Note: Did I promise OP Kakashi in this update? Whoops, I guess the plotbunnies overrode his appearance. Next chapter we might have Obito waking up to the human disaster named Hatake Kakashi.
And hopefully Kaguya's POV too if I can fit it in.
-★-
The creation of shinobi was the first story that was taught to shinobi children.
A history told as old wives' tales—dismissed by the civilians yet held dear by the shinobi—a reminder of their origins and roots.
It started when a star fell onto the Earth.
From the star, grew a tree so powerful it has a will of its own and power so coveted by the humans.
However, any humans that braved the task to conquer the tree never made it back. They were consumed alive, becoming a part of the tree, enslaved for eternity.
So many warriors had tried to conquer the tree, but they all failed.
It wasn't long before the greed to conquer the tree morphed to fear of the divine. Humanity hailed the tree as a divine power. They set up a shrine for the tree and offered offerings in the form of human sacrifice to appease the tree.
It took a century later for the practice to stop as a goddess graced the Earth with her presence, declaring herself as the guardian of the divine tree.
She was the embodiment of peace—divine and powerful, yet so gentle and serene. The goddess longed for peace among Earthlings. She humbly wandered the Earth, attempting to resolve conflicts between humans. She yearned for peace, gracing the humanity with her prowess in her journey to stop blood from keep spilling into the Earth. She made friends with the mortals, extending a helping hand to those in need, lashing her divine power to those who hurt others and accepting young orphans as her companions in her mission for peace.
But human's greed was a powerful tool.
The human plotted and planned to conquer the goddess—eyeing her beloved companions and her human husband as their targets—completely unaware that their plot would lead to their own demise.
The greed-driven plot was successful. The goddess lost her companions to the deceitful plot. She didn't even have time to grieve as she was hunted by the man she loved—the father of her unborn child—and was framed for the crime that she didn't commit.
She was framed as the murderer of her own companions.
Anguished and angered, she committed an act that changed the whole history of mankind.
She ate the fruit of the divine tree and became the sole ruler of the Earth.
Legends have it that she enslaved all humans as a part of the tree, stopping the wars and conflicts altogether as mankind became a part of the divine tree. Her heart grew colder as the years went on—the longing of absolute peace for her children has distorted her, turning the once gentle goddess to a cold cruel empress of the world.
The tale of her cruel rule was passed on in so many versions, yet the gist was the same.
She enslaved mankind as the sustenance for the divine tree and enforced absolute control over the few selected humans that she freed from the enslavement.
She chose the candidates from a diverse group of humans that passed her judgement.
These were the humans who would be less likely to start conflicts. Thus, she freed them to ensure that mankind would not go extinct.
The first batch she freed would later be known as the ancestors of all civilians. They were not held within the tree for long—only for a few decades—thus, when they were freed, they didn't change and remain like the human they once were. They possessed no chakra and were not bestowed with the gifts that the later groups would be given.
Thousands of years later, this group has spread out across the world—the largest group of humans and the only one that was not altered by the divine tree.
The next group that the goddess freed was slightly more gifted. They were held within the tree for a longer period of time—over a century longer than the previous group—thus bestowing them with the gift of chakra, albeit in a small unstable reserve. The manifestation of their chakra depended on their effort to develop their gift, causing that only half of the descendants of this group to be able to become shinobi.
Thousands of years later, their descendants were the one filling the middle ranks of shinobi village, known as civilian-born shinobi.
It took a few hundreds of years later for the last group of selected humans to be freed from the tree.
They were the last group being freed from the tree before the goddess' fall. They were freed at the peak of war between humans—a hopeful effort from the goddess that this group would put an end to this pointless war that the humans have started. These were the ancestors of the old clans. The first batch of shinobi that wanders the Earth with their immensely large chakra reserve as well as special kekkei genkai that they have absorbed from the divine tree.
And that was not the only thing gifted to them by the divine tree.
Held within the divine tree for such a long time, this group was altered far beyond the previous group. Their bodies were altered completely—allowing some of their males to beget children while some of their females to impregnate—and they used their massive gifts to end the war with little to no difficulties. They separated after the war, forming clans among people of the same gift as them—their altered biology allowing them to pass down their gifts to their offspring without diluting the power with the blood from the previous group.
They were the powerhouses of the shinobi world—the one who would eventually dominate the shinobi world.
And they also were the one who started the bloodiest war in the history of the world. This was the war that triggered the goddess's rage, causing her to repeat the history and attempt to enslave the whole world in the divine tree once again.
She was stopped by the hands of her own sons—a sad tragedy between mother and sons.
But that was a tale for another day.
