All actions had a purpose. The Uchiha kept the peace with the Senju by striking a delicate balance. Nothing was left to chance. Hatake's eye was an impossibility. It disturbed her.
Mikoto flicked the blood from her neck, gently twisting her hair against the cut tassels to make them neat. She had been thinking about having it cut. Once, her hair had been a testament to her skill and pride. But pride often begat a downfall. In her mind's eye, she saw the glimmer of a new dawn. Even the gods could not begrudge her the change.
As she exited Hatake's apartment, four attendants pared themselves from the shadows and knelt at her feet. As her honor guard, Ikkaku took the lead position. At her left was her body servant, Usuda, dove feathers tucked behind his ear, who quickly shrugged the basket onto one elbow with a gnawed expression.
"Ane-ue." Usuda said respectfully before she cut him off.
"Not here." She glanced back at Jounin Hatake's house, unable to shake the unease from her bones. Outwardly, she remained calm and collected but Usuda had served her since they were children.
"Trouble?"
Usuda growled when an Anbu landed dramatically on the roof opposite, staring down through a painted smile.
"Only on days that end with 'y'." She replied pleasantly. "Shall we?"
"Of course." Usuda lowered his head, bending at a perfect ninety-degree angle. She considered ordering him to raise his head. But she was no longer the naïve six-year-old upset at the beating her servant received. Usuda was a liaison between an Uchiha father and an outsider. Since the Uchiha counted their kin in the distaff line[1], Usuda was no blood to them. If it were not for his sharingan eyes, he would have been given away as a foundling. Or-god-forbid, left to be raised by his mother.
"Mikoto-sama." Usuda interrupted her steam of thought. "There is news."
"Very well." She allowed. The Anbu lost his advantage when he emerged from the shadows. "How is he?"
"Angry." Usuda admitted, voice hushed as though announcing a shocking thing. "Confused. He looks for..."
"Obito." She sighed, giving name to a boy she once knew.
"Yes, but I cannot understand why."
"They were cousins after all. It is natural his presence... lingers."
Ikkaku returned to report the presence of a crowd ahead.
"We should go around." Her clansman counseled.
"No," She decided. "We must appear as though everything is fine."
Ikkaku tensed. She might as well have told him everything was not fine. But after the amount of chakra Hatake released, Mikoto doubted that it could be seen as anything other than killing intent. And she, a housewife, an Uchiha, had been seen in the middle.
Kushina had asked for a favor and she had given it. There was no time to dwell.
"Mikoto-sama." Usuda urged.
"Not now."
A low whine grated his throat.
The Anbu stalked them through the stars. Never close though always within sight. He kept a respectful enough distance; he might have even been Root.
Her eyes narrowed.
The Sandaime was an old man. His word, it seemed, no longer held weight. Others of the Elder Council, obstinate fools they were, remembered only the disdain their mentor had held for them and not Kagami whose death weighed less than a handful of cinders in their eyes. The Senju-Uchiha alliance was failing.
Ikkaku and Hanmo went ahead in a whirl of motion as Usuda fell behind her to signify her rank. Mebuki melted back into the shadows. She would have to keep an eye on her.
It never hurt to be careful. Even now when she was married to the official head of the Uchiha clan, she could never purge the feeling that she was being watched. Her paranoia was the one thing Usuda could not carry for her.
"Of course people are watching." Her mother berated her every time she mentioned it. "Your blood is marked by greatness. Keep your back straight. Be proud of what you are."
It did not mean she had to like it.
Ikkaku and Hanmo were waiting at the gates. They exchanged places with guards who disappeared into the night. Mikoto was surprised to see that past dinnertime, the streets were full. People with bowed heads passing whispered conversations like cattle chewing cud.
She felt a passing scorn at seeing her clansmen gathered so transparently. They knew that Shisui awoke his mangekyo but did not understand its significance. And this was the right way. The correct way. The knowledge of the mangekyo belonged with the elders of the clan, not common rabble.
