Present

Chapter Nine: Change of Hearts

From the moment Kakashi arrived at Azuma, he had an ominous feeling that he was going to die. If not today, then in the following week or perhaps sometime during the month. If not by the hand of a Senju shinobi, then by the hand of an Uchiha shinobi, sent to silence him, to make sure the secrets of the Uchihas no longer spilled from his lips.

It was sort of ironic really. Ten year old Kakashi didn't think he would make it to eleven; despite being a prodigy, surviving in the wild was an entirely new concept to him. He wouldn't have been surprised if he died of hunger or hypothermia. But there had always been a stupid thing in him, something called drive, that urged him to keep going. That urged him to learn how to forage for his own food, to learn how to tell the difference between edible and poisonous plants, to learn how to skin rabbits and deers.

And somehow that kept him going, that kept him alive every time Kakashi thought he was going to die.

Ten year old Kakashi would be shocked to learn that he made it to twenty four.

Too bad there wouldn't be a twenty five for him.

A wistful smile curled on his lips as Kakashi laid on the branch, staring at the dark sky. The moon could barely be seen, just a tiny sliver in the sky. It was the stars that captivated him, the myriad of yellow blinking dots that littered the sky. He knew which star he would be, the one that didn't shine as brightly as the others.

The one that would blink out of existence one day. No warning. No parting words. No final acts.

And surprisingly, Kakashi was content. Perhaps it was the mindset that he lived far longer than he had anticipated that every extra minute that he lived was stolen from someone else's life. Perhaps it was the walls that he erected over his heart for a decade that had long made him numb to grief. Perhaps it was the selfish part of him that longed to see his father again so that they could finish their conversation.

There were still so many things that he wanted to say to him.

Fingers locked together, Kakashi slid his hands underneath his head, serving as a makeshift cushion. His ears picked up the sounds of the fire crackling in the distance, the rustling of leaves as the shinobis on the first watch shift darted from tree to tree.

As the time wound down, everyone's nerves began to show. Postures more tense, words more clipped, somber expressions more common.

Tomorrow was the day that they would strike. Kakashi wagered that most of them wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight. He surely hadn't planned on it.

Exhaustion eventually took over, leading him to drift in and out of sleep all throughout the night. Every time Kakashi fell into deep sleep, the same nightmare would appear, relentlessly. After the third time, Kakashi forced his eyes to stay open. He didn't want to see it anymore, the blood that coated the length of his arm, the lifeless look in his eyes, the gurgling as it took the remainder of his strength to cough up the blood.

Worst of all, the person in his nightmares had been Arata. The person in his dreams had taken pleasure in killing Arata, continually stabbing the man even after it was clear that he was long dead. The person wore a sinister smirk, as he whispered that all of this was revenge for his father.

That person was him, but it wasn't him. In every way, their facial features matched perfectly, their jutsu arsenal was the exact same, their fighting stances were carbon copies of each other. But it wasn't him.

Kakashi didn't want to be that heartless. That evil. That cruel.

It wasn't him.

He wouldn't become him, Kakashi would make sure of it.

Kakashi felt himself on the verge of hyperventilating as his breaths became shorter, more frequent to compensate for the lack of air. He felt a familiar constricting feeling in his chest. Shoving all of the undesirable thoughts out of his mind, Kakashi closed his eyes and poured the entirety of his concentration on breathing.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Eventually his breathing evened out, his heartbeat slowed to a normal pace. It hadn't happened to him in a while now; as Kakashi had gotten older, he became better at controlling himself, but he was still prone to occasional lapse of control.

Like the time Minato found him at the river, where it all started.

A soft voice called out his name, almost like she was careful to not startle him too much. Kakashi pushed himself into a sitting position, stretching out his sore arms from the strain of keeping them tucked under his head for such a long period of time. He glanced down. Even in the dark, he could make out the worry that shone in Rin's eyes.

"Are you okay?"

Was he? To tell her that he was would be a complete lie, but Kakashi found himself not wanting to go into the details of why he wasn't. Instead, he motioned for Rin to join him on the branch.

Kakashi wasn't sure why he didn't just brush off her concern and tell her to go away. That was what he had always done, even to his father and Minato sensei. Now, he was faced with awkward silence as his senses were hyper aware that Rin was sitting on the branch next to his, so close to him that he could feel a bit of warmth radiating off of her.

