Kakashi blinked, and blinked, and blinked, and blinked, and blinked.

The unmasked man stood amongst the crashing rain of slabs of rock and clashing powers, and treated them to a cold, dispassionate gaze.

Kakashi blinked some more, then clenched his eyes shut, and counted to ten. When he reopened his eyes and found that nothing had changed, he blinked again.

Finally, after what seemed like a week spent in dreaded, disbelieving anticipation, Kakashi whispered, "Obito?"

The disfigured man tilted his head slightly. "That name… no longer holds any meaning."

Kakashi blinked yet again, and said in a low, clipped tone, "Obito."

Obito's mouth did not twist to smirk nor did it dip to scowl, but his eyes of different powers and origin shined respective ominous lights.

"Ne, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto prompted from the man's side, "You know this guy? And why does it look like the right side of his face got into a fight with a cheese grater and lost?"

Gai's massive eyebrows scrunched as he peered at the unmasked Uchiha before him so hard his already beady eyes squinted to slits.

Kakashi made a strangled choking sound and coughed. After he regained a semblance of normalcy, he resolutely repeated, "Obito."

The man only regarded his silver haired counterpart coldly. "Call me what you will, but I am not Obito. I am no one; I have no name."

Kakashi's neck twitched as a tick formed at his jaw. A moment of silence, then: "Are you serious?"

Obito's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"You're Obito," Kakashi stated flatly.

"I've told you already, I am not—"

"Are you serious?" Kakashi seethed, holding his hands out like claws and clenching them into tight fists as his entire body trembled.

Obito squared his shoulders. "Do I look like I'm joking?"

"NO," Kakashi roared after he raged on inarticulately for an entire minute as Naruto watched nervously confused. "You don't look like you're joking. In fact, you look like Uchiha Obito, my old teammate and dear old friend who taught me the importance of the ways of the shinobi but more importantly the importance of nakama and who shouldn't be a mask wearing psychopath bent on world domination."

Obito's expression remained impassive. "That was a foolish boy long dead and long forgotten."

Kakashi gaped. "You're effing kidding me."

"You do not know what I've been through, Kakashi. The pain I've endured and the hatred I've suffered. The darkness I've seen and the cruelties I've learned. Do you know how it feels to be figuratively crushed under the weight of expectations from an accursed clan that does little other than belittle you at every turn and for every slight infraction against their elite standards that were little more than delusions of grandeur of a disgraceful group of hypocrites? Do you know how it feels to be fed the illusory righteous bullshit from a village that only uses and abuses its shinobi and try to live by the Will of Fire and try your best but always fall short and the only reward for your efforts were to be literally crushed by several metric tons of falling boulders?"

"No, but I would have if you came home and told me about it at any point in the last sixteen years, nine months, and thirteen days that you've been alive!"

It was Obito's turn to blink.

"Yeah, that's right," Kakashi grounded out. "I've been keeping track because I went to the Memorial Stone every day for the last sixteen years, nine months, and thirteen days to mourn your supposed death." He blinked at his own words and his eyes widened. "I stared at a stupid rock for over a decade because of you!"

Obito seemed to scoff. "It's not as if I asked you to."

"I became a pathological procrastinator because I stared at a stupid rock for over a decade because of you!"

"You did so out of your own ignorance."

"Wait," Naruto interjected. "I thought you were always late because you're always navigating the road of life or because you're always helping lost old grannies or something."

Obito frowned imperceptibly at that.

Kakashi pushed the boundaries of possibility by widening his eyes further. "I became a porn addict because of you."

Obito managed to look annoyed. "You're just blaming me for all of your questionable character flaws now aren't you?"

"I thought you liked reading the Icha Icha series, Kakashi sensei," Naruto ventured.

Gai framed his perspective of the Uchiha before him with the index fingers and thumbs of both hands forming a rectangle.

"Shut up, Naruto. Mommy and daddy are busy bitching at each other right now because apparently mommy doesn't know that the best thing to do after you survive a certain death scenario is to not start a criminal organization and not start a war with all the elemental countries and come back home and tell daddy about it so that daddy could not be riddled with guilt and regret for the better part of sixteen years, nine months, and thirteen days ol' so days!"

