Chapter Text
Kakashi knows he is dead.
It had been a long time coming—each of the myriad of injuries screaming to just stop, please, stop. Yet, he could not.
His left cheek pulled with dried-up blood seeping from his now useless Sharingan. He had to close his eye. The dizzying afterimages, entire seconds he could not afford to waste, were too high a cost to gain minute advantage.
Chakra flow, once taken for granted, now hacked and sputtered through his limbs. Whatever reserves he had now glared with emptiness. He could not heal himself.
Not the searing gash in his thigh, hastily packed with gauze. Not the sharp points of his fractured rib, threatening to pierce inwards. Not the limp, unresponsive arm that could once hold lightning in its palm. Not the ankle he shattered on Pain's thigh. Not the shoulder he sprained avoiding his blows. Not even the tapestry of bruises the man painted on his drained body.
Unremarkable in comparison, cardiac arrest came as a relief.
His face had turned to the blue skies; a gentle smile shifting through the clouds. Apologies did not escape his breath, though they thundered inside of his skull. Sorry, Naruto, you're gonna carry that weight.
He wondered, as the last of his neurons fired aimlessly, if he should have believed in a god. Or at the very least, gone to the temple outside of funerals. No weddings, beside Minato and Kushina's. He misses them.
The campfire in front of him crackles gently, yet he feels no warmth from it. He could probably pass his fingers through the flames, grab an ember, swallow it, and feel nothing at all. It does not smell like wood ash, nor does it emit as much light as it is supposed to. Yet, it feels more tangible than the man sitting next to him.
They have been talking for ages, or perhaps they just started. Sakumo has a kindness hidden in the tilt of his jaw that Kakashi lacks entirely. The sharpness of his cheekbones, the curve of his lips, his downturned eyes, he inherited none of those from his father's clan.
"I hate to sound like my mother," his father grins with an indulgent shake of his head, "but I must ask—am I a grandfather yet?"
Kakashi grins back, though his lips are safely hidden behind his mask. "No, unless you count my cute little genin team…?"
That gets him a chuckle, more welcome than any warmth from the campfire.
"Knowing you, son, they most likely consider you an overgrown teenager more than anything—"
"Hey, now—"
His father puffs up his chest comedically. "When will a very determined kunoichi make an honest man out of you, I wonder."
He winces at the jab. The words are on the tip of his tongue, and hell, it's not like he can offend a man who already died anyway: "Or a very determined shinobi…"
There is a moment of absolute silence before Sakumo sighs dramatically. "I don't think I could survive being in-laws with the Maito clan."
Kakashi's spluttering protest seems to be the most fun his father has had in a long time. His chest is alight with laughter for the first time in months, so perhaps that was something they both needed.
They talk some more, about pain and forgiveness.
"Thank you, Kakashi," Sakumo says at last, "I can finally meet your mother."
A sharp white light robs the reply from his tongue. As his father dissolves into the ether, Kakashi wishes he had insisted on a hug. Whatever, whoever is dragging him back into the world—they should have an excellent reason, or be ready to face his wrath.
Kakashi is not sure he is alive.
The ceiling of his bedroom is more or less unchanged: gray, bumpy, scattered with dead mosquitoes he was too lazy to clean up. There is a dent right above his head, from when he was five and training his left throwing hand.
His bedsheets smell slightly musty—not from lack of washing, but from not sleeping in them for days on end. There was a time, back in the awkward days of his teenage years, when he had to reassure his electricity provider that he still lived there. As an adult, he had someone deal with these things in his stand.
Sitting up, he is relieved to find out that the medics left his mask on this time around. His limbs are thinner than they used to be, but prolonged bed rest tends to eat up one's muscles. The lack of suttures on his chest is a bit more surprising, but he supposes Sakura must have closed up his wounds.
It must be a side-effect of the doubtlessly potent drugs they hooked him on, that strange feeling that everything is taller than him. He's not the tallest man he knows, or the broadest, but he hasn't felt dwarfed by his fridge in quite a few years now.
Light-headed and parched, he makes his wobbly way to the bathroom.
He does not recognize the toothbrush—his is green, not blue. His disguise kit is absent from the cabinet. His shoulders barely align with the bottom of the mirror. Gripping the sink, he notices how small his hands are. How delicate.
He is too good at his job to gain many scars, but there is a crucial one missing. It's a stupid story, which makes it all the more memorable. Naruto had been handing him a brand new, unpublished manuscript of Icha Icha Deception. It had taken a wrong angle and a bit of impatience on his end for paper to slash through the soft meat of his thumb. It is the largest scar he has, and it is missing.
"Fuck," he whispers, his voice breaking as if on cue.
Kakashi slowly touches the pink line crossing his face. His left eye is a dot of spilt ink, while his right eye shines gray and tired. His reflection is thin and sharp. The hollow of his cheeks is pronounced, even through the mask, and his hair flops formless against his skull. He is bone and muscle, with the kind of pallor one expects on the sick and dying.
It felt that way for years, after Rin and Obito, Minato and Kushina.
He is all at once aware of the gnawing hunger in his belly, and of the emptiness of his food supplies. There are combat rations piled here and there, mostly provision balls, sugar lumps and water purifying tablets.
At eighteen years old, he hardly felt like eating anything else.
A decade older, in his mind if not in his body, he has very little interest in self-inflicted suffering. Squaring up his shoulders, Kakashi grabs his boots and wallet.
Ichiraku ramen it is.
Shisui knows he is not dead.