Those Sombre Dogs of War

by Viatorix

With the extraction of the Kyūbi, the terrorist group Akatsuki has won. In defiance, Kakashi makes a choice to save everyone at the sacrifice of himself. As a result, in another world, a sudden explosion of unprecedented power destroys the Kannabi Bridge with seemingly no explanation and damning political consequences. [AU. Dimension Hop, Plot heavy focus, Ninja politics]

7. Wayward Hound

Chapter Six - Wayward Hound

Kakashi huddled beneath his coat, pressing his hands into his armpits to try and preserve what heat he could. Try as he might, sleep wouldn't come. And I thought I'd been doing so well, he thought dryly. With his cheek ground into the thin mess of blankets, the scent of packed dirt was thick in his nose, and the moist earth cool on his bared skin. Wool itched at the prickly growth on his jaw. Even if he wiped his cheek against the weave in an attempt to chase the itch away, it quickly came back. He grunted, irritated. This was why he preferred a clean face. The growing headache pounding behind his eyes didn't provide any hope that rest would come soon. Even exhausted, and dizzy for it, his body still found ways to deny him. At least the burning under his skin had lessened.

It was with some luck that he found himself a shack before the storm rolled in from the north, and now here, close to Taki's southwestern border, it hammered the forest and the little hovel crowded to the base of a hanging camphor tree. Its ancient barrel-thick branches groaned with every whip of wind that blew through, and a rainy tail of it sucked in through the shattered window to tug insistently at Kakashi's clothes. The shack reeked of moss and mould. In the growing moisture brought on by the storm, it was strong enough that he shielded his nose; tired of the smell of mud, and willing to contend with his own rank sweat instead. Every so often, the wind howled, sending his shelter shivering and creaking. Kakashi wasn't wholly sure it would survive the night, despite enduring for however many years it had been abandoned. A leak in the rotting iron roof made puddles in more than one corner. None of it drinkable unless he cared for sipping on rust, mush, and mud. He had claimed the only 'dry' patch that remained, and even still his bedding would be muddy come morning.

The blankets had served him well, these past few weeks. The coat too. All borrowed from the cupboard of a ruined house. He'd been unwilling to part with them, even temporarily, to check himself. He knew he should. The old medical nin may have healed the worst of his cuts and scrapes, but he'd gained new ones since, and Kakashi had been running for long enough since that his sweat-stained shirt was pasted tight against his skin, as though stuck with glue. Moronic, and a terrible habit he kept falling into these past few weeks. He figured he could survive till morning. When the light was better and he was feeling more rested. It was fine. It was hardly the first time he'd been forced to endure these kinds of trying situations — well, maybe not to this miserable extent, but he thought he had done well, all things considered.

Kakashi relaxed, letting his shoulder shift to an odd angle but tired enough to forgo adjusting his position. It wouldn't help. Thunder rolled in the sky above. Kakashi felt a responding pang of hunger. He closed his eye, and breathed, tucking his nose. Soon. He was so close. Tomorrow he would pass into Waterfall Country, and finally he might be able to truly rest.

---

Weeks ago, upon waking within the shroud of the tree hollow just as morning breached through the fingers of the roots, Kakashi had taken proper stock of himself. The initial assessment of his injuries from the night before, when he had awoken in the middle of a crater after a truly spectacular suicide attempt, remained true.

Should be dead. Wasn't. Somewhat of a painful mystery, that one.

Everything hurt. From the joints of his toes to the beds of his fingernails; the latter of which stung fiercely. Tattered, his clothing hung from him; burnt in places, ripped in others, an entire sleeve of his shirt torn off from the shoulder. His flak jacket was nowhere to be found, most likely burnt up when he was swallowed by the blast. The metal plates of his gloves lay twisted, gorged, and on his left hand: just plain missing. As was his hitai-ate, leaving his hair to fall across his brow in dirty, matted twists of hair.

Gently easing himself to sit up, Kakashi carefully checked the various hidden pockets of his trousers, pulling out everything that remained to stack into little piles. And little they were. His kunai pouch was all but empty, what throwing weapons he had, he slipped from the various hidden pockets; including the half dozen senbon stitched into the seams of his trousers.

He appraised what remained. Rubber vials with basic antidotes, a roll of wire string, and a needle and thread. Sealing scrolls formed another pile, many of them singed and unreadable, including the one containing a copy of the latest Icha Icha which he had been re-reading, to Kakashi's immense despair. Most hadn't survived re-entry: his primary first aid, his disguise kit, his backup weapons. The summoning scroll for his ninken was present but horrendously charred and half the parchment missing. The backup summoning scroll was nowhere to be found. Slumping back, Kakashi grumbled irritably through the pounding in his head. If he wanted the help of his dogs, it would have to be through the clan jutsu.

Among the scrolls that remained intact, only the most basic of sealing scrolls would activate with the chakra naturally present in his blood; designed as such, in case the user was dangerously drained of chakra. Like now, he thought archly. The others, like the barrier seal scroll, would be of more use as kindling. Breathing through the strange burning ache under his skin, he pinched a cut on his arm, encouraging new blood until his thumb glittered in the fingers of morning light. His secondary medical kit remained whole, as did another scroll he had taken to stuffing with an assortment of miscellany. In a wisp of smoke, its contents tumbled over his lap. Kakashi sorted through the fill: a spare change of clothes, a fist worth of Fire ryō, one short length of rope, a couple of blending sticks, a survival kit that included flint, a compass, and more wire string. A large bottle of water thumped into the moss, narrowly missing landing on his gut. There were more senbon amongst the cache, as well as a small stack of ration bars, soldier pills and a single chocolate bar. He decided that the latter was good enough for breakfast. Given the pain he was currently muddling his way through, Kakashi thought he deserved it. He soon discovered that even his teeth ached.

Cutting and wriggling out of the remains of his clothing was a process ripe with hurt. He felt the burgeoning pressure of it with every breath. He was forced to pause and suck in wet gasps of air as he meditated through the pain. Kakashi coughed, and his lungs prickled sharply, the watered tang of blood filling his mouth. At least it was a little more fluid this morning. Forgetting himself, he wiped his brow and flared his chakra in a poor attempt to push down the pain, only to choke in surprise, feeling as though he had just been dipped in liquid fire.

Kakashi was painfully loath to further discover that he hadn't been imagining the state he'd found his chakra system in as he lay prone in the crater. Ravaged and wasted. All but blown apart, yet still vainly holding together with pathways little more than stringed gut and frayed tendon. Not much to assess and resolve there, except to mockingly ask the memory of his old captain just how it was that Kakashi had survived. The memory didn't answer. Thought so.

Only once the pain subsided back to a burning throb did Kakashi continue picking at the remains of his clothes, his movements almost timid. Despite carefully cutting himself clear, some of the wounds pasted close by fabric and blood reopened, and he was unfairly reminded of the restricted space of his den when he whacked his injured shoulder while tugging the remains of his shirt over his head.

Naked, his more physical injuries were all the more apparent. The gouge in his thigh pushed out new worms of glistening blood. He caught them on his fingertips, smearing it against his skin before they could drip to the moss beneath. Knicks and scraps littered his skin, thin and sharp. The ache in his hip had settled, but bruising remained evident in the dark bloom of mottled skin over the jut of his hip bone. Of all his injuries, the deep gouge remained the most pressingly grievous. Threading the needle with medical thread proved somewhat difficult with trembling hands but after a few attempts and sheer luck, he set to stitching together the flaps of skin. The antiseptic salve was out of date and the supply of bandages worryingly few, but as he tied off the end, Kakashi decided that was his future self's problem to deal with.

Gingerly, he crawled from the hollow to dress. The spares were more of a civilian style: a simple tunic, trousers, low-cut sandals, with a wrap of cloth to cover his Sharingan. The remains of the shinobi gear he burnt, reduced to using the knuckle of flint and dried moss after cutting away anything that would directly mark the style for Konoha. His mask was another sacrifice for the small, crackling fire. A mark of a shinobi was hardly going to be helpful blending in. Kakashi found it vaguely unsettling to be out in the wilderness, barefaced and undisguised. A lifetime of wearing the thing had created a dependency which only became embarrassingly apparent when he was forced to be without it. Sans a brown wig and purple tape to disguise himself and lacking the ability to make even the most basic henge, it would have to do. Ironic that his best disguise was simply to look his plain, boring self. It was only in paranoia that he kept more blending sticks than he needed with his supplies. He used one; applying only so much to hide the thin line of the scar that bit into his cheek, grazing lower than the cloth wrap could hide. Shrugging the tunic down his shoulder, the faded ANBU tattoo disappeared beneath the peach-coloured paste, followed by several of his more prominent pale scars on his arms.

He should have left the moment he slipped on his sandals and the last of the embers of the little fire died. It had been hours already and too many of them had been spent blacked out. But as he lingered beside the hunk of masonry beside his tree hollow, he found he had to see it. Favouring his right leg, Kakashi limped the small way back toward the edge of the devastation, hiding amongst shadows and broken debris. The thrown and shattered timber had created a bracket. Kakashi peered through the gaps, his throat constricting.

He had created a wasteland. Barren and silent.

The disquiet was haunting. Kakashi leaned heavily against the trunk of a felled tree. He should have considered something like this could happen. Idiot, he chastised, spitting out a small bleed of sour bile. You're supposed to be better than this. He should have considered that maybe, perhaps a Dojutsu-constructed dimension like Kamui lacked the stability to contain nine supernatural beings worth of chakra. He'd been so focused on fumbling for some control of the situation, some way to push back against Akatsuki's victory, he hadn't considered the consequences of what would happen if he did.

Gods. A bird screeched overhead and Kakashi pulled air through his nose. His body flared in pain, the anger at himself causing his muscles to seize. A gust of wind rolled through from on high, whipping up the dead soil. He sighed, forcibly releasing the tension between his shoulders. Wallowing in guilt wouldn't set the trees back on their roots and repaint the land green. It was done. He was jumpy, in pain. He needed to leave. Really, what else could he do? Turn himself in and beg for forgiveness? Kusagakure's council would love that, he thought. Kakashi would be begging for forgiveness all the way down to the torture chamber. I'm more likely to start a war. He wasn't sure Lady Tsunade would appreciate him putting that on her plate, on top of everything else. And Kakashi had no intention of... becoming his father. He grimaced. Sparing a moment, he watched the bird circle before diving back toward the safety of the forest. Not even they would fly out into the wasteland and its eerie quiet. Move, shinobi. Assess. Resolve. Run, coward.

Oh, shut up, he told the captain. Shouldn't you be assessing and resolving mission reports in the Pure Lands? Kakashi straightened, flicking the dusty debris from his shoulder. No, he would take his time. Regroup somewhere. Figure out... something. For a brief moment, he wished Gai were with him. His rival would have already had some hamfisted but workable plan, and be barrelling headlong into the other side.

