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1.
Kakashi’s team is five hundred miles into Earth Country and skirting the edge of a jaggedly winding canyon, carefully out of sight from any Iwa patrols, when an urn the height of a Jizo statue and the thickness of a Konoha redwood crashes to the ground in front of them with a rattle that billows up dust plumes.
It’s a very familiar urn. Mainly because it’s the primary retrieval focus of Kakashi's current mission. It’s also supposed to be buried neck deep in the Tsukikage’s personal vaults, but Kakashi’s imagination has been doing some very convoluted acrobatics for the last few months.
“Um,” says Tenzo, bewildered, just as two distinctly familiar figures land on top of the lid.
Obito is a blur of orange and black today, swirly mask in place and the rest of him covered in a black cloak. Kakashi never sees Obito’s face, always covered as it is by the masks. He considers vaguely that it’s his brain’s defense mechanism against imagining whatever scars the rockfall must have carves out.
Rin too, is in a mask. Rin very rarely shows her face when Kakashi is in the presence of others.Today it’s a blue-grey festival mask, the long pale beak of a heron. The top of her head comes to Obito's chest. Unlike his hallucination of Obito, she never grows. She was fourteen when she died, and she was fourteen when she re-appeared as a result of Kakashi finally possibly having a mental breakdown. She stays that way now, small and short, but thankfully without the gaping hole in her chest Kakashi expected himself to input if he’d ever swan dived that far into the deep end.
Obito is the opposite. Obito grows. His hair always stays the same length and his mannerisms stay the same familiar patterns, but his voice gets deeper and he climbs entire inches between meetings. Four years after Obito’s death and he’s still taller than Kakashi.
Maybe Kakashi’s subconscious just naturally expects Obito to be taller than him. Therefore: Obito grows, Rin does not.
“OI BAKASHI!” his hallucination of Obito says in Obito’s very specific decibel levels, which is all the warning Kakashi gets before a box is hurtled at his face.
Kakashi catches the box. It’s a lunchbox, the cutesy kind found at civilian department stores. He cracks it open and pops a piece of sushi into his mouth.
Mmm saury. Nice.
“Did he just—“ murmurs Tenzo, and cuts off with a quiet strangled noise as Rin slides off the urn, meanders over to Kakashi’s shoulder, and starts pointing out the nicer bits she’d put in. Like the fried tempura and the second layer underneath the rice, hidden with curry.
“Yep,” sighs Raidou’s voice.
“But isn’t it—“
“Fraternization with an unknown element? Yup.”
“…. So do we report it?” asks Tenzo wonderingly, even as Yugao edges closer to the urn. Obito’s still sitting on top of it, legs swinging over the gold carved sides, his own lunch box cracked open. Rin always makes enough for two. Well, three technically, but Sensei’s apparition hasn’t appeared to Kakashi quite yet.
“No,” sighs Raidou. “It’s already sorted. When you get back, check out Protocal OM-24, code delta.” He claps Tenzo good-naturedly on the shoulder. Then he takes a thin, lacquered scroll out of his mission pouch and tosses it to Yugao, which is when Obito seems to realize her presence and proceeds to make a production out of squawking loudly and tumbling to the ground in a mess of flailing limbs.
“Don’t scare Tobi like that,” Obito informs Yugao in startled offense, hand over his heart. “Tobi didn’t do anything to deserve that. Tobi’s a good boy!”
“Relinquish the thousand flowers urn.” Yugao says repressively. Her hand goes towards her tanto.
There’s a mock-gasp, before Obito drapes himself purposefully over the entire jar, his lunch box having disappeared to accommodate. “But the urn is Tobi’s! Tobi worked hard to get it. He had to be all sneaky sneaky!”
“Nonetheless, it is our mission.”
Obito seems to deflate. “Ah, right. Tobi knew that. Yes, Tobi did. Fine fine rabbit-bunny-san, Tobi will give it to you.”
Rin hustles Kakashi’s attention away from Obito and back to his lunch. “You should try the dumplings," she says, cheerily hanging off Kakashi's shoulder. “We got them in Tsubame no Machi an hour ago; they’re supposed to be really good.”