Her footsteps quickened. Despite Kushina's warnings, she had been ill-prepared for the folded pinwheel stamped in Hatake's eyes.
Madara's line was cursed. Uzumaki Mito had sworn his blood would never bear fruit when she swallowed the Kyuubi and cut a stillbirth from her womb nine months after—Obito should have been an impossibility; his mangekyo was an impossibility.
They should have never let the Senju raise one of their own. The Senju had been slaughtered the first time they fatally attempted to tie the Uchiha to their destiny. Only Tsunade was left brave enough to keep her family's name. They should have known better than to think it could be different with Obito.
The Will of Fire should have been theirs.
Fugaku received her as she entered the house with a soft apology. She was glad she had been able to warn Uruchi ahead of time. Itachi mentioned innocently that the fat woman with nary a fleck of red in her eyes had come by to set the table and wondered if he could play with her granddaughter, Izumi, if he had the chance.
"Another time dear." Itachi did not press. He was a brilliant child. Quiet, contemplative and thoughtful, free of the competitive fire most boys possessed at his age.
Her son had been born on a full moon. Too much water, the midwife complained after seeing him safely delivered, swaddled and red-faced from the pains of birth. Uchiha were fire.
She turned to her husband.
"I must pray."
A sudden knock to the door heralded the presence of Uchiha Gentarou. She felt his chakra seep through the wood and saw Usuda, stiff-backed, open the door with a curt answer.
"Good evening, Gentarou-sama."
"Usuda. Lady Grandmother requests Mikoto's presence."
Her gaze traveled to her husband and he nodded. She felt utterly resentful that she no longer was tired for seeking his permission even though she was his wife, not an invalid. Their clansmen sought her before the village doctors, even if it meant carrying their mangled limbs across their shoulders. Itachi murmured a short farewell, fingers knotting around the hem of her floral dress.
"Do not stay up too late."
"What a fine wife you make." Gentarou purred mockingly. She scalded her former teammate with a look.
"Speak your business Gentarou."
Gentarou eyed her husband with something close to lazy contempt.
"Your absence has not gone unnoticed and neither was the killing intent at Jounin Hatake's residence." He answered as he accompanied them to the community hall, filing the edge of his nails against the leather thimble of his thumb. "This isn't like the last time."
"I know my duties." She said coolly.
"Good." Despite his tone, Gentarou did not mean harm. He was one of the few who had voted against her retirement when her betrothal to Fugaku was announced. But the weapons and straps aside his Uchiha armor reminded her how long it had been since she'd last tasted battle, on the waning days of the Second Shinobi War.
It had not ended cleanly. No wars ended cleanly. In their retreat, Kiri razed the great forests of Konoha to the ground. They lost many kin.
The official story was that Obito's parents died during war. The father lost to battle, the mother to childbirth. There had been talk of Lady Grandmother formally adopting the child. But that was one thing even she, the mother of the Uchiha, could not turn back. House laws dictated that the mother must be Uchiha. She may have possessed the sharingan but Osen, Obito's mother, was not Uchiha-born and her tainted legacy carried to her son.
When he died, the clan had mourned him and searched for his body. Of course they did—they were not fools. But they could not find the body and the Inuzuka could not find the body.
It did not mean he was dead.
Lady Grandmother was an old woman. The wife of Uchiha Madara himself. It was she who spilt blood across stone to purge their clan of weakness. She was utterly merciless even to her granddaughter who had been nineteen years young. Mikoto bowed in respect to the formidable woman as Fugaku took his place at her left hand.
The old woman heard her story while her adopted son, Rikudo, shakily penned the words.
"I suppose blood won in the end." Lady Grandmother laughed, "Wouldn't ol' Mito be spinning in her grave right now if she could see?"
Mikoto said nothing. She did not have to. The Senju were a touchy subject for the old woman. She had lost everything in the founding, her family, her husband, her only daughter. She was soured through and through like a fermented turnip. Resented the village for what it was and what it could have been—a promise.
"The mangekyo." Uchiha Juuzo, fifth seat, said. "That side of the line had not produced talent since..."
