Chapter Text
The Funeral took more strength out of Kakashi than he cared to admit. For a good while the Uchiha had argued about whether to let Kakashi keep his eye, but eventually ceded it to him to honour Obito‘s wishes. At least, that was what his sensei had told him had happened; he himself had been too emotionally exhausted to pay attention to anything much besides the monument. But time marches on unceasing and he had to return to service eventually, so he returned to being a functioning ninja even if he didn’t feel like much of a functioning human.
And so did Rin, when she had overcome most of her grief. Which led to them once again being dispatched together as a team. And missions went fine for a bit, before once again going awfully horribly wrong.
Kakashi was notified immediately when Rin was captured by Kirigakure ninja. As one of Konoha‘s best trackers and fighters sending him was a no-brainer. It was not easy to fight his way to Rin, though it was straightforward in a way Kakashi felt it shouldn’t be. His instincts were screaming at him something was wrong, but he simply couldn’t afford a moment to parse what might be off when it meant Rin could be tortured or killed in that moment.
While he was tracking Rin and dispatching enemies, he felt herded or corralled but never outright restrained. He didn’t feel like he was being led into a trap, but he still felt puppeteered and manipulated. But what he felt didn’t matter; wasn’t allowed to matter, when Rin’s life was on the line.
He absolutely had to protect her in Obito’s place.
He could not fail.
And then he found her. And she seemed fine. A little off, but that was to be expected after her capture. All that was left was getting her back to Konoha where she would be safe and Kakashi would get to rest easy and finally fully disregard the burgeoning feeling of wrongness surrounding this entire mission.
But what had started as just a little off didn’t really end there. Despite his focus on completing the mission and trying to keep Rin safe, he felt something was very wrong. Rin’s behaviour wasn’t just off, she also felt off to Kakashi. He sensed it with his chakra, hers now flavoured almost similar to his own, but dissonant, dangerous, and ultimately self-destructive.
When Rin revealed she was now hosting the three-tailed bijuu, Kakashi finally understood consciously what his subconscious had been telling him all this time. Rin’s capture had been a setup, with the current situation being the exact outcome Kiri had been aiming for.
It was clear Rin would not be able to withstand the bijuu chakra regardless of whether she had to suffer through having it slowly burn her up from the inside or an explosive release like Kiri had planned. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place while physically being stuck between the enemy ninja chasing them and the potential destruction of their village.
But Kakashi still needed to have faith that his village could save Rin. If she could contain the bijuu just long enough for the sealing experts in the village to figure something out, they could still make it out alive without Rin sacrificing herself like she wanted to. Kakashi could not allow her to do so. He could not be the one to fail her.
He also could not ignore the threat the enemy ninja were posing. Believing they were not there to kill them, only chase them, with any amount of surety, still couldn’t make it a certainty; and Kakashi was not going to lose his most precious friend to a ‚maybe‘. With a spark of lightning crackling in his palm, he turned to face the opponents behind them and-
-there was Rin.
Impaled.
On his own signature skill, that was refined with Obito’s skill.
With Obito’s eye he watched her, while listening to her last breaths with unworthy ears.
And as the light faded from her eyes, it also faded from Kakashi’s sight, until only darkness remained and he felt the floor drop out beneath him as he fell to a hell of his own making.
He had failed.
Again.