My OC Stash #44 - Bloodstained Hands in a World of White by dogloser (Naruto)

-This fic just makes me want get my own ninken pile/

Synopsis: The Kamui Sharingan was supposed to have killed Kakashi in his fight against Pein, and yet he somehow wakes up - within his thirteen-year-old body and without Obito's Sharingan. Stranded in a new but old second life, Hatake Kakashi determines that he will fix what he had broken, so many years ago, all while he fears that a broken man can only continue to break, not fix. (A03 fic)

Rated: T

Words: 67K

Posted on: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13406270/1/Bloodstained-Hands-in-a-World-of-White (dogloser)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics/originals mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 1

Pain was the first thing to register in Kakashi's mind, slowly sinking and settling over him like the dawn of a new day. His body ached dully all over, he realized faintly, but it was a familiar ache. His muscles felt weighted down and lifeless, as if yesterday he had been in a day-long sparring contest with Gai, and yet - he couldn't recall any such competition. As a matter of fact, the last time he had seen Gai was quite some time ago. The boisterous Eternal Rival of Kakashi's had taken his precious, youthful team on a long mission outside the Land of Fire. Gai was gone, and had been, so why…?

Gone. That word stirred something in the depths of Kakashi's mind. Something else was gone, something important, and the fact niggled at his mind like a steady stream against a large boulder. Gone. But what?

Perhaps he should have been asking what wasn't gone. It was certainly an easier question to answer. His teammates, for one - well, no, Asuma had been killed, hadn't he? Well, then, there was his squad - no, Sasuke had fled from the village, and Naruto and Sakura had moved on to better teachers. His home, then - but he had only ever thought of Sakumo, Rin, Obito, and Minato-sensei as his home, outside the Leaf Village, at least.

Wait, the Leaf Village?

Konoha… gone...

Pain flared in his skull, pounding like a flurry of fists. The stream against the boulder of his memory became a waterfall, raging, pushing, and his forgetfulness seemed just about to give.

Konoha, gone, pain. Gone. Pain. Konoha. Pain. Pain. Pein.

The waterfall shattered the boulder into thousands of pieces. Memory rushed back to him. Gai, gone on a mission. Pein, attacking the village, destroying it. The Akamichi boy, sprinting to Tsunade. A Pein's last attack. His Kamui. Chakra that he didn't have draining his very life energy. A blue, blue sky - and then a campfire. Sakumo. Father.

Nothing seemed to make sense. He had certainly died. The conversation with his father was still fresh in his mind, and dying was not something simply forgotten.

So, the question begged to be answered: how the hell was he conscious?

Well, only one way to find out.

Kakashi squinted one eye open and immediately mourned the action. His skull throbbed more insistently, especially behind his left eye, and he could only assume its cause was his abuse of the Kamui Sharingan. Taking a deep breath, he forced his eye open again to assess his surroundings.

He found himself in a small room that he didn't recognize, on a standard bed that seemed lacking any personality. Slowly, the Jonin eased himself up into a sitting position. As soon as he sat up, searing pain flooded him unexpectedly, forcing him to stop and grip onto the edges of the bed, entirely blinded as he withheld through the torrent of pain rattling around in his skull. Very slowly, that pain began to ebb away. Eventually, after long, agonizing minutes, the hammering in his mind and muscles began to fade to the background, to a more manageable throbbing. With his wits finally about him, Kakashi focused on taking in more information. The room he awoke in was sparsely decorated, holding little more than bare necessities, well-kept but infrequently used. When he tried to stretch out his chakra, he could not sense any nearby chakra signatures in the nearby area, and so assumed that he was alone in the apartment. Perhaps he was in a spare part of a complex? But, what part of the Village hadn't been destroyed since Pein's attack?

Carefully, the Hatake slipped off the bed, feet silently hitting the floor. Only then did he seem to register that something was quite wrong. Everything's proportioning was off, as if he had shrunk a foot or so since his last time conscious. That couldn't be right. No matter what odd thing had happened that must have brought him back from death, or perhaps the brink of death, it shouldn't have changed his physique. Curiously, Kakashi finally took a look at his hands, and they were small. No longer were they the hands of a man, but of a child. His body looked similarly, and he was even dressed in the outfit he used to parade around in when he was pushing thirteen.

A chill ran down his spine, and goosebumps prickled along his arms. Surely he was dreaming again, and within seconds he would find himself at Obito's tomb, as an avenger, and moments after that, at Rin's demise, as a murderer. Then, if the pain from Rin's death was not enough to awaken him, he would be lucky enough to dream until he saw Minato-sensei's face once more, hours before his death, while the ANBU Hound strolled around the village as a useless tool when he was needed most.

But, then, when had he ever been aware that he was dreaming?

His dreams often raged violently and terribly, but rarely did he make active choices in them. He only lived through them, over and over, blind to the cycle of destruction he was causing himself until he woke with a dying name on his lips and chakra flaring dangerously enough to summon alarmed ANBU to his home.

Bile rose in his throat as his mind whirled, searching desperately for answers, but it could come up with none. He wondered if he was going to throw up, even though he couldn't recall the last time he had eaten anything. Kakashi stumbled his way to the bathroom for precautious' sake and froze when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. The world seemed to tip on its side. Hesitantly, his trembling hand rose to his face, touching the soft, smooth, unscarred skin of his left eye. Two bleak, frightened eyes of matching color stared back at him in the mirror. His hair was pulled down between his hitai-ate in the way that might have been considered baby bangs. His body was so, so small.

