Chapter 10
Kakashi barely avoids vomiting, but he definitely passes out from the dizziness of being sucked into a vacuum vortex.
Kamui has this effect on people when it's the first time
Obito holds the limp body tightly in his arms and begins to look for a block of stone large enough to lay Kakashi down.
Obito absently thinks about having to get a futon for Kakashi's use in the future, since Obito himself no longer needs to sleep in one regularly thanks to the Zetsu Hashirama cells that have been implanted into his body.
Kamui is his impenetrable fortress, and it is also a large place that may or may not be limitless. (Despite his explorations, Obito has yet to discover the true extent of this place.)
Most of Kamui is mostly empty and has very few amenities, only containing a few cabinets grown with Mokuton to store weapons, clothes, money, and other useful equipment. But if Kakashi agrees to stay... Then Obito will have to start gathering supplies for the two of them, mainly taking into account Kakashi's needs since he doesn't have any super powers of accelerated healing to make his life easier.
Obito leaves Kakashi alone and teleports to the cave in the Mountain Graveyard to get some supplies he has stored there, in case of emergency. (And how useful that will be now)
He grabs a clean futon and blankets; a spare pair of clothes; bottles of water and medical supplies like: IVs, needles, alcohol, bandages, chakra pills, ibuprofen and dipyrone.
Just the essentials to help Kakashi.
(All of these supplies he has been stealing from Kiri or acquiring in Ame. Obito may not need to use these things often, but having them stocked up for emergencies is something every prepared shinobi should have because being a missing-nin has its advantages, but also disadvantages.
Having freedom of movement and not having to bow to the will of a Kage is great and all, but losing the other resources that a Village provides to its ninjas is difficult and, without a doubt, ends up being missed.
Any nukenin with a brain knows that the first thing to do is to start stockpiling supplies, or join some ninja organization to have resources or have a lot of money in your pockets if you don't want to owe anyone anything.
Obito is lucky to be a Frankenstein freak who technically doesn't need any supplies, just money, but he likes to keep his supply stock full, just in case of unexpected emergencies. Like now.)
Obito gathers his things and returns to Kamui and begins to work. First he uses Mokuton to create a high bed frame and places the futon on top, adjusts the sheet and pillow and moves Kakashi to lay him down on it. He then prepares the serum and creates a wooden support with Mokuton and pierces Kakashi with the needle. Obito then gets rid of the dirty clothes Kakashi is wearing and numbs the wounds with a spike of chakra before starting to clean the wounds manually. After that, he focuses on the most critical wound – the severed tendons.
Obito is no real medical-nin, but he has had to learn the basics and tries his best to heal Kakashi. Unfortunately, he determines that Kakashi will need a real professional to fix those tendons properly.
Now it's the hands' turn.
Healing the hands is not very difficult as long as nothing is amputated or necrotic. Damaged nerves are very delicate and can be difficult to heal, but most medic-nin (if they are competent medics) know how to regenerate and restore perfect mobility to the hands.
Obito doesn't know how to do this, but luckily for Kakashi he only had his fingers broken, which is fairly easy to fix.
(If Obito hadn't arrived and helped him escape at that moment, Kakashi might have lost a few fingers.)
Now for the last one: the Sharingan.
The Sharingan was well hidden behind a contact lens that does little to mitigate chakra consumption or impede the doujutsu's capabilities.
Obito slides a green hand over it and feels the active doujutsu (always active) react to his chakra. Hn. How interesting.
It seems that the Sharingan recognizes the chakra of its original owner.
Obito has no idea how he and Kakashi share an overlapping vision and he doesn't have time to study this phenomenon right now, so he feeds his chakra to the Sharingan to see if the continuous drain on the Hatake's reserves can be lessened.
It seems to have worked.
Done. Obito has finished everything. Everything has been cleaned, healed, and bandaged. There is nothing left to do but wait for Kakashi to wake up.
Obito leans against a pillar and watches Kakashi sleep. He contemplates how things got to this point. He deliberates whether he really wants to tell Kakashi the truth and try to bring him to his side.
He deliberates whether the risk is worth it or not. He wonders if it is even wise because Obito is partly to blame for the heavy grief Kakashi still carries regarding Minato and Kushina.
But I had reasons. Obito thinks. Kakashi may or may not understand this.
