This story has been stewing in my head for a long time, and I figured I might as well take it out of the oven now that it's cooked. :grin:
Dedicated to the one pairing I've included in my other works but never gave a story of its own, when one was way past overdue.
I. Perdition
Her hands were gentle as she dressed his wound, an ugly, jagged gash that ran the length of his left side like a trail of fire. She explained as she labored that the ointment she slathered in the seething red valley between the puckered flesh would help cauterize it, make the blood flow cease and scar tissue form. That's why it stings so much, she told him. You can tell it's working when it hurts more, not less.
"Shit," he hissed when the salve reached a spot where the wound scored deeper, near bone, the exquisite pain enough to make his head spin and his stomach churn. "I think the fucker that knifed me was going easy…" A grimace screwed up his features. "A paper cut, compared to this…"
"You know I hate that word," she chided, nimble fingers weaving a length of cloth bandaging around his torso, where she cinched it tight. His body jerked upward slightly in reaction to the pressure, though he otherwise remained still. "Makes you sound like a barbarian."
She was always so proper. Surrounded by blood and guts and gore day in and day out, she should've been wild, a feral girl-child who snapped and snarled and communicated in grunts like the rest of them. But not Rin. She was a lily in a field of dandelions, the mouse that made its home in the nest of a viper.
He told her, "We live in a barbaric world. I figure, may as well play the part, so nobody discovers I'm more of a 'puppies' kind of guy than a scorpion."
Rin sat back on her knees and gave him a long look, peeling away layer upon layer as if he were no more than an onion to be skinned, a trick she must've learned from Yondaime. His eyes alone had the power to draw out the most imbedded of secrets, those repressed out of fear or shame or grief or guilt.
Maybe that was why Obito loved her, and why Kakashi was unnerved by her. Two years dead, the Uchiha boy had no more secrets now than he did in life. He could meet her gaze without reservation, without the clammy sweat of dread on his palms, praying she wouldn't unearth the skeletons lurking in the cellar…
Kakashi's demons were not a subject he embraced with particular rapport, the type of uncomfortable topic normally avoided around the dinner table. He kept them at a safe distance, no desire to acknowledge the bitter, shriveled little craven imp with the sunken, mismatched eyes as himself.
But Rin did. She knew who he was, what he was, and he resented her for it, even if the fault was not hers to bear. She knew that, too. She knew, yet she still wanted to be near him, still tended his injuries and asked nothing in return other than he be careful, still made it clear her heart was in his hands, where she had placed it willingly.
If she hated him, cursed him for Obito's death, he might not have felt like such a tyrant, taking his anger and his mistakes out on an innocent, pretending the blame was on someone else's shoulders when the sheer weight of it resting on his own drove him into the ground.
He never despised himself more than when he was with her.
"A 'puppies' kind of guy, huh?" She said finally, and the tension eased as the moment was broken. Gathering her supplies, excess bandages, and the ointment, she loaded them into her pack. Her lips turned up in a smile. "Next time, you'll have to think of a creative excuse, Kakashi. This one lacked inspiration."
Once again, she was the one who made things right when it should have been his job. It was a cycle that never ceased, no beginning, no end, and he just a catalyst in place of an inhibitor.
As she got to her feet and left him there, all he could do was watch her in silence, wondering why she loved him instead of Obito.
When he ran, he became one with the atmosphere, the ground making no more impact beneath his feet than a whisper in a crowded room attracts attention. Of his many nicknames, 'the Ghost' was the one he prided above the others, earned for his skill at moving about, regardless of the terrain, completely undetected. His type was well suited to ANBU, a team of Konoha's elites that specialized mainly in assassination, with an assortment of other tasks that included escort through hostile territory, if the client boasted an ample coffer.