He retreated, giving one last long look to the remains of the Kannabi bridge before turning north. He would find the road and follow it off-track — likely a safe bet in this state — and switch north-east toward Waterfall Country. Safely out of Kusa, he could continue on and return to the Mountain's Graveyard. As he limped, it occurred to Kakashi that he'd hardly considered if the blast could have had two ejections. For all he knew, the Mountain's Graveyard and everyone in it could have been reduced to dust. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Kakashi sent another fervent prayer to the gods.

Out of Kusa, it would be easier to get a read on the situation without having to sleep with one eye open. He hoped. At his injured pace and with a lack of chakra, he still had some weeks of journeying ahead of him. It might be that the others had already headed back to Konoha, or better, stopped for rest in Takigakure. The Hidden Village and its headman was a friend. If any were to need healing, that is where they would go to seek shelter after an intense battle. And with their Jinchūriki dead, the small nation was certainly no friend of Akatsuki's. And I could always use some healing myself, Kakashi mused, pausing to cough. Though, he wasn't sure what could be done about the state of his chakra. A price paid for his survival, even if he never intended to make the purchase. Returning straight to Konoha didn't feel right, not when the Mountain's Graveyard lay out there, swathed in unknowns. Not when his comrades could be hurt or dying, or dead.

Someday, your nindo really is going to get me killed, Obito. Or put on extended leave without pay.

Alone, Kakashi was left with his thoughts. With nothing to pass the time, they drifted to the place he had landed and the carcass he made of it. The Kannabi ravine and its bridge were no more. How he had managed to travel several hundred miles remained a mystery. Kamui had always dropped him right back on the spot he travelled from. He had been thinking of Obito at the time of the blast, and thinking of the boy did tend to come with thoughts of the setting he had died in. But Kakashi hadn't been thinking of jumping out of Kamui. His thoughts had been wholly concerned with, well, dying in Kamui.

More to the point, something was... off. Kakashi couldn't quite put his finger on it. When he had awoken to spy the chunk of the Kannabi bridge in the morning light, the painted decoration toed a line between familiar and strange. It hadn't been long ago that he'd crossed it during a retrieval mission, and it was only as he wadded awkwardly through a stream under the dappled light of the forest that he remembered: the giant kanji mason marks on the footings of the new bridge had been painted blue, not red. The bridge could have always undergone some repair work. Yet that didn't sit right with Kakashi. Had they really gone to all that effort, just to repaint the mason marks?

Strange but not wholly unusual. Still, something in him urged caution, and his instincts hadn't led him astray just yet. He shook his head and turned his thoughts east. Tsunade would have to forgive him for going missing for a few weeks. Although, with the stunt he pulled, funeral arrangements were likely already being made. I'm sorry, Gai. Tenzō. Sakura and Naruto, you too. Kakashi was no stranger to understanding how sharply and deeply grief could wound a man, even if it was only temporary. Until then he wouldn't blame them if they really did believe him dead. By all logic, he should be.

Onward Kakashi limped.

He slept in dirt hollows and kept his pace, even as it made his lungs burn and his head light. Foreign nin were about. He spied them in shadows and leaping overhead. Tree walking and leaping beyond him, Kakashi resorted to basic stealth to pass undetected. He needn't have bothered. The one time he thought himself caught, the nin's eyes slid over him, uninterested in a wobbling man with little more chakra than a feeble civilian. Isn't that what I am now? He asked himself as he passed through an outpost with an influx of travellers, garbed in a pilfered coat. Seeming far more preoccupied, the Kusan nin had waved him through and sent him on his way without a word. Their eyes had been wary, heavy with exhaustion and edged with something dark. Kakashi had been lucky to be overlooked. The Kusan nin were jumpy, and jumpy nin were prone to stupidity.

Being around shinobi again had presented one glaring issue: Kakashi could barely sense chakra signatures. The most he could perceive was a vague inkling of strong chakra thrumming beneath a nin's skin. If they decided to conceal their chakra, then he couldn't tell at all; only hints by the way they held themselves and the grace with which they moved. Physical tells were reliable, but physical tells required seeing the shinobi or examining their tracks. Kakashi ardently wished his ninken had answered his summons. They could help him get a lay of the land. Track. Sense others themselves. For the first time ever, he'd been ignored. He hadn't thought that was even possible with the Hatake pact and it had hurt; in more ways than one. After leaving the outpost and steering from the main road, he had promptly prepared to gather the poor, ragged remnants of his chakra. The agony of performing the jutsu had resulted in little more than lines of writ seal in the dirt and the sensation of hot coals injected straight into his veins. Disappointed and wheezing hard, he'd had no choice but to soldier on; loneliness clawing his chest.

Three days into his slow journey north, Kakashi encountered a caravan of refugees.

Shoving a soldier pill in his mouth for breakfast as he knelt beside a streambed, he heard them before he saw them. The clamour sounded over the lip of the embankment; loud in the way civilians were. Curious, Kakashi trailed them for a mile, watching as they marched the main road, it so well worn the path had formed a sunken lane through the trees. No nin guarded them. The van formed from a column of twenty or so men and women, a handful more sequestered in the creaking carts that lumbered along as the oxen drove their hooves into the churned mud. The able-bodied men and women walked, while the elderly, children, and their wounded sat propped by hay and supplies. Several men and a pair of women made up their defences. Evidently not mercenaries, by the way they carried themselves but a guard formed from the caravan itself. Their weapons were crude: farm tools, the odd old blade here and there. One man striding at the front of a column carried an ancient looking polearm. Hunting knives were strapped to belts and peeked from boots, even amongst those within the carts.

Farmers, newly made into refugees. Fleeing from their homes ruined by the blast. The one he caused. Kakashi tensed in the shadow of a rocky outcrop. Stay back, Shinobi, the voice of his old captain growled. Kakashi ignored him. These past few days it had become more and more apparent that it was far more suspicious for the likes of him to be found off the track, rather than on it. And his food rations were running thin. Unless he wanted to find a river and sit beside it all day with a makeshift fishing rod, he needed help.

He followed the van from the score of trees that lined the Great Northern road, stepping onto a siding lane that wound up to join the main roadway. He limped forth. "Hail!" he called, as though finding the northbound caravan by nothing but luck. A responding cry resounded down the line, calling the van to stop. The oxen threw their heads and stamped as their reins were tugged. Kakashi gained an audience as hobbled forth, cognizant of the humid breeze on his bared face, and the sudden invitation of curious gazes.

Summoning his best Kusan accent, he limped to the rear guard. A pair of guards watched him approach, hands resting on the hilts of their knives. "What is it stranger?" the taller of the two asked.

"Ah, excuse me," Kakashi greeted, playing up a note of nervousness, "you wouldn't happen to be going north would you? To Midorino?" A part of Kakashi hoped, for some strange reason, that the town still existed.

"What about it?"

"Well, I'm trying to head that way," Kakashi replied, trying to sound pathetic. "But I haven't seen anyone in days that wasn't some shinobi. I've been hiding off the road, from bandits." He gestured to his dirty coat, sticking out his wounded leg, "They attacked me. Took my things. Twisted my leg all the way to the hip. I— please, are you all going north?"

The men looked at each other. Seeing that Kakashi was about to speak again, the shorter one with a heavy face and dirty nose held up his hand, regarding Kakashi's muddy clothes. Kakashi knew he reeked of sweat. "Follow me," the man said gruffly.

"My farm was destroyed by debris," Kakashi explained as he hobbled down the line. "I've got family near Midorino. Just hope they're alright up there too." The refugees stared as he followed the guard. Kakashi didn't hide how he stared in return. Children peaked their heads over the lip of the carts. A boy asked his mother who Kakashi was. Up close, he could see how they were shaken, their eyes bruised and wary. Able-bodied they might be, even those up and walking bore cuts and scrapes. The entire cheek of one of the men was scabbed with a deep graze. Some shifted on their feet, favouring one leg over the other. Bandaged hands clasped reins and curled around wooden railings. In one cart sat a girl, missing one of her arms. In another a middle aged man, a blindfold over his eyes. He loudly asked why they had stopped. Kakashi swallowed and continued on.

"Yuuji, who's this lad? Who've you brought?" At the front of the column an old man sat astride a horse. It snorted as Kakashi approached, a huge brown beast fit more for pulling ploughs than taking on riders. The old man made use of the horse's size by keeping two children propped on the saddle with him. A young girl in front, nestled between the slope of his belly and the pommel, while behind him sat a boy only slightly older, his arms looped about the man's waist. The guard kept here too; one of the women, a blade on her waist, and a pair of men, one of which hoisted the polearm on his shoulder. It did look ancient. A century or two old at least, the hafting cracked at the head. A strike aimed in the right place would split the thing in half.

"He's asking where we're heading," the guard, Yuuji, said. "Said his farm was destroyed and that he was attacked on the road."

The old man regarded Kakashi with an appraising eye. He was strongly built. A farming man through and through with his tanned skin, and arms thick with muscle built over decades of backbreaking work. His hair had greyed with age but it had once been dark, from the few specks of black left in his thick full beard.

"Name's Jin. You're a seeker of safety too, I take it?" The children mounted with him looked down from the saddle with round, curious faces. As they stared, Kakashi was reminded of a nugget of wisdom his father had once laughingly said came from his own grandmother, when she ruled as clanhead: a fat farmer is a happy man. A farmer with a gut and some plump children is an accomplished one. Jin, it seemed, would have won great-grandmother Suki's approval.

Kakashi adjusted his stance, making sure the man saw his limp. "I am, sir."

"We are indeed going north, friend. All the way to Earth Country."

"That far?"

The man nodded, the lines of his face deepening. "Grass is no place to be. I needn't tell you that, especially with those bandits about. Most of our lot are of Satoyama, and I'm its headman. Former headman. Not much of a headman without a village."

A weight sunk in Kakashi's stomach. "Sorry to hear that," he said. And he was. "And your route, it takes you through Midorino?" The town sat right on the crossroads of the northern and eastern Great Roads. If he could blend in with the crowd all the way there, all the quicker. Much quicker than hobbling on his own, and having the wrong eyes stray in his direction.

"That it does," the headman said. "I heard your words back there. Hearing isn't that bad quite yet. You have family, you said."

"Right." Kakashi heaved a sigh. "My older sister lives in the central district with her husband and my nephew. It's been awhile since... well I haven't talked to them, but they should still be in Midorino. My, uh, my homestead was on the southern edge of that blast. We were hit by debris sent that way. There's nothing left of it now, so I'm heading north."

"We?"

"My wife, and our young boy. My son was killed when our outbuilding collapsed. My wife was wounded by flying rubble. She... she didn't recover. There wasn't any point in staying in ruins." Kakashi didn't need to think deeply to accent his words with grief. In his mind, Obito gasped wet breaths. And for a moment, Rin's blood dripped from his fingers.

Something must have shown on his face. Jin's expression gentled. Beside him, the guard with the old polearm narrowed his eyes. "Pale for a working man."

