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They wake up in an unfamiliar forest, which is never a good sign. Considering when last they were conscious, they were in Minato’s apartment, it strikes him as a very bad sign indeed.
“Is everyone alright?” Minato asks, clutching his forehead. He’s dizzy. He can’t spot any visible injuries on the members of his team, but it’s always best to ask. He knows Obito won’t own up to any unless Rin susses him out.
“We’re alright, sensei,” says Rin promptly, ever the medic. “Just a little light-headed.”
Obito stands up shakily and stares at their surroundings. “Where are we?”
Kakashi rolls his eyes, rising as well. “If we knew that, Minato-sensei wouldn’t be so concerned. It’s useless to ask where when we haven’t even confirmed why.”
Obito huffs. “What do you know about it, Bakashi?”
“The Hiraishin,” says Kakashi turning to Minato. As always, he began analyzing the situation the moment he opened his eyes. “You were showing us your research on how to combine it with fuinjutsu, weren’t you sensei?”
Minato nods. He gets up, and offers a hand to Rin after he does. “You asked about the difference between fūinjutsu and ninjutsu, and I was trying to show you that they’re not mutually exclusive. However… when you all grabbed hold of my kunai… the jutsu rebounded.”
“So we teleported?” infers Rin, with a slight frown. “I can’t see any of your kunai in the area.”
“That’s what bothers me,” agrees Minato. He stares out into the forest ahead. “We can’t be sure where we’ve ended up. I don’t sense anyone in our immediate vicinity, but it’s best we approach cautiously. Stay close to each other.”
The three chūnin offer their affirmation. Even Kakashi, who tends to be independent at the best of times, moves closer to Obito and Rin. There’s not enough reason to be battle-ready just yet, but there’s certainly a sense of unease in the air.
Minato gestures to the north. “We can walk in the direction where the forest thins, but I want you to stay behind me, and not to engage with anyone unless I give the order.”
It takes them about half an hour before they’re close enough to sense other people’s presences. Many other people, by the feel of it, but it doesn’t feel like they’re enemies. They must be approaching a village of some kind. He feels slightly more comfortable, knowing this, but he can’t be too careful. They are at war, after all.
When they are approaching the edge of the forest, Kakashi freezes. Minato signals the others to halt. “What’s wrong, Kakashi?”
“I smell something… strange,” says Kakashi, eyebrows drawn together. He has the best nose of any of them, so if there were a scent to be wary of, Minato is sure he’d notice it first.
“Strange how?” asks Minato.
Kakashi doesn’t look like he’s mentally preparing for combat, exactly, but he is certainly apprehensive. “I-I can’t explain it. It sort of smells like—”
“Kakashi-jiichan!”
All four of them startle. A young girl’s voice can be heard past the trees, but Minato doesn’t see any way they could’ve been spotted when they haven’t yet emerged. Yet there is someone who knows Kakashi ahead of them, somehow. And what was with that honorific? Kakashi may be silver-haired and occasionally surly, but he is not old enough to be father, let alone a grandfather.
“Maa, slow down, Sarada, or you’ll fall. Your mother won’t let me hear the end of it if I take you back injured.”
A man’s voice. Laughing, scolding the child. Minato supposes it is possible there are other people named Kakashi in the area, but it’s an alarming coincidence. He has to gather more information.
They move to the very last of the trees, still cloaking their presence. When Minato manages to get a look at the clearing ahead, the sight knocks the wind out of him.
The man, still laughing, is lifting a child no more than two into the air. It’s possible he’s the jii-chan, because his hair is silver, and his back is to them so they cannot see his face. What they can see, however, is the writing on the robes he wears. In large, red script down his back, the words ‘Rokudaime Hokage’ are visible.
Hokage? He thinks dazedly. The only Hokage he knows is the Professor, and this man is much too tall to be him. Rokudaime? What happened to Yondaime and Godaime? Shouldn’t they come first?
Before he can even begin to fathom what any of this could mean, the man turns. Kakashi, thinks Minato, as he looks at the man’s face.