"To what end? Why would I have wanted to return to a village that had its hands orchestrating more cruelty than kindness? To a clan that scorned and denied me. To a cell with a selfish teacher and an arrogant bastard of a teammate. Then again, it's just about you, isn't it, Kakashi? It's always been about you. You were the village's favorite, Minato-sensei's favorite. The only person who would have understood was Rin, and even she liked you better. If I were Obito, why would I want to return to anything like that?"

Kakashi bristled. "Right, because you not being Obito would obviously explain why you would know all about his misgivings and oh, I don't know, so that you could try to fix things? If everything was as bad as you said then maybe doing anything other than the things you've done so far would have been a much better choice of action."

Obito scowled now. "As if I could trust the likes of you. You promised me you would look out for her, to protect her. And yet, in the end, she was lost anyway."

"Rin wasn't lost, you moron! She just eloped with a dentist and they moved to the Fire Nation capital together!"

"It was the same. And she wouldn't have done so if you didn't spurn her affections at every turn."

"That's because you were the one who liked her and I was the one who wanted to sacrifice her and was subsequently obsessed with the guilt of your death all this time! Or did I not mention the sixteen years, nine months, and thirteen days spent staring at a giant rock thinking about you! ?"

"Man, is that what Sasuke and I look like when we have our epic showdowns/shouting matches?" Naruto pondered from the sideline, still armored by golden chakra.

"Yes," Kurama growled. "And trust me when I say it looked every bit as gay as it does here."

Naruto began to rethink his position on getting his eternal rival back and getting a girlfriend first so that his sexuality wouldn't be questioned, more than it already was anyway.

Gai began rubbing his chin in contemplation.

"What's wrong, Might Gai?" Obito seemed to sneer, upon noticing the taijutsu master's bewildered gaze at him. "Surprised to see that the runt you've defeated so easily in combat years ago come back with a vengeance?"

Gai sucked in his lips between his teeth as he continued to squint. "Do I…know you?"

Obito's brow twitched.

"No," Kakashi intoned. "No you don't, Gai. Because obviously this person isn't Obito, someone you would know because you once called him a comrade."

Obito gave a cursory glare at the still pondering taijutsu master. "I think I might be okay with that."

"Those who break the rules are trash," Kakashi recited, "but those who abandon their friends are worse than trash. Congratulations, you've broken every rule and have done far worse than abandon your friends."

Obito shrugged. "That is acceptable. After all, no one is lower than trash, and I am no one."

Kakashi twitched. "Are you serious?"

"You're always just words and no action to back them, Kakashi. Even with my Sharingan that made you into the hero of Konoha you're still all talk and no walk. Worse, you can't even understand the true value of my goals."

"Yeah, well, I stopped understanding at the part where you directly caused the deaths of both Minato-sensei and Kushina-san and orphaned Naruto to achieve such goals."

Naruto perked up and looked marvelously angry at that.

"You can't make omelets without cracking a few eggs, and you definitely can't rebuild a world without sacrificing a few people in it. Minato and Kushina were just amongst the unfortunate."

"Yeah? Well, speaking of unfortunate," Kakashi gritted out as he pulled out another kunai and charged it with lightning chakra, and turned to Naruto. "Naruto, Gai, trinity formation!"

Naruto and Gai blinked before nodding their heads and taking out their own kunai. "Right!"

Together, the three of them charged at Obito, whose Sharingan and Rinnegan both widened at the name of the incoming attack only those born of Konoha would know, and for once began to earnestly worry.

"Three Thousand Years of Pain!"

AN: Kakashi was obviously completely OOC and everything was weird because it was more or less just me going nuts. I hope every bad thing I'm involuntarily thinking is just all false and Kishi is just doing his normal thing by trolling us like mudkips. Or at the very least Kishi better have a way to clear up all the rising questions somehow eventually, and it better be good.