Naruto Cold Catch

**Author's Note: **Well, I have no business writing this. _Like I don't have enough fics already_. This is a tragedy and we all really ought to mourn that I'm no longer a real person, but am in fact a fan fiction machine. I'll be blunt with you, this entire story is inspired from its first line which is in turn inspired from the legend that says Napoleon Bonaparte's armies knocked off the Sphinx's nose with their cannon. Way to be a raging dickwad, Napoleon. Glad you were so into defacing national monuments.

Please note that if you're looking for a tight plot and sequence of events, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Are you familiar with the works of Mark Twain? With the roving storyline progressively shifting and moving towards a distant goal? Expect that. _I'm sorry._ I tried to write this as clearly and linearly as possible, but here we are. Oh well~

**Pairings: **None! Scary, I know. Unless I decide not to split the narrative, in which case it will be KakaSaku unless KakaObi happens first damn they gay.

**Warnings: **Language, mostly. Nothing too dark lies ahead and I don't anticipate (much) character death. Unless, yet again, if I decide not to split the narrative, in which case you need to look out for: sex, abuse (substance and sexual), uhm... you know, we'll just cross that bridge when/if we come to it.

**Disclaimer:** _Naruto_ (c) Masashi Kishimoto.

* * *

**Cold Catch**

Chapter One : Fragments

_I was young and naïve, as I was told so I believed_

_I was told there's only one road that leads you home_

The Nidaime's nose was missing.

He looked a lot better than Minato-sensei, who had been blown off the mountain entirely.

"Keep moving."

"...Right."

Kakashi tore his gaze from the broken monument he would never see again. All in all, Kumo had proven to be a very fair conqueror. He had received five meals in twice as many days and with any luck, he would only suffer minor nerve damage from the tightness of the bindings on his wrists. They had also been so very kind as to let an actual medic remove his Sharingan eye and heal up the empty socket in lieu of simply gouging it out. That probably had more to do with the fact it had since been transplanted into one of Kumogakure's own shinobi and less to do with being nice to Kakashi, but he would take it. Kakashi wasn't one to question small mercies when they were extended to him.

"How many of them are there, Kakashi?"

"With us? Eight," he answered smoothly. They had plucked Obito's remaining eye from him, too, and placed it into a shinobi named Darui alongside the Sharingan they took from Kakashi. Rendered blind, Obito had been asking for the play by play ever since. That was three days ago. Obito still wasn't used to the change and walked far too close for comfort, but Kakashi allowed it. He had imagined the isolation Obito was feeling, the apprehension of being frog marched out of the village by unknown jailers into a world he couldn't even see, and he would happily endure a little invasion of personal space for Obito's sake.

"Damn. I guess we're not getting away?"

The squadron of Cloud ninja guarding them seemed thoroughly disinterested in their subdued and disabled charges. Kakashi swallowed hard. "Highly unlikely."

They passed through the village gates and were checked by the sentries there. Among the prisoners Kakashi and Obito were being transported with were a jonin that Kakashi didn't know very well and a chuunin who if Kakashi knew anything about him at all, it was that he was probably experiencing nicotine withdraw. Sarutobi Asuma looked absolutely pitiful and judging by his mangled and broken hands, he wouldn't be performing any jutsu for a very long time. Maybe not ever. Kakashi was suddenly grateful that his own fingers were simply bound beyond movement behind his back.

Small mercies, he thought again.

The sentries checked them off a list and their convoy moved onward at a brisk pace. Beside him Obito shuffled awkwardly, as if he wasn't sure what to do with his feet. He stumbled a few times and talked ceaselessly, or at least he did until one of their burlier guards boxed his ears and told him to shut the hell up. Obito shut it and shifted closer to Kakashi just as the tell-tale sound of an explosion filled the air. Obito stiffened and paused. They were scarcely 200 meters from Konoha and as he turned around, Kakashi had the suspicion that they were the last group of prisoners sent out. The fact that Konoha seemed to be on fire when he looked back verified it.

"What's going on?" Obito asked him. The Uchiha's voice shook.

Kakashi wasn't sure how to describe it or what to say. "Nothing, Obito. Just keep walking."

While Kakashi had always been aware of the animosity between Konoha and Kumo, he hadn't known that the Cloud's hatred ran quite so deep. The Third Secret War was over; it had been for almost two years, and those years had been damn good ones. Obito had come back home after some miraculous, improbable survival with half his body replaced by something not quite made of human flesh. Ever dramatic, he hadn't returned until the very moment he was most needed – right before Rin sacrificed herself to save the village from Kiri's attempt at decimating Konoha. It failed and Obito had helped Kakashi defend Rin from the Mist nin who pursued them until Minato-sensei himself was able to come to their aid and repair the faulty sealing Kiri performed on the three tailed bijuu. After that they all went home as a complete team and the war officially ended a few weeks later.

He didn't know where Rin was now. He assumed she was alive – successful jinchuuriki were hard to come by, and their sensei's seal meant she was very valuable. As for Minato, Kakashi knew for a fact that the Fourth Hokage was dead. Just because the Third Secret War had closed didn't mean that Kumo demilitarized and while Konoha spent the time collectively licking her wounds, Kumo launched a quiet, covert campaign to destroy them. The Raikage despised Minato, though Kakashi was still pretty baffled as to exactly why. As a leader in the same precarious position A understood that it only took one well planned and well executed assassination attempt to bring down anyone, kages included.

