i wrote. con stuff
Kakashi was refilling water canteens when he saw him up close for the first time.
There were water jugs, set up along the hallways of the hotel. They came with nearly useless paper cones, and the space beneath the spigot wasn’t quite right for a Konoha-issued canteen. Kakashi was tucked into an alcove of one of the less trafficked corridors, finagling water into his canteen with the grace of a genin field-dressing their first wound, when he was hit with the scent of cinnamon.
Kakashi looked up. There was a gaggle of people headed his way, their loud civilian footsteps muffled by the carpet. They were all clearly orbiting around one person.
Kakashi found himself craning his head to look. He’d seen that guy from afar, before– he was the three-time winner of the Hokage Look-alike contest. He was in full costume, and Kakashi had to admit: this guy did make that cloak look good. He had cooler boots than Minato, even, and a roguish smile that made him look just a little dangerous, and a sword at his waist that Minato would never use but certainly offered a specific aesthetic. He was tanned and tall, and even though his hair was clearly bleached, it was cut well to frame his handsome face. Instead of a flak jacket zipped up to his neck, he had a low V-neck shirt that showed off he was as fit as everyone thought a ninja should be. He even smelled cool: sandalwood soap and cinnamon whiskey.
Kakashi watched him as he passed by and then entered a screening room for some terrible TV show, his entourage of men and women alike babbling along behind him. The guy walked with the confidence of a Kage, even if his swagger was painfully civilian.
Kakashi had spilled water all over his gloves. This was not a big deal, except he’d been refilling fucking Itachi’s canteen along with his own. Kakashi found him with the rest at a table in the little food court, and as he took his canteen, Itachi’s eyes traveled from his damp hand to his face with a look of judgment, like he knew exactly what happened.
Itachi’s judgment, if one were to qualify and analyze all his facial expressions (or lack thereof, considering he had on an ANBU mask today), was mild. But it still felt like intense scrutiny.
“Maa, Sensei, I saw your clone,” Kakashi said, sliding into an empty seat. Someone had bought him an extremely disappointing looking lunch. Wonderful. “He had about ten people following him.”
“Oh, so like the real Hokage,” Tori quipped.
Minato amicably rolled his eyes, pushing a drink at Kakashi. Kakashi was pretty sure Itachi was technically on duty now, as Minato’s guard lost their shit whenever he decided to randomly leave Konoha for the day. There were a lot of cosplayers in bad ANBU masks wandering around, but Itachi wasn’t the type to break regulation for a quick costume.
Tori would probably wear anything, though, Kakashi thought as she unpacked a plastic bag to show off her purchases. He should buy her a bird mask. She’d hate that.
A chicken, he decided, flipping over a doujin to read the back.
“Well?” Minato prompted, leaning forward conspiratorially. “Was his costume accurate?”
“Not really,” Kakashi replied. The doujin was about a fictional kunoichi realizing she was the Third Kazekage’s lovechild. Weird. “He sort of had… pirate vibes?”
Minato squinted at him uncertainly.
“But cool,” Kakashi assured him.
“His name is X,” Tori said very authoritatively. “Just X. That’s what’s on all his registrations.”
Minato frowned thoughtfully at his own lunch. “Is that cool? I can’t decide if that’s cool or not.”
“They think it’s cool,” Tori said, pointing to the entrance of the food court.
X must not have liked the TV show very much, because he and what looked like an even bigger gaggle of fans spilled into the food court. Minato turned to watch blatantly and Tori followed suit, like gossipy children.
(Itachi was much more subtle as he checked out the guy. He was in uniform, after all.)
“Wow,” Minato half-whispered, turning back around. “He does have pirate vibes. But, like, cool?”
“Is that an earring?” Itachi asked.
“Should I get a shirt like that?” Minato wondered, staring down at himself.
“I’m going to go talk to him,” Tori announced, kicking her feet over the bench. “Investigate. Find out his secrets.”
“Find out who made his cloak,” Minato told her. “Mine’s getting raggedy.”
Tori sauntered off. She always stomped around cons with the gait of a civilian, but Kakashi watched her add a little sway to her hips as she sashayed directly up to the mass of people floating around X as he ordered a shave ice.
Kakashi watched Tori’s mouth as she twirled a strand of hair and asked if X also had Minato’s famous ANBU tattoo, which Minato absolutely didn’t have. She punctuated this by brushing her hand against his bicep.
Kakashi read X’s lips as he smiled back at her: A true fan, are you?
“Damn, those dimples,” Minato commented. “I think I’m a little in love.”
One of the women who’d been floating around X looked absolutely stricken when Tori replied to a teasing accusation of being bold with, The Yellow Flash is quick but I’m quicker.
“Does that even make sense?” Itachi wondered.
“Should we…” Kakashi started. That guy was at least thirty, and Tori was seventeen. But also: Tori would eat him alive. Kakashi wasn’t sure where this train of thought had been going.
Now she was leading him back over to them. She was quick. She had a little skip to her step on par with the time she’d shown him a seal made out of bacteria in a Petri dish.
“This is X,” Tori introduced. Five separate people had sort of filed after them. “X, this is my Uncle, Minato.”
Itachi did a sort of full body twitch that made Tori’s eyes glint. If anyone connected the dots, no one showed it. Minato’s actual name wasn’t very common knowledge among civilians.
“Er, hi,” Minato said, awkwardly standing to bow. His cheeks were pink. “Um– nice costume.”
X’s return smile was a little too cocky to be truly friendly, but also, those cheekbones.
“Oh, you have a whole little group,” X drawled. “That’s cute.”