"Our homestead was small." Kakashi shrugged. "Only for ourselves and in a small clearing. My wife ran the farm. I managed the accounts and took care of our boy."

The guard seemed to find this amusing. He snorted a laugh. "I bet she did. Not often a woman manages to catch your type." My type? It took a moment for Kakashi to catch his meaning. Oh. He supposed he should be offended.

The old man shoved the man with his boot. "My son," he said, by way of an apology.

Kakashi waved him away, clearing his throat. "I hope it's no problem, but would it be too much to ask to join you?" he said, steering back to the matter at hand. "I've got some experience handling a spear — and knives from what my father taught me. For defending our farm." The man's son gave Kakashi an incredulous look, but a glare from his father kept his mouth shut. "It'll only be till Midorino. And... if I could take some time to rest my leg, I'd be grateful."

Jin nodded. "Alright. I haven't the heart to turn a man down. Asahi." He gestured to his son. "Get our friend a spear from the cart." Asahi returned with what looked like a re-appropriated broom handle sharpened to a point. He threw it Kakashi's way. "It's not much," the old man admitted. "But that's all we have to spare. All our metal tools are already in use, and too precious to give away."

"Thank you, this'll be enough."

"By the way, son. What's your name? Never caught it."

Never said it, Kakashi silently replied. "Senju," he said, thinking quickly. "Senju Kenshi."

That was apparently the wrong thing to say.

Instantly, the curious if wary demeanour of those gathered became strangely cold. Tense. Suspicious.

"From Fire?" the woman with the blade asked. She fisted its hilt.

What on earth...? "Uh, not since my great grandfather, at least," Kakashi said, appeasing. His kunai weighed the inner pocket of his trousers. He didn't want to hurt these people, but in his state he might have to resort to weapons to defend himself if things went south. "We've had our homestead near the Kannabi ravine for generations now. We're of Kusa," he insisted, his voice hard. That settled them somewhat, but the atmosphere was still far too tense for Kakashi's liking. The old man's son looked away with a sneer.

"Come now," Jin told his people gruffly. "In this time of tragedy we must be kind to others that have suffered as we have." The smile he gave was tight. "Mr... Kenshi. There's a cart at the back with a free space. Rest your leg." He sent up a whistle, and directed the column to move once again. The guard Yuuji's eyes followed Kakashi all the way to the back as his steps laid heavy into the road. Hidden away at the back. Somewhere to be barely seen and barely heard. As though being a Senju instantly afforded him a lower status in the eyes of the men and women of Satoyama. How strange. The disconcerting offness he had felt regarding the Kannabi bridge returned.

Were relations between Fire and Grass so poor? Kakashi couldn't recall them ever being truly bad, not even when Grass acted as a staging ground in the Third War. Plenty of Senju lived in southeastern Kusa, given how far the enormous clan had spread once broken up. It was a common name. Maybe I just happened to catch the wrong people, he reasoned. Luck hadn't been on his side of late. Kakashi frowned, his hands itching to try his summoning jutsu once again, despite having neither the chakra, the focused grasp on his ragged chakra coils, or the patience for dealing with more burning pain.

He ignored the tension that followed him, and gave the guard his honest thanks, moving as directed with little protest. A place on the wagon only afforded him the very edge of the bed, and he was forced to hang his legs off the end. Kakashi fought a wince, feeling the bumps of the muddy road vibrate deep in the gash on his thigh all the way up to his shoulder. Still, sitting down came with some relief. Despite the sun only sitting at mid morning, he felt bone exhausted. As he sat, he tried to forget the burning under his skin, unfocusing his eyes in meditation.

It worked for a time. Beyond glances and whispers, his fellow travellers left him be. The road cut away from the forest and into open fields of swaying grass. Kakashi was glad for the fresh air and a breeze that didn't smell of ash. A handful of times he fought back the urge to push chakra into his nose and lift his face to the breeze. He'd only be disappointed. As he had rested the first night after stumbling from the wasteland he created, Kakashi realised he couldn't feel the chakra pathways in half his face. And with them, the means to heighten his sense of smell. He was willing to admit he was wounded by the loss.

As they passed along the outer edges of a village, he caught the awkward shift of one of the guards out of the corner of his eye. The taller one, who had stayed behind. The man glanced his way every so often, eyes dropping from Kakashi's sandals to the wrap of cloth over his eye. I'm not that ugly, am I? Brown hair and eyes, with a crooked nose and tanned skin, the man had the look of his kinsmen. When he glanced over once again, Kakashi was amused enough to return the man's stare outright, dipping into a slight bow from the back of the cart. The guard reddened.

"Kenshi," Kakashi greeted, tapping his own chest. "Can I help you, friend?"

The man roughly cleared his throat. "I heard what you said earlier," he said, gesturing to the front of the caravan. "I'm sorry. For your loss, I mean. Don't think I could do it, m'self, if it were me in your position. It was already a close call back in Satoyama.

"Ikeda Akio," the guard introduced himself, "that's my wife, Sayori, and our boy Genji." He pointed with his chin behind Kakashi to a pretty woman sitting at the front of the cart, holding a wriggling boy in her lap. Ah. The spike of guilt returned, spreading like poison in his chest.

"I'm sorry for the loss of your village, Mr. Ikeda. You've a good family," Kakashi said.

"Thanks. And just Akio will do. Anyway, I still have them. That's all that matters. Buildings can be replaced, but not them." He sounded wistful. Akio puffed his chest, his mouth pulling into a wide smile before he suddenly deflated. "But ah, I'm sure yours was good too. Sorry again. Just wanted to say that."

"Thank you." It wasn't hard to let his expression fall. They fell into an awkward pause. Never a moment that cannot be put to use, his captain had once told him, when Kakashi was fourteen and his ANBU greys hung loose. Make unknowns into knowns. Always, always there exists sources of intel untapped. "So, you head for Earth Country then? I've never visited, myself. I hear the mountains look good in snow."

---

As the week dragged and the slow journey toward Midorino kept pace, Akio and his family warmed to Kakashi. He was grateful. Reconnaissance was always easier with willing participants. The Senju mystery itched like a scab at the back of his mind, but Kakashi had no evidence to conclude that it was wholly unusual. Perhaps some Senju from Fire horribly offended the people of Satoyama in the past. Shinobi weren't the only ones who held long grudges.

Kakashi, for his part, kept his promise to play guard. By the second day he walked with the others and took his turns in the shifts. Yet standing around left him exhausted and by dusk he was ready to drop. He needed rest, that much was evident by the way his eye drooped and the heavy slump in his spine. But Kakashi had promised. He didn't need the added suspicion of weakness. That lasted only so long.

The evening they settled after crossing the edge of the Southern Plains, his exhaustion had been blatant enough that Jin had bade him to help in the cooking with several of the women, as the more able-bodied left to hunt. It had taken a tipping pot and a jerk of movement to catch it to have the cracked bone in his shoulder darkly protest. Kakashi released a startled noise that surprised even him. Beside him, Sayori had cried in astonishment as he clutched his shoulder, and despite his effort to downplay the gravity of it, her face grew full of concern. He didn't want to worry anyone, Kakashi had been forced to admit. So he was banged up in more places than it first appeared. It was nothing serious, he told them. But he feared that if they knew, they would refuse to take him on. It wasn't a whole lie. The rest he kept to himself: the wet coughs, the constant searing ache, and the warning shivers of a burgeoning fever. That night was spent warding her and the van's fussing old healer away. From his place skinning hares, Akio had shot Kakashi looks of sympathy.

Surprisingly, some good came of the blunder.

When the others learned he tried his best to help despite his various injuries, whatever initial animosity and lingering suspicion they felt toward Kakashi's heritage thankfully began to fade. Even Jin's son, Asahi gave him appraising looks, a little more respect in his eyes. Sayori took him aside one night and cautiously asked about his bandaged eye. Did he lose that to the bandits too? She only calmed when he told her it was an old wound; an unfortunate accident as a boy.

Akio too, decided he was a friend.

"You're welcome to stay, you know," the man said one afternoon as they walked together. "Once we're in Earth Country, we plan to buy up some land. Get back to doing what we know."

"And build New Satoyama?"

Akio had laughed. "Something like that."

For the briefest moment, Kakashi had felt the weight of his ancestors' approval on his shoulders, and a strange, almost instinctual itch to take Akio's offer. Something deep within him had rumbled happily at the thought of returning to the land, despite never having tilled a field in his life. And if he were honest, it had been a little disconcerting. He could almost feel the Hatake's collective disappointment from the other side as he politely turned the man down.

With the greater air of friendliness, the people of Satoyama began to talk more freely, and as they began to talk, the lingering suspicion that something was just strange returned. With each passing day, the feeling was poked and prodded, encouraged like a festering boil.

It was the little things, at first: a notable lord that should have been a decade dead. Recommendations to visit a town Kakashi knew had been destroyed in the Third War. A notable missing-nin admired as a loyal patriot of his village. Then as they stopped for lunch one day under a stoop of trees, Jin had pulled out a map to show their route and Kakashi had stared, blinking hard at what he saw. Kusa's border ate miles into Taki's. Where there had been Ishi, there was only Ame. Oto didn't exist, still labelled as the Land of Rice. Towns and villages Kakashi didn't recognise. Absence of ones he did. Kakashi had tried to reason with himself that the map was simply out of date or the work of a particularly imaginative cartographer.

Then there was the way the refugees of Satoyama spoke of things; from politics to people, all of which seemed sideways to Kakashi.

Iwa and its Tsuchikage (the Yondaime Tsuchikage) was spoken of with a sense of awe. The Rain nin was a friend. The Waterfall nin was to be regarded with suspicion. The Leaf nin and their kind were enemies to the last of them. They had done this, the people of Satoyama scowled. Just look at what havoc they had caused with the Year? (And whatever this 'Year' was, it was spoken of with faces lined with old fear). Even Akio had curdled words for those from the Nation of Fire, before he had shot a quick, nervous glance Kakashi's way, as though being a Senju tainted him with Fire's sins by proxy. Only when Kakashi finished the jab did the man relax, and a round of chuckles echoed about the campfire.

And then one night, Kakashi heard words that made his breath catch.

"... the Yondaime Hokage and that Hell-witch wife of his..."

Off guard duty and seated over cut apples, Kakashi tried not to stick the knife straight through his hand. He clamped down on his stupor, keeping his expression neutral even as his mind reeled. Across the fire, Jiro the blind man sat speaking loudly, his wife stirring the popping broth at his side.

"No true Kusan would consider it. What were they thinking, going south? Straight into the jaws of the bloody beast. No goods ever come from Fire, you know that. I know that. The whole of Grass knows that. That blast must of burnt out their brains if they think that Yondaime'll offer them proper help. You can't trust him, Naoko." His wife nodded, pulling his hand to safety when he nearly slapped it into the pot in the midst of his passionate gesticulations. "I always say this, because it's true. Look how many of his own he's sent to their deaths in this endless bloody war. There'll be more of them, I tell you. He's part of this. This blast. I know it. Look what it did to my eyes. Somehow he's part of it. And now he's sending 'aid' to good Kusan people fleeing to Fire? Those fools better be prepared to chew on poison."

