Chapter Text
The battlefield had gone quiet.
Not the kind of silence that came with peace—but the eerie hush that followed destruction. The sky, too blue, stretched endlessly above a war-torn ground littered with ash and blood. Trees had been shattered into splinters. Craters pockmarked the earth like open wounds.
And Obito lay in the middle of it all—torn, broken, dying.
Kakashi was beside him, one knee in the dirt, one gloved hand pressed uselessly against the wound in Obito’s side. It wasn’t helping. The blood had soaked through long ago, and the life was leaking out of him fast.
“You’ve always been terrible at first aid,” Obito rasped, trying for a smirk that came out more like a wince.
Kakashi didn’t look at him. Not right away. His gaze was locked on the wound, as if he could will it closed. As if sheer focus could defy death itself.
“You’re going to be fine,” Kakashi said, voice low, brittle. “You’ve lived through worse.”
Obito laughed, sharp and breathless. “Yeah. Like a boulder flattening my body. That was fun.”
Kakashi finally looked up. His mask was torn at the bottom, revealing the line of his jaw, a cut on his cheek, and lips pressed into a thin line.
“Maa.. You don’t have to make this a joke.”
“I do,” Obito said, a little softer now. “Otherwise, I’ll cry. And I hate crying in front of you.”
Kakashi was silent. His hand trembled once before he steadied it.
Obito’s eyes were starting to dim. “Do you ever think about it?” he asked, voice barely audible above the whisper of wind. “If we hadn’t… turned out like this?”
Kakashi didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
Obito looked up at the sky, pupils dilated but full of something like peace. Or maybe regret. “Like… if I hadn’t been crushed, if Rin hadn’t died. If the world didn’t tear us apart.”
He coughed weakly. “Think we could’ve been happy?”
Kakashi finally spoke. His voice cracked. “Yeah.”
Obito turned his head toward him, that faint smirk returning. “Maybe in another life, huh?”
“In another life,” Kakashi whispered, gripping Obito’s hand as it started to fade—ash and light and memory.
Obito gave one last smile. “Then find me again.”
“I will,” Kakashi said, through gritted teeth, voice shaking. “I promise.”
And then the war was quiet again.
The air was heavy with rain—fat droplets clinging to windows, pooling in the cracks of uneven pavement, dampening everything but the low hum of life that buzzed endlessly through modern Konoha.
The old village had long since transformed into a full-fledged city: bullet trains cutting through sleek tunnels, neon signs flickering beside shrines, coffee shops tucked between tech labs and ramen carts. Tradition and advancement leaned on each other like old friends, refusing to let the other be forgotten.
Obito walked with his hands stuffed into his coat pockets, hood pulled halfway up, half-watching the world go by. He’d dyed his hair a darker brown now, almost black, and the scar across his face was faded but present—something he rarely remembered to be self-conscious about. His phone buzzed somewhere in his backpack, but he didn’t check it. There was nowhere urgent to be. No one waiting. Just another late afternoon between freelance gigs and apartment walls that echoed too much when he was alone.
He didn’t notice the man on the opposite side of the street at first.
Not until the crowd parted just enough.
Silver-white hair—fluffy, defiant against the damp. A lean frame wrapped in a dark wool coat with a high collar. His face was partially obscured by a sleek black clinical mask, but the exposed features were striking. A sharp jawline visible in profile. Long lashes. Grey eyes—soft, storm-colored, like they’d forgotten how to be surprised by anything.
Except, maybe, for this.
Because the moment their eyes met across the intersection… Time. Stopped.
Just for a heartbeat.
Obito blinked, breath catching in his throat. There was something in those eyes. Not recognition—he couldn’t be that delusional—but something electric. Like the static before a storm. That eerie, bone-deep sense of déjà vu that didn’t quite make sense.
The other man had frozen too.
His expression didn’t change, but his posture stilled in the way of someone processing a ghost. There was curiosity in his gaze, yes—but also something softer beneath it. A pull neither of them could name. A thread catching between them like fate trying again.
The walk signal blinked green.
Someone brushed past Obito’s shoulder and the moment shattered. He looked away first, chest tight in a way he couldn’t explain.
When he glanced back, the silver-haired man was already halfway across the street, disappearing into the sea of umbrellas and commuters.
But not before he glanced back, too.
Just for a second.
It was enough.
The thing was—Obito didn’t usually notice people. He wasn’t the type to romanticize strangers on trains or invent backstories for bookstore regulars. He was practical. Grounded. Quiet.
But something about that man clung to him like smoke.
The eyes. The silver hair. That damn mask, hiding half his face, as if the world didn’t deserve to see the rest. And yet… that glimpse of a sharp jawline, paired with such arresting eyes, sparked the oldest kind of curiosity.
If the top half is that beautiful, what must the rest of him look like?
Obito shook the thought off, slipping into a convenience store to wait out the rain. The door jingled, and the fluorescent lighting made everything feel too bright, too sharp. He bought a canned coffee he didn’t want and stared blankly at rows of chips while the thought of silver hair haunted the back of his mind.
That night, he lay awake in bed, one arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling. It was quiet—too quiet. His apartment always felt sterile after sundown. Like it belonged to someone else. His plants were half-dying. He hadn’t done laundry in two weeks. The coffee table still had a crack from when he kicked it last month during a nightmare he didn’t remember.
But that face—those eyes—followed him into sleep. Not because it was strange. But because it felt like something he’d lost long ago and forgotten to miss.
Somewhere, in the deep folds of his mind, a whisper stirred:
Find me again.
And maybe, just maybe—
He already had.