Itsuki can still learn things about his childhood friend apparently, because just today he finds out that Mitarashi Anko is a terrible dog walker.

First day out of bed and Itsuki has walked into three nurses, thirty benches, five vending machines, sixteen doors, and twenty one walls.

"Anko, stop laughing already and lead me properly!"

The girl is too busy doubling over with laughter, hand clenched on the boy's but apparently the boy was leading the way, not her.

"It's much funnier to watch."

"That's not the point, Anko, I-- GYAAAAHHh!!!"

One second he was cranky and snappy, and the next second he all but shrieks when a hand he doesn't think is Anko's touches his shoulder. He claws his way to Anko, arms wrapping around the girl (her neck? Shoulders? Her general direction) and clinging desperately.

"What," he's freaking out now, "what was that--"

Anko laughs, arms folded and unable to wrap around the boy's back, but her hands manage a few assuring pats.

"There, there," she soothes unhelpfully, "that was just Obito."

Obito? He's confused. "Obito?" He remembers.

That Obito? Mister apparently he's the mastermind? holy crap someone get Kakashi some fucking oxygen before I leave my post and do it myself--

The one in the crazy mask he's been told to spy on a few times and every time the man sees Itsuki and does nothing because the masked man knows Itsuki holds no candle to him so Itsuki ends up going home and crying himself the fuck through nightmares before he reports to the Hokage the next morning?

He's clinging tighter before he realizes, and then he hears it.

"Look what you've done, Obito," it's a child's voice, but intoned in a mature fashion-- a little gruff, and maybe muffled through a mask. Sounds like Kakashi when he was still a little shit. Ah, right, he's a little shit now, isn't he?

"Rin told us not to sneak up on him. And what do you do? You sneak up on him."

"It wasn't on purpose!" the response comes high and whiny.

Stretching his chakra still takes too much effort, but in this close proximity, Itsuki finds himself feeling the chakra come to him instead.

Sparkly and periodically suppressing in control, that's definitely Kakashi. It's a little more controlled than he's used to feeling it-- but then again, Itsuki hasn't actually felt him like this without visual confirmation. It's weird. And something in him bubbles insecurely.

Fluttering wildly and bursting without a care in the world-- Itsuki hisses, because that's not the Obito in the insane mask and the alias of Madara. That's Obito without the dark feelings, purely, wholly Obito so brightly nostalgic it's almost foreign to him.

"Don't want Obito," he mutters into Anko's neck, burying his eyes into her shoulder.

He's done walking today. He wants to sleep and go home and, fuck, can he wake up already? Hello Afterlife god? Thanks for this dumb time travel reincarnation bullshit, I think I'm done. Can I have eternal darkness back now?

He's not looking forward to physical therapy and going back into active duty anymore. Screw you Orochimaru-sensei, Anko's mine.

"He says he hates Obito now!" Anko translates cheerfully, and there's a despairing wail (that's followed by something that sounds like 'I'm not crying I just got something in my eye') before Anko settles her semi-trapped hands in a kind-of-hug around Itsuki's waist.

"Itsuki," suddenly he's being addressed, so he tenses, "it's Kakashi."

He identifies himself, first and foremost. Well, someone's been listening to their blind protocol lessons. Guess that's to be expected of Konoha's most prospective child prodigy. He has a ton of useless knowledge.

(Or maybe they just got a brief from Rin, who knows)

"He can stay," Itsuki decides, still stuck to Anko's shoulder.

"Scarecrow stays!" Anko declares.

"This is unfair!" Obito objects to the verdict.

"All of you!" a loud voice cuts in, sounding oddly rough for a woman, "this is a hospital. Anyone who isn't a patient, their charge, or furniture, get out!"

"I'm a patient," Itsuki claims the spot.

"What's a charge?" Anko asks, "I don't need batteries."

"I'll volunteer to be furniture, so Obito can be 'get out'," Kakashi deadpans, delegating their roles evenly.

"Wait, wha-?"

"Don't be cheeky with me, you brats!"

Ah. Now Itsuki knows who's talking. He hears the clatter of a clipboard as a dull impact, followed by a sharp fissuring noise, colliding with the vending machine (wall?) beside him.

He feels Anko straighten fearfully.

"Into the garden, all of you!" the command is without a response, as the next thing Itsuki knows is that his feet aren't on the ground and they're apparently travelling on the horizontal axis through the walls that aren't there and then--

Falling straight down...?

Itsuki's breath holds, his stomach sinks, and dread swallows him whole.

For a moment, he wasn't in the hospital, wasn't in Anko's arms, wasn't being playfully bickered at and surrounded by happy screams.

He was ANBU Serow, kunai in his chest, two inches from his heart, falling to his death.

And, whoever that was, laughed.

He stops breathing.

-

"Violent gorilla woman!" Anko squawks, raising a fist in the air. She kicks her feet out of the hard bush, but she couldn't move too much because of the weight on top of her.

"Tsunade-hime is brutal! How could she throw four kids out the window like that!" Obito's next to raise his utter exasperation, "Itsuki's still injured, ya know!"

"I still don't know what Dan-sensei sees in her," Kakashi spites.

Anko sighs audibly, and tries to lift her head out of the depths of the vines. Her other foot was tangled in there somewhere.

They had landed right on the garden, Kakashi on his feet, Obito handing off a tree branch by his knee, and Anko back down on the bushes, with Itsuki still in her arms.

Or, she was in Itsuki's arms.

She's vividly aware of a burning grip on her back, and manages to crane her head forward, to Itsuki, whose head is buried in her neck.

She hears a sniffle, and knows playtime is over.

"Itsuki?" she calls, but the boy doesn't respond, "Obito, go call Dan-sensei!"

Immediately, the boy hurls himself out of the tree, landing on his feet, staggering once. Then he takes one glance at Itsuki, and he's off running.

"I'll go for Tsunade-sama," Kakashi points toward the sky. Not waiting for a response, he scales the wall, back through the hole they'd flown out of.

Anko stays quiet, remembering what Dan had told her to do.

Itsuki was breathing quick. Rapidly, so shallow and incessant she wasn't sure if he was actually taking in any oxygen at all. But she doesn't panic. She tries not to, at least.

She felt his heart thumping near her abdomen, and she knows that's not how fast hearts go.

So she wraps her arms around the boy, and experimentally, takes a deep breath. She holds it for four seconds, then lets it out, slowly.

Itsuki's claws on her back loosened slightly, then tensed again.

"Hey, Itsuki," she says softly, "follow my breathing."

And he does. He tries, a broken hum against her collar as he seems to choke on his breathing, taking in shakier-than-normal breaths and attempting to not let them out too soon.

The sun is warm out. The bush under her is hard and stiff, but she stays still, her hand rubbing awkward up and downs on the older boy's back.

She closes her eyes to simply enjoy the moment.