"No," Komaki, sitting across from him, interrupted. "But it is not an impossibility. After all, the gods are fair." She concluded, laughing at a private joke.
"What was the boy thinking? Giving away his sharingan?" Voiced the sixth seat, somewhere behind her.
"He wasn't thinking at all." Replied the third.
"You observed it firsthand?" Lady Grandmother interrupted, ending the chatter.
"Yes honored grandmother."
Mikoto grasped a handful of smoke, flitting her fingers through the whorls. Like ember chasing the last lick of wood through the ashes, it drew a shape. She was loyal. The Uchiha were loyal; every Uchiha was loyal to the clan. But even Lady Grandmother could not predict what someone might do in the name of loyalty.
Light danced in her family's eyes. They bled color from the far edges of their black iris. With a strike of katon, she drew a pinwheel and Rikudo copied its shape in ink.
The sharingan was a tool. It granted the user perfect memory. The fallacy existed in the belief that the object in view was perfect. The end of Lady Grandmother's lips curled around her pipe.
"You are sure."
"Yes."
"Blades? Not fans?"
Contrary to popular belief, Madara was not the first to awaken the mangekyo though he was the most famous. The shape of an individual's sharingan was an indicator of its power. Madara's had been closed, fans, circling a period in the middle as a proof of divine favor—the black sun of when siblings Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi were joined. Izuna's had been open, three flat blades pointing in the three cardinal directions. Shisui's mangekyo had branched into a throwing star. Obito's had folded inward, closed, into a pattern of color known as 'fans'[2].
Very few children had been born since the end of the Second Shinobi war. Uchiha married young and after Madara's revolt, many well-bred girls had been given away to appease the Senju whose matriarch's ire had obliterated him off the ancestral tablets. Shisui, her son, Komaki's daughter and perhaps even Uruchi's grandson bore watching. All four had the accursed Senju blood flowing through their veins, stamped with her mark. They would be great but their loyalties would be called into question if their attention ever strayed towards the outsiders. They thought they'd thrown off Mito's spiteful curse when the Uzumaki died. Obito had been the firstborn, male, when she had sworn Madara would leave no heirs.
Uzumaki Mito had been right but she forgot. Madara's life was closely entwined with her own as though he had married Mito himself.
The smoke dissipated.
Mikoto was a direct-line descendant of Tejima and his wife Horin. Her husband, Fugaku, a second seat, was one of the few left in the clan who could name every ancestor to founding. But they could leave nothing for their son who would grow in a caged world fighting Senju wars for a Senju cause.
She decided. It was a mad gamble. Lives could be won and lost. Kushina's chosen could never be her own. But the clan agreed, he was fair. And no one liked Orochimaru. If she succeeded, she had the future Hokage's favor.
"Blades." She agreed mildly.
The matriarch puffed on her pipe of opium.
"Let Hatake keep the fire he's found. It'll burn out soon enough. But the other one, and his body. Find it. Bring it to me."
"At once, my lady."
+++++3+++++
Rin, Kakashi, and their teacher arrived at the Uchiha compound in style. The two guards at the front gate, dark-haired and dark-eyed, the subtle press of their armor visible under their flared shirts, laughing and shoving at each other for the spot of shade under the shadow, stilled when they approached. They had been expecting a ragtag cell of tired, bedraggled soldiers, not a clan noble flanked by two shinobi. Her face stretched into a grin under her forehead protector. In spite of his early protests, Kakashi wore his clan colors proudly. He flashed his summons demanding they let him through.
"She does not belong here." One of the Uchiha thumbed rudely, thrusting the scroll back in Kakashi's hands.
Rin did not react. She had expected this. The Uchiha couldn't touch the Yellow Flash or the son of the White Fang. But they could get to her. Like Kushina had warned, in their eyes, Nohara Rin was a nobody.
"I am allowed to bring protection." Kakashi replied.
The Uchiha made a highly unflattering noise at the back of his throat, unable to decide if he was insulted or amused.
"A chunin honor guard?"
"I bet she guards something alright."