In any case, Obito would have to take risks to find out how Kakashi would react and for that he must be prepared to face a strong immediate rejection – Obito will need contingency plans if that happens.
… But. On the other hand, Kakashi may understand, may be willing to forgive him, and may want to stay by his side on this journey to achieve the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Hn. It could work.
Obito has been monitoring Kakashi for years. He had watched him around the Village – reclusive, antisocial, workaholic. A ticking time bomb, distant and cold to his colleagues, the Hokage's file marked him red for suicidal tendencies.
With no hobbies or ties, Kakashi was seen as Cold-Blooded Kakashi: lethal and ruthless. A genius praised, but also watched because of it.
For better or worse, people whispered about Hatake behind his back, and Obito knew how Kakashi felt about it. He knew how it affected him.
No one seemed to notice the broken man who lived beneath that veneer of ruthless, notorious genius.
Kakashi lived on the edge; he lived with heavy regrets; he lived drowning in blood and death and he didn't know how to get out of it. He didn't know how to free himself from this damned system.
(No one would help him, only Obito would do that. Only Obito cared about him.)
If he had already made up his mind before, now Obito was sure: He would save Kakashi from this hellish reality, one way or another, Obito would do it whether or not Kakashi was by his side.
Obito reflects on the past as he watches Kakashi sleep. He waits for the inevitable moment when they will have to have The Enlightening Conversation.
Kakashi will want to know how he survived – that is easy to explain.
Kakashi will want to know why he didn't return to Konoha – that's also easy to explain.
Kakashi will want to know about the Plan, and talking about the Plan means talking about the Bijuus, and since Kakashi isn't called a genius for nothing, he'll put the pieces together and ask about October 10th.
Now this is going to be hard to explain, but Kakashi needs to hear his side of the story because Kakashi needs to understand how deeply Obito was disappointed in Minato – the acclaimed fastest man in the world who never showed up on time.
Obito had a myriad of negative feelings towards the man who was once his teacher, his inspiration, his respected superior.
Kakashi may not accept it, but he will understand.
He needs to understand and not be too hard on Obito, after all, Obito forgave him regarding Rin, so Kakashi has to be more understanding and forgive him back too.
From the moment Obito had returned to The Cave — back to Old Madara, still covered and dripping with the blood of his enemies and Rin — Obito had already decided to put an end to the shinobi system.
He was numb in that moment. The anger, the pain, the hatred, the loss, the pain of awakening the Mangekyou—none of it troubled him anymore.
Obito had felt so much pain and anguish and despair that at some point during his walk back to the Cave, numbness had set in.
Obito was hollow inside. Exhausted. Disillusioned. And desperate to fix the situation – so there was Madara offering a solution.
Madara had a plan, and Obito wanted to hear about it.
He clung to the Plan like a mad man desperate to escape hell — because that was exactly what Obito was. (Which he still is). An insane man.
(Obito never thought about what he would do to himself if he found the Plan not worth it. So many "what ifs" and Obito never stopped to think about them)
Obito chose his path and his new path kept him away from Kakashi, his last remaining teammate.
But Obito didn't stay that far away because he watched Kakashi from the shadows.
It was hard to stop.
Obito divided his time between infiltrating Kiri; advising and watching over Nagato and Konan to reshape Akatsuki; helping recruit new members for Akatsuki; sneak into Konoha and stalk Kakashi.
He received help from White Zetsu, but personally, Obito preferred not to rely on them too much.
(Because he didn't completely trust Black Zetsu); Guruguru was the one Obito tolerated the most and knew he could trust him. Furthermore, Guruguru was the one who helped him the most.
Then on a night like any other (when Obito reached his limit and needed to take a nap), he discovered that his shared Sharingan with Kakashi had a one-sided connection that linked them in a totally inexplicable way.
At first, Kakashi (unknowingly) leaked a lot of stress and nightmares through their shared link. Hatake inadvertently pulled Obito into his mind and let him wander, completely unaware of his presence.
At first Obito didn't know what was happening. He thought he was having normal nightmares - the usual night terrors: dreams of the cave collapsing; the falling rock; scary old Madara; Kakashi killing Rin; Rin dying from the Chidori; The sound of the Chidori. Obito killing Rin with his Chidori.
Obito only realized what was happening when he started dreaming about missions he knew he hadn't accomplished. Then he discovered: it was Kakashi.
