Pinned Between Worlds
When he wakes, it’s not the pain that tells him something is wrong.
It’s the silence.
The air crackles faintly around him, as if lightning had just struck nearby—but there’s no smoke, no fire. Just that residual bite of ozone and earth, like the world tore open and sealed shut all at once.
His head pounds with every heartbeat. His lungs draw in shallow, unfamiliar air. Cold. Thin. The kind that tastes like distance.
There’s pressure in his chest—not pain, exactly, but weight. A heavy, wrong kind of gravity that coils in his stomach and wraps around his limbs, urging him to stay still. To stay down. To not follow. To forget.
He ignores it.
Because something’s wrong. Deeply wrong.
And not just around him.
In him.
He pushes himself upright in slow, stuttering motions. His balance wavers. He plants one hand to the ground and breathes through the vertigo. Every muscle aches like he’s just been thrown from a battle he can’t remember fighting. Dull, radiating soreness buzzes at his temples.
His hand finds his weapon pouch out of habit—empty. That’s concerning, but not catastrophic. His mask is still on. His headband’s secure.
But everything else is off.
The world feels too hollow. As though someone scooped the chakra right out of it and tried to paint over the gap. Even the trees look… wrong. Too still. Too silent. Like they’re watching.
Kakashi breathes in again. It doesn’t help.
Still, he survives.
Kakashi always survives.
It’s the walking that comes next. Slow. Automatic. Methodical. His mind still catching up to his body, still sifting through memories and finding nothing. No mission briefing. No enemy face. No recall of leaving the last place he stood.
But there’s only forward now.
He scavenges water from creeks, food from shrubs, chakra from the marrow of his bones. He moves like a ghost through forest and field, searching for signs of home.
It takes time—he doesn’t know how much. Day, maybe two. Maybe more.
But when the shape of Konoha finally rises on the horizon, his breath stills.
He knows those walls. The curve of those rooftops. The way the mountains sit behind it like guardians, etched with faces he once stood beside.
It’s Konoha.
But not.
He narrows his eye. Takes in the details.
The trees around the border have grown taller than they should have in the time he remembers. The gates have been reinforced. The patrol pattern is familiar in rhythm but off in spacing.
Too clean.
Too new.
And the people—
He sees their chakra before he sees their faces. And none of it feels right.
Still, he gets in.
He’s always been good at finding the seams. Slipping through cracks that others miss. But these seams resist him, like they don’t know his name anymore. Like they’re trying to close behind him as he passes.
It’s harder now. Not impossible. Just… not welcoming.
He moves over rooftops, under eaves. Lingers in the shadows, the way he always has.
And then he hears them.
ANBU.
But not his ANBU.
Not the ones he trained. Not the ones he bled with. These ones wear different masks, carry different posture, speak in clipped dialects that don’t belong to his timeline. Their chakra feels foreign. Strange.
But their movement is sharp. Tactical. Familiar.
They’re hunting.
He follows them, silent as wind, until he hears the name.
Your name.
He doesn’t breathe for a full five seconds.
He thinks—no. It’s not possible. It’s coincidence. It has to be.
But then he hears the rest.
“S-class. Illusionist. Not aggressive, but evasive. Possibly using chakra camouflage or terrain-based displacement. Reality-altering behavior not ruled out.”
“Didn’t attack. Just ran.”
“Saw her face. I know it was her.”
He turns before they finish.
Because he knows now.
It’s you.
And you’re alone.
The sharp edges of panic start to bleed in. He feels it under his ribs, behind his eye, in the tightness of his throat.
You’re running.
Which means you’re being hunted.
He doesn’t remember making the decision to go after you. Doesn’t recall pushing his body back into motion.
And Kakashi doesn’t even realize he’s moving until the trees blur around him, until his chakra’s laid out in a tracking web so tight and wide he’s burning himself to maintain it.
His chakra flares like a net, stretching in all directions. He’s reckless with it. Desperate. He burns energy like he has no limit. He doesn’t care. You could be anywhere. Hiding. Bleeding. Disoriented. Worse.