Kakashi eyed the segments of sliced apple lumped in his bowl, the knife and core loose in his hands. Suddenly they felt as heavy as Gai's training weights. He must have heard incorrectly. Jiro spoke as if Minato had offered to help the people fleeing south only days ago. But he knew that couldn't be, because Minato had been dead for sixteen years. Minato and Kushina.

"What do they think they'll get out of this, hm? These Konoha shinobi. That Kusa will thank them? That we'll forgive them for killing our people? They blew up the Kannabi bridge once to stop our merchants and sent us into famine. And now they've done it again! Scum. All of them."

Kakashi's heart gave a wild thump as the old man's words nudged the gears in his brain. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. Before, he could argue a strange series of coincidences. But now? It doesn't make sense, he thought, suddenly feeling dazed. It's the fever, he reasoned.

And yet.

Every offhand comment. Every absent mark on the map. Every strange thought whispering in the back of Kakashi's mind that worried if he said something, it would be incorrect. A town that never existed. Some proud nobleman dead. Minato alive. Kushina alive. Jiro the blind man spoke of the impossible as though it were mundane.

There was no getting around it. Something had gone very wrong in Kamui.

The year was the same, one day followed the other. Kakashi recognised the individual pieces but they fitted together into something that was entirely bizarre. He stared at the bowl of apples, silently begging them to argue some sense. As he sat in contemplation, a feeling numbed his chest. A feeling that told him he might not find what he hoped at the Mountain's Graveyard. A feeling that told him that Konoha... well, Konoha might just be a foreign place entirely.

---

Akio, Sayori, and little Genji had given him an honest goodbye on the edge of the bustling market of Midorino. Even Jin had patted his shoulder and wished him luck. Kakashi's farewell in return had been equally honest and he had watched the caravan leave northward to set up outside town with some amount of hope that they would find the safety they sought.

In the days since Kakashi had silently attempted to reconcile the groundbreaking epiphany he'd had over a bowl of fruit, the general atmosphere of this strange new Kusa grew testier. Now more alert to inconsistency than ever, he noticed how nin and hired mercenaries increasingly roamed the roads and navigated villages, openly and disguised. Kakashi became somewhat glad for his destroyed chakra coils and with it, his perceived lack of threat. Even here in Midorino he spied lesser ranked shinobi walking about with some purpose to their stride. Yet despite their presence, they still seemed to lack any sort of military efficiency. In the busy rows of the market, he watched a pair of Chūnin roam from stall to stall, each with a writing board and a pottle of ink. In the shadows, Kusagakure's elite — its specialists — watched, catching things the Chūnin didn't. Kakashi kept his eye forward and his expression nonchalant as he caught his bearings while propped against the wall of a sweet shop (one he did recall seeing when he'd been 'here' last, and Aoba had brought himself enough mochi to last him all the way home). He'd be forced to keep his wits, even if the fever dogging him the past several days had mounted like a thick cloud hanging around his head. Kakashi had himself to thank. He could imagine the scowl and the scolding he'd receive if Sakura ever found out about his carelessness when it came to his wounds.

Lucky that in his time speaking with Satoyama's refugees, he had managed to work out several of the more glaring ticks in his Kusan accent. If someone didn't listen too closely, he sounded as though he had just walked straight out of the southern Kusan plains. The greater vigilance of the Grass shinobi only made Kakashi want to continue on his path toward Taki sooner. Regardless of whatever differences that had changed the course of this world compared to his own (and he didn't want to think of this place as a different world, but what was it if not that?), Takigakure was still his safest bet. Yet Kakashi knew well enough that a lone man arriving and leaving so soon would bring him more suspicion than less.

Midorino was a lively town and strikingly similar to the one he recognised. Satoyama's refugees evidently had a similar idea to everyone else, and the town set on the crossroads had become full to bursting with those seeking shelter as much as they were passing through. Little wonder the Grass nin had trouble organising themselves. Though Kakashi kept to the edges of the market, the constant flow of people nearly had him dragged into the stream. Midorino was as he remembered it, the town a mismatch of traditional timber and modern concrete, riddled with watery alleyways caught between cramped buildings. It was as though as much space as possible had been reserved for the surrounding fields while the people of Midorino built inward, and when they could no longer build inward, they built upward. Leaving his post, Kakashi had to press against the alley walls to avoid those that pushed past, hurrying on to shops lit with shivering neon lights. Here, the concrete complexes were high enough to cast the alleyways deep in shadow. Below, both the walls and ground were thick enough with pipe and cable that artificial light was the only thing keeping a person from tripping over the mess, themselves, or someone else.

After a few low words to a woman smoking in a doorway, he was directed to a broker willing to look the other way as he traded his meagre stash of Fire ryō for Earth; the currency the Land of Grass now seemed to prefer. The man behind the counter took the bills without issue, slapping a roll of ryō before jerking his head in a silent order to move on. That he received near an equal amount of bills was somewhat worrying. In his own world (and thinking those words still made him balk), Fire Country was richer than Earth, yet by the near equal amount of bills he received, here that wasn't the case. Or the broker charged a higher fee for his silence. What was curiouser still was the subtle changes apparent in the print of the Earth ryō. Numbers in different places. Kanji stamped in a different font. The ink colours a muted grey-brown instead of the usual richer reddish hue.

With the amount he received, Kakashi could only afford a night's stay in the town. It was enough. Staying too long invited as much suspicion as hastily leaving. Keeping the collar of his coat high, he wandered the streets, careful to keep his head low. Perusing the prices scribbled on a board outside, he decided on an inn built of mismatched concrete. Inside it was as stale as the façade. The visitor's counter had been set in what looked to be a reception, dining area, and izakaya all in one. An old woman shuffled behind it, loudly clapping books and stacks of files while a teenage boy watched her work with dull eyes and swinging legs.

It took a few attempts to catch her attention, the boy being of no help as he doodled on a pad of paper, but as she raised her head from her guest book, she blinked hard at his dirty coat. Her gaze softened by the time she reached his face. "I'd like to book a single room, please. One night," Kakashi said.

"Name?" The word whistled through her missing teeth.

"Uh, Koji."

"You want a meal?"

"Why not."

"Well, settle down then. I'll have one of my boys ready your room, and get you something to eat. Cho!" She snapped, and the boy behind the desk sighed, getting to his feet.

Kakashi found himself a table, sagging a little as he sat. He scrubbed his face, scratching at the stubble of hairs lining his jaw. Exhausted again. It was barely past noon. The tiredness cut deeper than a culminating fever, and if Kakashi wasn't already intimately knowledgeable of the feeling of chakra exhaustion, he would have sworn it was exactly that. If it was, he should have recovered somewhat by now. It almost feels like it's getting worse... he hadn't touched his chakra beyond existing day to day. It was enough to contend with the festering burn under his skin that was constant and unrelenting. Then again, something of this calibre hadn't exactly happened to him before. Nor had he ever tried to destroy a containment of all nine Grand Yōkai's worth of demonic chakra. Kakashi sighed.

Blessedly quieter compared to the street, he took in the strange arrangement of the hall. Guests sat secluded at their own tables, silent or keeping their voices low. As he looked, he caught a young mother shooting him furtive glances. He smiled at her and received a wary stare in return. In her lap, her son pointed in his direction asking his mother why Kakashi only had one eye. She slapped his small hand down, muttering that it was rude to gawk before they returned to their meal. In a corner, a young man — younger than Kakashi himself — sat reading. Every so often, he wiped his face, and Kakashi was startled to realise he was fighting back tears. Must be a good book, he mused, suddenly missing his spare volume of Icha Icha.

The patrons of the inn all looked at least vaguely put together. So why its mistress let him in, with the scruff on his cheeks, windblown hair, and a coat that was beginning to small rank eluded Kakashi. Clearly the inn's old mistress chose who she allowed through her doors. His point was proven when a haggard looking man stumbled through the doors only for the old woman to wag her finger and hiss at him. "No, no! Out!, not you!" The man spat his curses, and stumbled back onto the street.

Kakashi's question was answered when she toddled over, a tray in hand. "Here you are, handsome." Oh. He took the bowl of sauced chicken cutlets on rice, and the cup of miso with thanks.

Wearing a mask for the vast majority of his life, Kakashi was never very good at coercing or impressing using his natural features save for the few times he wore a brown wig and tape under his eyes. But the old woman hovered, and looked him up and down enough times that even he could tell she was curious to be in his company. He considered ignoring her and getting to his meal. His head had grown increasingly fuzzy since sitting down, and he could feel a slip of sweat on his collarbone as the mounting fever prickled ice along the back of his neck. She did, however, hold the power to kick him back out onto the street, so Kakashi humoured her and let her rattle on about the terrible influx of rabble and the greed of her competitors, and all the hullabaloo in the capital making its way to Midorino as the Yondaime Tsuchikage invited her and her shinobi in.

"And who knows when that wretched woman will leave — if she'll leave," she said, tutting and smoothing her kimono. "Grass has gone to custard in a week flat."

"But surely the... Morikage will sort her out?"

"Just so, Mr. Koji!" the woman nodded furiously in agreement. "The Yūkoku clan is old and noble. I've no doubt she'll see us through."

The room he was given was a box of concrete block walls, the windows thin slivers mounted near the ceiling. If anyone tried to break in during the night, it would be an easier job using the door. Kakashi locked it, fitting one of the pair of dining chairs under the handle and setting a kunai trap for good measure. He gave the room a cursory glance: an iron framed bed, a small kitchenette, a small table now sans a chair, and a mounted heater that looked as though it might fall off the wall if he touched it. Compared to the last few days, the box-room was a palace. Tents and muddy forest floors tended to lack showers and streams tended to run cool, even in the midst of summer. Habit had Kakashi checking the cubicle of a bathroom before he stripped bare, finding relief under the searing hot spray.

It took some time for the water at his feet to run clear, tainted with red as much as brown. Many of the cuts and abrasions scabbed, but he could see the gouge in his thigh had puckered, raised and red. The swollen skin ate his haphazard stitching, leaking milky puss. He shivered. The heat of the water and steam lulled him, tugging at his limbs and reminding Kakashi once again of the exhaustion that sat above the constant, pulsing ache. Dizzy and loose limbed, he did his best to clean the wounds, scrubbing the smell from them before mindlessly working the skin of his hands until he caught himself enough to recognise that the red that welled on his knuckles was new blood, not old. As he vacantly picked his nails clean beneath the water, his mind strayed back to the situation he now found himself in.

This was a different world.