It took a while to figure out how to manipulate Kakashi's dreams from a distance without having to sneak in the middle of the night into the tiny apartment where his ex-teammate lived.
After mastering their link, Kakashi was never out of reach again.
But Obito didn't access their link often because his work schedules were so busy that he had little time to sleep.
Trying to figure out how to match their sleeping schedules required breaking into ANBU HQ and the Hokage's office frequently.
It was risky, but Obito was very good at sneaking around.
(Also: there was another obstacle that made things difficult:
Obito didn't need to sleep often, so he would go without sleep for days because he was too busy with Akatsuki and Kiri, and this prevented him from invading Kakashi's dreams through their link.
Their sleeping schedules were not the same, but Obito still chose to sleep at least two or three times a week, to reach Kakashi through the dream world.
And how truly ironic the situation was – Obito reaching Kakashi through the dream world. Ho ho ho!
He gave Hatake a little taste of what Tsuki on Me would be like, and Obito knew Kakashi liked it.
He really liked it.
In fact, Hatake looked forward to this every night. He longed to live happily, surrounded by his precious people and far from the horrors of reality. Obito gave him that. Obito gave him the best dreams because they were a preview of what was to come.)
Kakashi finally wakes up, disoriented and grimacing in pain. He scratches his dry throat.
"Here. Drink this, it'll help with the pain," Obito offers him the water and an ibuprofen tablet. Kakashi stares at him in astonishment, his eyes wide.
"O-obito?!"
"Watch out for the serum, bakashi! And yes, it's me. Here. Take the water and the medicine, it'll help you," he offers again, this time pushing the bottle of water into Kakashi's hand and carefully placing the pill in his other palm for the other to take.
"It's ibuprofen," he says and shows the medicine blister showing the name when Kakashi hesitates to swallow the pill. After that, Hatake takes it without any problems.
"Mm. Is this a dream or...?", he asks looking at the many concrete blocks of Kamui.
"No. It's not a dream, or genjutsu, or hallucination induced by something. By the way, are you hungry?" he asks because food was the only thing Obito didn't bring.
Kakashi opens his mouth to deny it, but his stomach gets in the way and growls loudly. Kakashi grimaces and nods mutely.
Obito almost laughed at him. "Alright. I'll see what I can get and you stay here without touching anything, you hear? I'll be right back."
"WAIT! Where - ugh -" Kakashi groans in pain from his tender tendons. "Where are you going?" he asked breathlessly.
"Stupid bakashi! Stop moving like that! You're going to ruin what I fixed," he says angrily and tries to stop the other from getting out of the makeshift bed. Kakashi takes advantage of the proximity to grab his clothes.
Obito sighs. "I'm just going to get food, Kashi, but I won't be long. I promise. When I get back we can... talk," he says.
Kakashi reluctantly releases Obito. He is still amazed at the solid feel of the other's body under his hands.
It's real. He's alive. He's here. This isn't a dream. His mind sings
Obito pulls away and looks seriously at Kakashi. "I promise I'll be back soon. Stay lying down," Obito orders.
Obito leaves in a Kamui vortex, leaving Kakashi wide-eyed behind.
Obito returns to the mountain cemetery and checks to see if there is any food there. There isn't.
There are only boxes of protein bars, which he takes five of, and he finds two canned foods that are already past their expiration date. Yuck. No good.
Obito puts the orange mask on his face, transforms into a random, forgettable face, and then teleports to a market in the Land of Rivers.
He walks around looking for a food stall or something, looks at the street carts, and thinks about what he should buy.
He decides to buy five meat-filled buns and some chicken soup. Recovering ninjas need to eat well (except Obito, he's the exception), and Kakashi usually eats so little.
Soup is certainly good for someone who's bedridden, and this should be enough for now. (He might have to go back and buy dinner later.)
Obito pays and grabs his bag of food, walks to an empty alley and carefully activates Kamui.
Back inside Kamui he sees Kakashi in the same place he left. Good.
"See, I brought food. And it didn't take me that long," he shows the bags.
"Maa. I see. Nice look. Is that the face you walk around with?" Kakashi asks, looking at the most boring disguise he's ever seen. Maybe there's some genjutsu compulsion for the face in front of him to be so... Abnormally uninteresting.
Obito raises an eyebrow. "Yeah, sometimes" - because obviously he's not going to go around parading around with his bare, disfigured face for everyone to see, judge, and remember later.
