Each year on October 11th, Kakashi traveled to Konoha to visit his old teammates' graves.

It had been this way ever since he was fourteen: no matter how far away from Konoha he was, he returned there each year on October 11th. No matter how risky, he would sneak into the village to pay his respects.

October 11th was the day he left Konoha, ten years ago – the day he became a missing-nin. It was an important date to him. He had all but let go of his past as a shinobi by now, but the tradition of visiting his teammates' graves was the one tether to his past that he refused to cut.

So he made a decision, a rule for himself: on October 11th, he would go to Konoha. He would follow that rule, no matter what.

He would follow that rule, even if it meant traveling for days with a high fever and barely any oxygen in his lungs.

He'd already been sick when he left for Konoha – the result of spending three full weeks in Rain and never being out of the rain for long enough to dry his clothes. It was just a cold, or so he told himself. It was just a cold, definitely not pneumonia, and it wasn't that bad, and he wouldn't let it keep him from going to Konoha. He could handle it; he would go visit his teammates' graves, even if he was a bit under the weather. And so, he set out to go to Konoha from Rain.

The journey was long and tiring, but Kakashi pushed through his exhaustion. The effort of traveling made it difficult to breathe, and it made him slower than he would've liked. If he let himself rest, he wouldn't make it to Konoha before October 11th.

He knew, logically, that his teammates wouldn't care if he were late – but he still didn't like the idea of being late. It reminded him too much of Obito. So he pushed on, not letting himself rest and not letting himself complain. He stifled his coughs and he ignored his fever and he only paused when he felt like he was going to pass out.

He did not let himself consider turning back. The Land of Fire's forest was dangerous territory for missing-nin – Konoha shinobi passed through here a lot – but Kakashi was skilled. He could make it to the village, sneak in, pay his respects without being noticed, and leave again. He'd done it before; he'd been doing it successfully for the past decade. The fact that his skull felt like it was filled with concrete would not stop him.

It was uncharacteristically optimistic of him, but he was determined.

It was because of that optimism, because of that determination, that he eventually ended up lying on the ground in a puddle of his own blood.

The bodies of two Konoha shinobi lay next to him, both unmoving. They were curled up on the ground, the fallen leaves underneath them dark and sticky with blood. Kakashi would've preferred not to kill them – leaving dead bodies in his wake wasn't exactly a good way to keep a low profile – but they'd given him no choice. If he hadn't killed them, they would've killed him.

He pressed his hands tighter against his side, hissing short breaths through his teeth. The hilt of a kunai was sticking out from his side, the blade buried in his flesh. It was a stupid injury, stupid. He'd underestimated his opponents, and he'd overestimated himself. He shouldn't have taken on two jounin while he could barely stand on his feet.

Hell, he shouldn't have come to Konoha at all. He knew that it was dangerous, and he knew that he would need to be stealthy, and he knew that someone would eventually spot him if he kept coughing his lungs out. He should've just turned back and returned when he felt less shitty.

Well. This was what optimism and determination got him, he supposed.

He squeezed his eyes shut and gasped for air, trying to gather the strength to get up. He couldn't stay here, no matter how much his body protested against moving. He was less than half an hour away from Konoha; this close to Hidden Villages, there were lots of shinobi around. Sooner or later, someone would stumble across him if he stayed here – and if that someone was a shinobi who decided to fight Kakashi, he would certainly not survive. He had to get out of here.

He raised his head off the ground, and the world tilted dangerously around him. Ignoring the blinding dizziness, he rolled himself onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. He stayed like that for a while, his chest heaving. The wound in his side was giving off nauseating waves of pain.

Slowly, very slowly, Kakashi pushed himself into a sitting position, his knees automatically bending up in an instinctive attempt to curl in on himself. He was trembling all over; the blood loss, the pain and the fever were taking their toll on his body. The prospect of getting up felt impossible.

He moved to brace a hand on the ground, intending to push himself to his feet, but he pulled back his hand with a hiss. He hadn't paid much attention to it before – which made sense, considering that there was a kunai sticking from his side – but his right wrist was swollen and rapidly turning purple. One of the shinobi had twisted his hand earlier to make him drop his weapon, and Kakashi had felt something snap inside his wrist, but he'd hoped that it was the kind of thing that he'd just shake off. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that he wasn't that lucky. His wrist was sprained at best, or broken at worst. Either way, it was going to suck for a while.

With his left hand, he fished a senbon from his weapons pouch and stuck it into the chakra point in his right elbow. His lower arm went numb immediately, the throbbing in his hand disappearing now that the chakra flow had been cut off. Kakashi exhaled a sigh of relief and bit back the cough that followed.

He returned the senbon to his weapons pouch, took a slow breath – as slow as his irritated lungs would allow – and shakily pulled his feet underneath himself. The kunai in his side shifted as he straightened up, and Kakashi choked back a groan and doubled over.

