In Another Life

You don’t remember walking home.

Maybe you cut through the training fields. Maybe you walked past the markets, all shuttered now. Maybe someone called your name and you didn’t hear it. Or maybe you did—and ignored it.

All you know is the sound of your door clicking shut behind you, and the way the silence spilled out like smoke. Thick and choking. The kind that wraps around your throat and settles in your lungs. The kind you can’t cough out.

You don’t turn on the light.

You lean against the wall just inside the doorway, cloak half-slipped from your shoulders, boots still on. There’s mud crusted on the floor now. Blood too, probably. You think about cleaning it, but you don’t move.

The window filters in the last of the light—first gold, then grey, now something bruised and heavy, like a sky on the verge of breaking. The kind of color that makes everything feel unreal.

Your body hurts. In ways that don’t show. In places you can’t name.

You feel like a puppet with the strings cut, waiting for someone to pick them back up and force you to dance again.

Your gloves are still in your pack. Your hands bare.

They won’t stop shaking.

You go to the sink.

You wash them once. Twice. Three times.

The water still runs pink.

Tenzo’s blood.

You stare at the drain, fingers curled against porcelain.

You should’ve known better.

You shouldn’t have veered off from the route. Shouldn’t have followed that flicker of chakra, that wrongness curled around the trees like smoke. Shouldn’t have let your curiosity win. Shouldn’t have—

That shimmer.

That glint of something breathing beneath the world. The ripple in the corner of your eye. The sensation of your name being known.

And you let it in.

Just for a second.

But a second is all it took.

Tenzo’s hurt. Badly.

And Kakashi—

No. Don’t think about Kakashi.

But your mind doesn’t listen.

It replays the moment anyway. The cold in his voice. The sharpness of his words. The way he looked at you like you were nothing.

You’re reckless.

He nearly died because of your recklessness.

That's weakness.

The heel of your hand presses against your brow, hard enough to make sparks behind your eyes. You grit your teeth until your jaw aches.

He’s right. He’s right. He’s right. He’s right. 

You will not cry.

You don’t deserve to.

You strip in the dark.

Not because it’s comforting, but because the idea of light—warm, forgiving, human—makes your skin crawl. You peel away your clothes like layers of failure. Blood-stiff fabric. Dirt ground into every seam. The smell of smoke and chakra and iron.

The mirror in the bathroom catches you mid-turn.

You freeze.

It’s not you.

It can’t be you.

Your eyes look wrong. Too wide, too dark. Your skin pallid beneath the grime. You don’t move for a long time, staring at the ghost across the glass. There’s a shape to your shadow that wasn’t there before. A slant to your shoulders like you’re bearing something ancient and invisible.

You flinch.

Turn away.

You’ve killed things that looked like this. Shinobi who’d snapped under pressure, who let corruption or grief or madness wear their skin like a cloak.

And now—

Now, you’re not sure which side of the kunai you’re on anymore.

You wake up cold.

Not the kind of cold that comes with weather or blankets kicked off in sleep—but the kind that lives beneath your skin. Heavy. Hollow. The kind that sinks into your bones and makes you feel like something vital is missing.

You don’t remember falling asleep.

Only the blur of time collapsing in on itself—the breath you took sometime after midnight and the blink that brings you to now, hours later, sprawled on the bathroom floor. The tiles are hard and unforgiving beneath your back, sticky with half-dried water and something darker. Your cheek is pressed against porcelain. Your mouth tastes like rust.

Your neck aches.

There’s a dull throb at the base of your skull, and your limbs feel distant, like they belong to someone else. One of your fingers is bleeding—a thin, slow weep of red from a shallow cut you didn’t notice until now.

You don’t remember how it happened.

You sit up slowly, joints creaking, breath caught behind your ribs.

At some point, the shaking must have stopped.

But there’s nothing in its place. No relief. No calm.

Just quiet.

And hollow.

You dress without thinking. Not in uniform, not really. But close enough—black pants, long sleeves, a high collar. Something that swallows you up. You tug the fabric over your skin like armor, like maybe it’ll keep things in. Or out.

