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English
Series:
Part 1 of history has its eyes on you
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kakashinobi, Road to Nowhere Discord Recs, Def_Read_Again
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Published:
2016-04-11
Completed:
2016-04-21
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17,210
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4/4
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you have no control

Summary:

Sasuke kills Itachi, but this time he joins forces with the remaining Uchiha to seek vengeance on Konoha. It's a disaster for the village. The survivors are scattered, desperate, falling one by one. They need a miracle.

Notes:

Warnings: This is a setup for a time travel story. This part of the story features multiple, major character deaths, descriptions of war-related injuries, references to PTSD, suicidal thoughts, and suicide.

Note: Titles from History Has Its Eyes On You from the Hamilton Soundtrack by Lin-Manuel Miranda

Chapter Text

Naruto’s disappointment is a tangible thing as they slowly make their way back to Konoha. Every few hours, someone will look at his bent back, his slumped shoulders, and open their mouth to say something. Always, they remain silent. What is there to say?

If only the masked ninja hadn’t chosen just that moment to play with them?

If only the brothers’ showdown had lasted a little longer?

If only Sasuke hadn’t left the village in the first place?

But that last thought is forbidden in Naruto’s presence.

Even though Kakashi can’t be the only one who’s thinking it.

Naruto drops back to walk by Kakashi, visibly drooping.

Kakashi braces himself.

“I just… I thought he’d come back,” Naruto mumbles.

Kakashi sort of shrugs. He’s terrible at this kind of thing.

“After he killed his brother,” Naruto clarifies, in case Kakashi is both blind and stupid. “I thought he’d come back.”

Kakashi had nursed a very private hope that that would be the case, but he hadn’t believed it, not really. Sometimes he really, really hates being right.

The silence stretches.

“He didn’t,” Kakashi says finally, because what else is there to say?

Naruto forces a smile. It’s painful to look at. “I’m still going to bring him back,” he says. “I never go back on my word.”

Kakashi knows, probably better than anyone, how much of a betrayal this is for Naruto, one in a long series of them. Watching him try to put on a brave face, to summon up that sunny pigheadedness that he gets from both his parents, he could almost come to hate Sasuke.

~*~

Kakashi jerks out of an uneasy sleep. Something is wrong.

He’s up and moving before he’s really even awake, the instincts of wartime rising to the fore even though it’s been years since the last war ended.

No alarms have sounded, and there’s only the usual early-morning sounds, a faint mist already dissipating as the sun rises.

Wait. It’s too early for sunrise.

Kakashi blinks, and it’s the Hyuuga compound. It’s on fire.

He’s halfway out the window when the alarm goes off, and by the time he reaches the compound a dozen others have joined him, with more going to their assigned posts. Jiraiya’s sacrifice gave them a precious few days to try and prepare, and this attack is expected.

For all the good it’ll do, Kakashi thinks privately. An enemy that could take down Jiraiya-sensei… just what is this Pein, anyway?

Kakashi searches the smoke and flames for survivors, for the flash of orange hair or metal accessories that the toad elder assured them characterized the various Peins.

He resolutely does not linger over the charred bodies.

And then everything gets a hundred times worse.

“Sasuke!?”

His former student rolls his eyes, not the least bit repentant, and shoots one last, unnecessary fireball into the destroyed compound before moving off.

Kakashi stands there stupidly for a full twenty seconds.

Then he hardens his expression, and his heart. He is a ten-year ANBU veteran, one of the most skilled assassins in Konoha, and however good Sasuke thinks he is, whatever is going through his thick skull, it doesn’t matter.

The Hound will find him.

~*~

Hound passes by battle after battle, a silent, deadly shadow. Sasuke may be no match for him, but anyone else might have trouble with those Sharingan eyes. He has a responsibility, a clear goal.

He finally spots him, closing in on the Hokage Tower.

Arrogance, Hound thinks, sneering.

Good.

He has a perfect shot at Sasuke’s unguarded back, when he is interrupted.

“Just like I thought.”

It’s the masked ninja from before, the one who kept them from reaching Sasuke in time.

Sasuke turns, startled. He hadn’t heard either of them coming up behind him.

“I knew if I stayed with him, I’d run into you,” the masked ninja says, his tone one of childish mockery. “Friend-killer Kakashi.”

No one’s called him that to his face in a long time, but deep in the persona of the Hound, Kakashi is unshaken.

