the jaw.
"BAKAKASHI! You're telling me to kill you… for the village? For Rin? You think this is what she'd want? I lost her, you think I want to lose you too? I can't do that! Not you too!" He sobbed, tears mixing with the blood surrounding his eye.
"I killed her. You saw. I'm too dangerous now. Please."
"No! You didn't kill her! The… the demon did, and I am not letting it kill another of my friends!"
"Obito, you..." Kakashi tried to lift himself up and do the job himself, but fell flat on his back. Fever ached through his body and he couldn't breathe right. "You idiot."
He closed his eyes.
Chapter title from Sufjan Stevens' song of the same name.
So this is originally an RP but really only in a loose sense of the word. The odd-numbered chapters are Kakashi's POV written by me, and the even-numbered ones are Obito's POV by quietbun on Archive of Our Own, with all chapters edited by me. They don't have a fanfiction but this story is posted on AO3 under the same name so check it out there if you want.
Also yeah, I'm aware of the whole "evil Madara seal on Obito's heart that makes him do things convenient for the plot" and also how the Kiri people were somehow under his control without Kirigakure itself ever figuring that out? We're just going to go with it. Even canon has to be taken with a grain of salt (especially Naruto canon). Other things will be explained in time.
Edited as of 1/29/15
I'm drawn to the blood
The flight of a one-winged dove
How? How did this happen?
How? How did this happen?
The strength of his arm
My lover caught me off guard
How? Head of a rabbit
How? Head of a rabbit
For my prayer has always been love
What did I do to deserve this?