Your hitai-ate is the last thing you reach for. You wind it around your upper arm, too tight. Let the pressure bite down.

Pain, at least, is familiar. Containable. Something that means you’re still here.

You don’t eat.

You don’t brush your hair.

You don’t look in the mirror again.

You step outside.

And the sun makes your skin itch.

Konoha is already awake.

The market is alive with voices and foot traffic, civilian chatter spilling out of shopfronts. Children run past in small groups, kunai pouches slapping against their thighs. A genin team passes you, the youngest one grinning, scroll tucked under his arm. His teacher flicks his ear affectionately, and the boy laughs.

You feel like you’ve been dropped into someone else’s memory.

The streets are too bright. The sky too wide. The people too loud. It all presses in from every side—clanging metal, barked orders, fabric rustling in the wind, the distant hiss of something frying in oil.

Your footsteps echo too sharp against the stone.

And for a second, you hate that you’re the only one who can hear it.

No one stops you. Not really.

A chuunin from your academy days—you can’t seem to remember their name—gives you a nod, eyes lingering just a little too long. You keep walking. At the edge of the market, someone calls your name. A girl’s voice. Familiar. Hesitant.

You don’t turn around.

You don’t wave.

You don’t remember the last time you spoke out loud.

Everything is wrong. Off-kilter. Tilted just a few degrees to the left of real.

Laughter cuts through the air like glass.

A door slams three blocks away and your whole body tenses.

The smell of smoke hits you too hard. Your throat closes. You’re back in the trees. Blood on your hands. A shimmer in the air where something shouldn’t be. The ground splitting open in your mind where the world was never meant to break.

You flinch.

Spin.

No one’s there.

Just air.

Just wind.

Just the echo of your own breath, faster now.

But you keep walking.

You don’t know where you’re going. You’re not on mission. You’re not reporting in. There’s no objective, no team, no orders. You’re just… out. Moving because if you stop, you might never start again.

The village keeps turning.

And you keep moving through it.

Unseen.

Untouched.

Like a ghost in your own story.

You stop eating.

Not all at once. It’s gradual. Quiet. Like erosion.

A rice ball left untouched on the windowsill. Miso soup cooling beside a half-filled teacup. You lift your chopsticks but forget the motion halfway through. You stare down at the food like it’s someone else’s, like it was meant for a different version of you—one who still had the energy to be hungry.

You start skipping meals without meaning to. The kettle runs cold more often than it steams. You forget to visit the market. Forget the sound of your own stomach. The ache of it doesn’t feel like need anymore—it feels like atonement. Like a deserved, familiar burn curling low in your gut. A reminder that you’re still here. That you shouldn’t be.

Sometimes you sit with a tray in front of you, hands resting uselessly in your lap, and tell yourself just one bite. But your fingers don’t move. Your throat won’t open. The scent turns your stomach. Like your body already knows something your mind refuses to say aloud:

You don’tdeserve comfort.

Not after what happened.

You’re on the training grounds the day someone tells you Tenzo woke up.

You’re not sure who says it. A passing voice. A murmured update from a fellow ANBU as they lace their boots or adjust their mask.

“He regained consciousness yesterday. Hokage-sama’s informed.”

That’s all.

You don’t ask for more.

You just nod. Or maybe you don’t.

Your hands are raw from too many hours with the kunai—grip worn, calluses cracked, wrists aching with overuse. You’ve thrown the same blade into the same tree trunk so many times it’s begun to split down the center.

But the tremor in your fingers never stopped.

You train harder.

It doesn’t help.

You don’t go see him.

You tell yourself it’s because he needs rest. That he won’t want visitors. That the medics would turn you away anyway.

But that’s not the truth.

The truth is: if you stand beside his bed, he’ll open his eyes and look at you, and see it.

See the thing you brought back from the forest. The thing that wasn’t meant to follow you home.

The thing curling at the base of your spine like rot.

Tenzo has always been the careful one. The balanced one. The one who could sense when your mask cracked even a fraction. Who could read the smallest shift in chakra, in tone, in silence.

