Copper and ozone
One too many solo missions had left Kakashi injured enough that they stuck him on guard rotation. He didn’t much like guard rotation to be honest. It left altogether too much time to think, and that was never a good thing. There were too many dark places for his mind to wander, and wander it did.
In the dead hours of the morning he found his thoughts drifting back to that day, almost six months ago now, when an enemy, a stranger, a friend, had saved his life. Six months and he’d learnt to fight without depth perception, and be cautious of medics, and use one of the most feared bloodline abilities in the world, and none of that meant half as much as those few hours he’d spent dying in a cave with a boy that should have been his enemy. When an enemy had become a human being and the world had stopped making sense, if it ever really had.
He shook away the haze of thought. Why was he thinking of that now? He paced the corridors of the facility, uncomfortable with the directions his mind had been taking. He wasn’t sure what the place was for exactly. Some kind of holding facility he thought. It was need to know and as far as his bosses were concerned Kakashi didn’t. Curiosity had always been Kakashi’s greatest weakness.
He was alone on the ghost shift, so it wasn’t like anyone would know if he just had a quick look around. If secrecy had really been vital they wouldn’t have left him unsupervised. Besides, he needed something to distract himself.
He moved, silent as a shadow to the prisoner level, and was surprised to find it so empty. There were dozens of holding cells, none of them occupied. No, he corrected himself after looking again. There was one occupied at the very end, by a small huddle of miserable looking Kunoichi. She didn’t look like much to be honest. Certainly not worth a whole facility plus guards to contain her. Still appearances could be deceiving. He moved a little closer. Brown hair, brown eyes, purple marks on her face. Nothing immediately noticeable but he couldn’t quite shake the feeling he’d seen her somewhere before. She must have heard something because she called out.
“Who’s there? Come back for more already you bastards?” Kakashi decided to make a hasty retreat. It wouldn’t do to get caught where he shouldn’t be.
She was nothing to him, a momentary encounter with an unremarkable enemy ninja, and yet still there was something familiar about her. It nagged at him, preyed on his thoughts for the whole of the following day, and so when he returned for his next shift he found himself back in the shadows of the detention levels. It was a stupid risk but he hated not knowing. So he lurked, well out of the prisoner’s line of sight and tried to work out where he had seen her before. He had been more cautious in his approach this time so he hadn’t expected her to pick up on his presence.
“I know you’re there you know.” He froze in shock. “I did wonder if I was imagining things that first time, but here you are again. I knew I heard something. Now if you were supposed to be here you wouldn’t have run off like that the first time so I have to assume you were poking your nose where it doesn’t belong. What I can’t figure out is why you came back again.” Kakashi didn’t move a muscle. The kunoichi continued talking and really no-one in her position should be able to sound so put upon. “Come out and talk to me face to face. Otherwise I’ll let my official jailors know someone was poking around.” Kakashi was reluctantly impressed. He stepped out of the shadows in front of her cage, and decided to go on the offensive.
“Why do I recognise you?” He demanded, and he almost missed the way her eyes widened slightly in surprise.
“That’s why you came back?” She said, in slight disbelief. “It could be from anywhere. Maybe we were on different sides of a fight, maybe we crossed paths on a mission, hell maybe we met at the chunin exams. You risked getting in serious trouble just because you couldn’t figure out where you’d seen me before.” Ok so when she put it like that it did sound a little stupid, but still there was something else there, and he needed to know.
“What’s your name?” He asked, and wondered if he wanted an answer.
“Nohara Rin.” She answered and the pieces fell together. He ran then. Ran, and didn’t stop until he’d reached his assigned patrol beat. He completed his shift on autopilot and returned home with his mind still a whirl of panic. A dead man’s voice echoed through his thoughts.
“Rin. Nohara Rin. My teammate… she’s kind… promise me you’ll protect her” Kakashi had promised. He had made a promise to a dying man, on his honour, on the honour of his name. People had killed themselves to safeguard the honour of their family name. He refused to think of Tousan cold and still and so much blood on the blade of the family sword and the floor of the family home, blood of the only family he had left. Honour was a thing made of blood and duty and without it men were less than animals. Kakashi had promised Obito, a dying enemy, a dying friend, that he would protect Nohara Rin.
