a/n: (a possible but unintentional sequel to "I Have Seen the World") – unintentional because if I'd truly planned it, Kakashi would've kept his sharingan.

Also, I could've sworn I read somewhere the infinite tsukuyomi turns the moon red, but I can't seem to find that again. Can anyone confirm?

These sins are my own

When Kakashi opens his eyes, the world is stagnant and wrong.

This is not where he was last. There is a distinct lack of death and ash permeating the air around him, let alone the fact he was nowhere near Konoha or his old apartment at the time. Yet here he is now, a startling relocation, with no clear reason how.

With a breath, Kakashi draws up his thoughts, though the recollection hurts just as much as ignorance.

His chest aches, and he's suffocating in sudden memories and the knowledge of a world brought to its knees. Nails bite into skin as he wrenches off the mask on his face. But the breath of fresh air does no favours, instead confirms a reality that shouldn't be.

Kakashi knows he didn't imagine it, the Shinobi Alliance, the beginnings of a crumbling nation, and the dead man behind it all.

Obito's face, looking so wrong, wrong, wrong, lingers in the back of his eyelids. A childish face that should've been etched with lines of courage and earnestness was instead marred with hate and malice.

Kakashi had stared, wide eyed, as everything he thought he knew was stripped away by the drop of a white swirled mask.

Obito had taunted, had sneered, and then "You let them die. It's your fault," he'd snarled, from Rin's death to sensei's to the destruction of Konoha and the entire nation. Because Kakashi's incompetence is the toppling pillar that had caused the chain reaction leading to these endless acts of tragedy.

The knowledge had coiled around Kakashi, his body, his soul, his beating heart. Perhaps that's why he can't breathe, haunted by his faults. He's not able to deny anything, not then and not now, especially not with the truth so blatant in a form of a long-lost friend.

Kakashi's fists tremble.

Then he shunts the spiraling thoughts away to the corners of his mind, where it'll sit and fester, but it's safer than confronting the guilt head-on. He has lost years to apologies and once he begins, he'll lose another dozen more, trapped in a habit that ties his soul to the memorial stone.

Instead he settles into Obito's doing, this place that had been brought forth by the unexpected spin of red eyes. He's stuck in a world that is abruptly too big - or perhaps he's just now comparatively too small. He's staring in a room that is fit for his nightmares, full with reminders of the year his life started falling apart; staring at hands so foreign yet familiar, missing the stories carved on pale skin. He's thirteen again, young and perhaps not so ignorant as before, but it's an age Kakashi has long tried to erase from his mind.

Kakashi doesn't want to be here.

Yet, chakra swirl and tug and his yell of "Kai," bear no results. The world keeps spinning, mundane and peaceful, even though all Kakashi wants is the blood soaked battlefield that had dissolved before his very eyes, halfway through a blink.

His kids are out there, his village is out there, fighting for their lives. Obito is out there, mind warped into something unthinkable, but there were sparks of longing and hesitance underneath the underneath that Kakashi thought, desperately hoped, he saw.

But he's here now because Obito wished it, and perhaps Kakashi had been poorly mistaken.

Kakashi stumbles absentmindedly through the unfamiliar familiar room. He changes his clothes to something more fitting, an abandoned flak jacket sequestered in the back of the closet; but his skin still itches, awkward, uncomfortable, and wrong. He's still suffocating, despite the discarded mask on the floor, lying in neglect. There is no physical cause, only mental, and Kakashi doesn't know where to begin to resolve that.

Meanwhile, his body burns with the need to move, because to be still is to surrender, and war instincts seep effortlessly into the bones. It also helps that training lets him feel some semblance of control, much needed in this realm brought forth by Obito.

He needs to stand strong for those depending on him.

So Kakashi slips out the door, silent, no one to share a bid of goodbye. No photographs by his bedside, no Mr. Ukki - nothing but a bland room with no personality.

