Chapter 108: Bending Space, Crossing Time
With the land as fractured and destroyed as it was, there wasn't even a chance for there to be a scent or trail that would point them in the direction of his student. Pushing through mounds of soft earth in heavy footfalls, bouncing off of skyward tree branches that poked through the surface of dirt, and gliding across the brief respites of flat land westward was Kakashi's only hope until Pakkun and the rest of Kakashi's summons picked up a scent that would lead him to the boy. With luck, the wind was pushing in their faces, carrying dirt, leaves, and hopefully scents from the direction of their travel. It was a desperate assumption, however. Kakashi sent Naruto to stand as a drifting shield for the Rain and Stone Villages, but that didn't mean that the boy stayed strictly westward. Who's to say how far north or south the battlelines drifted? Who's to say how far the blast knocked him off course? Who's to say he was even free from the trappings of earth that rolled beneath them?
No, he's free at the very least. Kakashi passed many hills that remained unmoved, no evidence of shifted dirt that showed someone was able to free themselves from their confines, but it wasn't fair to associate Naruto with the rest of the shinobi corps that lay buried around them. Having the honor of training the boy for years now, Kakashi knew just how slippery the kid could be, with or without the beast inside of him. How far did that slipperiness go, however, when one was hunted by an organization of S-class shinobi? He'd rather not find out first hand. That singular question was why Kakashi remained unfettered by the pain in his shoulder.
The wound was closed well-enough, he supposed. No longer was there a gaping hole that poured with blood. In the same vein, it was also not a healthy shoulder. The Hokage could raise his forearm at the elbow with a great deal of pain, but moving the shoulder itself was a chore that he hadn't deemed worthwhile thus far. The Raikage died with his mighty paw buried in the shoulder, uncaring of the flesh and bone that Kakashi desperately needed. The tags with stored medical ninjutsu did as much as possible to prevent him from bleeding out, but there was a desperate need for a practiced professional to tend to it. A desperate need that was like not to be filled. As they traveled, the wound became something that was simply tolerated, his mind focusing on his goal and destination.
It took some time, perhaps even the entirety of an hour of hard travel, before Bull caught onto a familiar scent. That familiar scent was followed with dogged steps that left no room for tarrying. The expansive eruptions of chakra and collisions of brute strength rumbling through the ground was wholly ignored as Kakashi was led by his trusted hounds. Perhaps he should be there, in the thick of the battle that survived such chaos. What use was a Kage that couldn't stand when everyone else was brought to a knee or buried in rolling tombs that covered the land of a steep crater? Glancing down at the mess of his right shoulder, Kakashi would say he was of little use no matter where he went, but he would make the best of it. All that stood before him was the idea of where he was supposed to go. Although, in mere moments of that thought, the way was shown to him.
It seemed to have come from nowhere. Towering layered waves of mud climbed above the rolling hills by many stories, showing strongly in the distance for Kakashi to speed toward. As those ways fell to the earth, another mighty display in the form of a whipping cyclone that spun in the ringed dance of a wind dragon met the crashing waves in a show of torrential pourings of mud that fell so fast it looked closer to rain than mud ever should. Kakashi was still too far to be affected by the cascading mud, his attire gaining no more grime than it already had, but with a surety of his direction he could surge forward with a level of confidence. Only Naruto could match such a boisterous earth jutsu with his own technique, especially one with such Wind Release proficiency.
In the wake of settling mud, a dark plaster over taking the ground the closer Kakashi got to its epicenter, the Kage allowed his summons to dispel themselves as he focused on his target destination. It was the Akatsuki that stood to capture Naruto and whatever tricks Kakashi could pull with his hounds weren't likely to fool any shinobi that boasted an S-rank classification in the bingo book. With his hounds gone in puffs of smoke, sandaled feet glided across the ground as it slowly thickened to mud beneath him, the chakra on the bottom of his feet doing well to prevent the viscous layers atop the ground from clinging to his feet as he pushed through it.