"You should be sleeping."

"I could say the same about you." Rin shifted slightly, tossing one end of her blanket towards Kakashi, while wrapping her end tighter around herself. The sudden warmth was uninvited, but not unwelcome. It had been so long since he felt like this that he had forgotten the feeling.

"I'm not cold."

"Yes you are," Rin insisted. "It wouldn't do you any good to catch a cold. We need you to be in top shape for tomorrow."

We. As if his loyalties had ever been extended towards them. But that was okay, just for tonight, Kakashi could pretend he was just a shinobi. A plain shinobi.

"I can't sleep. When I close my eyes, I see things that I don't want to see." The words just slipped from his mouth. Kakashi wasn't sure why he was sharing this with her, but for some reason, her calming and comforting presence made him want to seek solace from someone. Even if that someone would never truly understand the extent of his pain.

Rin understood him. He didn't want insincere promises that everything would be okay. He just wanted someone to listen to him.

"Sometimes I think that I'm fortunate that I don't remember my past with clarity. All of the bad things that happened will remain a blur to me."

"Doesn't it feel like a part of you is missing?"

"Sometimes, but then I think of what could have happened back then to cause me enough trauma to want to forget that I think I'm better off not knowing. If I lost any happy memories in the process, I still have a lifetime ahead of me to create new ones."

They existed on opposite ends of the spectrum. Light and dark. Optimistic and pessimistic. Hope and despair.

"You could die tomorrow."

"Yes, but if I am always so fixated on when I'm going to die, I don't have time to properly live in the present."

Live in the present. He still clung onto the past.

"If," Rin began slowly. "If I die tomorrow, I'll be content that I got to meet you and Obito during my lifetime. Thank you, for everything."

Kakashi closed his eyes.

And if I die tomorrow, I'll be content that your death wouldn't be on my conscience.

It would break him if it was.

Kakashi's mind was a blank slate. He moved on autopilot, moving his limbs at the appropriate times to defend himself, moving his fingers to form the jutsus, moving his right hand to brandish his sword to slice through the ranks of the enemy. He didn't dare to count. He didn't dare to turn back after he left them to dust.

Most of all, he didn't dare look them in the eye.

Even now, Kakashi's worst fear was having to kill someone he once knew. The chances were astronomically low; he was pretty recluse as a child so his acquaintances composed of mostly his classmates. Even with such a low chance, Kakashi still couldn't help but fear that it might come true one day.

His sword was poised above his head, ready to swing down and deal the finishing blow to the shinobi writhing in pain at his feet. The nameless shinobi clutched tightly at the wound on his thigh; the wound tearing straight through all of the tendons and muscles and hitting the bone. While the pain may seem unbearable to the shinobi at the moment, Kakashi intended to put him out of his misery.

He wouldn't be able to get the haunting screams out of his head.

His sword swung down in an arc, the nameless closing his eyes as acceptance of his fate. Yet his blade didn't meet flesh; rather, a loud clang, the telltale sound of metal making contact, permeated through the air. Kakashi didn't have to look up to know who it was; there was no way that he could ever forget this particular chakra signature.

Kakashi looked up anyways, feeling the need to see his face for himself.

Asuma Sarutobi.

Once upon a time, they had been two kids who would sneak into Hiruzen's library to borrow scrolls so they could learn some new jutsus. Once upon a time, they had been two kids who would find solace in each other's presence while their parents were out on the battlefield. Once upon a time, they had been comrades.

It felt like deja vu all over again, so reminiscent of when Kakashi had met Minato for the first time since he left.

Words didn't have to be exchanged between them; Kakashi saw the disgust and hate in Asuma's eyes as both of them fought to kill. His chakra blades against his sword. His wind style versus his lightning style. His contempt against his guilt.

With every blow that he dealt, Kakashi could feel the anguish reverberate through his whole body. Ducking to the right, he marginally missed as one of Asuma's chakra blades neared him, the sharp edge of the chakra nicking the side of his face. Kakashi's foot swung out in an arc, followed by a blade charged with purple electricity slicing at where he anticipated Asuma to move. Instead, Asuma hopped into the air, taking advantage of his momentum to backflip out of Kakashi's reach. Fingers moving at a rapid speed, Asuma tore through a sequence of seals.

