Scar Tissue

Chapter Four

Kakashi slept for two days, waking blearily every four hours to see a medic by his bedside, sometimes humming, sometimes scarred, always reinforcing chakra-healing seals. He suspected they were enforcing sleep, but was too tired to care.

Occasionally he felt the need to point out that he hadn't drained *that* much chakra. He always slipped into dreams before that was possible.

Old dreams. Dreams of Obito and Ren, before he had died and she had been mutilated. Dreams that were one part memory and one part hope. Dreams that were hallucinations or memories of hallucinations. And one dream that was recent memory, Obito scarred and silver-haired, a dirty strip of cloth wrapped around his face to hide the empty eyesocket.

They sat on a hilltop, green with grass and speckled yellow with daisies. Around them the landscape was ash and char, and very faintly Kakashi could smell smoke and fox-musk.

"You like this place, you know," Obito said, twirling a yellow flower. "You're always bringing us here."

Kakashi breathed and felt the pain of a broken rib. He winced and began to put a hand over it, hovering centimeters away. "Don't know why," he muttered, and wondered why he was seventeen and Obito was fully grown. Now that just wasn't fair.

Obito glanced around, leaning back on his scarred hand. The arm twisted slightly, painful-looking, and the missing ring finger vanished into the long grass. "What is this place?"

Kakashi looked around again. A blackened tree stump stood not far away, and for a moment he caught the nightmare image of a fellow shinobi impaled on a branch. Then it was gone. "A memory," he said before he thought, and the hint of what it had been vanished.

"Of what?"

He shrugged. "I don't remember." He suspected it was better that way. There were things he didn't want to remember, if he didn't have to.

The world wobbled.

"Did you feel that?" Kakashi asked, frowning.

Obito tensed. He looked around suspiciously, expression ill. "You're waking up."

"What?" Kakashi stared. "Why would you think that?"

Obito tossed the flower aside, glaring impotently at the grass. "You always do wake up. You always have to leave. You have a life."

Kakashi would have protested--but then he woke up. He lay in the hospital bed for a long time, staring at a plain white ceiling, trying not to let the smell of antiseptic and burned sage sting his nose. Slowly, he turned his head and looked at the ninja standing shadow-quiet in the corner. "Ibiki," Kakashi croaked.

Ibiki didn't move. "What did you bring us?" he asked, as if it was simply a continuation of an earlier conversation. It might have been. Things were fuzzy.

Kakashi had to think about it for a bit. Then his breath caught. "Obito. Uchiha Obito. He's alive."

"Obito was listed killed in combat almost seventeen years ago," Ibiki said baldly. "You were there."

Kakashi's eyes closed. A headache rose, and nausea, and he remembered why it wasn't good to drain your chakra down to the bare bones. "We weren't there. None of us. Not the Fourth or Rin or me. We saw the avalanche, and we assumed . . . " He kept his eyes closed, hurting for what he couldn't change. "We assumed he died. But we didn't stay to check." His eyes opened again, one black one red, and he summoned courage before turning to Ibiki. "How is he?"

Ibiki was quiet. Then he stepped forward, dropping the inquisitor persona like someone else might drop a robe. "Still unconscious." He hesitated, then added, "He may not regain consciousness. His chakra levels were almost gone when you brought him in. Shizune says they were so low for so long, that . . ."

Kakashi just nodded. He knew. It happened, sometimes, when a ninja performed an act outside their ability. Sometimes they could crawl back from the brink. Other times, especially if they were hurt mentally or emotionally, they just slipped quietly away. "The Rock ninja might come for him," Kakashi warned, too tired to put much concern in it.

"We sent them away. This is a major diplomatic problem, you know. Peace with Earth is tenuous, at best, and now we find they've been holding one of our shinobi hostage for sixteen years . . ." Ibiki sighed and glowered as only someone scar-ridden could do.

Kakashi smiled slightly. "So you believe it's Obito."

"We ran tests." Ibiki dragged a chair over, the legs scrabbling on the linoleum, and sat spraddle-legged.

Kakashi took a deep, bracing breath, then pushed himself to a sitting position. His whole body felt sore. "He'll wake up," he said, just to hear the words in the quiet of the room.

Ibiki was silent. Then, "It might be better if he doesn't, you know. He knows you found him. He knows he's safe. He can die peacefully, at home."

Kakashi winced. "He'll wake up," he said again, stubbornly.

"He'll never be a ninja."

