The clearing was filled with the sounds of chirping birds. Kakashi's hand was holding lightning itself, and he was aiming it straight for Asuma.

Asuma dropped the genjutsu instantly. "Kakashi!" He cried. "It's me! Stop!"

For a fraction of a second, Kakashi hesitated, trying to register what was going on, trying to stop and think ⎼ but the Chidori was already in motion, propelled by bloodlust and vengeance for his teammates. Memories of Rin flashed through his mind, when she jumped in front of his Lightning Blade and he couldn't stop it. Now, the same was happening, and he couldn't stop it. He was going to kill his friend.

Kakashi thought, Why do I fuck everything up? And then the Chidori connected.

The tree trunk shattered, exploding into thousands of splinters, a hole larger than Kakashi himself left gaping in the wood, lightning causing the large tree to shake and tremble. The burnt bark sizzled.

The Chidori died from his palm, and Kakashi dropped to his knees, dazed. He looked at his hand.

There was no blood.

How? He had struck right through Asuma… hadn't he?

"Asuma!" Rin cried.

Wait, Rin?

Kakashi numbly turned his head. And there was Rin, running towards Asuma. Obito and Kurenai were by her side, and Gai was rushing over from the other side of the clearing. He didn't understand. Rin and Obito were dead. Asuma was dead. Gai and Kurenai weren't even here.

"Kakashi."

Minato set a heavy hand on Kakashi's shoulder, and he blankly stared up at his sensei, who looked troubled. When had Minato-sensei gotten here?

Teacher and student locked eyes, and Minato startled, before peering closer at Kakashi's left eye. "Kakashi, what in Kami's name⎼?" His sensei took a better look at him then, and decided that his questions were better off for a later time. The Namikaze sighed, straightened, and whirled around, crossing his arms. Kakashi didn't move.

"You all have some explaining to do!" He demanded. "You're lucky I got here when I did. Asuma, Kakashi could have killed you!"

Asuma looked at the floor. Kakashi didn't notice.

"And Rin, Obito, why are you covered in blood? Fake blood, I might add. What was all this about?"

"I⎼I promise we'll explain, Sensei," Rin stammered, looking past Minato. "But, Kakashi⎼ he, he doesn't look so…"

Obito shifted to the side, trying to get a better look at his teammate. "Bakakashi?" He tried hesitantly. "Listen, we weren't trying to be mean, we just thought that…" Obito stopped suddenly when Kakashi turned to look at him.

The shadow of a Sharingan spun lazily in his left eye, which was filled with tears.

"K-Kakashi?"

The Hatake pushed himself to his feet. He looked like a dead man walking, and the faint image of the Sharingan circling in his eye made him look even more ghastly. It was only the tears threatening to fall that kept him looking human. "Stay away from me," he croaked.

"Kakashi, wait⎼" Rin stepped forward, and Kakashi took a step back. Everyone had their eyes on him, and it was too much. Everything was simply too much.

Kakashi vanished, and Minato turned to look at the rest of the Genin.

"Sensei!" Obito cried. "Aren't you going to go after him? He⎼"

"He's like that because of you, you know," Minato replied sternly, and all their faces fell. The Jonin sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm going to go after him and make sure he's okay. But you guys aren't off the hook, either. I expect all of you to be at my house for dinner tonight. Understand?"

The children shuffled their feet, finding the grassy, bloody floor to be much more interesting to look at. "Yes, Sensei," they all murmured.

"Good. Clean up, and stay out of trouble."

Minato vanished, and Kakashi's friends looked at each other, slowly coming to terms with the gravity of the situation. They had messed up, big time. And they all had a feeling that a simple "sorry" wasn't going to be good enough to get them out of the grave they dug.

へのへのもへじ

Dinner had never been so tense.

"Alright." Minato folded his hands in front of him, his empty plate pushed to the side for now. "Who's going to start?"

The Genin shared guilty glances. Rin spoke up first.