Rounding the widened arced path between masses of mud-covered dirt, Kakashi was met with less than he was expecting. Akatsuki members were known to travel in pairs and it was a pair of black skies that held red clouds that Kakashi expected to see facing Naruto as Kakashi saw the spiky long blonde hair of his student, recognizable even when caked in blood, mud, and grime. The boy faced to the right, where one of those black fabric skies sat amongst the debris and newly gathered mud. Kakashi couldn't glean who exactly it was that sat in front of the Uzumaki, the orange spiraled mask that sat over his face did well to prevent any features aside from dark spiked hair that poked above the outermost swirl of the mask.
Neither the masked man nor Naruto looked over to Kakashi as he entered the small space. There was no hole in the mask to show the man's left eye and Naruto's telltale red haze that fluttered about him in dangerous tendrils told the Hokage that the boy wasn't of the mind to be at his most aware. The Nine-Tails' chakra tended to make the boy tunnel visioned if he were overwhelmed by it, despite being a large boon to Naruto's ability to sense others in small doses. Kakashi didn't mind the lack of attention from the pair before him. It was welcome that the weight of strong gazes didn't flit over his weakened body, giving him the opportunity to sneak an attack that may save both time, energy, and pain.
When the masked man moved, Kakashi wished he could say that he was prepared for it. Mud was kicked into the air with enough force that it didn't reach the ground before the charge was made true. Hands were flexed just in front of the man at the height of his shoulder, his body streaking through the air in almost a glide. It was so fast that Kakashi was forced to open his Sharingan eye to maintain a useful sight of his target as labored feet kicked forward. Red, hazy claws that bore such a color from both blood that likely originated from the body lying flat in the distance and from the unsettling crimson of the Tailed-Beast's chakra rose to meet the gloved flexing hands of Naruto's would-be captor. Kakashi's late start prevented him from joining the collision before him, but he was surprised when the strike that landed ended with the masked man's single-holed mask directed at himself.
In the moment just before a gloved hand clamped on a lashing wrist of Naruto, or before Naruto's other set of claws could drive close enough to dig tunnels in the Akatsuki member's flesh, the masked man pulled back his shoulders to allow his feet to swing in front of him and drive a heel into Naruto's chest. It was a negligible strike, one that hardly shifted the Jinchuuriki's weight, but there was still triumph in the eye that met Kakashi's. There was triumph in the red, blazing eye that matched the three tomoe in Kakashi's gifted eye. Even further, when those tomoe melted and reshaped themselves into a three bladed pinwheel there was only shock to be found underneath Kakashi's own mask. Whatever drive that pushed his feet to carry his ailing body across the ground was stolen from Kakashi the same way his breath left his lungs as he stared into an orb that should only belong to him. Should only belong to him.
"There you are." The voice was a thick timber, one that was unfamiliar to the Kage's ears as they were unable to hear beneath the auditory genjutsu that layered itself over it. The man paid no mind to the claws that raked over the extended leg in Naruto's chest, just as Kakashi paid no mind to the hand that clapped itself on Kakashi's left hand that bared a kunai in the wake of his pained right arm. He was far too close to pull away from the man's grasp even if the Sharingan that met his own didn't stall him so dramatically. What followed was a pull that Kakashi was intimately familiar with. It wasn't because he experienced it first handedly, but he was familiar with imposing such a feeling outwardly. The swirl of air that pulled Kakashi in was different from what his own eye could induce, but oddly similar all the same. The spiral of air that came from the Mangekyo hidden in the shade of the orange mask was large enough to drag both men into its currents and turn the world into darkness.
Spinning and churning, falling and floating, Kakashi found purchase on ground that simply wasn't there. Black surrounded him, be it up, down, or any direction his head wished to swivel. The only source of any light came from himself, his body casting a strong glow about him, and from the man that brought him here. The masked man stood no more than ten paces away from Kakashi, still as a statue as the Hokage tried to orient himself in the new space. Only throwing blades, haphazardly left across the pitch floor in a careless array without pattern, kept the two men company. The blade in Kakashi's own hand tightened in his grasp as he awaited something to come from the man's mouth.