-★-
Rin adored the old tale.
She knew that she was descended from the second group that the goddess has freed, considering that both of her parents were civilians and there was never any alpha or omega that was born in her family tree. A civilian-born shinobi like the old tale described, with nothing entirely special about her at all.
With that said, she never got to experience the depth of the gifts that the descendants of the old clans get to experience.
Civilians were not accustomed to the pack-bond. It was an exclusive privilege that could only be enforced by those who were born with secondary gender like the descendants of the old clans. The pack-bond could only be initiated by either an alpha or an omega—and a beta like her would only be able to taste the privilege if she was marked into a pack.
Obito has marked her first.
At first, she didn't understand the extent of the privilege that he was offering when he asked if he could bond her to him. They were five, and her knowledge of the pack-bond was fairly limited due to the lack of exposure. She knew that it was something that the old clans practised, a unique bond that linked its participants far beyond the boundaries of normal comradeship. It was a bond enforced by trust and blood—a tie of a family even when they were not blood-related—and it was something she has been secretly coveting.
Thus, she offered her wrist to him, giving him her permission to form the pack.
A little nip that pierced her skin, one quick lick of her blood and she was suddenly bombarded with fuzzy waves of emotions that were not hers.
Family.
That was what he was offering to her.
It was a completely different bond than the one that mates would share—because they were only five and was way too young to initiate a mating bond—but it was a bond. It linked the two of them in what that she could only describe as family—siblings—and Rin was honoured at his trust. She was grateful for this bond.
He has offered his wrist in return, of which she has accepted to complete the ritual.
They have been inseparable ever since.
The bond grew as they were, becoming stronger and closer as the years passed that by the time they graduated from the academy, she was able to feel the echoes of his emotions and could communicate telepathically with him even when he was miles away.
It was useful when used in a team exercise.
Apart, they were weak and average, yet as a pair, they were practically invincible against their peers. Their coordination was perfect because of their bond and they always come to each other's aide, supporting one another in a perfect team.
But something was still missing. There was a gap in their pack.
Obito was the fiery spirit that drove them forward—wild and unstoppable—while Rin was the merciful compassion that guided his fire from running in an uncontrollable rampant, yet something was still missing. Both of them had their heads up in the clouds—his impossible ambition to become the Hokage and her own goals to secure the Jounin Commander spot—and although that was not wrong, they weren't exactly the best when it came to keeping their actions from being severely influenced by emotions.
They both knew they needed cool logic to ground them, to keep them level-headed even in the worst situation possible.
They eventually found their missing piece.
Rin's pack grew.
Kakashi was a tough nut to crack—and was fairly intimidating too—but the young Hatake was their missing piece. The cool logic to Obito's hot-headedness and her gentle kindness. He was the piece that they have been missing all these years.
But Hatake Kakashi was cold and harsh, shielding himself behind the aloof uncaring attitude that made approaching the boy was almost at the same level as an S-ranked mission.
And of course, Obito bulldozed through that shield in an unspoken challenge accepted.
Obito had managed to crack the Hatake's stoic mask merely days before their Kannabi Bridge mission. Minato has left them to devise their own plans and like usual, the boys had argued and fought not ten minutes after their sensei left. They were disagreeing on their course of action should one of them were abducted, and the argument has escalated to the point that Rin was seriously considering running to Minato to request helps to break them apart.
That was when Kakashi slipped—a tiny crack of his stoic cold demeanour—yet that was all that it took for Obito and Rin to see the boy behind the mask.
It was sad, truly.
Rin has almost forgotten that Kakashi was two years younger than her.
Two years younger, and yet he was already their superior in ranks and shouldered the burden as the Hatake Clan Head.
It almost too easy to forget that he was just a pup.
The broken voice of the last Hatake has stopped Obito mid-argument. He was shaking, dark eyes hidden behind messy silver tresses as both Rin and Obito froze when Kakashi threw that question to them.
"How is abandoning the mission is the right choice when my father was scorned for doing so?!"
To be honest, Rin didn't have an answer to that question.
Kakashi was trembling back then—figurative mask shattering to pieces—and he completely broke, weeping so openly when Obito pulled him into a silent embrace.
So many burdens and expectation on such small shoulders.
Rin didn't even question anything when Obito offered Kakashi his wrist, inviting one more person into their pack. It was not pity—no, Obito would never do that because he wore his heart so openly at his sleeves—and Rin could see that the Uchiha really meant it. He truly meant it for Kakashi to be a part of their pack—their family—the cool grounding agent to their dreamy heads.
Their missing link.