Tsubame no Machi, if Kakashi remembers correctly, is half a continent away at the edge of the Land of Birds. He didn’t know they had special dumplings. Huh. Maybe he’d overheard in the barracks or something.
He pinches a dumpling in between his chopsticks and tears the skin off. The meat is spicy and fragrant with herbs, the dough soft but crunching. “It is good,” he mutters, quiet enough the others won’t overhear, because he doesn’t actually need to un-schedule another emergency psych evaluation. Rin makes a pleased noise. Then she drops an entire paper bag full of the same spicy dumplings on top of his bento box.
“Oh yes, and this too,” she says, and then from somewhere plucks out a buttery pale scroll the length of her arm, and deposits that on top of the dumplings.
Kakashi looks at the Scroll of a Thousand Cranes, the secondary mission objective, and makes a “huh” noise.
Rin and Obito have been taking care of his missions more and more these days. That’s probably a good reason to finally request being taken off active roster, considering Rin and Obito are figments of Kakashi’s imagination. Or coma. Or whatever drug-induced stupor he might’ve gotten himself into. No one’s complaining, not the higher ups or even his ANBU teams, which makes the latter two options very rather likely. Mainly since the last two options translate to: nothing that happens to Kakashi is actually happening.
Rin pats his shoulder like she knows what he’s thinking.
“Well, time for us to go.”
Obito waves the urn a mournful goodbye before he straightens, and Rin’s fingers linger a little on the bamboo plates of Kakashi’s shoulder. She smells of salt and sea and pine, and even though there’s distance between them, the scent of burning incense Obito carries is unmistakable.
“Tobi says goodbye!” he calls towards Yugao, who’s long since sealed the urn and backed away, and then, to Kakashi, “Don’t read porn , Bakashi,” in tones of great indignance. He waves a hand; one moment he’s there and the next he’s gone, and Kakashi knows without looking that Rin is too. There is nothing in the landscape but dry dust and a midday sun overhead, and his ANBU squad.
Kakashi is still carrying the dumplings, the scroll, and the bento. His nose itches; the air lingers with the smell of pine and sea and burning incense.
Tenzo looks to Raidou. He looks at Kakashi, who tucks the scroll under one arm and eats another dumpling. “OM-24, code delta?” he says weakly.
“OM-24 code Delta,” Raidou agrees, as Yugao slinks cat-footed back into their formation.
“I… I will look into it, Senpai.”
Kakashi hums and carefully places all of his new food into a sealing scroll.
2.
Translated, OM-24 code Delta is:
“That Sage-damned Orange fucking Menace.”
Or, in more professional terms:
Four years and four months into the Second Reign of the Saidaime, an encounter with a nin of unknown affiliations and origins was recorded by Jounin Nara Chiaki’s team. Category diagnostic of the danger: S-ranked. The nin, alias “Tobi” took down three Mist ANBU squads in just as many minutes. Behavioral patterns: child-like, possibly due to brain damage or as performance, with equal evidence towards both hypothesise. Alias “Tobi” wears an orange mask and a black cloak. A strange technique, possibly a bloodline limi,t allows him to phase through all noticeable techniques and objects. Since Nara Chikaki’s first encounter, alias “Tobi” has shown up in increasingly frequently in Konoha-issued missions, without any distinctive pattern or reason.
Added note: Alias “Tobi” is shown to be able to breach village walls. Acknowledged as security threat. Capture-on-sight is currently issued to all ANBU squadrons.
Added note: Attempts to engage on previous “Capture on Sight” resulted in broken bones and severe embarrassment. Orders sent to the intelligence division to compile a more extended dossier on alias “Tobi’s” abilities.
Added note: Intelligence division notes on alias “Tobi” compromised. Lollipops have been left in place of the files. Sticky note saying “Tobi is disappointed!” was attached to lollipop.
Added note: 009720 Captain Hatake Kakashi not following “Capture on sight” orders on accounts of him suspecting alias “Tobi” to be a visual, auditory, and sensory hallucination. Somebody, for the love of God, get Hatake a psych evaluation.
Added note: Alias “Tobi” is now often seen with an androgynous companion of 140cm build, monk robes, and bird masks. Threat diagnostic: A-rank based on chakra reserves.
Added note: “Capture on Sight” order now officially revoked by Lord Sarutobi..