Kakashi was accepted into the organization at seventeen, two years after Kyuubi ravaged the village and Yondaime became a martyr, using the last of his chakra to seal the demon into the body of his newborn son. The silvery-haired young man had only seen Naruto once, before Sandaime hid him away, out of the limelight, where he would remain until he was of an age able to fend for himself. The boy had his father's bright blonde hair and piercing cobalt blue eyes; Kakashi could only look on him for a moment before he was overwhelmed by vertigo. They were too similar, father and child…like a projection from beyond the grave…
Despite the barrier, however, he did sympathize with the boy, having lost his own parents, one by suicide, the other over a broken heart. Unlike the majority of the villagers who believed Naruto was Nine-Tails and therefore should be held accountable for its crimes, he did not harbor prejudice against the baby. Yondaime insisted he should be known as a hero, and Kakashi would honor his sensei's final wish…once Naruto proved himself worthy.
For that, he had years of waiting to go.
"Up ahead," Pakkun's gruff voice informed him. "To the left. Do you see him? He's jumpy, been moving from bush to bush like an agitated rabbit. I think he knows he's being followed." The pug flashed teeth in a savage grin. "All the more fun when we catch him."
The dog's grin was infectious. Kakashi shared it, though a navy blue mask concealed the lower half of his face. "So you're saying you wanna play with the poor sap, is that it?" He shook his head, the wind whipping through his hair and the ground a blur while he ran. "You're one ruthless son of a bitch, Pakkun."
"My mother was a bitch, if you wanna get technical," the pug retorted, now perched on his contractor's shoulder. "In a literal and figurative sense." He shuddered at unwelcome memories. "I don't miss her."
Kakashi's smile started to fray around the edges, but his summon couldn't see it, so it didn't matter. Stopitstopitstopit, he repeated in his head, one continuous phrase. "Be grateful, then," he advised lightly, no trace of a struggle in his voice. "I miss mine every damn day."
He sped up, flying so fast the wind didn't so much brush against him as it slashed, his normal eye and borrowed eye tearing. Pakkun dug his nails into Kakashi's skin so he wouldn't fall, and felt the electricity course through the human, as if he were a fully charged generator waiting to be switched on.
I ruined it, the dog sighed, squashed face the picture of disappointment. Shouldn't have brought up mothers…that's a tetchy subject for him…
In this state, he knew Kakashi would go straight for the kill, because that's what he did when elements of his past interfered. He needed gratification of the instant variety, not the delayed. There was a reason why he was one of ANBU's most skilled assassins, why he was assigned the most difficult and evasive targets and nailed them every time. The ghosts of his childhood haunted him, were the shadows of his shadow, always there, always watching, and when he killed, felt the traitors' blood on his hands, he could make them vanish, if only for a moment.
Pakkun's carelessness had drawn them out, screeching and clawing and accusing, so Kakashi would finish this quick.
"Raikiri."
Their man was in plain sight now, clearly disoriented and frightened, tossing a kunai back and forth as a calming mechanism as he pondered what he should do, where he should hide next.
Closer they came…
The man's head swiveled right, searching for movement he could sense but not see.
Closer…
The man looked to the left and behind, thinking birds, and not knowing why.
So close they heard him pant…
The man spun on his heel, saw the flash of blue lightning, and his frozen reflexes thawed a second too late.
Kakashi tore through muscle and bone as his sole exclusive jutsu did its work, his gore-encrusted fist punching clean through the man's chest with a wet squelch, the crimson rain that was his blood spattering the Jounin's face, his stark white vest, not so white anymore, his arms and his forearm guards…
By far, this was one of the messiest kills Pakkun had witnessed. Must've really been upset…
As the impaled cadaver twitched, Kakashi yanked his arm out through the tattered chasm he made, an action accompanied by a sound like a pulsating suction cup. Liberated, the body crumpled facedown to the ground in a heap, and the silver-haired youth examined the bloody pulp of tissue and bone splinters that clung to his gloved palm in a gelatinous paste, while the unsullied hand drew his mask down around his neck so he could gulp mouthfuls of stale air and gag in the same space.
The standard ANBU uniform did not leave room for a hitai-ate, and he rarely wore his cat-shaped mask, since there was no need, so both eyes, the eye he was born with and the sharingan he was not, were given an unobstructed view of the world for as long as he was on duty, one half reserved for his perspective and the other for Obito's.
