Island of Storms [Sakura]

Chapter 18 | Vision

They followed Kakashi out of the bookshop and into the tree line where Sai had seen him come from before. He stopped when they were under the more dense foliage.

"Keep up. As you said, we can't just disappear for a long while," Kakashi stated. He jumped to the branches and sprinted off. The two younger men exchanged confused glances before they followed after him. They only ran for a few moments before the man leading them jumped down into a clearing. When Sai touched the ground he let out an uneasy breath.

The clearing was charred a color black only produced by lightning. There were trees turned to charcoal overlapping each other, telling you which had fallen before the other. The leaves were shriveled and black, along with the grass that had once been there. Scattered here and there were either small craters or dips in the ground. Lower in quantity were punctures in the dirt and stone, with an array of large cracks fanning out around them.

"You fought an enemy?" Shino asked hesitantly as he surveyed the surroundings. Kakashi walked forward and stopped. Bending down he picked up a slightly burnt piece of cloth that they recognized as a scrap of his headband.

"No," he replied quietly.

"Then what happened here?" the painter asked cautiously, receiving no reply. The oldest man's behavior was odd.

"Uchiha Obito, genin, killed in action." The two younger men were silent as they watched him, wondering who he was talking about. The surname was familiar for obvious reasons, but neither of them knew who it was. And dying as a gennin?

"What are you..." Shino started only to be interrupted.

"Nohara Rin, chunin," he paused and let out a shaking breath before he continued in a broken whisper, "killed in action."

He took a breath and continued as he had before. "Namikaze Minato, Hokage, killed in action."

Their confusion grew as they only recognized one of the names, for a fairly obvious reason. He loosened his grip on the fabric and it slowly fluttered downwards.

"Hatake Kakashi, jounin..." The fabric landed on the scorched grass silently. "killed in action."

Neither of the men moved a muscle, still not knowing what to think of his words. "Team Minato has been eliminated."

The two grasped what he had meant. Those people were...

"Obito was crushed by a boulder on a mission." Sai's stomach lurched remembering what Neji had said. "The entirety of the right side of his body was crushed... but he somehow survived for a bit."

Shino tensed at the thought. "Earlier in the mission I had lost my left eye and he knew he wouldn't live."

He turned and pulled up his headband, opening his eyes. "He made me take his. Rin had been learning medical ninjutsu, so she did it then and there."

His right eye was the sharingan, what he was known for, even when no one knew how he had it.

"Kakashi..." Shino started, though he wasn't really sure what he was going to say. The sharingan twisted into the mangekyo and the man paused.

"What..? What's going– Why does it not hurt?"

"Didn't you start bleeding last time you used that?" Sai asked. The older man looked at his hands.

"I'm... not using as much chakra as I normally do." The eye returned to the usual sharingan. His face turned to shock. "How is this even possible!?"

"Kakashi, this was you letting out your anger wasn't it?" Shino asked. He nodded, still dumbfoundedly staring at his hands.

"She did something," he whispered.

"What?" the painter asked, causing him to look up at them.

"Normally when I use it my chakra depletes much faster than normal, but right now it's as if I'm only using it to stand on water." His face looked as if he had come up with an idea. He walked over to the two and looked Sai in the eye. The painter watched as the commas and lines of the middle ring melded together to form a solid black ring. After they were finished his eye had two red rings around his pupil. "How can I still see?"

He asked this to himself as he looked around.

"Your eye changed."

"What?"

"Go look in the water." He paced over to the water and looked at his reflection.

"We should get back," he muttered as he stared into the stream.