Somehow, he managed to stay on his feet, despite the blinding pain. The dark spots in his vision faded eventually, and Kakashi gritted his teeth and stumbled over to where his backpack was lying on the ground; he'd thrown his backpack at one of his opponents later on in the fight, as a last-ditch effort at distracting them. It had worked, though his backpack had gotten sliced clean in half as a result. Everything that Kakashi owned – which wasn't much – was now strewn across the ground.

Thankfully, the shinobi had been carrying packs as well. Kakashi wrestled their backpacks off their unmoving bodies and inspected the contents of the packs. The shinobi's supplies were scarce, which made sense; they'd been on their way back to the village after a mission, so of course they wouldn't have been carrying much anymore. There were some weapons, two half-empty flasks of water, and mission rations that had all but run out. One of the shinobi was carrying a basic first-aid kit. Kakashi knew from his experiences in ANBU – long, long ago – that standard shinobi first-aid kits never held enough bandages, so he cut off a few strips of cloth from the shinobi's uniforms to use in case he ran out of bandages.

It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. Kakashi stuffed the supplies into one of the backpacks and picked up his own things from the ground. He carefully made sure not to leave anything behind, even though the repetitive motion of bending down to pick up his things was agonizing.

Kakashi pulled the backpack onto his back – which hurt, damn it – and exhaled a slow breath. The backpack wasn't very heavy, but the weight pulled on his side regardless.

Clenching his jaws, he brought his hands together and signed. The numbness in his right hand and the fracture in his wrist made it difficult to sign; he had to move the fingers of his right hand with his left hand to slowly form the signs for an Earth ninjutsu.

The Earth ninjutsu swallowed up the two dead bodies, burying them deep underground. They might be discovered eventually, but by then, Kakashi's trail would've long gone cold.

The Earth ninjutsu left the battleground looking like there had never been a fight at all, and it left Kakashi's chakra level uncomfortably low. He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, hoping that that would help the dark spots in his vision disappear. His brow felt hot and sweaty underneath his hand.

He exhaled slowly and turned around, turned his back in the direction of Konoha. He had to get out of here, as fast as possible – he wasn't sure where he was going to go, but it didn't matter to him. As long as it wasn't here. The best option was probably to find the nearest village that was not Konoha, scrape together enough chakra to use a henge so that he wouldn't be recognized, and then lie low in an inn for as long as necessary. The idea of going somewhere relatively safe and collapsing into a bed sounded really damn great right now.

With that goal in mind, Kakashi set out. His footsteps were uneven and his vision was blurred with pain, but he didn't let himself succumb to the weakness. The nearest village was a couple of hours away. He could make it there if he just pushed through his pain for a bit longer.

He was optimistic, and determined. These were the same feelings that had gotten him into this mess. Kakashi wasn't focusing on that, though; his head hurt too much to focus on much of anything. He just needed to keep going. That was all he could focus on.

Just a few more hours. Just a few more hours – that was what he kept holding on to. Just a few more hours, and he'd be safe. Just a few more hours, and he'd finally let himself rest.

Just a few more hours. How long had it been since he'd turned his back to Konoha? Minutes, probably. Each step jolted the wound in his side. He could barely breathe, and each shaky inhale jolted the wound. Hell, even the simple effort of staying upright was enough to make his side scream out; he had to walk with his shoulders hunched, because straightening his back was agonizing. He'd only been walking for a few minutes, but it felt like it'd been an eternity.

He kept his good hand pressed against his side, a strip of cloth pressed against the wound around the kunai that still stuck from his side. He'd take out the kunai later, when he was somewhere safer. Right now, the kunai was helping his blood stay inside his body. If he took the blade out now, the wound would start bleeding worse, and Kakashi didn't have time to deal with that right now. Not when he could stumble across more Konoha shinobi at any moment. He kept pressure on the wound, but with each step, he could feel his hand grow weaker.

He was trembling all over. The pain in his side made him feel like he was about to throw up. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move his right hand. He was far too warm. He was far too cold. The blood loss was starting to make his limbs go numb. He felt like he was going to pass out. But he didn't let himself rest. He had to get the Hell away from here, before his problems grew even bigger.

Just a few more hours. Just a few more hours. Just a few more hours-

His vision swayed suddenly – and the next moment, Kakashi was on his knees. He'd lost his balance, though he hadn't noticed it happening. The impact of his knees hitting the ground sent white-hot agony through his entire abdomen, and Kakashi curled in on himself, gasping desperately for air. The gasping turned into coughing, and the coughing jolted the wound in his side more. His mind went blank with pain.