A world in which Minato-sensei and Kushina were alive and the hostilities of past wars hadn't faded. Did that mean others were alive here too? Kakashi scrubbed the brush hard over his cuticles. He didn't want to hope. Shutting off the shower, he towled himself dry, sitting on the toilet with a kunai to pick at the mess of stitches in his thigh and make use of what little supplies he had left. At least his blood still possessed enough chakra to unseal the scrolls. Though if it didn't, he'd be dead.

Frowning, Kakashi considered how he came to be here as he cleaned the wound and distractedly set about restitching. Despite utilising the space-time capabilities of Obito's eye, his knowledge of its inner workings were amateur at best. With the growth in his reserves, he'd been practising with the eye over the course of the year after having nearly never touched the mutated form since he was fourteen. At first he practised simply absorbing things into what he had thought was nothingness. It was quite literally by accident that he discovered that the things devoured by Kamui's vortex instead went to a physical space not part of ordinary reality. Had it really been a place between worlds all this time?

He released the last of his spare clothes from the confines of the scroll, and scrubbed his laundry in the box shower. Wary, he tested the heater. It shuddered to life, reeking of burning dust. Did an alternate version of himself also exist in this parallel world? It was likely, Kakashi decided as he hung the damp clothes on the table and remaining chair before the heater's whirring fans. All the more reason to stay away from Fire and Konoha until he was feeling more himself. Until he could find his footing without the whole of Grass Country hanging over his head.

Clad in fresh trousers, Kakashi sat heavily on the squeaking bed in the darkening suite. He groaned, the pressure in his head only feeling thicker away from the suffocating steam of the shower. Already his temples beaded with moisture that wasn't the fault of the damp hair haphazardly slicked back from his brow. Kakashi flexed his hands, inspecting the shadow cast by the tendons. Distantly, he realised how badly they shook. Perhaps it was the haziness clouding his sense of judgement but as he looked down on his trembling fingers, Kakashi was struck by a sudden urge to know.

Closing his eyes, he focused, summoning chakra from his coils. If he could just...

Too late he realised that it was a terrible idea.

Pain.

Agony.

The sudden force was enough to make him breathless. He shuddered and drew deeper. Pushed the chakra to flow. More pain. The pathways felt strange, and foreign, and gods, they hurt. They were so close to the surface he felt as though he could almost peel them away; shed them; sweat them out. Quickly enough, he gave up, bracing his elbows on his knees, sucking in air, shivering and feeling sweat gather in his armpits and at the back of his neck. Hot coals roiled under his skin. Shit. Fuck. He knuckled his eyes, and released a breath through his nose. No change from the first night. No... he was getting worse. What is happening to me?

Getting to Takigakure and it's medical aid became all the more necessary. Dire, even. He could say his circulatory system was affected by the blast. It was the truth. It did seem to have some strange effects. Though he could no longer sense discrepancies in the chakra of Satoyama's refugees, some had been ill in a way consistent with chakra sickness: light headed, feverish, throwing up green tinted bile, and a persistent shake in their hands. This wasn't that. He didn't know what this was. Dazed, Kakashi felt as though he could throw up on the flat, beaten carpet and pull the ropy remains of his chakra coils from his tongue.

He wiped his brow, his palms damp and clammy. It's just a fever. That's all. You overexerted yourself.

He just needed to sleep.

---

Sleep only came once the hot coals burned themselves to pulsing embers.

Kakashi's mind writhed. He shivered and sweat. Dreams came and went before he could grasp them; flashes of colour and a persistent press from somewhere far away. Memories left after-images. Kakashi tried to catch them. He stood in a river at dusk. He stood before the grave of a woman he couldn't remember. A man that looked like his father smiled, but his dark eyes were heavy with something Kakashi couldn't fix

Kakashi blinked. He stood before a shrine decorated with a painted hound.

Beside him, Sakumo stood as well. Too tall, his palm curled around the whole of Kakashi's hand, his face cast in shadow. From behind the altar and wavering incense smoke, the snarling Inugami watched him, the hound's watercolour eyes fierce and accusing. Have you no love for me anymore, little Kakashi? It rumbled, and Kakashi heard it whispered against his ear. Where are your prayers for me? I am here. My children heed your call. Yet you do not believe. The painting shifted and the hound barked and bared his teeth. No more. We will not answer you. The pact is dead. It died with you. Sakumo turned to him, and his eyes were tired. His grip turned bruising. Kakashi's hand was too small. He couldn't pull away.

"You can't even die right," Sakumo said, disappointed. "Look." He turned to show Kakashi the belly of his shirt, drenched with blood. Kakashi dropped his gaze to his feet. Sakumo shook him. "You have to look!"

"I don't want to," he gasped, his voice high and childish.

"You must."

Kakashi shook his head. "Dad, please."

Sakumo took hold of his shoulders, gripping harder until the bones creaked. "You have to look. How else will you know?"

"I don't want to know. I don't want to remember you like this." That struck a chord. Sakumo's face fell.

He knelt, getting to Kakashi's level. Intestines pressed through the jagged cleft in his middle. Blood spilled from his guts. "I'm sorry. Hush, 'Kashi. I'm here," Sakumo promised gently, carding a bloody hand through Kakashi's hair. "I'll be with you. Always. You know that, don't you?"

Kakashi's heart shuddered. Every backwards beat twisted and squeezed.

The memory stopped.

He found himself standing in a void. Wetness gathered in the folds between his toes. Kakashi blinked, though there was only blackness. No light, though he was sure his eyes were open. No hands, though he went through the motion of raising them. Water gripped his ankles and he sunk. The water rose to his knees. He gasped. His mouth made no sound.

Kakashi jerked awake.

He pulled breaths through his nose, steadying his heart. Instinctively, he threw his senses out. A still room greeted him. Nothing. Calm down. Just a dream. Above the bed, morning light filtered through the slot windows, lighting the swirl of motes. The night had come and gone, yet it felt like he hadn't slept at all. Kakashi swallowed through a dry mouth and blinked the sluggish clots of sleep from his eyes. So much for a good night's rest. He frowned. His head felt lighter. The fever, at least, had broken. The room was stuffy and hot. He'd left the heater on. Kakashi quietly admonished himself. Just the thing he needed. No wonder the sheets clung to his waist, and his skin felt sticky with a film of sweat.

He was half tempted to close his eyes and try again. Who knew when the next time he would sleep in a proper bed would be. He sighed, peering up at the ceiling. He'd take another shower at least, but he had to keep moving. Kusa's nin had yet to look too closely but that didn't mean they wouldn't. In a crowded town, he was simply waiting for them to notice something out of place.

Groaning, Kakashi made to get up.

He couldn't.

He gave the mental order to move his arm. It failed to respond. As did his legs. As his other arm. Kakashi tensed and struggled with himself. His limbs kept locked in place, paralysed. A whip of sharp panic alighted in his chest. His heart gave a pair loud, hard thumps.

The limbs twitched and released.

Feeling came back, a wave of prickling chasing the numbness. Kakashi bolted upright, his breaths shuddering in his lungs. Testing his hands, they responded once again. He was relieved for the feeling of prickling needles and the hot thrum of his heartbeat all the way in the end of his fingers. "Fuck," He rasped, watching his fingers pinken as he squeezed and encouraged the blood to flow. Dizzy, he closed his eyes to focus, searching inward for any dangerous shift in the unending ache under his skin. As he found it, Kakashi's stomach dropped.

He could no longer feel the chakra pathways in his left hand. Or his legs.

He let his hands fall into his lap. Shit. WIthout the ability to feel and direct chakra down to his hands, hand signs were useless. He was reduced to one-handed jutsu. Something told Kakashi that soon, he would lose his ability to do jutsu at all as the chakra pathways in his right hand lost all feeling too.

He was getting worse.

On weak legs Kakashi fled Midorino.

The flow of traffic pointed him east and he drifted in the stream, his body feeling frailer. Chakra exhaustion, he realised as he walked the late morning aside a pair of donkeys. Testing his coils last night must have drained him on top of the mess that was a peaking fever. I didn't even use a single jutsu. His limbs hung heavy as he walked. He tried to shake the feeling off to no avail. Not good. As he journeyed amongst solemn cast refugees, Kakashi found some delicious irony in his suffering. The consequences of his actions now forced him to face his own desperate fragility, unable to do more than suffer and walk in this strange, new world.

Being confronted with one's own helplessness never did suit a shinobi.

Kakashi thought he had gotten used to it.

---

He limped his way east.

If anyone asked, he was simply 'Koji'; wounded and from the south, looking to get out of Kusa before trouble started brewing. Many a man and woman nodded at that. Some likewise revealed their plans to flee. The Great Nations are rumbling, they said; everything's aflutter. One man nervously muttered about Kumo nin. A woman swore on her mother's grave she saw Kiri hunter nin in the dead of night.

Kakashi's days danced between company and solitude as he passed the evenings away from others. There was danger in keeping another's company too long and comfort to be found in falling back on old habits. But that was when he was capable of driving a handful of chirping lightning through a man's chest.

His pride had been wounded, when one night when some Chūnin considered him easy pickings. The muttering man hadn't been wrong about the presence of skulking Kumo nin, and one who likely hadn't thought much of the wounded civilian man he spied in the dark beyond stripping him bare of valuables. Despite the pain and exhaustion, and aware of the ever present danger, Kakashi had been trying — honestly trying — to reconcile his ability to sense chakra. Yet it was the nin's sandals scraping on tree bark, rather than his chakra signature or even his scent, that had caught Kakashi's attention as he sat before his little fire in the quiet. The fight was a short one after he made to drop onto Kakashi's back, and for his effort the man earned himself his own wakizashi stabbed through his neck. Kakashi relieved him of his blade, his pouch full of brand new kunai, and all the ryō he had on his person.

To Kakashi, it was just another reminder of how hamstrung he had been left and just how precarious his hold on what remained to be felt of his chakra system. Henceforth, he was forced to strike a balance between the security of numbers and the safety of solitude. He mentally thanked the audacity of the Kumo nin when the man's blade earned him a spot in a merchant's retinue as a mercenary, its heavy-set mistress convinced by his easy grace and the healthy supply of kunai. And so, he passed through Yonohara — the largest village before the border town of Kijima — in a parade of guards and with little fanfare.

His meals secured, a cold unresponsive personality was enough to stop others from making light chit-chat and gained him all the opportunity to listen. The lack of concern from the others was also helpful in hiding how much his body felt as though it was coming apart at the seams. Exhaustion became his constant companion despite how much Kakashi slept, how long, and how deeply it pulled him under. So much so that he had to be kicked awake more than once (and didn't that rankle his pride as a shinobi). It was strange and unsettling. Despite how he kept a veneer of calm, Kakashi couldn't help the heavy weight of anxiety pressing on his chest at how his body failed him. He hadn't attempted to mould or circulate his chakra since that night at the inn, and yet it felt as though he waded deep in the molasses of chakra exhaustion, passing deeper still with each day. Last night, he had lost the chakra pathways in the fingers of his right hand, and with it his ability to perform jutsu. It was with a cold and somewhat stark realisation that Kakashi came to the conclusion that he might just be dying a slow and awkwardly painful death. A bitter contrast to the proud self-sacrificial end he had imagined for himself in Kamui.