Kakashi slanted a glare at Ibiki, then caught sight of his mask and hitai-ate on the nightstand. "Hand me those, would you?" he muttered, and dragged them on when he had them. The world dimmed, chakra lines fading and patterns disappearing once the Sharingan was covered. "What are we going to say to Earth?"

Ibiki rubbed his scars, pulling them this way and that. "I think the official position is that they didn't know he was there and as an apology, they're sending us goods. Tsunade seems to be going along with it."

Kakashi turned and stared. "They used him as a test subject for almost seventeen years," he said slowly.

"You want us to go back to war over this?" Ibiki snapped. "Because further weakening our village and killing dozens more shinobi will fix it?"

Kakashi backed off, fuming but knowing Ibiki was right. It wasn't fair, but it was right.

"Just pray he doesn't wake up," Ibiki muttered.

Kakashi stared at his hands, and saw Obito's; twisted, finger missing, blades of grass prickling up around them and the sun turning his pale skin pink. "He will," he murmured.

**

"At least we can fix things while he's unconscious," the medic ninja said, standing with Kakashi and watching as a team of doctors broke and re-set Obito's leg, holding brittle bones in place with metal pins.

"Will that work?" Kakashi asked, glad his mask hid his cringe. He could see the rerouted chakra patterns fighting it, could see how they wouldn't easily carry energy to the bones to encourage healing.

"Not perfectly," the medic ninja said cautiously. "We'll do what we can. When the injuries are old . . ."

Kakashi knew. The medics and doctors could work miracles when the wounds were recent. When they were old and scarred, when the tissue had already died or healed badly, and especially when the chakra refused to support the healing, it made things difficult--and sometimes impossible.

Bone cracked as metal instruments snapped it, and Kakashi turned away. He supposed that, for this, he should be glad Obito was still unconscious.

He just really wished the man would wake up.

**

"They tell me you're dying." Kakashi stood above Obito, hands planted on his hips, glaring through two dark eyes.

Obito looked up at him and smiled. The scars twisted his mouth, so his grin was bigger on one side. Both eyes were Sharingan.

"And give me my damn eye back!" Kakashi snapped. "Your eye!" He shook his head, flustered. "Whatever! Just give it back!"

Obito laughed softly. "I think this is a graveyard," he said, gesturing at the grassy knoll surrounded by dead forest. "Symbolic, I'm sure."

Kakashi looked around, uncomfortable. He really didn't want Obito dissecting his dreams. "I think I liked you better when you were dead," he muttered, and heard his voice crack. Crap, was he going through *puberty* again? It was bad enough the first time!

Obito laughed again.

Looking down at Obito, Kakashi realized that his ribs weren't broken. He took a deep breath, pain-free, and glared. "Look, dead-last," he snapped, and his voice was deeper. "You can sit here and try to figure out my dreams all you want, but if you die--"

"What?" Obito said, his eyes gone sharp. "You'll what?"

Kakashi pulled back, put his hands in his pockets, affected a slouch. "Nothing. You'll have proven you never were enough to keep up with the rest of us." It was cold, and it was calculated, and he'd have done it again if it got Obito out of his head and into his own body.

It wasn't just a dream. He knew it, deep down, knew they had never been just dreams. Knew that while he had been living, the only life Obito had was this.

Obito glared up. The eye was gone, back in Kakashi's head where it belonged.

"You're an asshole," Obito snapped. "Just like you were seventeen years ago."

"Sixteen," Kakashi corrected mildly. "We have another three months before it's seventeen."

Obito stood, his leg nearly collapsing out from under him, and marched down the hill, into the burned ruin of the forest. He fell three times before he hit the first charred stub of tree. Kakashi didn’t help him.

**

He woke in pain. Nurses and medics ran for his room, shoving aside anyone in their path, already preparing both fighting and healing jutsu.

In the end, it was one large man who leaned on Obito's chest while they pumped sedatives into him, trying to knock him back out before he did more damage from thrashing. It took ten minutes, the longest ten minutes of his life, but at the end of it--

He realized he wasn't being cut open or poked or prodded. The pain was worse than it normally was, but a different sort of pain, too, not what constantly dragged at him. His leg was strapped into place, and one hand was pinned to a board, the fingers held still with seals. He wasn't in a stone room. It was white, and filled with sunlight. He stared at the ceiling, too drugged to do much else, and listened to the beep and hiss of machines, to the quiet but constant noises of other people wandering halls and rooms. Somewhere a child sobbed and a parent hushed them.