I must have finally lost my mind, he thought faintly. No jutsu existed for time-travelling. He knew this. He had dug through the secret archives more times than he could count during his time as ANBU, and not even a forbidden jutsu could manage this. Not to mention, he didn't have the chakra reserves for this theoretical jutsu. If he had somehow stumbled across a technique this powerful, using it would have killed him, he was sure.

Though, he had already died at the hands of Pein. Was it possible he had messed with the time-space continuum, by distorting it before dying immediately after? Rin and Obito were the last things on his mind before he faded out, and, if he could dare assume he had somehow ended up in his past, it would make sense - as little sense as it could make - that he landed in the short period he had them as more than memories.

Kakashi had too many questions and no answers whatsoever. Gripping onto the sink, he took in deep, steadying breaths, and reigned himself in like the shinobi that he was. This… ordeal would not break him. Whether he was in a coma-induced nightmare or hell itself, he would fight to return to his home, to Konoha. Even if she had been burned to the ground, he had family that needed him. The village needed him. Obito, Rin, Minato-sensei… They were dead. He had come to terms with this long ago. He had to get back to those who were still alive. Steeling his resolve, Kakashi turned away from the mirror and exited the bathroom.

The apartment was familiar to him now that he had begun to piece together this puzzle. It was his first apartment. He had fled here after his father's suicide, having been unable to reside in the Hatake Compound, where disgrace polluted the air.

Kakashi wondered, if he, somehow - theoretically, of course - was in the past again, was his father - theoretically - still waiting in the afterlife, unable to move on?

He forced the thought from his mind to deal with later. He had more pressing matters to attend to, such as the exact date. Standing in the center of his little bedroom, Kakashi bit his thumb and called, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" A puff of smoke billowed up from the floor, and the Hatake waited patiently for it to dissipate. His beloved pug Pakkun stood, looking bored and unfazed.

"What is it, Boss?" The dog gruffed.

"Pakkun, report," he ordered, trying to sound as nonchalant as he always was, despite the terror trying to claw its way up his throat.

"Report?" The pug stared curiously at him. "There's nothing to report."

Kakashi squatted, arms resting on his knees, to be more eye-level with his ninken. "Tell me about today," he encouraged. "What's it like outside?"

For a moment, it didn't seem as if Pakkun was going to respond and only stare at him quizzically. Kakashi was beginning to wonder if the pug was growing too much like him when Pakkun harrumphed, giving in. "You could go out and check for yourself," he muttered. "Warm, I guess. It's spring. Aren't you supposed to be at training with your team?"

Ah, he supposed he was. But how to tell his sweet, wrinkly ninken that, if he saw Obito, Rin, and Minato-sensei, alive and happy and normal, he might just faint? Or pour half-formed apologies and nonsensical begs for forgiveness from his mouth? What about that he may or may not be from the future? Instead, he opted for, "Maa, it's fine. I have a reasonable excuse." He scratched behind Pakkun's ear, both to soothe the canine and soothe himself. "That's all. Thank you, Pakkun."

"No problem, Boss." Pakkun eyed him warily for another long moment before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

Sighing, Kakashi stood. Assuming he was a Chunin, and that it was springtime, he had roughly four to seven months before the Kannabi Bridge mission - before everything went to hell. The Hatake softly cursed and sat down on the edge of his bed, staring at his hands, not yet stained by the blood of his comrades. Was this truly his reality now? Or was it some terrible, twisted, other dimension that resulted from the Kamui and the thought of his late comrades as he died? He needed answers, but first he needed to process, to plan. Not to mention that he felt as if he could sleep until the moon rose, if the ever-persistent, dull throbbing behind his eye and the ache throughout his body was anything to go by.

He was definitely not going to training today. Forget keeping up appearances. He can tell his team that he came down with a sickness. For the teenaged Kakashi to miss training, after all, he must be half-dead, and hopefully that would be enough to stave off Rin and Minato-sensei for a few days while he got his bearings.

Yes, that seemed like a good enough excuse. It would have to do. For now, he was going to sleep, and maybe, when he woke, this nightmare would be over. He would open his eyes to his precious students keeping vigil at his hospital bedside, and then he would listen to at least three different lectures from Sakura and Tsunade about chakra exhaustion, and Gai would weep with joy for his Eternal Rival. As much of a pain as it was to withstand the Hokage's - and his former student's - rage, and Gai's youthful tears, and Naruto's loud excitement, right now he would give just about anything to see them.

A soft knocking interrupted his thoughts. Kakashi started, jumping to his feet. Had he been that absorbed in his thoughts that he hadn't sensed another chakra signature approaching?

His stomach dropped to his feet when he recognized the signature - one that he had not felt in years, decades. Instinctively, he squashed his own chakra to nothing, although he was sure it was pointless. No one on his team was that dense, to be ignorant of a chakra signature disappearing completely when it had clearly been there moments before, but he had to try. To hope.

The knocking stopped, and Kakashi held his breath. Please, he thought, not now (not ever). Go away.

The chakra signature slowly withdrew. After eternally long seconds, Kakashi allowed himself to breathe. That had been close. Too close. He needed- He needed to-

A soft breeze blew through his apartment. He whirled around, reaching for a kunai that he didn't have. The windows were still closed, locked, and trapped, and yet his sensei did not become the Yondaime for no reason. Feeling as if his throat were going to close up on him, Kakashi stared up into the spitting image of Uzumaki Naruto.

"Kakashi," Minato greeted, worry clear and unabashed on his face and in his voice. "Did you forget about training today? That's not like you. Is… is everything alright?"

Oh, Sensei, Kakashi thought faintly, I can't remember the last time anything has ever been alright.