In Another Life

You find the village by accident.

You’ve been following the barest hints of movement—a broken branch here, a narrow footpath worn into the earth there—more out of instinct than direction. The forest around you is thick with dew, the trees tall and older than anything you remember from home. You breathe through your mouth, quietly, and let your body lead.

It’s the scent that finds you first.

Smoke. Not the acrid kind of burning wood in battle, but something low and warm. Cookfires. Grilled meat. Oil and spice and something yeasty like fresh bread. It hits your senses like a memory that isn’t yours, and you pause mid-step, eyes narrowing as you shift your weight back into a crouch.

You’re not looking for people.

You haven’t been for days.

But now that you’re this close, your feet carry you forward anyway.

The trees thin as you move, canopy peeling back until you’re walking beneath open sky. You tread carefully, mindful of sound—no cracking twigs, no careless footfalls. Your ribs still ache from a fall the day before, the bruise stiff under your bandages. The wrap around your knee is starting to itch.

But the ground is sloped now, and carved with paths. Old, worn steps emerge from under layers of moss. You crouch at the ridge and crawl the last few paces to the edge, flattening yourself into the underbrush.

And then you see it.

A village.

Tucked between ridgelines like it grew up from the ground, not built into it. Wooden homes with rounded, curved rooftops. Colorful cloth strung like flags between buildings. A market square that’s already stirring to life, even though the sun hasn’t cleared the horizon.

Not the one you know.

But it’s alive.

The sound of it filters through the trees—laughter, the shuffle of carts, the bark of dogs. Lanterns swing gently from posts, scattering warm gold light over stone and packed dirt. Someone dumps a bucket of water near the edge of a stall, and steam rises from the gutter like breath. A woman sweeps her doorway. A child tugs on her sleeve.

It’s… normal.

More normal than anything you’ve seen in this place.

More normal than the uncanny stillness of the false Konoha you ran from, where nothing quite breathed right. This village hums. It has flaws, cracks, dirt. It moves.

You watch, unmoving.

There are civilians, definitely. But not only them.

You know how to read people. You see it in the way a man near the well shifts his stance—centered, careful, alert despite smiling. The scar across his brow tells a story, as does the way his hand rests just a breath too close to the knife tucked at his back. A traveler, maybe. A missing-nin, maybe. You see more like him. Women with eyes that don’t stay in one place too long. A man who walks like he’s prepared to break into a sprint at any moment.

There are shinobi here.

But this isn’t a hidden village. Not in the formal sense. It’s a waypoint. A crossroads, maybe. A place where people go when they can’t or won’t be found.

You keep watching.

You shift your appearance before you step in. It’s all sleight of hand—dirt under the nails, cloak a little more frayed, posture less upright. You stow your mask in your pack. Too neat. Too clean. It screams ANBU from a mile off. You tug your hood low, let your stride drag slightly, enough to look injured.

Not threatening. Just forgettable.

The goal isn’t to stay.

Just to pass through.

You follow the current of the crowd, eyes half-lidded beneath your hood, hands tucked into the folds of your sleeves. You let your senses expand, gently—not actively searching, not drawing chakra—but you listen.

The chakra here doesn’t crawl. Doesn’t dig its fingers into your ribs like it did in the Konoha behind you. It’s loud, yes. But loud the way a festival is. Controlled chaos. Emotion, tension, hunger. Not corruption.

You almost relax.

Almost.

But something shifts.

It’s like a string plucked somewhere off-tune, vibrating against your ribs. You slow your pace. Glance sideways without moving your head.

There.

A flicker. A chakra signature half-buried behind a stall.

You keep walking.

Another flicker.

A wrong one.

It’s faint at first. A ripple. Like something displaced the air too sharply behind you. You pause mid-step, glancing without turning your head. No one. Nothing.

Concealed, but only barely. Someone’s trying to suppress it—but emotion clouds their effort.

Rage, maybe. Panic.

It slips, pulses, reaches. You know this game. You’ve played it a thousand times in your old world. Whoever it is has picked you out from the crowd. You don’t know how. You didn’t slip.

But they see you.

Kami, give me a break. 

And now they’re moving.

You feel it like thunder in your chest, even though the street is quiet. The weight of attention. That pinpoint silence right before the trap is sprung.