It’s impossible. It must be. Because they only teleported, moving from one space to another in an instant. He can’t imagine shifting worlds. Because that is the only way he can explain staring into the eyes of a man who looks just like his Kakashi, right down to the mask, but decades older, and with a scar running down his left eye. He’d think he was staring at Sakumo, if he couldn’t see the difference in the shape of their faces.
But… the girl called him Kakashi, didn’t she? And how else could he explain that this Konoha (for he supposes it must be Konoha, as unfamiliar as the forest behind him is) has already had two more Hokages than he knows of?
Minato can ponder no further, because as he stands there, frozen in the shadows, the man says, staring directly at their hiding spot, “You’ll have to hide your presence better than that. Come out.”
Sighing, he leads his team into the light. When the man in the clearing gets a look at their faces, his whole body goes shock still. “Sensei?” he says uncertainly.
Well, I suppose that’s confirmation enough. “Er, hi,” says Minato, with a sheepish wave.
“He almost looks like you, Bakashi!” says Obito, in what abysmally fails to be a whisper. Rin nudges Obito, but looks no less confused than her teammate.
“What’s going on, sensei?” asks his Kakashi quietly. He is looking at the man with a very troubled expression. Whether it is because he has ascertained what’s going on, or merely notices the resemblance to Sakumo, Minato’s not sure.
Minato cannot offer him any reassurances, so he simply places a hand on Kakashi’s head, and stares the man before him. “We seem to have gotten a little lost,” he says. He pauses, and then amends, “Very lost, actually.”
The man sets down the young girl, who makes a noise of protest. “Get behind me, Sarada,” he says, gently but firmly. She shifts so she is clinging to the back of his white robes. When she’s out of their line of sight, the older Kakashi tells him, “If this is a joke, I don’t get the punchline.”
Minato sighs. “I know this must be confusing,” he says, raising up his hands in gesture of peace. “We’re confused too. And I… probably don’t look like the person you know. But you do recognize me, and I have a good idea of who you are too. If you’re willing, we could use some help getting back home.”
“You know this old man, sensei?” pipes up Obito beside him.
Surprisingly, the words seem to make the older Kakashi laugh. “I’m thirty-six. I’m not that old.” But the amused look fades, and he looks back at Minato with a more serious expression. “I’ll need to ask you a few questions before I do anything.”
“Of course,” agrees Minato.
The older Kakashi pulls out a kunai, and Minato is immediately tensed to defend his team, but all he does is slice his own thumb and perform a summons. If there are any doubts about Kakashi’s identity, they are certainly cleared up when Pakkun, Bull, and Bisuke all appear in front of him.
“Puppy!” says Sarada, from behind Kakashi’s leg.
The younger Kakashi beside him looks ready to shout, but a quelling glance from Minato silences him. As it is, all three dogs stare between the two Hatake, before Pakkun says, “You’re always in some kind of trouble, aren’t you, Boss?”
“And that’s why I have you guys to help me out,” says the older Kakashi with smiling eyes. “Sarada, why don’t you go pick some flowers with the ninken? I’ll be right here if you need anything.”
“Okay, Kakashi-jiichan!” The little girl giggles in delight, and practically drags the old dogs over to a patch of daisies nearby.
When Sarada bends down, Minato notices with a jolt that she bears the Uchiha clan symbol on the back of her clothes. Things certainly have changed, he thinks faintly.
Obito notices too. He gapes at the little girl, clearly trying to place her among his clansmen, and failing to do so. “Who’s that girl?” he asks. “And why is this old Bakashi dressed up like the Hokage?”
Kakashi approaches the team. Minato doesn’t miss how he subtly angles his body between them and Sarada. Still paranoid. But the protectiveness in such a gesture doesn’t go unmissed either, and it makes Minato smile. When he is close enough, the older Kakashi says to Obito, “Because I am the Hokage.”