He wasn't certain how long he sat there for, fighting to get air into his lungs as he waited for the pain to ebb away. He was aware of nothing except the pain and the knowledge that he needed to get up. He wasn't safe here. The nearest village was only hours away. It wasn't far. He would be safe there. If he could just get to his feet again-

He shifted his balance, intending to carefully get up, but the world tilted dangerously as soon as he tried to move. He squeezed his eyes shut, hissing through his teeth. Damn it. Damn it, he wasn't going anywhere.

He'd pushed himself past his limit.

It took a while longer before he actually accepted that fact, sitting hunched over on his knees in the middle of Fire's forest. Eventually, he exhaled a resigned sigh and brought his hands together again.

This Earth ninjutsu was one that he'd known for almost a decade; it was one of the first ninjutsu he picked up after he'd become a missing-nin. It was a ninjutsu with the purpose of hiding, and he'd never needed to hide before that moment.

A tunnel opened in front of him, just tall enough for him to crawl into. Kakashi hid the entrance of the hole behind a bush and crawled into the tunnel, holding his broken wrist against his chest. He had to pause a couple of times, leaning against the side of the tunnel, because the blood loss made him too dizzy to continue.

Finally, he reached the end of the tunnel; a small underground room. It was too dark to see properly, so Kakashi took his flashlight from his backpack and tied it to one of the roots that stuck from the ceiling with some wire. It was difficult to fasten the wire to the flashlight and then to the root with only one hand – at some point, Kakashi accidentally dropped the flashlight from the ceiling, and the flashlight's light dimmed significantly after that.

Once he had some light to work in, he applied seals to the inside of the room, to hide away his chakra signature. He was hidden fairly well like this, but Byakugan users could still see his chakra signature from kilometers away. The seals would keep that from happening.

When the seals were finished – when Kakashi was as safe as he could be – he finally let himself rest. He gingerly shrugged out of his backpack and leaned himself against the wall, his left hand pressed weakly against his side. The air down here was stifling, he noticed idly. It itched in his lungs. Breathing past that itch was exhausting.

Rolling his head to the side, he eyed his backpack. He knew that he should tend to his injuries, but even the thought of taking the first-aid kit out of his backpack was too tiring. The exhaustion and the pain made his limbs impossibly heavy. He couldn't move.

Accepting defeat, he allowed his eyes to slip shut.


The first day he was stuck in the hole, Kakashi's body greedily took the rest that it had been missing out on. Kakashi slept for a long time, trapped in fever dreams that he was too exhausted to wake up from. The pain from his wound and the sensation of being unable to breathe followed him in his dreams.

The second day, he somehow scraped together enough energy to take care of his injuries. He splinted his wrist with some semi-straight roots that he cut from the ceiling and with the strips of cloth that he cut from the shinobi's uniforms. He removed the kunai from his side, biting hard on his sleeve the entire time, and stitched the wound. He had to stitch the cut with his left hand, which was shaking a lot; the stitches ended up crooked and uneven as a result. The whole ordeal was dizzyingly painful, despite the fact that he'd taken a painkiller from the first-aid kit. He was barely able to bandage the wound before he passed out again.

The third day, his body seemed a bit less intent on being unconscious. Kakashi managed to eat and drink a little, despite the nausea that had claimed his abdomen. The wound in his side was swollen badly, and it throbbed with every breath. Each time he coughed, the pain would flare up, and it took minutes before it ebbed away again. Kakashi kind of wished that his body would knock him out again, but that didn't happen.

The fourth day, the chakra flow to his right hand started to restore itself, and the pain from his broken wrist returned slowly yet relentlessly. Kakashi considered shutting down the chakra flow to his hand again, but doing that too often could leave permanent damage. He resigned himself to bearing the pain.

The fifth day, he ran out of food, despite the fact that it felt like he'd barely eaten anything. He should leave, he knew – he should leave to find food. He was in the middle of Konoha's forest; it should be easy to find food here. No matter how hard he tried, though, he was too weak to get up. The exit of the hole was right there, yet the possibility of hunting or scavenging was impossibly out of reach. No matter, Kakashi decided wearily. He wouldn't starve to death just yet. He had a bit of time to gather his strength. He'd deal with it tomorrow.

But on the sixth day, he couldn't get up, either. The lack of food had made him weaker than ever before. He tried to move, to crawl out of the hole, but he hardly made it a meter before the burning in his side made him crumple to the ground, trembling uncontrollably and barely able to breathe. He fell asleep there, too sick and in too much pain and too hungry to stay awake.

The seventh day started with the realization that he was going to starve to death in here.

Somehow, his day got worse from there on out.

He felt the presence of a chakra signature before he heard the footsteps, and his breath froze in his chest. Someone was here, and they were close.

Worse, this chakra signature felt familiar. It felt too strong to be a human's, unnaturally large and overwhelming – a human's chakra signature mixed with something decidedly not human.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose when he finally recognized the chakra signature: it was that of the Nine-Tails' jinchuuriki. He recognized this chakra signature, because it was the same as Kushina's.

