Chương 16: Intruder.

Kakashi stayed silent, he didn't quite know the answer to that question since there were several possibilities to that but nevertheless to pass the time he gave out his guess, "It should be the people of the Land of Sky. We've been catching several of their sympathizers in the village recently."

"Hmmm… is that so… my bet is on Kusagakure… I heard there was another member of the Uzumaki clan there and the village is currently hoping to bring her back to Konoha. They might be trying to stir up some trouble."

"I see…" Just as Kakashi and Daichi were getting comfortable with the night, a shinobi shuishined in front of Haruto's door sending both of the watching ANBU members on high alert.

"Who knew the kid wasn't lying… I half expected this to be a call for attention from a civilian who had nothing better to do…" Daichi whispered.

"Come on… let's go." Kakashi said and used the body flicker technique on his own, appearing right by the door where he immediately placed a kunai on the neck of the intruder who had just opened Haruto's front door in the middle of the night. The man entertained some thoughts of resistance but when Daichi placed his hand on the man's shoulder he froze in his place.

"Good. At least there will be no blood spilled in front of a civilian's hou-" Only, before the two could capture the shinobi properly by binding him up and sealing his chakra, Kakashi's instincts flared. He kicked Daichi out of the way before ducking himself, watching with his one good eye as a kunai passed by a hair's breadth right above his head.

'!' The danger however hadn't passed, the kunai slipped from attacking Kakashi and Daichi into taking out the intruder they had just stopped. Kakashi went on full alert, he quickly activated the Chakra Circulation technique to supply more chakra to his sharingan causing it to gleam slightly in the darkness from under his ANBU mask and took a stance to guard against this sudden attacker in their operation.

He threw his kunai at the hand attacking him, only to recoil in surprise when the kunai passed straight through the attacker's body as the attacker continued unhindered and stabbed his kunai into the head of the intruder.

'A clone?'

'No… then he couldn't hold a kunai…'

'What is it?'

"Daichi! Call for backup! And take the intruder away from here! This could be an ambush! We'll need all the information we could need later." Several thoughts ran through Kakashi's mind in that moment.

'Is this Root's doing? Is this revenge for me revealing Danzo's plan to assassinate the Hokage?'

'.. no he isn't wearing an ANBU mask… but some kind of spiral orange mask…'

'Is this really an ambush from a rival village the-' But Kakashi's thoughts froze when he saw what he saw.

"Ho… so you dodged that strike… impressive Copy Ninja Kakashi." Obito said calmly, his head tilting back a little as his single eye caught the moon light and glowed in the darkness to reveal a three tomoe sharingan. Daichi quickly caught the intruder on his arm and quickly retreated to the roof.

"I'll leave you to this Kakashi. Stay alive until I bring back reinforcements." Kakashi said nothing. His full focus was on his opponent who seemed to also be wielding a sharingan. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

'An Uchiha?' Kakashi couldn't believe it.

'Why would an Uchiha from the village attack me?' Although Kakashi knew that some of the Uchiha didn't accept him keeping Obito's Sharingan, he hadn't expected the hatred to be so deep and to this extent that one of them would try to ambush him for it.

"We can solve our differences through dialogue…" Kakashi finally said, while tightening his grip on his kunai. Obito only looked at Kakashi blankly for a second before laughing maniacally.

"You're suggesting dialogue Kakashi!?" Obito asked angrily before rushing through with a quick and straight stab. Kakashi deflected the stab and maneuvered his kunai right at Obito's head. Obito obviously blocked that strike with his own kunai, causing them to fall into a close up deadlock as sparks emerged because of the terrifyingly equal force with which they were grating their kunai.

"Dialogue you say… there can't be any dialogue between us after what you've done Kakashi." Obito whispered loudly enough for Kakashi to hear. The words were said lightly, yet Kakashi felt an insurmountable amount of pain and rage filling them as if he'd personally offed at least the last nine generations of whoever was attacking him.

It startled Kakashi slightly since he didn't remember making any such enemies in his time either in the ANBU or in the ROOT, the startle was nothing ground-breaking, just a flinch, but it was enough for Obito to capitalize. Obito's right hand flickered into a single hand seal as he opened his mouth wide and blew out a piping hot-"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu." Kakashi, unable to dodge in time felt his sharingan spin.

'Am I going to die here?'

'... dying protecting a comrade is not a bad death at all…'

'Dad would be proud.'

'No… not yet… I haven't made sure that Haruto will live on yet… something big's afoot and I need to make sure he lives…' Kakashi's limbs flooded with lightning release chakra as he changed the nature of the chakra circulation within him. Within seconds his right hand erupted the sounds of a thousand birds.

"Chidori!" Kakashi met the Great Fireball jutsu at face and tore straight through it, attacking the person on the other side. Except, Obito had already teleported away to the roof using the Great Fireball as a distraction.

"As expected of the Copy Ninja Kakashi who stole our Sharingan." Obito rushed away, but Kakashi, having recovered from his slight surprise, followed, giving chase. Obito noticed Kakashi running behind him and smiled under his mask.

'Perfect. Just as planned.' Several patrolling ANBU who had already been alerted by Daichi were already beginning to surround them, but Obito gave them the slip.

"He's going towards the Uchiha compound! Surround him!!" Kakashi shouted, causing some of the ANBU to break up and take a shortcut towards the compound that had been relegated to the outskirts. Kakashi channeled lightning nature chakra into his legs and prepared to time a perfect body flicker to catch the enemy by surprise with his speed. Only, just as Kakashi turned a corner that Obito had turned around, all he found in front of him was a blank wall, a dead end.

"Huh?" His sharingan turned up a blank as did his normal eye. Only as he observed the dead end, a fading voice entered his senses, the voice was the same voice he had just talked to, a dry harsh voice that was grating on the senses, "Bold of you to leave the one you're protecting alone, Kakashi." Kakashi's eyes widened, the three tomoe of his sharingan spun as he broke out into another run. This one faster, madder as if he were a hound chasing after the scent of its long lost master. Meanwhile in Haruto's room.

Haruto stayed hidden under his bed. He'd just heard a metallic clash outside his house and then felt everything light up before he heard the chidori, but he dared not inspect. If there was really a high level fight going on outside then he better not catch strays. Suddenly the sounds stopped before he heard a soft thud from his roof before all sounds vanished into the night.

'Is it over?' Haruto wondered.

'... no, given Kakashi's nature he would've bothered to inform me that everything was safe and tell me it was alright to stop hiding…' There was only silence for a while as Haruto calculated if it was alright to get out from under his bed. Only, just as he was eventually about to do so, he heard a soft thud echo in his head.

'Footsteps…'

'So someone's coming to inform me after all?' Haruto was overjoyed. His shoulders relaxed and his breathing normalized, he exhaled a breath he hadn't realised he was holding in, but just as he was about to crawl out from underneath his bed, the second he moved to the edge of the bed, the legs that made the footsteps sound entered his room. And Haruto froze. Not because he was shocked or surprised. But purely because he was afraid. A tense, heart throbbing, chest clenching fear took hold of his mind.

All because of the colour of the legs that had made the sound of the footsteps.

'They are so white!'

'White Zetsu!?'