That was precisely what Kumo had done.

Crucially, they had given themselves away at the very last moment. It hadn't been enough for Minato-sensei to escape with his life, but it had been enough for Kushina and his son to escape with theirs. Naruto and his mother were long gone by the time the rest of Konoha even knew what was happening, before the first fires were set and the majority of the jonin and chuunin ranks slaughtered. Young shinobi with kekkei genkai were spared and spirited away for the purpose of integration while their mothers and fathers were butchered. Shinobi without bloodline limits were just fodder. A few like himself were taken as prisoners because Kumo wanted their secrets, but as a whole Kakashi was forced to accept the very real fact that almost everyone he had ever known was dead.

He didn't even feel sad about it. He just felt... empty.

Kakashi was fairly certain that the only reason he and Obito were still alive was because of their ties to the Fourth. They had made a little name for themselves in the latter weeks of the Third Secret War, a pair of boys with just three eyes between the two of them. The Sharingan was stronger in a pair, which also accounted for why theirs had been simultaneously harvested. The only thing either of them really had to offer now were secrets and knowledge. He supposed Obito did have a bloodline, but he was such a knucklehead that he would never comply and be subjugated to Kumo, so it was useless. Besides, they had already captured enough young and fully impressionable Uchiha. They didn't need Obito.

They didn't need Kakashi. Or Asuma. Or that jonin Senju.

Unless this was all, as he truly thought it must have to be, about Minato-sensei and the past Hokage. They were going to be disappointed if they thought either he or Obito held the key to any of their sensei's techniques. The most they knew about hiraishin was throw kunai, sensei appears. End of theory. They also didn't know how to open the scrolls that had undoubtedly been pilfered from the vaults beneath the Hokage's residency, so the way Kakashi figured it they were as good as dead. The only person he knew who could break the seals was Uzumaki Kushina and she was gone, gone, gone.

They walked for a very long time. Kakashi was normally capable of telling how far he'd gone and was a very good keeper of his paces, but he was out of sorts. Before the sun had even climbed halfway up the empty blue sky he had lost all track of their distance and only registered that they were heading vaguely North. He was hungry, but not quite starving. He would reserve that level of desperate thinking for when he was actually in danger of starvation, which very well might be the case before it was all said and done. Obito was faring worse. The bandages over his right eye didn't look very clean and Kakashi was positive that they needed to be swapped. He wondered then if his own eye was in need of care and immediately after the thought entered his head, he had the urge to tear and claw at his injury. When the road they traversed gave way from wide cobbles to rutted lane, Kakashi knew they had left Konoha's prefecture.

"Steady, Obito," Kakashi said just as his teammate stumbled forward and fell.

If he had eyes, he would have rolled them. "Thanks, Kakashi."

To his credit, Obito got up quickly and without aid, heeding Kakashi's poorly timed advice and walking at a slightly slower pace. Kakashi kept thinking about how difficult it was to walk around his own apartment at midnight without stubbing a toe on the coffee table. How Obito was even functioning was beyond him.

"Stop here," one of their guards said. Kakashi stopped. The guard, a tall black man with blond hair and a very menacing facial tattoo, gestured at his subordinates. "We'll break for the next hour. Water them."

Instantly, Kakashi was wary. They could slip anything into his water, anything they wished. But he couldn't refuse, and he _needed _fluids. As if sensing his apprehension, the only kunoichi in their squadron approached him and Obito, unscrewing a canteen from her own pack. He supposed the action was meant to make him feel more trusting, but all it did was further raise his suspicions.

"I promise not to hurt you," she said, pulling down his mask gently and raising the canteen to his lips. Kakashi doubted her on the principle that a shinobi's promises were worthless as dirt. He drank anyway. "I'm H."

"Kakashi," he bristled.

H smiled and slipped his mask back over his nose, "I know."

She turned to Obito, who was sitting down and having a rest and squatted to let him drink, too. Unlike Kakashi, Obito trusted her without falter, taking three or four large gulps of water and introducing himself obnoxiously. Did he really have no idea how to handle a catch-22?

"I'm Obito," he told her enthusiastically.

She laughed at him. "I'm H," she said again.

"You sound hot."

Kakashi nearly groaned. _Idiot._

But H didn't seem to think so. She actually blushed, which left Kakashi utterly bewildered but what could he say? Girls were a mystery that would never be solved. It would be foolish to think foreign kunoichi were any different. If he were pressed into guessing, he would bet that in all likelihood it was probably because not many people ever complimented H. She was decidedly homely he thought, squinting his eye at her. Her hair was orange and her skin mottled and blowzy, and her eyes were the an ugly shade that reminded him of bean paste, but they looked at Obito softly.

"Let's have a look at your bandages," she said warmly. Kakashi understood now why she had been the one to approach them. She was the medic of the group.

"Uhm," Kakashi interrupted, nodding to where Sarutobi was sitting in the middle of the road nearly in tears examining his wrecked hands. No one was coming to his aid. "No offense, but don't you think you should be checking on him..?"