Time became a precarious thing.

Exhausted and silent, Kakashi listened to the ongoings of this strange world he had somehow found himself in. The mercenaries chatted, moaned, and mocked at every opportunity; picked from old men to boys who could barely fumble a weapon. They spoke of dead men Kakashi knew were alive as much as they crowed about admirable shinobi he'd never heard of. He was tempted to ask after the ones he did know — what happened to the Demon of the Hidden Mist? Did Suna's Mistress of Poisons and Puppets still live? What about Tsunade, Princess of the Senju and the greatest medical shinobi of their time? What about the White Fang? Kakashi didn't know what he'd do with himself if it came to be that in this world his father was still alive. When word reached the van that Kusa had called for a summit with Konoha, the more patriotic amongst the caravan guards jeered.

"The Morikage's gonna serve that fucking Hokage on a plate," a boy laughed, young enough that he was still growing in one of his canines.

Doubtful, Kakashi silently answered, digging himself deeper into his coat. Despite knowing of her clan, Kakashi had never heard of this Yūkoku Fumiko but she would have a hard time catching the Yellow Flash unawares, much less serving him to the wolves of Grass. She'll have to get through Kushina first. The thought brought forth a wobbling burst of warmth under his ribs. He only allowed himself a moment to linger on the possibility that somewhere far to the southeast of the ring of their campfire, Obito and Rin were there with them before Kakashi stopped himself short. Now wasn't the time for false hope.

The morning they were to reach the border, Kakashi awoke feeling like death warmed over. He was damp with sweat as he pulled himself from his blankets to stumble to a nearby stream and dump himself in it. The guards may have hooted in laughter as they watched him go, but at least he hadn't had to be kicked awake for his morning watch. The cool water brought temporary relief. It lasted long enough to realise there was a very real danger that Kakashi could collapse face-first into its depths and likely drown if his legs decided to give out. And as he washed, he threw up bile tinged with green into the flowing water. Chakra sickness. Oh good. On top of whatever was happening to him. This is bad, was all he could think as he sat heavily on the grassy bank. He felt fragile, frail, as though his bones would splinter and his skin would split with the slightest pressure.

The small modicum of relief that Kakashi had expected to feel upon seeing the high arch of the village gates was stifled with one look at Kijima. The summit between Kusa and Konoha had concluded. And with its conclusion, Kusagakure found some of that military efficiency they lacked in Midorino.

The merchant caravan passed through the high gate, the symbol of Kusa inscribed on the plaque set at its wooden peak. Within its timber walls, nin of every rank roamed openly. More perched on the squat square rooftops and under the shade of overhangs. He kept a healthy expression of awe on his face as he spied one on a balcony, the Jōnin watching the people below. The man's eyes lingered on him for a long moment before they eventually moved on. Kakashi released a breath. Whatever remained of his chakra signature was evidently still weak enough to pass under the notice and care of Kusa's shinobi. Still, the uptick in organisation and sentries was a warning. They're looking for someone.

Him.

It had occurred to him a day after crawling from the tree hollow (a lifetime ago now) that his hitai-ate and flak jacket were not simply absent, but missing. The dangerous kind of missing. He had thought them lost in Kamui but there was always the possibility they had made landfall somewhere else. I may've been a bit reckless, he thought with a wince. Passing by a tower outpost manned with lookouts, Kakashi quickly came to the conclusion that the Kusa nin were convinced they searched for a fellow shinobi; illusioned or disguised, and hiding their chakra signature, not some sweat-stained man who breathed heavily as he walked beside a merchant's carriage.

Their van was directed to a circle of waiting wagons. The ruts in the mud suggested they were simply one more in a long line made to wait in recent days. At this, their merchant benefactor, Lady Den, rankled. She spat fire as she stomped and banged the door of her carriage to get her skinny assistant girl to hurry up and gather the appropriate paperwork to make the crossing.

"I've no papers for you," she growled when he approached once the wagons had been set to rest and Kakashi had thrown water on the huffing oxen to cool them off. The tiny gold plates of her headdress jingled as shook her head. "I should hope you have your own." She smacked the side of her brightly painted carriage once more. "Hurry up, girl. Gods above, do you wish us to be waiting here all night?"

"S-sorry mistress, I'm looking!"

"No need," Kakashi answered gruffly, looking through the open door and at the young girl's frantic shuffling with some sympathy. She had managed to scatter half the trunk of papers about her feet and the other half across the seating. "Plan to head back into Kusa. Just, ah, just here about my payment, is all."

The merchant gave him a sour look before she sighed and pulled out her purse, handing him a small wad of bills. "And no more. You joined a third of the way, you receive a third of the payment."

Kakashi inclined his head with a smile, tucking the roll into the lining of his breast pocket. "All's well. My thanks, mistress."

As he turned to leave, the merchant woman waved her hand before placing it on her thick hip. A thoughtful look sprouted on her face as she regarded him, her eyes colouring with something heady. "You took this job out of poverty, yes? If you wish to stay on as a more personal aide, I'm sure we could come to an agreement. Papers and all."

Ah. An easy passage to Takigakure and in the comfort of a carriage to boot. Tempting, but not an offer he would take. It was a surprise that she wanted him anyway. Kakashi was sure he looked as though he was about to keel over. He certainly felt like it. Besides, he'd never been a particularly enthusiastic lover. Barely much of a lover at all. The woman was only setting herself up for disappointment.

"Kind of you, mistress," he said. "But I do mean to go back. Got family to see to."

Her disappointment was hidden behind a stiff nod and a jut of her chin that said 'away with you, then'. Kakashi passed his goodbyes to the remaining guards, seated lazily about on stumps and perched on the edges of the grain wagons, settling in for what looked to be a long, hot, and terribly boring afternoon.

Kakashi was under no illusions that he could simply slip back through the gate and make his way back down the beaten road. And that lack of illusion was paid in full when not two steps away from the caravan he was called to halt.

An older man shuffled up to him, moustached and short, with a Kusa hitai-ate hanging from his neck. At his approach, he leaned forward then reared back, inspecting the state of Kakashi before mumbling something under his breath. A writing board sat clinched tight in his hand, set with a wobbling jade stamp and a pottle of red ink paste. Kakashi spied a list of scribbled names, a small mark next to each one.

"Name?"

"No need, sir," Kakashi said with a shrug. "I don't—"

"You will give your name and state your business," the clerk interrupted, his moustache stiff. Kakashi bit down on a flare of irritation.

"Koji. I was part of Lady Den's caravan." He pointed to where they waited still. In the time he'd left them, the men had pulled out a shogi board and now gathered around it as though it was as exciting as a cock fight. "I'll not be crossing, sir. Plan to head back west—" the old nin squinted, "—after a rest in Kijima 'course."

The nin — an old Jōnin, retired from the field by the way he twitched — kept the suspicious narrowness of his eyes. "I see," he said flatly, disbelieving.

Kakashi cocked his visible eyebrow. "What, we common folk not allowed to roam our own lands without a fistful of papers now?" he challenged, leaning heavily into the rural working burr the people of Satoyama had cloyed their words with. It felt oddly comfortable on his tongue.

The man huffed. "It is by the Lady Morikage's order that precautions are to be taken until the instigators of the Demon Star are apprehended and taken into custody. It's for the safety of all Kusan people that careful measures are taken, and all of those who pass through our lands from the borders — including those who stay at the likes of Kijima and other border settlements."

The Demon Star? Was that what they were calling his heinous blunder? Appropriate he supposed, and not too far from the truth. It had certainly shined as bright as any sun. He'd often considered why it was he hadn't suffered any kind of blindness when he had taken a face-full of the searing white light. But that was just another question left to hang. Kakashi already had enough of those. A dark thought welled and he felt a sudden dry flaking itch beneath his fingernails. He bit the inside of his cheek hard to stop the thought from festering.

Kakashi broke from his reverie when the Kusa nin loudly cleared his throat. '''Pologies, sir. But I've nothing more to give you. I have no papers," Kakashi said.

The man grumbled, frowning at his list. "No family name?"

"'Of Satoyama,'" Kakashi replied with another shrug.

"Oh." The man quietened before mumbling a weedy string of condolences. Kakashi watched as he printed the kanji in a scribble. Another huff. "Very well. I'll be lenient this time, given that our Lady Morikage's order was so sudden. But be aware that you'll have to arrange some documents if you plan to travel near the border again. An office is available in Kijima, in the market square with the large banner. Can you write?" Kakashi shook his head. "The clerk will help you. We'll simply need your mark. As you were then, man." He tried not to think too hard on the sudden switch of sympathy as the nin trotted away, spying the other slumped men of Lady Den's van.

Freed, Kakashi wandered toward the bent and bowed huddle of Kijima's streets. As much as he wanted to slip back out the gates, a small rest and finding something to eat wasn't a bad idea. Supplies too. The final part of his journey would be taxing and his rations slim. Kijima was a quaint border village, typical in all respects. The village proper had been constructed of a hodgepodge of shops and housing, alleyways slimmer as Midorino's running throughout though somewhat lacking in Midorino's modernity. From the cobbled beaten streets, it was a village built over time, when one building became two, then three and the huddle of buildings spiralled out from the central market square. The mishmash of bowed buildings stood before several sets of gates to the east, one after the other until the shinobi guarding them were no longer of Kusa but of Taki.

As he passed through the skinny streets, dodging cattle, wandering pigs, and people alike, Kakashi let his eye wander. It passed over children, dirty-footed and peeking from doorways. To the ironmonger and his aides clamping iron and steel, forging in the already suffocating heat, the man huffing a fire jutsu into the little smithy. And it lingered on the well-dressed whores plying their trade under the brightly painted archways of their brothels. The unlucky ones sat together along the street: men, women, boys, and girls with wrists that were too thin and collarbones as frail as bird wings.

A modest building set on one of the street corners gave Kakashi pause. Beneath the awning, a sign was pasted to its wall, written in prim, steady strokes. Remains of shredded paper sticking to the old plaster suggested its occupant created the sign themselves — many times over. The sign advertised healing services: chakra healing and acupuncture, amongst the more suspect prayer healing and traditional medicine. His shoulders hunched, Kakashi contemplated the swirling kanji. It was tempting. More than tempting. He had walked barely half a day and had to stop himself from panting with the effort of hauling leaden limbs. His shirt was already drenched with new sweat. The constant burn beneath his skin cut with knives and the tremor in his hands was becoming difficult to hide. The only remains of his chakra system he could sense were those in his core. Obito's eye felt dead in its socket.