In the yellowed, decaying records of medical lore, there lies the tale of the man who received a heart from a nameless donor; later, he would discover she was a woman in her early thirties who died in a freak accident when one of her experiments—for she fancied herself an itinerant alchemist—backfired and blew half of her face off. The specialists that performed the transplant had the man keep a log of any changes in his behavior, be they subtle or overt. They were nursing a rickety theory through its infancy, trying to prove that facets of the original owner's personality were somehow 'stored' in the organ, and thus translated to the new recipient. Research was conducted in secret, of course, because the subject under study was highly controversial, however the results were so startling that they inevitably leaked out like water drained through a sieve, and became the hot topic of ethical debate in all circles.
At first, the man noticed nothing, and carried on as per usual, returning to his place as a merchant in a small town, thinking his small, provincial thoughts (winter's almost here, what woolens should I stock? My grandchildren will visit today; I have to buy a special treat for them). Yet once the dreams of lead and sulfur mixed with other organic chemicals he identified by their scent and color and texture, chemicals he had never been exposed to previously and, by right, should not have known at all came unbidden to his mind, he realized these were not dreams, but memories of another life he hadn't lived. How could that be? How could he remember something he never experienced?
A biographer of sensation and fragmented images, the pages of his journal filled with descriptions of a phantom laboratory enshrouded in mist, with frenzied bursts of half-mad exultation, with enraged ranting and raving, all dredged up out of the tangled web of his pseudo-recollections.
He sank deeper and deeper into the bowels of this hell, his replacement heart granting him twenty years of a gradual decline that nibbled away at his sense of self, drank from the sacred chalice of his essence, and when he died, uttering gibberish and foaming at the mouth, he could not distinguish between himself and the alien presence that had slowly usurped his sanity.
However, this was an extreme. Many more transplants had been executed without such dramatic results since the era from which the man's case originated, and most patients lived out the remainder of their lives with only a faint sense of a foreign entity dwelling within them.
It was different if your best friend, crushed beneath a boulder, offered you his eyeball in place of the one you lost, because his number had been called and death always collected what it was owed. I won't have any use for it, he'd said, not where I'm headed. I didn't give you a present; I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. Here, let me see for you. Show me the future, Kakashi. Show me.
He glanced down at the body, detached. Let Obito take it in, and then he'd turn it over, look at the face. It was a ritual he performed after every mission; allow his best friend his judgment first, focus on his own after.
Pakkun stood a respectful distance away, chewing grime out of his fur. His task complete, he could have returned to the realm he'd been summoned out of, but he didn't like leaving Kakashi alone once he killed, and he knew the human took comfort with him there, a solid figure of flesh-and-blood amongst the specters of his past.
I wish I could do more than this, kid…but…I'm not a god…
Kakashi knelt next to the inanimate marionette on the forest floor, and the leaves crackled under his knees, 'crrk, crrk, crrk,' like bone fracturing, he thought.
"Well, Obito?" he said softly. "What do you see?"
You were angry, weren't you? The voice was a dry whisper, an atrophied remnant of the rich, vibrant alto he'd had in life. I can tell. Why were you so angry?
He wanted to close his eyes, to draw that disembodied imposter of a voice out of his head as one draws poison from a wound, but his eyes remained open, and the voice was still there. Obito was a relentless interrogator; he pressed in, pressed so damn close that Kakashi had no other choice but to confess what Obito wanted to hear.
"My…I was thinking of my mother…and…"
And?
"And…" He couldn't say it…no more…he couldn't…
Don't be secretive with me, Kakashi. That's my eye in your socket, or have you forgotten? Friends don't guard secrets from each other, and we're the best of friends, you and I. We'll be together forever and ever and ever.
The Obito-thing laughed, a manic screech that ricocheted off the walls of his mind like a pinball, and a chill settled in Kakashi's heart, there to fester for as long as it deigned.
"Stop," he begged, "please stop."