Fuck, what a mess. And it was a mess of his own making. He’d known it was a foolish promise to make even as he’d made it. He’d done it anyway.
He stared out the window at the village he’d signed his life away to. That he’d fought for, killed for, bled for. At the mist shrouded rooftops and the interlocking network of streets and canals that was uniquely Kiri. This was his village, his home, and even if the taste of fear grew thicker on the air with each passing day, even if mothers no longer let their children play in the streets and people hurried from place to place without catching each other’s eyes, even if clan after clan paid the price for the Mizukage’s madness, it was his home. Kiri was his village and to keep his promise he would have to betray it.
It was too much to ask. Obito had asked him to do what he could, and this he could not do. Loyalty was made of blood and duty too, and for a ninja, the village was everything. He wouldn’t do it. But still his mind betrayed him, reminded him of the sound of Obito’s voice in the dark, of not wanting to die alone, of an enemy that had turned out to be just the same as him, and a part of him wondered. If loyalty to your village was everything, why did that moment matter so much?
The next day he started his shift with heart and soul still divided. He didn’t visit Rin wasn’t ready to face her. Wasn’t ready to choose.
On the fourth day time ran out, for fear and doubt. No more time to weigh up his options, all that was left was to take a leap of faith. On the fourth day he found out exactly what his village planned to do to Rin, and it was wrong.
He’d known something was wrong the moment he’d arrived. The whole facility stank of copper and ozone, and there was enough power in the place to make all his hairs stand on end. He found Rin huddled in the corner of her cell, the closer he got to her the stronger the scent got, and he’d had a very bad feeling. He’d come close to her cell and her voice was raw and vicious in a way it had never been before.
“What do you want?” She’d snarled and stood up, her missing clothes revealing the seals painted all over her body. Kakashi was no sealing expert, but he knew enough to figure out what those seals did. They’d turned her into a jinchuriki, and an unstable one at that and his mind turned blank at the sheer insane scale of the plan. It was brilliant, and unspeakable and wrong, and Kakashi made his choice.
“I’m going to get you out of here.” She had laughed at that, a bitter hollow kind of laugh.
“Yeah I’m sure you will. Right back to Konoha, just in time for the monster you put inside me to destroy everything I love. I’d die first.”
“No. I’m going to get you out of here, and find a seal master to stabilise you, and get you home when you’re no longer a danger.” She stared at him as if he’d gone mad. Maybe he had.
“You expect me to believe you’d betray your own village to rescue me? Nice try.”
“Yes.” And something in Kakashi’s tone must have given her pause because the bitter cynicism was lessened when she next spoke.
“Why.” There was cynicism there, but also a desperate hope, and Kakashi knew she’d let him help her.
“Does it matter?” He asked, as he unlocked the door of her cell.
“Maybe. But we can talk later.” Kakashi was grateful for the reprieve.
…
As they made their escape Kakashi felt more and more like a passenger behind his own eyes. The shock of what he had done had left him utterly numb inside and he experienced the whole thing as a series of simple steps driven by survival training. Supplies, food, weapons, clothes for Rin, staying in the shadows to avoid raising the alarm, stealing a messenger hawk from the aviary in the hope that Rin could get backup from Konoha, disguising themselves as hunter nin to sneak out of the village, running, running, running, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and Kiri before dawn came and the alarm was raised. It wasn’t until both of them finally collapsed from exhaustion that the full force of his decision hit him.
…
“You never told me your name.” Rin said. The two of them were sitting in a well camouflaged campsite. Rin was writing a letter to try and send to Konoha, while Kakashi had a very quiet breakdown. Rin’s question jolted him out of his panic slightly, casting his mind back he realised she was right. He never did get around to giving her his name.
“Hatake Kakashi, jounin.”
“Kakashi huh?” She asked. He just nodded. They were both silent for a while, but Rin kept on looking at him as though she wanted to ask something. Kakashi lost patience.
“Whatever it is just ask.” He sighed.
“Why did you help me?”
“I made a promise. I chose to keep it.” Whatever she had been expecting it wasn’t that and the confusion showed in her eyes.
“A promise?” It was clear to Kakashi that she was trying to imagine what kind of promise could have led to this.
