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Ever wonder," Obito said slowly, ripping up grass and sprinkling it through the air. "What would've happened if I hadn't died?"

Kakashi breathed shallowly through broken ribs and ascended another hill. Once over the rise he looked around and, without surprise, took in the carnage from the fox.

Strange. He could have sworn the fox had been locked up years before.

"You would've been a lot more helpful now," Kakashi managed through blood-reddened lips. He winced, suppressing a cough. His eyes teared with the effort.

"Cry-baby."

Kakashi snorted, then really wished he hadn't.

"You'd better not screw up my eye, a*****e."

Kakashi turned and looked at the other teenager. Obito had died at twelve--or thirteen?--but the black haired youth standing next to him was Kakashi's age; seventeen, eighteen.

Yeah, he could've *sworn* the fox had already been taken care of.

The illogic of it slipped away, lost in a fog of blood loss and pain. He looked around, trying to remember where the nearest friendly outpost was. It was nothing but confusion. He didn't recognize any landmarks. He turned, looked past the shorter teen with the narrow shoulders and concave chest, and peered at the mountains in another direction.

"Did you know that iguanas have more sex drive than any other living thing?"

Kakashi turned to stare at Obito, knowing even as he did so that it was useless. Obito wasn't really there. Obito was dead.

He looked awfully good for a dead guy.

"I don't even know what an iguana *is*," Kakashi croaked finally. "Now, could you do something useful and help me out of here?"

Obito sighed, twirling a flower while standing on the ash-blackened mountaintop. "Oh, sure, you give a guy an eye and he expects the world . . ."

Kakashi woke. He lay in bed for a long moment, levering himself up to one elbow and peering around the dark apartment.

Strange. He hadn't dreamt that in a long time. One part memory, one part hallucination . . . it had been neither the first nor the last time he'd hallucinated Obito.

He hadn't liked the Uchiha as a youth. He supposed the medics would tell him the dreams were misplaced guilt, a father-figure complex, repressed sexuality and a desire for gerbil soup . . .

At least Obito was easy. Kakashi himself guessed that was the reason he remembered Obito, rather than half a dozen other people. He was thankful for the Sharingan, had felt some guilt at the boy's death, had learned a great deal . . . and could talk to Obito without feeling the chest-crushing pain of his father or the Fourth.

Obito, compared to others, was easy.

The hallucinations--which, thankfully, didn't happen very often--and the dreams--which happened more often--were always a little creepy, though. Obito was dead, regardless whether it was easy or not. Dead for a stupid, useless reason.

He sighed and rubbed his uncovered eyes, dragging a hand over his jaw, feeling stubble. He was obviously tired to be thinking ninja death was stupid and useless. It was for the village, for the greater good, for money . . .

He tried to shut the cynical part of his mind up. It didn't entirely work. He glanced at the glowing lights of the bedside clock. Four thirty. Close enough to seven. He pulled himself out of bed, scruffing one hand through silver hair and slouching toward the bathroom.

A reflection stared back at him; a lean Jounin closer to thirty than twenty, pale skin, one black eye and one red one. The scar that bisected Obito's eye had been joined, over the years, by others. None of them were particularly disfiguring. One that gave his upper lip a slight indent. One that caught the lobe of his ear, slicing it neatly in two as if he'd once worn an earring and had lost it unfortunately. The scar ran, white and clean, along his jaw before dropping off the edge of bone. None of them particularly bothered him.

He stripped off his boxers and T-shirt and stepped into the shower, debating as he washed whether it was worth going into the mission office. There *was* a new Icha Icha volume coming out . . .

In the end he donned ninja blacks and vest, slipped his mask on and his hitae-ate down, then broke into the bookstore, stole the new book, and sat on the front steps reading.

Reading was good. Reading took his mind off of . . . everything.

Eventually, the bookstore owner showed up, smiling humorlessly at the slouched Jounin. Kakashi held out several bills without counting them, wrapped up in the stupid sugar-coated sex that was Icha Icha. Really, he wondered where Jiraiya got these ideas.