So the Uchiha weren't immune to chauvinism. But they had given her the perfect opportunity to draw her scalpels, newly sharpened and gleaming in the sunlight.
"Please don't antagonize him." She said simply. Sweat soaked her back. It had been a narrow miss. The Uchiha hissed as he pulled the scalpel where it had dug deep into the doorway, close to his neck.
Minato sighed when the Uchiha backed away.
"Shall we?" Kakashi prompted.
With pinched mouths, the two Uchiha threw open the gates.
"Hatake-san, Namikaze-san, Nohara-san." A man greeted as soon as they stepped through. He tilted his head backwards, tracking the sun. Feathers bristled in his hair as he said, "you are late."
"We came as soon as we could."
The man's expression was cold. She could tell he was a person who expected orders to be carried out to the letter upon receipt. He had not expected them to be late; he probably had been waiting since the break of dawn when the hawk was sent with flowery calligraphy. "I hope you experienced no difficulties." The man said at last.
"None." Kakashi replied, a little wary because the man did not argue the point further. It had been a while for them both since they last spoke to strangers. They couldn't simply kidnap the man and torture him for information. That was barbaric. Inside Konoha, inside the walls, safe, war was a static thing counted by numbers of dead and lost limbs. To yield was to be killed and it took a moment for her to stop playing with the blades in her sleeves.
"My name is Uchiha Usuda." The man introduced himself. "I have come on Mikoto-sama's behalf. She apologizes for her absence and I have been instructed to facilitate your meeting with Lady Grandmother."
"Pardon me but, isn't Uchiha Fugaku the head of the Uchiha clan?" Minato asked hesitantly.
Usuda's answer was blunt.
"Uchiha Fugaku is the head of the outer house."
Rin bit her lips in confusion. She did not understand the social dynamics of the Uchiha clan but from what Usuda was saying, the Uchiha clan had their own counsel made up of the head of each family. A more accurate term for Uchiha Fugaku was an ambassador who represented clan interests to outsiders.
"So I will be speaking to Lady Grandmother." Kakashi concluded, bored.
"Yes." Usuda agreed. "She does not normally see outsiders but as you already know, these are extraordinary circumstances. The sharingan has never before been passed down to an outsider's possession." Once again, his gaze tracked the sun and she looked up as he looked up. She thought she saw shadows. "We must hurry. She dislikes being kept waiting."
+++++3+++++
Rin was fascinated by the glimpse into the Uchiha compound. Having a member of the four founding houses meant that most shinobi households and clans were reluctant to employ them for even the most menial, degrading, D-rank missions. Clan secrets trumped humiliation and Rin guessed she missed out on more than her share of politics when she was genin.
But her jaws dropped when she saw the carved wooden pieces mounted on tops of roofs. Idols dressed in gaudy shades of red, white and yellow. The three on top of the communal hall were even plated with real gold.
Konoha did not have an official religion. Rin's family prayed every year for good rains and pregnant rivers but nothing elaborate. Succession of refugees had made for different wares and colorful New Years. And apparently, Uchiha were pagans.
"Is this allowed?" She asked timidly, tugging on her teacher's sleeve.
"They're just decorations." Minato-sensei assured her. "No harm meant."
She nodded. If her teacher thought it was alright, it must be alright. But she could not be sure that the hollowed eyes held now powers as she ducked under the awning, unable to look at the rows and rows of Uchiha who had gathered to spectate.
"This is where I leave you." Usuda said in a low voice. "Hatake-sama, an advice, if I may."
From where she was standing, she only saw the languid slope of her teammate's neck. She couldn't see his face.
"Do not reveal the mangekyo."
Had she imagined it? Minato said nothing. Kakashi stepped forward as the doors swung open.
Usuda knelt at their feet.
"Lord Hatake has arrived."
Rin hurriedly kicked her shoes off. She thought, like the outside, the Uchiha were drowning themselves in opulence and color. But the Uchiha was a warrior clan. It took her a moment to adjust to the candlelit dark. The inside of the communal hall was minimalist. Cold. The austere wooden pillars surprised her as much as they would have had they been made of solid gold.
