Kakashi ran as fast as his gangly fourteen-year-old legs could carry him. Translocation was a risk he couldn't take, because his chakra was running low and he might need it to protect his sensei and his sensei's wife from the demon ravaging their village. He pulled down his mask and took another soldier pill.

Which makes how many in barely an hour? Fuck it all to hell, Kakashi thought. We just got out of a war. We can't handle this!

Breathless, Kakashi made it to the cave where Minato-sensei and Kushina were bunkered down. Sweat beaded on both of their brows, and blood streaked Minato's hands and Kushina's...everything. She looked almost peacefully asleep, but there was no rise and fall of her chest, no earthshaking snores. Kakashi gave himself a few seconds to grieve, then shuttered his emotions away. He tried to maintain eye-contact with Minato out of respect for Kushina. A baby with a flash of yellow hair cried in Minato's arms. For the time being, Kakashi paid it no mind.

"Ah, Kakashi, you're just in time," Minato said, smiling wearily. "There's something I need you to do."

Kakashi dipped into the shinobi's kneel. He had a feeling that this request wasn't from his old teacher, but from the leader of Konohagakure. "Anything, Hokage-sama."

"I can seal the Kyuubi's chakra into another host if we hurry. I fear I'm not going to survive no matter the outcome. The sealing needs a sacrifice. So, Kakashi, will you become the Nine-tails jinchuuriki?"

That wasn't what Kakashi was expecting at all. He opened and closed his mouth, breath caught on phrases ranging from rude to blatantly insubordinate. In the end, though, he knew where his loyalties lay, and if Minato was going to die to save the village, if he was going to pull Kakashi into it, then there was nothing Kakashi could do but kneel there and take it.

"Yes, Hokage-sama," Kakashi finally replied, hollow-voiced.

In a few minutes, Kakashi was stripped out of his flak vest and jounin blues, his pale, scarred skin and awkward teenage limbs on full display. Quickly, but with deft hands, Minato painted seals onto his body and the cave floor. "Kushina was always better with sealwork," Minato said when he finished, "But this should hold him plenty. Stay here and watch Naruto while I catch that damned Fox."

Despite the fact that Kakashi was practically naked, he still wanted to follow after Minato. He always followed, but this time he stayed. Without anything protecting his vital organs, he would be much more of a hindrance than a help, so he sat there, letting Naruto cry and squirm and swat aimlessly at him.

The commotion outside got louder and louder, sounds of combat interspersed with the Fox's infernal screeching. Kakashi's curiosity outweighed his sense of self-preservation, so he swaddled the baby in his discarded clothes and wandered to the mouth of the cave. There, he could see Minato facing off with a man in an orange mask while struggling to maintain his leash on the Kyuubi. The Fox itself had destroyed several acres of Shodai's forest so far in its thrashing. A giant foot destroyed a house, another destroyed a part of the Wall, and Kakashi couldn't stop his heart from skipping a beat though he knew the vulnerable populations had already been evacuated.

Neither the masked man nor Minato seemed to notice Kakashi was watching, and he was done being frozen by fear. He pushed his hair away from his face and blinked open his Sharingan eye. Kakashi zeroed in on the shinobi Minato was fighting. Immediately, he recognized the man as an Uchiha due to the blue trail his eye left behind, but there was something familiar about him that Kakashi couldn't quite place.

Kakashi knew he would only have one shot at this if he wanted to save Minato, and he'd have to directly disobey him. Again. The chidori was forbidden from use after he'd used it to kill Rin, but it was the only jutsu fast enough to strike home. He watched the two men exchange strike and parry until he found a pattern, and there-

Never in his life had Kakashi flipped through handseals that quickly. He ran out, ducked under the masked man's swinging arm, and sank his fist home. Bone crunched, blood fizzled, and the man's mask cracked.

"Obito?" Kakashi said hoarsely. He was splattered with the other man's blood. "But...why?"

Obito laughed shortly, once, "You're really living up to your reputation, huh?" and his head dipped forward as the light left his eyes.

Kakashi sank to his knees, Obito's body sliding off of his hand with a slurping sound, and tried his best to slow his erratic breathing, but control was spiraling away. The fight was not over, they hadn't won yet, and this wasn't even the most exhausting thing Kakashi was going to do today.

Minato watched him, then silently placed a hand on his shoulder. "The body needs to be saved for Intel, and we need to hurry."

Kakashi swallowed, nodded. He hoisted Obito's lifeless body over his shoulder and scurried back inside the cave, where he propped it against the wall. He lay himself back down in the center of spiraling seals. Minato knelt at Kakashi's side and Kakashi craned his neck so that his Sharingan eye could record the jutsu. Chakra molded this way, bending here-

It felt like Kakashi was on fire. The Nine-tails's screams reached a fever pitch and Kakashi felt something inside him moving aside, making room. The chakra in his own roached pathways was no match for the Demon's. He couldn't help the gasps and groans that escaped him, everything was very hot and too much, burning and pain coursing through his veins, and he wanted it to stop- but he had to do this. For Konohagakure. For Minato most of all.

Finally, Minato took his hands away from Kakashi's stomach, looking like a man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, even on his deathbed. Sealing a demon requires a sacrifice, after all. He smiled weakly at Kakashi.

"You'll take care of Naruto for me." It wasn't a question, or an order. There was nothing Kakashi wouldn't do for Minato, no matter how much he might hate himself afterwards.

Kakashi nodded, then helped his teacher hobble over to his dead wife, picking Naruto up along the way. Minato's chakra was a mere fraction of what it had been, dwindling lower by the second. Kakashi had always compared it to the sun, but it was barely enough to light a candle now.

Kakashi looked at the squalling infant in his bloody arms and briefly wondered if this little thing was worth all the fuss. He made himself watch the last moments of Minato's life, he owed him at least that much.

And then, Kakashi was alone in a cave with an infant, a demon, and three dead bodies.