Kakashi was never formally briefed on what happened. Hell, none of them were.

They were summoned in the middle of the night and told to head straight to the Uchiha compound. Kakashi, given his surveillance of the clan's activities during the past few months, figured it had something to do with the coup the Uchiha were planning. While there had been no obvious signs that the clan was moving forward with their plan any time soon, Kakashi knew that, in reality, the Uchiha could mobilize at any moment. The clan's greatest assets were their secrecy and stealth, a fact that Danzo had made sure to impress upon all of the ANBU when they began monitoring the clan. The Uchiha were dangerous, every single one of them. And no matter how ordinary a given day seemed, the ANBU must never let their guard down. The fate of the village depended on it.

So, Kakashi and the others dutifully made their way to the outskirts of the village that night, towards the Uchiha compound. Kakashi had briefed his team beforehand sparingly, making sure they were prepared to use any means necessary to bring a stop to the coup. The Uchiha could not be allowed to succeed under any circumstance, and if violence was necessary to bring about that end, then as ANBU they were obligated to carry it out.

Even in hindsight, Kakashi could never have imagined that the violence preceded their arrival entirely.

Kakashi remembered the eerie silence that encased the compound as dozens of masked ANBU broke through the tree line and positioned themselves on the roofs. The compound was completely dark; not even a single house light shone through the windows. Kakashi had felt his heart drop, had thought that the Uchiha had somehow predicted their arrival and that the ANBU were about to be on the receiving end of the clan's attack. ANBU or not, the Uchiha were formidable opponents, and Kakashi was mostly dreading having the entire clan's strength unleashed against him. He lifted his hand in the air, motioning his team to hold until he had assessed the situation.

The ANBU stood silent and sentinel. Kakashi's eyes canvassed the compound, his Sharingan burning painfully. He saw nothing — no movement, no signatures.

"Is it genjutsu?" Kakashi heard a quiet voice crackle over his radio. He shook his head. The Sharingan would have been able to see through the illusion the second he stepped into it. Even if he was not skilled enough to break out of it, Kakashi should have at least been aware that he was under one.

He shifted, his legs starting to burn from crouching so long. It made no sense. Where was everyone?

A small gasp rang out over the radio. "The streets, the streets, holy shit —" Kakashi's eyes shot down to the ground in alarm. He grabbed a kunai from his holster, his muscles tending as he prepared to bound down and fight whatever hidden enemy awaited him.

He saw nothing.

Squinting, Kakashi tried to make out anything in the darkness. If there was someone there, he should've been able to see —

He shifted and saw the dim moonlight glint off a pair of eyes.

There. Kakashi repositioned his hand in the air and threw it down harshly, motioning for the ANBU to descend upon the compound. They couldn't be caught off guard here — they'd have to attack first, then deal with the fallout. The Hokage wouldn't have mobilized them if it wasn't urgent, so Kakashi felt rather secure in his evaluation as he lunged from the roof and aimed his kunai at the pair of eyes. Kakashi felt himself grimace in morbid satisfaction as the weapon sunk through the soft flesh of the right socket. He used all his strength to bury the knife deep into the Uchiha's severed head, knowing that what he was doing was absolutely necessary.

It took Kakashi a moment to register the horrifying nature of the situation. He was alone on the street, none of the ANBU having followed his order to come down. The head's dull left eye stared past him. Her bangs stuck to her forehead in a bloody, grimy mess, the right side of her skull almost entirely crushed from the ferocity of Kakashi's attack. Kakashi felt his body begin to tremble as he looked down at the piece of spine that protruded from her neck. He glanced over to see that her body was lying almost a meter away.

The girl couldn't have been more than ten years old.

Kakashi stood up in a rush, forgetting himself entirely and looking around in a panic. The faces of mangled bodies stared up at him. It felt like they were daring him to do something, anything.

The breath left Kakashi's lungs in a painful gasp. Dead, he realized numbly. Dead, dead, all of them dead. The fact that he'd been willing to bring extraordinary violence upon these people only moments before felt irrelevant. This was not how this was supposed to go — the Uchiha weren't meant to be slaughtered. The ANBU were only meant to protect the village, they were only trying to defend their home, to make sure — the Uchiha were going to put the entire country at risk, they were going to upend the entire order of the village and for what, for — the Hokage ordered them to, had told them to come here and —

Kakashi couldn't focus on anything around him, couldn't get enough air into his lungs at all. Visions of his father's dead, glassy eyes flashed before him; the warm, sticky feeling of Rin's blood welled in between his fingers; the sick crunch of Obito's bones deafened him.

A harsh voice broke through his spiraling thoughts. "Awful, isn't it?" Kakashi whipped around. The Third Hokage stood in the middle of the shadowed street, twirling his cane. Kakashi opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The Hokage looked up in vague disinterest, then motioned for the rest of the ANBU to gather around him.

Dozens of bodies blurred before Kakashi's eyes as they landed on the ground. Kakashi felt like he was going to be sick.

