Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Kakashi wakes up he is somewhat surprised that he wakes up at all.

Not too much, because by now he’s used to the strange feeling of waking up when you were sure you were going to die. It’s actually pretty much a part of the job description.

The surprising part would be that he’s not in the place he last remembered. Neither is he in a hospital, medical tent, or even any form of shelter. On the other hand, he’s not tied up in some interrogation room or prison cell either. No enemies, no allies, just grass and the cheerful sound of birdsong.

The wounds he had received in his most recent battle seemed to have completely disappeared. This is odd – because there are no bandages on his body and no signs that a comrade, or anyone, had been nearby enough to treat him. His clothes are… slightly different, but they still fit him well and they carry his own scent. Checking his weapons, he notices that his kunai pouch contains three more kunai than it should have. What’s even stranger than any of this, and much more alarming, is that there’s no Icha Icha book in any of his pockets.

He stands up and looks around. “Alright. This could be… a bad thing,” he states out loud.

Because yes, something had definitely gone wrong when he used his Mangekyō Sharingan on that enemy jounin. The man had been strong (at least for a random jounin he’d never heard of) and more than that, slightly tricky. And Kakashi had been alone – one against three (even if the other two jounin were nothing special) so he’d felt it was best to end it as quickly as he could.

Then that jounin had used some sort of genjutsu, but Kakashi had ignored it, because what sort of genjutsu would work against the Sharingan? But it had done something – something to his Sharingan, something to him, and he could instantly tell there was something very, very wrong even as he couldn’t stop himself from continuing his Kamui attack. Space was distorted – the genjutsu interfered and… what happened?

Grass and birdsong, and Kakashi is at least seventy percent sure he isn’t dead.

It’s a look at his own reflection in the nearby river that gives him at least something of an answer.

There is a straight, deliberate slash through the Konoha symbol on his hia-ate.

He stares.

He stares some more.

Then he mechanically rids his body of most of what he is wearing and carrying and carefully looks through all of it. In the sealed scroll he finds a Bingo Book – his own page marking him as an S-class nukenin with flee-on-sight orders.

“Ok. That is definitely different.”

In his head he blames Naruto – even if his number one unpredictable student had been nowhere near him on this mission. When things go this stupidly impossibly wrong it must somehow be the future Hokage’s fault.

It takes a lot to make Hatake Kakashi flinch.

After years in ANBU, losing his teammates in a myriad of horrible ways, joining Root, betraying Root and witnessing the aftermath of the Uchiha massacre he’d already felt like a hollow weapon who’d seen it all.

That was before Team Seven.

As a jounin-sensei he felt a lot less hollow, and a lot more immune to surprises. Because with Tsunade as Hokage, with Gaara as Kazekage and Suna as a close ally (who would have thought?) and with Sasuke as missing nin, Sakura as a strong, capable medic-nin who could face down Sasori of the Red Sands and rip his heart out, and with Naruto as his own improbable self (his three students practically the second coming of the sannin!) he had adapted to the new version of reality, no matter how stupid or strange.

And now he was adapting once more.

Whatever had happened was strange and wrong in every possible way, but hardly a fate worse than death (and ANBU Inu was quite familiar with those).

So Kakashi doesn’t flinch.

He could have been dead – should have been, because even if he’s one of the most powerful, capable jounin of Konoha, things go wrong – even legends can die at the hands of a genin with luck on their side. Every battle is a gamble and this time Kakashi had lost.

He isn’t dead.

Dead to his home, dead to his Konoha – probably, possibly, because he had tried to get back using Kamui, had managed to use the Mangekyō Sharingan on himself and figured out how phasing in and out of that other dimension worked. But it hadn’t brought him back home despite his many attempts (most of them intermitted with days of recovering from chakra exhaustion) and there was little more he could do. (Because where do you even start in a situation as impossible as this one?)

Now, month later he admits to himself that for now, he’s more or less stuck in this world and he decides to make the best of it. Since going back to Konoha is very much a no-no, (they’d most likely kill him on the spot – he is far too dangerous to attempt to capture alive) he goes with the hand he’s been given.

He travels around and gathers information. He finds out, through his admirable ninja skills (he buys every available Icha Icha book and cries when he realizes the latest one doesn’t exist here), that this world is a few years behind, but it still seems mostly the same as his – the countries, the shinobi, the history. So far all is as it should be, from his time line, except, of course, for the fact that Hatake Kakashi had abandoned Konoha three years ago (according to the Bingo Book).

As a nukenin, he ends up picking his own missions, which is actually quite nice – no assassinations on children or paragons of goodness and light and never a Fire Country civilian, no matter how rotten they are – he gets to choose which missions to accept, which people deserve help and which bastards deserve to die and there is something about that that he likes, even if it worries him just a little how gleefully he makes these decisions. Not a lot, because he is too familiar with the darkness in himself to really fear it.

But besides a few righteous assassinations that he might enjoy too much, he picks a lot of guarding and escort missions, because somehow that works for him best. He doesn’t have a village to look after in the here and now, doesn’t have his team, his Hokage, his Konoha, so he finds his own reasons and people to protect and even if it isn’t quite the same, it’s enough to keep him content.

Then two Leaf nin end up on the opposite side of that line – they’re on a mission to stop a civilian caravan bring trade to Suna. And for political reasons, the Sandaime had signed off on the order to stop the caravan from making it there – no need to kill all involved, of course, but there was a named target; the most important of these traders and incidentally, Kakashi’s client – and an order to steal or destroy the merchandise.

And this is Konoha – this is a mission from the Hokage, from Sandaime-sama, still alive in this world. But Kakashi had given his world to his client and his family, to these people, these civilians who have nothing to do with any of the political undercurrents that would lead to their deaths, and he’s a nukenin now who doesn’t have to take any mission he doesn’t want to.

He doesn’t have to side with Konoha, but it is almost instinct to follow those orders the moment his kage bunshin expells and transfers the information it had read in that mission scroll – the mission scroll with the Sandaime Hokage’s mark on it.

Almost instinct, but not quite.

He stops a kunai from reaching one of the civilians and forces Raido and Genma away from the group. It’s easy, so easy to stop them, even with such a major handicap – with having people to protect and refusing to use his deadliest (most of his) abilities.

But it’s easy, because these two may be tokubetsu jounin, but Kakashi knows them and knows how they fight. Genma, Raido, Minato-sensei’s guards, friends and comrades and he really doesn’t want to fight them. But he does, as if it’s just a spar, even while they are trying to kill him. He outmatches them, easily, but cannot find it in himself to do them any real harm.

So he wears them down. Defends and deflects and uses some low-chakra techniques to keep them busy, because low-chakra doesn’t mean low-ranked and he is the master of over a thousand jutsu, he has enough to keep them busy for a long time yet and with his Sharingan covered, he has enough chakra to outlast them by far.

When Raido finally overtaxes himself – uses a technique that leaves him teethering towards chakra exhaustion, Genma spits out; “Who the hell are you?” and Kakashi stops moving, cocks his head to the side, frowns for a moment in deliberation and then, finally, takes off the hood of his cloak.

“Maa. I’m just the shinobi hired to protect this caravan,” he answers casually.

The silence in the wake of this revelation is sudden and complete – no more jutsu or kunai, just a tightening and tensing of muscles as two men stare at him in disbelief.

“What? Even a nukenin has to eat,” Kakashi says, tone easy and amused.

“And you chose an escort mission, of all things, to get money?” Genma asks – and the incredulity is real, but it’s not all there is to it. Kakashi knows them – knows Genma is getting involved in this conversation to stretch for time – to let Raido recover, to come up with some sort of plan or uncover something about Kakashi that will let them walk out of this alive.

And it’s not-funny that Kakashi is the enemy here, the one to be weary of. So he throws them a bone, shows them a glimpse of the truth, because these are his comrades. “The pay is a bit less, yes. But escorts are actually my favorites, nowadays.”

“I would have thought you’d find them boring,” Raido shoots back, voice tired but firm.

“Maa. Everyone needs a hobby. It’s actually quite soothing.”

And maybe he shouldn’t have eye-smiled at Raido like that, because the Kakashi in this world was young when he left – still in ANBU, probably, or only just out of it - and not the him he’d grown up to be after. Not the lazy, easy-going pervert but the deadly soldier who fought more fiercely than flame but who was little more than a weapon and who made the darkness of ANBU and Root his own.

Genma takes his smile as a threat and steps in front of Raido, body tense, ready for a fight, ready for death and for going down fighting. “What do you want?” the man demands, harshly. “You were just toying with us earlier, wearing us down. Why? You could have killed us easily enough. What’s your game?”

And Kakashi holds himself back from what he’d normally do – from holding up his hands and giving the man that lazy smile and a ‘who me?’ answer. Because that would only make things worse and it’s hard to see his comrades hiding their fear of him.

Instead his face is serious as he answers. “I have no desire whatsoever to kill you,” he tells them flatly, straight to the point, “but I will not let you come near these people either – I’ve given them my word to get them safely to the Country of Wind. That is my mission, and I am not in a habit of failing them. So this is your choice: walk away and fail your mission,” Kakashi throws the man the earlier pilfered mission scroll. “Or take your chances against me.”

His voice is that of the ANBU Captain he once was: it leaves no room for negotiation, no way out or around it. Just take it or leave it – one last chance.

They will take it, Kakashi knows.

After a long moment, Genma nods, gathers his friend and turns around and jumps away. And no-one gives an enemy their back that easily, but all three of them know it doesn’t make a difference – the two of them were always at Kakashi’s mercy.

Kakashi turns around too, heads back to the caravan and knows they won’t be back.

Genma and Raido are Konoha shinobi, after all, and good ones too. They know better than to take on stupid odds like that for a non-vital B-rank.

That was the first time he’d run across familiar faces on a mission in this world and he didn’t like it.

After that he is more careful in selecting his missions, because he never wants to face his comrades as an enemy. It had nearly killed him to end Rin’s life and that memory is enough to haunt him without adding more.

So from here on out, the missions he picks are, as far as he can tell with his knowledge from his own world and intelligence from this one, always in Konoha’s best interest. Or at the very least, not against it.

