Daguerreotype

By TwinEnigma

Disclaimer: I do not own the Naruto characters. If I did, do you honestly think I'd be writing fanfics?

AN: Prompt for a fic based on a Hellsing-theme of choice.

"Blood is the daguerreotype of will." - Junior Warrant Officer Schrödinger, Hellsing

I.

Kakashi sometimes is aware of another presence within him and sometimes he is distinctly not himself.

He heard somewhere blood is the daguerreotype of will and idly wonders if an eye counts.

Obito doesn't feel like himself anymore.

Sometimes, he wakes up and his hands are too big, his reactions sluggish and strange. People call him by Kakashi's name and he doesn't argue – its fun to be in his treammate's shoes, beloved and acknowledged as a genius.

He calls himself Kakashi Hatake, but he's uncertain that is accurate. In dreams, Sakumo lingers between the shattered and jumbled memories, and repeats the same question each night: "Who are you?"

From time to time, Obito wonders how he survived that battle and what sort of super-jutsu Rin had come up with to save him. It is only when he finally sees the memorial stone that Obito realizes he has not survived at all and he is transfixed.

Kakashi can't tell where he ends and Obito begins. He dreams of the fan, high on his back, of katon, his father's cooling blood and the hiss of white chakra in his hands.

They are, perhaps, most true to themselves when they take up the ANBU mask.

Strangely, there is never any real disagreement between them. The etching is so deep, it is beyond combating.

AN: Daguerreotypes are an early form of photography, wherein a permanent unique picture is made.