“Leave this village,” he says.

The ninja shakes his head. “Oh, Kakashi. All that genius, and still so stupid. Don’t you get it? Don’t you see? There is no village. This is the end of Konohagakure.”

“I will not allow you to destroy this village.”

The masked ninja laughs, high-pitched and more than a little crazy.

Hound gauges the distance between himself and his quarry. He might be able to reach Sasuke, even with the element of surprise gone. Sasuke doesn’t seem to notice his silent assessment, but the other shinobi does.

“Get out of here, boy,” the masked ninja says, cutting off his laughter mid-cackle, suddenly deadly serious.

Sasuke actually pouts. “I don’t need any help,” he says. “I can take him.”

Hound and the masked ninja both scoff. They glance at each other, startled by the moment of synchronicity.

“I thought you were going after Danzou,” the masked ninja says.

Sasuke’s face twists with hate. “Yes,” he says, and sprints away.

He is still such a child, easily manipulated by his emotions.

Also, how the hell did Sasuke learn about Danzou? The old warhawk has been under house arrest since Sasuke was a young child… actually, almost to the day since Sasuke was so violently orphaned.

Hound’s calm is disturbed, but it quickly settles again. It doesn’t matter now.

“Ah, there’s that much-vaunted genius,” the masked ninja says, like he can read the thoughts in his head. “Yes, our Sasuke has reason to hate this village.”

There is no reason that justifies those charred bodies, children caught sleeping in their beds. Hound refuses to be distracted. “If I must go through you first, I will.”

The lone, visible eye goes cold. “You can try.”

They fight.

The masked ninja, Hound quickly learns, is amazing. They are well-matched, Sharingan for Sharingan, and he is forced to use all his strength and skill just to keep from dying. The other ninja’s ability to phase in and out of the physical plane is an almost-perfect defense, and Kakashi can’t seem to get enough time to see if it’s faster than his Kamui. His mind is working overtime, analyzing and attempting to formulate a counter.

Well, he has one glaring weakness, one that Hound is in a position to recognize.

A shinobi who wears a mask has something that he wants to hide, usually from himself.

Once he’s set his mind to it, it’s mere minutes before shattered pieces of a spiral mask are crashing to the ground.

Along with everything Kakashi thought he knew.

“O—Obito?”

He is paralyzed with shock, his ANBU calm shattered, an easy target.

But Obito, and who else could it be, is too busy laughing to take advantage. He’s bent almost double, positively howling with mirth. But his eyes, the Sharingan to match Kakashi’s and what can only be the Rinnegan, set in a mass of thick scars, are sharp and cruel.

Kakashi’s thoughts are caught in a constant loop, Obito is alive Obito is alive Obito is alive…

Obito’s laughter finally comes to a hiccupping end, and he eyes Kakashi with disgust. “This is just disappointing,” he says. “I went through hell for this?”

Kakashi attempts some kind of response, but the words don’t make it past his throat.

Obito is walking toward him, kunai drawn, and Kakashi can’t bring himself to move.

He’s already looking into the spirit world when an armguard appears in front of his face.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Anko screams, right in his ear.

It’s Tenzou who’s blocking the descending kunai. Before Kakashi can muster a warning, assuming he could even voice it, Obito phases right through the armor and slits Tenzou’s throat.

Tenzou makes one, surprised sort of gurgle and dies.

Kakashi still can’t move, even as his kohai’s blood splatters warm across his face.

“There, that’s better,” Obito says, wiping the kunai on Kakashi’s flak jacket. “Everyone should be able to see the kind of monster you are.”

Kakashi closes his eyes. Obito must know, somehow. He must know about Rin, and how she died. How Kakashi killed her. Kakashi has often wondered what Obito’s judgment would be.

At least he doesn’t have to wonder anymore.

He feels someone grab his elbow, then his opposite shoulder, and suddenly he’s yanked sideways, caught up in the familiar-forgotten pull of sensei’s Hiraishin no Jutsu.

He reappears outside the hospital, blinks away the memories of a pristine white cloak with red flames. He left Obito to die alone, and he has no one but himself to blame if Obito hates him now. But sensei is dead, Kakashi heard his last breath with his own ears, carried his cooling body to lay it beside his wife in his own arms. Genma and Raidou and Iwashi must have found him, and mistakenly thought Kakashi could contribute meaningfully to the village’s defense.