H's expression fell a little as she glanced up at Kakashi, her fingers plucking at Obito's bandage. "I've only been assigned to take care of you and him."

A lump rose in his throat. "I... I really think you should help Asuma."

H was pulling fresh gauze from her hip pouch for Obito. "I'll talk to Tarui and see what I can do. Sit down so I can refresh your bandages, too."

Kakashi sat, tuning Obito and H out and instead focusing on the other ninja milling and sunning themselves in their break. Now was the time to probe them for potential weaknesses. The closer they got to Cloud, the sloppier their jailers would get. Or at least that was what Kakashi was counting on. Of the eight shinobi guarding them, only three looked like a viable threat. The most prominent was the man identified now as Tarui, the captain who had ordered their rest. He looked mean and cautious and Kakashi didn't like him or the twin blades strapped to his back one bit. The other two were a pair that looked like twins, bald and muscular, but as Kakashi witnessed them having a fight over who would eat their last packet of soft jelly candies and fail to keep track of who had won two out of three bouts of rock-paper-scissiors a total of six times, he decided they were incredibly stupid. No threat.

"Alright, now let's look at you," H said, kneeling before him. She removed the bandage from Kakashi's eye and tsked lightly, applying a touch of cool chakra to the wound before dressing it again. The Kumo nin were not nearly as talented at medical ninjutsu as their Konoha contemporaries and though Kakashi knew for a fact (and from experience, unfortunately) that Rin could have patched him up in minutes, healing the delicate tissues of the eye was beyond H's abilities.

"There," she said with a lopsided smile. "All done."

Kakashi didn't return it. "Take care of him," he said, nodding fiercely at Asuma again.

H promised that she would try. Four days later when Kakashi couldn't sleep because of Asuma's wailing, he knew that she had lied.

* * *

When Kakashi was a genin, Minato-sensei told their team very bluntly that their eventual capture was inevitable and gave careful instructions of what they should do. It was very bleak.

"Don't do anything for the first forty eight hours. Assume you will be rescued, and use the time to make them think you are compliant and plan your potential escape. Once the first forty eight pass, assume you are on your own and put your plan into action. If it fails or you are recaptured, you have two options left. Try again, or ensure that you destroy your secrets before death."

He then bequeathed them a suicide jutsu with the solemn declaration, "I suggest you use it."

* * *

It was hard to be certain when they crossed into Lightning Country. Tarui and his subordinates weren't exactly tour guides and they flew though the minor lands between Fire and Lightning and breakneck speed. Kakashi only realized something was different when his ears began to pop. They were still in the lowlands and hollers, where the foliage and other flora didn't look too different from his homeland, but were beginning to give way to the thin pines and flaky birch characteristic of Lightning Country. They also started staying at inns in Lightning, opening the first of the opportunities for which Kakashi had been waiting. He and Obito were separated, Obito being kept on one end of the hall with the Senju Hayate and Kakashi being kept with Asuma on the other. As luck would have it, he and Sarutobi were guarded by the idiot twins, H, and a spindly legged shinobi that Kakashi hadn't heard speak more than three words. They were seated against the far wall and when one of the idiots took watch of them while the other three slept he nudged Asuma with his shoulder until the Sarutobi raised his head to glare at him blearily.

Asuma looked like shit. It was unclear to Kakashi exactly what Asuma had done to piss off Tarui so spectacularly, but the order that kept H from healing him still stood and it was taking its toll. He looked thinner and Kakashi knew that he wasn't eating. Asuma's hands weren't bound as Kakashi's, Obito's, or Hayate's because they didn't need to be – Asuma couldn't move them regardless. At least eight of his ten fingers were broken and while he had clearly tried to set them and not jostle, they were all awkward and unnatural angles and looking at them made Kakashi's stomach knot. He had seen a lot of grisly things in his lifetime but the state of Asuma's fingers and the way they were turning purple and green with infection took the cake. If Asuma didn't see a decent medic or doctor soon, the digits were going to have to go if they didn't require amputation already.

The gaunt face of his comrade was startling. "Asuma..."

"Kakashi, you know we aren't supposed to talk," he hissed quietly.

"Doesn't matter," he said. The idiot watching them was dozing. "Asuma, I'm going to turn my back to you. I want you to lift your hands and gather your chakra. You won't have to perform a seal, just release wind chakra and cut the bonds."

Asuma sputtered. "Kakashi I can't, I can't move or gather chakra, I..."

"Try not to slit my wrists~"

_ "Kakashi."_

"I need you to do it," Kakashi said evenly. And he really did; Asuma had a wind affinity while Kakashi's was lightning. He had never used wind-type chakra and couldn't cut the thick nylon straps that bound him; he needed Asuma for that. But Asuma faltered and the door of the room opened quietly as Tarui came to check up on things, and Kakashi swiftly turned his back to the wall again just in time to match his pose to the assurance that their guard was giving his commander that the two of them had been sitting still and behaving the entire time. Tarui eyed him surreptitiously but said nothing.