He still holds to his first rule as a nukenin, though; without direct orders from his Hokage he will not assassinate any Fire Country civilian, and even if it is in Konoha’s best interest he will do no harm to the little kids. Those self-made rules are enough to make him feel not like Danzo, meddling for the supposed good of all, and it also gives him something more to work towards instead of picking missions on a whim. There’s more information gathering, more stealth and careful considerations and more at stake when he accepts the mission because it’s not just his own honor on the line anymore, but also Konoha’s benefit.

And, like all nukenin, he gains somewhat of a reputation. Surprisingly enough, though, this part of his reputation spreads through the civilian communities, amongst clients and potential clients.

He was already known as an S-rank ninja, as the Copy nin, as a highly skilled assassin. Now he is also known as a nukenin who always completes the missions he accepts – who never fails and never demands an increase in pay.

A trustworthy criminal, the word goes in certain circles and for a while he gets a lot of extra requests. Most of them come from people who are a little (or a lot) shady themselves – the gross of these missions are assassinations and Kakashi declines most of them (but not all).

In one case, where the photo of the target shows a four year old kid with sun-kissed hair and the brightest green eyes imaginable, Kakashi goes one step further and eliminates the prospective client without pause. “You’re a despicable excuse for a man,” he informs the dead body, his mind’s eye filled with the image of an other bright blond boy; “And I don’t do children.”

He looks up at the other men in the room, the guards, mercenaries, hired help. They watch him, gaping and terrified of the shinobi in their midst. “Anything else?” he asks. One of them manages to shake his head dumbly and Kakashi turns and leaves.

After that people are a bit more hesitant to approach him, at least for a while. Word has obviously gotten out because no-one dares to ask him to kill a child after that. Surprisingly this little hiccup also gets him a few more requests from the less shady side of life - from normal civilians who for some reason can't afford or send a request to the reputable shinobi of a ninja village, or those who were planning on asking Konoha for help, hear word of a missing nin nearby, and end up asking him instead.

He had never noticed this as a loyal leaf shinobi, but these clients usually actually do their research (well, they ask around) before they decide to hire a shinobi. He supposes that's because of their own survival instinct. They are, after all, warier of him than of an 'official' shinobi from the village and it shows.

But more and more those brave few come forward, bolstered by tales of completed missions and a supposed love for children (that last part of his reputation is understandable considering the circumstances, but it still makes him blink in disbelief because he doesn't even like brats, not really and he's not a nice person).

These civilians want protection, for the most part, escort missions and the like. Some even ask him the equivalent of D-ranks – to use his strange, ninja powers with chores they cannot manage themselves. It’s funny, Kakashi thinks, the idea of an S-class nukenin using an A-rank water jutsu to water the fields after a small draught – so of course he never refuses those missions. And it's almost… nice, to see the nervous civilians of these remote villages, unused to shinobi, become more and more at ease with the killer in their midst before he moves on to the next.

He knew it was inevitable that at some point he’d run into more Konoha ninja. He hadn’t expected these circumstances.

If it’s strange to him, he can only imagine how unreal the situation must be for those poor chuunin.

He can just picture it; fearless little Akahana-chan running up to Umino Iruka (because without a doubt, a child would choose him and not the Aburame, as the most trustworthy one) asking something like ‘are you a ninja too?’ with a great amount of awe. And when the man asks her if she knows any other ninja, Akahana-chan would inform him of someone who had just helped escort her daddy safely home and who is even wearing that same sign on his forehead.

Then the Aburame says that it is logical that if there is another Konoha ninja here, that they might ask for the help they require and that the chances of a successful mission would most certainly increase. And Iruka-san encourages Akahana-chan to lead them to him.

He plays this all out in his mind, deducing their need for help from the tired stance and injuries on the two shinobi.

Akahana runs over to him, all bright and happy and full of innocent helpfulness and Kakashi snorts when he hears her say ‘look, I found more ninja, just like you!’ as if it’s a gift to him.

He nods seriously to her, thanks her, and pats her head as if she’s a dog – because that’s how he’d always treated his genin and if it worked well enough for them, it should be fine with other kids too.

She rushes off and leaves the three shinobi behind.

Kakashi is fond of Iruka, really, so it shouldn’t be funny at all to face him as a nukenin, as enemies and not comrades, but that look on his face – of realization and then dread – makes him smile beneath his mask.

He glances at the Aburame, whose blank face betrays nothing, but whose stance is suddenly tense and ready, and he can see the thoughts and calculations whirling behind that blankness. His smile stretches into a grin.

“Yo,” He says happily, raising his hand in greeting.

The Academy sensei opens and closes his mouth in dismay. “You. You are…”

“Hatake Kakashi,” he bows politely, because he can, “And you are Umino Iruka. Nice to meet you.”

Silence.

“Maa, Umino-san, that’s rather impolite,” Kakashi scolds lightly, scratching the back of his head as if puzzled by this strange occurrence.

“Nice to meet you,” Iruka parrots, bowing mechanically. Then he blinks, shakes of the shock and backs away. “How do you know my name?” The chuunin demands, in a somewhat dangerous voice that doesn’t suit him.

Kakashi waves his hands, symbolically waving the question away. “Really, that’s what you’re asking? Not ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘What are your evil plans?’ ‘Will you be killing us anytime soon?’ No, simply ‘How do you know my name?’ Is that really the important thing here?”

“Will you be killing us anytime soon?” The Aburame asks him without pause, voice as toneless as possible and Kakashi smiles at him, because this is what makes that clan who they are. Not the bugs, but that logical frame of mind and that unrepentant bluntness - that complete disregard for social rules, awkwardness and tact.

"Not at all, Aburame-san," he informs the man pleasantly, "I have no reason to. My mission is complete and I have not accepted a new one, so I can see no conflict in that area. Will you be attacking me anytime soon?"

"At this moment, that would not be a logical course of action. Chances of success are low. Probability of failing our current mission even more likely - as we cannot do both."

"And what would your current mission be, exactly?"

Iruka frowned at him. "Why would we tell you?"

"Well, didn't you come here for help?" Kakashi says, infusing his words with as much innocence and helpfulness as he can manage. (For an ex-ANBU, current missing nin, that is actually a surprising amount, but he's had a lot of practice during Team Seven's early days.)

"Why would you help us?"

"Konoha solidarity?" He says it like it's a joke, knows they won't believe such a simple truth at all, but really that is what it boils down to in the end. Even a year of this new, strange life does nothing to erase his loyalty to the village he had served for so many bloodstained years.

"Logically, it would make no sense for him, as a missing nin, to offer us aid. However, he would also gain nothing from deceiving us – he will not gain our trust so easily and he does not need deception to gain the upper hand. Why? Because we are chuunin, and he is an S-ranked ninja."

"See logic!" A cheerful eye-smile.

"Unless he's playing some sort of sadistic, twisted game for his own amusement."

"But sensei, I didn't know you were this distrustful. It's nothing more than me, offering you the aid of a jounin on this mission – for the love of Konoha, Akahana-chan, and kids and puppies everywhere."

The glare Iruka sends him should be considered a lethal weapon. It shuts him up.

For a moment.

"It has been a while since I've worked with a team, though," he steps forward, bows deeply and chants as innocently and happily as a child meeting their sensei for the first time; "Please take care of me."

Iruka doesn't give him the polite response.

Neither does the Aburame.

Kakashi thinks that he hasn’t had this much fun in a long time.

It’s true that it had been awhile since he worked with a team, but Kakashi isn’t likely to forget something like teamwork. Distrustful as the two chuunin are of him, they do need him. Their charge had been kidnapped – and the group that was after her had hired their own shinobi.

Their charge was also a ten-year old. The daughter of an important family held for both ransom and revenge. This mission should have been a B-rank from the start, Kakashi thinks absentmindedly as he leads the two chuunin, tracking the girl by scent.

When they come upon the group of shinobi, Kakashi is quick to summon a kage bunshin before their enemy notices them. The bunshin will hide and take the first chance it has to grab the girl and get her away quickly and safely.

They attack swiftly but precisely, using the element of surprise. Kakashi could have used Chidori, could have killed one of these men before they even noticed he was there, but the girl was watching. She's just a teary-eyed little civilian so he quickly knocks the ninja out instead, before the man even knows he’s there.

The bunshin does its job and Kakashi is left watching the two chuunin face off against the two enemy nin who are probably a high-chuunin or low-jounin level themselves. He watches the fight, intervenes a few times (only when necessary) and feels nostalgic about his days as a jounin-sensei watching with a hawk's eye and a lazy slouch as his kids started fighting their own battles.

When all is done the two men are dead – only Kakashi’s enemy survived. They are (were) all missing nin like him but that means little to him when he doesn't actually consider himself a missing nin at all. Instead he feels more kinship to the two suspicious chuunin who he still (will always) consider his comrades.

“Where’s Kumiko-chan?”

“Perfectly safe with my kage bunshin,” Kakashi answers happily, “This way.”

They follow him hesitantly, leaving a safe space between them. Kakashi is not worried at having these two at his back.

The Aburame speaks up: “You could have ended this battle sooner. Instead you let us fight them. Why?”

“Well, it’s your mission. I didn’t want to butt in. Would have been impolite.”

“Yes, I’m sure you take politeness very seriously,” Iruka’s voice is more sarcastic than he’s ever heard the man. Who knew that the teacher could become so hostile under stressful circumstances?

“Maa, Umino-san, I think I’m offended. You’ve been the rude one today, not me.”

Iruka looks quietly horrified to be scolded on manners by a nukenin, and Kakashi can’t help but chuckle.

Yeah, it’s not what he would have signed up for, the missing nin gig, or tumbling into another dimension. But it's not exactly a fate worse than death either.

He’ll make the best of it.

Chapter Text

He leaps from tree to tree, breathing in the Fire Country air.

As a missing nin, it could be considered extremely unwise and hazardous to one's health to travel so brazenly in your own country with a price on your head. But Kakashi isn’t most ninja – he is an S-ranked shinobi who has faced worse odds and somehow managed to survive anyway, even if he had ended up in a different dimension.

And while he isn’t unwise, he also isn’t too bothered with tiptoeing around. Shinobi live and breathe danger and he is even more used to it than most, considering the life he has lived.

Nowhere is exactly safe, anyway, not for a missing nin with no village to call his own, not really.

But Konoha is his village – would always be his village, despite whatever it was that had made the Kakashi of this world leave it. It is a village he had fought and bled and cried for in his own world and he could never completely shake that off.