Kakashi was hesitant at first, almost scrambling away with unveiled fear in his dark eyes—and it hurt, because Rin knew why he reacted that way, knew that he has taught himself that a family would only hurt him even more—but Obito showed no signs of backing away, offer still standing, dark eyes stubborn and his fiery spirit unwavering.
Rin has immediately taken Obito's flank, offering her own wrist to the young alpha.
It felt like this was meant to happen.
The beta that longed to be a part of a pack.
The omega that has never felt belonged.
The alpha that has lost everything.
They were meant to become a pack.
That night, Team 7 became one linked unit.
-★-
They would've been a perfect pack that would put Ino-Shika-Cho trio to shame if the Kannabi Bridge debacle didn't end like how it did.
Even when it only been days since Kakashi became a part of their pack, he managed to coordinate with Obito and Rin. They manipulated their telepathic link to their fullest, keeping tabs on each other even when they were apart. When she was put in that genjutsu and her link to her boys was distorted till all that left was fuzzy waves of their thoughts, Rin was not as terrified as she should. She had clung to the distorted echoes that vaguely felt like an assurance from her pack, attempting to break the genjutsu by following the echoes of Obito's assurance and Kakashi's encouragement. She knew that they have separated—had the vaguest feeling from their distorted link that Kakashi has left to complete the mission since he was the fastest—but now they were moving back in together, attempting to infiltrate the cave to rescue her.
They were close enough for their voice to break through the genjutsu and become crystal clear.
Rin clung to their voices and broke the genjutsu on her own, slipping past her shocked guards to be with her pack.
It was the first time Team 7 truly fought as one unit, back-to-back and perfectly coordinated.
It was fun. It was perfect.
But it ended when Iwa reinforcement came in the form of a fearsome elite squad. Regardless of their perfect coordination, they were still children, with the oldest being Obito who was only fourteen years old and their highest-ranked shinobi was Kakashi, who was only a newly-minted jounin.
Against a whole squad of elite Iwa force, their chances dwindled to a single digit faster than the Yellow Flash could move.
Outnumbered and overpowered, they had focused on retreating to safety, but it was too late by then.
Kakashi lost his left eye. Rin suffered a major gash on her arm.
Obito was crushed.
And they had to leave him behind. Obito made them leave, entrusting them with their future as he forced Kakashi to take her to safety. They beat a hasty retreat, moving on pure autopilot because there was no way in hell they could think of anything else but the echoes of painpainhurtscaredIdontwanttodie that resounded from their pack link. It almost halted Kakashi and made him turn around, refusing to leave Obito behind but their fallen friend has yelled at them through the telepathic link, urging them to keep moving.
Obito's last words to them was a farewell and apology.
Then, the jerk moron blocked them out.
Silence. Utter silence. Rin could only feel Kakashi's terror in their link and the fuzzy emptiness that was supposed to be Obito. They called out to him, wanting to at least support him until the very end but the silence persisted. They couldn't feel Obito, couldn't hear his thoughts, couldn't even sense a hint or any echoes of his emotions.
Obito completely blocked them out, choosing to die alone.
Rin felt it the exact moment when Kakashi broke.
Thus, she remained by his side, holding his shattered pieces together because he was all that she has left from her pack. She has lost one member of her pack—she has lost one brother—and she refused to lose another one. She will be there for him. They were going to survive this together and carried Obito's trust forward.
All hope was gone when she woke to utter silence in her mind, completely alone.
-★-
Rin has lost it.
And Minato didn't know how to comfort her.
The thirteen-year-old girl has lost all of her bright cheeriness, hands clutching the red hitai-ate tight to her chest, body rocking like she was in a trance as she murmured one word over and over again under her breath.
Gone.
That was the only word that escaped her lips ever since she crashed onto this crime scene.
She bulldozed past the police officers, growling to anyone who dared to stop her—even Minato—and stood frozen in front of the mangled corpse of her last teammate. It wasn't something that a chuunin like her has never seen, moreover with the fact that they were in the middle of a war, but Rin completely lost it.
She has immediately knelt on the ground and howled in pure sorrow.
There was nothing remotely recognisable in the small mangled charred corpse—nothing that resembled Hatake Kakashi at all—but somehow Rin knew.
That was when it dawned to Minato that his students' sudden perfect coordination was not because they have embraced the meaning of teamwork.
No. They have gone beyond that.
They formed a pack.
Which made this even more of a failure on Minato's part. Rin has parted ways with them last night with an urging squeeze on his wrist, as if wanting to make sure that Minato would truly protect Kakashi while she was not around, and what happened?
Minato blindly accepted Kakashi's excuse of wanting to go to the toilet and let the pup out of his sight as he fell back to sleep.
