In Another Life

He’s out the door before the sun crests the ridge.

The air is sharp, still tinged with the damp quiet of night. A sliver of pale dawn barely traces the horizon, spilling faint silver light across the uneven rooftops. The town is still asleep. A few shuttered windows. A well bucket left out. No dogs barking. No clatter of morning vendors.

Just silence.

He moves like a shadow through it—shoulders low, steps light, every movement measured and soundless. A ghost sliding through a village too far from Konoha to matter. That was the point. Small, neutral, forgettable. A place to hide. To breathe.

But breathing has been harder lately.

Something in his chest coils tighter with every hour. Something old. Something restless. He can’t name it. Can’t fight it either. It isn’t the usual kind of unease that brushes his neck before a mission. It’s thicker. Quieter. Like a current beneath the floorboards.

This place—it feels wrong.

Not just the unfamiliar roads or the different stars at night. Not just the strange looks or the quiet air of tension that seems to hang over every interaction.

No, it’s more fundamental than that.

The world feels tilted.

Like reality’s been nudged just slightly off center. Close enough to seem real. Far enough to make his instincts scream.

He’s scoured every inch of his chakra, tested every jutsu he knows. This isn’t genjutsu. No lingering tethers to sever. And it’s not time travel—his chakra would feel the ripple. This is something else. Something layered and deep and wrong in a way he hasn’t felt before.

He lands on a sloped rooftop at the edge of the village. The tiles are slick with dew, cool beneath his palm as he crouches low. The wind shifts around him, carrying the scent of distant pine and smoke from some nearby hearth.

Then he senses it—chakra signatures, sharp and deliberate.

Two figures moving down the path below.

ANBU. Konoha. 

He recognizes the discipline immediately. The practiced rhythm of their steps. The coiled stillness in their bodies. The familiarity of them is unnerving.

But they are not the ANBU he knows.

Their uniforms are sleeker, subtly different. The masks—off. Not wrong, but foreign.

He sinks lower, barely breathing.

“Still no sightings,” one of them says, voice pitched low and tired. “But word from the capital says Hokage-sama has ordered a soft perimeter. Wants her found without causing alarm.”

Kakashi blinks behind his mask.

Hokage-sama?

Something tightens behind his ribs. The title isn’t strange—but the context is. Who would issue that order now? The Third? Unlikely. He’s too old to be playing these kinds of games with missing-nin, especially this far out. Had something happened back in Konoha before they were pulled into this place?

And why the hell would the Hokage be involved at all?

The other figure snorts softly. “Assuming she’s even real. No confirmed intel. Could be a jutsu. A mimic. Hell, a reanimation, for all we know. You saw her face.”

“I did,” the first says. “And I’d stake my mask it’s her.”

Kakashi leans forward slightly, listening hard.

Then—

“But she’s dead.”

Silence.

A sharp, clean silence that cuts through the mist like a blade.

Kakashi doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Can't breathe.

Dead.

His heart thumps once, heavy and hollow.

They’re talking about you.

They saw you. They’re looking for you. And they think you’re impossible.

Because in this world—whatever this place is—you’re supposed to be gone.

You’re not. You’re alive. He knows that as surely as he knows his own chakra signature. But these two—these strangers wearing masks that should mean trust—think you’re a lie.

And if they think that, what happens when they find you?

If you were dead once, it wouldn’t take much for them to make sure you were again.

He watches them disappear down the path, slipping into the morning fog.

He stays on the rooftop for a moment longer, staring after them, his pulse a low drumbeat in his ears.

This world… it’s not a reflection. It’s a fracture. A place where familiar things wear unfamiliar faces.

And now it’s hunting you.

He doesn’t know who’s Hokage here. Doesn’t care.

All he knows is if someone gave the order to find you, that means they’ll keep looking.

He has to get back.

Now.

Before you wake up.

Before you go somewhere he can’t follow.

Before someone else finds you first.

He moves.

You wake to quiet.

Not the kind that soothes. Not the kind that feels earned. This is the brittle kind—the kind that snaps underfoot. Taut. Off.

And the corner where Kakashi had been crouched the night before—arms folded, posture loose but watching you with that unnerving stillness—it’s empty now.

You shift, blinking through the dim gray of early morning. The futon’s gone cool beneath you, the blanket tangled around your legs. The air in the room is stale with held breath.

You sit up.

He’s gone.

The lamp’s burned out. His sandals are missing. No chakra signature, no trailing warmth. Just a faint indentation in the tatami from where he kept vigil.

You rub at your temple, frown tugging low. For a moment, something inside stirs—sharp, uneasy.

Then you shake it off.

He’s ANBU. Disappearing before sunrise is second nature. You’ve both slipped away into a dozen predawns like ghosts. It’s probably nothing. Probably scouting, or tracking, or just—space. From you.

Still, the silence is thick with something. You can’t name it. Not yet.