Except it couldn't be Kushina's chakra signature, because she'd been dead for a decade.

It felt as though his insides had been dipped in ice water. Some part of him, some raw sorrowful illogical part of him, grasped on to the hope that this was truly Kushina. That she'd somehow come back from the dead. If that were true, then maybe not everything was lost.

The footsteps approached, and Kakashi held his breath. It was silent for a moment, and then a boy's voice followed – a boy's voice, not Kushina's.

"Hello? You still alive in there?"

It took Kakashi's sluggish mind a moment before he realized what that meant. A kid – a boy – whose chakra signature was the same as Kushina's, and who was walking around the woods around Konoha, and who sounded like he'd be young enough to still be in the Academy?

This wasn't Kushina – it was her son. Namikaze Naruto, or Uzumaki Naruto, if the village had decided that taking on his father's last name was too risky for him.

Kakashi felt like he was going to be sick. Shit. Shit, this couldn't be happening. He couldn't have Minato and Kushina's kid stumble across him – Kakashi had left Konoha specifically because everyone around him died. He had severed all of his bonds with the village because he couldn't lose anyone else.

If this kid got too close to him, he would die, too. Kakashi was cursed that way.

He heard the kid clear his throat, and then shout into the tunnel: "Hey, I'm coming down there!"

Kakashi was gripped with an overwhelming realization: he needed this kid to get away from him.

Fueled by nothing but pure adrenaline, Kakashi focused his chakra and managed a Body-Flicker. He ended up behind Naruto, lightly pressing the flat side of a kunai against the boy's throat; not enough to cut him, but hopefully enough to scare him. If Kakashi scared him badly enough, maybe the kid would leave him alone. It was safer for him that way.

"Get the Hell out of here," Kakashi hissed. He was badly out of breath, and his voice stung in his throat. The quick movement of the Body-Flicker had jolted his side, and he almost couldn't speak through the pain. This was the most he'd moved in a week, and he'd probably need another week to recover from this. "Don't come back," he gritted out. "You never saw me here, understood?"

The next moment, Naruto had already dashed away. Kakashi sat back on the ground, his breath rasping in his throat as he watched the kid's orange vest fade from view in between the trees. The kid was smart. Smart enough not to pick a fight with a missing-nin twice his size, at least.

It made something ache inside his chest, though. This was Minato and Kushina's child. Kakashi remembered Minato saying that Naruto would grow up with Kakashi around; maybe he would end up seeing Kakashi as an older brother of sorts. Kakashi had played it off as a joke at the time – even back then, he wasn't too keen on letting new people into his life, because that only meant that he had more to lose – but that didn't mean that he hadn't entertained the thought. Maybe Naruto would grow up to see Kakashi as an older brother of sorts.

Except that never happened. And now, Naruto would only know Kakashi as the random missing-nin in the woods that held a kunai to his throat.

Kakashi sighed and forced the thought to the back of his mind. He'd learned to stop focusing on the hypothetical a long time ago; he'd spent years only thinking about what would've happened if he hadn't lost everyone he cared about, and it had almost driven him mad. In the end, it didn't matter what Naruto thought of him, as long as he was alive and safe. And his best chance of staying alive and safe was to stay far away from Kakashi.

Except the kid didn't stay away from Kakashi. He came back, with too much courage to react to Kakashi's attempts at scaring him away anymore. Kakashi should've anticipated that Naruto wouldn't be scared away that easily; fearlessness was in his blood, after all.

He came back, and coincidentally, that made sure that Kakashi didn't starve to death that day. He left with the promise of returning with more food, and Kakashi wanted so badly to protest. Kakashi wanted this kid – the only hint of Minato and Kushina that was left in this world – to be safe. He needed Naruto to stay away from him.

Except Kakashi was pragmatic enough to know that that wasn't an option. Naruto was offering him a way to survive. If Kakashi didn't accept his help, he would starve to death. Plain and simple.

So Kakashi accepted the kid's help. It was selfish, he knew that. He was ensuring his own safety by putting Naruto in danger.

When Naruto turned his back and left to go home, Kakashi finally allowed his exhaustion and pain and panic to catch up with him. He was filled with that specific kind of nausea that came with awakening a very old fear.

That evening, in that hole in the ground, Kakashi had the worst panic attack he'd had in years. This wasn't right. It had been ten years since he'd last had to worry about losing someone; he'd spent the last decade alone. He'd been so very careful not to let anybody get too close.

And now here he was, asking a person to put themselves in danger so that Kakashi could live. And not just any person: no, of course this person had to be Namikaze Naruto, Kakashi's mentor's son. The one person that Kakashi had hoped to keep out of danger.

Kakashi had already known that the universe wasn't kind, but as it turned out, faith was even more cruel and twisted than he'd thought.

This was a terrible day.