A/N: It's been such a long time since the last update... to be honest, I stopped following Naruto manga quite a while ago, so I have no idea how the canon story has been unfolding since the shinobis got together for the big war.

But I just went through my fanfics saved on my drive and found this chapter, which is an AU story of how Obito survives the fatal mission where he originally dies and gives his eye to Kakashi. Actually I've been waiting for the muse to strike me again so I can write a few more chapters about the worry-free, happy-as-bluejay days of young Obito and toddler Itachi before I post this chapter. But as I'm not sure when that will happen, I just decided to go ahead and post this chapter. There are two more chapters I've already written, but they take place way in the future (it's about the Uchiha-massacre) so I'm not sure if I should just post them or wait and write a few chapters to connect the two time periods.

Anyway, enough of my blah-blahs. Here's the story :)

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The Cave-In

The war was running towards the climax. Itachi shuddered at the memory of last night.

Loud noises, somebody's grief-ridden cry, and running footsteps.

"Fugaku-sama! A messenger from Hokage came. Asako-san was killed in action." Somebody – Itachi recognized him as a police officer working under his father – rushed into the house and said. Fugaku only nodded his head grimly.

"I'll go see her family myself."

After Fugaku left with the policeman, Mikoto picked Itachi up and hugged him without any words. She was shaking, and Itachi felt like his whole world was vibrating, about to shatter into million pieces.

Itachi pulled his knees toward his chest and rocked himself back and forth on the porch.

Obito nii-san was supposed to be back two days ago. The four-year-old was worried. Whatever this 'war' was, he hated it. It killed so many people, it took away his only brother, and it was not giving him back.

Give him back, he's my nii-san, Itachi demanded silently, furiously. He missed the nii-san's loud laugh, hand tousling his hair, black eyes twinkling with mischief, and bright yell of his nickname.

Team Minato dashed to their village at the maximum speed they could manage without stirring the bloody teenager too much. Kakashi ran in front, leading the way and constantly looking out for potential danger, while Minato followed closely with unconscious Obito in his arms. Rin took the rear, tears freely flowing and wetting the purple marks on her cheeks.

"Kakashi… I never got you a-anything for you making Jounin, huh…? Ta… take my Sharingan. I'm gonna die here bu-"

"Shut up!"

Kakashi shouted, his lone eye searching desperately for any solution, any answer, any help, anything. Rin was shaking and crying. Angry, shocked, the young genius threw the kunai he got from his sensei at the rock slowly killing his teammate. Killing his friend.

With a gush of wind, Minato appeared where the kunai landed after bouncing off from the rock. His eyes grew wide as he quickly registered the scene. He performed a jutsu he learned – ironically – from an Iwa shinobi, turning the weight of the rock near zero. He threw it away, and quickly went to his student's side.

"Rin!" Minato shouted.

Rin woke up from her daze at suddenly seeing her sensei and hurried toward her teammate. She tried not to panic at how bloody and disfigured he looked and concentrated on stopping the blood flow.

Kakashi's eyes lit up at the sight of the familiar gate. He quickened his pace to run up to the gate guards.

"Open the gate!"

"We need to check your identification-"

Kakashi didn't wait for the Chuunin to finish his sentence and slammed his body against the gate to open it himself. Just as the gate was partially often, the Yellow Flash ran through it.

The operation went on for several long hours, and only ended when all the medic-nins engaged in it were too exhausted to go on.

The chief medic-nin told the anxiously waiting group that yes, the worse had passed but no, he would not be waking up anytime soon and she could not honestly tell them anything about the possible prognosis. His organs were severely damaged, and all his bones on the right side had been crushed – not fractured or broken, but crushed like a walnut ran over by a heavy cart. He also lost too much blood, and his right eye was not curable.

Kakashi, whose eye had been treated sometime during the operation despite his resistance, felt immensely guiltier at the last statement. What if he really had accepted Obito's 'present'? Then he would have been completely blind.

Just as they were about to go into the room to see Obito, they were halted by the impeding pair of footsteps. Mikoto, who was very obviously pregnant, and Itachi ran toward them.

"What happened, Minato-san? We heard from the guards that Obito-kun seemed badly hurt. Is he okay? Where is he?"

"Obito was injured in action. He is stabilized, so we were going to see him just now. You may go with us, but maybe it's not the best idea to have the young one in-"

"I'm going to see Nii-san!" Itachi very uncharacteristically cut off Minato's words. There was no way he would be denied access to his badly hurt nii-san. He wanted to make sure he was okay, that he would soon be out of hospital and tell him a story, make a joke, play tag, or teach how to jump really high…. He wouldn't mind the tedious taijitsu and ninjutsu practice his father had been imposing on him as long as he had his nii-san nearby to cheer him on.