He hurt. Everything hurt, and he wanted to go back to sleep.

That was when a woman walked in, smiling quietly and looking at him with an unnerving intensity. "How are you feeling, Obito?"

Names had power. He took a breath, and realized he was alive, and no longer prisoner. Home, for the first time in sixteen years. The world swam and he blinked back tears, furious with himself for giving in. He wasn't a child, he wasn't weak. He had been a shinobi, he had withstood years of torture, and now--*now*--he was crying because someone asked him how he was and said his name?

Hands, soft and warm, framed his face and let chakra seep into his body. "Shh," the woman said, "Shh, it's all right. It's going to be fine."

He grabbed the energy and drank it, as if he had none of his own and he'd die without. His hand wrapped around her wrist to hold her there, and he closed his eyes--eye--and just let her feed him. She spoke, words whispering around him and carrying their power, sinking into his bones and down deep to his very soul, telling him he was home.

He was home, and he was safe.

**

"You look like hell." Kakashi leaned in the doorway, hands in his pockets, and observed the contraption of wire and steel and seals keeping Obito's leg and hand still and chakra running where it was supposed to.

Obito glanced up, single black eye balanced by an eyepatch over the empty socket. "Look who's talking, scar-face." He turned and went back to his book.

Kakashi twitched and, without meaning to, glanced toward the mirror. He looked away quickly, annoyed with himself. "Have you seen your reflection lately?" he shot back, ambling into the room.

"Of course. I need a haircut."

The response tugged half a smile from Kakashi. He relaxed, marginally. Obito kept reading. Kakashi glanced around, saw a few cards on the nightstand, saw that they were from the orphan committee. He didn't know the official name for the small group of women, just knew that their whole job seemed to be to send gifts and cards to those injured shinobi who had no one else. It helped with morale. Kakashi always threw his away.

He stood, growing more uncomfortable by the moment. He could sense the pain in the room, knew the Uchiha wasn't as blasé as he wanted to appear. Kakashi just didn't know what to do about it. He didn't know how to make it right. He scratched the back of his head, then offered, "I have a kunai."

Obito blinked and looked up at him. Black and silver hair fell in his face, and he brushed it back with his good hand. "I would assume, given your status as a Jounin, you have several."

"If you want a haircut," Kakashi finished dryly. He had the pleasure of seeing Obito look annoyed. He thought about dragging the moment out, but guilt overrode. He'd done enough. He pulled a blade out of a holster and stepped closer. "How short?"

Obito jerked one shoulder. "Just . . . shorter."

That was simple enough. Kakashi gathered the hair up at the base of the Uchiha's neck and sliced cleanly through, shortening it from waist-length to shoulder-length. Then, before Obito could object, he pulled it all back and tied a length of string around it to hold it.

"Better, anyway," Kakashi said uncertainly, stepping away.

"Thanks," Obito mumbled. He thumbed through the book, paused, and turned his head so he could see Kakashi from his single eye. "How's Rin?"

Kakashi paused. "She--" he began, uncertain how to explain. Then the door behind him opened and a nurse bustled in, pushing past him with the authority of one who knows she wields power.

"Obito, you have physical therapy. Kakashi-san, away you go," she said, and shoved him out, brushing at him as if he were no more than a pest. Kakashi fled out the door, heard it close behind him, and cursed himself three times over for a coward.

Obito would find out at some point. Better from a friend.

A wry smile twisted Kakashi's lips. But they'd never exactly been that, had they? And Kakashi had left him to die; surely that would kill any budding friendship they might have had. Muttering to himself, Kakashi pulled out Icha Icha Paradise and slouched down the hall.

**

Obito lay in the hospital bed, hurting, sore, and fuming. Kakashi was still the same bastard he'd been at thirteen. Superior, know-it-all, arrogant, untouchable--

He hated the man.

He blinked into the light the doctor was shining in his single eye, bringing his mind back to the present moment. He still felt like a guinea pig, but at least these tests didn't hurt.

"Now switch it, please," the doctor said, and Obito focused until the Sharingan came into being. The world went gray, and his field of vision opened up. Patterns and chakra lines became clear, his vision extending to one side. "And back to normal," the doctor requested, and Obito did. His world narrowed again to a tunnel straight ahead, and not much else.

Living in a ten foot square cell, never doing more than being dragged to an examining table and back, he hadn't realized how badly his body had decayed. How badly he'd been injured in the rock fall. He hated Kakashi. Most of this could have been fixed if that bastard had gone back. Hated Kakashi and their Sensei and Rin.