Why were you angry? The voice repeated, now as soothing as a lover's caress. Worse than keeping secrets from a friend is keeping them from yourself.
He fisted his gloved hands in the hope his nails would saw through the skin and make him bleed, shift the focus to something more bearable, but the gloves were thick, and they held.
"Why am I angry? Because my father, my fucking brilliant genius father who could do no wrong and everybody loved and I loved and my mother loved died with his own sword in his gut after his shame made him a coward. Because I watched grief feed on my mother as if she were carrion, and it's his fault," he was practically shouting now. "My friends are dead, my parents are dead, and I want to be dead, but I'm still here, aren't I? I'm still here!"
He huddled down, arms wrapped about himself, trembling, trembling, trembling…
Yes, it was almost the Obito he knew, you are there, as you should be. That's where you belong.
Kakashi's eyelids were heavy, so very heavy…He could not keep them open, and even as they closed, he felt forgiveness as a cool touch to his cheek, a trickle of calm down his spine. Obito had judged, and he was forgiven, and all was right again.
His eyes opened. Reaching out, he rolled the corpse over and looked.
Sometimes murder was easier than it should have been. Other times, fate chose to remind him that his hands were irreversibly stained, that individuals he touched as electricity danced over his fingers would not wake up.
He saw Obito's face, and he screamed.
From the day of Obito's death onward, Kakashi visited the memorial stone.
He went unaccompanied save the baggage that followed him faithfully no matter where he was, and whether he wanted it there or not. Usually, he could shunt it aside for a while, forget that it hovered just behind him, but, on occasion, it did not take kindly to being ignored. Those days were never pleasant, and today was one of them.
It started normal enough. He rose with the sun, methodically washed, dressed, and ate, and then picked his way through the grass that had been taller than him once upon a time, when his father let him ride on his shoulders to better glimpse the Hokage Monument. The memorial stone was close. He stood before it with a humble sort of reverence, and stepped forward to run his fingertips over Obito's tiny space of honor, press his forehead against it as he recalled the words that had passed between them, said and unsaid, the callous behavior he displayed toward him when, in his heart, he always felt the opposite…He remembered silly things, like the eye-drops Obito carried in his pack, those beloved orange goggles…Above all, he remembered Obito's courage, his unquenchable will to succeed, his loyalty…
In the end, it was the loyalty that condemned him.
He loved his teammates, and he would not stand idle if one or both of them was in trouble. Kakashi, as the commanding Jounin, should've been the one under the rock, not Obito, but the stubborn, clumsy Uchiha never did anything by the book.
Rin…get over here and give him my eye, he'd commanded as his consciousness winked in and out. Hurry up. We don't…have much time…
The kid couldn't even die normal; he had to be spectacular to his final breath. And he was. He showed them all that he could be useful, that he wasn't merely a liability.
But what rankled the most was that, after he was gone, Kakashi finally understood that the person he lost was his best friend, and it was his best friend who shuffled the deck and switched the cards, gave Kakashi life when death had its scythe poised above his neck and he was too blind to see…
No, this day was not a good day.
Limp, he sagged against the memorial stone, sobbing so hard his chest heaved and he couldn't breathe, but to stop was to die so he kept crying…
And then Rin appeared, coaxed him into her arms as they sank to the ground, he clinging to her while he emptied himself of every last drop of moisture in his body, she whispering pretty nothings that, from her lips, became somethings.
"It wasn't your fault," she soothed, brushing strands of hair like spun silver out of his face, a puffy red nightmare from his tears. "He made the choice on his own, you didn't make it for him."
No, no, no…
He pulled out of her grasp, knuckling his bloodshot eyes. "Obito loved you, Rin." The way he said it transmuted the words from statement to accusation. "If his temper hadn't lashed out at me, I would've left you to die."
She knew, damn her. Her downcast eyes told him surer than the dawn that she knew. Yet she loved Kakashi, not Obito.
"He…Obito was a brother," Rin replied quietly to her lap. "I did love him, just not in the way he…cared for me."
