one_long_mission | [closed] eyes i dare not meet in dreams

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[closed] eyes i dare not meet in dreams

This is a strange way to die, Kakashi thinks, when he opens his eyes and sees --

The memory of war, bodies swinging from trees. Broken, half-buried in the cold, inviolable earth, too many children who'd tasted blood before the sweetness of sake or their first kiss. And Obito who stands in judgment with a mouth full of hate, telling Kakashi to shut up and die like the trash that he is.

Trash who couldn't even bother to keep the promise that he made as Obito lay dying under a rock meant for him.

A strange way to die, indeed, with all the stars blotted out by clouds, shadows drinking up every surface, swallowing up the light. And here, a warm rain of blood and Obito's scarred face floating before Kakashi's eyes. One moment there, and the next gone, and Kakashi wonders what strange place this is that Obito's sent him to die, a land flooded with frigid water that runs red when Kakashi collapses forward into the slow, muddy flow.

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[The sound of movement jolts her, eyes cracking open for a quick look around before focusing back on Kakashi, and then slowly, she relaxes. Having Obito in the front room had rubbed her nerves absolutely raw, but for now it was ignorable, and she straightened in her chair.]

Hey Sensei.

[ Slowly, Kakashi pushes himself up to sitting, a motion that sends a wave of pain straight through him. Probably not the best idea, but, ah... ]

How long was I out?

[ It's suddenly becoming apparent to him that there's something strange about all of this. After all, he's in a hospital bed, not on a pallet on the floor of a medic tent. ]

[She rubbed a hand over her eyes and made herself be alert.]

Hours. Long enough for me to deal with the worst of the wounds at least. Are you feeling a bit more, ah... here and now, now?

The last thing I remember is that I was trapped in a genjutsu cast by Uchiha Obito, but it seems Naruto must've saved me.

[ And the rest of them, too. ]

Where are we? What happened with the rest of the battle?

Are Naruto and Gai safe?

Actually, the battle isn't over yet. If you were before Naruto rolled into the battle... Basically, a lot of really bad things happened, and Ino and Hinata were the ones that saved you and Naruto from being killed, and... I was taken from not long after that, so I honestly can't explain how everything ends. I wish I knew.

[She shook her head and bit her lower lip, hesitating at the idea of details.] We've sort of... ah, been kidnapped from the battlefield, and not by Obito either. No one here knows exactly how we got here.

[ Well, this is just great.

Either he's still caught in a genjutsu, or what Sakura is saying is actually the truth. Kakashi can't take her word for it though, and despite the pain throbbing in his head, he lets Sharingan swirl into action, activating Kamui in an attempt to counter whatever genjutsu still has him trapped.

But when nothing happens, other than the familiar feeling of space and time bending, Kakashi lets his eye fall shut as he tries to process Sakura's words. ]

So, you're telling me... that we're all taken from different points in time from the battlefield. And it wasn't Obito's doing.

[ Yeah, this makes no sense to him whatsoever. ]

Mmmhmm. That other Obito won't leave my clinic either, by the way. [She wasn't exactly thrilled by this, and it showed, but she just sighed. Her voice turned dry.]

Your teammates are eternally invading my space. I just need Yondaime-sama to drop by and that would make everyone. There are a lot of dead people here... and then there are a lot of people whose timelines were... different. Mine and yours match, it looks like, and there's a few of Naruto around who seem too too, as well as others. I... am from the farthest ahead, so far though.

Edited 2013-04-13 01:45 (UTC)

[ ... yeah, just this face. ]

Can you try explaining that again? Slowly?

[ Because if he thinks he heard her right, did she just say that his teammates are invading her space? And that there were a few Narutos? Not that multiple Narutos are strange, given his propensity for making clones, but... all this talk of timelines and Yondaime and "dead people" has really thrown Kakashi for a bit of a spin. ]

[She paused, then gave him a sheepish smile.] Okay, so I might have come at that a little fast.