He had missed these forests and he will run in them if he wants to. Who will stop him?

Well, most of his (former) comrades, probably.

Well, they would try.

Ok, so coming this close to Konoha isn’t exactly wise when he isn’t exactly on friendly terms with them. But then, since when did Kakashi bother with wise?

He smiles ruefully. He had pretty much given up on common sense the moment his sensei’s brat joined his team. Naruto is really something else – something unpredictable and impossible and with a way of reaching out to people and drawing them in. And like that old sand-nin, Chiyo had said, that power could shape the future. Had already been shaping the future.

Pity he isn’t there to see it.

But then, there is a future to shape here too.

So he jumps, from tree to tree, closer and closer to Konoha, to danger and to comrades and to Naruto and Sakura, and yes even Sasuke and to the past and future and everything that means anything to him.

If he has the time-line right, then this would be the year he had gotten his team, in his own world.

And it’s about high time he takes a look at how his cute little students are doing.

They are kind of pathetic, if he’s being honest.

Those three little brats of his who could take on the world – the second coming of the Sannin - and they had almost failed their genin test. Not his bell test either, but a mediocre test of some mediocre jounin who couldn’t even tell that he was there.

Then again, it wasn’t like anyone else was catching on to the presence of a nukenin in their midst either.

So yes, Kakashi had snuck into Konoha easily enough.

For all that it is a ninja village, an ex-ANBU who had been privy to a lot of classified information had little trouble infiltrating his own village.

Besides, his disguise is flawless and he is one of the best assassins out there – he can certainly keep his chakra levels civilian-low.

Knowing the bloodlines that Konoha is home to he even went through the effort of actually dying his hair black and using a scarf to hide part of his face, instead of just using a henge.

A good enough disguise for watching his cute little students.

He’d almost forgotten how hopeless those three seemed when he first got them, and looking at them now he could forgive himself for not immediately seeing how much potential all three of them had.

Despite knowing how amazing these genin could (would) become, right now, watching them painting a fence and squabbling like, well, like children, he almost feels sorry for their sensei. They are loud, undisciplined and completely incapable of teamwork.

When Naruto almost trips over his own feet, Kakashi sweatdrops and is forcefully reminded that Naruto was kind of… stupid back then (right now).

He quietly finishes the dango and pushes himself upright, away from the wall he had been leaning against. The Copy nin is well aware that despite being a fairly unremarkable jounin, Nakamura will certainly notice if he lingers too long. So he casually throws the sticks in the trash and wanders away, back to the inn he is staying at.

The dango sits uncomfortably in his stomach while he wanders through Konoha. This village is his home, but not. It’s bittersweet and more painful than he thought it would be, to walk these streets and to know that he doesn’t belong. That the people he looks so fondly on would consider him an enemy the instant they noticed who he was.

And yet, it's a relief to be here, to finally be back in Konoha after over a year of wandering.

Even if it’s not his home (not exactly).

He stays for about a week – far longer than he should have, really, but it’s hard, to tear himself away from this place. But staying any longer will only make it even more difficult and being idle like this is not something he’s good at anyway.

So he gets rid of the disguise and leaves Konoha, but not Fire Country because despite the fact that his genin are doing fine (as well as could be expected, in any case), he doesn’t want to go too far away. The part of him that is still, somehow, their jounin-sensei needs to stay close because they are still weak, and oh-so-very vulnerable.

Because this Sakura is not the strong, capable medic-nin that he left behind in the future-that-was, but a little girl who has no experience in battle whatsoever. Sasuke has his brother as well as Orochimaru hanging over his head. And Naruto, his sensei’s son, has the Kyuubi in his stomach and a group of S-class missing nin hunting for him.

A jounin-sensei of Nakamura Hiei’s level is not enough to keep that team safe.

Team Seven was lucky it was him, last time around, because they had faced some pretty tough situations. Then again, he might have been at fault for some of those (if not all of them). He had certainly failed Sasuke…

And that is not a train of thought he wants to go down right now.

With a shake of his head he gives in to one of his few weaknesses (and he isn’t talking about Icha Icha this time) and turns around to, once again, find his team.

Kami knows what the three of them could get up to.

Unsurprisingly, he hears Naruto long before he sees him. With a shake of his head that is as fond as it is exasperated, he carefully moves in that direction.

What he finds is not what he expected, but that should teach him to even have expectations when it comes to Team Seven. He should really know better by now.

“You heard sensei, we just have to wait for him to come back,” Sakura’s voice is too soft, too timid for his liking. Especially when talking to Naruto.

The blonde’s face scrunches up in something akin to thought; “Yeah, but after those guys showed up and we ran here, I don’t know the way back to where he left us. Besides, what if they find us again? Oh! Oh! We should set traps,” Naruto exclaims, far too loudly if they are truly being hunted, “That would be awesome.”

“Not so loud, moron,” Sasuke responds quietly, “but traps are a good idea. First we should find a better place to hide out.”

“Hey,” Naruto returns, “What if Nakamura-sensei can’t find us if we hide, huh?”

Sakura looks at him, “We’re… not yet strong enough to fight those ninja. We have to hide.”

For a moment, it looks as if Sasuke wants to protest, as if this goes against his pride. But in the end he nods, “Hn. We should go this way.”

The dark-haired boy leads the other kids further into the forest, arrogantly expecting them to follow, which Naruto thankfully does, despite his protesting squawk.

And a part of Kakashi is raging – he doesn’t know the situation, maybe their sensei left to draw off enemies or to get back-up, but whatever the reason, his kids are alone.

Because Nakamura left them behind.

Still, a part of him is proud, because it must have cost Sasuke something to admit that they couldn’t fight these ninja, and because Naruto follows the other boy despite feeling put down by him.

And as he watches, the three of them are working together, setting up a somewhat defensible position as a team. With Sasuke taking the lead, but actually listening to Sakura’s book knowledge and with Naruto’s experience with pranks showing in their traps.

He remembers the three of them standing determinedly before Zabuza Momochi, refusing to run because they wouldn’t leave their sensei behind, working together to free him and he wonders if there isn't a way for that team to remain unbroken. Was there something he could have done to keep Team Seven together?

Kakashi doesn’t know, but he knows he will try even harder this time, even if they are not exactly his team.

He finds a comfortable spot and hides out for a few hours, Icha Icha in his hand to pretend to himself that he’s reading and not watching his kids’ every movement.

But his eyes are on the boys, not the book, as Naruto and Sasuke ineffectively try to catch fish. He sees Sakura scrambling around the darkening forest, clearly afraid of straying too far, but she succeeds in gathering a few handfuls of edible berries.

This is what the three of them share for dinner – the two boys wet, tired and still hungry, Sakura with her hair a complete tangled mess and a few tiny scratches from bushes or branches on her hands. They are huddled together, wisely deciding against a fire and he almost drops down on the ground to – to what?

Then he hears a disturbance in the sounds of the forest, senses something coming from the west and knows that this is not the rescue party. They are being too quiet, tracking – hunting.

He tenses, ready to intervene. The first trap goes off when one of the ninja comes too close. A net made of ninja strings cleanly captures the ninja and Kakashi eye-smiles because that wasn’t bad for a bunch of newly-graduated genin.

Then the other two ninja join the fray, leaving their teammate hanging (literally). And he takes one look at their hitai-ate and jumps right in.

Otogakure – Orochimaru. Over my dead body.

For once Kakashi doesn’t bother with banter, with his usual casual slouch and ‘cool’ behavior. Instead he wants to finish this quickly – wants to kill them for even daring to presume that they could lay a hand on his cute little students.

He is itching to remove the threat permanently and it shows in his demeanor and the merciless and effortless way he deals with them.

The Copy nin has all of them unconscious and tied up in a matter of minutes. The only reason they are not dead is that his genin are right there. Sakura had been close to tears even before this attack – no need to add to her trauma when she’s only just starting out as a shinobi.

So instead he makes sure to nick every one of them (even the one stuck in Naruto’s net) with a poisoned kunai, which should keep them knocked out for 24 hours at the least.

Konoha will pick them up, he thinks darkly, and Ibiki would surely be interested in learning what he could from these men.

After a moment of complete silence, Naruto predictably yells “That was awesome!” and rushes towards him, like the ridiculous, oblivious idiot he is.

Kakashi smiles.

“Dobe,” the smarter one of his boys mutters forcefully, “get back here.”

Naruto turns his head, confused, and rudely points at Kakashi, “What? He’s a Konoha ninja. See?”

“Naruto, he’s not,” Sakura starts, glancing warily at him and Kakashi fights the urge to give a little wave.

But, of course, the number one unpredictable ninja won’t be so easily dissuaded. “Of course he is, can’t you see his hita-ate?”

“Dobe, that hita-ate doesn’t mean Konoha.”

“Does too!”

“Dobe!”

“Maa, maa, you’re both right.” Kakashi interrupts, before these guys can really get going. He is casually leaning against a tree now, hands stuffed in his pockets, his easy-going, lazy attitude once more in place.

“We’re… both right?” Naruto asks quizzically.

And he figures, what the hell, they are genin. They are his genin. And obviously their current sensei is lacking. So he takes a few steps closer and crouches in front of the least cautious of his kids.

“Yep,” he points at his forehead, “You are right that this sign is the one that all Konoha ninja wear.”

Then he gestures to Sasuke and Sakura, “And your friends are right, because I am not considered a Konoha shinobi.”

“But why?”

“Ah, this slash, right here,” he answers patiently, used to Naruto’s complete lack of knowledge in some matters.

“The… slash?”

“Yes dobe,” Sasuke is the one to reply, keeping his eyes firmly on him, instead of looking at his teammate, “It stands for nukenin. Criminals who have betrayed their villages.”

“Maa, that’s harsh,” Kakashi says, but he eye-smiles at the boy, “it signifies anyone who has ‘left’ their home village. It basically means that I am ‘formerly of Konoha’.”

“Eeh! You’re a criminal, shinobi-san?”

“Hmm… Well…” he stares thoughtfully into the distance as his three students unconsciously lean closer. “Maybe?” he finally finishes, with as confused an air as he can manage.

All three of them sweatdrop in unison, which he considers a victory of sorts.

“Anyway,” he claps his hands, startling them, “I think it’s high time for dinner.”

He feels even more rewarded when they just stare at him as if he’s crazy. (He missed this).