"You look the same, Kakashi." The deep, rumbling voice that previously fell from behind the mask was replaced by the muffled call of a man's voice, a normal man's voice. It wasn't a voice that could be directly recalled, and yet it was one that gave Kakashi an odd sense of familiarity. "Older, maybe, and a little rougher around the edges, but you're still the same old Kakashi. It makes me glad."
Gloved hands reached up to the sides of the orange mask, lifting it off of his face with a tear before the heavy material clattered across the ground. Pale skin stretched across the man's face unevenly. The left half of the face seemed untouched. Smooth skin was unmarred from what Kakashi could tell, even around the eye that remained shut. Not even a wrinkle made its presence known around the closed eye, not an imperfection in sight until one looked across the nose. On the right half of the face, surrounding the Sharingan that matched Kakashi's own, was skin that hung loosely off the bone in heavy ripples and deep wrinkles. Not even Hiruzen looked as aged as half of the man's face before he died, and it was a marring that continued down the man's neck to hide beneath the heavy cloak.
"Obito…" Kakashi whispered out of reflex. Had it been a conscious thought, Kakashi would have known better than to utter the name. Obito had been dead for almost twenty years. There wasn't a reason, nor a way, for the boy that he was placed with under Minato-sensei was standing before him. Yet, no matter how long Kakashi looked, there he was. A small, innocent smile twitched at the edges of the man's lips and crinkles folded at the corner of his eye as Obito smiled much too warmly for his comfort.
"I'm glad that you remember me, old friend. It's been a long time." Obito began, his voice nostalgic as his eyes glazed over mildly before his attention was brought back to Kakashi entirely. "You've done well for yourself. From the ass that was added to the team with Rin and I to a Hokage that planned a war on three fronts to save his village. Minato-sensei would be proud." There was a glimmer of darkness at the mention of their late instructor, one that dragged down the warm smile into a frown set twice as deep as the smile had been.
"I wish I could say the same. We thought you dead, but here you are wearing the cloak of the group that brought destruction to the land and searches for more still." He hated how restricted he was now of all times. His mind was only cleared by the pumping adrenaline that came from setting eyes upon a dead man, his body was stiff and tight as he stood still, and only pain awaited him when he moved. Delaying what was to come was a waste of effort, but gleaning something, anything, from what Obito or the Akatsuki are planning would bring comfort, no matter how small, to the Kage's mind. Despite his comment at the man, Kakashi heard a small chuckle roll from Obito's lips before he responded once again.
"I was dead. Only a boy in the darkness as stone slowly squeezed the life out of me. Minutes, hours, or days later, I was brought to my master and he made me whole again. He gifted me an opportunity to have my body back and graced me with a chance at a higher purpose. A chance at peace." Obito began with remembrance that Kakashi couldn't discern as fond or not, but that vagueness left soon when leal praise flowed for whomever he called master. "I was shown a path that no longer saw death and destruction rampaging across the nation, stealing the lives of the future for petty squabbles. A path that made it so kids didn't have to fight for a cause that wasn't even theirs, one where bloodshed isn't dictated by the symbol upon your forehead."
"And yet you show loyalty to those that ensnare Jinchuuriki, regardless of age, and let the earth swallow those very same lives you hoped to save in your goal." He replied swiftly, not letting his boyhood teammate ignore what sat in the world they left for this dark space.
"Come now, Kakashi. Surely a longtime jounin, former Anbu captain, and current Hokage knows that there is a cost to everything." Obito showed him a sneer but made no move forward. He was content with giving Kakashi the space and time for such conversation. Even with the agitation from Kakashi's words, the Kage could spot the glimmer of amusement that came from the deep red eye across from him. "My master asked for a clear board before we began the cleansing. Sasori of the Red Sand removed the Kazekage, Onoki was lost amongst the earth, you hold the distinction of killing Ai, my associate removed the Mizukage, and now all that's left is you, my old friend. I'd be loath to push such a responsibility on someone else."