Under the solemn faces of their carved idols, the Uchiha were waiting for them. They sat in two rows, one down the left and the other to the right. She recognized Mikoto who was fourth seat down from the right. At the center, furthest from the door, sat an old woman with a fan folded across her lap. A man leaned to bring her pipe to her lips and she sucked, poisoning the air like a fat toad.
"Jounin Hatake—" started a man five seats down from the old woman.
"Hatake Kakashi." Her teammate corrected.
Rin swallowed a nervous giggle.
"We apologize for the lateness of our arrival. Your summons were... unexpected." Minato continued smoothly.
Lady Grandmother frowned at Kakashi.
"Do you know why I have summoned you?"
"I can hazard a guess." Kakashi said flippantly, hooking a thumb under his forehead protector. His sharingan eye glared like Mars in summer and the gathered Uchiha drew together, their eyes flickering red one by one by one. The only one who did not was a little boy who sat closest to them at the end of the line, his back a straight spear, cold hands wringing white in his sleeves.
She realized he could only be Shisui. The prodigy. Obito's cousin. The second inheritor of her teammate's will. He was young.
"You should have come to us immediately." Reprimanded a man six seats down to the left. "Why have you kept this a secret?"
Kakashi shrugged. She felt his chakra shake and spill like a miniature storm cloud, shocking his hair to silver brightness. Minato winced. The Uchiha stared like wolves.
"The secret is not mine to tell."
"The sharingan is not yours to keep."
Lady Grandmother was ancient. The smoke from her pipe could not hide what she was. She was a goddess of her domain. The marble centerpiece to the pagan idols the Uchiha worshiped.
"Do you know why the Uchiha are forbidden from setting foot outside these walls?[3] It is because we are feared. How many do you think wish to take our power for their own? Yet you flaunt it freely. You bring us destruction. You bring us death."
Kakashi slammed his forehead protector down. "Nobody knows." He insisted fiercely. She knew for a fact he had killed everyone else who had dared to catch glimpse of Obito's gift. "Nobody has to know."
"For now." A woman remarked smugly.
"I can bring him back."
She stopped breathing. Felt the silence spread like butter across a hot pan. This had not been agreed upon and she couldn't hiss and pinch Kakashi in the side like she usually did whenever he or Obito, always Obito because she'd loved Kakashi and Obito loved her, was attuned to her, body tilted as though he was facing the sun, put a foot in his mouth.
The Uchiha took their measure with their shockingly red eyes. The candles flickered through no fault of their own. Drops of hot wax melted down the thick stalks and fused with the wood.
"Tell me child." The old woman asked. "How will you do that?"
"I have his eyes." Kakashi replied. "We know he... he was alive. He survived. He's likely in enemy hands. I will crush them."
"You were not as nearly as passionate about your friendships before." Uchiha Mikoto artlessly observed.
"If we allow it, will you return the eye?" A man questioned from her opposite. She guessed that he was Uchiha Fugaku.
"The eye belongs to Obito." Kakashi insisted.
"Obito was Uchiha; his eyes belong to his family." The man on the sixth seat argued.
"Obito was an orphan was he not?" Her teammate was as quick with words as he was with swords. Rin stifled a sigh. Her insides twisted in knots. She didn't know whether to be afraid or exasperated. At this rate, she would need an open heart surgery to get everything sorted out.
Minato gave her a wink and she discreetly rolled her eyes away from the ember-glow of the Uchiha. "He left no will save this. He left it to me. Your family has no right."
"Then why ask?" Asked the woman five seats down.
"Formality. I take this to court. You lose. You knew he was alive."
Rin flinched. Kakashi was not a people person. She knew that. Everyone knew that. But she did not expect him to be so blunt about it. She snuck another furtive look at her teacher but he said nothing. Uchiha Mikoto said nothing. The woman had warned Kakashi not to reveal the mangekyo but why? She racked her brains for even a hint of treachery. Nobility be damned, she was not about to lose another friend.