The sound of his heart thrumming in his ears was greater than a dull roar as he watched her stare at her lap, bottom lip caught between her teeth. In any other circumstance, he would have thought her appealing, maybe taken her out for dinner, commented on her smile.
Maybe he would have kissed her, maybe he would have explored what lie 'underneath the underneath,' maybe he would have fallen hard.
Too many maybes and too few certainties.
"Why do you love me?" His voice was harsh, harsher than he intended. She flinched, a slight contortion of her features that lasted only an instant, though it was in that instant he noticed. "Well? What in all hell have I done to deserve it, Rin? Tell me!"
She appeared like she was on the verge of tears, but she lifted her chin and looked at him, because his anger was alive and he would've loathed her more if she didn't.
"You survived," she said simply, not wanting him to see how afraid she was.
Silence.
A light summer breeze rustled the blades of grass that surrounded them in an endless ocean of rippling green, and the sun extended its rays across a clear sky devoid of clouds.
Obito's allergies were particularly virulent on days such as this, Kakashi recalled.
He stood up.
"I'm sorry, Rin. I'm sorry. I'm not the person you think I am. Save your love. Give it to someone who'll be worthy of it."
This time, he did the walking, and she the watching.
Once his back was a tiny spec in the distance, her tears trickled from her eyes like a waterfall of diamonds.
He fidgeted outside Sandaime's office, not quite certain why the terse note that awaited him at his apartment had instructed he report to the Hokage immediately upon his return, be it day or night, that was of little concern.
Kakashi knew straight away that the missive was penned in a hurry, by Sarutobi himself, no less, and he got the impression as he scanned Sandaime's chicken scratch that this had nothing to do with ANBU otherwise he would've received an order from one of the captains.
It was around dusk when he found the message, and, after a brief reprieve in which he cleaned the blood from his skin, put on fresh clothes, and fed his dogs, he set out for the Hokage's domain, where now he waited.
Sarutobi's voice filtered through the sturdy wooden door. "Kakashi, come in, come in, you needn't dawdle there."
One of his eyebrows arched, and he shook his head, doing as he was bid.
The Hokage's study was a veritable behemoth of clutter, books, scrolls, a few chairs, his desk, and other assorted knick-knacks crammed wherever they would fit. Since this was his own personal space and not his council chamber, the place he generally held audience with guests, it wasn't quite as imperative for the study to be in tip-top shape, and the older man seemed to care nary a whit about the dismal condition of the room, anyway.
He sat behind his desk, feet propped on another chair, a sheaf of papers in his hand. The free one he used to beckon Kakashi forward. "Have a seat," he told him kindly, and then wondered, "How did your mission go?"
Kakashi took the proffered seat, an old leather-bound armchair that squished when he rested his weight on it, and was quite comfortable. He leaned back gratefully. "Fine," he replied, willing the image of Obito's face on the dead man's body to the far corner of his mind. "It was fairly standard. Hokage-sama," he added the title quickly.
Sarutobi smiled, the crow's feet around his eyes springing to life. He'd always been a rather young looking man, but the years since the War had accelerated the aging process, leaving wrinkles where none had been, streaks of gray in his dark mane of hair. He seemed…tired now, weary. "You're a good boy, Kakashi," he said, the way a father would. "I expected no less."
Kakashi felt his lips quirk beneath his mask. "Still a boy, huh, Hokage-sama?"
The man appeared surprised for a moment, as though he hadn't realized his slip of the tongue. "Ah, you'll have to forgive that," he chuckled. "You all grow up so fast I can barely keep track of you." Setting the papers to the side, he picked up his pipe and put it between his teeth. "I suppose you must be curious why I called you here."
"Well…yes," Kakashi admitted, relieved he wouldn't have to entreat the subject.
Sandaime nodded, lit his pipe, and puffed on it in silence for a spell. "What I ask is not standard," he warned, the fragrant smoke screening his face like a transparent veil. "I have a request."
The silvery-haired young man blinked. "A request?"
"Yes." The Hokage took the pipe from his mouth, eyes grave. "There were others I could have asked, and so I will if you decline, yet I feel your abilities are more appropriate for the task."
