Author's Note: Here's a little something about Kakashi and the Sharingan, because it can't possibly have been plain sailing.
Chapter Eleven
Fall
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After nearly half a day's worth of mostly silent journey, Kakashi stumbles and falls.
Minato saw it coming almost five kilometres ago – could read it in the boy's slightly stilted movements, and the barely-there wobble of his right foot – but ultimately refrained from acting on it, because accepting Kakashi as team leader is also to accept that he is the most stubborn shinobi to have ever lived and drawn breath in the Hidden Leaf Village. It is childish behaviour, especially ill-befitting a jounin at war and it might even endanger the one mission that Konoha can't afford to fail, but then Minato thinks about the student that is dead, the students that remain and the thin lines on Rin's face – and he realizes that for whatever reason, Kakashi needs this.
(So Minato will allow Kakashi his antics, just this once.)
"I'm fine," mutters Kakashi to Rin, who is immediately at his side. "Rin, I'm fine."
She doesn't believe him; Minato can tell by the quiet exasperation in her eyes, and it dawns on him that he isn't the only member of their cell to have monitored Kakashi for signs.
(Konoha trains her young well.)
"You're not fine," she bites back. "Kakashi!"
Kakashi is staring at his own clenched fists, Rin practically wilting at his side, and Minato decides for all of them that enough is enough.
He slowly counts to ten in his head before he pulls them together the best that he can. "Let's rest here for a while," he declares in a tone of voice that others obey.
And then he disappears among the trees, because even now Minato is still sensei.
He glimpses Rin holding out her hand to Kakashi, who grudgingly accepts it, and for the first time in what feels like forever, Minato dares to hope that maybe they'll be okay.
.
"Kakashi," she says, not-so calmly, "I can't help if you don't tell me what's wrong."
Not much is, he thinks. Other than the fact that Uchiha Obito died so Kakashi wouldn't have to, and that Uchiha's damn Sharingan eye is burning a hole through his head.
(But of course he doesn't tell her that either.)
"I'm fine," he repeats evenly, pretending that his head isn't on fire. "Look, it's alright."
"Then why did you trip?"
(Damn her. Kakashi seethes and his temples throb.)
"Maybe I lost my footing," he lies brazenly through his teeth. "It happens."
(Except it doesn't happen to shinobi like Kakashi and they both know this.)
"Kakashi…"
She looks at him with too big, too tired eyes and he fumes at his own cowardice. Rin only wants to help, but she'll want to examine the Sharingan and he simply can't let that happen.
(Not after sensei told him in a low voice that it still hadn't deactivated, because what if—)
"Kakashi, let me see the eye."
He briefly weighs his options. But the sharp edge in her voice leaves him no room to refuse and it doesn't help that medic-nin are notoriously stubborn, so he reluctantly turns his face towards her.
(But he makes sure to pin his gaze on a tree over her shoulder, just in case.)
"Thank you for being cooperative," she murmurs as her chakra ghosts over his face.
"Rin…" he mutters when she lingers a little too long over the edge of his mask.
"I know." She smiles reassuringly, and for a moment everything feels almost normal. "But I need to check the surrounding tissue."
And once she is satisfied enough to give him back his face, Rin sits back on her heels to look at him. "It doesn't seem infected," she says. "But… I think it would be best to cover it."
(Blind spot, he thinks. Obito. Blind spot.)
It's too dangerous. He can't accept this.
"It's just for now," she hurries to add, as if she could read his thoughts. "Sensei is here. He'll look out for us in the meantime."
Yes. But even sensei doesn't see all, he wants to say. Not like Obito could.
(Not like Kakashi can.)
He opens his mouth, but chakra flares from under the palm of her hand and into his chest, and then his vision blurs completely.