Doppleganger, a naruto fanfic

Okay, so I've been having a weird-ass weekend (see my other one-shot, Atlas) and I've decided that this is my mindfuck stage. Whoop-ee.

"Can you ever imagine living in a world where the only reasons we exist are the ones that we made up for ourselves?"
-Anonymous

Doppleganger
Hatake Kakashi never had liked uniforms. Oneshot, Kakashicentric, postKakashiGaiden

It all seems like a dream- he's monochromatic, and every single one of his comrades is congruent to him. Maybe not the same size, but definantly the same shape, the same appearance.

Kakashi's been told that he's special all his life, that he's a genius, and a prodigy, and that he should be proud of his skills and of his cool-headed thinking, but he doesn't believe he's ever been more ashamed in his life.

Because now he's wearing a uniform, and another mask, and everyone looks like him. His teammates are malicious doubles, single red eye glaring from beyond the slit of the porcelain mask, and he wonders vaguely why they aren't wearing their hitai-ate over it like he does. He finds some bit of comfort in it, however, because that means that they aren't real clones, but carbon copies, and that the more of them there are the less exact to his their appearance they become.

In them, he can see his faults, his weaknesses, his sorrows, and most of all his fuck-ups that cost his teammates' lives, and he screams, and he shuts one eye, but the Sharingan can't be deactivated nor can it be closed, and so Obito sees it all, sneering and telling him that that's what he gets. Kakashi is sure that now, he's spread the word to Rin and Sensei too, and the humiliation is almost more than he can bear.

He never did like uniforms, and now he finds that so very ironic, it's almost painful to acknowledge.

Hatake Kakashi is afraid, for the first time in his fourteen-year-old life. He's afraid to sleep because Rin haunts him, and he's afraid to see because of what Obito will show him, and he's afraid to fight because surely Sensei doesn't want him to use the experience he gained training with his team. But most of all, he's afraid to venture out to the memorial stone each morning before ANBU calls him away, because he simply doesn't have the bravery to face them all at once.

He doesn't want to atone to his deceased friends, partly because he's not sure that they're really dead, and whatever he may do, he doesn't want to offend them any more than he already has, and partly because he's afraid of rejection, and he knows that he would deserve it. Obito still thinks he's a stuck-up bastard, no matter how he has tried to persuade him otherwise, and Rin sighs, and sniffles, and tells Obito that it's hopeless, and the two walk away, arms twined about each other, and Kakashi swears he can feel his heart wither, just a little.

But the thing that he thinks hurts the most is the way Sensei just shakes his head, and looks disappointed, before fading out. It injures Kakashi further that the dead man doesn't even trust him enough to turn his back to him, but he reasons that he deserves it, and accepts his fate like Atlas hefted the world on his shoulders. The problem is, Kakashi isn't Titan, nor are his shoulders so broad. They're narrow, and they are weary and hunched, and his voice has barely cracked, and he finds something innately wrong with the fact that everyone he ever loved is gone, or maybe just terrorizing him, before he's finished with puberty.

He feels betrayed, and he knows that he really doesn't have room to talk, because that's exactly how Obito must have felt, and then Rin, and finally Sensei, and he wipes his Sharingan eye before covering it with his hitai-ate so Obito wouldn't be able to see just how pathetic he was. Best to do his teammate that one justice, and he finds it only slightly ironic that the Uchiha doesn't make excuses for his tears anymore, because they're tears of laughter, and malevolent glee, and it's okay to cry when you're happy. Kakashi just doesn't know what he's happy about.

The fears stalk him, like a lion following its prey, and he's dreading to wake up one morning and find a copy of him sitting at his small breakfast table.

A world in which there were only dopplegangers of him would be a terrible place indeed, Kakashi thinks, and Obito agrees, because he's a backstabber, and a liar, and a betrayer, and cold-hearted bastard whom no-one really cares about.

And when he looks at all these people, with different ideals but the same appearance, he wonders if they are all just him in disguise, different shapes and figures just waiting to be unraveled. But he doesn't want to think about that, so he yells at them to get the hell out of his office so he can finish his paperwork, and puts his head in his hands, and he can hear Obito's maniacal laughing in his mind.

He is a captain, and the subordinates seem to mimic him, following his movements, and his thought patterns, and for a moment or two every day, he toys with the idea that they were put on this earth to torment him for his misdeeds and wrongdoings, and he thinks that they must have, because who could ever forgive someone who left behind his teammates, or let his sensei go off to be killed, and then has the audacity to keep a Sharingan eye?

Kakashi searches desperately for a reason why Obito lets him live, or why Sensei doesn't stab out Obito with a Hiraishin kunai, and furthermore why Rin doesn't heal the wound Sensei could inflict, and he realizes that he's assuming a variable is an absolute, and is turning his life into a fallacy, and he's starting to believe he's going insane, because he's comparing the world to an algebra equation, and then he wonders if his life isn't just one big math problem, all set up in a way that it sees real.

And he's getting stronger, and more dangerous, and can kill more people faster, and thus he reasons that he can better protect his precious people. Obito reminds him that he doesn't have any left, and it doesn't disturb him in the slightest when he says so.