Point by point them. This is Michi no Sato, in Jiten no Kuni. So far as anyone here can find out, people have no idea what the Elemental Nations even are, just that we come from them. No one knows what brings shinobi here,and no one knows how to send them back. We've been looking. I've been here nearly six months.

There are people from different points in our timeline. Like you are a bit behind me. One of the Sasuke here, on the other hand, is thirteen and never actually defected. There's also an Orochimaru who is younger than you, who suffice to say doesn't get the best reception when he braves the village proper.

There are dead people here. I've met Sasuke's mother. Rin lives above the clinic with me. [Here she paused and pointed upward.] Though I rarely see her since when she's not working in the clinic, she's usually out in the village. I've seen Jiraya-sama too, though he wasn't here long.

There are people from timelines where things are different. Case in point is the boy me. He lives in Mikoto-san's house. His name isn't Sakura, he'll pout if you call him that. Another is probably the Obito out in the waiting area. He definitely fussed over you enough when I knocked you out that I had a little trouble reconciling him with the person we were all fighting.

Sooo questions?

[ For a very long moment, Kakashi just stares at Sakura. ]

[ And then he attempts to break the genjutsu one last time, pressing his fingers into a seal. ]

Kai!

[ Of course, nothing happens. ]

[ Wonderful.

Kakashi sighs. ]

[She looked horribly amused by the time he was finished, a smile on her lips with her mouth up to hide it. She managed to keep her mirth out of her tone. It was, admittedly likely due to her relief after the worry caused by how he'd reacted when he'd shown up.]

Finished Sensei?

Edited 2013-04-13 03:02 (UTC)

Well, I suppose I'll just have to operate under the assumption that this really isn't a genjutsu...

[ Because by now, he certainly has enough chakra that he probably should've been able to break himself out of it. Especially with Kamui... ]

But what you're saying, you do realize it sounds absolutely insane...

[She gave him a helpless smile and shrugged.] You get used to it after a while.

I have to say that you're taking this better than the other you I met. Then again, I heard he got picked up by one of the girl Sasukes... [She shook her head.]

Should I let the guy out there know he can come in now, or do you want to wait a bit?

I'd say stranger things have happened, but...

[ This one obviously takes the cake.

Though, coming back from the dead was something Kakashi never thought could possibly be trumped.

Kakashi trails off as he shakes his head, reaching for his hitai-ate on the table and slides it in place, his gaze moving towards the door, where just beyond, Obito sits. (And a part of Kakashi wonders again if this isn't somehow a genjutsu. A very elaborate, very strong genjutsu that he can't seem to break.)

And it's a little strange, how very calm he's become. How the thought of Obito doesn't send him into some kind of a strange panic. Doesn't send the usual stab of emotion that twists him raw inside. But then, this is all a little too surreal, and Kakashi keeps thinking any moment now, any moment, he'll wake up and realize this has all been some kind of very odd dream. That none of this had ever come to pass.

Not even when he looked up at Obito from his knees and watched him form the words, trash should shut its mouth and die. ]

Give me a moment to get dressed, then send him in. And maybe you should get some rest. You look like hell.

...You're always so flattering sensei. [Her tone couldn't have gotten more dry, and she pushed to her feet, feeling that ache that said she was too tired to be up and around, but she ignored it, padding to the door.]

I live over the clinic, so if you need me for anything, I'll be here. Don't be a stranger, hmm?

Hai, hai.

[ Kakashi murmurs, waving Sakura off. He waits until she's out of the room before he starts to go through the motions of putting on himself, piece by piece. The vest goes on first, followed by wrappings, weapons, and finally his gloves. And it's only when he's put everything in place that he catches a reflection of himself in a mirror hanging on the wall and thinks to himself, what the fuck are you doing.

This is actually happening.