First of all, he makes a fire. Then he teaches all three of his kids to fish. When Sasuke manages to do best out of all of them, Naruto too impatient and Sakura too hesitant, he pats the boy on the head and grins at the boy’s attempt at a scowl.

Then he shows them how to prepare the fish and opens a sealing scroll to let them see which herbs are good for carrying with you when you go out on a mission, to numb pain or even just for seasoning. After dinner he slips one of the small packs of herbs to Sakura, whispering that the boys would just forget.

“Ano, shinobi-san?” Sakura asks him at some point – while he might have caught their names in passing (if he hadn’t known them already), he hadn’t exactly introduced himself – “Why do you think those ninja came after us? We are still in Fire Country, so…”

In the end he tells her simply that those ninja, from the village of Sound, are working for a bad man and that running away was a good idea when it came to them.

“Oh, and Sakura-chan,” he smiles at her, “You guys can call me Kakashi-sensei.”

“Kakashi… sensei?”

“Well, I’m teaching you stuff, aren’t I?”

She nods and gives him a small smile and she looks so much better (happier) than the scared little girl close to tears of just two hours ago that he feels something warm and fuzzy settle down a little deeper inside of him.

Well, damn, he thinks ruefully. But he couldn’t really expect anything different – these brats of his are impossible.

When his genin have fallen asleep, he summons Pakkun. He tells the pug that these pups are theirs now; pack.

The dog gives him a look that roughly translates to a sceptical ‘huh’ but doesn’t actually comment and dutifully learns their scents.

After dismissing Pakkun again, he spends the night quietly watching over the genin (and occasionally checking on their prisoners, nicking them once more with the kunai just to be safe – you never know with Orochimaru’s experiments).

For the first time since entering this world, he truly feels at home.

He stretches that feeling as long as he can manage, sticking by their side all through the night and then, come morning, he wakes them cheerfully, tells them to make breakfast and happily watches them splash around the river trying to apply his fishing lessons from last night.

After breakfast he teaches them tree-climbing. It is, as he informs his cute little students, a vital skill for any ninja, but especially those from Konoha and it is also a good way of training chakra control. He doesn’t mention that it makes him feel nostalgic, and no-one would notice the wry twist to his smile under the mask.

This time, though, he doesn’t just stand by to let them figure it out themselves – he doesn’t have the time for that – so instead he tries to help them get this down as quickly as possible.

Sakura succeeds as easily as she had last time and after two hours of practice, he gives the boys some final advice (it’s more than he gave them last time, they will figure it out) and takes the pink-haired girl under his wing.

He praises her chakra control and tells her that it’s a skill that might help her become a great medic-nin one day. Then he shows her, by way of a small self-inflicted wound, how healing chakra works. Kakashi tries to teach her what little he knows about it (bits and pieces that he picked up over the years, but if it will help her take an interest… well, he could try).

No reason she couldn’t get started on this just a little early – especially since there was no telling what would happen in this different world. Actions have consequences and he’s done and not done many things here.

The morning bleeds into noon, all of them stopping for a small meal consisting of ration bars and jerky that he digs out from his pack and he knows it won’t be long before Konoha finds them. Because surely they would be out looking for a lost trio of genin by now? If their sensei survived, he must be looking for them.

He hesitates, for a long moment. And in the end it is not Naruto or Sasuke that he reaches out to, but Sakura. Sakura who he had overlooked completely in his own world, never realizing her potential when he’d been so focussed on the boys, on Sasuke, instead.

He doesn’t have to do anything to distract Naruto or Sasuke, they are right back at their trees the moment they finish their ‘meal’, as determined as ever and focussed fully on themselves and each other.

Sakura stands as well, to join them despite already having succeeded, and he stops her. “Sakura-chan.”

“Hai Kakashi-sensei?”

Is it strange that it throws off his breathing entirely to hear himself be called by that title again?

“I want to teach you something special,” he tells her seriously, knowing that if any one of these three kids will understand the implications, it’s her, “but you must promise not to tell anyone about this.”

And yes, this is taking a chance – because Sakura had always trusted authority and while, right now, that helps him because he took charge, took on a sensei role and she fell into step as easily as a young, book-smart girl would… that will not help him later on.

Later, with her ‘real’ sensei or before the Hokage, she will remember that he is, after all, a missing nin, while she is a loyal Konoha shinobi and the rules state quite clearly what that means.

It’s risky, he knows, because if she tells it will draw suspicion on this trusting girl at his side. They will think, at the very least, that Kakashi has plans for her. Which, he muses fairly, isn’t entirely wrong.

At the worst, they will suspect her to be a traitor. It helps that she’s innocent, of course, and she’s a friend of Yamanaka Ino, so he supposes that at most it will result in her friend’s father taking a jaunt through her head. That will prove her innocence, but will also starkly show Kakashi’s own biggest weakness to those who consider him an enemy. They could use it, use them, against him.

Konoha may be the ‘nice’ village, but really - it’s a shinobi village.

As a former ANBU Captain, he knows better than anyone what that means. So he doubts, just for a moment, but he knows the dangers that had always dogged Team Seven’s steps, remembers too vividly the trials they had gone through as well as the permanent loss of his own team – Obito, Rin, Minato.

He will never forgive himself if these kids die on him. They’re dependent on him now, not strong like his own Sakura, his own Naruto and even Sasuke - who had fallen so far away from them but has become strong in his own right, just not in the way that mattered most.

“Why?” she asks him, not promising anything just yet, and she’s a smart one even now.

He sighs and sits down with his back against a tree, hiding them partly from the boys, and pats the grass at his side.

Obediently she sits down herself and he glances at her, all young and innocent and bright, before looking into the distance.

“I left Konoha years ago, Sakura-chan,” the jounin starts quietly, without pretence or any sort of mask aside from the cloth one and he hopes that she is mature enough to understand his simple truths, “It may be the ‘nice’ ninja village, but nothing about shinobi life is ever truly kind. We are killers and I – well, I was one of their best.”

He isn’t boasting, he may not be a legend like Minato or the Sannin but he is a powerful shinobi in his own right. Though the extra, turbulent years in his own dimension may have given him an unfair advantage in that he’s had more training, more experience, than this body is old.

But even back then he’d been an ANBU Captain – something that, judging by Genma and Raido’s reaction to him, was true even here. And even now the reputation he’d gained as Inu made those who knew him think twice about coming after him.

“I was an ANBU Captain,” he continues, because there’s no reason not to, “and I worked in the shadows, bloodying my hands for the sake of the village.”

“When I left-” he still has no idea why the Kakashi of this world left, “well, there were reasons.” He assumes there were, at least. Or maybe he just had a mental breakdown – that was unfortunately always a possibility.

“None of them matter now, but believe me when I say that despite everything I still love my village. I still consider Konoha my home and its shinobi my comrades.”

He turns his head to look at her, where she is silently staring at him with something like awe or fascination.

“You three reminded me of that nindo of mine: those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash. You needed my help – still need it, because those Otogakure ninja were here for a reason and their Kage is not one to give up easily. But I can’t stay here much longer, your sensei will return or back-up will come and I-.”

He falls silent and she waits as patiently as a twelve year old can before finally losing the battle against her curiosity.

“…you?” she prods and he would laugh at her impatience but for some reason can’t find it in himself to smile right now.

“I’m a nukenin, Sakura-chan.”

And the silver-haired jounin is making the best of it, and sometimes it’s even good – he is free and he’s helping Konoha and civilians and his hands are never as soaked in blood as they had been those ANBU years.

But he is alone. A team player without a team. A loyal soldier without a leader. A sensei without his students, except… except that they are right here; loud, foolish, shy and so very young. But still his. His cute little students and he is not about to fail them.

She nods, thoughtfully, “So you have to leave, right? Before Nakamura-sensei comes back.”

He hums, “Maa. That’s right.”

“And you think that more ninja – from Otogakure - might come,” she continues, tapping a finger against her lip.

“Aah.”

The pink-haired teen thinks about this for a moment longer before she finally nods, decisively. “I won’t tell,” she vows, looking all earnest and young. And it’s not a promise made by Naruto, all bold and brash and true, and it’s not a promise from the older Sakura, the skilled medic-nin he trusted with his life.

He’ll take it anyway. Because even if she does tell, it’s still worth it. He has to give them even a little more of a chance in the many trials they may find on their paths with that useless sensei of theirs (maybe he's being unfair, he doesn’t know - doesn’t care either).

“Well, alright then,” he claps his hands cheerfully, the serious attitude falling away as if it was never there, “let me show you how summoning works, Sakura-chan.”

After calling on Pakkun and introducing the two, he tells the pug to keep an eye, and nose, out and warn them if Konoha shinobi were getting close. He glances back at the boys, who are completely oblivious in their trees and smiles before turning back to the young girl.

“First of all, you need to sign this scroll.”

When he hears a shout a few hours later, his full attention is drawn back to Naruto and Sasuke. Both of them are sitting at the top of their trees, looking far too satisfied with themselves and apparently his advice had helped because they didn’t get it this quickly the last time around.

He walks over and it’s real pride unfolding inside his chest. “Well done, kids,” he tells them and he means it, “I don’t think any of the other Konoha genin teams will get it this quickly.”

“Look sensei, look,” Naruto says, showing off as he walks down the tree without falling and sounding like the little brat that he was, “Isn’t it totally awesome?”

He is too fond, patting the boy’s head, as the bright blonde walks up to him. “It’s a good skill to have. But just because you got it down doesn’t mean you should stop practicing – chakra control is a very important skill for a ninja.”

“Ah! I’ll become the awesomest ninja ever, and become Hokage so that everyone will acknowledge me.”

No-one would take this seriously, the boasting of this loud-mouth brat, but Kakashi knows now that it isn’t as impossible as it sounds. He has seen in his dimension, his time, how, perhaps, it could actually happen. “Hmm… well, if you do… If you do, Naruto, I’ll come back to Konoha and ask you for clemency.”

“Clay man see?” The blond attempts to repeat, completely clueless.

Sasuke snorts, “Dobe.”

“It means forgetting what happened,” Sakura explains.

Kakashi nods slightly, “More along the lines of forgiveness in this case.”

“Do you mean… for becoming a missing nin?” Sakura asks.

He nods slowly. “Only the Hokage can accept a nukenin into a village. It’s not something that happens often.”