"Um, Sensei, will you tell us how Kakashi is, first?" She asked shyly, but clearly concerned for her teammate.

Minato sighed, looking away for a moment. "I can't do that," he admitted. "I couldn't find him."

"You couldn't find him?!" Obito exclaimed, standing up so quickly his chair screeched as it dragged across the floor. "Sensei! You're the Yellow Flash! I know Kakashi is a prodigy, but how could you not find him?"

"Obito, it's not that simple," Minato explained calmly. "Kakashi is practically a Jonin. He has the skill-level for it, and he got a head start. He knows how to suppress his chakra signature to almost nothing, and he has his pick of the whole village for a hiding spot. If I had longer, I'm sure I could have found him, but I only had a few hours before I had to come here to meet with you guys."

Rin spoke quietly. "He doesn't want to be found."

Minato sighed. "Yes, that's the most likely…"

"And we made him feel like that," she finished in a whisper. Silence reigned in the room. Obito quietly took his seat.

Their sensei continued. "That's why I need you all to tell me what was going on. I didn't see the whole thing, and if I can get a big picture it'll help me when I talk to Kakashi."

"It's my fault, Sensei," Rin began. "I'm the one who came up with the idea."

"Don't blame yourself, Rin," Kurenai said softly. "We all agreed to it and participated equally. We're all to blame."

Gai slammed his fist on the table. It banged loudly, rattling some of the dishes. "Kurenai is right!" He exclaimed. "We were doing what we thought was best for my dear rival, but we were mistaken! We did not think of how our plan could have gone wrong, and that is on all of us."

Minato raised a hand to get the Genin to settle down. "Please, someone, tell me what the plan was."

"You should know our reasoning first, Sensei," said Rin. "Lately, Kakashi's been…"

"Bakakashi has been weird!" Obito finished for her. His classmates nodded quietly in agreement. "He isn't acting right. I know you see it, too, Sensei, and we wanted to help."

Rin continued. "Obito and I tried to take Kakashi out for barbeque, to talk to him about it, but he – he got this sad look in his eyes, all of a sudden, and he skipped out. That's when Asuma, Gai, and Kurenai got involved."

"Rin and Obito explained the situation," Kurenai said. "We all wanted to help Kakashi. So at first we tried talking to him. We tag-teamed or went alone, just trying to get him to open up, but he always managed to come up with an excuse and disappear before we could really talk to him."

"Thing is, he was acting just fine," Asuma murmured. "Or, I think he thinks he was acting fine. But that's the thing: we could all tell he was acting. And you know something's gotta be wrong for Kakashi to have so many off-days."

The other Genin were mumbling their agreement when Gai shouted over them all. "And so we resorted to Plan H!"

"Idiot," Obito scoffed. "It was Plan G, not Plan H. We never got to Plan H."

Minato leaned forward on his elbows, eyeing the students. "And Plan G was what went down in the Forest of Death?"

"Hai," they replied.

"Now, what kind of plan resulted in Rin and Obito playing dead, Gai and Kurenai hiding in the trees, and Kakashi about to kill Asuma, disguised as some sort of rogue nin?"

"Well, Sensei," Rin started, "I was trying to think of a better way to get through to Kakashi that we all cared about him, and clearly trying to talk to him wasn't working. That's when I realized that he only takes missions so seriously. I know he cares about us, Sensei, I just know it, even if he has trouble showing it. So, I thought that, maybe, if we could show him how much he would do for us if we were on a mission gone wrong, well, we could tell him that we want to do the same for him, even when we're not on a mission."

Minato was silent for a long time. The children shifted nervously in their seats, exchanging glances. A long, drawn out sigh from the Jonin brought their gazes back to him.

"I can understand your intentions. But you need to consider all possible aspects of a plan before you set it into motion," the Namikaze explained. "Kakashi is an excellent ninja. You all know this." They nodded. "And you know he cares about his teammates, even if he doesn't show it." Another round of nods. "And you all know that he already lost someone very close to him."