Mikoto picked her son up and followed Minato and his remaining students into the room. She immediately gasped when she laid her eyes on the battered teenager. He was cleaned and wrapped in bandage literally from head to toe, but his deformity was clearly seen. She quickly tried to cover Itachi's eyes, worried the sight of his beloved nii-san so deformed and hurt would upset the child. However, Itachi wriggled himself free from her grasp, jumped onto the floor, and toddled to the bedside.

Itachi couldn't believe his eyes. His nii-san was lying still, too still – he was never that still even in his sleep. The blood seeping out made grim-looking blotches on the bandages.

"Why is he hurt?" Itachi whispered, unable to take his eyes off his nii-san. His chest hurt so much, he didn't know why, and he didn't care – all he knew was that Obito nii-san was hurt, so hurt that he couldn't even open his eyes and look at him. And that made his heart so ache.

"It's the war," Minato murmured, trying to comfort the child by patting his head gently. But it didn't work, because his hand was too big and he was definitely not his nii-san.

Itachi really, really hated war.

Obito was in and out of coma over the next three months. However, in none of his conscious states had he enough strength to move any of his body part or make noise to let the others know that he was alive, thinking, albeit incoherently, and generally okay.

So he had to be content with listening to others murmur around him.

Actually, it would have been quite more interesting if the drug didn't make him too drowsy to understand anything most of the times.

He learned from a conversation between Rin and the chief medic-nin that he was heavily drugged because that was the only way to keep the intense pain at bay. Otherwise, the pain would be too much for the young Chunnin to bear. Obito inwardly agreed that getting knocked out by drug was way better than fainting from pain. Not that he enjoyed his current state.

He noticed that Itachi came at least once a week, sometimes accompanied by soft-spoken Mikoto-san or sometimes even by himself – how, Obito could not figure out. Surely no one would let the small child wander outside the compound by himself? Rin came by pretty often as she was a medic-nin and worked at the hospital when she was not away on missions. Sensei and Kushina-san came whenever they had time, and would always ruffle his hair – the only part of his body that was bandage-free – before leaving.

And Kakashi came practically every day.

Or, at least whenever he was in Konoha.

Obito soon grew used to suddenly coming to and realize that his friend was near. He usually murmured a series of "I'm sorry", "I now know what you meant that day", "It's all my fault", "I'm worse than trash" and again, "I'm sorry" before he finally took his leave.

At first the Uchiha was surprised and touched that Kakashi, the Hatake Kakashi, was apologizing to him.

But after a month of 'I'm sorry's, Obito simply had had enough.

One day – night, evening, afternoon, dawn, who knows – Obito woke up to the now-usual rambling of Baka-Kakashi's apologies. He inwardly groaned. He never thought his stoic teammate could be this vocal and persistent with an apology, of all things. Then he suddenly realized that he felt more coherent and strong than he had ever felt since the accident. He tried opening his mouth, and did a little victory dance inside his head when his mouth, albeit slowly, obeyed.

"Obito, I'm really–"

"S-say the s-word, a-and I-I'll kick y-your a-ass…."

There. He finally said what he had been longing to say for over a month. He could just imagine Kakashi opening his usually half-lidded eyes widely in shock and mentally giggled. Ah, the joy of speech. He really wished he had more strength, but he could do nothing as his consciousness slowly slipped away again.

Kakashi must have told what had happened to others, as Obito, much to his pleasure, soon found people started talking and telling stories to him whenever they visited instead of quietly conversing among themselves. Really, it was a welcoming change and a good way to keep in touch with the outside world.

"Nii-san, Mother said I'm going to be a big brother soon. I want a brother, but I think I'd like sister too." Today, it was Itachi who came to relieve Obito of boredom when he became coherent, which was happening more and more frequently.

Obito suddenly felt small, warm fingers touching the side of his face.

"Nii-san, when are you going to wake up? I want you to wake up…."

Obito's heart cracked at that voice. From what little pieces of information he could sew together, Fugaku-sama had recently decided that his son was old enough for more intense training. No doubt it was taking a great emotional toll on the child… Obito desperately hoped that he would be able to be there for him, because he just knew that Fugaku-sama was not the type of person who would help a fallen child up. Rather, he would bellow at such a sign of weakness.

Obito heard a door crack open and light, almost bouncy footsteps that he came to associate with his sensei approach. As expected, it was his voice that spoke.

"Good afternoon, Itachi, Obito. I've got great news! Jiraya-sensei sent a frog summon to inform me that he had finally met Tsunade-sama. They should be here anytime this week, and then Tsunade-sama will fix you up in no time!"

"Really?" Itachi asked in a surprised voice, not caring that he was abandoning his usual rule of keep-silent-in-the-presence-of-not-so-close-people .

"Yup!"

Obito felt both embarrassed and awestruck at that one of the legendary Sanin was coming just to heal him, let alone that another Sanin went to look for her in his sensei's behalf.

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Thank you for reading! I hope you could leave a review to tell me what you thought of the chapter :)