Rewind

Two weeks had passed since that day. Kakashi had collapsed from the sleepless nights and slept through an entire week, worrying his teammates. But things had changed ever since he put his foot outside his house. Minato had come by to check on him and give him his headband, something Kakashi still hadn't worn. The civilians had changed. Kakashi could see that in their behavior. They greeted him when he passed them; they offered him something to eat, and within days, Kakashi found his house invaded by food he wasn't even eating. His stomach had refused any form of food that wasn't food pills, and Rin grew concerned about it. She scolded him several times already and begged him to come by to the hospital.

"Don't worry, Kakashi. It won't hurt. Besides, the sooner you'll get better, the sooner Gai can challenge you," Obito grinned, walking near him.

"Really? He's still into that?" Kakashi asked, sighing.

"It's Gai! Of course he's into that," Obito laughed. "You two are still in a tie, and even I am dying to know who wins the next competition.".

"That's stupid." Kakashi shrugged, not denying though he did want to challenge Gai. He thought out of scheme, and as childish as their challenges were, for that moment they took away the reality of things. 

"Here we are," Obito looked at the hospital. The last time Kakashi was here, it was Obito being secluded there. He seemed fine, however. He had still scars from the boulder, and for a moment Kakashi felt guilty about it, bringing his hand to his eye. It was a matching scar tying them together into saving each other.

"Don't beat yourself." Obito brought his hands behind his neck. "I'm fine now. Besides, you nearly lost your eye as well. All of it because I failed to understand Aoi.

"He tricked me as well. So if anything, it's my fault. I was the captain back then."

"True, but you were also a kid that trusted Aoi because we had no choice. We had a mission to do, and it would have ended the war. If anything, Aoi did us a favor. Now we are matching.

Kakashi smiled at the positivity of his friend. "I guess you're right."

"Now Kakashi. Lie down and don't move, okay?" Rin walked out of the room. "I'm getting a picture of your body so we can understand what's going on with your stomach." 

"What's all of this?" Kakashi asked, looking toward the machine, new to the technology presented in front of him.

"It's a body scanner. We can take pictures of organs and bones to see if something's up," Rin explained, making the machine start its job.

"Is it...painful?" Kakashi asked as his heart raced for a moment.

"Not at all. It will move to get different angles and make a loud noise, but it doesn't touch you in any way," Rin explained, looking at the pictures released by the machine. A few minutes later the machine stopped.

"Alright. Everything's ready," Rin chirped, walking back in the room.

"Already?" Kakashi asked in surprise, sitting up.

"Yes. Come with me; I'll show you the other side."

Kakashi nodded, walking in the room with Rin. There was a monitor with pictures that he couldn't quite understand, not how they were presented. 

"Let's print them," Rin stated enthusiastically to show her new technology to her friend. Kakashi had the expression of someone that was lost.

"Can you see bijuu's with that?" He asked worriedly.

"Bijuus are chakra. The machine doesn't see the chakra, just organs and bones. Sometimes muscle, but that's a different machine." Rin explained printing the pictures and hanging them against a light wall: "See? This is your heart." She showed him circling it with the finger, and suddenly the human body became clear to Kakashi. "And here's your stomach," Rin pointed at the organ. "I see now why you have troubles eating.". Kakashi's puzzled face made it clear he understood nothing.

"Here. This is a scan of someone else. See? The stomach in this scan is much bigger, while yours is half its size, if not less. Your body got so used to food pills that it literally shrunk.

"Is it that bad?" Kakashi asked as Rin sighed.

"It's a concern. It's not something that cannot be fixed, but it will take time. I will assign you a specific diet, but don't jump from food pills to meals within a day. For a few weeks, make sure to eat at least one full meal. We need to adjust your stomach to real food and at the same time make sure you get the right nutrients," she explained.

"Alright," Kakashi nodded in agreement. He didn't mind going on pills, but Obito insisted. They even tried to celebrate by eating ramen, and Kakashi barely made it out of the shop before throwing up.

The next achievement Kakashi reached was understanding how much things changed. Obito had brought him a writing machine, and Kakashi lost his head over it. It was cute and hilarious at the same time.