He was pretty sure they weren't anatomically possible. And he didn't know *any* women who would do things like that. Still, you couldn't be a Jounin without being creative, and Jiraiya *was* one of the Sannin . . .

Around noon he folded the book away in a vest pocket made specially for top-secret scrolls and headed toward the mission office, where he was supposed to report in.

At six that morning.

Ah, well. He thought up and discarded excuses as he ambled, both hands in his pockets, enjoying the sun.

Lost on the road of life? No, overused.

Took a wrong turn and was beset by rabid frogs? No, not unbelievable enough.

Had to save the village from a horde of sex-starved kuniochi? He pondered that one, staring up at the doors of the Tower. Then he wandered inside, walking up the stairs rather than using the elevator--which would've been faster--or transporting--which would've been fastest. He told himself he was teaching them all patience.

He opened the mission office door and waved cheerfully.

The beleaguered Chuunin behind the desk glared at him.

"Sorry I'm late!" Kakashi said sheepishly. "I was on my way here when a horde of rabid, sex-starved frogs threatened to attack the village. I had to subdue them all, change them to kuniochi and satisfy them before I could continue. Sadly, at that point I was lost far in the forest." He smiled, rather pleased with his excuse.

The Chuunin stared at him. Another ninja--Genin, he suspected--stepped out of the back room looking flabbergasted. "Are you serious?" the teenager asked, voice breaking on the words.

Kakashi looked innocent. "Of course."

"Ignore him," the Chuunin muttered.

"But--"

"Just ignore him," the Chuunin muttered again. "Here, Kakashi-san." He held a scroll out imperiously, not making eye contact. Busy busy busy! His body language screamed. Much too busy for your games!

Kakashi took his time getting across the room and taking the scroll. He read it, then frowned.

"Kurenai's been given a leave of absence," the Chuunin nearly growled. "Now it's your mission."

Kakashi mashed down all protests that tried to surface. With two of her three students in the hospital, Kurenai doubtlessly needed the time off. He could do with an easy mission, anyway.

He tucked it into a pocket and smiled brightly. "Of course. Iruka-kun," he said to the Chuunin, just to watch the man go red. "Mikoto." He bowed to the teen. "Later." With a wave, he transported out.

**

Kakashi delivered the damn message and then decided that if he was late for everything else, he could be late getting back.

Besides, Konoha could use the intel on Earth country. They were at peace momentarily, but the rock ninja couldn't be trusted. Ever.

He found the sleaziest inn he could and checked in for three days, then found a brothel--not that it was advertised as such; it was advertised as a bathhouse--and rented a tub. He turned two women and a man away before they realized he'd been honest when he'd said he was just there to soak.

In Kakashi's experience, the sleazy places were the safest ones when it came to assassins or ninja-fights. Everyone was too busy watching their own back to bother with attacking. Only petty crooks bothered people there, and that was easily taken care of with a few well-placed wards and Pakkun.

Once he'd managed to de-grime and soak out most of the aches--he was beginning to feel old--he dragged himself from the bath and staggered back to the inn. He'd taken off his hitai-ate, figuring a single red eye was less conspicuous than a Konoha symbol, and ignored the occasional stare with the practice of someone who wore a mask. Everyone looked. Sometimes, they even swooned. That was always funny.

He spent that night there, and the next day hunted down bookstores to see what they might have that he didn't. He left with eleven new books--eight that he actually paid for--and an interest in a new breed of dog. That night he read by lantern-light--so much softer on the Sharingan than electric light--until the flame sputtered and he finally fell asleep.

When he woke, it smelled of blood.

**

They couldn't have been very smart kidnappers, he decided just a few minutes later. They hadn't tied his hands--or even his wrists--and they'd left his Sharingan uncovered. In fact, he realized as he sat up and looked around, they'd put him in a *normal* cell. Of all the stupid . . .

He stood, feeling a little queasy--drugged, he figured, and chided himself for not checking the food and drink the inn provided.

A voice spoke from a cell across from him, a light tenor more than a little hoarse. "You're awake." It obviously had a gift for stating the obvious.