Obito undoes his transformation, takes off his orange striped mask, and moves a wooden table closer to Kakashi's bed and places the bags of food on top.
"I brought chicken soup and stuffed Baozi buns."
They unpack the food in silence and eat. Obito pushes more food to Kakashi because he's the one who needs to eat more, but Obito also takes and eats a stuffed dumpling (very tasty, by the way) just to have something else to distract himself while bearing the heavy weight of Kakashi's gaze on him.
They stare at each other for too long.
"So..." Kakashi breaks the silence. "Where are we?"
"Kamui"
"And where is this?"
"As far as I know, Kamui isn't anywhere in the Elemental Nations. Kamui is a private pocket dimension. The place is linked to the special manifestation of my Mangekyou Sharingan.", he says.
Kakashi blinks slowly. "Hm. A private pocket dimension, huh? Sounds cool. And how do you teleport?"
"It's Kamui's special ability."
"Hm. And how do you become intangible like a ghost?"
"That's another special ability of Kamui."
"Okay. How did you survive?"
"It could have been thanks to Kamui's intangibility, but I'm not sure. I woke up inside another cave because I was rescued and patched up by a decrepit Old Man older than dirt", Obito does not reveal Madara's name. Not yet.
"I spent many months in recovery without being able to move or get out. I also had no sense of time in there. But eventually I recovered enough and then I fought my way out," he adds.
Kakashi looks at him tiredly, eyes sad and disappointed
"But you didn't come back."
"No."
Kakashi asks in a whisper, "Why?"
"I saw you kill Rin," he confessed.
Kakashi gasps in horror, his eyes shaking with shock and fear.
"No..." He whispers, trembling and pale.
"Yes," Obito says. "One of the old man's servants who helped take care of me had gone outside the cave to observe the progress of the war. He knew I wanted news about you guys, and he kept an eye out. One day he came back to the cave and told me he had discovered you guys were in trouble. I freaked out, argued with the old man, and fought my way out of the cave. Zetsu helped me because I ended up hurting my patched arm."
"I ran as fast as I could, but as always I was too late. When I got there, your arm had already gone through her chest" – Obito says distantly, his heart beating painfully as he remembers that damn night.
Kakashi is silent, pale, panting, and tears in his eyes. "I didn't - I didn't... she jumped and -" Kakashi stammers
"I know that now," Obito says softly. "You didn't want to. Rin killed herself. She betrayed us by choosing this path and she abandoned us! She didn't trust you, she didn't trust our team. She didn't keep her part of her promise. She broke us without any consideration" – Obito says bitterly and furiously
After the anger, pain, and betrayal subsided, Obito was able to discover the truth about that night. Obito came to the terrible conclusion that perhaps Rin didn't care about them as much as she said she did.
"She chose the Village over us. She used you," he said bitterly.
Rin chose the Village over them. She broke her promise and used Kakashi in the worst possible way to carry out her nefarious plan without regard for the consequences she would leave for the living to deal with.
Obito never thought he could hate Rin. But he does. He hates this impostor Rin.
The Rin he knew would never give up like that. She would fight, she would keep persisting, she would trust in the team.
Instead, she sacrificed herself for a Village that didn't even say "thank you" or remember her name.
To make matters worse, Obito found out some time later that Konoha's upper echelons were unhappy about losing the opportunity to have a second Bijuu. They wanted to use it as a shitty political ploy to corner Kiri or something.
Obito hated them even more for their greed and thoughtlessness
"So you didn't come back because I killed her," Kakashi says brokenly.
You left because you didn't want to be around me. You left because you hated me. You left and left me behind – that's what Kakashi wanted to say but the lump in his throat wouldn't let him.
"Do you hate me?" – Kakashi asks. He needs to know.
"No. Not anymore. I have discovered the truth. The blindfold covering my eyes has been removed and I can see the true reality of this world. Now I have become aware of things. I see how you suffer too. I see how broken you are," Obito approaches and holds Kakashi's face in his hands and Kakashi grips him tightly back.
Obito immediately misses seeing the glow of their shared Sharingan, seeing the silvery glint of that striking hair.
The bare face in front of him doesn't look like Kakashi if it doesn't have his other striking features as well.
Obito whispers, their faces close together: "I see how broken and corrupt this world is. I see how it weighs on you. Unfortunately, I abandoned you to wander this hell alone. I'm so sorry for that, Kashi. I thought only of myself and my pain, my anger. I should have come back for you, for you. I should have taken you with me and protected you. I failed, again. Forgive me."