The next day as they marched deeper into Lightning Country, he caught Asuma covertly trying to channel his chakra and smirked beneath his mask. When they stopped at midday and Asuma gave him an almost imperceptible nod, he outright grinned. The change in his demeanor didn't go unnoticed by H, who was sitting near Obito and now staring at him oddly. Calmly, he ignored her gaze and turned his back towards her. He wondered then if he'd already drawn too much attention to himself and foiled whatever half baked plan he intended to execute, but he threw the thought from his mind. Kakashi had no intention whatsoever of using the suicide jutsu Minato-sensei had given him – he had to try. At fifteen years old he had known plenty of shinobi who died younger, but Kakashi himself wasn't quite ready yet to give up the ghost.

When they finished their break, he fell into step beside Obito, who promptly accused him of being up to something in a hushed whisper. Kakashi told him to shut his ugly mug, but the Uchiha was insistant.

"I want in," he said defiantly.

"Fine," Kakashi acquiesced but truly, he had no idea how Obito would be any help. "Just please shut up. You've got to keep it quiet..."

Obito sealed his lips and Kakashi was thankful to be left with his thoughts. Hopefully that night Tarui would split him back up with Sarutobi. It seemed the plausible thing to do; he spent most of his daylight hours with Obito glued to his hip, brushing shoulders and yabbering to orient himself to the sound of Kakashi's terse replies. Kakashi had heard rumors about the blind cultivating superior reflexes and senses to make up for their handicap but Obito obviously had a long time to go before he would reach any sort of prowess in that department. Simple things like rocks and potholes were enough to take him out in his current state. What use would he ever be in a fight?

The gist of it in the end was that Obito _wasn't_ any use in a fight. He was a monumental set back when Kakashi's plan was finally put into play two nights later. If it wasn't for the fact that Senju Hayate could have carried ten men on his back without flinching, Kakashi was ashamed to admit that they would have had to leave him behind. What was worse than that was that before they had gotten twenty kilometers away from their captors, Senju's clone dissipated. He didn't even want to think about how long they had been traveling with it, and it left a foul taste in his mouth that the other jonin had simply abandoned them. But then again he had been all but ready to leave Obito the moment things looked grim...

But he hadn't and they were all together, he and Obito and Asuma, in rural Lightning Country with Konoha hitai-ate in their back pockets and in dire need of medical attention. Asuma had a fever and while Kakashi was far from considering himself a doctor, he knew that if it didn't break soon he was going to be in trouble. He was also very suspect that his friend was developing gaseous gangrene around the knuckles of his right middle and ring fingers. They would have to go now, he was sure of it. Kakashi himself could probably use some stitches, or at the very least some butterfly bandages. Asuma had no amount of control over his chakra and when he cut Kakashi's bonds he also sliced through the skin of his wrists. There had been blood, a great deal of it, but no major arteries were let. He lost more blood in the ensuing fight with the idiot twins and when he moved too fast or changed directions too suddenly, he felt dizzy. The fact that he could feel Obito tugging on him at every turn was also disorienting, but it couldn't be helped. The Uchiha had grabbed him by the shirttail and hadn't let go for miles.

"We've got to stop," Asuma panted, leaning against a gnarled tree on his elbow. As if to punctuate his need, he vomited.

Obito tugged at Kakashi. "Is he alright?"

Kakashi cringed a little, "He will be. Asuma, we need to do something about your hands."

Asuma reeled back. "They're getting better," he insisted. He knew what Kakashi had in mind.

Kakashi looked at the stolen kunai in his hand, wondering how best to sterilize it.

_"Kakashi."_

"We'll head back to towards Fire Country," Kakashi said at length, "and we'll find you a doctor as soon as we can. But if it gets worse..."

"I know," Asuma said grimly. They had all been educated in the Academy about various field maladies, and they both knew the ins and out of infection and how it was to be dealt with in the absence of a medic. It was barbarous, but it was life saving. He hoped Asuma wouldn't scream too much.

"We at least need to properly set them."

Asuma looked well and truly alarmed at the prospect, but not nearly as alarmed as Obito who had no idea what was happening when Asuma began to yelp and scream and holler like a wounded animal. Darkly, Kakashi supposed that was exactly what he was. He felt the pieces of bone and set them the best he could, splinting them with sticks and wrapping them tightly with a surplus of gauze from the hip pouch he stole off of H's body. It was probably wasn't the most sanitary thing ever done, but Asuma didn't have many open wounds on his hands. He would probably be fine. Kakashi spared a glance at Asuma's pallored face, as if he could some how glean a more clear diagnosis from just looking at him. Sarutobi vomited again but it was nothing but bile.

Kakashi really wished Rin was with them right about then. He adjusted his gauntlets and pulled off one of his nylon-elastane sleeves, tying it around his head like he would his hitai-ate to cover his exposed and empty socket. He couldn't pull out his actual Konoha headband – it would be the same as painting a target on his head.

"The hell's wrong with him?" Obito asked nervously. If Obito were a cat, he would've been completely bottle tailed and back arched.

"Nothing, Obito," Kakashi said, brushing past him. "We need to get moving."

Obito snatched his arm. "I'm blind, Kakashi. Not daft, not dumb. What's wrong with Sarutobi?"