The world outside shares his mood. Rain patters on the rooftops, falls like tears to mourn his failures and the line of tombstones that follow behind him. He soldiers on forwards despite that, despite his drenched clothing, weighing him down like sin clung on his back. He astutely ignores the familiar sights all around.

He's learnt to carry on, because that is the ninja way, no matter how much he suffers for it.

Is this vengeance or redemption, he doesn't know. He'd never known Obito, had he?

And as he walks, his head tips back to gaze upon the endless sky above. He sees grey when he expects red, and doesn't know what to believe.

Obito spots him on his way home, while darting under the cover of trees to keep dry.

He hears the squelching of mud first, then the pan, pan, pan of fists hitting wood.

Obito is drawn by the noise, unexpected in this cold downpour. There are shinobi who train despite terrible weather, and Obito is spurred by a sudden urge to gaze upon this dedicated soul.

He realises his own ethic is lacking, but he's cold and soaked and water makes his kunai slick and unwieldy. He tried; that's why he's out here, rushing home, instead of in the cozy warm comforts of his bed and duvet.

The rhythmic hits grow louder and louder.

Finally, Obito skids to a stop, awed, when he's presented with the sight of a unwavering teen, eyes focused on the wooden dummy, looking so young. They're old enough to be teammates, to be rivals of their choosing, but for all his social habits, his identity is unknown to Obito.

He's possibly a couple years younger, judging by the boyish curve of his face. He's mud spattered, hidden behind spots of brown and grim that disguise his face and features. But his hair is soft coloured, possibly grey or light brown, draped limply over his face and neck from rain.

Obito stares.

The teen stiffens.

Before he knows it, there's a kunai pointed at his neck, and he's pulled from casual observer to a protagonist in this play between the two.

There's something familiar about him, perhaps the way he looks at Obito fill with hate and the promise of hurt. He reminds Obito of Kakashi, except Kakashi wouldn't be caught dead without his iconic navy mask to shield him away from the world, and to act as a barrier against anyone who tries to get in too close.

And there is a poignant swirl underneath his gaze that sets the teen apart from his sullen teammate, because Kakashi is made of bitter lines and self-imposed isolation, while this kid is made up of fraying patchworks and desperate resolution.

"Hi, I'm Obito," Obito tries, cautious and hopeful.

"What are you playing at?" is the blunt response.

Obito blinks at the impossible question, and then hedges, "I'm trying not to die by your hands?" Not that he believes Konoha-taught morality and beliefs stray one to dishonourable kills, but there is something sharp and chilling in the teen's stance that whispers to his instincts.

"Where are we?" he demands, ignoring Obito's answer. Obito shots a glance at the hitai-ate tied around the teen's forehead, bearing the swirl of Konoha's loyalty, and then at the whole of their village, noticeable confusion on his face.

"Konoha?" Obito says in a wonder, unless the rainfall has washed him out of his home and to the nation over without his knowledge.

"Why?"

"Because we live here?" he answers, though he's beginning to believe the kid won't listen to a word he says, too caught up in a mystery with obvious answers he refuses to accept. "I'm Uchiha Obito. What's your name?" he tries again. They've been falling into an endless route of the teen's pace, and Obito doesn't want to be stranded out in the rain until his face is flushed red with sickness.

Yet the teen only stares back at him, wide eyes unblinking, until he scrubs a hand across his chin and then looks up at the dreary sky with unusual focus.

Obito lets him have his way, because his hand has finally slackened, kunai no longer pointed perilously against bare skin. "What are you looking for?" he asks instead, eyes stinging with lash-clung rainwater as he follows the teen's gaze.

"Red," is the answer, and it means absolutely nothing.

"Like the sunset?" Obito asks.

"The moon," the teen only replies like he hasn't just named a preposterous phenomenon.

Obito bobs in exaggerated nods. "Alright then, don't let me get in your way." He tries to slip away from the kid's unmoving form, but a firm stare holds him down. It grips tighter than any physical grasp.

The teen's dark eyes follow his outline, as if burning his image into his mind.

"Don't change," the teen suddenly tells him, like sage advice.