The Hokage's voice boomed in the silence of the compound. "The incident is currently under investigation, but the preliminary inspection suggests that Itachi Uchiha was behind this massacre. His current whereabouts are unknown." Kakashi's head pounded. He tried desperately to assign a face to the name, going through the mental profiles he'd made of all the Uchiha he'd been assigned to watch. Itachi, Itachi, Itachi. The boy genius. The Uchiha prodigy.

All he could see was the child's severed head and the unfocused stare of her gray eye.

Danzo continued unerringly. "You are to gather all the bodies and search for any survivors. Anyone who is a known Sharingan user is to be marked and set aside. Anyone whose status regarding the Sharingan is unknown is to be marked and set aside. The Sharingan is a precious resource of the village, and it is of the utmost importance that the eye's secrets are kept. Medics will be brought in to analyze the bodies upon the completion of your task —" Kakashi felt himself losing focus. He struggled to keep track of Danzo's words, struggled to make sense of anything that was happening around him.

When Danzo dismissed them all, Kakashi started to make his way down the street. His Sharingan was spinning rapidly, making his entire body feel feverish. Kakashi didn't know how long or how far he walked. The only thing he remembered was stopping in front of the doors of a house.

A dim, steady chakra signature flickered inside.

• • •

They only found one survivor: a young boy named Sasuke. He was Itachi's younger brother. Kakashi was apparently the one who found him, though he barely remembered happening upon the child. The boy was determined to be in critical condition and was immediately brought to an undisclosed location to be treated.

The events of that night came to the ANBU squad in bits and pieces, but none of them ever got the full story. What happened varied wildly from source to source, people throwing around wild accusations that no one could quite determine the validity of. The only thing that seemed certain was that Itachi had been behind the whole thing.

No one knew where Itachi was now. Rumor had it he'd joined an outlaw group called the Akatsuki. Kakashi wasn't sure whether he believed that, but, in the end, it wasn't his business anymore. The ANBU had been ordered to conduct no further investigation regarding the Uchiha incident. So, Kakashi had decided to mind his own business and try his best to forget about it, regardless of how unhinged he had become because of it.

Most of the other ANBU did the same, but a few couldn't go forward without finding out more answers. Aoi, in particular, could hardly seem to think about anything else. He brought the matter up incessantly, analyzing the incident from every angle in a desperate attempt to make sense of it.

Kakashi had been on the receiving end of only one of Aoi's rants. Kakashi had tried his best to avoid the man, but Aoi was persistent in his attempt to make sure every ANBU on the squad had heard his conspiracies at least once. Hence how he'd ended up cornered in the locker room one early, Monday morning.

"It just doesn't make sense," Aoi complained, lounging against the wall. "Why would Itachi kill the entire clan? And out of nowhere, too? I mean, we were watching these people for months, how did none of us see this coming —"

"I don't know, Aoi, and I really don't care," Kakashi muttered, grabbing his uniform from his locker as fast as he could so he could change and leave. He had a meeting with the Hokage in fifteen minutes, and he'd be damned if he was late because Aoi wanted to ramble like a madman.

Aoi continued to talk, either not hearing Kakashi or choosing to ignore him. "But really, how could one kid kill the entire Uchiha clan? I get that he was a genius and all, but I just don't see how it's possible for one single person to do that. He had to have had help, right? There had to be at least one other person involved, it just doesn't make sense any other way. I took a look at the bodies while we were collecting them and the way each person was killed varies significantly. Like, it doesn't look like one person did it all. I mean, I get that he was rushed and couldn't kill them all exactly the same way, but some of these people were ruthlessly slaughtered while others were attacked in very subtle ways. I just don't see — "

"Aoi." Kakashi leveled a glare at the man. "I'm done talking about this. It's none of our business anymore, so drop it." Aoi scoffed.

"But aren't you curious — " Kakashi slammed his locker shut and stalked out of the room.

"No."

• • •

"Thank you for joining me today, Kakashi," Danzo began, sitting back in his chair. Kakashi nodded, taking his mask off as a sign of respect to the man.

"It's my pleasure, Lord Third."

Danzo nodded, twirling his cane lazily. "Yes, yes, of course. Now, I surely don't want to waste a great deal of your time, so I'll get right to the point. I wanted to ask your opinion on your comrades."

Kakashi kept his face carefully composed. "My comrades?"

"Yes, yes, just one in particular, actually. I believe I was told his name is Aoi."

Unbidden, a chill ran up Kakashi's spine. "He's a fine ninja. He completes his missions in a timely fashion, never exceeding the ordered — "

"Do you find that he is too involved in his assignments?" Kakashi blinked.

"Sir?"

Danzo sighed, seeming annoyed at having to repeat himself. "Do you find that he takes too much of a personal interest in the missions he partakes in?"

Kakashi fought the urge to fidget, his hand growing clammy against the smooth coldness of his mask.

"Well, sir, he may be more inclined to ask questions than the average ANBU, but I assure you —"

Danzo held up a hand, giving Kakashi an unpleasant smile. "Thank you, Kakashi, that's all I needed to know. You are dismissed." Kakashi, unsure of what else to do, returned the mask to his face and left the office.

Eight days later, Aoi set out on a mission and never came back. He was decapitated, if the reports were to be believed. Kakashi's resignation from ANBU a few weeks later was, of course, entirely unrelated.