Kakashi's left hand tightened around the kunai that was in its grasp, watching as a kunai glimmered within Obito's right hand in much the same way. If he was telling the truth, then it seemed much of the weight had fallen to Kakashi's shoulders. The Elemental Nations' pension for self-destruction has provided yet another unnecessary obstacle to climb across. Thousands of shinobi died within the last couple weeks, more so in the last day than any other, and now that a threat of unexplained magnitude threatens to remove the nations that make the continent in order to lord over it themselves. Kakashi was sure that whoever Obito served was a threat that held much power, and yet when the Hokage looked across the blackness to the spry form of his former teammate he could only feel daunted. Daunted as he may be, Kakashi's legs dug into the lightless ground with as much vigor as he could manage just as Obito surged forward toward him.
The kunai that filled Obito's hand was released quickly, the short throwing blade slicing through the air toward Kakashi at incredible speeds and lethal precision. His left arm rose with reflexive response to the projectile, angling a face of the blade to catch the point of the thrown kunai and send it spinning into the air in a loud clatter of steel on steel. Kakashi's left leg lifted him from the ground in a spin that brought his right leg swinging in front of him as he rose into the air. A sandaled heel kicked the butt of the kunai's handle as it spun with perfect timing, sending it back as Obito with the same intention as its initial throw. The man hadn't unsheathed another blade to match Kakashi's movements, or even a lesser approximation of them, but a blade was unneeded to simply weave the flying blade to allow it to clatter against the ground behind him along with the second that flew closely behind it.
When Kakashi landed, he was forced to raise a guard to catch the swift movements of his opponent as Obito seemed to have sped his approach with Kakashi airborne. A left hook was the first strike to fly at Kakashi, one that was met by a left forearm that stretched across his body to prevent early damage to rattle his right shoulder. Naturally, Kakashi's left ribs felt the pain that his shoulder shared with a digging punch driving hard into his torso. With a bend of the arm that already stretched across his body, Kakashi shoved his body forward to drive a leading elbow into the chest, or better yet the neck, of the closely standing Obito. Given the shortened range of an elbow compared to a punch, Kakashi was sure that the strike would merely fall short by a backward leaning Uchiha, but instead he felt the pressure of the same technique that brought the both of them here flow freely through the air as chakra spiraled into a breaking of space.
It was subconscious. Kakashi put more thought into breathing than he did when his Sharingan eye met Obito's Mangekyo. Only when Kakashi's eye matched the pinwheel shape within the sea of red that Obito's own carried did the shout of Kamui resound through the air. Blood poured from both of their eyes while spinning eddies of air and chakra counteracted each other until the visual prowess of both eyes yielded no change. Kakashi's elbow freely drove into Obito's chest with a heavy thud, one that was followed closely by an awkward downward swing of an arm to send an uppercut to the closely standing man's stomach. "You won't run from me that easily, Obito!" Kakashi called with some strain as his eye remained locked with its sister on his opponent's face. Again, Obito tried to disappear in the wake of his fist, but the newly falling streams of blood from both eyes showed that so long as their eyes met neither Mangakyo could be of use.
"Who said anything about running, Kakashi?" Obito asked in a voice that mixed a growl and a hiss as a leg fired into the air at swift speeds. His left hand buffered what force it could from Obito's foot as it made to collide with his head, a dull ring sounding through his ears as the foot was pulled back, but no movements could be made fast enough to block that very same foot from climbing just a little shallower to target his ailing shoulder. Kakashi did take half a step back in time to evade much of the power from the kick, only the toes of the swinging foot making contact with his arm, but the pain shot through his body like lightning. Muscles clenched and his mind tightened on itself to prepare for a second wave of pain, but Kakashi watched Obito flip backward instead of pressing the attack.
By the time the man's head rolled around to make eye contact with Kakashi again, the words of a ninjutsu were being called behind a hand seal held closely to his lips. "Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu," was the preface to a wave of heat and embers that ejected from the Uchiha's mouth in a large blaze that spiraled within itself as it covered the distance between them. Kakashi's own body went airborne to force more space between himself and the attack while his hands danced their own dance and his chakra was pushed outward. There was a certain shock that came to the abundance of energy that flowed around them. Chakra of every nature flowed through the utter darkness that was so densely wrapped around them. His voice shouted out his own jutsu, "Water Style: Crashing Wave," and almost from thin air a wave of water exploded in front of him. It rose in a mounting wall that fell onto the ball of flames in a hiss as steam freely floated in the air.