"Obito pledged his life to protect the village. He was my chunin."
"Such antiquated laws should be abolished." Muttered the man on the sixth seat.
"Then bring it up in the next council meeting." Kakashi snapped. "You were happy enough when Konoha took him off your hands."
"Kakashi..." Minato began.
"Insolence." Lady Grandmother sighed. "Do you even know the disaster you possess? Know that Obito's bloodline was a forfeit. It was only by the grace of god the mangekyo did not take possession of him while he was alive."
"But he was alive. You abandoned him."
"As did you."
The fan opened and vanished the smoke. Kakashi's voice fell into a hush.
"I failed him." He acknowledged. Propriety or not, Rin moved to sit beside him. She bumped his shoulder and felt him push back in gratitude. "I will not fail him again."
"This is all academic."
"This sets the wrong precedent."
"We deny your motion."
Kakashi jerked his head up when a man spoke. He sat next to Lady Grandmother, holding a pipe in one hand and a bag of opium in another. "But we are not cruel. You have suffered enough. The eye is yours. But Uchiha Obito belongs to us."
She held her tongue.
And bit down until it bled into her mouth.
+++++3+++++
Usuda was waiting outside.
Rin had not realized so much time had passed. She blinked several times, chasing the dark spots from her eyes. Beside her, Minato attempted to share tender platitudes and it was all she could do from holding her ears shut and scream in frustration.
"Shisui-sama." Usuda bowed when the doors opened behind her, followed by a black silhouette of a boy who'd sat near them inside. For a wild moment, she saw his gritted teeth and thought of Obito fumbling with excuses for being late.
"Uchiha Shisui."
The name was like a slap to her face. She took a step back, shaken, at the face soft with youth and a head full of black curls.
"Aye," the boy grunted. "You took my cousin's eye."
"You want it back?" Kakashi asked casually, willing to fight for it—ready to fight for it. Minato rested his hand on her teammate's shoulder, a thumb threatening to scrape the nerve point next to his pulse. Kakashi crossed his arms and scowled.
"Kakashi." Minato chided. "Be nice."
"It's fine." Shisui shrugged, giving their blond teacher an odd look. "I don't want the eye. He gave it to you."
"Is there something we can help you with?" Rin asked when it became clear nobody else would.
"We're going to burn Obito's stuff today." Usuda gasped and was duly ignored. "I thought you might want some of his things."
"Oh." Because the Uchiha didn't want Obito to come back all twisted and evil and the confession impressed upon her just how much the Uchiha had known. "Okay." She agreed, careful not to look at Kakashi or their teacher. "Thank you."
+++++3+++++
Obito's house sat empty, south-facing, near the edge of the property where a stone wall divided the Uchiha from the rest of the village. Rin spied the scuff marks on the doorstep, the uneven polish of a floor that had been painted over one too many times. In the yard, a training dummy grinned cheerily despite its broken neck. And she thought, Obito was here. Obito had been here.
The rooms were small, the staircase narrow as though the house remembered its occupant numbered one. Usuda hesitated in the doorway, looking for words to say, trying to stop them before he was quelled by the weight of a ten-year-old's glare. The man grudgingly explained that the house had once belonged to Obito's late father. He had shared it with his brother before they were married off. The house had somehow fallen into Obito's possession and Shisui's. Shisui was Obito's closest blood relative.
Rin noticed how carefully Usuda parsed words and knew that the omitted names were not mistakes. Like a broody hen, he clucked that the clan had been too soft on Obito. Obito should have never been sent to the Academy.
Her stomach flopped. She couldn't imagine her team without Obito. Even now, he was what held the team together in their shared grief. Rin hurried up the stairs after Kakashi.
Tracks of dust motes danced wreathed in golden flames. She pushed into the light, fearful and eager that she might see his face. But she didn't. It was warm inside. As though he had never left. In the three months they had been apart, his memories had grown to fill an entire room and she teared up, blaming the dust.