Naruto is still confused, “But can’t you just ask old man Hokage?”

“Hmm… I could,” though he doubts that conversation would end well, if Kakashi even managed to get the chance to talk to the man. It wouldn’t be easy to ask for forgiveness for unknown crimes and Sandaime, his Sandaime, had been a kind man but neither soft nor foolish, “But I’m going to ask you instead, Naruto, when you become Hokage. I’ll be waiting.”

And he thought that this would spark another loud, enthusiastic rant but instead the boy becomes quiet, serious, and for a moment he looks like the older Naruto Kakashi knew – a hint of Minato shining out of those blue eyes.

“Ah,” the boy promises, “I’ll become Hokage, and I will forgive you so you can come home.”

It’s a child’s promise, easy and without asking about any details – without even knowing what the jounin had done or why he’d want to return or any of the problems and implications it might cause.

But it’s a true promise, because this is Naruto and a few years down the line and the teenager would still be making these foolhardy promises and, more than that, even the most hardened of shinobi will believe him.

It’s Naruto who says it, and that makes it somehow even possible. And that word, home, so easily uttered, settles quietly into the space between them and wraps around Kakashi’s heart, squeezing it tightly.

“Thank you,” he returns simply, but he can see that it shocks all three of them - his belief that this day in the possible, impossible, future may actually happen. He sees the dark-haired boy glance at his teammate, wondering what it was this powerful ninja saw in him. And he finds a similar look on Sakura’s face.

They’ll learn just how special their teammate really is. Eventually.

“Boss,” Pakkun calls as he trots up.

Naruto points at him, suddenly a loudmouthed brat once more, “That’s a talking dog!”

Pakkun ignores the pup, “They are coming, those ninja from the leaves.”

Kakashi nods, fighting down the regret that he couldn’t keep this. He looks at all three of his kids, before singling Sakura out, “Don’t ever forget that the three of you are a team. Your own survival depends on these guys and they depend on you, both of them. So don’t let your team down.”

The words aren’t meant solely for her, of course, but he knows that she deserves having something of her own. He can’t imagine their current sensei spending any more time on her than he had. Their jounin sensei was probably far more interested in the village’s last Sharingan user than anything else (because there’s no way this imposter is any better than he had been).

And yeah, maybe he purposely doesn’t include their sensei in his advice as part of their team, because in his mind it’s Kakashi that stands with Team Seven. It’s him that protects them and teaches them and who depends on them too.

Then he looks at Sasuke, “Don’t forget about the prisoners. Tell your people enough, but not too much – you can tell them that I was here, that I helped fight off those ninja, but it might be best if you’re just a little vague about the details.”

He glances at Naruto, “Good luck with that.” His blond student was anything but subtle but also rather oblivious. “Naruto. Keep that promise between us, ok?”

“Um. Ok?” the blond answers, scratching his head.

“Good,” Kakashi says, but in the long run it wouldn't matter much even if Naruto spilled it all. People would probably think he was just messing with everyone's head. Or trying to steal Konoha's jinchuuriki or something.

(And yes, he actually, kind of wants to steal him. Not just Naruto, though, but all three of his teammates to protect and teach and make sure that they never, ever fall apart.)

He leaves but doesn’t go far. Instead he shrouds himself in a genjutsu that only someone with the Sharingan might see through and prepares himself to run if there are any Inuzuka in the retrieval team. Scent is a little trickier to fool than sight – a well-trained ninken might be able to catch his scent.

Quietly he watches over them as their fake, real, sensei finds them unharmed with a group of paralysed prisoners tied up a little away.

He wonders what they will make of this. He’s not exactly sure what he wants Konoha to think off him either and tries not to imagine ‘could have been’s.

Looking as his students are ushered away by their sensei while an unremarkable chuunin team scoops up the prisoners, he stays as unmoving as the mountain the Hokage’s faces are carved into. Then, when he loses sight of them amongst the trees he finally speeds away – from Konoha, from his students, from the entirety of Fire Country and towards Wave.

He has a despot to overthrow and a pair of fellow nukenin to have a conversation with. You never know how the future might go after all, and he’s not entrusting his genin's safety to Nakamura Hiei.

Tazuna may not be able to pay enough for a B-rank of a reputable village, but as a nukenin he’s quite willing to go beneath market value.

He wonders if he can somehow get that bridge to be called the great Kakashi Bridge. With a few shadow clones, building it really shouldn’t take that long.

Kakashi smiles and in his mind he hears his Naruto whining about cheating.

Chapter Text

When Team Seven returns they are, surprisingly, none the worse for wear. The hint of worry that had spread through those in the know eased off. For a village not at war, the loss of a team of fresh genin would have been a hard hit– especially when this team boasts the last Uchiha (and the jinchuuriki).

There are some who’d doubted their sensei’s decision to leave the kids behind when he went to get back-up, but it looks like it worked out for the best. The genin seem to be completely fine, so this is enough for most shinobi to let it go – it isn’t really any of their business, after all.

When Shikaku happens upon them as they enter the Hokage tower he is also a little relieved, they are his son’s age after all. But he also takes note of the three ninja from Otogakure being dragged into a different direction, the T&I department no doubt, and his mind automatically starts running over possibilities of how the trio of genin managed to survive those odds.

So when Team Seven enters the Hokage’s office for their debriefing, something not uncommon after a mission gone wrong, the Nara follows.

The Hokage looks at him with the barest hint of surprise on his face and Shikaku shrugs casually, “I’d be interested in hearing this as well.”

From the corner of his eyes, he notices that Nakamura looks nervous and files that away, knowing it could be for any of a great number of reasons.

Sandaime-sama motions for the jounin to start and the man gives them a succinct report of the situation: they’d been attacked unexpectedly by hostile ninja within Fire Country’s borders. The Oto team had proved too much for Nakamura to handle, but he’s fast so he’d decided on getting back-up from Konoha, drawing the shinobi away from his vulnerable genin.

Not an illogical plan, but as a strategy it was deeply flawed when it becomes apparent that the jounin had continued on to Konoha even when it became clear that the pursuers were no longer on his tail.

“You didn’t worry that they might turn back to go after the genin instead?” Shikaku wonders out loud.

Nakamura looks uncomfortable beneath his gaze, “There wasn’t much of a choice – engaging the three would have led to failure. I took the best chance we had.”

The Uchiha scowls and Uzumaki looks about ready to jump in and says something when the pink-haired girl lays a hand on his arm and quiets him before he even opens his mouth. Their sensei ignores the byplay of the kids completely – he doesn’t even glance at them.

Neither the Hokage or Shikaku comment on any of this and instead they let the man continue his report.

The jounin had arrived in Konoha during the early hours of the morning and Shikaku makes a mental note of that too – that the shinobi who claims to be fast took far too long to reach their village.

He wonders if the man had actually rested for part of the night - while his genin were in danger. The Nara keeps his face blank in spite of his thoughts.

After arriving here Nakamura had reported that his genin were in danger and requested back-up, which had been granted in the form of a chuunin team.

They’d retraced the jounin-sensei’s steps, found the trio not too far from where he’d left them and found the Oto shinobi unconscious and tied up. With this the jounin concludes his report.

Shikaku notes that the man had said nothing of injuries or a lack thereof – an oversight? Had the genin even been checked over by a medic-nin yet?

The Hokage nods agreeably, his face giving nothing away, and turns to the three teens, “Please report what happened from the moment you were attacked.”

To Shikaku’s surprise it isn’t the dark-haired boy or the jinchuuriki who takes charge here, no, it’s Haruno who steps slightly forward to, somewhat shyly, give her report.

It’s even more surprising that the boys let her.

“Well, Nakamura-sensei left- to draw the attacking shinobi away. He told us to find a place to hide and wait for him, so we did. Sasuke-kun found us a good spot and we set up traps.”

“Awesome traps,” the enthusiastic orange-clad ninja couldn’t seem to help but add. Next to him, the Uchiha rolls his eyes. Haruno clearly tries to stay professional and ignores her loud teammate.

“We didn’t have any food with us, because sensei had it, so we… uh. Ate berries. I knew which ones are alright for eating… so,” she sounds a bit hesitant while she tells them this.

They all, very carefully, do not look at each other. In fact, Naruto looks rather embarrassed as he lets his eyes trail up to the ceiling. Shikaku theorizes that either, or both, of the boys had tried catching rabbits, fish or birds and failed at their pursuit.

“But, the Otogakure shinobi returned, they found us,” she continues bravely, “The traps worked, a little, but… not enough.”

No, genin-made traps wouldn’t be nearly enough against a trio of shinobi that their sensei had estimated at jounin level - though it’s possible that Nakamura overstated their skills just slightly to save his own pride. That would still make them high-chuunin level ninja and unlikely to be deterred by the traps of a green genin team.

“We’d only just gotten to our feet after hearing one of the traps go off and realised that we were under attack when another shinobi jumped in and, uh, took them down,” she was silent for a moment, before adding, “Really quickly.”

“He totally kicked ass, believe it!” Naruto inserted enthusiastically, “And he’s a Konoha shinobi too.”

Sasuke shook his head, “He’s a nukenin, Dobe.”

“Well yeah, but a nukenin from Konoha,” the blonde returned as if that was the thing that mattered most.

“A nukenin?” Shikaku wonders, genuinely startled - that’s a highly unexpected source for a rescue.

Considering the situation, that these genin had actually survived the encounter, it couldn’t have been one of their more dangerous, and insane, missing nin such as Orochimaru.

But, if this was a Konoha nukenin strong enough to take down three jounin or high chuunin as if it was nothing… that doesn’t leave many possibilities. In fact, his first guess would be Uchiha Itachi. The genius had become a mentally unstable S-ranked ninja with an immense kill count, but it was still a possibility that he’d gone out of his way to save his little brother’s team. He had left the boy alive that night, after all.

He scrutinizes the other Uchiha and doesn’t see it; this child has been swearing revenge against his brother for years and he’s currently showing no signs of frustration, anger or even fear.

So, skill-wise that really only leaves… “Hatake?”

He’d taken notice, as jounin commander, when two of his jounin had reported a run-in with the dangerous nukenin on a mission. Thankfully, the ex-ANBU Captain had let them go without much damage. In Raido’s words, the other shinobi had just been toying with them, but the end result had remained the same and his soldiers were still alive.