No, not Rin. She would've gone back. At thirteen, he'd had a crush on her that overwhelmed everything else . . . and she'd had moon-eyes for stupid Kakashi.

The doctor sighed and sat back. "Well, we've restored some of your peripheral vision," he said, and Obito turned so he could see the man through the tunnel of his sight. "I had hoped we could use the Sharingan as a clue to restoring more, since it doesn't seem to be damaged, but . . . it's different chakra patterns entirely. I'm sorry."

"So I'm stuck like this?" Obito asked bitterly. The cell had been dark. He'd grown used to only ever seeing straight ahead, and assumed the rest of the world was fuzzy because of no light.

"We'll keep working on it. If we can restore the chakra pathways, it's possible you'll have a few more degrees of peripheral. It's not a guarantee, and it'll take a long time, but it's possible." The doctor looked sympathetic, pity swimming in soft brown eyes.

Obito glared at him. "Great," he said through gritted teeth. "Do that."

The doctor nodded, the pity wiped from his face at the tone of Obito's voice. "We will. One thing at a time, though, and right now we're focusing on your leg." He picked up his paperwork, a clipboard and pen, and stood. "Get some rest. Ibiki-san will be in later to ask you a few more questions." The doctor left.

Obito lay back against the pillows, studying the edge where his vision fuzzed out into blackness. In the dark cell, it hadn't been so obvious. In a room filled with light . . .

Hell.

Ibiki. He remembered Ibiki as a chubby little snot who ate tuna sandwiches and had only one parent--a mother, he thought. It had been more than strange to see him grown, badly scarred and lean enough that muscles looked like whipcords in his neck and wrists--except for his face, that was all the skin that showed.

It was stranger to know that the gloomy boy had turned into a Special Jounin of some standing, head of ANBU and interrogation expert.

He wondered what had happened to the others of his class. His friends and acquaintances, people he'd graduated with, those that hadn't made it. He wondered who lived and who'd died, and knew that a great deal of them had to be dead.

Not Kakashi. Of course not Kakashi. Not Kakashi, who thought it acceptable to leave a teammate behind, who followed the rules to the letter and preached to everyone else about how things should be done.

He wondered how many deaths Kakashi had caused, because he hadn't gone back for a teammate. And still, he lived. Stupid asshole.

Obito was following his thoughts darker and darker when Ibiki came in. He heard the door open, shifted his head around until he could see past the eyepatch and the peripheral blindness to the man standing shadow-like in the doorway.

Ibiki took a chair by the back, lifted it and moved down to the end of the bed. Where Obito could see without turning. "I thought doctor-patient information was privileged," he said suspiciously. He could think of no other reason a person would sit down there, unless they *knew* his vision was limited more than having a single eye could account for.

"I'm a very privileged individual," Ibiki said dryly, then crossed his legs and braced a clipboard against his knee. "Tell me about your family history. Tell me about the Sharingan," Ibiki said, pulling a pen out of an inner pocket.

Obito closed his eye, tired. "I already told you all of that," he said on a weary sigh.

"And I'm going to compare what you tell me now with what you told me earlier, and make sure the stories match up." There was a beat of silence, then Ibiki added, "If you really want to walk around free in this village, you'll cooperate."

Obito frowned, eye still closed. "I remember," he said slowly, "how Chouseki put grasshoppers down your shirt, and you screamed and screamed and *screamed* until Gai tore the damn thing off you, then waved it around like a battle flag while the grasshoppers leapt out." He opened his eye and stared at the man sitting, unperturbed, at the foot of his bed. "Remember? You were, what? Twelve?"

"Nine," Ibiki said, and his lips twitched upward slightly. "And I'm still afraid of grasshoppers."

Obito had meant to annoy, but in the face of that tiny little smile, his anger melted off. He grinned back, and saw a glimmer of recognition enter Ibiki's eyes that hadn't been there before.

"There you are, Obito," Ibiki said quietly. "That's more the boy I remember."

Obito's smile faded. "Don't have a whole lot to grin about, do I?" he asked bitterly.

Ibiki looked surprised, as much as Ibiki looked like anything behind his careful façade of nothingness. "You're home," he said simply. "Seems to me you have everything to grin about."

**

He no longer dreamt about Obito. Well, not as much, anyway. Now Rin occupied his dreams, the girl he'd known, and the teenager he'd pushed away, and the mutilated woman he'd found at the end of a mission. And, finally, the half-healed corpse left as a warning on the edge of Fire country. He had preferred Obito.