Minato cannot help but feel a burst of pride. His Kakashi has never shown an interest in becoming Hokage, not like him or Obito. Vaguely, he wonders if the version of Team Minato in this world are a little jealous of him. Regardless, his student, young and talented and fiercely independent Kakashi, has risen above the rest to look over the village. A boy who tries so hard to hold himself aloft from his teammates is now running around with children in fields, laughing freely, and ensuring that the Will of Fire gets passed on to the next generation. It’s an immensely comforting thought.
“Congratulations,” Minato says warmly.
It takes the older Kakashi off-guard. “Thank you,” he says, ducking his head a little. Then, more seriously, he asks, “Now. What is this? It’s not a genjustu, or it would’ve dispelled when I cut myself. Is this Orochimaru’s doing?”
The question perplexes Minato. Does the Snake Sannin have an interest in space-time ninjutsu as well? “No. Our presence here seems to be the result of a mix of Hiraishin and fūinjustu.”
“Our presence where?” says the younger Kakashi, tired of keeping his silence. “Is this man somehow… me? He’s got the same scent, and he can summon my ninken. A henge can’t do that. How is any of this possible?”
He might’ve liked to send his students away for this conversation, because it’s overwhelming enough as it is without Kakashi having to stare at an older version of himself, but he doubts they’d entertain it. “I believe,” Minato says slowly, “That my jutsu somehow brought us to a future version of Konoha. Twenty-five years, to be exact,” he adds, remembering the earlier statement about this Kakashi’s age.
“So we travelled in time?” asks Rin, looking from one Kakashi to the other. “And this Kakashi… is our teammate?”
“That’s about the gist of it,” Minato confirms, a little helplessly. He wishes he had a more comforting statement for his three worried chūnin.
“That doesn’t explain the Uchiha girl,” says Obito, crossing his arms.
The older Kakashi shrugs. “She’s family.”
Armed with the knowledge of their situation, the smaller Kakashi seems to settle down, if marginally. “If it was your jutsu that brought us here, sensei, we should find an older version of you. He’d know best how to get us back.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” says the elder. He’s stiffened, so minutely that Minato would not have noticed if he didn’t know Kakashi so well.
The two adults lock gazes, and Minato wonders what exactly has transpired in the future between Team Minato. Still, he agrees. “It’s best to limit our contact with this world. It’s dangerous enough that we’ve run into a future version of you, Kakashi. If he’s able to help us, then we won’t need to recklessly walk around this Konoha either way.”
The older Kakashi seems to relax slightly at that. “I’ve got a decent background in sealing. If you show me which ones you used, we can figure out together how you got here, and a way to get you home.”
Minato pulls out the scrolls he has on his person, and he gestures for the team to gather around him. His team and the older Kakashi decide to settle down in the grass, resolving themselves to a long afternoon.
Minutes into their discussion, Sarada rushes over with a bunch of daisies in her hand, all of varying lengths, and many missing petals. “For you, jii-chan,” she says, grinning.
The older Kakashi smiles at her and accepts the flowers, setting them down gently beside them. “Thank you very much. You know, I think your mama and papa would probably like some too,” he says, nodding back towards the flowerbeds. “If you can manage to make a bouquet of all different kinds, I’ll show you an interesting trick after.”
Sarada takes the challenge eagerly, and runs back over, practically tripping over her own feet. Minato watches in fond amusement, before a thought occurs to him.
Twenty-five years. This Kakashi is only in his mid-thirties. The child is a toddler already, which means he was in his early thirties when she was born. If he is truly her grandfather… the latest he could’ve had his own child would’ve been when he was seventeen, in order to have a grown daughter or son. Earlier, even, if his child had been of age when they had Sarada. He might’ve been as young as fourteen.
His Kakashi is eleven. Minato cannot imagine him holding a baby, let alone having one. He feels a little dizzy again.
“Something wrong, sensei?” asks the older Kakashi, watching him spiral.
Minato clears his throat. “Ah, Kakashi… how old were Sarada’s parents again?”
The question seems to amuse Kakashi, but he answers, eyes crinkling. “They’re both approaching twenty-three, now, I think.”
Minato holds back a scream.