Then, months later, the missing-nin had aided two of their chuunin for no discernible reason. The second of these instances was far more surprising than the first. He could understand not killing old comrades when there was really no reason to, but why help when it gained him nothing?

It was puzzling enough that Shikaku has been keeping an eye on reports of the S-class nukenin. And when he started looking he found that the name came up more frequently than any other shinobi previously of Konoha - because it seems that Hatake stays mostly in, or near, Fire Country. And though the Nara can’t find a pattern, exactly, in the missions that the silver-haired shinobi took other than that many of them were protection missions, he did notice a trend in what was missing.

The very few assassinations that are ascribed to the nukenin were all, as far as the Nara could ascertain, of enemies of Konoha. This could, of course, be a coincidence, but it’s still significant data.

Then there are the rumours. Word had spread that Hatake doesn’t kill children and is more likely to assassinate the person requesting the mission than the target. The truth of this is, of course, not validated, but persistent rumours are generally based on something – either on truth or deliberate misinformation and he can see no motive for the second of these.

Which is why it would make sense, in a way, if it was Hatake who saved them. Genin might officially be adults, but most people, even shinobi, don’t actually consider them as such.

The Haruno girl shakes her head at the name he uttered, but before she can speak Naruto interrupts, “Nu-uh, he’s called Kakashi-sensei.”

“Sensei?” the Hokage repeats, with true incredulousness visible to any who could discern it from the slight widening of his eyes and the way his voice raises just slightly.

Shikaku doesn’t know whether to commend the brat for managing to actually break through the Sandaime’s calm mask, or to suggest that the Uzumaki leave the shinobi force entirely, because there is clearly something lacking in the survival instincts of the enthusiastic boy - ‘Kakashi-sensei’…?

Their actual sensei starts incoherently sputtering next to them, clearly at a loss for words and the Nara revises his earlier thought into kicking this jounin out instead, because a genin can be excused, but had their teacher actually travelled all the way back to Konoha with them without even inquiring how his charges managed to capture the three enemy nin?

With a mental shake of his head he dismisses Nakamura to the back of his mind and puts his full focus on these, surprisingly interesting, genin instead.

“He taught us tree climbing,” the Uchina surprisingly defends his teammate’s words, with a hint of stubbornness and perhaps a ‘subtle’ dig at their sensei.

“And how to catch fish,” the pink-haired girl adds, likely in the spirit of honesty. Ah. Fishing then, the part of his mind not currently running through nonsensical mental loops of ‘Kakashi-sensei’ absently observes – had Hatake watched them fail at it before? Had he been watching the genin even before they were attacked?

“And he totally kicked ass,” Uzumaki Naruto repeats, as if this is definitely the most important point, “I’m going to become a completely kick-ass ninja too and then I’ll become Hokage and-”

“We know, Dobe,” the other boy cuts him off, having more than likely have been subjected to the same rant plenty of times.

Sakura clears her throat – he imagines she tries do so pointedly but isn’t quite there yet. “After he took down the ninja, he made a fire and taught us how to catch fish,” she explains a little more chronologically, “We- uh. We fell asleep after dinner. When we woke up, he was still there and shooed us off to the river to catch breakfast.”

“And then he taught us how to climb trees without using our hands,” Naruto throws in, exuberant about this fact, “I’m great at it.”

Haruno sighs but nods in agreement, “That’s pretty much what happened.”

“I see,” the Hokage nodded, though from the baffled tone their village leader clearly didn’t see why. Shikaku didn’t either but then nukenin, and Hatake especially, seemed to do things for the hell of it sometimes. Seemed to – he wasn’t certain if insanity, along with a fondness for children than somehow went unnoticed in Konoha, was a satisfactory explanation in this case. The information gathered so far seemed to point to something deeper, but what could Hatake, as missing nin, be working towards?

“What happened after that, Haruno-kun?” The Sandaime prompts.

“Uh, well, after we all succeeded at tree climbing, this dog walked up-”

The blonde interrupts once again; “A talking dog, Jiji.”

Sakura nodded, “A talking dog,” she repeats, sounding a little nervous, embarrassed perhaps? Well, it would sound ridiculous to those who don’t know anything about summoning and Haruno is a civilian family. The only ninken she’ll have come across would be Kiba’s dog and from what he heard from his own son, that one can’t talk. At least not yet.

“The dog, uh, told him that Konoha nin were coming, so he left after that.”

The Sandaime nods and sits back in silence for a moment as he considers this, running his hand over his chin, then he asks, “Can you think of anything else? Something he said or did that any of you think might be significant?”

Haruno taps a finger against her lips, the Uchiha merely crosses his arms and looks away and the Uzumaki... The Uzumaki yells out the first thing that comes to mind; “He said that we can call him Kakashi-sensei because he’s teaching us stuff – like how to be a completely kick-ass ninja like he is!”

The Hokage sweatdrops and Shikaku fights the urge to sigh.

“Hokage-sama?” Haruno asks after a moment of silence, “Why do you think he helped us? Aren’t missing nin criminals?”

“Hmm…” the Sandaime said, looking thoughtfully at the trio in front of him, “It’s hard to tell what goes on in another person’s mind – especially that of a missing nin. Didn’t you ask him this, Haruno-kun?”

“No,” she replies, looking down with a small blush, “I uh- didn’t ask.”

Well that both was and wasn’t surprising. It’s a rather childish thought, not to question your own good fortune because you think that if you challenge it, it might turn ill instead. But when it comes to the whims of a dangerous nukenin, it might actually be a sound strategy not to poke the sleeping bear.

“Is Kakashi-sensei really a criminal, Jiji?” Naruto asks earnestly, and Shikaku frowns. It’s rather worrying how fond Konoha’s jinchuuriki is of Hatake.

“He’s a missing nin, Naruto-kun,” the Hokage informs him gravely, “You do understand this, don’t you?”

The Uchiha speaks up then, “What did he do?”

Everyone falls silent for a moment – ANBU secrets and classified information regarding traitors is not something to be thrown around, especially in front of a jounin-sensei and his genin team.

“Was there anything Hatake said about this?” the jounin commander asks, because he’s genuinely curious, “Did you ask him?”

“He just said that there were ‘reasons’,” Haruno replies thoughtfully, “and that they don’t matter now.”

Some might consider that useless information – too general a statement to really mean anything. But Shikaku marks it as another puzzle piece, because this is neither a brush-off nor a justification. Vague yes, but then perhaps vague enough that it might be honesty – because why be vague about a lie? And why would a missing nin share his honest reasoning with a genin team at all?

“What did he do,” the Uchiha repeats, pushing this – likely due to his brother, “Did he murder people?”

“He betrayed and abandoned the village,” the Hokage replies calmly, telling them basically nothing, even if it was the truth.

“So he didn’t murder anyone?” the blond asks quizzically. “Oh, did he steal something? Was it something cool?”

“He didn’t steal anything, Naruto-kun,” the Sandaime returns and Shikaku could applaud the man’s patience with these kids, “and he didn’t murder anyone, Uchiha-kun.”

They are still young, and new to world shinobi inhabit, still more likely to jump to the bolder scenarios with no idea how things worked in the shadows of ANBU and where the real danger lies.

And of course, their leader’s answer wasn’t a good enough one for the overly enthusiastic brat; “But then why is he a missing nin? Can’t he come back? Then he can be our sensei and we’ll be the most awesome team ever!”

“You already have a sensei!” Nakamura says, fully indignant like this is a slight that he can’t let go, “I assure you, a missing nin does not make a better sensei than a loyal jounin of the Leaf.”

Shikaku wonders if the man is trying to convince the team, the Hokage or him.

“Of course, Nakamura-san,” Sandaime calms the man in a way that could be considered patronizing but considering the situation, the fact that Konoha’s jinchuuriki (and a kid that the Hokage is personally fond of) seems to be at risk of being foolish enough to run off with a missing nin, Shikaku is surprised that the Hokage even bothers.

“Very well, I will consider your report and we will discuss this situation again tomorrow. Until that time, Team Seven is suspended from further missions. Get some rest.”

“And Naruto-kun,” the older man says seriously, “Missing nin are very dangerous. They are the kind of people who went back on their loyalty towards our village and broke the trust that was put in them. Do you understand?”

For a moment it looks as if the boy will protest, but Haruno elbows him and gives him a look. So the Uzumaki stays silent and then, with a thoughtful, almost defeated look on the boy’s face that seems completely out of place, he finally nods.

Then his expressive face shifts again, into determination, “I understand, Jiji!”

Shikaku is pretty sure the kid doesn’t understand at all. Hatake is turning out immensely troublesome – if the jinchuuriki was to leave Konoha it would make them look immensely weak. It would be even worse if another village managed to get their hands on the boy. And for Uzumaki’s sake… well, Naruto had already been manipulated by a traitor once, to steal the Forbidden Scroll, and that was bad enough. None of them wanted the kid to go through something like that again.

“Dismissed,” the Hokage says and the Nara is probably the only one here who can hear the underlying tiredness. He’s reminded once again that this man had already retired from the post many years ago, before the death of the Yondaime forced him back into the seat.

He nods at their leader and lazily follows this unexpectedly interesting team downstairs.

They step outside the Hokage tower and Nakamura takes off without another word. The Nara frowns, after the previous conversation and the worrying information brought to light in it, he would have expected from any of his jounin to at least discuss this with his students. It wouldn’t have been necessary amongst jounin or chuunin, but these are genin – clearly they needed further guidance. Troublesome.

“What about you, Haruno-kun?” Shikaku asks slowly.

The girl turns her head to look at him, confusion on her face, “Eh?”

He shrugs, with lazy nochalance. “Well, Uchiha-kun suspected murder, Uzumaki-kun thought Hatake stole something – why do you think he became a missing nin?”

He isn’t sure why he asks, why it matters, they are just children after all – green genin. But there’s something about these three - perhaps Hatake saw something in them, some sort of explanation that he can’t exactly put his finger on.

The pink-haired girl falls silent for a long, thoughtful moment before finally speaking up. “I think,” the young girl starts slowly, “I think that maybe he got really tired. He sounded sad, when he said that there were reasons.”

She looks up at him, green eyes troubled, “Do ANBU have to… to kill a lot of people, shinobi-san?”