Kakashi's feet splashed amongst water that displayed the dark floor with a subtle gleam and glimmer, that same splashing echoing as he pushed forward and into the mist that idly stretched between them both. However, he didn't need to know where Obito was when Kakashi initiated his next strike. The Hokage's feet left the shallow layer of water that now rested on the ground, his heels flying over his head while his hands ended at a hand seal resting just in front of his lips. "Lightning Style: Lightning Bullet Jutsu," the words introduced the bright blue arcing currents that vaguely kept themselves within the shape of a sphere just before the current of the jutsu was carried through the water in a wide discharge. The discharge carried the current of electricity with the current of water, clearing out the Lightning Release where Kakashi's feet landed in a wet slap.
His eye seemed to naturally draw toward its pair as he found Obito idly drifting through the air to bypass the surging electricity below him, a thinned blanket of vapor separating the two. Obito looked as if he was about to respond to Kakashi's strike, but the Kage was quicker. Five seals were formed before the Hokage's back straightened from his landing and his left hand was already lashing with his first two fingers rigid as they flew outward. "Wind Style: Wind Blade!" The blade of wind that extended from the swiping arm was a long and viciously sharp edge that made to cut across Obito's airborne form from shoulder to hip as it flew at him. The draping cloak that covered his form snapped wildly from both the wind of the technique and the quickly turning movements that were made to try and evade the blade. The swift rip of fabric was enough to know that the attack landed, but the trail of blood that rolled down the length of Obito's left arm showed that it didn't nearly land as well as he hoped.
"It's been some time since I've worried about being touched. You've done well to honor that eye I gave you, Kakashi. I'll be sure to take it back once we've finished." Whatever light-heartedness that carried from their reunion was now lost in a hardened face that betrayed nothing. Whether it was from the side of the face that sat comfortably upon itself or the side that hung loosely off of the bone, Obito's face showed a hungry ferocity born in the heat of battle. While Obito stood straight and ready, Kakashi felt his shoulders roll forward as the right one throbbed along with his deep breaths. It had been a long time since he's been pushed so far so quickly. Days of unending war and a battle against a mighty Raikage didn't allow much leeway for extra energy.
When Obito came forward again, not losing a step in his charge, Kakashi took a deep breath to match the man's intensity. Chakra was forced through his limbs to boost his speed as he made to retrieve another kunai from his pouch. Before he could draw one, Obito's hands fell to the ground to burst a mighty Rock Wall between them. Kakashi slowed his approach to easily slide into the emptiness below him as it became the proxy for ground that he was to burrow through. The Kage drifted through blackness for only a few yards before he burst back through the surface with his red eye dancing over his immediate surroundings for his former teammate, but the man seemed to have disappeared. The view before him, above him and at his sides were the exact same. Empty air was all to be found in his direct line of sight, the ground was where he entered, which leaves only one place left. Kakashi spun on the ball of his foot to look at the untouched wall that sat at his back just in time to hear a deep rumble that shuttered through several feet of solid stone.
Before so much as a crack spread across the stone face before him, Kakashi was already dashing up the wall with an explosion of chakra separating from his body after he brought his fingers into a cross. Just as he reached the top of the wall, the shuttering below relented into a full explosion of rubble as lances of brilliant blue lighting pierced the space that Kakashi once stood amongst with deadly precision. The hardened stone shook below him as it fell toward the ground as Kakashi kicked himself to the other side of the wall in an awkward slide. Their eyes met magnetically the same as before, Mangekyo Sharingan blazing from one eye to the other as Kakashi finished half a dozen hand seals and held the Tiger Seal before his mouth. "Fire Style: Dragon Fire Jutsu!"
