"KAKASHI!"
Said scarecrow turns on his heel immediately, quickening his pace to disappear into alleyway. He had been so caught up in his thoughts after seeing Naruto that he hadn't bothered to take a less populated route.
It's no use. A spandex clad arm shoots out and grabs Kakashi's shoulder. A cry of startled pain promptly echoes off the narrow brick walls when Kakashi zaps Gai with a small bolt of static. "Don't surprise me like that."
Gai takes one look at Kakashi's bored, half-lidded gaze and shakes his head. "You were avoiding me." His frown melts away into concern barely a moment later. "I'm glad you're back, my Rival. Would you like me to Challenge you to some lunch?"
It's an unexpectedly conscientious way of asking someone out for a meal, given Gai's usual exuberant manner. But then, Gai always had a surprising amount of tact hidden under all those loud declarations. Not only had Gai done away with the inane "are you alright's" and "how do you feel's", he also left it up to Kakashi whether it was alright for Gai to issue a more... forceful offer of companionship. That is, of course, the Challenge.
From the way Kakashi's eye crinkles, he understands it all. Still, he shakes his head, causing his hair too falling limply over his hitai-ate. "I've already eaten," he lies. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and turns away. "See you, Gai."
"Kakashi..."
He glances over his shoulder, countenance softened with remorse. "Next time, Gai."
The other teen nods solemnly like it is a promise, his hands loose by his sides and his gaze steady and determined. And perhaps it is a promise, because Gai won't let it become anything less. Once again, Sakumo is glad that Kakashi has a friend like Gai, who is stubborn enough to barrel past the thorny exterior that Kakashi puts up but gentle enough to never push too far.
Kakashi eye-smiles again and lifts his hand farewell, walking away with measured steps.
The hospital is too busy to conduct the standard post-mission physical and psychological evaluation, so Kakashi gets away with only a brief once over by a harried med-nin. Almost immediately, he checks himself in at the missions desk and asks for a mission. There are a massive amount of D-ranks, either helping people or rebuilding infrastructure. It's no surprise that Kakashi chooses the latter, and heads off to help lug rubble and building materials around, and use the occasional Doton to shape walls and pillars. It's a gross underutilisation of Kakashi's skills, but it is what the village needs most now.
Kakashi toils the daylight away and goes back to his apartment in an effort to avoid the crowd back in the ANBU barracks — not that there's much of a crowd left. He pulls out the chair at his desk, easing himself into it with the tentativeness that should belong on an old man. Physical labour like this strains different muscles than training, and Kakashi has already been pushing his body's limits for weeks in Ame. The photo of Team Minato on his window sill catches his eye, and for hours he sits there in the dark, just staring at it dully. It's almost midnight before he stirs once more, as if waking from a dream (or a nightmare). He showers, changes, and lies down on his bed. Closes his eyes, sleeps. Forgets about dinner.
Sakumo touches Kakashi's hair where it's splayed along his pillow, wondering if he has always been so thin, his wrists so fragile. Much to Sakumo and Rin's dismay, Kakashi's tendency to neglect himself seems to have come thoroughly to the forefront now that Snake is on a mission and all his other friends have been firmly pushed away.
When morning comes - because it always comes, no matter how many people it leaves behind - Kakashi wakes and blinks open his eyes. But he doesn't get up. He just stares at the ceiling while the minutes tick away, awake but seemingly unable to gather enough strength to sit up, get of bed, and begin another day. Sakumo knows only too well that hollowness reflected in Kakashi's unfocused gaze, the kind that seems to steal every breath he tries to draw.
Pressing the back of his hand against his teeth, Kakashi bites down hard, a sharp noise of frustration tearing through him. With his hand still bleeding, he throws himself out of his blankets and walks to his cabinet with brisk steps, pulling out his uniform with brusque movements. He finishes his ablutions and scarfs down a ration bar with vengeance, as if even one second's hesitation will send him crumpling to the floor again, unable to function.
Grabbing the futon Snake had borrowed, he stalks out of his apartment and locks the door. The futon goes over the fence surrounding the landlady's backyard, and with Chiro's angry shrieks ringing in his ears, Kakashi sprints to the residential district he had helped at yesterday. When he raises his hand to greet his supervisor, the skin has been Henge-ed back to it's former, unmarred state again.
With another day of labour over, the night finds Kakashi standing before the broken remains of Minato and Kushina's house, chilled by the long walk. Where there had once been neat bungalows and trimmed gardens, now only rubble and craters mark the land. The oppressive weight of the Kyuubi's chakra, not yet dispelled after so many days, marks the barren district as the epicenter of the demon-fox's hatred.
Kakashi walks carefully along cracked earth, avoiding the thickened outgrowths of wood that sprout from the fissures. They are strange, twisted things, grasping at nothing and curling into air like malformed hands. Rin skirts around them with all wariness, as if they might burst into motion and seize her any moment.
Every now and then, Kakashi would find one of Minato's Hiraishin kunai embedded in the Mokuton constructs, the levelled earth, and the half-crumbled walls. No-one has removed them yet; each one stands as a monument to the Yondaime's last battle. Sakumo can almost imagine Minato using his Hiraishin to slip out of the clutches of those vines, flashing about with his Hokage's cloak snapping behind him and Naruto in his arms. With the barest touch, Kakashi would run his finger along the white handle, reading each of the words before stepping away and moving onto the next one glinting in the moonlight. Like shining beacons, they lead Kakashi unerringly towards where it all ended.
In the wrecked shell of Minato and Kushina's home, there's someone else there, too.
"Genma," Kakashi says lowly as he starts on the concrete steps leading up to the house proper.
The older boy flinches, his senbon dropping out of his mouth and clattering to the ground. His eyes widen further at the sight of Kakashi, a hint of panic flitting over his usually confident features. He quickly drops his gaze, his shoulders a tense line that Kakashi pretends not to notice. Bending down, Kakashi picks up the senbon and hands it to Genma, who stutters out a "thank you".
Didn't Hiruzen say that the intruder had pretended to be one of Minato's guard...?
Kakashi stares blankly at the twisted railing that hangs off one side of the house, the surviving half of building cut open like a doll's house, revealing furniture left in disarray. There's evidence of that unnatural Mokuton here too — jagged spikes of wood breaking through two floors and bursting through the tiled roof as if to impale the moon.
"I'm so sorry, Kakashi." Genma sounds small and resigned to Kakashi's hatred. The young ANBU has become Minato and Kushina's proxy of sorts, and Genma is apologising to them just as much to Kakashi.
When Kakashi looks up at Genma, past those few inches of height difference that mean nothing, really, there's understanding in the dark pool of his eye. "Don't blame yourself," he murmurs. The moonlight bleaches his hair white, crowning him with an almost ethereal halo. "It's not your fault. If I had been in the village, whoever did this could have just as easily used my face instead of yours."
Behind the fall of his hair, Genma squeezes his eyes tightly shut. His breath rattles out of him.
"I know," Kakashi sighs quietly, "how it feels." Inside his pocket, his right hand clenches into a fist.
A/N: I used to say this is a "Tobi-is-actually-Madara universe" but I forgot that Madara was already old and decrepit when he met Obito. Oops. So it's actually a "no-Tobi universe" and someone else killed Minato and Kushina. I'm pretty sure you all can guess who!