Obito frowns at the non sequitur, but he's quick to retort. Having a moody teammate to squabble daily against has conditioned his reflex. "I know someone who would disagree with that," he mutters, prompted at the subconscious reminder of Kakashi.

"He's an idiot," the teen tells him promptly, and Obito laughs.

"You have got to meet Kakashi and call him that to his face. He thinks he's so good," Obito says, and once the rant begins, he cannot stop. It's cathartic and familiar, like simpler days, before the war slipped into their lives and tainted all amusement. "Just because people call him a prodigy doesn't mean he's better than me! He's so stuffy, following the Rules and Regulations without thinking for himself. It's just a stupid handbook. Why would I follow a stupid book to a tee."

"What would you do?" the teen suddenly asks.

There is a surprising lack of reprimanding for his blatant disregard of rules taught since Academy school years. Obito doesn't think too hard on the question because there is only one choice, "Whatever it takes to protect everyone."

The kid's hand lifts, and Obito is afraid he'll go for another kunai - because he still never understood why he'd been attacked without reason in the first place - yet it only flutters over his left eye, soft but untouching.

"The rules are wrong. Kakashi is wrong."

"Exactly," Obito agrees eagerly, a sense of camaraderie. "He's such a jerk. I tell him he's wrong all the time, and he never believes me. Finally someone sees I'm right!"

The teen's jaw is set at a grimace, as if holding back truths he'd rather let simmer within his own mind, but when Obito lights up, his facade breaks. Obito will never know how his pure honest face had only so clearly contrasted the cruel image of a future Obito, whose personality had been dented so thoroughly by Kakashi's thoughtless actions.

"Kakashi is a failure who lets his friends down when they need him the most. He's too slow, too weak, too incompetent," he hisses, "each and every time."

Obito startles at the conviction. Mocking grievances has become something more. "Well, that's a bit-" Obito begins, uncertain, but his words are too hesitant to make an impact.

"Can you rely on a man who can't keep his promises?" The teen snarls the words out, eyes latched on his own pale, quivering hands, like he expects it dyed in blood and broken bones.

Obito stills, then fumes, anger unexpected but radiating firmly from the pit of his stomach. Kakashi may be stuffy and annoying and his every word makes Obito want to throw a punch in his face, but Kakashi is teammate, and Obito trusts him team with his life.

"He's reliable!" Obito roars back. "He says stupid things and believes stupid rules, but don't think you know him better than I do!"

"Don't I?" the teen scoffs, and Obito doesn't know if that's ringing in his ears or the rain pounding too hard on his head.

"Kakashi is my teammate. He's been my teammate for four years. What do you know?"

Yet to his anger, the teen only stares in pity and heartbreak. His mouth opens to answer, but words are inaudible, caught in his throat. Instead the teen jerks his head off to the side, severing their connection, and that feel of something so familiar Obito has still yet to be able to grasp.

"Shinobi Rule number four: a shinobi must always put the mission first," the teen recites.

Obito's skin feels icy, but that might be from the drenching rain, seeping into his bones while he stands too motionless before the other teen. "You think Kakashi will abandon his team?" he says, and then he think about it and from what he'd said about Kakashi and the Rules, he has no room to retort otherwise. But four years they'd been together, and Obito won't - refuses - to accept the possibility. "Kakashi is a bastard, but I know," he says firmly, "that he'll do the right thing when it counts."

Then, because he won't stomach it if the asinine kid tries to denigrate Kakashi further, he spins on his heels and strides away, tall and proud, despite the fact he's running from the fight.

"Never change," Obito thinks he hears the teen say to his retreating back, but he's too angry to care enough to make sense of his peculiar response.

a/n: I didn't have too much of a plan when I started this. I just wanted Obito to meet a maskless Kakashi and not recognise him... But then I needed a reason why, and well, you know me, I'm incapable of writing anything but time-travels, apparently.

It's now become something with a little more of a plot (but not too much more). More chapters to come.