His interest roused, Kakashi said, "I'm listening."
Sarutobi gave him another grin."I figured." The pipe returned to its earlier position between his teeth. "I may as well cut to the chase, then. Some time ago, Orochimaru took a student, only one, mind, the first and the last, a young girl by the name of Mitarashi Anko. Do you remember her?"
Kakashi frowned, considering. "I think so…" And then he knew, and the memory that stood out the most was enough to make him laugh. "I can't remember what it was, but I did something that pissed her off, so she kicked me in the—er—there. She's a pistol, that one."
The Hokage guffawed loudly. "Oh, no doubt. I was always rather fond of her, even if she is a troublemaker." He allowed his amusement a few more seconds before his expression became serious. "Then you must know Orochimaru spirited her away with him, and that she has not been seen for over a year."
"I'd heard that," Kakashi answered, and had an inkling of where this meeting was headed. "There are rumors…not all of them nice. Some people have already written her off as a traitor, or dead, though some believe she's blameless."
"And you?" Sandaime wanted to know. "If I told you that I received word she's trying to make her way home, battered and alone and weak, what would you do?"
You would go to her, Obito's not-voice whispered in his ear as if he were there, next to him. After what happened to Rin, you would go, because I would go.
"I'll find her." The words left his mouth before he could ponder them. "Pakkun will go with me. His nose can track anything."
Sarutobi appeared at ease. He relaxed visibly, his shoulders slumping as he let out his breath slowly. "I had hoped you would understand." Reaching forward across the desk, he rested one wizened hand over Kakashi's and gave it a light squeeze. "There are a few kinks I have to iron out before it's safe for her to show her face in public again, so if you could keep her with you, take care of her until then, I would appreciate it."
And thus the sinner is offered redemption, Obito recited solemnly, a hint of irony laced in his tone.
"Leave it," she murmured, voice hazy with pain, "It's no use."
"No!" He shouted, irrational and enraged. "Damn it, why didn't you stay put?" There were tears searing his eyes, but he didn't acknowledge them. "You stupid idiot! This is no place for you!"
"I'm…a medic," she rallied around the agony. "Where else should I be, if not the battlefield?"
He roared, "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
Rin was dying, and he was powerless to stop the fountain of blood, her blood, that welled between his fingers. She'd been knifed in the belly, and he knew as well as the next person that the chances of her, or anyone, surviving a belly wound were slim to none.
He pressed down harder, and she gasped.
"Fuck…it hurts…"
That was the one and only time he'd ever heard her use the word she despised with so much vehemence, and it made him hyper-aware of his tears.
All around them, people were in various stages of dying, some trying to stuff their innards back where they belonged, some crying out for their mothers or fathers or wives or husbands or gods, for only divine intervention could save them now…
Somewhere, Kyuubi, hungry, vicious, his contempt for these vile humans radiating from him like dry heat, vast and suffocating, so that they all felt it, was hunting.
Somewhere, Yondaime, Konoha's bright and shining one, their beacon in the storm, was preparing his ultimate weapon, a forbidden jutsu that would cast his soul into an eternity of suffering, but would bring hope to the people who had lost it.
Somewhere, Rin was slipping, and Kakashi couldn't fix her.
"I promised him! I promised him I'd look out for you!"
Rin's wasted hand was on his cheek, where it left a streak of crimson. Her eyes were growing dark, empty. "He'll…forgive…"
Somewhere, Kakashi broke his promise, and Rin was dead.
The sky wept.
Author's Note:
I'm planning on making this a two-chapter deal, but we'll see how it goes. I might extend it, if I see fit.
Kakashi is around nineteen/twenty-ish in this story, which makes Anko about seventeen or eighteen. I figured, since it was never really explained what happened to her between the time she was with Orochimaru and the time she returned to Konoha, I'd fill in the blanks myself. :grins:
Many thanks to Chevira Lowe, whose wonderful, thought-provoking stories gave me the inspiration I needed to get my arse in gear and write this.