A Flicker In Time

Chapter 3

The light disappeared. When Minato slowly slid his eyes open once more, it was dark. And they were in a room. Kakashi's room to be exact, judging from the sleeping figure on the bed.

"Urgh, where are we now?" Obito groaned, rubbing the sore spot on his arm which he had hit upon the rough landing. Kakashi simply directed his attention to the sleeping figure.

"Kakashi again?" Obito questioned. "Why you? There's nothing interesting about your life."

"Well if you and Sensei are dead, then there's only me," Kakashi retorted.

"Yeah, but you look so young here. I couldn't have died that early."

Neither Kakashi or Minato had the heart to tell him that there was a possibility that he did die so early. After all, they were embroiled in the middle of a war and that meant a high number of casualties. Inwardly, Kakashi vowed that he wouldn't let Obito sacrifice himself when they got back. Maybe if he was the one to die instead, the future would become an even better place.

Their conversation was interrupted when future Kakashi suddenly sat upright in his bed, breathing heavily like his life depended on it. Upon approaching the future version closer, Minato could see the droplets of sweat trickling down his forehead. His left eye donned a scar and the future version kept it firmly shut. His left hand gripped the wrist of his right, holding it up to his face. His lone eye stared at it in horror.

His eye reflected many untold stories that led to this horror. Minato's heart ached for the young boy, even if it was the future, Kakashi was still his student. If his future counterpart was still alive at this point in time, Minato cursed himself for not giving his student enough attention.

Without warning, future Kakashi flung the blanket off of his body. Feet swinging to the floor, he practically bolted to the kitchen. With one flick, the sink was turned on and his right hand was dosed under the stream of water.

Obito was the first to enter the kitchen, gasping as he watched future Kakashi viciously rub at the skin of his hand. Kakashi followed, doing nothing more than staring apathetically at his future self.

"Oi Kakashi is crying," Obito pointed out. He hadn't meant it in an insulting way; contrary to what Kakashi thought, Obito could read the current situation well enough to know this wasn't a joking matter. It was just shocking for him to witness any version of Kakashi crying.

Kakashi was a lot of things but he wasn't a crier.

"It won't come off. It won't come off," future Kakashi murmured as his hand continued to scrub at his skin. Tears continued to stream down his face, the fabric of the mask soaking it up. Despite his left eye remaining firmly shut, tears leaked out of that eye too.

Minato's paternal instincts kicked in, his hand reaching out to pull future Kakashi into a hug, but his hand passed straight through the boy and grasped air. The bottom of his lip quivered as he slowly retracted his hand and continued to watch future Kakashi scrub his skin until it turned raw.

Mechanically, the boy shut off the faucet, wiped his tears, and returned to bed as if nothing had ever happened.

His two students were strangely quiet after the whole ordeal. Kakashi wouldn't speak even when prompted by Minato, so he left him alone.

It had taken a day of following around future Kakashi to find out everything was going to go horribly wrong in the near future. It started with future Kakashi wandering through the village streets, blatantly ignoring Gai's proposal to spar and Asuma's invitation to come join them for dango.