His eyes don’t narrow, his head doesn’t twitch – he is too practiced to give himself away in any way, but despite not showing it, his focus sharpens. “ANBU, Haruno-kun?”

“Hmhm,” she hums in agreement, “He said he used to be an ANBU Captain. He looked… I don’t know. Upset?”

Shikaku blinks, wondering why on earth Hatake would share that – though it’s not like the man has any reason to keep Konoha’s secrets now.

“So, do they?”

Then he figures that if she asked, well, she’s technically an adult. He’s not about to go into detail of course, but there’s absolutely no point in lying to someone who is already part of the shinobi corps. Besides, knowing how dangerous Hatake is might make them more cautious.

“ANBU carry out the darkest and most dangerous missions for the sake of our village. Sometimes those are assassinations. Do you think ANBU is why Hatake betrayed the village?” He uses the word ‘betrayed’ purposefully in the hope that reinforcing that fact often enough it will somehow make its way through the jinchuuriki’s thick skull.

The girl bites her lip, “I don’t know, shinobi-san, but I think that maybe…”

She trails off and glances at her teammates who are both watching her as well, “Well, I don’t know.”

“Maybe what?” the jounin commander pushes – because he needs more information to solve this, to figure out motives and strategies.

The young girl looks away from his piercing eyes, looking instead at the village gates they can see in the distance, “I think… that maybe he has a lot of regrets.”

Shikaku frowns and stays with the trio a moment longer – all of them silent, thoughtful. Even the Uzumaki is quiet, his voice at least – the boy’s body seems to be trembling with an energetic emotion or a loud exclamation barely held back.

He glances at the children one more time before leaving them to it. It is an interesting situation, yes but also tiresome. He half suspects that Hatake was just fucking with them all. And those kids…

He lucked out with Shikamaru - imagine herding any one of these three troublesome brats.

Chapter Text

Shikaku is not sent out into the field often these days. But there are missions and there are D- and C-ranks and those differ enormously when it comes to risk as well as time spend away from the village.

After the previous events, the Hokage had quietly asked him to temporarily take on Team Seven while they ‘evaluated’ the situation. The Sandaime was right to worry about the legendary Copy nin taking an interest in the jinchuuriki, or his fellow Sharingan user, and both of them were far too valuable for Konoha to lose, so Shikaku sighed and muttered a ‘troublesome’ but agreed to keep an eye out on the brats, though he had never aspired to have a genin team.

But, since Hatake is not someone Nakamura can succesfully face, the charge of the team quietly changed hands. In part, the Nara is sure, because the Hokage is far too fond of Uzumaki to leave him with a sensei like that.

Of course, it’s not like Shikaku can be certain of coming away as the winner against an S-rank shinobi either, especially not with a handicap as large as three vulnerable genin. But he’s a shadow user, a strategist, and someone at least familiar with Kakashi Hatake’s strengths and weaknesses. He will have a far better chance of getting away than Nakamura and there are very few jounin more capable than him. Jiraiya would have been a better choice, someone who could face off against such threats confidently and has a history with Hatake beyond his own, but the spymaster is not in the village, so for now it falls to Shikaku to watch over these genin.

So here he is, taking these brats temporarily in his care on a C-rank, a nice little messenger mission outside the village because having to go after that damn cat again and again is just tiresome.

This mission turns out more troublesome than that dratted cat ever could be, though. It starts with another team from Otogakure crossing their path. He manages to capture one, kill another with the last running away, Shikaku unable to give chase with new genin in his care.

Then, on their way back to Konoha, it ends with them face to face with Orochimaru.

This team’s luck is terrible and, impressionable youths or not, Shikaku curses out loud.

He’s used to having reliable jounin fighting by his side and to be able to utilise their strengths to work into a strategy. All he has now is a trio of children in need of protection and a legendary ninja he needs to keep back. Not a battle he can win, but he’ll delay the inevitable as long as he can anyway – just in case another opportunity presents itself.

Whatever skills these genin have, they are negligible against an S-class enemy, so he tells them to back away and allows the traitor to toy with him. It’s an untenable situation, so he is actually relieved when a tall, lean form launches itself out of the foliage with the chirping sound of an assassination technique and goes straight for the Snake Sannin.

Fighting alongside a missing nin is not ideal, but he’ll take this particular nukenin over Orochimaru any day.

“Shikaku-san,” the Copy nin greets affably, not taking his focus off of the Sannin for a second.

And, of course, the genin are far too happy with this nukenin’s arrival, “Kakashi-sensei!” both Naruto and Sakura call out with a cheerful relief - as if the mere arrival of the Copy nin is enough to decide the battle in their favour. These kids really have no idea of the gravity of the situation.

“Maa, maa, kids. Stay back now,” Hatake returns easily. Despite his casual voice, the nukenin is taking this seriously enough that he had unveiled his Sharingan before even joining the battle. The Nara wonders how Sasuke will react to that, but the thought is relegated to the back of his mind because there are far more immediate concerns.

“Kakashi-sensei, are you going to kick ass again?” Naruto asks, and are genin always this hopelessly oblivious? From his own experiences he didn’t think so, but then the only kid he ever spent a large amount of time with was his own son. And Shikamaru is a Nara to the bones.

Orochimaru laughs, “Well if it isn’t the Copy nin – I would ask what brings you here, to side with the village you betrayed, but frankly, I don’t care.”

The Sannin moves, sword in hand, and Hatake moves just as quickly, shoots out a fire jutsu to force the other ninja at some distance and then summons his pack of dogs. “Guard the pups,” he orders them before landing uncomfortably close to Shikaku.

“What’s the plan, jounin-commander?” the question is whisper soft, but well-meant and that startles Shikaku enough that he drags his eyes away from the bigger threat to try and read the covered face and body language of the man next to him. His former comrade has his Sharingan eye focussed on the snake summoner, - attempting a genjutsu? – but the way his body is positioned shows that he’s paying attention to Shikaku’s slightest movement as well.

He wonders if this will work, if he can work together with a missing nin who was once a comrade, but in the end it turns out to be surprisingly easy. The Kakashi at his side isn’t markedly different than the jounin he had worked with before – except for the fact that he has several new techniques, is faster, and is, of course, a traitor who abandoned Konoha.

But in the ways that matter most in battle Hatake is the same; the way the man moves, the ANBU hand signs, how he seemingly has no trouble understanding and adapting to Shikaku’s changing strategies and the fact that he follows the jounin commander’s lead flawlessly.

They manage to beat the Sannin back – they force a legendary ninja to flee from them and he’s not sure he could have done that even with his own team at his side.

Hatake has become even more dangerous, more powerful than Shikaku remembers – he had clearly not stopped improving during his years as a missing nin and that is worrisome because the Hatake Kakashi from back then had already been a considerable threat.

He isn’t sure how happy he is about the fact that this shinobi can stand up to the likes of Orochimaru.

And yet, Shikaku doesn’t feel as if he’s in danger. The ex-ANBU had, purposefully, been as non-threatening as possible towards him so far.

The Nara sighs, knowing that if he survives this encounter (current indications make him consider those chances to be pretty high), the puzzle that surrounds this missing nin will likely keep him occupied until he figures it out.

“That was awesome!” comes, predictably, from the blond who recklessly rushes towards the S-class nukenin, “I’m going to become just as awesome, you’ll see.”

“Hmm… You’re going to have to be, to become Hokage,” the jounin non-committedly replies as he slants the headband back over his swirling red eye.

This casual remark, surprisingly, tempers the usually over-enthusiastic boy, and Naruto is actually calm, serious, when he nods and informs Hatake, “I’ll train hard then, and get strong so I can become Hokage. Believe it!”

The older ninja meets the boys eyes, nods and says, “Good.”

Shikaku carefully moves closer, hand fingering his kunai pouch, and wonders if he will need to try and fight the nukenin off. The most obvious reason for humouring the jinchuuriki, for winning his trust, is not good for Konoha.

The ex-ANBU marks his movements out of the corner of his eyes, reads the threat in them and backs off, physically taking a step back, which allows the Nara to slide in between the two and force Naruto back. It isn’t much, especially considering that Kakashi’s ninken are still surrounding them, but he hopes that it at least indicates a sign of good-will.

He can’t exactly depend on the good-will of a nukenin though and in his mind plans and strategies are constantly being re-evaluated as the players in them shift their positions.

The ninja shrugs and waves happily at the other two. “Yo, kids.”

The Uzumaki pouts behind Shikaku and Sasuke glares darkly at the Copy nin, “Where did you get that eye? That eye belongs to the Uchiha – the Sharingan.”

It’s more an accusation than a question and undoubtedly rude. There is a moment of silence that follows this and Shikaku expects the ninja to goad the boy, or to tell him it’s none of his business - to say it’s because of ‘reasons’ or something similar.

Instead, to the Nara’s surprise, the other man tells a genin who should be completely insignificant to him the actual truth – something that had always been notoriously difficult to drag out of the closed-off jounin when it came to things that mattered to the man.

“My teammate -” The Copy nin explains quietly, “Uchiha Obito. In battle, I lost my eye and he lost his life. Before he died, he gave me this eye, so that we may see the future together.”

“How did he die?” Sakura asks, too curious and too young to realise how dangerous it is to delve into such sensitive waters with any high-level shinobi, let alone a nukenin – who are generally not the most mentally stable of their kind.

Kakashi looks at her for a very long moment while Shikaku stands there, tensely waiting.

Thankfully the other shinobi doesn’t move from his spot and finally answers, “I failed him.”

Sakura’s eyes widen and then fill with an innocent, empathic grief, “I’m sorry, sensei.”

The word rolls of her tongue so easily. It isn’t just Naruto who the nukenin had ingratiated himself with – even Haruno, book-smart and one to follow the rules to the letter calls Hatake ‘sensei’ without a second thought.

Hatake nods in a sort of acknowledgment and, as if a switch is flicked, shifts the mood easily by eye-smiling and changing the subject entirely, asking casually, wonderingly; “So, whatever happened to Nakamura?”

Naruto shrugs and it is Sasuke who answers with a hint of satisfaction, “He was reassigned.”

Kakashi smirks at the dark-haired avenger, who smirks back, “Hmm. Such a pity.”

“Yeah, but now we’re stuck with this guy instead,” Naruto says as disrespectfully as he always is. And it’s troublesome and he doesn’t actually care, but he is supposed to be teaching these brats so he turns just enough to lightly swat the boy’s head.