Yet Kakashi was anxious to reveal the full breadth of this... sickness. It could bring dangerous attention. He had gotten this far with only a waning medical kit. He could carry on. And yet here sat the business of a medical nin. Likely the only one he would come across until Takigakure. I might not make it to Taki, Kakashi thought with a prickle of desperation that felt separate from himself. It was a sentiment that had been keeping him from dropping into deep sleep the moment he laid down. Not for the first time in his life, Kakashi kicked himself for not learning more than the barest basics of medical ninjutsu. It was almost funny. With his chakra control, he might have turned out a medical nin himself if his life had swerved in another direction.

It's this or dropping dead in the street. His heavy legs walked themselves to the door.

Inside, the medic's office was neat and tidy; all lacquered timber and sleek minimalist decor. Looking down at himself, Kakashi felt shabby in comparison. The seating room was separated by a solid desk, wooden benches propped with cushions lining the walls behind. Side tables had even been set at intervals with magazines propped to offer those who waited some entertainment. Pushing aside any trepidation he felt, Kakashi rang the little silver bell on the desk. Noise echoed from the left-hand room. Kakashi heard the clap of plates and a scrape of shoes until the shoji door slid open to reveal an elderly man and what looked like a kitchen in the room beyond.

Tall, thin and with a head of frazzled grey hairs, he took one look at Kakashi before his thick, prickly eyebrows shot to his hairline. "Gods, boy! I won't be asking what you're here for. You look like death itself. You were near that demon blast, then?"

"Is it that obvious?" Kakashi asked dryly.

The man chuckled. "Wouldn't you know it. I thought I sensed something strange. You're tracking demonic chakra in here like mud all over my clean floors."

"What?" In his mind, Kakashi cringed. If a medic could sense that, then how many others could as well? I've been a walking target this entire time. He couldn't feel it; thought he'd left the demonic chakra where it smothered the land. He couldn't sense a thing.

"It's strong, too. Must have been caught real close." He shuffled around the desk, pushing the cuffs of his grey patterned yukata up to his elbows. "Come then, let's have a look at you." He'd only laid his hand on Kakashi's shoulder for half a second before his expression dropped. "Gods, just how close were you?" He pulled back, his brows drawing together. Kakashi wanted to fidget, the man's grim expression throwing him. He also, suddenly and desperately, needed to sit down.

"I've seen many a man, woman, and child passing through here of late, caught near the blast," the medical nin continued. "Demonic chakra permeating their chakra pathways. Every one of them. Some have more than others, but all of them walking about radiating that stink like a furnace does heat. Goes away in time, of course. Faster, the less you have." He shook his head. "But you... it's been how long now, two weeks? Two and a half? And you're radiating demonic chakra like it just happened yesterday. What, did you happen to stand right next to the damn thing?"

Near enough, Kakashi thought, uneasy. He shrugged.

The old man flicked his fingers into a series of seals with an easy, practised grace. His right hand bloomed in a soft teal glow. Kakashi had never been so happy to see it. The man seemed untroubled by calling on his chakra as much as his hands were practised. Skilled, then. Jōnin grade, at least. He placed a withered palm near Kakashi's chest, easing it down his right arm. With each moment, his pale watery eyes grew in size until he sucked in a sharp hiss of breath. Something like wonder coloured his face before his thick brows drew tightly together once more. He moved to Kakashi's left, following from hand to chest to belly. When his inspection finished he leaned away, hand awkwardly hovering. Kakashi could only describe the man's expression as 'dumbstruck.' That couldn't be good.

"Good gods..." the man breathed and nervously licked his lips. "These coils... I've, well, I've never seen damage this significant. My boy, it's a miracle that you're still alive, much less are able to walk. You should be bedridden and breathing your last. How... why in the hells didn't you see someone sooner?"

"What's wrong?"

"Wh-what's wrong?" The man gaped at him, his jowls trembling. "Boy, your chakra pathways are disintegrating as we speak. Many already have."

Kakashi swallowed thickly. That might explain the chakra sickness this morning. Chakra was leaking into his body not unlike burst veins leaking blood. "That... doesn't sound good."

The man gave a loud, incredulous laugh. "No, I dare say it's not. You must have some kind of powerful Kami watching over you that you managed to find your way here before dropping dead. Why didn't you see someone sooner?"

"I haven't been able to pay for it," Kakashi confessed with a wince. It was the truth, though it sounded like an excuse to his ears.

The man made a sympathetic sound. "Alright, then. Follow me. No, I won't hear a word otherwise. You're not walking out of here like this. Come, come. This way." He paused. "Names Kaishun, by the by."

"Koji, sir. And thank you."

"Come on then, Mr. Koji." He placed a hand on Kakashi's shoulder, steering him to the shoji door on the other side of the room. The clamp of his hand was strong, as though he thought Kakashi would collapse onto his floorboards at any moment.

Beyond the sliding doors adjacent to the waiting room was a small clinic, substantially more homely with its wooden panels and cushioned bed compared to the sterile tiled rooms of Konoha's hospital. He ordered Kakashi to strip bare and lay on the bed. With a furtive check that the blending paste was still doing its job on his shoulder and the cover around Obito's eye still tight, Kakashi did as requested, feeling unduly exposed. He could feel the man making note of the terrible job he'd done bandaging his remaining wounds, having been forced to resort to scraps of fabric when his supply had run out several days back.

Kaishun peeled away the scrap glued to the wound on his thigh, leaving a trail of bloody fluid. The gash was still puffy, red and angry around the more careful stitches Kakashi had attempted in Midorino. It was a fleeting thought, but as he leaned back on his elbows Kakashi idled that his cuts and scrapes had taken more time to begin to heal than they usually did. Fairly, he had been giving his body a hard time lately. And he was paying for it. A disintegrating chakra system... he'd heard of nin having their pathways so damaged they died hours later. Usually as a result of a Hyūga's palm strikes. A medical mystery on top of a 'genius' and S-ranked shinobi. Lucky me.

The old man clucked his tongue as he pressed the stitches, catching the weeping fluid with a snatched cloth. "This is a knife wound," he pointed out, unimpressed.

"Bandits. They attacked me on the road while I was feeling unwell." Well, the theoretical bandits are innocent. The Kumo nin got what he deserved. And I'm still unwell.

"Bastards," Kaishun hissed and moved to clean the wound with a dab of alcohol.

He leaned back on the stool seated beside the bed, his eyes trailing the length of Kakashi's form. He hummed. Leant back on his elbows, Kakashi forced himself to relax, ignoring the ache in his shoulder. And if he had learnt anything in the past few weeks, it was a greater understanding of how to ignore pain.

"You'll be staying the night," the old man declared. Kakashi opened his mouth and Kaishun prodded his side. "No, no. I won't hear it. Dealing with this chakra system of yours requires a quick hand before — well — before you lose your life. But that will take some time, and I won't have the chakra to deal with these flesh wounds and that shoulder — yes, I know about it, I've been healing people a long time, don't think I don't know what a man hiding pain looks like. But those will have to come later, if at all. For now, the most I can do is clean them and set them healing properly."

"I'm not sure I have the ryō to pay you for this," Kakashi said honestly.

The man shook his head. "Cross that bridge later, son. Now lay back and get comfortable. This will be a long process and — I regret to say — a very painful one. You must keep awake. I can't have you drifting off with no one else to help me. I'll need to realign these pathways and reconnect the largest ones so you don't drop dead on my cot. And that's on top of resetting your tenketsu points... damn near all of them," he muttered after a pause. "How in the... nevermind that. Nevermind that." The old medical nin shuffled out and Kakashi heard the metallic thump of a lock before he returned and closed the sliding door behind him. "Now then, I realise I haven't asked you, but are you ready?"

Kakashi laid back, his eye to the ceiling. "No," he huffed in a waxy chuckle, "but that's never stopped me before."

---

Kaishun had promised a long night of agony, and that is exactly what Kakashi received.

The old man hadn't lied too when he said that he was barred from sleep. The medic kept his attention by asking for stories of his life. At first Kakashi lied. But with each painful reset of a tenketsu point, the lies started to sound a little more like the truth. He spoke of a father, shamed for doing the right thing. Of being put to work young. Of a boy who insisted on a rivalry. Of another boy and a girl who decided they wanted to be friends, of a childhood with them, and his own arrogance pushing them aside. Of one accident. Then another. Of waiting (to die; for something to begin). And of teaching children how to work the fields and finding something finally worthwhile in that.

Healing each point felt like drilling holes and snapping bone. Every rejoined pathway like being bound in liquid fire and sealed with frigid ice. At one point, Kakashi spluttered and relinquished the contents of his stomach though he couldn't tell when or how many times it happened after. Time was sluggish and flowed the wrong way.

Maybe it was the long weeks of constant pain that had weakened his ability to just grin and bear it, but Kakashi struggled, grinding his teeth and near begging the old man to stop and let him sleep. Embarrassment kept his sounds small. And when he was too tired to speak, Kakashi thought, keeping a mantra running through his head. The same that had kept him from losing himself in Itachi's Tsukuyomi. Hatake Kakashi, registration number 009720... 1,141 missions completed... 197 D-Rank missions completed... 189 C-Rank missions completed... Even Itachi's torture had felt more bearable than this.

When Kaishun tried to repair the points around his eyes, Kakashi had clamped a hard hand over the covering of Obito's Sharingan, delirious with pain and unwilling to pull away. "Calm. No opening the eye then," the man had acquiesced. Maybe that was when he'd emptied his stomach. Kaishun's touch on the pressure points made his belly seize, and for a moment, completely blind. Kakahi had been forced to clench his jaw and fight down the unruly surge of panic.

He drifted, despite himself. His thoughts loosened and muddled. But every time he neared the sweet pull of sleep, threads of lightning bit into his nerves and Kaishun's warm voice was felt hot against the shell of his ear.

"Keep talking, son. You must stay awake."

Something in Kakashi had wanted to snarl at that, gnash his teeth, and let the strangled animal noises out of his throat. But he did as ordered. He knew how to do that. In his chest, his heart shuddered and burned. Sometime during the night, when he could only hear his hoarse rasps and Kaishun's murmurs, he heard his father's voice — calling, soothing. 'Kashi, why are you shaking? Do you remember the song I taught you? To help calm your nerves?

I'm sorry, Dad, he replied. It's too hard. A hand touched his shoulder. He might have said it aloud.

Lucidity came and went like a phasing tide. By the end he babbled, unsure of what was said. Poor form. Poorer still that the truth amongst all the lies he recalled during the night reminded him of the hurts he had given to others as much as the ones that still stung himself. I have to go back. After Taki. Konoha was waiting for him. There were people there, waiting. I want to go home, a childish part of him whispered. Kakashi thought that boy had died.

As the night retreated and dawn crept through the blinds, finally it was done.

Kakashi knew he must look rather pathetic. Pale and shivering, drenched in sweat, and bare on damp sheets save for a cloth to cover his modesty. Bleary-eyed and heaving, his body felt like no more than a string of aches pulsing in time with his heart. On his stool, the old medic was equally pale, his brow damp. His expression remained determined, but more than a few times Kakashi caught something like doubt passing over his eyes.

