A/N: Kakashi's seiyuu has a cheerful song called "I Can't Stop Your Heart", which is so ironic... *giggles inappropriately* Sorry Rin!
(spoiler) Since this is not a Tobi-Obi universe, who will save Kakashi from the Kiri-nin? Hmm...
"Kaikou-sensei, we heard that you have the ultimate Sharingan!"
"That's amazing, sensei!"
"Can you show us? Please?"
Uchiha Kaikou looks down at his team of genin, his eyes darkening with unhappiness instead of pleasure. Sakumo and his teammates shift uneasily under the weight of his gaze as their naïve enthusiasm falters.
"Never congratulate an Uchiha on their Mangekyou Sharingan," he murmurs, his eyes a fathomless black even against the bright morning light. "It's a power that only comes at the greatest loss."
Kaikou grimaces and Sakumo stifles a gasp at the abject pain he glimpses.
"It twists you forever."
The constant, ear-piercing shriek of Chidori fills the clearing with an almost physical presence. As if caught in a tableau of horror, no-one dares break the abrupt stillness gripping the clearing.
Blood drips from the saturated cuff of Kakashi's sleeve, splashing against the cracked stone beneath their feet in a soft plip-plip-plip.
"K-Kaka-shi..." His name falls stuttering from her lips, accompanied by a steady trickle of crimson. Her face is twisted with anguish when her knees buckle, her gored body sliding off Kakashi's arm with a nauseatingly wet squelch before she hits the ground, dead.
Kakashi's pupils are blown wide as he stares down at Rin's crumpled form, his lungs seizing in excruciated gasps that don't quite manage to draw in air. Beneath the sheen of tears, the three tomoe Sharingan warps and blooms in a pinwheel Mangekyou. It's his pain that etches those black lines; black against the same red of the blood coating his still extended hand.
"It twists you forever," Kaikou's voice whispers at the back of Sakumo's mind, heavy with grief.
Choking, his airway constricting about itself, Kakashi's eyes roll into the back of his head as consciousness leaves him. He collapses onto the stony ground, his fingers brushing Rin's ankle, his arm left outreached as if to catch her before she goes. (Too late.)
It is quiet.
This kind of agony doesn't have a voice to express itself. It just sinks its claws deep and tears itself into shreds. It is all Sakumo can do to breathe.
Inhale. Exhale.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Re—
"Shit, he really did it."
Sakumo's horrified gaze snaps up to the Kiri-nin, who were hovering around Rin and Kakashi. The closest ANBU's approaches warily, his unsheathed sword glistening in the afternoon sun.
"Should we kill him?"
"Idiot, that's Sharingan no Kakashi. Don't damage the eye." Sakumo feels bile rise at the excitement in the other's voice.
"Yes, taichou." The Kiri-nin changes his grip on his sword, preparing to skewer Kakashi's defenseless body.
It's hopeless but Sakumo is already forming hand seals at a lightning speed, muscles too tense and aching with terror. He's just a ghost and even now, he can only give someone an insignificant nosebleed... but he still can affect the physical realm.
Wake up wake up WAKE UP—
"KAKASHI!" Sakumo roars as he finishes the final seal. Biting into his thumb savagely, he presses his bloodied hand onto the space above Kakashi's back and forces every single ounce of chakra he has into the jutsu.
"Kuchiyose no jutsu!"
The air wavers minutely and a scream is building rapidly in Sakumo's chest as he glares at it, trying to make it work by sheer will. The Kiri-nin hesitates at the strange disturbance and a painful, all-too-long moment later, Pakkun flickers into being, confused and yipping with discomfort.
"What the—" the ninken says, his paws scrabbling against Kakashi's sweat-soaked back.
Sakumo doubles over onto his hands and knees with sheer relief, ears ringing and giddy with chakra depletion. It actually worked.
Immediately taking in Kakashi's unconscious state and the Kiri-nin looming over him, Pakkun leaps in a blur of movement and sinks his sharp teeth into the shinobi's neck, making the man yell and flail.
Before the Kiri-nin can grab him by the scruff, Pakkun pops out of existence with a plume of smoke. A split second later, Bull bursts into existence and dives into the fray. The large dog snaps its jaws around the leather straps around Kakashi's torso, hauls the boy up onto it's back with a smooth toss of its head, and tears off into undergrowth.
Good old quick-thinking Pakkun and dear, reliable Bull.
The Kiri-nin are swearing, giving chase, but Sakumo's body feels like water despite the adrenaline still coursing through his veins. Sitting down and pressing shaking hands to his face, Sakumo tries to muffle the tiny, unintelligible sound that nonetheless manages to escape from his throat.
Kakashi.
Too close. He is so afraid that when he opens his eyes again, everything will prove to be a fevered construct of his desperation and his son will be lying dead before him.
Please... Kakashi. Stay alive for Otou-san.
Please.
A/N: I'm assuming that ninkens can summon themselves to wherever their boss is once that first summoning is done and they know the location :)