Things came to head when she saw the dirty bandages unrolled at the foot of the bed. Anyone else would have cut it off with a pair of scissors. Obito had taken the time to unspool the scratchy threads and his devotion hurt. He was dead and his actions hurt.
Kakashi stood unmoved as she sniffled and she thought angrily—he told you to take care of me. Me Kakashi, dammit.
She hastily dabbed her eyes on her sleeve, feeling the cotton catch her eyelashes.
"Do your parents know you've called us here?" Kakashi asked dully.
Shisui answered, "My parents are dead. Help yourself."
"Are you sure?" She asked uncertainly.
The boy pinned her with a flat look. "No. I keep thinking that he's going to come back and wonder where his things are. Then he'll be mad at me because I gave everything away."
"Oh um," She wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Sorry." She finished lamely.
Hastily changing the subject, she turned to Kakashi with an affected cheer. "So, do you want anything?"
"No."
"Oh."
Kakashi walked towards the window. Traced the frames and pushed the window open. The evening air smelled wrong.
"They're not locked. I thought..." He stopped when he saw Minato and Usuda.
"This was his room." Usuda announced unnecessarily. The man seemed unhappy but he did not dare raise his voice against Shisui. She was starting to learn blood meant everything in a clan. Turning her gaze, she saw Shisui stare back at her with his pitch black eyes. Her question tripped on her tongue and became stuck between her teeth.
Obito's walls were filled with pictures, not posters and flyers and other war paraphernalia of a child soldier, but crisp, framed photographs like he had lead a second life through the lens. Some of it was of their year mates, out of focus, out of context, silly, hidden behind the shadow of his thumb. Others were of them, a little shorter, younger. Maybe even happier.
Minato flipped through the volumes on the shelf, even the one labeled 'do not open' and said, "I think Kushina might appreciate these. Did you guys find what you were looking for?"
Yes. It sat heavy in her pockets. But she took the framed photo off Obito's desk anyway.
Kakashi was staring.
+++++3+++++
Kushina threw open her door and dragged her inside.
"Thank god you're here—you have to stop them."
"Stop what?" She asked, bewildered as her feet slid across the wood.
She heard, "They won't be expecting it." From Kakashi. "They'll be too busy defending the borders now that Kumo's reclaimed Kusa. Sensei please, let me do this."
"No."
There were new additions adorning the hallway. Pictures Obito took. Kushina had lovingly stuck them inside frames that would hide the blurry edge of a thumb and she smiled helplessly as a curtain of red hair fell into her eyes and she heard her teammates argue away from her, without her.
"But why?" Kakashi demanded.
"Because the war will end."
It meant nothing to them, to her, because war was familiar. There was no trust when the next stranger could be an enemy ninja in disguise. They were raised to fight; they couldn't remember a world without conflict.
"Obito is there." Kakashi barked. "He's been there for months and we didn't even, sensei, please."
"He's dead Kakashi. His sacrifice will mean nothing if you do this."
The finality of their teacher's decision struck Rin with an awful pity. She pushed herself away from Kushina and watched as Kakashi and Minato wrapped up their conversation. She smiled weakly when they noticed her presence but her heart wasn't in it. Kakashi turned to her with the same look he had when they returned down one man, an eye burning in his socket, and their friend hastily buried under mounds of foreign earth. It was a look that said help me.
She shrank back. What was she even supposed to say? Kakashi was the team leader. Kakashi was the killer. She picked up the broken pieces after. If he didn't know what to do, how did she?
"We know the area sensei." She tried. "We'll be careful."
Minato shook his head. "Kannabi Bridge is at the heart of the enemy territory."
"We are ninja." It was their job.
"I know. But not this. I can't allow you to do this."
"Because you're a kage-elect." Kakashi said in defeat.
Minato did not deny it.
Rin was glad for her teacher. She really was. But at the same time, she was hurt. Why hadn't he said anything? Why didn't they tell her anything?
"Kakashi, it's more complic—"
Her teammate shook his head.
"Whatever. I don't want to hear it. We're done here."