“I promised a dying man that I would do whatever I could to protect Nohara Rin.” There was no hiding the dark humour in his voice as he said that. “I guess the debt came due.” Rin looked at him sharply.
“What debt? What kind of debt could drive you to betray your own village.”
“The only kind that really matters of course. Life and death and blood.” He slowly lifted his headband as he spoke, “Nearly six months ago, I nearly died in the dark alone. Only I wasn’t alone, there was someone else trapped under all that rock with me. Someone who should have been an enemy, but when the god of death is breathing down your neck such things seem so much less important. There was someone else there, and we should have died in the dark together, but instead he chose to save my life. He saved my life and asked me to do anything I could to protect you.” He ignored the growing expression of horror on her face as he opened the sharingan eye. “His name was Uchiha Obito.”
“That’s impossible.” She whispered.
“You know it isn’t.” He replied.
“How do I know you aren’t lying?” She demanded.
“Where else would I have got the eye?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you stole it.” She was on the edge of tears.
“He loved you, you know.” Kakashi whispered softly, “More than anything.” She looked down and away.
“I know. I knew. I should have said something but…” She trailed off. Kakashi connected the dots.
“You didn’t love him?” She turned on him viciously then.
“Of course I loved him. He was my best friend. I just… didn’t love him the way he loved me.”
“He wouldn’t have loved you any less if you’d told him that you know.” Somehow Kakashi felt it needed saying. The way Obito spoke about her, he knew it was the truth.
“I know.” She smiled softly with tears in her eyes. “That’s what made him Obito. He never stopped caring about people.” They sat in silence for a while, until Kakashi sent Rin to get some sleep while he kept watch.
…
The next few days were a haze of fear and desperation. Running and hiding, and covering their tracks on too little sleep, and too little food, with the hunter nins on their trail. Rin had sent off the messenger hawk that night, and if they were very, very lucky there would be backup when they reached Konoha’s territory. They just had to get there. It would have been three days travel at a straight run, but the hunter nin weren’t stupid, and Kakashi and Rin had already spent six doubling back, and detouring, and trying desperately to shake their pursuers in the wildlands of Kiri. Kakashi was still wounded, and Rin’s seal was wearing ever thinner with each passing day. The time spent on the run was starting to have an effect, and they were both worn ragged at the edges, but still there was a cleanness to it, a closeness, that they’d both been missing.
“Tell me something about yourself”, Rin spoke, and it was only in that moment that he realised that it was the first thing either of them had said in days. They’d both been running on fumes and animal survival instincts and somehow words hadn’t seemed important to Kakashi. It was only when Rin finally used them that he fully registered their absence.
They were sitting in yet another hastily erected campsite, trying to gather their strength. They hadn’t dared light a fire but there was shelter, Kakashi had broken out a packet of ration bars, and Rin had wrapped the blanket around both of them. It was as close to luxury as they could get. Kakashi took awhile to answer, unsure exactly what she wanted from him.
“Well I’m a jounin. I specialise in lightning ninjutsu. They call me a prodigy. I was actually under consideration for Anbu before all this happened…” Rin rolled her eyes.
“No, no, no. You’re telling me about your ninja skills. I want to know about you. I don’t want to know about the ninja that stood guard over my cell, I want to know about the man who chose to save my life.”
“I don’t understand what you want from me.”
“Tell me about your hobbies, your friends, your favourite food. I don’t care. Just something that’s you.” He just looked at her blankly.
“Hobbies?”
“Yeah. What do you do in your free time?”
“Not much. Sometimes I train, if I think I can avoid drawing attention to myself.” Kakashi answered. Rin sighed in exasperation.
“Training is not a hobby. I mean something you do for fun. Something that’s not related to being a ninja.”
“I read a book once.” Kakashi tried, “It was actually quite good.”
“Yes. That’s what I’m talking about, what was it called?”
“Icha Icha seduction.” She stared at him in disbelief before shrugging.
“Well, I guess it’s not training.”