At first Kakashi didn't even realize what the item was, and he showed little interest in it. But the constant typing sound from Obito's actions eventually grabbed his attention.

"What are you doing?" He asked, finally getting up and walking toward the Uchiha.

"Well, I was asked to write down an essay for Iruka-sensei, and I'm doing it." Obito showed him. He didn't expect Kakashi's little jump when the bar of the letter raised, hitting the paper and printing the letter on the paper.

"What the?" He asked, surprised, "How did it do it?" He genuinely asked.

"Well, when you press a letter, the lever of that letter raises up and hits the paper. Because the stamp is imprinted into ink, it simply stamps the letter. Obito explained removing the paper and replacing it with a new one: "Would you like to try it?" Obito got up and guided Kakashi into his first written word, his own name.

He left Kakashi with that item for a few minutes. Maybe 2. But then, upon his return, the writing machine was dismantled, and Kakashi was all dirty in ink.

"Bakakashi! What did you do?!" Obito yelled. It seemed like scolding a child. But then he thought of it. Everything was new to Kakashi, and maybe his experiences made him weary of new things. "You can't dismantle stuff just to learn how they work."

"I still don't understand how it does. Where does it get the ink from?" He asked, and Obito stopped for a moment. He didn't know. 

"I'm not...sure?" 

"I got how typing works, but the ink is still a mystery."

"I know what to do then." Obito's light bulb lit up.

When Rin came by with Hikari to check on the boys, the scene was out of his line of thoughts. The two boys were sitting at the table, covered in ink, and the two were still working on dismantling a 7th typewriter.

"What are you doing, guys?" Hikari asked.

"We are trying to understand. How do letters get inked? Where the ink comes out to print the letters?"

"And to understand that you needed to destroy a writing machine?" Rin asked 

"Seven," Kakashi corrected her. "Kurama is invested as much as us."

"Kakashi, inside the typing machine there's the ink ribbon, here," Hikari bowed to point at the ribbon. "Each time you press the letter, the stamp hits the ink ribbon and then the paper. When you release the letter, the ribbon moves slightly to replace it with fresh ink. After a while you need to replace that ribbon with a new one because the ink dries out.

Kakashi's expression was priceless. He finally understood.

"Wait," Obito looked at the girls. "We could avoid all of this?!"

"If you read the instructions, of course," Rin pouted.

"Great, we wasted typing machines for nothing," Obito groaned in disappointment.

"At least we got fun," Kakashi shrugged.

"You're right!" Obito smiled widely. "I had fun fighting with typing machines," he giggled.

"This is stupid," Kurama rolled his eyes. 

"Why not admit you are happy to finally see how these things worked?" Kakashi giggled at him.

"I'm not happy. This was a waste of time!" Kurama growled, making his brothers laugh.

"I'm happy to see it." Isobu moved his tails. 

"See? Isobu gets it.

"So what's the next item we are destroying?" Kurama ultimately lay down. 

"I think for now we aren't destroying any," Kakashi giggled.

"Kakashi," Hikari called him out. "I was thinking. Why tomorrow we don't leave your house? I got to understand that you never left your house if not for buying stuff and hospitals. We can go see how the academy changed. She offered

"Oh right. You work there now, don't you?"

"Yes," Hikari nodded. "I...after you left, I decided to try something that didn't involve fighting. I like teaching kids, and with Minato giving the Uchiha cla more space, we finally managed to be accepted by others." She nodded. 

"I'm glad to hear that," Kakashi smiled, accepting the little visit.

It was weird to return to the academy after so many years. He left it at 5 years old and things changed. Classes didn't but the teaching methods did. They didn't fight against the Hokage, they fought against each other. He got to know Iruka, a ninja he never met before. He got to learn about Naruto and team 7. He got to learn about clans dynamics, how they changed with Minato in charge. But the knowledge he lost so much in 12 years was enough for him to request leaving the academy and suddenly he was back into being the closed up guy. It didn't matter the questions made by his friends, it didn't matter the attempts Obito took to make him smile. Something inside him was shutting him down. 

"See you tomorrow, Kakashi?" Obito greeted him, but the Hatake didn't reply, keeping his head low while heading into his house. Obito easily spotted the Anbu near the house and waved to them. He recognized both co-workers. 