"Fire Style: Ash Pile Burning!"

Kakashi only had just enough time to hold his breath before he was engulfed by the ash. The ash particles surrounded him, obscuring his vision. Sensing Asuma coming from the right, Kakashi slammed his hands together. Right as he slipped underground, Asuma's chakra blade tore through his substitution, cleanly slicing the rock into two.

Above ground, Asuma allowed the ash particles to disperse. Kakashi was nowhere in sight.

Below ground, Kakashi had pinpointed Asuma's location. His chakra signature didn't indicate any movement. His arm broke through the earth, shooting out to grab the ankle of Asuma's right foot, but Asuma had anticipated it. While jumping out of the way, he fired one of his chakra blades at Kakashi's hand. The blade sliced through the material of Kakashi's glove, drawing a deep gash across his palm.

Kakashi emerged from the earth, bending down to pick up Asuma's prized chakra blade with his bloody hand.

"Those petty tricks don't work on me," Asuma stated, raising his remaining chakra blade.

Kakashi chuckled mirthlessly. He supposed not; Asuma had been caught by that trick so many times when they were children to be caught in it again.

Asuma scoffed. "What happened to you? The Kakashi I knew wouldn't let me get in a single hit on him, let alone two."

The stinging sensation from his wounds continued to serve as a harsh reminder that they were no longer what they used to be.

"The Kakashi that you knew wouldn't join the Uchihas either," he responded softly. His hand curled around the chakra blade tighter, drawing more blood, intensifying the pain. The pain was good. It helped him to keep his priorities straight.

"Then if you aren't the Kakashi I knew, then stop toying with me!" Asuma angrily demanded. "I know you're holding back. Show me what you got!"

Asuma charged forward, letting his emotions cloud his judgment. His movements were hasty, he had let his guard down and many openings for Kakashi to take advantage of. If they were ten years old again, Kakashi would have reprimanded him on his form and Asuma would scowl in annoyance.

But it was too late. They couldn't go back anymore.

Asuma stopped right in front of Kakashi, his chakra blade hovering a centimeter away from Kakashi's throat. Kakashi's left hand held a kunai, the tip digging into the skin right where the heart was. His right hand gripped the chakra blade, having poised it right below Asuma's ribcage.

For the first time, Kakashi got a good look at Asuma's eyes. All sorts of emotions swirled in his gaze: anger, disbelief, torment...reluctance.

"You should kill me," Kakashi whispered.

Asuma's fingers trembled.

"Go home and be hailed as the hero that killed the traitor," Kakashi continued. At least, he would get to die on his own terms.

Asuma jerked his hand back, stumbling a few steps backwards as he continued to look at Kakashi with wide eyes.

"What?" His voice cracked. "Are you even a traitor? If you were, you wouldn't have any second thoughts about killing me."

Kakashi let out a contorted bark of laughter. "That's because I'm weak. I don't even have the strength to kill off my former comrade."

Two flares went off in the distance, catching his attention. Kakashi had completely missed Asuma's reply, but that didn't matter. He needed to regroup with his team, quickly.

Kakashi shot one last look towards Asuma. "You'll regret not killing me today." With those parting words, Kakashi turned and ran in the direction of the outpost. Pumping chakra to his legs, he ran at full speed back towards the base.

The signal had gone off much earlier than Kakashi had anticipated, but that was better for the Senjus. They needed all the time they could get before Kita mobilized their forces. The Senjus attacking an hour earlier than expected had already derailed all of their plans, leaving Azuma scrambling to defend their outpost and Kita blundering to compensate for this sudden change. That didn't mean they had gotten the upperhand; who knew what Itachi's hidden plan was.

Azuma's forces were rapidly dwindling as the Senjus force continued to overwhelm them, pushing them further and further back. It was easy to see why; there was no one to match Minato's speed. Even if the Sharingan could see Minato's movements, their warnings often came too late.

A streak of yellow was all that Kakashi could see. His sensei's trademark kunais littered the entire field. They were panicking, their fear ruled their minds. Somehow, through the fear that clouded their minds, some of the older shinobis regained their battle instincts, yelling at everyone to stick together. To watch out for each other's backs.