Kakashi loitered outside the hospital doors, leaning against the stair railing, pretending to read Icha Icha. He went to the hospital every day. Went inside almost as often, and if he went inside, he saw Obito. It seemed only right.

He still hadn't found a way to tell Obito about Rin. Or the Fourth. Or the Uchiha massacre. How did one explain that? "Hey, Obito, everyone you ever knew and loved? Dead, now." It just didn't work. Kakashi could barely say two words to Obito anyway, and Obito didn't seem inclined to be friends. But Kakashi couldn't just leave him alone. Obito didn't know it yet, but Kakashi was all he had left--and even if Obito didn't remember him fondly, he remembered Obito as the kid who'd changed his life.

With a sigh he closed up the book and went inside for the fifteenth time in three weeks. He'd seen Obito walking the day before, moving slowly and carefully, a crutch under each arm, partial weight on his injured leg. He was mobile, so they'd release him soon. It meant Kakashi had to tell him. If not today, tomorrow. No later than that.

He slipped down the halls, avoiding doctors and nurses, though he knew no one would stop him. He paused on the third floor to pop his head in at Anko's room. She was demanding the orderly bring her something edible, and no more pudding. The orderly simply looked tired and hassled, and not likely to comply.

Anko stopped mid-rant and waved, and the orderly ducked out the door. "You here to see me?"

"Brought you a present," Kakashi said with a smile, and tossed her a ration bar.

"Oh, this is *so* much better than hospital food," Anko said sarcastically, catching it in her un-burned hand. "Go suck Pakkun, you asshole."

Kakashi laughed and moved on, knowing that the next time he was in the hospital she'd treat him with equal care and understanding. They understood each other.

He went up two more floors, glanced in at the children's ward to see if Kurenai's team had been entirely discharged--they had, finally, with clean bills of health--and then up to the last floor. Long-term care, mostly the old and crippled, people who needed more than a quick patch and to be sent on their way, but who weren't at death's door, either. The combination was rare.

He took a deep breath, trying to decide what he'd say when he got there, and started down the hall. A nurse was in Obito's room, changing the sheets. The cards from the Committee were gone. Kakashi frowned. "Where's Obito?" he asked, looking around as if the man might be hiding somewhere.

"Checked himself out this morning," the nurse said with a smile over her shoulder. "I expect he's home by now."

Kakashi's heart froze. Home was the Uchiha compound. He went straight through the room and out the window, the fastest way out of the hospital. Then he ran, checking the angle of the sun, calculating hours and how painfully slowly the man had to move. It was late afternoon. Obito had to have reached it.

It didn't take Kakashi long before he was vaulting the walls, racing past what little of the Uchiha grounds had been reclaimed by the living. People watched as he ran by, and then there were no more people, just vacant buildings, some still blood-stained. They hadn't been able to get it all out. Tsunade planned on tearing them down, and building new.

Obito's house had been in the center of the grounds, a little square building with rose bushes out front, and an awning announcing that his mother ran a day care for just fifteen dollars a day. It was faded and torn, flapping in the light breeze.

The door was open.

Kakashi stopped outside, hands on his knees, listening.

Everything was graveyard-silent.

He stepped inside. Gloom and dust enveloped him. The wood floor was brick red, a splatter pattern on the walls hidden by shadow. He walked farther, through a doorway. An empty room had once had a table and comfortable pillows on the floor, a gameboard in the corner--

All gone now. Where the table had sat in the center were two crutches, collapsed on each other, and where the board game had been was tucked a dark haired man with an eyepatch, staring down at a framed picture held in both pale hands. Slowly, Obito looked up.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he whispered, his voice gone hoarse.

Kakashi stood there, feeling the grief in the air and not knowing what to do or say to make it better. "I didn't know how," he said finally, lifting and dropping his hands uselessly. "I was going to, but . . ."

Obito's gaze fell slowly, until he was staring at the picture. His single eye was red-rimmed. Salt had left tear marks down his face. His eye was dry now, though. An angry crimson, but dry. "No one said anything. I told them I was going home, and no one said anything . . ."

"It happened so long ago," Kakashi said, stepping farther into the room. "I don't think anyone realized you didn't know."

"It didn't happen so long ago," Obito murmured. His eye filled and a tear spilled out, hung trembling on his chin, and dropped. It landed with a soft sound on the glass of the picture frame. "It just happened. Just now. Everyone . . . what happened?" He looked up again, staring, waiting.