A man wearing Obito's face is sitting outside, and here you are you just putting on your gear like it's the most normal thing in the world to do. And maybe it is the only normal thing there is, because there is nothing normal about this, about Obito wanting to destroy the world with eyes Kakashi didn't even recognize because all the light had been burned out of them. They were not at all like the eyes he remembered, eyes filled with all the light in the world, that looked towards the sky because Obito used to dream he could reach it, if he just reached high enough. That was the Obito of Kakashi's memories, the Obito he carried around for the past sixteen years.

So there is really nothing normal about any of this at all, not the war, not Obito looking at him with eyes that had all the light shot out of them, and not the Obito outside of this room who shouldn't, who couldn't possibly exist.

And yet, somehow he does.

Kakashi can feel him, the anxiousness in his chakra, the unguardedness of it, just beyond the door, growing stronger with each step he takes towards it.

Minutes pass.

Nearly half an hour, before Kakashi finally manages to turn the handle and open the door. ]

Edited 2013-04-13 06:37 (UTC)

[The night had been terrible. In fact, he could honestly say it was the most awful night that he'd had in a very long time, catching him up in thoughts he didn't want to have as he slowly backtracked everything he'd heard about that would have been in his lifetime from others. Nobody was willing to come up to him and say 'oh and then I shall reveal to you point by point how much the world sucked without you in it' because, well, they didn't know what he missed, right?

Worse, it seemed that nobody even realized what he was coming to notice about the shape of everything. Sensei, in that other place and time, in most of the places and times... was dead. Snuffed out, taking Kushina-nee with him and leaving their son, brat that he was, an orphan without so much as a teammate of his to keep an eye on him. He wouldn't even pretend to imagine that Kakashi would have handled it well enough to take the boy in, and meeting the chibi running around had just cemented that idea.

He'd heard more than once about how there were 'so many Uchiha' here. But there weren't. There was only a couple dozen, most of them repeats of the same faces, and they were all dead back in most of their timelines? Killed by a pacifist that had never lost his intensity for that very subject, but seemed to have had it buried in other places for the 'good' or not so good of the clan it seemed. And it was... wrong.

He may not have been terribly happy with the family sometimes, but he never wanted them all to die. He never wanted sensei to die, he never wanted his brat of practically a nephew to be alone, or his cousins to turn cold and hard. It was... a nightmare.

One, it had become clear to him, that some other him had caused. He was the changed thing before these other things, and that left no other options. He didn't understand why. He didn't know what could have made it happen but... it seemed it had. He couldn't make up for those other hims, because you couldn't apologize for someone else if they didn't mean it and didn't want to, but he could move forward and show that that wasn't who he became.

He was the Uchiha that was working hard to try to be ready when his Sensei decided he was tired of the paperwork and being Hokage someday. He was the person who made sure to poke and prod his surviving teammate so he remembered to laugh from time to time, even if he had softened after the scare when he'd nearly died. He was the fool and the crier and he was okay with that, because it meant he always had a place, and he wasn't going to lose it.

That didn't mean he didn't worry about the fact that he could go terribly wrong enough that Kakashi thought he would end him. It didn't mean that he wasn't petrified at the concept that this Kakashi would only see that man if he spoke to him, think of him as something not real... It would hurt.

Mostly though... he just wanted him to be okay, and he waited, curled in a chair with one knee hugged to his chest with his chin on it, and the other resting on the ground. He'd almost gotten up when the girl had come out, but a quick headshake had put an end to that idea, and so, here he was. Waiting.

Now he just had to see if Kakashi would come out]

[ It feels like forever, standing in that doorway, just looking at Obito sitting there in that chair, all awkward and uncomfortable like he always used to be -- he never did seem to ever find a comfortable position to sit in, always fidgeted to the point of driving Kakashi a little mad back then -- and realizing that this, this is real.

This is really happening.

