Day 3 Evening

[Kakashi Hatake]

They walked.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way, Kakashi?”

The ANBU captain and the former Kage pushed through the dense forest, batting away low-hanging limbs doing their best to avoid tripping over the occasional concealed root. They had abandoned searching the open fields, instead endeavoring to continue their search in the brush. Neither man knew what to expect of the island’s Guardians, nor where they were to be found.

“I just feel like we’ve been this way before,” Minato called from a few steps behind his former apprentice. “...Are we lost?”

“No idea,” Kakashi replied simply. Other than the cardinal direction, the grey-haired shinobi had little to go on.

“I wish that warlock’s magic hadn’t dampened by sensory powers,” the blonde jōnin lamented. “I might have been able to sniff these guardians out already.”

Kakashi nodded to himself, ducking under a limb. “It would help if we knew what we were looking for, too.”

“True,” Minato replied. “But at least we’ve got some food, now. That bear didn’t have a lot of flesh that hadn’t already rotted away, but what was left should last us until morning.”

“Minato,” the scarecrow uttered, stopping in his tracks.

The fair-haired Kage stopped abruptly, nearly knocking straight into the man. “Yes, Kakashi?”

“What are we doing,” the sharingan-wielder paused, “after we leave this place?”

Minato thought for a moment, scratching his chin idly. “You’re always so cryptic, Kakashi,” he said finally, smiling warmly. “But I understand your confusion, it’s odd being pulled into an entirely different world. At least I had the ‘luxury’ of dying.”

“I don’t see much of a difference,” Kakashi replied, forlornly. The the latest years in the village, he had ceased to do little but go through the motions.

“Well,” the Kage replied, laying a hand on his student’s shoulder. “I can’t speak to what you feel, but I know that Obito and Rin would want you to live without this weight you’re carrying.”

Kakashi was not so sure.

“But to answer your question, I suppose we can do whatever we desire, really,” Minato shrugged. “I have a new student back in Mokugakure. He reminds me a lot of you, actually. Especially when you scowl like that,” he said with a chuckle.

Mokugakure. Kakashi had nearly forgotten about the Village Hidden in the Forest. It felt like so long since he had been there. Walking through its streets reminded him of when he was a child. Though everyone had a livelihood and tried their best to act happy, there was always the shadow of war looming. The could not shake the feeling that at any moment they could be attacked, their homes and lives erased in the blink of an eye. In many ways, Moku was worse off than Konoha had been; the former’s military might was surely only a shadow of the latter.

“The Tangled Green...it reminds me of the Land of Fire, during the Third War,” Kakashi said quietly, staring into the forest.

“I can see what you mean,” Minato responded, nodding sagely. “It does seem to mirror our past, if only superficially.”

Tsunade served as both the protector and the unifier of Mokugakure. It was her role to care for her citizens in any way that she could, but she was just a single pebble against the raging rapids of war. Kakashi knew that she fully intended to throw her life away if it meant saving her people, and he had little doubt that she would eventually do just that. Sadly, a pebble alone could not stem the tide.

Not alone.

“But for the moment, we should concern ourselves with the Spirit’s task, Kakashi,” Minato asserted. “Our futures lie outside this island, after all.”

The scarecrow nodded, determination in his eyes.

Once more, they walked.