Kakashi looked blandly into the shadows and wondered if it was a trap. Still, when he peered with the Sharingan none of the chakra patterns seemed suspicious. If anything, they were a little weak and--he squinted--wrong. Scarred. Re-routed.

A prisoner, then, like him. Kakashi refocused his attention on the cell door, walking close to it when he didn't sense any traps. "Where are the guards?" he asked, peering down the hall. The rock walls gave way to stainless steel. An examining table, complete with manacles, reclined in the center. Counters held all manner of sharp bits, glass vials, and various things Kakashi only vaguely recognized as That Science Stuff. He'd never been good at science.

"Don’t know. They only come around when they want something," the scratchy voice answered.

Kakashi glanced down the hall the other way. Dead end. The only doorway was out past the table, up a short flight of stairs. "How long have you been here?" he asked conversationally. Might as well see if he couldn't learn something while he was escaping.

"Most of my life," the voice said. Cloth rustled, and a limping gait shushed through the dark, a form finally appearing near the bars.

Kakashi glanced at him, saw a short, skinny man with too-long hair, some black, some ashen, hiding a too-skinny face, and turned to the lock. It shouldn't be hard to pick . . . "If you've been here that long, mind telling me why I'm here?" he asked. Obviously, his kidnappers didn't know who he was. The seals were fairly basic to bypass, and the lock itself was a joke for anyone higher than Chuunin rank. Idiots.

The man was silent.

Metal clicked against metal. Kakashi formed chakra and pushed.

The door swung free. He would always be grateful to Ibiki for that little trick. Not that the Special Jounin *knew* Kakashi had learned that particular jutsu . . . man of a thousand jutsu. He snorted behind his mask. As if he was *that* pathetic. But there were nearly a hundred of them he wasn't particularly proud of, and another two hundred the real owners of the jutsu would be annoyed to learn had been stolen. Better, perhaps, that people didn't know.

"Get me out," the voice whispered, awe and hope mixing with desperation. "*Please*--"

Kakashi frowned, glancing down the hall again at the mini-lab. Ignoring the other inmate--for all he knew, the guy deserved to be there--he walked down to examine whatever they'd been examining.

Nothing made much sense to him. Numbers, letters, genetic codes, chakra patterns. The chakra patterns were warped, scarred. That was probably slowing down their progress, whatever they were doing.

"Get me out!" the man yelled. "Damn it, I--I can--"

Kakashi flipped open a book and froze. There were photos inside. Photos of eyes.

Or just eye.

A Sharingan eye.

"--*do* something, show you--ah--jutsu! You're a ninja, you--"

Kakashi turned slowly and stared at the figure pressed against the bars of the cell. Too talkative to be Itachi. Too old to be Sasuke. He knew of no Uchiha who had silver hair. Not even partially silver hair. Warily, he walked closer.

"--Yes, please, I'll do--" the man stopped speaking.

Kakashi stared at him.

He stared back. "I know you," the stranger murmured at last.

Scars made a network of lines on one side of his face, the side with the blacker-than-black eye. The other half was unscarred, except for a long slash running under a dirty length of cloth covering his eye. The line bisected his brow and streaked down his cheek. That eye, Kakashi realized, watching the chakra flow around rather than into it, was gone.

"I *know* you," the man whispered again, wonder blended with frustration. He shifted, winced when he put weight on his far leg, gripped the bars with a healthy hand and another hand full of twisted fingers--one missing. "I know you," he repeated, as if the statement might jog a recollection. And then the black eye lit, and memory drew itself over his scarred flesh. "Hatake Kakashi." He smiled, sneered, scars pulling. "Kakashi."

Kakashi stared at him, at waist-length black hair that silvered wherever the scars ran into his scalp. At the broken fingers and twisted skin, all on the right side of his body. At the black eye that spiraled into red, black flecks whirling. At the bones, too sharp, that stood plainly out of a man who barely reached Kakashi's chin.

The smile grew, and the scars twisted it further. "Have you taken good care of my eye? I see you still have it. That's something, I suppose."