Your spine goes stiff, your fingers brush the hilt at your waist—and with your pulse thudding in your ears, you start moving again.

Slower this time.

Lighter.

And ready.

But you start weaving between stalls, dipping behind crates, sliding past two arguing vendors. You duck into a half-shadowed alley, heart picking up pace. Whatever it is, it’s locked on you now. You know that feeling. You know the drag of hostile intent.

And then—

Everything speeds up.

Too fast.

Your body reacts before your brain does—launching into a dead sprint without preamble. You leap over a stone fence, roll across packed earth, vault a stack of firewood just as chakra slams into the space where you stood a heartbeat ago. You don’t look back.

You run.

You don’t call it panic—never have. But the sharp edge of survival lodges behind your ribs as you weave through the trees just outside the village edge. Whoever’s chasing you is fast. Too fast. You can feel it—that practiced stillness before the strike, that flicker of someone trained in the same schools you were.

You cut hard left, scale a split tree, and leap off the edge.

And mid-air, something hits you.

Not a weapon. Not a jutsu.

A presence.

You’re slammed into the ground, hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs. You hit the earth and twist instinctively, hand flying to your blade—only to be stopped. Completely. A forearm across your chest. A knee braced beside your hip. A weight anchoring you down like a vice.

You freeze.

The chakra—

You go still, senses narrowed to a knife’s edge. Your fingers curl, tense and useless beneath the grip pinning you. It’s not just the chakra, though that would’ve been enough. It’s the way your skin remembers this weight. The way your body recognizes him before your eyes do.

You look up.

And there he is.

Kakashi.

Mask skewed. Hair tousled, damp with exertion. His visible eye—sharpened, alert, and locked onto yours. Not wild. Not out of control.

Calculating.

Assessing.

You can feel it. The deliberate tension in his hold. The way he’s pressing down, not just to restrain—but to test. To measure.

To see if you’re what you seem.

Your jaw tightens.

You meet his gaze, refusing to flinch. “You done?”

He doesn’t answer. Just stares. You can feel his chakra coiling, brushing over yours like a hand through grass—tugging, testing, searching.

His grip on your wrists doesn’t ease. Neither does the pressure of his chest against yours, keeping you pinned like something dangerous. Like something he wants to believe in but doesn’t quite trust.

“I’m not a threat,” you snap. “Or did you forget what my chakra feels like?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” he says, low. Steady. “But I’ve seen things that wear familiar faces.”

There’s a pause—long enough to sting. His eye narrows slightly.

“So you’ll forgive me if I don’t leap to any conclusions.”

You grit your teeth. The bruises from earlier are already flaring, and the ground is cold and hard beneath you.

But still, you don’t move.

Because even with all the hostility pressing down on you—there’s something else, too. Faint. Subtle. Like a held breath.

His chakra is still brushing against yours. Still syncing.

Still familiar.

And maybe you shouldn’t admit it, but part of you doesn’t want to break the contact. Not just yet. He’s the only thing you recognize in this world and the only person that recognizes you not as a reflection, but as you. 

“Nice to know you missed me,” you mutter.

That gets something—a twitch at the edge of his mouth. Almost a smile. Almost.

“I thought you were dead,” he says. And it doesn’t sound like an accusation.

But it doesn’t sound like forgiveness, either.

Your heart hammers. You keep your voice even. “I was almost. You helped speed that along, if you recall.”

His eye darkens.

The silence that follows feels like a blade edge between you.

“You felt it, didn’t you?” you say instead. Softer. “The shift. The chakra. It’s not right.”

He hums once, slow.

“This isn’t our world,” he says. “It never was. But you… you’re real.”

The words settle between you like something heavy.

You exhale. “Yeah.”

But even with your identity confirmed, he still doesn’t move. His body still cages yours—forearm tight against your sternum, thigh braced against your hip. You try not to focus on the heat of him. The weight. The way his breathing brushes your jawline when he shifts slightly to look down at you.

You grit your teeth. 

“You gonna get off me, or just keep breathing down my neck like a creep?”

A pause.

“Don't tell me you're getting some sort of sick pleasure from this.”

His grip tightens slightly before easing—not in apology, but in warning.

His voice is low. “You sure you’re not the one enjoying it?”

You scoff. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

But your voice is too tight. His eye lingers too long.

And neither of you move.

Not yet.