Itachi twitched again. Tori’s smile was starting to gain a sort of manic quality.
“Thanks,” Minato replied slowly, clearly completely unsure what else he was supposed to say. “Uh, I was wondering– your cloak–”
X laughed, patted Minato on the shoulder, and promised him his own cloak was good enough. Then he shot Tori a wink and walked back to the rest of his entourage, just like that.
“Umm,” Minato said, standing there dumbly. He twisted his face down to stare at where X had touched him. “Hmm.”
“I planted a tracker on him if you want to follow him,” Tori said, plopping down into her seat.
“I…” Minato continued to stand there, staring at his shoulder. Kakashi, somehow, understood this.
(“I think we should find his hotel room and go through all his things,” Tori said. “Maybe steal his girlfriend. It’d be fun.”
“Entirely unnecessary,” Itachi replied.)
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Once again, the latest update from @somerandomdudelmao has left me fully in my feelings, and so I come to you with ~900 words of emotion.
(This one is a rough one: content warnings for death, sibling death, self-sacrifice, and just general despair. Y'all have read the update. You know what we're doing here.)
~~~~~~~
It's supposed to be over.
Master Michelangelo-
(No, no, he's never thought of himself that way. No matter how many times he's been called Master Michelangelo, in his own head he's still just Mikey.)
-Mikey has given everything. He'd opened the portal, watched his own mystic energy - grown larger and stronger with each battle even as it consumed his youth and his very life as its fuel - tear through his arms, cracks traveling up his body until the force of it shattered his form, consuming everything that kept him bound to the physical plane in order to form one last-ditch attempt at setting things right.
He'd managed a wink and a smile, and then he'd died.
And yet he's still here. Why-
The promise. The caveat to the plan. Leo.
Leo had refused to leave him alone at the end, and Mikey will be damned before he refuses to return the favor.
Not that there'll be anything left to damn. The family's Ninpo is what connected them to the Hamato afterlife, and Mikey's is shattered, expended to give Casey a better chance at life. At this point, he's held together with the metaphysical equivalent of duct tape and spite - Donnie's favorite building materials when supplies ran short.
(Donnie's gone. Mikey failed him - failed to catch the infection, failed to cure it, failed to find his spirit amongst the Hamato ancestors. The Krang had obliterated him, and Mikey had failed to help until it was too late.)
(He can't find Raph among the ancestors, either. One more big brother failed.)
(He knows there won't be much left of Leo - not after Leo spent so long being Mikey's living shield, letting the Krang tear into his Ninpo time and time again in order to keep Mikey's intact - but he won't fail Leo. He can't. He can't.)
He's still here, for now, and that has to be good enough. He levitates, surveying a battlefield gone cold in the wake of an overwhelming Krang victory, and goes in search of his last remaining brother.
Leo's corpse isn't far - Mikey spots it near where the portal had been, face down in rock that had been blasted smooth and clean. Krang laser. There's no surviving those.
His gaze flickers upwards across the horizon, and he sees something glow near the corpse, a white outline coming into being before the color follows after, taking a familiar shape. It's-
It's Casey-
It's Casey, but he looks different. Better. His clothes are intact and clean - brand new, from the looks of it. His hair is washed and fluffy. His face and arms have filled out and his shoulders broadened, like he'd been getting good food and enough of it. He doesn't look like the Casey Mikey had made a portal for minutes ago; he looks like how they'd all wanted Casey to look, like he's finally getting what they would have killed to have been able to provide for him. He looks like a dream.
And that's how Mikey knows it's a lie.
It's the Krang. The Krang have done something, made one final twist of the knife that's been stuck in Leo's heart since the night they lost the Key - for all Mikey knows, they're going to use it to desecrate his brother's body, and he is not letting that happen. He zooms closer to Leo's corpse-
"We did it, Mikey, we got him out-"
-and feels the world tilt.
That's not Leo's corpse, because Leo's not dead. He's clinging to life, muttering nonstop in a voice barely above a whisper - he's not long for this world, but he's still here-
The lie cries out in Casey's voice and makes for his brother-
And Mikey lashes out, magic coming to his hands as easily as it ever did. It's not enough to incinerate the lie - the thing is too smart, too quick, and pulls back with only an injury to its arm. That's enough of an opening for Mikey to land in front of Leo, snarling at the lie wearing his nephew's face. "Don't. Touch. Him!" That's his brother. That's his brother. That's the only brother he has left, and he won't have him for long, but that doesn't mean the Krang can take him! "Whatever Krang trick you are-"
Spite, while fun, is no substitute for engineering. Donnie had told him that once.
The spite - and whatever else is holding him together at this point - gives out, the collapse manifesting as pain, and Mikey folds in on himself with a groan. He can fight - he will fight - but if the lie forces combat, then fighting will be the last thing he'll ever do, and Leo will die alone.
He can't. He just…he can't.
He drops to his knees, laying a spectral hand on Leo's head. Leo doesn't react - his Ninpo is shattered to begin with, and Mikey wouldn't be surprised if death's door has robbed Leo of his senses as it is - and just keeps talking.
"We got Casey through the portal, he'll be okay, he'll get to grow up without all of this, we did it, we- we- we did it, Mikey-"
Mikey kneels there, one hand on his inert brother's head as Leo's life slowly sputters out. Eventually he'll die, and what fragments are left of his spirit will disintegrate, too shattered by years of warfare to persist after death, and Mikey will let himself fade along with them. Together until the rapidly approaching end, like they'd promised.
He kneels, and waits for oblivion to come.
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