Uzumaki Flavored Confusion
Rin stood on a branch and sighed, watching the morose figure standing ram-rod straight in front of the Memorial Stone, right where she'd known he would be. With a tiny burst of chakra she was slicing through the air and landed on the edge of the clearing, deliberately snapping a twig to alert him to her presence as she approached.
"Kakashi-kun, you missed another meeting. How long have you been here?"
He didn't so much as twitch and she reached out to grab his wrist, noting hold cold and clammy it felt, and realized that the answer was probably 'a long time'. She frowned sadly and took the blanket in her arms and unfurled it with a snap, sliding it over Kakashi's shoulders. His only reaction was to grab an edge with a white-knuckled fist.
"Minato-sensei won't say anything, but I know he's worried. Kushina-san too, she says you haven't been home for three days now. Have you been here the whole time? We have a mission tomorrow, you know. You should get some sleep." She paused, but still he said nothing. "I'm worried too, you know. I- I miss him too and I kind of wanted to talk about it. Sensei's so busy now that he's Hokage, and with the baby on the way Kushina-san's got enough stress as there is so I was hoping…"
Again he didn't answer, but she saw his eye twitch slightly so she went on, too heart-sore to care that he didn't seem to be paying attention. She had to get this off her chest, had to talk to someone. "I… I never noticed what a big part of my life he was until he was gone. He was… he was just always there, you know? My best friend, even back in the Academy, though I don't think I ever told him that. He was just so nice, all the time, always bringing me cool stuff he found, like a bird's nest he picked up when he was walking around or a ribbon he found snagged on a branch, and he always seemed to have candy on him, did you ever notice that? I wonder where he got it all… and he always gave me half without me having to ask. And when it rained and I forgot my umbrella, I'd find his in my bag and he'd be nowhere in sight so I couldn't give it back to him or ask if we could share. He'd listen whenever I had a problem and never brushed me off or said I was being silly. Did you know he's the reason I decided to be a medic-nin? The reason I became a shinobi at all, actually. The Academy sensei told me I wouldn't make it as a shinobi if I couldn't even kill the animals when we did outdoors survival exercises, and I was depressed because I thought they might be right. I became a shinobi because I wanted to help people, but being one meant I'd have to hurt them and I didn't think I could do that. Obito-kun found me when I was crying and he listened to me, then told me that I'd make a great medic-nin, that it was a good thing to care so much about people and… and now he's gone. He's gone and I miss him so much and the way he died… it was just so awful! And even when he was dying he was always thinking about other people, and it's just like him to die sacrificing himself for someone else. Just like him…"
About halfway through she'd started crying- again- that horrible ache in her chest making her feel like the helpless damsel in distress she'd worked so hard not to be. She'd been useless and worse than useless, she'd been a liability. She hadn't even sensed the enemy that'd come up behind her before they knocked her unconscious, never realized she'd been in a genjutsu even when it was so obvious and now Obito is dead. Her best friend is dead because she was weak, and now her team is in shambles because even though it was supposed to be her job, as the kunoichi of the team, Obito had been the glue that held them all together, the heart of team Minato, and it's so quiet without him. She doesn't know what to say now, when she's with Kakashi-san or Minato-sensei. Doesn't know what to say when Obito's gone and it's her fault, and she knows they know it too, and she knows they blame her. At the very least they're disappointed in her, because she failed them. Failed her team, when she's supposed to watch out for them, supposed to heal them and fix them up and bring them home.
She doesn't know what to do. What is she supposed to do? She… she can't let something like that happen again, she can't be helpless again, but how can she change that? Always, always she's been weak, physically inadequate with miniscule chakra reserves, the only thing she's ever had going for her was her chakra control so she capitalized on it in becoming a medic-nin. It was the perfect role for her. Medic-nin are a valuable commodity to shinobi and more in line with her ideals than any other specialization, and she was content with that. She gotten complacent and hadn't sought to improve herself, so all this time she's been stagnating where her boys were forging on ahead with the future in mind, always looking for ways to improve themselves.
She has nightmares about it almost every night. She sees Obito, pinned under those boulders, blood pooling out underneath him, staining the ground black. She sees glazed eyes, almost delirious in pain, and she remembers pouring her chakra into him, hands shaking, praying, praying so hard that somehow he'll be okay. That moment when she realizes she can't save him, that he's going to die and there's nothing she can do but try to ease his pain, and then to fulfill his final request. And his voice, so cheerful even though he's fighting to speak through the pain, even though he's terrified and he's drowning in his own blood because one of his ribs punctured his crushed lung, faking cheerfulness to make them feel better and that's what he's always done, put others before himself no matter the sacrifice.
It can't happen again. She can't survive something like that again, so she has to get strong. But how? She doesn't have any special jutsu handed down from a clan or shinobi parents. She doesn't have any particular strengths she can hone beyond her chakra control, and medical ninjutsu just aren't going to cut it if she wants to be able to protect her teammates, her friends, her family. Maybe… maybe Sensei will know? But… but she doesn't know if she can face him. Not now, not when the grief is still so fresh, not when just seeing his face fills her with shame and self-loathing.
Lost in her grief, she doesn't know how long she stood there, silently crying, before it all became too much and she turned to leave before she could fall to pieces. But then, when she's right at the edges of the clearing, Kakashi says something…
"He loved you, you know."
…and she freezes, her mind stumbling over the words, trying to make sense of them, before spinning around to face him again.
"What? What do you mean?"
He doesn't move, in the exact same position he's probably been in for days, and he repeats himself, voice as monotone and emotionless as it is when he's giving a report to the Hokage. "Obito, he was in love with you."