You rise slowly, joints stiff, your muscles dragging like they’ve woken underwater. You pad barefoot across the creaking floor, your fingers brushing the wall for balance as you stretch out the soreness stitched into your spine.

He didn’t take his gear—just his sword. Just enough to move quiet.

“Of course,” you mutter to the empty room.

It makes sense. It always does with him. Better to chase shadows alone than ask for help. Better to say nothing than risk saying too much.

You dress without hurry. Listening. No footsteps. No hint of chakra outside. Just the soft hum of a waking town beyond the thin walls of the inn. It’s a quiet that starts to itch.

You slip outside with the ease of habit.

Just a glance around. A sweep of the streets. Stretch your legs, burn off the edge that’s started to dig in under your skin. Nothing wild.

The town is plain. Unremarkable. A scattered handful of buildings nestled into the hills, tight-walled alleys, and the scent of miso wafting on the wind. It’s close enough to Fire Country to look familiar, but far enough to feel like a place you should’ve never stepped foot in.

You circle wide, sticking to the shaded edges of rooftops, counting exit points and guard rotations. No signs of Kakashi. No danger. No flicker of hostility. But your gut won’t settle.

When you finally return, it’s with the soft ache of fatigue in your shoulders and a half-formed apology on your lips—just in case he’s back.

You slide the door open quietly, expecting to find the room just as you left it.

You don’t.

There’s a hand in your space before you can blink.

It slams against the frame beside your head, cutting off your retreat like a trap sprung too late. You jerk back—but there’s nowhere to go. His other hand is already catching your arm, fingers wrapping tight, dragging you inside before the door has even closed behind you.

“What the—” you start, breath caught sharp in your throat.

He doesn’t let go.

Kakashi’s standing over you, close, tooclose, his eyes lit with something raw and unfiltered—anger, maybe, or fear trying to wear its sharpest mask.

His grip isn’t cruel, but it’s far from soft. You can feel the heat of his palm through the sleeve of your shirt, the tension vibrating through his fingers like a held breath about to rupture.

“You just left?” he asks, voice low, voice cold. “Without a word?”

“I thought you did the same,” you snap, heart hammering. “You were gone. I figured you went to scout—so I did the same.”

“You weren’t supposed to leave the room.”

You let out a sharp laugh. “I’m not your prisoner, Kakashi.”

“No,” he says, quick and low, “but you’re acting like someone who doesn’t get what the hell is happening around her.”

You bristle, yanking at your arm. He holds fast.

“I stayed in the shadows,” you say, jaw tightening. “I wasn’t seen. I’m not stupid.”

“You think that’s enough?” His voice climbs, controlled but heated. “You think slipping around like this is going to keep you safe when you don’t even know what they think you are?”

That catches you.

You stare up at him, chest rising and falling. His mask is in place, but it doesn’t matter. His expression is written in the line of his shoulders, the fury he’s not letting loose, the worry he can’t name without cracking.

“You’re pissed,” you say slowly, “but not at me. Not really.”

He doesn’t answer.

You lift your chin, defiant. “Is this about me risking exposure, or is it about you not knowing what you’d do if something did happen?”

His fingers twitch.

You feel it—the way his grip falters, just slightly, the way his jaw works behind the fabric. There’s something else here, something unspoken but not subtle. It’s not just frustration. It’s not just worry.

It’s possession—the protective kind, the kind that feels like a storm held back by sheer will alone. Something tight and ugly and full of care he doesn’t know how to carry without choking on it.

“You don’t get to disappear on me,” he says, quieter now. “Not here. Not when everything around us is upside down.”

“And you don’t get to throw me around like some idiot who can’t handle herself.”

That lands hard.

He exhales through his nose, sharp and heavy. His hand finally releases your arm—but it doesn’t fall away. His knuckles brush your wrist, then still. His voice lowers again, rough around the edges.

“I can’t protect you if I don’t know where you are.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“I know,” he says. 

The silence between you stretches—tense, frayed, almost unbearable. His eyes don’t leave yours.

You should walk away. You want to.

But his hand is holding you in place. And neither of you are breathing quite right.

He feels it before he sees it.

The wrongness.

A hollow space in the air, like something essential was pulled out while his back was turned. Like the room is holding its breath.

He steps inside.

The futon is empty.

Blanket tossed back, the indent of your body still fresh in the mattress, like you’d only just risen. The lamp in the far corner is dead, wick curled in on itself like a final exhale. The scent of you clings to the stale air—smoke and steel and something that belongs to you alone.

But your chakra?

Gone.

You’re gone.

For a long second, he just stands there. Staring.

His brain starts offering explanations—bathhouse, fresh air, maybe you needed to walk it off. Maybe the fight last night still burned behind your eyes. Maybe you couldn’t stand being in the same room with him.

But none of those maybes hold.

You’d barely spoken after collapsing into that futon, your hands trembling even after the adrenaline had bled dry. Your chakra had been frayed at the edges, pulsing with dissonance. There had been nothing in your posture, nothing in your voice, that suggested you were up for wandering off on your own.