Kakashi shared a significant look with Asuma, who was pulling himself together. "I'm fine, Obito," he said laboriously. "Kakashi's right. We've gotta keep moving."

Lying to Obito wasn't preferable, but Kakashi knew his teammate well enough to know that he would never consent to keep going if he knew the extent of Asuma's ailment. He had this nobility hang up, and Obito would demand that they find the nearest village large enough to harbor a doctor and seek help there. He would demand it loudly and extensively then by the time they finally convinced him that the best thing they could do is get the hell out of dodge and worry about Asuma in Frost or so, it would too late and Tarui would recapture them. The thought of recapture filled his heart with dread and his ears with Minato-sensei's voice.

_ I suggest you use it._

Kakashi rooted through H's pouch again, looking for any sort of medicine that would help Asuma. Killing H had also not been preferable but when she willingly offered to go with them, Kakashi made no bones of cutting her jugular. She would have betrayed them or sabotaged them in some way, he knew it. The medic had put up an incredible fight and his jaw was numb where her repeated punches landed and her sudden change of heart mid fight couldn't have been anything but treacherous. They couldn't have taken her, but they also couldn't leave her behind with Tarui's crew. Killing the medic was the best way to ensure the crippled squad wouldn't pursue. Tarui would _have_ to think twice about chasing them down when they had killed half his men and he had no means of medical support to sponsor further action. Of course, Tarui was also calculating this based off of Hayate being with them as the biggest threat. That clone had murdered three of the Cloud nin on its own before ferrying Obito to safety. If Kakashi wasn't so pissed at him for abandoning them at some indeterminate point in the past, he could have kissed Senju's toes. Pale and pasty as that old crust had been, there was no doubt who had been their real savior and it had very little to do with Kakashi's stupid plan. All Kakashi had gotten them were some nice lacerations on their wrists and now, probably a little lost.

If he ever saw Senju Hayate again he would have to thank the jonin... and maybe punch him, too.

There wasn't very much of consequence in H's pouch. He had used most of the gauze and bandages on Asuma's splints and everything else was mostly useless. A few packets of anti-bacterial wipes and a half empty tube of antiseptic ointment... he took a dab of it and applied it to his wrists, then lifted a small jar of pills and poured them into his palm. Their purpose was questionable. What if they were anti-inflammatory? What if they were poisonous? Should he give one to Asuma anyway?

"Hey, Sarutobi, take this pill."

Asuma picked a tablet from Kakashi's palm without qualm. "I don't have anything to take it with..."

Kakashi stared at him stupidly. "Do you want me to spit in your mouth?"

Asuma dry swallowed. Kakashi returned to rooting around the pouch. The only other item of consequence was a little vial of brown fluid. Everything else was really and truly useless – a tin of mints, a tub of lip gloss, and a few tampons._ Kunoichi. _Kakashi strapped the pouch to his hip.

"Alright, let's get going. We need to put some more distance between us and Tarui."

Again Obito held him tightly when they began to move. Whatever pill Asuma had taken proved not to be poisonous and in fact it broke his fever and brought down the swelling in his hands, so roughly eight hours later Kakashi re-administered it. By the time they had legged it back to the borderlands of Lightning Country and before the sun rose, Kakashi had led them out of it and into the Land of Frost. It was mid summer and the weather was mild, but their trek was still difficult and hard and when they came to the first safe village, all three of them were entirely too skinny from their starvation diet under Tarui and subsequent fast while attempting to live off the meager fat of the land. Asuma was holding his own against the fact that two of his fingers were putrefying and literally rotting off the bone, but they had run out of little white pills and he was too scared to drink the amber liquid in the vial. He kept trying to get Asuma to allow him to cut them off, but it was a no-go. The flesh would flee until all that remained were twiggy chunks of bone and skin and at that point they would be able to just snap them clean off. Kakashi still didn't want to stop and give Tarui the chance to catch up, but he thought that perhaps in a more clinical setting – with the promise of pain killers – Asuma might be more inclined to be separated from his festering digits. They couldn't keep ignoring the problem any longer – the fever was back.

"Stay here with Obito," he told Asuma when they were within a hundred meters of the village. "I'll be back after I scope it out."

Neither Asuma nor Obito questioned him. Their ranks were officially meaningless since the were essentially rogue nin now, shinobi with no village or allegiance, but deferring to Kakashi as leader still felt natural and safe. He was also the only one of the three in remotely operational order, so when he slipped into the throngs of people milling about the village market square it was only a matter of minutes before he had picked himself a considerable pocketful of change. As a rule Kakashi didn't steal unless ordered to do so, but the hunger pains in his belly were just as valid an authority as any Hokage had ever been. When he jingled as he walked Kakashi decided he had enough and searched for the safest looking stall to purchase some real food. After he had traded a handful of coins for three bentos and ample amounts of fresh bean buns that the appetite of his eyes insisted upon he sought the village's medical facilities. There was no hospital to speak of, but there was a small clinic that seemed to be based out of someone's house. Unsafe. Kakashi nibbled on a bun and gazed at it balefully. Most of the patients seemed to be expectant mothers. Was this a lady doctor? No, it couldn't have been because there was a very loud old man with an oxygen tank being dragged inside by a girl roughly Kakashi's age who must have been his granddaughter. He lolled about for a few more minutes pretending that he was staking it out, but in reality he was entirely too focused on his bean bun to take in much of anything.