Kakashi holds him tightly, holding onto his clothes and part of his long hair. Tears silently stream down his face.
"I don't want to fail you anymore because I've already made enough mistakes. I don't want to abandon you. Stay with me Kakashi because I have a Plan to deal with this horrible system." He whispers, trying to convince Kakashi to stay with him.
"Help me stop the cycle of hate that dooms our world. Help me stop this damned system that insists on killing and destroying so many of us. No more child soldiers fighting and dying in the old men's war. No more heroes sabotaged and slandered to death by their ungrateful Villages. No more Rin jumping in front of the Chidori to protect an ungrateful Village that should actually be protecting its children, not using them as cannon fodder. No more team 7 falling apart." – he concludes.
kakashi breathes heavily
"Stay with me, Kakashi. I need you. I need you by my side, guiding me when I stray from my purpose, helping me not to make the same mistakes, be my partner, my other good eye." Obito asks, begs
"What do you say?"
Kakashi doesn't give a verbal response, but Obito doesn't need one as Kakashi grabs him by the neck and pulls him into a desperate kiss that catches him off guard.
Oh
Hook, line and sinker
As the initial shock of the unexpected kiss wears off, Obito feels euphoria and joy bubbling up inside him. He immediately grabs Kakashi back, his hand reaching up to grab a handful of hair from the back of the Hatake's head.
Without ceremony, Obito sticks his tongue inside the other's mouth.
Kakashi is startled and moans and Obito swallows his moans and continues attacking his mouth.
Their kiss is sloppy as neither of them can find a rhythm together, but Obito doesn't care. He continues thrusting his tongue into Kakashi's mouth when Kakashi starts to reciprocate in kind, so Obito wastes no time in sucking on his tongue.
Kakashi moans again and Obito feels a shiver of pleasure making his cock twitch and begin to harden.
Damn that's good.
Kakashi is no longer in control of his own body. He simply acted without thinking and grabbed Obito. He couldn't resist. Having Obito so close like that, whispering in his ear, asking them to be together, saying all those things, asking to fight against the system... It was too much.
Kakashi was dizzy and completely surrounded by the Uchiha's scent — clove smoke and eucalyptus wood. The scent of male arousal also filled his nose, catching him off guard and making his belly tighten with desire.
The Uchiha's presence was so overwhelming around Kakashi that there was no room to think about anything else. There was only the other man's presence to be felt, firm hands holding his face, husky voice whispering in his ear, hot, panting breath on his face. It was too much.
Screw everything! Screw the emotional turmoil, screw the questions Kakashi wanted to ask but didn't, screw the doubts about this "plan to destroy the system" that he knew nothing about. Any other logical thought Kakashi should have had was gone.
The tongue inside his mouth was demanding and relentless, hard to keep up with. Kakashi had never kissed like this before. He was being swallowed whole and it felt wonderful and hot.
Normally Kakashi would hate the thought of getting involved in this mess of saliva, but with Obito it felt good. Because this was Obito and that was why it felt so warm and good.
Kakashi moaned and could only keep moaning and Obito didn't move away an inch.
Kakashi was running out of breath, flushed, panting and his hardened penis was starting to throb.
"Obito," he moaned.
"Stay with me Kakashi," Obito asked breathlessly
"Yes."
"Let's stop the cycle of hell together."
"Yes."
"We will be free, happy and fulfilled in Mugen Tsukuyomi. We will all be there together: you, me, Rin, your father."
"Yes! I will stay. I will stay. I will help you," he promised feverishly and breathlessly
"until the end?"
"Yes. Until the end. Forever" – he really means it.
"Okay. It's forever then", Obito smiles and resumes the kiss
Kisses trail down his neck and an unpleasant tug hurts his arm. Kakashi pulls his arm and the IV stand falls with a loud thud, making them stop.
Obito walks away, being the first to regain some composure when he remembers that Kakashi is recovering from his torture injuries.
"I think we got a little carried away." Obito smiles a mischievous smile at Kakashi's flushed face, and Kakashi wants to grab Obito by the hair and kiss him again.
Laughing, Obito says, "I promise we'll come back to this later, if you still want. But we should wait for you to get better first."
Kakashi chokes in disbelief at the promise of more making out in the future