Kakashi closed the door behind himself, anxiety crippling back to him. He looked back at the mess he and Obito had made and suddenly he could take everything in. Everything he missed in between his friends and the medical visits. They did a wonderful job by keeping him busy.

For the first time he could finally focus.

The walls, though still standing, bore the weight of time, dust gathering in corners, unnoticed by the world that had moved on. The smell of old wood and stale air clung to the rooms as if the house itself was holding its breath, waiting for its occupant to return. Kakashi stood there, his fingers tracing the familiar walls as memories of his youth—his father, his friends, his training—flashed through his mind.

The house hadn’t changed much since the day he left. But everything else had. He had been gone for twelve long years, a lifetime to some, a mere heartbeat to others. The world had evolved, his friends had grown up, and he had been absent, adrift in his own personal war and exile. Now, as he stood in the threshold of this place that was both a sanctuary and a prison of the past, Kakashi couldn’t help but feel the crushing weight of everything he had missed.

He had been sent away for the village’s protection, to avoid a civil war that might have torn Konoha apart. His presence, his very existence as the jinchūriki of multiple tailed beasts, had been a threat to the village’s stability. Kakashi had understood that—he had learned to accept it—but now, standing in this house, all the years of isolation and silence hit him like a tidal wave.

Kakashi could hear the laughter of children from outside, the voices of families, people living the lives he had once known. It was a stark contrast to the hollow silence inside his home, the coldness of the rooms that no longer felt like they belonged to him. His hand, once steady and confident, trembled as he gripped his own kunai. He shut his eyes, trying to block out the thoughts that had been haunting him for years.

They moved on without him.

The thought echoed in his mind, sharp and bitter. His friends, his teammates—they all had their lives, their futures. They had families, positions, people who cared for them. Meanwhile, he had been cast aside, a necessary casualty of a political game he had never been allowed to participate in.

Kakashi's breath quickened as his mind raced through the years, kunai now gently yet harshly crossing his skin. Minato had become Hokage. He had seen it from a distance, felt the pride and the pain as his surrogate father took the position. Hikari, who had once been lost to hatred and vengeance, had found her place in the world, redeemed and walking her own path. Rin, always strong, had grown into a woman who commanded respect, her healing skills and wisdom a cornerstone of the village’s future. Obito, the one person who had always understood him, was looked at with respect, leaving his legacy to a new generation.

But where did that leave him? He had been lost in the wilderness of his own sorrow, stranded in the aftermath of his father's death and the weight of his role as the prophecy child. No one had come to find him; no one had reached out. They had all continued without him, growing and changing, building families and futures. 

How could they?

Kakashi's heart twisted in his chest, the grief and anger that had festered inside him for so long threatening to boil over. The kunai slipped out of his bloodied hands. He staggered backward, his back hitting the wall as he slumped to the floor. His fingers gripped his head, his mind a storm of emotion and guilt. 

You chose to hide. You chose to be unreachable. It was all your fault.

He had always tried to be strong, to hold onto the belief that what he did mattered, that his sacrifices had a purpose. But now, looking at the empty house that had once been his home, he could see the truth clearly for the first time. He had been left behind, nothing more than a shadow of the man he had once been. The world had continued to turn, and Kakashi had remained static, trapped in a past that was no longer his own.

The panic started as a tightening in his chest, the weight of everything he had failed to do suffocating him. His vision blurred as his breath became shallow, panic creeping in like an uncontrollable tide. The fear, the loneliness, the feeling of being discarded—it was too much to handle. His head spun, and the walls of the room seemed to close in around him.

Kakashi squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the suffocating wave of emotion. But it was impossible. He could feel the Kyuubi’s chakra flare, like a warning bell, an overwhelming force of raw power and rage that threatened to burst free.

“Kakashi. Snap out of it, a voice called out. "I cannot heal you.". So out of reach.

The thought of his father flashed in his mind, but it wasn’t the legacy of his heroic deeds that lingered. It was the way he had died, the way he had chosen to end his life because he could no longer bear the weight of the judgment that Konoha had cast upon him. Sakumo had been a great man, a proud shinobi, but in the end, he had been consumed by the same feelings that Kakashi now faced—the guilt, the loneliness, the feeling that he was never enough, that his sacrifices were worthless. He could still remember the hollow look in his father's eyes as he had taken his own life, the broken man who had felt like he could never recover from his own failure.