After that the silence was broken. They still didn’t talk much, with most of their energy taken up trying to keep one step ahead of their pursuers, but in quiet moments, when they stopped to eat, or rest, or catch their breath they no longer sat in awkward silence. Here and there, in bits and pieces they got to know one another. An offhand comment revealing Rin’s love of animals, that led into talking about Kakashi’s ninken, another day of complaining about ration bars that revealed Kakashi’s preference for eggplant, and Rin’s passion for dango, little things that passed the time. And then, as time passed and strangers became friends, things that weren’t so little, Kakashi’s father’s suicide, the slow poison that killed Rin’s mother, Kakashi’s graduation exam, the way Rin’s academy class had been slowly whittled down until she was one of the only two left, until they were telling each other things that they’d never dared tell anyone. About Obito, about themselves, about how Rin wanted children one day but would never let any child of hers become a ninja, about how Kakashi had sometimes wished he could kill his own superior officers instead of the enemy, about how Obito’s death had made them both question the hidden village system, heart and soul. Somehow, over the weeks they spent running through the backwoods of Kiri, Rin had become the closest friend Kakashi had ever had.
Obito had been right, she was kind. But she was more than that, she was fierce, and determined, and optimistic in a way no ninja had a right to be. Time was running out though. They both knew it. Rin’s seal was growing weaker by the day, by the hour, and the sickly sweet, metallic copper and ozone scent that hung in the air around her was growing ever stronger. Konoha should have sent a sealing master to meet them at the border but that would only help if they could make it in time.
They had just crossed the border when the hunter nin caught up with them. They could run no further, and backup was nowhere to be seen. All that was left to do, was fight. Maybe they’d get lucky, maybe backup would arrive, or the two of them might damage their pursuers enough to escape. Probably not though. Kakashi was still running battleplans through his head when Rin grabbed him, and kissed him lightly over the mask.
“If we’re going to die here, we might as well have one last happy memory to take with us.” she grinned before falling into place behind Kakashi as their enemy arrived.
…
It was easier than Kakashi could have imagined, to turn on his own comrades for the sake of an enemy ninja. Kirin nin were not friends, couldn’t afford to be friends, whereas somehow, he and Rin were friends. Somehow he’d begun to care about this enemy kunoichi, and it made it terrifyingly easy to strike at his own former comrades with intent to kill. After all he thought with a bleak sort of humour it wasn’t exactly the first time he’d killed a comrade, his thoughts flickered back to his graduation exam, a ten year old’s blood on five year old hands and all his teachers so proud.
It was so easy to fight them, but winning was another matter entirely. Kakashi might have been a genius but there were so many, more than he could fight and with Rin’s seal hanging together by thread she couldn’t help him. Still there was one move no-one had seen him use because using it required exposing the sharingan he was not supposed to have. He lifted his headband and gathered lightning in his fist.
Time ran out. He felt it when Rin’s seal snapped and the monster started to break free, the whole clearing choking with the sweet metal scent, and power of it. He felt it and saw Rin jump in the path of his strike. There was nothing but deep resolve in her eyes.
The rest of the fight was a blur, he remembered fighting, he remembered killing some of the hunter nin, he remembered collapsing from chakra exhaustion, but no specifics. He woke up in a bloody clearing, with the bodies of Rin and the hunter nin strewn around like broken toys, and he felt utterly numb. He just sat there for a while, beside Rin, still covered in blood and wondered what to do next. He’d failed, completely and utterly. He’d betrayed his village and turned his back on everything he’d ever known, to keep a promise, to protect Rin. And he admitted to himself silently it was worse than that. She’d been his friend, more than anyone else ever had been and she’d used him to kill herself. Knowing why didn’t make it easier. It was still his fault and his failure, maybe if he’d broken her out sooner he could have stopped all this. Now she was dead, and he didn’t know what to do.
Konoha’s Yellow Flash showed up hours later, too late, too late. He looked at the scene, at the dead bodies, at Kakashi, staring blankly into space with Rin’s head in his lap.
“Are you Kakashi?” He’d asked, not unkindly. And when Kakashi had nodded, he’d continued. “Rin spoke about you in her letter. She said you rescued her.”
“For all the good it did her.” Kakashi muttered.
“But you tried. And I suspect you sacrificed a great deal to do so.” Rin’s teacher said softly. “I wish things had turned out differently, I wish I’d got here in time to save her. You tried though, and that means a lot, Rin spoke on your behalf in her letter and there’s a place for you in Konoha if you come with me now.” He held out his hand. Kakashi took it. He had nowhere else to go.