+++++3+++++
After Kakashi left, they had dinner. It was a mostly silent affair. Only Minato talked while Rin stewed in a crisis of faith and her place in the world. She was sorry she'd ever gotten out of bed that morning. Yesterday morning. Kushina had been right and maybe her great-grandmother was right too.
Rin cheered herself with the thought it was certainly too late for anyone to be up. Her parents were merchants. They got up with the rooster's crow and they liked it.
Kakashi suddenly landed in front of her.
Once she'd exhausted her store of expletives, learned at her great-grandmother's knee while minding the market stands, she browbeat her teammate into submission.
"Where the hell have you been?!"
"I can't talk long." Kakashi stammered. "I came to say goodbye."
"You what?"
"I'm going after him."
The day was only getting worse.
"Ka-ka-shi." She pronounced, dragging him close. "Are you out of your mind?!"
"Keep it down." He hissed. "This is the only chance I have."
"The only chance—" she stopped. "You're serious. Of course you are. Did you even hear what Minato-sensei said?"
"Did you?" Kakashi shot back. "It's not like we haven't done this before."
"Except we don't have permission." Nothing made sense anymore. Kakashi was going against orders. He wasn't supposed to change. It would mean that she had to change and she wasn't sure if she was.
Ready.
"He's waited long enough."
"Think Kakashi. You'll have no reinforcements. No help." She looked over his uniform, a change from the form-fitting clothes and leather. Hilariously empty-handed like he was going to cook, Kakashi had on occasion burnt water, or live on soldier pills.
"I don't care."
"It's like talking to a brick wall." She despaired. "Am I the only one who thinks we've lost the entire plot?" Kakashi blinked back at her, unimpressed. "Alright, you're really going to do this."
"Yes."
"And I have to stop you because this is stupid."
"You don't agree." And damn him if he wasn't giving her the eyes again. He hadn't cared before he died and made him promise on his grave that he would take care of her. She wished she was smart. Just so she could get a glimpse of the mind of a genius Kakashi supposedly had.
"That's not what I said—stop putting words in my mouth."
"I'm going to bring him home." He swore.
"Minato said, the war is ending."
Kakashi laughed, brittle-edged. And it was providence as he said the words, "The war will never end. The Iwa hate us. They will never let him go."
"You make it sound like he's alive." She said weakly. "Kakashi, please, wait one more day. He will understand."
"I can't." Kakashi's voice cracked into a thousand pieces. Her teammate wasn't even looking at her anymore. He never saw her.
He leaned forward, close enough to kiss.
His eyes were open.
[1] Uchiha are matrilineal and count their kin through the mother's side of the family. Sharingan users born to non-Uchiha mothers may be adopted into a family as servants or even branch members if they prove to be powerful enough.
[2] This is a little difficult to explain without the use of visual aids. If there is no red in the blades/commas of the mangekyo, it is called 'blades'. If there is red in the blades/commas of the mangekyo, it is called a 'fan'. The patterns are not inherited and are unique to each individual.
For simplicity's sake, example of blades include: Uchiha Shin, Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Shisui, Uchiha Izuna
Examples of fans include: Uchiha Obito, Uchiha Madara
Inverted color schemes like Uchiha Sasuke's mangekyo and several of the anime-only characters are also called fans.
The Uchiha believe that the pattern of a mangekyo can foresee the future.
[3] Probably mentioned before but I'll say it again because this is basically my excuse to shove all the headcanons I have about the Uchiha into one fic.
The Uchiha are uncommon in the anime and manga even before the massacre. Unlike the Hyuuga, the other major clan with a bloodline ability, they do not use cursed seals to control access to their cadet clan. Either the Uchiha:
a. Were reasonably confident none of them would ever end up in the frontlines. The Uchiha seem to keep mostly to the village in their police work and do not take active roles during war. The only exception to this is Uchiha Kagami and Uchiha Obito.
b. Were confident that those who did end up in the frontlines would never activate the sharingan vs. strong enough they'd get out of whatever mess they ended up.
c. Did use some kind of a seal to destroy the body upon death.