Ignoring the obvious hint, Kakashi turns away from the door, slipping easily through the crowd of injured and panicking people, leaping up to the roof to try and escape the crush.

He still hasn’t seen any sign of Pein. Is this just the vanguard?

There’s someone standing on the other side of the roof.

Some distant part of his brain that isn’t overloaded with shock starts ticking over. The hospital isn’t the tallest building in Konoha, that’s the Hokage Tower, but it does have the best view of the stone faces, and it has strategic value as a vantage point, not to mention the devastation that would result from attacking the building itself.

There should be a guard up here. A substantial guard. And this man is no Konoha ninja, with his eye-catching but decidedly old-fashioned armor.

He turns his head slightly, giving Kakashi a view of his profile.

Kakashi chokes on air. He was mistaken; it is a Konoha ninja. Sort of. He knows that face, he’s seen it a thousand times in the ANBU mess. Konoha’s very first missing nin.

Uchiha Madara.

Exactly how many Uchiha are going to appear today? Kakashi wonders, a little hysterically. Is Itachi running around somewhere? Fugaku? No, Kakashi saw that body himself, in the hellish clean-up after the Massacre. Who founded the Uchiha clan? Kakashi can’t remember.

He can’t imagine what he might have done, in the face of a shinobi legend, but that doesn’t stop him from regretting his pathetic non-action for the rest of his life.

Madara raises his hands, releases some insane jutsu that Kakashi has never seen before and hopes to never see again, and the entire mountain collapses.

It’s not vaporized or anything, it’s still obviously a mountain, but the faces are distorted beyond recognition, and the chambers inside, full of children, civilians, the elderly, and the ninja to keep them safe, are certainly destroyed, the people inside crushed in an instant.

It’s such an utterly pointless loss of life.

He has to… he has to do something. It’s too late to stop Madara’s attack, not that Kakashi is arrogant enough to think that such a shinobi would waste a single second worrying about someone of Kakashi’s caliber. Can Madara be stopped at all? How the fuck is he even alive? He has to be well over a hundred years old.

Kakashi’s feet turn to the Hokage Tower, and the rest of him goes with them. This is a hopeless battle.

Naruto would punch him if he could hear Kakashi’s thoughts now. But Naruto isn’t here.

Not many people know the village warning codes, and fewer still have access to the sound system that projects them, but Kakashi was a student of the Fourth Hokage and a member of the Hokage’s Elite Guard. He knows.

He encounters no one at the Tower, which would worry him if he were allowing himself to feel worry, and quickly enters a sequence that has never been used in the village’s too-short history.

Flee. Retreat. Escape.

He fancies that he can feel the village holding its breath, but he doesn’t wait to see what happens. He still has two students left, and nothing and no one will keep him from ensuring their safety.

He goes for Sakura first, because Naruto’s on the other side of the world, and the hospital is close by and he’s reasonably sure she’ll be there.

She is.

“Leave him,” he says, pulling her away from a patient with a shattered femur.

“What…”

“The village is lost,” he says bluntly. “They’ve sounded a retreat.”

All the blood drains out of her face. “But…” She gestures vaguely at the moaning, dying people around her.

“Sakura,” he says, looking her right in the eye. “We have to go now.”

She trembles, swallows. She seems to age ten years right before his eyes. “Okay.”

Naruto isn’t in any immediate danger, off training with the toads on Mt. Myoboku, but it’s hardly much of a relief given the degree of danger he’s about to be in. Kakashi thinks he remembers someone sending for him, but either he’s misremembering or the message got lost somehow, and Kakashi can’t help but be grateful. He can’t imagine trying to drag Naruto away from both the village and Sasuke.

As he and Sakura run through the village, Kakashi finally starts to get a picture of what is happening here. There don’t seem to be any enemy shinobi about, no signs of the mysterious Pein or any of the three Uchiha he knows are around somewhere. Instead, there’s a sea of bizarre white constructs, some kind of animated flesh with no independent thought and little skill. What they do have is volume, and someone with a brain is backing them up because as often as not one will suddenly explode from the inside. Some jutsu of Madara’s? He doesn’t think Obito or Sasuke knew anything like this, but it’s pathetically obvious that he didn’t know either of them at all.

The village isn’t prepared to defend against this kind of mindless, unending horde, and just because he can’t see them doesn’t mean the Uchiha aren’t wreaking havoc somewhere else. Sasuke certainly managed the Hyuuga compound well enough.