“Maa, maa, Naruto-kun,” Kakashi scolds too cheerfully, “That’s the jounin commander you’re talking about. He was my superior too, you know.”

“Really?” Sakura asks full of surprise, and Shikaku can see the Uchiha mentally re-evaluating him as well. Troublesome.

The silver-haired jounin nods easily, seemingly completely unconcerned with the situation.

“Hatake,” Shikaku greets calmly, taking this as a cue to join the conversation, “Your help was appreciated.”

“Well, I couldn’t let my cute little students get hurt, now could I?”

He stares at the ex-ANBU Captain and wonders to what extend this man is messing with him and what part of him is serious. Clearly the ninja has, somehow, gained a soft spot for children but the sensei/student thing… what is he playing at? What is he hoping to achieve?

The other ninja curls his only visible eye, giving the impression of utter ease and friendliness; “I don’t suppose I could borrow them for a day or two?”

It’s a ridiculous request, they both know it, but Naruto jumps up, cheering enthusiastically and even Sasuke and Sakura look interested.

“No,” Shikaku replies in his hardest, firmest voice, stepping closer to the ninja and more solidly in-between his charges and the possible threat, “No, you can’t.”

“Ah, but Shikaku-sensei,” Naruto whines, “I need to get stronger. Why can’t Kakashi-sensei train us again?”

“Because he’s a nukenin, Naruto-kun,” the Nara explains, as if it actually needed to be said. With the Uzumaki, you never knew – they sometimes miss the obvious, especially this newest incarnation.

The boy purses his lips, looks thoughtfully at Shikaku for a moment before switching his gaze to Hatake, “Right,” he finally nods determinedly, as if coming to some conclusion, but the usually loud-mouthed brat says no more. Strange. He would have expected more protests from the boy.

“Well, I suppose I should leave then,” the missing nin sighs dramatically – and Shikaku is starting to suspect a mental breakdown had happened shortly before or during Hatake’s defection because the man switches between the cold, serious ANBU Shikaku had known and this easy-going dramatic personality too haphazardly for it to be entirely an act, “Though since I helped and all, well, Konoha is still about teamwork isn’t it? Surely you could lend me a medic-nin to see to the wounds I sustained in defending your team?”

The Nara raises his eyebrow, wondering where the shinobi is going with this.

Hatake shrugs, “It’s really hard for a missing nin to get medical care, you know,” he explains without explaining anything.

Shikaku’s eyes narrow. “We don’t have a medic-nin with us, unless, of course, you want to come back to Konoha with us?”

Hatake Kakashi waves the offer away, “Maa, maa, I’m sure Sakura-chan can do a good enough job.”

“Me, sensei?” the girl in question gasps in surprise, “But I’m not… I can’t… I’m not very good at…”

The man eye-smiles, pretends to ignore Shikaku’s presence entirely (though he is certain the man keeps careful track of his movements) and strolls up to the pink-haired teen. “A little more practice never hurt anyone.”

He flops down near the young girl, in a way that would have left him foolishly vulnerable to the Konoha shinobi if he didn’t have several of his ninken at the Nara’s back.

The man opens one of his scrolls and hands over a small medic-nin kit to Haruno who accepts it gingerly without even looking to her official sensei, and ranking officer, for approval.

Shikaku mentally notes this and keeps careful watch as Hatake takes off his vest and then his long sleeved shirt, leaving him in a sleeveless undershirt attached to his mask – and revealing several cuts on his now bare arms. One of them is a bit deeper than the others and still bleeding sluggishly, but it’s not something that would be considered a significant wound by any jounin’s reckoning.

“Just do the best you can,” he tells the girl cheerfully.

The boys crowd around while the missing nin coaches Sakura through calling up a medic’s green chakra and the man doesn’t show any surprise when the girl actually manages it. She doesn’t actually close the wound entirely, but it was a good attempt and she uses the bandages from the small kit to cover it further. Then she turns to the smaller wounds and, with a look of intense concentration on her face, she manages to mend the skin.

Kakashi seemingly considers the results. Then he flexes his muscles and the small wounds burst right back open.

“Oh no,” the girl calls out in dismay.

“Maa, it was a good first attempt, Sakura-chan,” he pats the girl lightly on her head as he stands up, “you just need to control your chakra tightly enough to go beneath the surface area. It’ll take some practice.”

“I can try again!” she says determinedly, despite looking rather tired.

“Another time, my cute little student, healing takes a lot out of a person and chakra exhaustion isn’t very fun,” he scratches his head sheepishly, “Take it from someone who knows.”

Haruno shakes her head, not dissuaded in the least and she almost looks like an actual medic-nin in her stubbornness. “Then at least let me bandage them!”

She boldly takes Hatake’s arm and the Nara readies himself to call upon his shadows should the situation call for it. Haruno tugs the S-class missing nin back down. “Sit down, shinobi-san.”

The ex-ANBU seems to soften, somehow, at this uncharacteristic determination and Shikaku can see the unexpected fondness in his face even through the mask. Perhaps, he muses, the girl reminds him of his own teammate: Nohara Rin had been a budding medic nin as well.

The Nara relaxes his tense muscles slightly when Hatake gamely settles down and lets the girl bandage up even the smallest of his wounds - at least the ones she is aware of. Hatake sported other injuries from their fight, Shikaku had seen him take a kunai to the thigh and observes a corresponding wet patch on his clothing but neither jounin mention it.

This is clearly about training, not healing, and while the Nara wonders at it, he doesn’t doubt it. So they let the girl continue until she is satisfied and Kakashi is allowed to stand up this time.

“Thank you, medic-san,” the S-class nukenin says politely to the pink-haired genin.

Then he turns to the boys, glances at Shikaku for a moment and crouches in front of the two. “Be careful and train hard. Orochimaru is a Kage-level shinobi and he isn’t likely to go back on something he wants. In this case – you, Sasuke.”

“Me?” the dark-haired boy asks, “Why would he want me?”

Hatake sighs, looks up into the distance for a moment, before settling his dark eye back on the Uchiha, “Because of your eyes, your potential. He failed to get them from your brother and - well, he’s not likely to get my eye either. That leaves only you, Sasuke-kun.”

The dark-haired boy clenches his hands tightly, reminded of dark memories, and Kakashi doesn’t say anything comforting but remains right where he is, a solid presence crouched in front of the boy while he pulls himself back together. Naruto opens his mouth, but Hatake halts the boy with a ‘stop’ gesture – one that the unquenchable blond heeds.

Everyone waits silently, patiently, until Sasuke lifts his head up again and makes eye-contact with the silver-haired jounin in front of him. “Well, he can’t have them.”

“No,” Kakashi agrees, both solemn and fierce, “no he can’t.”

The two nod at each other in something that seems to be both an agreement and a promise. It wouldn't have been all that odd, he supposes, if it hadn't been between a young genin and a rogue, powerful jounin.

Then Hatake stands up, and turns to the jinchuuriki. “What was it, Naruto-kun?”

“Uh. Nothing,” the blond says, scratching the back of his head, “Damn right he can’t have Sasuke-teme’s eyes, though.”

“Grow strong quickly, then, Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke - because your teammates will need you. And those who abandon their mission are trash-” he looks at Sakura expectedly and she blushes but finishes his sentence: “-but those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash.”

The thing is, she doesn’t say it as a question, not in the way that her voice tends to trails up in tone when she’s waiting for confirmation that she got the answer right. No this time she’s still shy but not hesitant. There’s a confidence there that he hadn’t seen from the girl before.

“Ah,” the shinobi nods with approval, “Ja ne, my little genin.”

With that and a deep nod to Shikaku he dashes off, his ninken on his trail. Naruto waves and yells, “Bye, Kakashi-sensei.”

“Dobe,” the Uchiha says with a shake of his head, but there is a determined glint in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

Sakura stares after the jounin, grips the medic-nin kit tighter in her hands and steps closer to the boys, claiming her spot between them.

And yes, Shikaku can see it now, that somehow the missing nin is, in fact, Team Seven’s sensei. It’s not just Naruto, not just the three genin even; no it’s Hatake Kakashi himself as well, who is acting like a jounin-sensei in truth.

Yet the man hadn’t taken them away – hadn’t even asked his three young students to come with him. So, why win their trust and not act on it? There is very little even Shikaku could have done to stop him. Not without causing the misguided genin true harm.

None of it made any sense. Not strategically, in any case. The Nara considers that perhaps he is out of his league here – he’s good with strategies, can figure out motives from many actions but this is a missing nin that may have had some sort of mental break at some point.

This man is clearly reluctant to do harm to his former comrades – Hatake had helped them, fought alongside Konoha ninja multiple times now with no apparent reward. It is, of course, possible that the man is trying to win their trust but that seems like a long shot. It would work, is clearly working, on the children but if that was the goal, why not just take them?

He’s starting to think that this might be Inoichi’s area of expertise more than his own. Because there is something more going on than the nukenin setting out to win the trust of a group of genin. Shikaku may not be as sharp as his teammate when it came to body language and behaviour, but he is no slouch at it either. So he had noticed the barely hidden fondness for Sakura and the unfeigned, fierce protectiveness in the nukenin’s stance when he informed Sasuke that Orochimaru is hunting the boy.

And he had seen that Hatake had not just been humouring an enthusiastic boy when he acknowledged Naruto’s dream to become Hokage. It could be because of Minato, because of the memories Kakashi held of him, but while Naruto was his son he was very different than the Fourth and showed none of the same skills or mindset that would help him in that.

It’s undoubtedly strange, worrying and, above all, immensely troublesome.

They had survived, though, despite the improbability of it. He comforts himself with that thought as he hustles the foolish genin back to Konoha. It’s something, at least.

The rest of it, though, is still a puzzle. And Shikaku is prepared to pick it apart until he finds an answer that satisfies more than the presumption that all of this can be explained by an unstable mental state.

But he’d much prefer to work it out from safely within Konoha's walls instead of while standing between a genin team and one of the Sannin.

Surely he’s much too valuable to the Hokage as strategist and commander to be chucked into the role of jounin sensei for long? He really can’t wait until he can hand the whole troublesome mess over to someone else.

Admittedly, he is a bit intrigued – but it’s not worth the hassle of shepherding three ridiculous children with the strangest luck.