In truth, the little clinic was probably the best they would find in this part of the world. The smaller lands between the great ones were backward at best; they weren't likely to find a fully fledged hospital outside of a hidden village, and none of those were going to let them inside its gates on friendly terms. Kakashi was no stranger to politics. Konoha was hated, or at least it had been hated. Were people happy it was destroyed? Kakashi wasn't. How could anyone be happy with the complete decimation of homes, where families lived? Where there were children? He wouldn't wish that on anybody. Not even Iwa. Not even Kumo. What could possibly have made Konoha so bad? Were the other villages just sore losers?

Had Konoha been a cruel victor?

Kakashi didn't know the answer. He had always thought that Konoha handled itself fairly and benevolently, but perhaps he had been wrong. People didn't usually raze villages to the ground for no reason, he thought, nose buried in his bean bun. He decided to ignore the issue by reminding himself that there were two hungry and needy friends waiting a hundred meters out by a tree. The clinic had checked out, anyway. Pregnant women and angry old men wouldn't harm them. Probably. Kushina had been pretty vicious before Naruto was born...

He found Obito and Asuma precisely where he left them and the former assured him that they hadn't seen another soul since he left when Kakashi asked. Kakashi kicked him and told him not to be an ass. Normally, someone probably would have berated him for attacking the disabled. Since Obito was laughing both his head and his keister off at his own cleverness though, he assumed any morality police had they been present would have to have let it slide. Asuma certainly didn't care; he was eyeballing the food. Deciding there was no reason for withholding it any longer, Kakashi sat down with them and the three partook of their first true meal since the invasion of Konoha. It wasn't very pretty. Asuma couldn't operate his chopsticks and refused to be helped when Obito offered on the principle of 'he didn't want rice up his nose,' to which Kakashi offered his whole-hearted agreement. He suspected it was just pride though when Asuma turned down his own offer to help, too. Yes, he supposed it was _much_ more dignified to clamp the dish between your wrists and dump its contents down your throat. Sarutobi handled his portion of the bean buns with significantly more grace.

When they finished eating they all felt like stuck pigs, miserable and fat and stuffed. Moving around brought bouts of nausea that probably had a thing to do with eating so richly and plentifully after the crash starvation diet to which they had been subjected. Kakashi certainly knew that he had eaten much more with far less bodily stress in the past, but now all he really fancied as a nap. Perhaps it was just all the hard travel he had endured catching up with him? Either way, no one felt like getting up and walking into the village, not even to get a room at an inn. Kakashi counted the spoils of his pilfering and discovered they had adequate funds for what would probably be the worst lodging experience of their short lives sleeping three to a flea ridden bed. Or maybe they could just go to the clinic and hope they were pitiful enough to be housed in that medical haven overnight? Kakashi hated hospitals, but he wouldn't mind even the most stiff plastic sheeted bed if it meant sleeping indoors. Mid summer in Frost was still quite cold once the sun went down.

"We need to go into town," Kakashi said lethargically. He might pop.

Obito groaned, "Don't wanna."

"Asuma needs a doctor," Kakashi reminded them.

Grudgingly, they all got to their feet. They didn't have much of anything to gather because they hadn't much of anything in the world. Just a few plastic bottles full of clean-ish river water. They probably all needed deworming, but it couldn't be helped. None of them had a jutsu suitable for water purification and it was better to get a few live-ins than it was to die of thirst. Being that none of them were particularly environmentally friendly, they left their rubbish there under the tree.

The three of them together garnered more attention in the village than Kakashi had alone. He supposed they did look a bit garish and not a little frightening. One of Obito's empty eye sockets was exposed and everyone who noticed seemed to leap from their path. Kakashi thought that was pretty stupid. If someone's eyes were literally missing they probably weren't a very good fighter... hardly a threat. Sure, Obito had given up one of those eyes semi-voluntarily (what good were your organs when half your body was jelly, anyway?), but the fact still remained. Until the day Obito developed an echolocation ability he was rent useless. All he was doing was drawing unnecessary attention to them and any attention at all was unwanted. They would have to get him a bandana or something Kakashi thought as they turned the corner onto the street of the clinic. Asuma began to panic once the building was in sight, glancing up and down the narrow lanes as if he could somehow escape what both he and Kakashi had known for days was inevitable. Asuma had been in decent shape during the days H's pills had broken his fever, but he wasn't really any better. He still looked ghastly and ill, and his face lacked color. It wasn't the look of a man quite at death's door, but he was definitely passed the garden gate and halfway down the walk. Kakashi thought about reaching out to him, maybe placing a hand on his shoulder and trying to offer some kind of reassurance that it was going to be alright. Then he thought better of it. Asuma was a shinobi; he wouldn't like to be thought of as weak.

Kakashi kept his hands to himself.

* * *

During their first rest after breaking free from Tarui's squad, while he was splinting Asuma's fingers, Kakashi finally broke down and asked. Why had Tarui mutilated him? Why didn't he allow him to be healed? When the chuunin didn't respond for a moment he thought Asuma was ignoring him.

