[ Kakashi-sensei.

The world is burning and Obito stands in the distance with a vivific smile on his face, blood dripping from his fingertips into the red sky, which pulses with the lives of one hundred thousand ninja.

Kakashi stands amongst them all, a lone survivor on a battlefield filled with everyone he has ever loved. The bodies are lifeless and broken, eyes wide open, staring in accusation. You did this, they say without speaking, and Kakashi stumbles, staggers, falling to his knees.

The earth runs teeming with blood. The smell of it, sharp enough to make him choke.

Kakashi-sensei.

Obito's laughter cackles overhead, a cawing as wild as the murder of crows that circle the sky. And then he's right there with a hand in Kakashi's chest, and Kakashi can feel his fingers curling around his heart, cold and slithery and entirely inhuman, as he stares at Kakashi with mismatched eyes.

"How does it feel, Kakashi?" He asks, almost sweetly, and his fingers start to squeeze until Kakashi can't breathe at all, the pain a raw, screaming wound that swallows him up. He supposes it is just as well to have his heart ripped out of his chest while it's still beating.

Obito smiles, showing Kakashi all his teeth.

He rips his hand out, and Kakashi's heart with it.

Oi, Kakashi-sensei-- ]

[ Ever since the incidence with the mistletoe a month prior, Kakashi had been mostly keeping to himself for the most part, spending his nights alone, usually holed up with a collection of books he's started to amass from the library and a glass or two of Scotch or shochuu. Socialization wasn't exactly the sort of thing he particularly liked to do back home, and even less so these days when there's the ever-present threat of the Malnosso fucking around with people's heads.

Easier to keep to oneself, as to not potentially cross paths with yet another experiment to entertain the proverbial powers-that-be.

In the months that Kakashi has been in Luceti, he has come to more or less accept his circumstances, if only because attempting to fight with a more-or-less invisible enemy is a futile endeavor, and missions barely ever provide any really useful information. Despite the recent mistletoe incident, and the previous Luceti Valley incident, for the most part, life in Luceti has been slow but peaceful, and Kakashi can't exactly deny that he doesn't enjoy spending stolen time with his sensei and Kushina. Making up for lost time.

And yet.

None of it is real, at least not in the sense of the real world being outside of Luceti, where a war wages. Here, there is a war too, but being under the protection of the Malnosso, and within the barrier of Luceti's enclosure, the effects of war are negligible, and it's far too easy to fall into a life of indolence. Too easy to let one's guard down.

Which is why the sudden rattling at Kakashi's front door has him jumping off his couch with kunai in hand as he sends out his chakra in a testing wave. Could it be that the Third Party had decided to attack the enclosure? That perhaps, somehow the barrier failed?

Just beyond the door he can only sense one presence, and Kakashi creeps a little closer, focusing. With his power at about half-mast here in Luceti, it's harder to get a ping on people, but there's something strangely familiar about this particular chakra signature. Certainly not the signature of a person who can't mold chakra or energy similar to chakra, anyway. He approaches the door carefully, navigating past his traps, then peers out of the peephole, and -- ]