You don’t want to know what he’d read from you now.

You’re terrified he’d recognize it.

And worse—

That he’d forgive you.

Kurenai finds you once—outside the ANBU quarters, just past dusk.

You hadn’t meant to linger there. You weren’t even sure why your feet had taken you to the edge of that courtyard, where the torches burn low and the scent of iron clings to the walls like a warning. You were standing still, motionless in the half-shadow between two pillars, the wind tugging gently at the hem of your cloak. Like you were waiting for something.

Maybe someone.

You don’t notice her at first.

But Kurenai has always known how to move quietly.

“You’re hard to find these days,” she says, voice low but warm.

You blink. Slowly turn.

Her hair’s pulled back in a loose twist. No mission gear—just civilian clothes and the ever-present edge of weariness around her eyes. She doesn’t smile. But she steps toward you anyway.

She doesn’t ask what you’re doing.

She doesn’t ask why you’re here.

Just rests a hand lightly on your shoulder.

“You’re not sleeping, are you?”

It’s not a question. Not really. Not with the way her voice softens at the end. Not with the way her eyes search yours, quietly, carefully, like she’s afraid of what she’ll find.

You blink again.

It takes longer this time.

You try to remember the last time you slept and can’t. Not really. You remember lying down. You remember closing your eyes. And then the shimmer was there again—curling behind your lids like frost, twitching at the edges of your chakra like it knew you. Like it was waiting.

Even now, you can feel it. Just out of reach. Just under the skin.

Watching.

You offer her a smile.

It feels brittle, stretched too wide across your face. A parody of something you used to be able to do.

“I’m fine,” you lie.

She frowns, but doesn’t press.

Not yet.

There’s a long pause between you. Wind threads through the trees overhead. Someone laughs in the distance—too sharp, too loud—and you flinch before you can stop yourself. Her fingers tense on your shoulder.

“I know things have been difficult,” she says. “After the mission. After Tenzo.”

The name sends a ripple down your spine.

You say nothing.

“You don’t have to talk,” she adds gently. “But I need you to know—we see you. We’re worried.”

You look at her, really look, and for a second, something almost gives. Some old version of you stirs in your chest, reaching toward the warmth in her voice, the steadiness in her presence. Like maybe—maybe—you could say it. You could tell her about the shimmer. The way your reflection doesn’t follow you anymore. The way the shadows speak in voices you almost understand.

You could.

But you don’t.

Because it would make it real.

Because she’d look at you like Kakashi did.

And you’d break.

So instead, you nod.

“I appreciate it,” you say, voice calm. Even. Controlled.

You lie so well, it almost sounds like the truth.

Kurenai hesitates.

Then, slowly, she lets her hand fall away.

She doesn’t believe you.

You both know it.

But she lets you go anyway.

And that feels worse than if she’d tried to stop you.

Because it means you’re getting good at hiding.

Too good.

And maybe, somewhere deep down, you don’t want to be found.

You try to go on a patrol.

Something small. Routine. Familiar enough to feel safe—at least in theory. You don’t trust yourself for more than that anymore.

You stand at the edge of the mission hall for a long time before stepping inside. The doors creak open on hinges that weren’t that loud yesterday. The chatter inside dims slightly when you cross the threshold, as if some invisible hand pressed down on the room’s collective lungs.

You don’t blame them.

You know how you look.

You haven’t been sleeping. Haven’t been eating. You haven’t… been.

Your cloak hangs stiff from dried mud and weeks of wear. Your gloves are on the wrong hands. Your hitai-ate’s still stained with blood at the edges. The mark won’t scrub out.

You walk up to the counter.

The jonin there looks up—mid-scroll, still chewing on the edge of a pen cap. He startles when he sees you. His hand drops. The scroll rolls closed on instinct.

You recognize him vaguely. Yamaguchi, maybe? Younger than you. Broad-shouldered. He once asked you how to throw a smoke bomb without choking on it.

Now he just stares.

You grip the edge of the mission desk.

Tight.

The words are there.