Concluding statement: Due to their general good-will towards Konoha shinobi, Alias “Tobi” and companion are currently listed under “allies.”
3.
Here is how it happens: there is a seal over Obito’s heart.
There are multiple seals over Obito’s heart, actually, grafted into him along with Hashirama’s cells. They are Madara’s failsafes, not that Obito knows this, and they whisper tales into his mind, insidious, coaxing ways of how injustice plagues the world and how he can change it, how everything will be worth it in the end. Some days Obito itches in his need to get things done. His purpose fills his lungs and blood and bloats him, Rin’s death shoving technicolor through his eyelids. Some days he is tired and desperate and all he can think of is happier times and I want to go back why can’t I go back and Kakashi, Sensei, Kushina-san. Some days the seals on his heart throbs, insidious fingers, insidious coaxing, and Obito feels as if his skull wants to peel apart.
When Uzumaki Kushina gives birth, Obito is in a forest at Iwa’s border, head in his hands, fingers clawing through his hair, trying to breathe but choking instead and trying desperately not to scream. It doesn’t matter, in the end. Madara has other fail safes: the Kyuubi rampages through Konohagakure and the Yondaime dies with his wife, leaving their infant son an orphan.
Obito visits Kakashi often, hidden behind the trees surrounding the memorial stone, in the dead of night, phasing into Kakashi’s apartment and watching him sleep. He hates him and wants to shake him but he also wants to scream, “I’M NOT DEAD,” and force something other than ration bars down Kakashi’s throat like he knows Rin would have wanted. But he can’t. He can’t. There is tape over his mouth and poison in his throat; there is a seal over Obito’s heart.
From fourteen to eighteen, there are five times Hatake Kakashi does not die when he should have, and wakes up instead, chakra-exhausted and achy-headed but still alive, dropped into some quiet patch of forest nearest to his almost-botched mission.
4.
Here is how it happens: Rin dies a jinchuuriki.
Rin lives a jinchuuriki for all twelve hours. But, unlike all previous cases containing a tailed beast, she dies a jinchuuriki as well. The Sanbi is not extracted from her. It does not tear its way free into the world through a mixture of a weakening seal and terrible desperation and an anger against humanity that can shake the earth. When Rin dies, the Sanbi dies with her. In this, she is a first.
The Sanbi’s essence drains out into the land, disperses into the lakes and the oceans and the tide pools, and Rin, Rin whose soul was kept in the same place as Isobu’s chakra, Rin who died a jinchuuriki, Rin whose small fragile human lungs take one last shuddering breath choked in blood before she hits the ground and the connection between her soul and body goes snap —
Rin’s soul does not pass.
The total of the Sanbi is a tidal wave next to Rin’s moth flicker flame. When Rin dies she is swept up in the great rushing cycle of nature, cradled and protected by the elements, cradled and protected but because of this also unable to move onto the Pure World. As the whole of Isobu gather and coalesce once again, Rin too is funneled into him, drawn like a magnet from the chakra-taint she holds from their death. Thus, when Isobu finally reforms at the edge of Kiri’s borders, there is a human soul in him, white and small and sleeping in his belly.
He could have chosen to let her go. It would have been nothing but a second’s work, to unravel the threads of chakra that bind them together, to send this little thing free.
But he does not.
Instead Isobu thinks of the shinobi, and their warmonging, power-hungery ways. He knows that they will come for him again. He cannot hide, like this. The humans have sensors and he is big and bulky, too much of a target for their sealing fingers.
So he looks at his soul, this little, tiny thing that still remembers its human form, and he thinks, I can do something with this.
In the waters of Kirigakure, guided by her soul’s knowledge, Isobu rebuilds Rin’s body, particle by particle, snapping together tissues and proteins, the delicate curve of a calcium ribcage, keratin for hair, collagen in eyes. He takes liberties with her coils, building them inhuman and spiraling and wide enough to accommodate all of his chakra. Then he takes a breath, and slips in. The body obliges easily—it was made solely for this specific task, after all—and then, hidden, nestled in the place between the beating heart and the subconscious mind, Isobu says:
“Wake up, Rin.”