And yet, here he is. Alone.

His eye sharpens, tracking details—the slight scuff on the windowsill, the shift in the air, the silence that has teeth. No blood. No broken locks. No sign of forced entry. But no trail either. No note. No message. Not even a scratch in the floorboards.

You didn’t even try to say goodbye.

And that—that—is what slices down through him, jagged and raw.

Because maybe it means you didn’t think he’d care.

Maybe it means you didn’t think he’d follow.

He moves.

Out the window, into the predawn dark, across the rooftops like smoke. He casts his senses wide, but you’ve covered your tracks well. Too well. No lingering chakra, no disturbances in the trees. You’d vanished like someone trained to disappear.

You always were too damn good at that.

He curses under his breath, landing hard against a low rooftop, scanning the streets below. His fingers twitch toward the hem of his mask, something feral pulsing just under his skin. The same instinct he’s only ever felt in battle, in blood, in moments where he thought he might lose someone who mattered.

He doesn’t want to name what this is.

Doesn’t want to acknowledge what it might mean.

But the thought coils anyway, low in his gut.

You’re not safe.

Not here. Not in this world that looks like Konoha but smells like a trap. Where shadows speak in riddles and ANBU hunt phantoms. Where you wear a face that doesn’t belong to the living.

He heard it.

Reanimation.

Illusion.

Dead.

You don’t know what they think you are. But he does.

And if they decide you’re an enemy—if someone like him were ordered to remove the threat—you wouldn’t get a chance to defend yourself.

You wouldn’t even see it coming.

He shoves the thought down before it can turn to panic.

It doesn’t help.

By the time he makes it back to the inn, the sky is turning that bruised color between night and morning. His shirt clings with sweat beneath the armor. His hands won’t stop flexing.

He’s halfway to tearing the room apart for clues when the door creaks open behind him.

And there you are.

Casual. Tired. Mud on your boots. A flicker of surprise in your expression as you spot him.

Whole. Unscathed. Oblivious.

It’s the oblivious part that undoes him.

The fear detonates in his chest before he can smother it, and suddenly he’s moving—three quick strides and he’s across the room. His hand shoots out, catches your wrist hard enough to halt your step.

Your body tenses instinctively, breath hitching, mouth halfway to protest.

He yanks you inside.

It’s not graceful. It’s not clean. You stumble, your shoulder knocking into his, and he shoves the door shut behind you with his free hand, the slam loud and final.

You look at him like he’s lost his mind.

And maybe, just a little, he has.

“What the hell—?!”

He doesn’t let go.

His fingers are curled around your wrist, tight enough to feel your pulse—fast, hot, real. It thuds against his thumb like a metronome, and it grounds him just enough to keep from shaking.

“You just left?,” he says, voice too low, too flat. “Without word?”

You blink.

“I thought you did the same.” You scowl up at him. “You were gone. I figured you went to scout—so I did the same”

“You didn’t say a word.” His grip tightens, not enough to hurt, but enough to anchor. “You were gone. You could’ve been followed. You could’ve been seen.”

Your eyes flash like flint on steel. “I wasn’t. I know how to cover a trail.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?”

“You don’t know what’s out there,” he snaps, sharper now. “You don’t know what they think you are.”

That stops you. You go still.

Just for a second.

Then you bite out, “You think I’m helpless?”

He flinches like you hit him.

“No,” he mutters. “I think you’re not taking this seriously.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“I don’t trust this place,” he snarls. “And you’re walking through it like you’re not a damn beacon.”

You try to pull away. He doesn’t let you.

Your skin is warm beneath his palm. Too warm. His thumb presses into the hollow of your wrist like he’s memorizing the shape of you, like he doesn’t believe you’re here until his hand confirms it.

“You’re not a hostage,” he says, and the words taste wrong, defensive. “But I can’t let you—”

“No,” you cut in, voice low, shaking. “But you’re acting like I am.”

That hits something raw.

His breath punches out, shallow.

And suddenly he’s aware of how close you are. How your expression is all sharp lines and simmering rage, but your eyes are tired, shadowed. How your heartbeat is still drumming against his fingers like it doesn’t know the danger’s passed. Like maybe it never did.

He swallows, jaw clenching.

The heat in his chest is no longer anger. It’s grief in disguise. It’s a memory of loss that hasn’t happened yet. It’s a ghost whispering you’ll lose her too.

You don’t get it. You don’t see what he sees when he looks at you now—not just a comrade. Not just someone trapped in this cursed mirror world beside him.

You’re familiar.

Too familiar.

And he’s already starting to fear the shape of the story where you don’t make it back.

“I can’t protect you,” he says finally, “if I don’t know where you are.”

Your voice comes soft. “I didn’t ask you to.”

He gits his teeth once, slow. “I know.”

And gods, it wrecks him.

And now you're both left with that silence.