Then he thought Asuma was dead.

"I flicked a cigarette at him," the Sarutobi finally answered.

"Oh."

Asuma was an idiot.

* * *

"Good gracious alive, don't you three look like you were rode hard and put up wet!"

Kakashi decided the elderly nurse in the clinic was a horrible woman.

"Displaced little urchins aren't you? Are you from Fire Country? Never mind that, I'm sure you're trying to forget it. The people have been _pouring_ out of that hellhole. I didn't know your kind had come this far North yet. Would you like a butterscotch while you wait? Oh – oh you said he's got an infection? Let's have a look then."

Asuma held up his hands and was immediately bombarded by nurses from triage and whisked away so fast Kakashi wondered if they should be worried. The nurse who had previously been friendly retracted her bowl of candies and looked upon them with a new sense of urgency. At least he had no doubt now that these people would at least try to treat them fairly. He had pretty decent lie detection skills and the woman seemed truly surprised they had come so far, and her concern was genuine. The chances of her being a Kumo operative – or an operative of any village – seemed slim.

"You two aren't so bad off, are you?" she asked, her conversational facade gone and replaced with stony professionalism. She grabbed Obito's face and scared him so badly Kakashi felt secondhand embarrassment. "How did you lose these?" she asked. "What's wrong with your face?"

"The usual way?" Obito answered hopelessly, flailing his arm out towards Kakashi as if literally searching for a lifeline. He snagged his shoulder and Kakashi just let him hold it.

"It happened in the, um, fires," Kakashi said lamely. "I lost one, too."

This the woman regarded with suspicion. "You don't have any other burns."

"It was a very controlled fire."

She didn't push it and instead called for someone named Etsuko, who turned out to be one of the younger nurses who had been a part of the flock that swooped down upon Asuma. A staff of around twelve seemed to be employed and all of them looked vaguely related, leading Kakashi to believe they had stumbled into a family practice. He would put money on the woman still clutching Obito's face being their matriarch.

"Etsuko, take these two to exam room three and take care of them. I'll send your sister to help you when she finishes her break."

"Yes, grandmother," Etsuko purred softly, picking up a clipboard from the desk. She gestured for Kakashi to follow her. "This way."

Exam room three was on the farthest side of the clinic and with only one paper covered table to sit upon, Obito and Kakashi had to share. Etsuko didn't look up from her clipboard as she began to ask them questions.

"Names?"

"Minato," Kakashi lied.

Obito followed suit, choosing the name of one of his newest cousins who was probably being adopted into some family in Kumogakure right about then. "Sasuke."

If she thought it strange they didn't offer family names, she didn't comment. "Age?"

"Fifteen."

"Same."

Etsuko asked a few more mundane things then got to work poking and prodding them by taking their blood pressure. After a while she was joined by a nearly identical girl who could only have been her sister and the prodding intensified. They tsked at the gashes in Kakashi's wrists before applying the butterfly bandages he had needed days ago, laughed at Obito's ticklishness, and made them take far too many deep breaths in a row while listening with stethoscopes. In the end, they still didn't get any butterscotch candies. What they did get was a brief visit from one of the older nurses who informed them that since the doctor was busy in an emergency surgery with their friend, he would be seeing to their treatment. He listened to them take several more deep breaths and told the twins to set both boys up on a drip – they were dehydrated – and to start them on a full round of antibiotics because if they were half as germ riddled as they looked, it was probably too late to save them anyway. Kakashi just scoffed. He wasn't _that_ bad off. Still, the notion of a an IV wasn't pleasant and Etsuko laughed at him when he hissed while getting his drip.

"Aw, is Minato-kun afraid of needles?" she teased.

"No," Kakashi insisted. In reality it was much closer to _'Yes, and please take it out.'_

Run him through with a kunai and he wouldn't blink; poke him with a needle and he would moan for days.

The antibiotics they were given weren't intravenous, for which Kakashi was thankful. He swallowed the four horse pills that were given to him and drank the sweet apple juice they gave him in a little paper cup without fuss. Shackled to an IV as he was, he didn't leave the exam room while where Etsuko told them they could stay and wait for Asuma. Kakashi migrated himself and his drip to a chair in the corner, which made room for Obito to spread himself out over the exam table. Within five minutes he was snoring. Kakashi stole his apple juice and when he polished it off, he counted ceiling tiles. Something told him they were going to be here much longer than he wanted and it left him feeling uneasy. Every quarter hour or so Etsuko checked on until around the sixth time she poked her head in when she told him that Asuma was sleeping in the overnight room.

"Papa says you two can stay, too," she husked. Her voice was like sandpaper, and if Kakashi were honest he would admit to liking it. "Unless you'd rather stay somewhere else, of course. We've got more than enough eyes to watch over him."

Kakashi looked at Obito where he was still snoozing, then back at Etsuko. "We don't have anywhere to go," he said honestly.

Etsuko's eyes softened. "That's okay."

She entered the little room and gently shook Obito awake. He jumped with a start, grabbing her and bracing her away from him. Etsuko yelped and Kakashi stood up slowly to rescue her.

"Calm down, Sasuke, it's just the nurse," he drolled.