Give me a patrol route. Something outside the walls. Just a few hours. I need to move. I need to do something before I tear my skin off trying to keep still.

But they won’t come.

Your mouth opens. Nothing escapes.

You stand there.

He blinks once, then twice, and sits up straighter like he’s trying not to look too alarmed. His chakra pulses uneasily. Not hostile. Just… uncertain.

“Hey,” he says after a beat. Carefully. Like he’s approaching a cornered animal. “You, uh… looking for something light? I could check rotation—see what’s open. Maybe… civilian escort? Or you could join a genin eval run. They’ve been asking for more ANBU presence lately, could be good to—”

He trails off.

You’re still staring. Not at him. Through him.

Your hands ache. You look down and realize your fingers have gone white from pressure. You’re gripping the desk like it’s the only thing anchoring you to this world.

It might be.

“…I’ll let you know when something comes in,” he says finally, voice softer now. “Alright? You don’t have to—just… go home. Rest.”

He means well.

He thinks you’re tired. Overworked. Maybe grief-stricken from your teammate’s injury. Maybe heartbroken.

He doesn’t know.

None of them do.

They don’t see the way the walls breathe when you blink too slowly. Or the way the mirror twitches in your periphery. They don’t feel the wrongness curling around your chakra, sucking at the edges like rot under fingernails.

You nod once.

A mechanical gesture.

Then turn and walk out.

You don’t remember the door closing behind you.

And you don’t come back the next day.

You see him on the training fields.

Kakashi.

For a breath, you think he isn’t real. Just another shadow shaped like memory. Another hallucination conjured by whatever’s been whispering at the edges of your thoughts, peeling your mind back layer by layer.

But he moves like he always has.

Deliberate. Steady. That slight tilt of his shoulders, the calm rhythm of his steps. He’s walking away from the open clearing toward the village. Still in uniform. Silver hair a little disheveled like he’s just finished a spar. Mask in place. Headband tilted low.

You freeze.

Your lungs forget how to work.

Then—before you can stop yourself—you step forward. Quiet. Careful. Like approaching a wild animal. Or a prayer.

Your voice scratches its way out before you know what you’re saying.

“…Kakashi.”

It sounds wrong. Too soft. Too late.

But he hears it.

He stops mid-step.

Turns just enough that you catch the line of his jaw, the dull shine of his hitai-ate. His one visible eye meets yours for a moment—brief, unreadable, distant.

Your throat tightens.

There’s so much you need to say. You open your mouth again, and your lips shape a beginning.

“I—”

But nothing else comes.

It lodges in your chest. A hundred tangled thoughts. A scream shaped like help me. A confession you don’t know how to word. Something’s wrong, something’s broken, something’s in you that doesn’t belong.

But your voice breaks before the words can reach the air.

Kakashi says nothing.

His gaze lingers—just a second longer than it should’ve.

And then he turns away.

No nod. No pause. No flicker of understanding. Just a quiet, pointed absence as he walks past you. Like you were never there.

Like you’re a ghost.

You don’t move.

You barely breathe.

The world rushes to fill the space where he should’ve been. The wind picks up. Your cloak flutters. A dog barks somewhere in the distance.

And you’re still standing in the same place, eyes burning, heart hollowed out like a carcass.

You don’t know how long you stay like that.

Eventually, your legs remember how to move.

But something else—something deeper—doesn’t.

Because for a moment, you thought maybe… maybe he’d see it. Maybe he’d look at you and know. The way he used to. The way you needed him to.

But he didn’t.

And now that silence echoes louder than any scream.

He hears your voice before he sees you.

“Kakashi.”

His name in your mouth has always had weight. Commanding, warm, sharp—depending on the day. But now it sounds wrong. Small. Brittle. Like it’s been left out in the rain too long.

He stops walking.

Doesn’t mean to. His body moves before his brain catches up, before instinct reminds him why he keeps moving forward. Why he hasn’t spoken to you since the mission. Why he hasn’t let himself look at you.

The mission.