The spewing of flames was broad and wild. There was nothing refined about the jutsu, only a blanket of burning heat that poured over the space beneath Kakashi with little exception. Despite the reach of the ninjutsu though, Kakashi knew that Obito would easily be able to escape. Most would be able to escape such a tame attack from above, but as a mirror image of Kakashi dashed into view behind Obito from the far side of the crumbling wall, the clamping grip of the clone made it easier for such an attack to land true. Obito tried to move out of the way first, not immediately feeling the clone behind him, but when a hand clamped down on the man's shoulder with another moving to tighten upon his torso the pressure upon the Uchiha mounted. Or, it would have had Obito not quickly spun his body to swing the Shadow Clone around to become a barrier between himself and the falling flames. When Obito spun around again it was without Kakashi's clone having a solid grip upon him, giving the Uchiha the space to kick the clone in the chest with strength that lifted the chakra creation into the blaze that fell down from above.
Kakashi fell toward the ground lightly after his jutsu, his feet touching the ground just soon enough to try and dance away from the lashing fist of his opponent. Knuckles rippled just left of his cheek, the following kick only catching the tall end of his hair as the Kage ducked beneath it, and the blade that was thrown in the wake of a swift backstep from Obito was drilled into the ground stiffly just in front of his toes as Kakashi mimicked the backward step with his own. Obito's surging charge forward kept Kakashi on his backfoot before he had the chance to counter with anything of his own. His left arm was raised to catch a right hook, Kakashi's rising knee hit only air before a punishing kick to his bad shoulder sent the Kage into a stumble to his left, and only the devastating kick to his chest that sent him barreling across the ground saved Kakashi from falling to the ground from the blinding pain that erupted from his shoulder. He felt blood freely pouring from the shambles of the joint that remained to him, the liquid re-staining his clothes before joining the blackness beneath him as Kakashi tried to gather himself enough to reach his feet again.
"It's a shame it had to be this way, Kakashi. You're a victim of the same world that I mean to bring an end to, someone who had no choice what family they were born into nor the expectations that came with it. Had you been able to live away from the life of a shinobi, you wouldn't be here dying slowly in front of me." Kakashi heard the voice, one filled with genuine mourning as Obito kept his distance away from him. Heaving grunts tore through his throat as Kakashi pushed his chest away from the ground to slide a knee beneath him and another grunt to get his upper body to lean atop that knee. Halfway into a stand, Kakashi could see Obito again but his heavy breathing clouded over the voice that reached his ears. "If only we met when you weren't already knocking at the doors of death. How many nights have passed since you've slept a full night, my friend? Too long for anybody and too long to be a threat to me."
He was tired. He could feel his lower eyelids trying to hang away from his eyeballs, his eyebrows were weights far heavier than they had any right to be, and even the blinding pain he was under came to him in a vaguely numbed sensation that his mind couldn't process. None of that kept Kakashi from his feet, though. In a burst of energy, Kakashi's second foot slid under him and he pushed himself up with only the slimmest of sways catching his body. "Children or grown, so long as I'm alive I'm a threat to you, Obito." The words fell from loose lips without much thought to them. Seeing Obito's face before him, blurred and skewed as his sight swam with his own swaying, brought Kakashi back to the fields that Minato-sensei would make them fight each other within just as he had done for his own Team 7. Not once did Obito beat him. Not once was he close to beating him. Even as he was, Kakashi had no intention of making it an easy task for Obito to take his first victory from him.
"Well then, Hatake. Let's see just how much you still have." Again, there was a shift in the man. Remembrance was replaced with excitable aggression. The boy Kakashi knew long ago was gone, that much was clear. What sat in his place was what confused Kakashi. He fashioned himself as a man dedicated to a lasting peace and yet a fight provoked a certain heat that beat out whatever notions of peace that previously stood. Whatever it was, whoever he was, Kakashi didn't need to figure it out. He needed to try his damndest to bring Obito down to whatever hell he was drawing closer to.