Kaishun sat up, tiredly sullen. He petted Kakashi's collar and chest with a towel and as Kakashi sucked in quivering gasps, the old man's gaze flickered to his bicep. "I have done as best I can," he said, his voice gentle. He wiped his face, and got to his feet, bracing a hand on a cabinet for support. "But I am at the limit of my chakra. And my capabilities." He gave Kakashi a long look, and there was sympathy there.

Kakashi wet his dry lips. They felt cracked and bitten. "No good then?" He drawled. Or tried to. What came out was more of an exhausted wheeze.

On creaking limbs, Kaishun shuffled to one of his cupboards, retrieving a blanket to throw over his patient. "If you were a shinobi, I would suggest considering a change in career," he replied bluntly. It cut like a knife. Kakashi didn't ask how he knew. The man was clever as he was skilled. "At most, I've done the bare minimum. Stabilised your coils and reconnected the most vital of your pathways, while stopping others from disintegrating completely. More than that is beyond me. Beyond any single person." He gestured to Kakashi and worked his mouth before it settled on a grim line. "I'm sorry. I don't know how to heal this. If you want — if it's even possible to properly realign your whole chakra system; to get it to try to honestly heal, you'll need help. Serious help. As soon as you can. Takigakure is where you might be able to find it. Kusagakure, if you're heading that way instead. Perhaps in time you'll regain some good use of your chakra back; better when all that horrid demonic snuff is gone. But as you were? Well, I don't know of your previous reserves nor control and... well, I just don't know. But nevermind that now. Sleep, son. You'll be fine for the moment. Gods know we both need a rest."

Kakashi swallowed hard around the icy numbness in his chest. "Thank you," he rasped. "For your kindness."

"Thank me when the sun properly rises and you're not feeling as weak as a kitten." The man left him be. Kakashi listened to his slow, laboured climb up the stairs feeling something like despair.

---

He slept for two days.

At times he breached the surface of wakefulness, hearing light steps and the scratch of fabric; a cool cloth wiping his chest, arms and legs. But it was a half thing. Before long, Kakashi was pulled under once again. If he dreamed, he didn't remember it. Someone spoke to him. Touched his shoulder. It might have been Rin. She always used to take the pain away.

On the third day, Kakashi woke to a quiet dawn a second time.

He blinked sluggishly, tonguing his teeth and finding his mouth dry and full of cotton. The whisper of his own breathing rang loud in his ears. Still alive, then. Thoughts passed. He let them come and go. He felt... better. His head was fuzzy and his muscles ached, but it was only the ache of muscles that had walked, and seized, and slept on the muddy ground, now confronted by a comfortable bed. The gouge on his thigh had been healed — an ugly, puckered scar left in a twist of skin. The burning pain was still there. But it was deeper, covered in layers of skin and bone. A dull throb that seemed a minor thing now. Kakashi closed his eyes.

His chakra. For it, 'better' was a relative word, but what he'd thought lost (what had been lost), he could sense parts of once again. Chakra pathways: small fragile threads winding down his legs, weaving along the muscles in his arms and coursing into his fingertips. He followed the weak lines up his neck to where they frayed at the extremities of his face. An idiot thing to do, but... he raised his hand and gently pushed, circulating some of his chakra. It was like pushing water through cracks in a rock, but it was better than nothing. Better than a chakra system that was disintegrating with every step. The pressure points in his arm flared as he coaxed the chakra to flow to his fingertips. Sweat dampened his brow. The burning ache rose but not into searing agony like it had when he had tried to summon the pack. His grip on his chakra surged and spluttered. The lightning he attempted to arc from his fingertips lit into no more than a faint blue glow, webbing out as weakly as static.

It was a pathetic display. Gratitude welled in Kakashi's chest. The old medic's work wasn't in vain. Kakashi pondered his predicament, inspecting the edges of dirt trapped under his blunt fingernails. Kaishun had insisted he needed help the old man couldn't provide. Honestly, as he was, trapped in a strange world not his own, Kakashi wasn't sure he would ever be able to find it or afford it. If this was the best that could be done then Kakashi was faced with the very real prospect of living life as a hobbled civilian for the rest of his days. He wasn't Gai; nor was he Gai's student, Lee. Feats like theirs were beyond him. Karma was always going to catch up with me eventually, he acceded. To die young or to be crippled: that was how it ended for many shinobi. Kakashi always knew he could be one of them. He would just have to... adjust. Maybe the old man did speak truthfully, and some time far in the future he'd regain some of his competence back. With Kaishun's work, he should be able to manage the bare minimum once again. Once he sorted out this new, awful chakra control. Kakashi wasn't looking forward to falling out of trees and going for unplanned swims as though he was five years old again.

He rose gingerly, reaching for the folded clothes — kindly cleaned and stacked on the top of the cabinet. Dressed and feeling unsteady, Kakashi placed a roll of ryō bills on the side table amongst Kaishun's myriad of labelled herbs and tinctures. He left everything he had. The medical nin had earned far more than Kakashi had to give. He sent a quick prayer to whichever spirit that might be listening to protect the kind man and ensure his good fortune. The prayers had been coming easily of late.

Beneath the dawn's light, Kakashi stumbled back onto the street. He'd spent too long here, and Kakashi hadn't exactly formed fond memories of Kijima. It was time for him to leave and find a way into Waterfall Country that didn't require paperwork and jade stamps.

The streets laid empty in the early morning, and a stuffy humidity was already thick in the air. Kakashi trudged the beaten road, feeling strangely invigorated despite the lingering fatigue and terrible news he had received. A few men and women passed without complaint, their own eyes focused on their feet. A dirty half-dressed girl followed her mother who tugged a bleating goat. A man shouldered a pack and looked north. No one gave him more than a glance.

He passed toward the village wall of chipped plaster and moulding rock. The gates sat just past the shelter of a towering outpost building, barren of wandering nin save for a single pair. Beneath its awning, Kakashi spied them speaking in hushed tones: a tall dark haired man and a woman — petite, her short teal hair flattened with sweat. Both dressed in browns and blacks; from their vambraces to fitted flak jackets styled not unlike Konoha's ANBU. Stamped on a steel plate at the jacket's breast sat the symbol of Iwagakure, and both wore a pair of dangerous looking chokutō strapped on their backs. As the woman turned her head, Kakashi saw the dark mask covering the lower half of her face from nose to chin, moulded into a set of curling demon fangs. His heart flopped in his chest like a herring in a pan.

Iwakagure's Blackguard.

Elite nin; each one a master of subtlety, reconnaissance and assassination. It seemed Iwa had decided to step in and unlike Kumo, they had sent more than just Chūnin.

It was time for him to leave. Now.

Never had Kakashi been so grateful for his eroded chakra system. Like the civilians he passed, he bent his head low. Though his coat had been generously cleaned, the cuffs were frayed and the hems tattered. The farmers of Satoyama had been sure to keep him well fed (more than well fed, if he were being honest), but his meals since had become skimp and his coat granted a little more give than it had when he first put it on. He still looked shabby. Kakashi used it to his advantage, blending in as just another sickly civilian. Even so, the demonic chakra Kaishun told him about was a problem. He could feel it now. No more than an inkling, but it was there. Kakashi tugged his core inward and hoped that was enough. The woman's eyes caught on his back and lingered, following him all the way out the gate.

Kakashi pressed onward for a full day. Even with his shoddy control and academy-level access to his reserves, he pushed himself to utilise chakra. It was a stupid idea and one that Kaishun would have likely strongly disapproved of, but he had little choice with the threat he left behind in Kijima. He took the canopy route, as precarious as it was. Getting into the trees proved some trouble. The pathways in his legs gave warning flares of pain as he used chakra to leap, and he nearly ended up overshooting the branch completely. Staying up in the trees proved even more troubling, forced as he was to rely on his own sense of balance and the thin, wobbly film of chakra channelled to the flats of his feet to keep his footing. To his irritation, Kakashi tired quickly. The poor control had pushed him to use too much chakra or the pool of his reserves was even more limited than he thought. Either way, he was forced once more to the forest floor in an awkward roll that left his shoulder throbbing brightly. Kakashi carried on. WIth his thigh healed, he darted through the loamy thicket under the shadow of colossal trees, pausing only to snatch at berries and stake the poor hare that ran from its den at his approach. Its fat body slapped his thigh as he pushed on, its snapped neck tied to his belt with a rope of cloth.

Only with the security of several long miles and awkward footing in the waning light did Kakashi stop each night. The next handful of days were spent in the midst of the forest, slowly edging toward Taki's border. He slowed as he travelled forth, retraced his steps, and rerouted to throw any followers from his trail. Now that he could feel it, the demonic chakra that clung to him sat like a low, buzzing at the back of his mind. He was being followed and they were following the 'stink' he carried with him. It wasn't long till he was proven right.

Maybe they didn't know who exactly they looked for, but others shared the forest with him. Sometimes they came close. Close enough that he was forced to physically dig himself into earthy hollows; hide and pull his chakra signature as close to his core as he could, spending hours in miserable pulsing pain. One night, he heard a clash outside somewhere in the forest, too distant for him to push himself to try and sense. No yells or calls sounded out in the dark, only the metallic screech of steel, rumbling earth, and the pinlight of distant fire jutsu. Whoever fought was a class above ordinary ninja. And that was something Kakashi didn't particularly wish to get involved in.

Despite his initial gloomy prognosis, as the days slipped on, Kaishun's tireless work slowly bore fruit. Intimately focused on his wounded circulatory system, Kakashi took to meditating in the evenings, tracking every stronger link and every pathway that ached just a little less. Finding the small (tiny, hopelessly small) bloom in his reserves, he was caught by surprise. I thought I would end up more crippled than this, he thought with wonder. Crippled, he undoubtedly was, but he would take whatever small miracles he was offered. Soon, Kakashi found he could once again sense a chakra signature as some swept through the trees above. Cooking a skinned hare at the edge of his hollow one evening, Kakashi was equally startled to discover that focusing just right reignited his body's natural tendency to encourage cycling chakra into his nose. The heady scents he'd once taken for granted returned: rich tender flesh, bursting ash, and the all consuming woody scent of the forest. Closing his eyes, Kakashi tipped his head back and breathed deep. Another small miracle. He hadn't tried at all these past weeks and had been careful to keep the eye closed when it was uncovered but with the revelation, Kakashi was tempted to open his Sharingan, missing the sharp clarity of vision it provided. He thought the better of it. It was perhaps asking too much, despite how the eye had come to feel a part of him.

Lying prone in his hollow that night, Kakashi tried gently calling on his lightning once more. This time, his pathways only gave a dull aching flare. A small spark lit between his fingers, jumping to the earth above his head in a dance of static. He clenched his teeth against the overwhelming burst of relief. "Thank you," he murmured to the dirt and dark. And with the comforting scent of damp earth surrounding him, for the first time in weeks Kakashi felt as though things might just be alright.