Tenzo bleeding out on the forest floor. You crumpled and shaking beside him, eyes blank and body humming with that wrong chakra—ancient, clinging. The sick twist of panic in his gut when he realized something was wrong. The raw, ragged edge of terror when he realised he could have lost you both.

He turns.

Just his head. Just enough.

And there you are.

Standing at the edge of the field, maybe twenty feet away. The sky behind you is copper-orange, washing you in a light that should be beautiful but only makes the shadows under your eyes worse. You look like you haven’t slept in days. Your clothes hang looser. Your chakra, though dampened, still trembles at the edges. Unstable. Wrong.

You look like someone who’s been unmade slowly.

You take a step forward, cautious, uncertain.

He takes none.

“I…” you start. Then stop. Swallow.

Your voice breaks halfway through the single syllable, and suddenly you’re small again. Smaller than he’s ever seen you. Smaller than he ever wanted to.

He stares at you.

And he says nothing.

Because he knows what you’re doing. You’re reaching. Asking him to pull you back to solid ground. You don’t even know that’s what you’re doing—but he does. And if he gives in now, if he closes the distance between you, if he offers you his hand—

He’ll never be able to let go.

And then what?

You die.

That’s what happens.

Because that’s what always happens.

Because he’s not a lifeline. He’s the weight that pulls people under.

Obito. Rin. Minato. The whole damn village during the war. Everyone he’s let in, he’s lost. And every time, it’s the same wound reopened. Deeper. Sharper.

He sees your lips move again. Maybe his name. Maybe something else.

But he doesn’t let himself hear it.

He lets the wall rise in his chest.

Lets his eye go distant. Cold.

And then he turns.

Walks right past you.

No glance. No nod. No word.

He doesn’t breathe until he’s five paces away. Then ten.

And even then, it’s shallow.

He can feel the pain in your silence behind him. The way your chakra flickers like a candle almost out. The way your presence stutters in the air, then withdraws.

You don’t follow.

He doesn’t look back.

He won’t.

Because if he sees your face again, if he sees that look—like you’re drowning, and he’s the only hand left to reach for—he’ll break. And if he breaks, you’ll get in. And if you get in, he’ll never be able to stand losing you.

So he doesn’t stop.

He doesn’t turn.

He leaves you there.

Because he thinks that’s how he saves you.

Even if it’s killing what you both have.

Even if, deep down, he knows he’s already too late to cast you out.

You go home.

You don’t remember how you got there. You’re not even sure if you walked.

The village faded behind you like fog, buildings slipping into shapes you stopped recognizing. At some point, your hands started shaking again. At some point, your chakra began curling too close to your skin, pulsing like it didn’t belong to you anymore.

You didn’t notice the blood on your knuckles until you were sliding the key into your door.

You don’t remember hitting anything.

The door creaks open.

Then shuts with a soft click.

The sound echoes—unnaturally loud in the dark. Final.

And the quiet… it isn’t empty anymore.

It breathes.

Slow, steady, deliberate.

Inhale when you do.

Exhale when you don’t.

You pause in the entryway, cloak half-off your shoulders. The shadows in the corner of the room look too tall. The mirror near the kitchen catches your shape and tilts it wrong.

You don’t fix it.

You don’t move.

You just let the quiet press in around you—wrap your ribs like fingers, like rope, like someone unseen pulling tight.

You let it.

You don’t fight.

Your reflection watches from the broken mirror on the bathroom wall. It doesn’t match your movements. Not anymore. The blood from your temple—was that always there? You don’t remember falling. You don’t remember rising either.

Your eyes look… empty.

No anger. No sadness.

Just hollow.

“You’re right. I’m weak.”

The words fall like lead.

And from deep beneath your skin, in the places where your chakra used to sit, something moves.

A hum.

Low and sickening.

Like pleasure. Like triumph.

Like him.

You gasp—just a flicker, just a breath—and for a second, the mirror smiles at you before you remember you’re not smiling at all.

You step back. Stumble.

But the quiet doesn’t let go.

It settles into your bones.

You don’t scream.

You just nod.

And the thing inside you purrs like it’s been waiting all along.