Again, Kakashi brought his fingers into a cross to make a clone stand at his left to mimic the hand seals that he cycled through immediately after. Be it patience or arrogance, Obito remained where he was near the rubble of his Rock Wall as the two voices of Kakashi shouted out through the darkness in an echo of each other. "Fire Style: Fire Dragon Jutsu!" Where the previous Fire Release technique he used was an unrefined blanket of flames that draped over Obito, the two solid streams of slithering blaze were the exact opposite. Long, serpentine bodies topped with snarling faces and sharp fangs made of the same embers that burned and blazed through the rest of their bodies that snaked through the air in a swirling dance that hissed and growled with every movement. It wasn't long before Kakashi's gaze was drowned by reds, oranges, and yellows of the fire as the dragons tangled about themselves flying toward Obito. The man that once stood clearly before Kakashi was lost in the fires, but Kakashi's attention wasn't kept to the ground. The Mangekyo of his left eye throbbed as it searched and danced to find Obito's body. His pair of Fire Dragons stayed close to the ground and that left too much space in the air untouched to not utilize.
It wasn't the same black cloak that caught Kakashi's eye when movement caught his gaze in the air. Instead, Obito seemed to have abandoned the cumbersome cloak for a short sleeved, high-collared shirt of deep blue that was common amongst the Uchiha once upon a time. The man drifted through the air away from a particularly aggressive clattering of a fiery snout against a black ground. Three hand seals was all it took for the bright blaze of fire to be joined by blue arcing current that burst into the air. It was odd feeling the Lightning Blade explode from his left hand, but Kakashi made due well enough as his clone's right hand burst to life only inches away from his left. Between them, current jumped through the space in a thick, deadly thread that only strengthened as the Lightning Blade chirped through the air. Obito's glowing red eye met his own just as Kakashi burst forward at incredible speeds that was led by the pair of hands holding pure elemental manipulation.
Fire still burned, but it was dwindling considerably when Kakashi and his clone burst forward. As they ran, the two hands that held the Lightning Blades drifted away from each other to lengthen the thread that joined the two. When their feet left the ground, Kakashi flew with what seemed like a length of rope spun in lightning between him and his clone. Obito's drifting body was lined up in such a way that left the length of his body precariously aligned with the chirping current. Kakashi held the gaze with Obito, watching as his old friend's pale face turned into a scowl as the lightning drew closer, a scowl accentuated by the hanging skin on its right half. The scowl was firmly in place as the thread of lightning dug into his body with little issue, Obito's torso bisected as the leaping pair of Kakashi's continued their momentum upward at an angle.
The pop of a copied Shadow Clone was the warning Kakashi had before his ribs felt a stab on pain and his motion was flipped from upward at an angle to downward at the opposite angle. His breath was stolen from him when he landed with his back flat on the ground as another weight dropped impossibly hard on his right side. The shallow bounce from the force of his landing gave him a short reprieve from the pain, only for it to be replaced by a sandaled sole that pushed itself into Kakashi's back to send him sprawling across the ground once again.
Whether his eyes were open or closed, there was naught but black to greet him. His face came to rest with his forehead pressed to the ground and his achy nose being ignored of its pain. The eye that was gifted to him fell out of its pinwheel shape and into three separate tomoe that still ached violently, as did the rest of his body. His chakra was shallow, his consciousness shallower, and his pain too deep. The kunai that Obito stabbed into his side remained where it was, the entirety of his right arm was all but numb, and his breathing was deep and ragged. Still, he lived. He was alive, for however long he had left. It wasn't even a thought that passed through his mind when he pushed against the ground once again with his good arm. It shook violently under his weight, the new pain in his torso spread through him as it did, but push he did.
"Stay down, Kakashi. You're a dead man." His tongue was bitten simply to distract him from all the other pain that he was wracked with, but Kakashi still got to his knees for a brief intermission as he tried to stand. His usually stiff hair fell into his vision, splayed this way and that with a color he was unfamiliar with. The usually silver hair he was accustomed to was dull and discolored from the dirt, blood and grime that it caught in the last few hours. It made him wonder how truly sorry he looked as he fought tooth and nail to reach a leaning stand before Obito. His former teammate was a fair distance away, giving him space once again, but his next words almost brought the shaky Kakashi back to his knees.