Kakashi’s heart pounded in his chest, the same fear and doubt gnawing at him, the same suffocating pressure pressing in on him. Was this his fate too? To be remembered for nothing but failure?

His breath hitched again, a raw sob clawing its way up from his chest. He tried to steady himself, to regain control, but it felt impossible. Kurama within him got up, feeling the turmoil, the pain, the spiraling panic that threatened to consume its host.

"Calm down, Kakashi," Kurama’s voice echoed in his mind, but it was no comfort. There was no safety, no escape from the chaos inside. "We’ve been through much worse. You’ve endured worse. Just calm down."

Kakashi’s body trembled as he tried to steady his breath, but the panic didn’t subside. It only deepened, claws of fear sinking deeper into his chest, tightening like a vise. He couldn’t stop it. The world around him blurred as his vision spun, the room starting to tilt and spin. The walls that once held memories now seemed to suffocate him, pressing in like they were closing him off from everything.

"What if this is it? What if I can’t handle this?"

Kurama’s voice grew louder, more insistent, but it wasn’t enough to cut through the storm. The Kyuubi roared within him, sending waves of chakra coursing through Kakashi’s body, pushing against the walls of his mind, trying to force control back into his hands.

"Listen to me, you’re stronger than this! You’ve been through worse. You can overcome this!"

But Kakashi’s panic kept spiraling, the anxiety flooding his senses, threatening to drown him. The more Kurama tried to reach him, the more the Nine-Tails’ chakra surged through his system, but it only seemed to make things worse. The raw power that Kakashi had never fully learned to control surged out of him, destabilizing his thoughts even more. He felt his limbs tremble with the intensity of the chakra flowing through him, threatening to push him past the breaking point. If he were to lose control of the chakra now, he'd only create a worse situation.

"It’s no use," Kakashi thought, his mind growing darker by the second. "I’ll never be good enough. They’ll never accept me. I’m just like my father, aren’t I?"

His chest tightened painfully, the emotional pressure unbearable, as the panic turned into something deeper. A feeling of suffocating despair, a deep well of loneliness that Kakashi hadn’t realized was still so raw, so close to the surface. His hands clenched into fists, his nails digging into his palms, but it didn’t stop the overwhelming sensation of being left behind. Of being forgotten. The wounds on his wrist bleeding like it could actually drip his pain out of his body.

It was at that moment, when he felt like he was teetering on the edge, that his body couldn’t take it anymore. The world around him darkened, the edges of his vision growing fuzzy as his body gave out from the strain.

"Kakashi!" One of the anbu's voices broke through, but it was too late. Kakashi’s head fell forward, and his body went limp, the panic attack too much for him to handle.

Kurama’s roar echoed in his mind, a last attempt to steady him, but it was all a blur now. Kakashi was lost in the wave of emotions, his body unresponsive as he collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

"Call Rin! He's bleeding too much for me to heal.". His companion nodded, vanishing.

Rin and Obito were at Ichiraku when the Anbu appeared behind them.

"Rin-san, Kakashi needs your immediate intervention."

That was enough for the two to rush toward Kakashi’s house.

The sight was horrifying. Kakashi was in the lap of the Anbu that Obito recognized as Itachi, his wrist losing too much blood for comfort, yet somehow Rin intervened without second thoughts.

Obito stood at the door, his face lined with worry as he had watched Rin struggle with the cuts and blood loss. He should have known better than anyone what Kakashi was going through. He had seen it in his own heart, the weight of isolation, the crushing pressure of expectations, and the feeling of never being enough. But seeing Kakashi like this—broken, on the edge—tore at him.

Obito rushed forward, kneeling beside his friend as he carefully lifted Kakashi’s head into his lap. He ran a hand through Kakashi’s silver hair, trying to soothe him, though the calm in his own voice wavered with the intensity of his fears. 

“Kakashi, you’re not alone,” he whispered. “We're here. We won't let you die."

But the words were met with silence as Kakashi remained unconscious, lost in the shadows of his mind.