Kakashi crossed the last of the distance and lowered himself slowly to the floor. "Itachi--" he stopped, suddenly unsure if Obito even knew who that was. "Itachi," he began again, slower, "was captain of the ANBU. He went insane, and killed everyone." Kakashi thought of Sasuke, but didn't mention it. That could be discussed later.

Obito stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Not everyone," he whispered. "Some must have survived. Someone--where are the others?"

Kakashi closed his eyes, unable to meet that desperate gaze. "Only two survived. You were one. The other joined Orochimaru--" he stopped, remembering that Orochimaru had still been part of Konoha when Obito had not-died. "Orochimaru is a traitor," he clarified, "and the other Uchiha survivor joined him, to gain power and try to kill Itachi." He looked up, and Obito was still looking at him blankly. Slowly, the black eye dropped back to the photo.

Kakashi looked down, and winced. Obito and his mother, at the Genin graduation ceremony.

"Her things were still in her office," Obito whispered. "I found this . . ."

Kakashi nodded, and simply sat, waiting. He should have told Obito sooner.

The wind blew through shattered windows. Leaves skittered across the wooden floor like claws across dry skin, leaving bits of themselves behind.

"There's a memorial," Kakashi said into the silence. "I'll show you."

Obito nodded wordlessly. "Tell me the rest," he murmured. "Who else is gone?"

Kakashi hesitated, knowing that when he was done Obito would be devastated. Worse than this, worse than finding out your entire clan was dead. Murdered. Slaughtered.

"Rin?" Obito whispered. "She didn't . . . she didn't come see me. Or send a card. Is she--?"

"She died six years after . . . after you left," Kakashi murmured. He saw Obito's hands shake, then still.

"And Sensei?"

Kakashi flinched. "Gave his life protecting the village from a monster."

Obito was silent. Water drops hit the picture, and he wiped them away, leaving smears of dust behind. "Someone--someone in hiding, or visiting a relative. There were Uchiha at outposts--"

"All gone," Kakashi said.

"No. *No.* Other villages--"

"He hunted them down," Kakashi said, voice calm and inarguable. "And he killed them all."

Obito's good leg rose, knee coming up, twisted arm resting over it and his forehead resting on that. He was crying, Kakashi realized faintly. He lifted a hand, let it hover over the other man's shoulder.

"I'm fine," Obito bit out. "I'm fine."

But he wasn't, and Kakashi could hear that. Pride be damned for both of them. Too proud to cry, too proud to comfort. He wrapped his arm around Obito's shoulders, stiff and trying not to be, and held on until the other man leaned into him, silver and black hair fanning out across his biceps.

He didn't know how long they sat. The shadows pooled and stretched, motes of dust catching the last rays of sunlight like gleaming bits of gold. Then that was gone, and the house went dark. Boards creaked, echoes of childlike footsteps, a mother calling her son to dinner, homework abandoned and manga hidden under the futon mattress. With Obito's eye he saw ghosts of those dead, Obito's mother standing over them, hair clip in her mouth as she braided long black tresses back, then fastened them in place. Turned to call the child-Obito and--

Saw them.

Kakashi stared at her, and she stared back. Both hands rose over her mouth and tears built in expressive dark eyes, and as she knelt before them her hands dropped, and he saw her say, "My baby--what happened--"

He wrapped his other arm around Obito, feeling from the lax in the man's muscles that he hadn't seen her yet. Kakashi didn't want him to see her, didn't want him to see the ghost that maybe wasn't, that looked at him in horror and pity and grief, that wasn't actually alive and would only be a painful reminder. He hid Obito's face in his arm, shifting to hold the Uchiha protectively, and mouthed back, "*Go.*"

She understood. She was Uchiha, and kuniochi, and with tears streaming down her face she stood and stepped away, and faded into the darkness.

The creaking upstairs stopped.

"We should go," Kakashi said quietly, and tugged the nearly unresponsive body upward. Obito followed, perforce, eye glassy and grief ridden. He staggered once on his feet, putting weight on the injured leg until it tried to give out. Kakashi caught him, looped his arm around still too-skinny ribs, caught the crutches with the toe of one foot and lifted them. Obito in one arm and crutches in the other, he led the man out of the room, out the door, and down empty streets. Small animals scurried from shadow to shadow, and a gray fox stopped to stare at them before sliding into a building. Their footsteps rang off stone, bounced off walls, and faded into nothing.

It was a long walk back out.

*****