"No." she breathes, disbelieving, her heart pounding in her ears and a sinking feeling in her stomach like someone had just thrown her off of the Hokage Tower. "No, that can't be right." Could it? "He- he was my best friend, he didn't-" But the candies, the umbrella, the way he was always there, inviting her to spend time with him, that time he'd blushed and stammered when she'd shown up at a festival in a kimono, all the times she'd caught him staring at her…
"No." she says again, but this time it's a sob. God, it was so obvious, how did she never see, never notice…? All those times she talked to him about Kakashi, how had he felt? Listening to her rant on and on about another guy and then thanking him for being such a great friend… no wonder he was always fighting with Kakashi! Kami, she was horrible to him! Some best friend she is, that she never even looked hard enough to notice! What else had she missed? Had she even known him at all?
They're coming for her. She doesn't know why, doesn't understand, but they slipped up when they captured her, mentioned bijuu and jinchuriki, and she's so, so scared. Why her? She isn't anything special, she's proven that time and time again.
Is this how Obito felt?
There's no way out of this. They're surrounded, and even Kakashi can't fight off this many. They're going to take her and make her into a weapon against her own country. Jinchuriki. She saw one fight during the war, she remembered the devastation they'd wrecked on the battlefield, men and women torn into unrecognizable pieces, limbs flying, the landscape itself changing, pockmarked with giant craters. If they let one loose in Konoha, an uncontrolled jinchuriki… she could level the village.
It's her or her village. Her or Kakashi, except that she never had a chance to begin with.
She's not making it out of this, but Kakashi? If he doesn't have to cover for her he can move faster, has a higher chance of breaking through and making it out of this alive. They might let him go, since he's not their target.
Is this how Obito felt? She's so scared, she doesn't want to die, but… but it would be worth it if Kakashi survived, if her ojiisan and obaasan, Minato-sensei and Kushina-san and their baby, if everyone she loves is safe, then it would be worth it. Because she couldn't live with herself if she let any of them die, like she had Obito.
Obito…
It's an easy choice to make. A hand goes to her weapons pouch and pulls out a kunai, but she can't do it. Her hand is shaking too hard, and every time she tells herself to move, to just do it, she… can't. Coward! She's such a coward! She's already made her choice, so why can't she just…do it?
'I don't want to die. I really just… I don't want to die!'
"Kakashi… I need you to kill me."
Chakra is the first thing that registers. By the frequency and the low hum that always makes his ears itch, he identifies it as healing chakra. Before his mind even registers the threat his hand catches the wrist of the unknown medic, his subconscious remembering the damage a hostile medic can do.
Then the chakra flickers slightly in the identifying pattern unique to Konoha and his grip relaxes- again subconsciously- before his sluggish mind can even begin to register the concept of danger or allies.
"Hatake-san." says a calm, professional voice in the tone a superior would use when ordering their subordinates to report. He instinctively tries to snap to attention but aborts the attempt when his whole body complains. The jarring motion helps to get the cogs turning in his head and he sits up gingerly, a hand on his back helping him upright and he opens his eyes, wincing at the brightness, and blinks incomprehensibly at the sight that greets him.
Bodies. Bodies and blood and thin wisps of pale grey smoke drifting up from blackened craters of what was obviously the remains of a katon jutsu or exploding tags. 'Mission? 'he wonders groggily, reaching up to rub at his eyes and ineffectively ameliorate his throbbing headache, a symptom of his chakra depletion, he recognizes. Yes, yes, there was a mission with Rin to… Kumo? No, it was Iwa. A low level escort mission and they went alone because a chunin and a jounin were more than enough. Was there… was there trouble? Something to account for the macabre scene in front of him? That's the only thing that makes sense… but… no… no, that wasn't….
Rin!
No. No, no, no, no, no! They were ambushed on their way back and-
They're surrounded and it doesn't look good. He knows he probably won't make it out of this alive but he doesn't care, not if he can protect Rin. He doesn't care, because this means he can see Obito again. Then there's an enemy running towards him and he readies his Chidori with a shrill shriek of dancing chakra and his aim is true. There's a split second of satisfaction and then the air wavers and…
There's so.
Much.
Blood.
Heart pounding, his head whips to the side before he can stop himself, seeking the small, still form of the teammate he failed, failed, IdiditagainohgodnowhyIpromised, I promised him and…
And there she is, perfectly fine, her unblemished chest rising and falling, breathing and kami how is this possible? He remembers, he remembers the wet squelch of her chest giving way beneath his hand as he tore through her and a sad smile beneath already lifeless eyes and blood, her blood, everywhere….
But she's alive. She's alive without so much a tear in her clothing to indicate that his memories are anything more than a dream and it doesn't make sense because he knows implanted memories and how they feel, and his Sharingan eye would dispel an ordinary mind-altering jutsu automatically, and even if it was just a delusion it doesn't explain the bodies strewn about because there was just no way they could've possibly killed them all.
In his distress his hands clench instinctively over hard plastic that also has no place here. He looks down and for the first time in his life, he believes.
Kakashi's never been a religious person. Few shinobi are or remain that way after long term exposure to the shinobi lifestyle, because it's hard to believe in a god when you're killing people for money, and harder still to keep believing and live knowing what awaits you when you die. Kakashi has never believed in the miracles god has been rumored to produce, but looking down at those battered, innocuous orange goggles he knows that somehow, some way, Obito saved them. He believes it even though it's impossible, even though it's ridiculous, even as his mind plays over the scene of his death once again and tells him that he couldn't have survived injuries like those. He believes, because for the first time in his life logic has failed him.