Obito isn't standing under a sky red with blood, but sitting awkward and uncomfortable and fidgeting in a poorly made chair. And that is a hitai-ate with a leaf printed on the metal band, and a pair of goggles hanging around his neck -- the same pair of goggles they buried in a coffin with only a picture to represent the boy they left behind. A boy that now sits with eyes rimmed in red, a boy, not a man, Kakashi's beginning to realize, because this Obito is much younger than the one who stood before him on the battlefield. His cheeks are still soft, still have the faint roundness of adolescence, and haven't yet hardened into sharp, gaunt lines.

He looks just like Obito would've looked if he had somehow survived.

The very sight of him alone is worse than a knife to the chest, an ache that goes straight to the core.

(And Kakashi can't help but think to himself: it's living that's the most difficult part. So maybe this isn't a strange, impossible blessing, but some kind of a curse.)

Kakashi's gaze traces the lines of Obito's body, flowing up over the scars that line the right side of his face. And it's only when he meets Obito's eyes -- both eyes (where did he get the other one, anyway?) -- that he lets out an audibly slow, shuddering breath he hadn't known he was holding all along.

He swallows past the tightness in his throat.

Swallows past the ache that's formed a knot in his chest.

Because this--

This is what could have been.

(If not for the rock he couldn't move.)

Kakashi stares at Obito for a very long moment, the treble of silence between them stretching further than the distance between the stars. He should say something, but all he can manage is just one word. ]

Obito...

Edited 2013-04-13 07:48 (UTC)

[That... was enough to prompt a fresh bout of tears, because his name wasn't said in perfect evenness, but with a level of emotion he really didn't even know how to approach, at least, out of Kakashi. In a lot of ways, after the initial shock, he hadn't really garnered anything he'd view as too strange of reactions out of the guy whose apartment he'd invaded, but this was different.

This was someone who had apparently been ready to let him kill him, and he didn't know how to tackle that at all, his other foot sliding to the ground then as he swiped at his eyes, not even bothering to note the tears at all as he pushed to his feet. Kakashi had gotten the first word, so he had to pull himself together and add more. If he didn't, then where would that leave them?

And awkward silence, that's where, and he might up and take back his greeting altogether if he did that. Still, seeing that he'd be okay made him so relieved, because hey, up and around meant that the medic thought he was well enough to actually let him be, and... and he really had no idea what to do.

Thus, after shifting from one foot to the other, he finally just steeled himself, took the four strides between them, and threw his arms around him, a little tense at the idea of rejection, but really not caring right now because he was relieved.]

You're okay.

[ You're okay, he says.

You're okay.

Somehow that was all Obito ever seemed to care about, even while he laid dying under a rock meant to be his burial. Whether or not Kakashi was okay. Whether or not Rin was, too. It didn't seem to matter that the rest of him was broken, because what was more important to Obito was that his teammates were safe and well, that he could protect the people who meant the most to him. That was what decent people did, anyway, even if shinobi could hardly be considered people.

(And maybe that was the problem in the end, when you're not really human, there's nothing decent about the lives you live. And yet Obito still saw something worth saving in lives that were born to be thrown away -- because that was his ninja way.)

Obito's breath is as warm as his embrace and Kakashi can barely even inhale, when all he can breathe is the warm, sweet scent of Obito, all sunshine and forest and something like home.

It's nothing at all like the Obito who stared him down across a battlefield, the Obito who smelled of blood and metal and the cold, gritty earth. An unfamiliar scent Kakashi didn't recognize anymore.

Obito is just as Obito should have been, could have been, and it wrenches Kakashi raw, punching the breath out of him entirely as he closes his eye. The slightest of tremors goes through his entire frame as he slowly brings his arms up and around Obito, holding him close.

This might be the one and only time he'll ever get to do this.

Hold him close, breathe him in.

After all, when Obito knows the truth--

and surely, Kakashi can't keep it from him for much longer --

this small reprieve, this little fantasy will be over before it even really began. ]

You're breaking rule number twenty-five again...

[ It comes out quiet, like a secret only meant for Obito's ears. ]

Edited 2013-04-14 05:42 (UTC)

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