The Sandaime visits, and asks him how he's doing, and what he's been up to, and all that small talk, but beneath the deceptively warm eyes, Kakashi can see the truth because of Obito –and oh how deep the torments go- and know that the Hokage is accusing, you killed my student's student!, and that idea makes him loath himself more, because he knows it's the truth, and his hand clenches so tight around his slender knee that he draws blood, even through the uniform.

Sarutobi asks if he's alright, and he responds that he's fine, knowing all the while that he's a liar, but what would the elder male really care, anyway?

And Kakashi stands, and he tells the Third that he really must be going, and with that, he curtly turns and exits the room. And he hears a disappointed, worried sigh follow him out the door.

Hatake Kakashi has never liked uniforms, because they took away originality and all that made him him, but now he thinks he's starting to hate them, almost as much as he's beginning to despise himself. His body-doubles show him what's wrong with himself, and he never realized he had so many faults, but he's perfectly aware now, and it disgusts him how he ever could have survived when his teammates didn't.

He wants to quit, get out of ANBU, but his honor and his oaths won't let him, even though he knows that being a Jounin would be so very, very much easier. Both because of the drop in high-rank missions, and because no-one ever wears identical masks. They might wear uniforms, but they can still differentiate themselves from each-other, and for that, he envies them.

Kakashi supposes that he was always a bit of a masochist, and he accepts that, because it's nothing that he doesn't deserve, and once again, Obito agrees.

He wonders if there's any way out of this torment, but he knows that even if there is, he won't take it, so it's pointless in the end. A mental image rises up- Kakashi is the kitten in the ocean that doesn't know how to swim, Rin is the water, Obito is the shark, and Sensei is the shore just out of reach that is almost taunting in its helpfulness.

And he realizes that maybe Sensei might be trying to aid him, somehow, and the next time he talks to him, the blond doesn't seem quite so angry. A bulb of hope grows in his heart, and with each successful conversation, gains another layer, quite like an onion.

Kakashi guesses that Sensei must have talked to Obito about being so malevolent, because Kakashi can now open his eye without having to fear what he saw, and to Rin for being so haunting, and he can sleep halfway-decently now, not being woken by screams ringing through his dreams.

And so maybe his life is getting a little better, but he hates himself for that, but Sensei tells him not to worry, and that eventually Obito will get around to talking to him, and telling him that it wasn't his fault in the first place. It's a fantasy, but one that he hopes will come true.

He's starting to wonder if this isn't all a dream, because since when do dead people talk, and he doesn't know if he's simply developing split personalities, or anything like that.

He doesn't really think so, because that kindly shine in Sensei's eyes is far too sincere and benign to ever have come from Kakashi himself.

When Obito finally starts talking again, it's simple, one-word or one-syllable praises or rebukes, depending on the circumstance.

Kakashi kills a man, and aces a mission, and his eye asks him how he ever could have been so heartless- that shinobi had family back home.

He manages to beat Asuma and Gai both, at the same time, and Obito congratulates him, but nothing too special, because he certainly doesn't deserve it yet.

And he's starting to loose the bags under his eyes, and gain a tiny bit of weight, but he knows he's still tiny for his age, and Sensei tells him that when they talk, and the older man makes him promise to eat more vegetables, a sentiment Kakashi finds quite ridiculous, but agrees to all the same.

It's nice to have someone care about him, and he can't believe he's just starting to realize that.

He meets all three of his teammates at once, and Sensei is oh-so-forgiving, and Rin is extremely civil, but Obito is still slightly frigid, and Kakashi doesn't blame him, but he wishes so desperately for acceptance, and repentance...

So he kneels down in front of them, and he flat-out tells them he's sorry, but Obito looks at him like he's insane, and asks what there is to be sorry about.

And he's shocked, and he asks if Obito has just gone braindead, because of course Kakashi left Obito and Rin to die, and let Sensei do so, and the trio grin, and they sigh, and they say that that was their choice.

Kakashi doesn't think he's been happier since this entire mess began.

Sensei tells him that he really should get out of ANBU before that nasty Danzo can take over it, just like he's commandeered Root, and he's hesitant, but he eventually agrees.

And he can swear, that when he turns in his resignation papers, Sarutobi smirks.

Kakashi's fine with uniforms, now, because he doesn't find anything too terribly wrong with himself.

He's happy playing shouji with Asuma and massacring the man every single time, and he's just fine with tutoring Chuunin Kurenai on how to make her genjutsu stronger, and better, and he's even okay with performing idiotic contests against Gai every so-often.

When he first meets his students, he thinks that one is just like Sensei and Obito, another is like him as a brat, and the other is Rin.

He finds a strange sort of solace with that, and he's finally perfectly at peace with his uniform, because he can see his face, and he can see other's faces, and he knows he's nothing like them at all.

He decides he always was a genius, and that only a genius could have thought that he wasn't special in the first place.

Sensei agrees, and Obito admits that he's right, and Rin simply smiles that smile of hers.

I would greatly like constructive critism, as well as any other type of review.