"You remind me of Minato-sensei. Even with a Tailed-Beast wreaking havoc in the village, he faced me without hesitation and still sacrificed himself to seal the Fox into his kid. I think he'd be proud of you." Obito's voice was stone, not the fond remembrance that it was when they started, but the vigor of the fight left the man. Kakashi wanted to ask him about it. How? Why? Both of those questions and many variations between the two swarmed Kakashi's mind, but before any could leave his lips Obito was speaking again. "How did she die, Kakashi?"
Kakashi looked at the swimming visage's of Obito that split between each other, rejoined, and split again. He knew who she was. Obito loved her for at least as long as they were a team together under Minato, probably longer when the two of them were still in the academy, but Kakashi hadn't spoken of Rin since he saw his own arm stabbed through her chest. It was a mercy. He was saving her from the fate the Hidden Mist had in mind for her, but it never felt as much to him. Not truly. "Lightning Blade." He gasped out with a voice dry and raw as it was snuck through heavy pants.
"Tell her I'm sorry when you see her. I'm sure I've done more than enough to earn her disappointment." There was no answer from Kakashi in that. I have my own sorrows to carry, Obito. Neither of us are going where she is, but if we did that's a task for you alone. No matter what he did, Kakashi always had something to lose and something to regret. As he stood before someone he thought to be amongst the lost crackled lightning within his hand, Kakashi felt the weight of all that he's carried lessen.
His hand reached up, fighting against the pain of the shoulder to remove the blade in his side before he threw it into the ground angled to his right. His ears heard the mounted chirps that gathered within Obito's hand. He had no more than five seconds until the jutsu balanced out, another second and a half for Obito to clear the distance and thrust his arm through him. Kakashi's left hand gripped a handful of blades from his weapon pouch, cutting his hand from careless gripping before he chucked a blade on either side of him behind his back. One last blade was brought around to his front, its gleam catching Kakashi's eye. His Sharingan stared back at itself through the blade's reflection, letting Kakashi watch the tomoe come together one last time with blinding pain filling his mind before he threw the blade down in front of him angled slightly to the left.
The balance of the Lightning Blade sounded right. One, two, three, four, and five the seals came together in front of him without the fluidity they usually had. The speed Obito came at him was impressive but wild. He wasn't used to the abrupt change of pace one had when they were led by Lightning Release. It took a single rock to Kakashi's right to feel the man's hand miss his heart entirely. Another hole was made in his body but precious seconds were bought. His Mangekyo matched Obito's staring across each other as Kakashi felt his life slip further from him. Whatever chakra he had left him when his lips whispered what they could. "Ninja Art: Four Point Exploding Barrier."
It could have sounded like anything, the gurgling mess his voice was reduced to with the blood that flowed upward, when the telltale hissing resounded through the air Kakashi knew it was done. He never strayed his gaze from Obito's, the surprise in the man's face being welcomed wholeheartedly with the Kamui halting the reflexive spiraling from his old friend's time-space technique. Kakashi didn't need to see the scrawlings of ink across the white rectangle formed by the four kunai that surrounded him in a rectangle. He knew it looked the same as any explosive tag. When Obito lifted into the air and Kakashi felt a pressure beat off his chest one last time, all Kakashi heard was the concussive explosion that surrounded him and swallowed him whole.
The last thing Kakashi thought about was the small table in his home. Everything he held dear was displayed for him in two picture frames that gleamed right back at him.
If only they lasted just a little longer.
Real talk, Kakashi dying has kind of been something that was in my mind for a very long time, but I believe in its first inclination it was Pain that did it. This story didn't follow any initial ideas that were born at the beginning, but this worked just as well in my opinion. He's by far my favorite character, in terms of skillset and narrative arc, but I feel like he's left in purgatory at the end of the series. He's a tragic character that's faced so much loss, and he survives the war to what? Decay slowly and alone? Maybe if you made a dedicated way for him to find a certain peace, then sure I could see it, but that wasn't really what happened. I think, in terms of his character, giving his life for what he thought was important serves as a better ending for someone so caught up in his sorrows, but that's just me. I didn't have a fun time killing him tho.
In other news, half of my finals are done and over with, phat W's over here. We'll continue on with the story on the 8th.