The first sign he finds is small—barely a crease in the bark of a tree, a faint chakra remnant pressed against a trunk.
He knows it instantly.
You never were good at hiding your anger in your chakra.
So he follows it. Carefully. Doggedly.
He’s been chasing ghosts since the moment he woke.
But you—you’re not a ghost.
You’re real.
And maybe you hate him. Maybe you blame him. Maybe you don’t even remember him at all.
He doesn’t care.
You’re alive. And in danger. That’s enough.
The scent of a roadside village rises around him—warm oil, sweat, rice flour and smoke. Human noise. Feet slapping dirt. Someone laughing nearby.
And then he feels it.
Your chakra.
Like a live wire through his spine.
Then another spike.
Not fear of the crowd. Not fear of the world.
Fear of him.
He doesn’t mean to chase you.
But he moves before he can think.
Because in his bones, there are two truths that never left him:
You’re a threat.
Or—
You’re in danger.
Both mean act now. Think later.
He sees the flicker of movement ahead, catches your figure as you vault over a vendor’s stall and vanish into the alley. He’s on you in seconds, cutting across rooftops, channeling every ounce of speed and fury and precision he has left—
And then he hits you mid-air.
You slam into the dirt with a dull thud, breath punched out of you.
He lands above you, knees braced, weight evenly distributed, wrist pinned under one hand, shoulder beneath the other.
And in that moment—he realizes:
He’s made a mistake.
Because the moment he touches you—grabs hold of your wrists, pins you down, hears your breath stutter beneath him—he doesn’t feel a threat. Because his entire body remembers.
He feels you.
Familiar. Wild. Stubborn and real.
Familiar. Sharp. Alive.
And real.
It drags him backward through time, into a memory he hasn’t processed. You—bloodied. Collapsing. His hands too slow, too late. You dying with his name on your tongue.
His grip tightens.
He shouldn’t. He knows that.
But it’s not to hurt you. Not even to restrain you.
It’s to make sure you’re real.
His Sharingan spins. His chest heaves. His eye locks onto yours.
You don’t flinch.
You never did.
He watches the way you lie still but tense beneath him. Your breathing quick and angry. Your gaze sharp. Alive.
There’s defiance in your eyes.
And something else.
Hope?
He doesn’t speak.
Can’t.
Because part of him is terrified it’s not you. That it’s some illusion, some trick.
That he’ll say it, and you’ll vanish again.
So he waits.
Until your voice finally breaks the silence, dry and cold.
“You done?”
There’s bite in it. There always was.
And fuck if that doesn’t do something to him.
He doesn’t smile. But something in his spine loosens.
When you call him out again, impatient, asking if he’s going to get off you—he so distracted that he nearly does.
But not quite.
Because his body hasn’t caught up to his mind, and you’re here, and he still doesn’t know how the hell any of this is possible.
And because—
(He doesn’t say it.)
(But he doesn’t let go either.)
You shift beneath him, agitated now, breath shallow with irritation. He can feel every inch of you pressed to him, and it shouldn’t matter, it doesn’t matter—but it does, and it always has, and maybe that’s part of what’s eating at him too.
“You gonna get off me, or just keep breathing down my neck like a creep?”
He nearly shifts.
Nearly.
But he doesn’t.
Because you’re here, and he doesn’t know if he can bear the moment when you slip away again.
His hands stay planted.
Your breath shudders, impatient now. He can feel the thrum of your heart through the thin line where your body presses to his.
It shouldn’t matter.
But it does.
It always has.
“I should get off,” he mutters.
Your voice is sharper than your chakra now. “Then do it.”
But your tone—your tone’s off.
Not fear.
Something else. Something quieter.
Trembling beneath all your irritation like you don’t trust what happens if he does let go.
And that—
That’s what keeps him frozen.
Because if he moves—
If he releases you—
Something will change again.
And he’s not ready for that either.