While squaring off with a stranger, Kakashi spotted Rin in the crowd. Her knees were on the ground, her hands hovering above an injured shinobi. The green aura was like a beacon on the battlefield; unfortunately, that meant a huge target was painted on her back. Her healing was sloppy; all Rin wanted to do was stop the bleeding so she could haul him to safety without the shinobi bleeding out on her.

Kakashi wrapped up his fight, leaving the man to squirm in agony on the ground behind him. He ran towards Rin, intending on hauling her by the collar and ushering her to safety, to just leave and forget about the man.

Kakashi spotted a three pronged kunai, stuck in the dirt a meter away from Rin. The flash of yellow was too fast for his eyes to follow, but judging from his sensei's movements, Minato seemed to be moving closer to them.

It seemed to happen in slow motion. Minato teleported to the kunai. Without breaking his stride, Minato picked up the kunai on the ground, tossing it in Rin's direction. Kakashi knew his sensei's next move; he had seen it happen too many times. Once the kunai sailed past Rin, Minato would teleport to it and slit her throat.

It would take three seconds. His mission could come to an end.

But there was something in him that propelled him to leap and cross the remaining distance between him and Rin. His arms wrapped around Rin's shoulders, a surprised gasp escaped from Rin's lips as Kakashi tore her away from the injured shinobi. His body angled to shield her.

An agonizing burst of pain exploded in his right shoulder.

By the time Minato registered what was going on, he had been too late to change his trajectory. Instead of the blade slicing the girl's throat, it tore through the skin near Kakashi's right shoulder, leaving behind a deep gash.

His former student met Minato's eyes for a split second before Minato teleported to the next marking.

Kakashi grunted in pain, forcing himself to stand up. Rin's eyes were full of concern.

"You're bleeding. Let me treat you."

Kakashi shook his head. "We need to go. If we stay here, we'll both die."

His hand shot out to grab Rin's wrist. Kakashi began to run, following the remnants of the Uchiha force from the Azuma outpost, tugging her along. Rin had been hesitant to leave behind all of her injured comrades, but judging from how quickly the enemy moved, she would be dead before she could save anyone.

Rin turned back to look over her shoulder, her heart aching at all of the comrades that she was forced to leave behind.

So this was war.

It had been a hollow victory. They had barely managed to keep the Senjus from overtaking Azuma and even that had been mostly attributed to sheer luck. The Kita force had finally mobilized enough shinobis to finally pose a threat to those that were left behind at Hokuto to call back the offensive team. Five more minutes, Azuma would have fallen.

Jiro Uchiha, the commanding leader of Azuma, had fallen in battle. Leadership passed onto Izumi Uchiha, formerly second in command, and Yui Hyuga, formerly third in command. Along with the two of them, Toshiro joined them in the commander's tent.

A map laid on the table in front of them, but none of them were really looking at it. They simply stared blankly at each other while they waited for instructions from the village.

At one point, an Inuzuka entered the tent to report that the perimeter was clear. None of them paid much attention to his words, if the perimeter wasn't clear, then they didn't have enough manpower to defend themselves anyways. In one single attack, they had lost close to half of their force.

Correspondence came, but it wasn't from the village, rather it was from Kita. The message was written by Shisui, who detailed the failure to recapture Hokuto. That hadn't been surprising at all.

"We're losing," Izumi whispered. Yui tossed a sharp look at Izumi, almost as if to reprimand her for saying the truth aloud.

"What? It's the truth," Izumi said in her defense.

"Doesn't mean you have to say it out loud," Yui muttered in response, crossing her arms over her chest. "Even the attack on Hikari failed. How did they even expect that? Even if it was a rat, word was going around that they were going to attack Hoshi."

"Maybe the rat was part of the group assigned to attack Hikari," Toshiro proposed.

"No way," Yui insisted. "A rat would never make it that high up the ranks to be privy to the information, let alone be part of the trusted Anbu Root group."

Toshiro shrugged.

"Are you suggesting that the rat is someone who belongs to one of our clans?" Izumi questioned.