"His father…" Obito murmured.

"Yes. Now, I know Hatake Sakumo was not KIA, but Kakashi lost him all the same, and no matter what he says, that's going to affect him in ways we can't see."

"I…" Rin twisted her napkin anxiously in her fingers. "I never thought about that."

Minato offered her a small, sad smile. "With all this in mind, now how do you think Kakashi is going to react if an enemy ninja is inside Konoha and has just killed his two teammates?"

Once more, the Genin were deathly silent as the information sunk in and processed. Finally, Obito moaned, slamming his head on the edge of the table. "We messed up," he breathed. "We really, really messed up."

Suddenly, Gai jumped up in alarm, startling everyone else at the table. "We must find Kakashi!" He exclaimed. "I cannot rest easy knowing my actions could have affected him so negatively!"

"Gai, we wouldn't even know where to start looking," Kurenai said. Gai sagged.

"The Memorial Stone."

Every eye turned to Asuma.

"I've seen him there, lately," the Sarutobi said. "He just stands there like a statue."

"Or the Hatake compound!" Gai added, renewed with vigor. "I've found him there a few times."

Minato shook his head. "I've already checked the compound and his apartment, as well as the training grounds, the Forest of Death, and anywhere else around the village I could think of. But I haven't looked at the Memorial Stone. Asuma, you said you've seen Kakashi there?"

"Uh-huh." Asuma nodded. Minato scratched at his head in wonder.

"Now why would he be there? His father's name isn't on that stone, and as far as I'm aware, there's no one else that Kakashi's lost."

"Um." Obito stole the focus in the room. "Maybe… maybe he's there because he doesn't… want anyone else's name to go on it?" He suggested quietly. "We… we probably gave him a really big scare today. And Kakashi likes to overthink, a lot."

"That's not a bad idea," Minato agreed. "It is late, though, and it's been a long day. I want everyone here to go get a good night's rest, and we'll find Kakashi in the–"

"No!" Rin snapped. Realizing her actions, she blushed, and repeated herself more calmly. "I-I'm sorry, Sensei, but no. Gai's right. I won't be able to get any sleep with this on my conscience. I need to make it right."

"Me too." Obito nodded. Kurenai and Asuma also agreed.

"I suppose that settles it, then." Minato stood, and the children stood with him. "We find Kakashi tonight. I want all of you to split up into different sectors of the village and search. If you do find him, I want you–" Minato gave each of them small, thin scrolls. "–to send your chakra into these. It'll let me, and everyone else, know where you are. But, remember, we're not trying to all gang up on Kakashi at once. It'll be lucky if he talks to just one of us. So if someone sends the signal, the rest of you go home. Understand?"

"Hai!"

"Then let's head out."

へのへのもへじ

The moon was high in the sky, and no one had given word that they had found Kakashi, not even Minato. Eventually, they all gathered together at the training grounds and confirmed that Kakashi was gone without a trace. Every square inch of Konoha had been searched, including the Memorial Stone and the Hatake compound, and nothing even slightly indicated that Kakashi had been there. With this knowledge heavy on his mind, Minato reluctantly dismissed them for the night. Rin and Obito lingered behind with their sensei as the other Genin trudged home, defeated.

"Sensei…" Rin held unshed tears in her eyes. "Do you think Kakashi is okay?"

Minato released a long, heavy sigh. "Honestly, Rin, I don't know," he admitted. Watching her expression crumble, he quickly knelt, dragging her into a hug. He could feel her tears falling on his shoulder. "He'll be okay, though," he promised her. While he comforted Rin, he watched as Obito lifted his goggles and began to scrub furiously at his eyes. Minato dragged him into the hug, too, and he held his crying students.

"We'll all be okay."

Minato could only hope he wasn't making an empty promise. Yet, when he thought back to that cold, dead look in Kakashi's eyes… and a Sharingan, he could have sworn he saw… Minato wasn't sure just how okay they would be.