Day 1 Morning

[Kakashi Hatake]

The shinobi twosome sat by their fire, munching silently on slightly charred rabbit. They had only recently ended their quarrel with the mysterious blonde man, managing to ward him off with the gifts Teucer had left for them. The copy ninja couldn’t help but wonder if he had been too impulsive in his reaction; Minato had approached the man with diplomatic intent, it had been Kakashi who had (quite literally) thrown the first stone. He had seen his target drawing a blade against Minato and had responded at once in defense of his mentor’s safety. Perhaps if he had remained calm as he had learned in the academy, Minato would not have been harmed in the ensuing scuffle. Then again, he had seen time and time again that hesitation could easily lead to an untimely death.

Kakashi presently finished his haunch, dropping the tiny bones and pieces of cartilage into the fire. He sat silently, watching the flames gently lick at the tinder they had gathered. Daylight was slowly slipping away and they had yet to make any progress on their quest. The copy ninja thought back to Teucer’s plea for help and with it, the enigmatic future-teller that they had met in the temple. He cast a sidelong gaze at his partner as he remembered her tale, of he becoming the Sixth Hokage and of Minato harboring the Demon Fox.

“What’s the matter, Kakashi?”

The scarecrow met the Kage’s gaze, remaining silent for a beat. “Nothing. Just thinking,” he said finally.

“I know you well enough to see that you’ve got something on your mind,” Minato stated, finishing the last of his rabbit. “What is it?”

The silver-haired shinobi sighed, slouching forward slightly. “I’m just thinking back to what that kunoichi said back at the temple. She knew about both of us, our secrets.”

“Yes,” the blonde ninja replied with a light chuckle. “Sorry you had to find out about mine like that. I haven’t really had much time to adjust.”

Kakashi nodded solemnly. He wasn’t terribly thrilled to have his own secret spilled like that either. Though Minato had never been anything but supportive of his protege, the copy ninja always had an inkling that the Kage held some sort of contempt for him. In one way or another, Kakashi’s actions had lead to the untimely death of both other members of Minato's squad.

“This Mangekyou…” Minato recalled, scratching his chin. “It has to do with what happened to Rin, doesn’t it?”

He couldn’t avoid the question for any longer. Even if he wanted to, it wouldn’t be fair to Rin and Obito. “It started to appear in the days after the incident. I would lose control of my emotions on a mission and Obito’s..err, my,” he corrected, “sharingan would change. I didn’t understand why for a long time. Eventually I was able to sneak into Lord Third’s archive and find information on the Uchiha clan’s techniques: The Mangekyou Sharingan...it only appears in those that have...killed their closest friend.” He spoke the final words in one breath, as if letting them grace his lips for too long would poison him.

The blonde shinobi nodded sagely, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s quite a burden, Kakashi, to be reminded of that day so often. I never knew.”

“I have never told anyone,” Kakashi replied. “But when it emerges...something happens. It's almost as if...right where I am focusing my eyes, a void appears. Anything near it would be sucked in, disappearing into nothingness.”

“Wow,” Minato said, raising his eyebrows. “That’s quite a formidable technique.”

“Yes,” Kakashi agreed. “But I have no control over it. On more than one occasion I've almost harmed a comrade with its power. And now this girl, she knew all about it. If she’s from the future, that means that I used it again. What if I did something terrible with it?”

“She also said that you became Hokage, Kakashi,” Minato corrected. “That means that whatever you did was for the good of the village.”

For the good of the village. He had heard those words in his mind on the nights he lay awake, unable to shake reminders of that day. “That’s what Rin said before she…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He couldn’t.

“Rin was right, Kakashi,” the fair-haired ninja repled. “She knew that Kiri had put the Three-Tailed Beast within her. She died protecting our village. Even if by some miracle we could could have kept the enemy ninja from releasing the beast from her, there would have been no way to save her. Even with all of the advanced techniques we had access to, the extraction process kills the host. Even Kushina...” Minato trailed off, shifting his attention to the fire.

The scarecrow sighed, turning his gaze to the ground. “I’m sorry to have brought it up. I forget that I’m not the only person affected by these monsters.” When it came down to it, he knew that his mentor was correct. The trigram seal was clearly visible on Rin’s corpse, a dead giveaway of what was buried inside her. “I just would rather not have another person die because of a tailed beast.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Kakashi,” Minato said, turning back to his former student. “I can deal with this thing. I’m the Fourth Hokage, remember?” he finished with a grin.

As his former sensei spoke those words, realization swept over Kakashi. The silver-haired jonin locked eyes with the Kage, determination etched in his brow. “Sensei, it it’s the last thing I do, I will free you of that beast. If I have to track down Omni himself, I’ll make sure it’s done.”

The flaxen haired shinobi could only smirk in response to his companion's declaration. His face did not betray his thoughts; Kakashi could only hope that Minato would would trust his former student, the one known through Konoha as the ‘Friend-Killer’.

A silence hung over the duo for a moment before the fair-haired ninja spoke up, “Well,” he said finally. “Let’s not worry too much about that now, hmm? We’ve got a mission to complete.”