It’s obvious that Sakura has been in the hospital the whole time, because she is looking around at the devastation with horror.

The white constructs are either too stupid or too uncoordinated to get up on the roofs, so where buildings are still standing, there’s a path for the mobile shinobi.

Kakashi doubts that a single civilian will survive this madness.

They pick up survivors along the way, many of them agemates of Sakura’s who she greets with obvious relief. At one point Ino-Shika-Cho seniors join them, and Shikaku speeds up to run next to Kakashi.

“Do you have any information?” he asks curtly.

“We have a complete security failure,” Kakashi says, just as bluntly. “I haven’t seen any signs of Pein, but there are three dead Uchiha out there: Sasuke, Obito, and Madara.”

A slow blink is Shikaku’s only reaction to this news. “So that’s how they got in without breaching any of the perimeter defenses. They probably know the village better than we do.” He swears. “And Obito and Sasuke were never declared missing nin, so they wouldn’t have triggered the wards.”

“Sasuke is too young to know about any of the safehouses, but Obito isn’t,” Kakashi says, because he can’t deal with the ward issue. He should have pushed after Sasuke’s betrayal, should have gone after him personally, should haveshouldhave... “And who knows what Madara might know.”

“There are one or two,” Shikaku says, “that were established after Obito… after the last war. I’ll take this group. You have to report to the Hokage.”

Kakashi absolutely does not want to report to the Hokage, somehow it will make his catastrophic failures seem more real, but he just nods and changes direction, heading for the worst of the fighting.

Tsunade-hime is there of course, screaming orders and receiving reports in between crushing the constructs by the dozen with whatever’s nearest at hand.

Like Kakashi’s arrival is a signal, she turns the perimeter defense over to the remains of her personal ANBU guard, and Kakashi joins the crowd around her. Gai and Kurenai are there, and all the village elders, including Danzou.

Kakashi bites back the urge to demand answers that hardly matter anymore.

“Who the hell rang that damn bell?” Tsunade demands.

Kakashi takes a tiny step forward.

“At least someone in this village has the brains they were born with,” she says, kicking a wall twice her size into an incoming construct without breaking eye contact. “I’m officially endorsing the evacuation. Get everyone out that you can. Shikaku has a few safehouses in mind; Inoichi will broadcast them as soon as it’s safe to do so. Until then, word of mouth only. We’ll start with Number 203.”

There are a few faint protests, but the suddenness of the attack, the sheer scale of the devastation, have sucked the heart right out of them.

Then Madara is there, and her mouth sets in a grim, tight line as chakra spirals out from the seal on her forehead. She whirls on Kakashi suddenly, and he takes a reflexive step back.

She grabs him, plants a totally unexpected kiss on his masked cheek, and presses something into his hand. “Run,” she whispers in his ear.

He runs, and he doesn’t look to see who follows.

Their little group is still far from the village walls when Obito catches up with them, eyes glittering with madness.

“Oh, no, Kakashi, you’re not going anywhere,” he says.

“Keep going,” he orders. “It’s me he wants.”

Gai and Kurenai give him identical, stubborn looks. Danzou doesn’t bother looking at him, but he also doesn’t stop, running with more agility than a man of his age and with his injuries should really be capable of.

Kakashi glares at Kurenai until she drops her eyes, lets herself be tugged along by some chuunin Kakashi doesn’t know.

That isn’t going to work on Gai, though.

Another figure touches down beside Obito.

“Running away, sensei?” Sasuke taunts.

Kakashi closes his eyes, unable to face Gai while his student and teammate threaten them and everything they stand for with death and destruction.

“Go away, brat,” Obito says.

It’s probably too much to hope for that they’ll just kill each other off.

“I have just as much a right to be here as you!” Sasuke says.

“Please,” Kakashi says, ignoring the squabbling. He rests his hands on Gai’s chest, pleading with him to just go, because there’s no reason that they both have to die here.

He opens his eyes, because for once Gai is silent, and he has to know what he is thinking.

Gai isn’t looking at him.

Kakashi follows his gaze to his own hands, which are clutching Tsunade’s last gift to him.

It’s the Hokage hat.

Gai raises his eyes to meet Kakashi’s, and Kakashi doesn’t know if he wants to scream or cry.

Gai pats his hands, takes a small step back, and opens all eight inner gates at once.

Kakashi runs, and finds that he still has enough breath to scream and cry.