He was woken up by Fugaku, who has led him to this scene where a civilian has found a charred corpse right in front of Obito's grave.
The small corpse was burnt beyond recognition, leaving only small bone fragments for them to investigate. It could have been anyone between the age of ten to twelve, but the blood that tainted the ground has narrowed the list down only to one person.
For once, Minato wished that the Inuzuka's heightened sense of smell was wrong.
He wished that this blood was not Kakashi's.
But Tsume has confirmed it, comparing the scent of the blood on the crime scene with the record they had in the shinobi's database. It was a match to his student's blood.
It was a match to Kakashi's blood.
Konoha has lost its last Hatake.
-★-
Something has changed.
Something has drastically changed.
He remembered this mission with crystal-clarity. He remembered the exact moment when Rin would jump in front of his Raikiri in a selfless suicide attempt. He remembered how it happened.
He didn't remember Minato to be a part of the mission.
He didn't remember Rin jumping in front of Minato's Rasengan.
This was not how it was supposed to happen.
But Kakashi didn't wait to ponder on the idea because he saw the way Minato's blue eyes widened—the surprise and shock and the ultimate horrified why?—and knew that even with his sensei's lightning-quick reflexes, it would be already too late to reduce the momentum of the Rasengan before it completely destroyed Rin.
Thus, he tore the dimension open, ripped the air apart to appear right behind Rin and pulled his old teammate into his arms, activating Kamui in an instant. Minato passed through both of them and skidded to a halt a few metres away, Rasengan crashing onto the lake, creating a massive wet explosion.
Kakashi's nose twitched when he smelled blood from the girl in his arms.
He looked down, hands already glowing green to heal whatever injury that she has suffered but there was none. The mingled scent of blood came from her red hitai-ate, which was oddly deformed. The typically blue fabric has turned dark red from dried blood and the right side of the metal plate was dented beyond repair.
It wasn't like Rin to use a broken item like this.
Though, there was no time to ponder. Minato has stood from his unexpected crash, chest heaving with heavy breaths and eyes still widened in horrified shock. Kakashi watched in awed wonder and horror when Minato collapsed onto his knees, trembling as tears escaped his eyes.
"Oh, god," he choked out, looking at Kakashi with tearful grateful eyes. "Thank you," he croaked, getting on his feet again to stagger towards Kakashi. "Thank you so much. If you didn't—"
The rest of the words disappeared to horrified sobs from the infamous Yellow Flash.
Kakashi has never seen Minato so brokenly relieved.
He also has never seen Rin so cold and unresponsive.
What had happened?
What has changed?
"You shouldn't put your own blood on your teammate's hands," he said, masking his confusion with the stern tone of a superior, levelling his gaze towards Rin, wanting her to know because he didn't get the chance to say this to his Rin, never got the chance to ask her if she truly hated him to let him live the rest of his life seeing her blood on his hands. "You'll break them."
Like how it breaks me.
No response. She only stared up at him, brown eyes cold.
It was like Rin was dead inside.
"Rin?" Kakashi called, now was getting concerned.
"If I live, this seal will be broken the moment I reached Konoha and unleash the Sanbi on my village," she eventually said, flat and emotionless, her hand reaching up to touch her hitai-ate. "And I rather die than destroying the village that my pack fought for."
Mismatched eyes of blue and green widened as Kakashi tried to digest that.
Something has drastically changed.
It felt like Rin has no care for Konoha at all. Like she was fighting as Konoha's shinobi for someone else's sake.
"Rin," Minato murmured, hesitant even when he reached out to pull her into his arms. He looked up to meet Kakashi's eyes through the eye holes of the mask, lips quirking to a smile when his gaze darted to the silver tresses that framed the blank white mask. "Thank you, Sakumo-san."
Kakashi froze in yet another round of ultimate what the fuck.
Last time he interfered mid-battle, Shikaku had called him with his father's name, and now Minato too?
What has driven the powerful jounin of Konoha to come to the conclusion that he was his father even when Sakumo was hundred percent dead?
"I'm sorry," Minato murmured, evading his mismatched gaze now. "I'm truly sorry," the blond man has straight-up whimpered, clutching Kakashi's dark cloak with one hand. "Please forgive me."
Kakashi didn't know how to react.
He was so horribly confused and baffled.
But then he felt his clone popped, alerting him of the incoming Kiri-nin. The alert promptly pulled him back into mission mode. He didn't give any indicator that he was interested in Minato's words as he knelt in front of Rin. He wanted to know, yes, but the Kiri squad was nearing closer to their location and he rather not kill them to protect his old teammates. It would go against his effort as the neutral party who kept sabotaging the war.