"No way it's any of the Hyugas. We have the utmost loyalty to our clan," Yui stated, her white eyes staring down at both of them. Neither of them dared to argue otherwise.

"Does it matter whose clan it is? We need to focus on regrouping. Almost a quarter of our remaining forces are injured so we're stretched quite thin to keep up our usual patrol pattern. Perhaps we should look into changing it so we aren't all pushed to our limits."

Izumi and Yui nodded in agreement.

"Where's Kakashi? Did you not ask him to come by?" Izumi asked.

"I did, but he's getting medical treatment right now. Got a nasty gash on his back."

Kakashi sat on the cot in his tent. Peeling the old bandages off of his hand, he grabbed a fresh roll. Pressing a few pieces of gauze to the dried cut, his fingers clasped down on the tail end of the bandage while his other hand circled the roll of bandages over the hand. Once he finished, with the aid of his teeth, Kakashi tied a knot.

Now the trouble came with the gash on his back. A medic had hastily wrapped it earlier just for the sake of stopping the bleeding, but since he wasn't in critical condition, their priority hadn't been on him. At some point during the wait, Kakashi decided to wander back to his own tent to take care of the wounds himself. It wasn't like he didn't know how, but the difficult part was that his wound was located right in the difficult spot to reach on his back.

Tugging his shirt over his head, the shirt fell into a heap besides him as Kakashi reached for a kunai to cut through the dirty bandages. The bandages unraveled and Kakashi lightly pulled them off, hissing as some of the scabbing was ripped off in the process. A trickle of blood ran down his back.

Great, he was bleeding again.

Right as Kakashi leaned forward to grab some gauzes to staunch the blood flow, he heard a female voice call out his name and ask for permission to come in. Kakashi granted the permission, shifting his body so that he faced the flap of the tent.

Rin stepped inside. Exhaustion was etched all over her face. She walked towards him with her shoulders slightly hunched.

"You should go rest if you're that tired," Kakashi chided. Rin took a seat besides him, hand on his shoulder to angle him so that his back faced her. The pain ebbed away, replaced by a soothing sensation.

"You don't have to heal it. I know your chakra levels are extremely low."

Rin let out a noise in disagreement. "It'll scar if I don't."

Kakashi snorted, but didn't make a move to push her hands away. "Like I don't already have a million other ones."

"You saved my life."

And I tried to take it on multiple occasions, Kakashi added in his mind.

The soothing sensation stopped. Rin reached for the bandage and began to wrap it around his torso. Kakashi had lifted his arms to convenience her.

Rin was uncharacteristically silent as she healed him, but Kakashi figured that it was a combination of being tired and finally feeling the weight of war. Even seeing deaths at the hospital everyday wouldn't have prepared her for what she had seen today.

Rin tied the knot on the bandage.

When Rin didn't make a move to leave or speak, Kakashi felt his senses prickling before it turned into a full out warning that there was danger. Whirling around, Kakashi's hand gripped Rin's wrist tightly stopping her from plunging the syringe into his neck.

Rin's eyes widened, her mouth dropped open to explain, but Kakashi didn't want to hear any excuses. His battle instincts kicked in. Easily overpowering her, he bent her wrist back towards her and slammed the syringe into the base of her neck.

Kakashi released her arm, watching it fall limply to her side. Her eyes rolled over. Her body swayed for a few moments as she fought for a last bit of consciousness.

Her body toppled over.

A/N: Hi again!

I'm glad that the plot twist worked out well...it wasn't in the original draft and I debated it for a while before I went with it. I'm sorry for being so evil.

The Quincy: You know me too well! I wouldn't kill off Kakashi lol. Then the story would pretty much end.

Radical Dreamer 57: You're right. Itachi had suspects in the beginning, but he started figuring it out during the progression of the story. Since the focus isn't on him, imagine that he's doing this all in the background.

Guest: Thanks for your comment! I never thought about it from Obito's perspective, but you're right haha. Having to lose one or the other, it's sad. But it is war, sadly.

And apologies for another cliffhanger lol. Despite all of it, I think Kakashi is a seasoned shinobi, so if someone did try to kill him, he would act on instinct, hence the last scene. But don't worry. You'll get all of the answers in the next chapter. :)

Thanks for reading and the feedback! Until next time.

-MM