At once Obito remembered where he was, releasing his grip on Etsuko. He smiled in her general direction. "Sorry," he said. "Just a little jumpy... I scare easily, you'll have to be gentle with me."

"I'll keep that in mind," she told him. Apparently a half-assed apology was all it took to win his way into her good graces. "Let's get you to the overnight room, there's a real bed for you there. Are you hungry?"

Obito slid down from the examination table and assured her that yes, he was hungry. Did she have any dango? Could they go get some? Kakashi thought about kicking his teammate again as they wheeled themselves and their drips out of the room, following Etsuko to a long room full of thin beds separated by privacy curtains. Only one bed had the curtains drawn. Kakashi guessed that was where Sarutobi was resting and positioned himself at a bed near to the door. If anything happened, if anyone had tracked him, Kakashi was the only one who could protect them. He felt responsible. Obito on the other hand felt like they were on vacation and acted like he had just checked into a hotel with room service.

"Do you think I could have another of those apple juices?" he asked Etsuko. "Someone stole mine."

He tried to shoot a look at Kakashi but only managed to glower at the wall. Kakashi supposed it was endearing on some level. It must have endeared him to Etsuko at least because not five minutes later she had brought him an entire jug of apple juice, and after that another nurse delivered dango to him. Kakashi was speechless. Since when had Obito been charming? Probably since he'd gotten a sympathy card stronger than a kicked puppy in the rain. Kakashi watched him chomping on his food in mild amusement.

"You're going to make yourself sick again," he said.

Obito's expression was indignant."That's not going to make me share."

As if he wanted him to share. Ignoring Obito's attempt at a taunt, Kakashi stood up and approached the drawn curtains at the far side of the room. Was Asuma awake yet? Did he want any visitors? It had been over an hour since Etsuko had shown them to the room and Asuma had yet to make a sound. Softly, Kakashi called his name through the fabric. Bed springs squeaked in response, as if someone were rolling over. Kakashi gripped the metal pole that supported his drip and bit the inside of his cheek. He supposed they were _technically _bunk mates and with that he convinced himself that he was entitled to pull back the curtain, revealing an Asuma who honestly didn't look any better than the one he had last seen being swept away by nurses. Sarutobi also had a drip but his was set up with some sort of pain killer piggy backing, and he had been properly bandaged and splinted with sterile materials. His right hand was cased in gauze halfway up his forearm that prevented Kakashi from fully analyzing the damage, but his skin was still sallow and nothing so measly as a little amputation could fix the look of emaciation that had set into all of them. Only continued days of having enough food and rest would repair that. Slowly, Asuma's eyes cracked open and he fixed Kakashi with a dark, dilated stare.

"You're being rude, Kakashi," Asuma said. His voice was thick. Probably drug induced.

"Actually, I'm Minato."

"Oh. I told them I was Genma."

"Nice. He went with Sasuke."

Asuma made a tired noise. "Brilliant."

"So... how are you?" Kakashi asked.

Asuma nuzzled his pillow. "What's left of me is doing great. Now let me sleep, _Minato_."

Kakashi closed the curtains and wandered back to his own bed. His jaw still ached from where H hit him, and wondered if perhaps she had fractured something. He massaged the sore spot and decided it didn't really matter. He wasn't all that concerned about his beauty. Not when one of his friends was laying a few beds away literally missing body parts because of their captors. A hairline fracture seemed frivolous by comparison.

Shortly before nightfall, Etsuko came back by and fiddled with their drips. Kakashi didn't pay her any mind, but Obito made a big fuss about her visit, thanking her for everything and generally acting a fool. Kakashi didn't pay him any mind, either. Actually, it was getting hard to focus on anything. The ceiling was getting fuzzy and the halogen lights were prisming and scattering as his focus deteriorated. He had a niggling feeling in his chest that he should be concerned about the sudden lack of gravity to the situation but all he could really think was how nice it sounded to go to sleep. He didn't struggle then and when he woke, it was dark and movement seemed to be beyond him. Someone had drawn a chair to his bedside and sat up straighter when Kakashi opened his eyes. Even in the dark Kakashi could make out his bright smile that reflected moonlight off of each and every pearly tooth. It was an alarming smile and Kakashi didn't like it, or the way his muscles didn't respond and tense while every fiber of his conscious said he should get up and run.

"Ah, nice to see you're awake, Minato," the man said in a kindly voice. "I'm Sakurada Jin, the surgeon who saved your friend. I was beginning to think I would have to drag you into consciousness myself. Poison is like that sometimes... as I'm sure you know, since you're struggling to lift your head. But you shouldn't worry, son! I've got the antidote right here." As if to emphasize this, he lifted the syringe in his hand. The needle looked much larger than Kakashi really thought necessary. "Now, you'll have to be honest and square with me if you want it, because I've got this _problem_. See, I think you're a foreign shinobi, Minato. Did you know that was the last Hokage's name? And you're a dead ringer for the White Fang..."

Kakashi found that to be an unfair accusation. In his opinion, he rather favored his mother, but in what world was he in a position to argue about it? Jin tapped the syringe fiercely, prepping it.

"Now...," the surgeon said, dropping his friendly facade, "let's talk."

**TBC**


End file.