Kakashi needed to fix this seal and get both of his sensei and Rin to safety. He allowed his eyes to morph to sharingan, pointedly ignoring Minato's soft hitch of surprised breath and focused his attention on Rin, only to restrain a relieved breath when he saw no signs of puppet seal being placed on her. It gave him an assurance that Madara's influence on this war was not like it was the first time around. Now, all that he should do was to fix the seal on Rin's body.
Rin, who looked like she couldn't care less if Kakashi was going to kill her.
Instead of reasonably panicking, she stared into his sharingan with dead eyes, not even flinching when he reached his hand towards her middle where he could feel the seething thrum of Sanbi's chakra.
The Sanbi's chakra felt violent and angry—so powerful yet so full of hatred—that Kakashi briefly wondered if he has made a good call with this one.
Though, before he could doubt his own plan, there was a tug in his mind and he suddenly was made to remember the Fourth Ninja War. He remembered the way Naruto spoke of the Kyuubi with fondness and remembered the way his bright student has treated all nine gigantic bijuu like they were friends.
And the nine of them treated Naruto like the boy was their friend. Even Shukaku, although the Sand Beast did it in his grumpy arrogant way.
The bijuu considered Naruto as their friend.
These bijuu have names. They have feelings just like a human would.
They were alive—far more than a monster that Kakashi has initially thought.
And if there was a fragment of the Rin that he remembered in this dead-eyed girl, perhaps bonding with the Sanbi could bring that girl back.
What was the Sanbi's name again?
Kakashi didn't have to wait long before his delusion supplied the answer.
"Isobu." Naruto's voice was fond and loving, echoing in Kakashi's mind. "His name is Isobu."
"Isobu," Kakashi repeated, eyes crinkled to an eye-smile behind the wooden mask. "The Sanbi's name is Isobu."
He swore he felt the bijuu's chakra jolted under his palm as if the Sanbi himself was surprised.
Rin blinked, taken aback, though it was worth it because Kakashi saw a flicker of life in her eyes.
"What?" she blurted out, flinching when he planted his hand firm on her sealed abdomen.
Kakashi smiled behind his mask.
"The bijuu is alive," he said, weaving his chakra into her seal, fixing the broken seal. "They are not monsters. They are just like us—they have feelings and their own personality," he retreated to form a handsign, looking up to meet her bewildered gaze. "Humanity is the one who makes them the monsters of our fear."
With that, he drove his chakra-coated hands onto her seal, replicating the seal that he has seen on Naruto onto Rin's body.
Rin spasmed, coughing in pain and Kakashi casually tilted his head when a kunai was angled to his throat within a split second.
"What did you do?!" Minato growled, reaching a hand to push Rin behind him, blue eyes glaring death as he met Kakashi's mismatched gaze.
"Fixing her seal," Kakashi answered in a happy hum, phasing through the kunai so that he could pull Rin into a hug.
Minato didn't look convinced, eyes narrowing in wariness as he followed Kakashi's movements.
"His name is Isobu," he murmured to her ear. "Reach out to him, Rin. I know that you two could be the best of friends."
Just like Naruto and Kyuubi.
With that, he tugged Minato and transported them both into Konoha's territory, disappearing into Kamui before any of them could blink.
Kakashi didn't know what has changed, but at least the tiny smile he saw on Rin's face as she caressed her stomach told him that at least, one of the changes would be for the better.
Nohara Rin, jinchuuriki of Isobu, honestly sounded like a wonderful title for his old friend.
As for the Kiri-squad, they arrived at an empty calm lake with no Yellow Flash or the Sanbi container in sight, only to be greeted with a note that was pinned on a rock with a kunai. The note was infuriatingly simple that it made the squad leader spurt literal foam out of his mouth in pure rage.
Said note only contained three simple sentences and signed with the now accursed name, complete with little heart doodles;
Ooops. No fight today. Sorry, not sorry. – Ghost
Notes: So, Kakashi is a troll anti-war entity.
Man, the Go-Kage would be greying early because of him.
As for the young Kakashi, hold your tears. He is not dead, just losing a whole lot of blood.
And if you wondered why he was so detached and didn't bring up his pack in last chapter, friendly reminder that he was still in shock, and has only been in the pack for not more than two weeks, tops. He is using denial as a coping mechanism. Reminding himself that Obito was one of his packmates, a brother that he has lost, would hurt him even more than when he deluded himself into thinking that he lost a friend. He is trying to cope, but shit happens.
A/N: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16816201/chapters/40256993