Three years after the Leviathan disappears with a whisper, a body floats to the shore of Wave’s harbours. It is a girl, fourteen with hair and eyes the colour of tree bark, wet earth, a girl with a voice in her head, a Tailed Beast’s chakra pumping instead of blood through her veins, no clothes to her name and scattered memories.
“My name is Isobu,” the voice tells her, as Rin blinks saltwater from her lashes into the morning sun. “It’s nice to meet you, Rin.”
4.2
(Here is how it happens:
In the long, long hours after she is sealed and before she died by Kakashi’s hand, Rin goes to the place in-between her heart and mind, to the place where her soul is kept. She goes, and there she finds a leviathan staked and chained in the forestland of her subconscious. It bleeds blue blood. Its single eye towers, wet and red-gleaming under the jutted spike of shell armour. She can feel it keening.
It sings some old, terrible, beautiful whale song. The seal that binds them hurts it almost as much as it hurts Rin; twists and divides and divvies up both their chakras. It is not dying because Tailed Beasts cannot die, not to this, but it hurts and it throbs, and it is so, so, very tired of being passed down, generation to generation, as something to be abused and worn down.
“Hello,” says Rin, soft in that place where her soul is kept, but unafraid. She looks at this monster, her prison and prisoner in equal measure, and asks, “My name is Rin. Would you like to die with me?”
And the Sanbi, tired and worn down and thinking: what are three years to two thousand, thinking: what is one death to freedom, to not being chained, knowing: she cannot lie in this place says:
“Yes.”)
5.
Here is how it happens: somewhere at the border of River, a girl puts out a minor forest fire with an accidental tsunami, and Isobu sighs disparagingly at the back of her mind. A boy nearly gets soaked through but phases out at just the right moment, and when he whirls back, the first thing on his mind is Akatsuki recruitment and what are those chakra reserves and Hoshigaki Kisame .
Somewhere at the border of River, Rin Nohara meets Uchiha Obito.
6.
Kakashi’s hallucination of Obito has taken off its masked exactly once. It’s the first time Kakashi ever sees him, which is after a particularly tragic assassination that ends up with Kakashi in the hospital after blacking out. He wakes up with a looming presence perched on the windowsill shoved right next to his bed. His first reaction is, of course, to grab the nearest non-bolted down object and hurl at the intruder’s face.
The glass of water goes straight through dark hair, hits the wall, and shatters.
“Seriously?” Obito demands, scowling down at him with a mutinous expression. There are whirling scars all over the left side of his face, scars that extend to his neck and under his collar. Kakashi blinks, slowly. Obito rolls his eyes. Then he smacks Kakashi over the head with a swirly orange mask, and Kakashi is too busy staring to even dodge. “Take better care of yourself, stupid. Rin’ll worry.”
Then he puts on his mask, fixes it in place, and is gone.
A second later a nurse hurries in the door.
Kakashi stares at the window. For the duration of her stay, he makes monosyllabic answers to the nurse’s questions, and then he takes himself off active duty for two weeks.
He does not sign himself up for a psych evaluation.
It doesn’t help, of course. The moment Kakashi is back on roster, Obito reappears. The first mission he gets—a B-rank somewhere in Grass—Kakashi squints dubiously as the hallucination utterly decimates a trio of missing nin from Taki. He’s been trying to ignore the entire spectacle but it’s kind of hard to ignore. “He’s gotten better,” Rin tells him, helpfully sorting through jewelry boxes before pointing Kakashi to the right pendant. She’s in monk robes, white and stiff and a little too large with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. “What did you think he’s been up to all these years?”
Being dead, Kakashi does not reply, because for one, that’s rude, and for two, Rin isn’t actually there.
By the time Kakashi shoves the pendant into his pack, both Rin and Obito have disappeared with a wave goodbye. He toes the unconscious bodies on his way out, and wonders, belatedly, if his sanity has cracked enough to merit him retiring.
(It hasn’t. Sometimes, he debates the options, especially since Rin and Obito continue to show up, not only on missions but in Kakashi’s apartment and grocery runs as well. But hey, it’s kind of nice. Sometime after the fifth month of having Obito and Rin play whack-a-mole on enemy squadrons, Kakashi just stops caring. He’s done. The novelty has worn off. Who cares if he looks crazy in public; if his sanity has snapped, he might as well enjoy it.)