Chapter Text
Naruto was right, it did hurt. But not as much as Kakashi thought it would. Or maybe he was just too used to pain.
The first thing Kakashi became aware of was the soft grass underneath him, and then the scorching sun. Oh how Kakashi missed this. If he never saw the moon again, well that would be too soon. He sat up slowly nursing the soft headache he had, having to brush bangs out of his eyes. He was in the clothes he wore when he was young, and he had the sharingan. So after Obito and remembering Naruto’s warning, probably just after Rin as well. He knew it would be difficult for them to get him all the way back but a small part of him still hoped. He’d have to visit the stone to make sure, just in case he started acting as if she was dead and she wasn’t.
That would be too suspicious.
He was standing in training ground three, because of course he was. He turned to make the familiar way to the memorial stone. It was a short walk, considering he originally chose this training ground because of its proximity. Slowly Kakashi steps out of the trees, gasping at the familiar figure standing before the stone. Minato sensei, not wearing his usual robes but looking every bit of the beloved hokage Kakashi remembered. He was slowly piecing together exactly how far he’d come back.
Kakashi took a deep breath before making his way to stand beside his sensei. Rin’s name was on the memorial just where he remembered it being. But it was lacking the long list of names that were added after, from the missions that came after her, to the attack of the nine tails (Kurama, that was his name wasn’t it? Kakashi remembered Naruto calling him fondly by that name). Obito was also there as well, but Kakashi didn’t linger on that name for long knowing he didn’t have to mourn the boy he knew, not when there was a chance to get him back.
“Kakashi,” Minato whispered, looking at his student almost cautiously. Kakashi knew that he wasn’t exactly overly friendly to his sensei at this time, so lost in grief and honestly his treatment of his sensei at this time was a regret he had never gotten past.
“It’s amazing … how there are only two of us left…” Kakashi answered staring at the memorial blankly, testing each word in his mind before saying it outloud, carefully measuring how he was going to approach this. Lying, bleeding out, on the floor with goodbyes on his lips and a rabid goddess chasing him down really did not give him enough time to plan how he was going to save the world. He should have stayed in the training ground a little longer. But, Kakashi always did surprisingly well coming up with plans on the fly. “And yet…I haven’t tried to hold onto what’s left of my team harder.”
Minato’s gaze was heavy on the side of his face. Kakashi finally turned to look at his sensei, trying to convey all of the guilt of pushing his sensei away. It wasn’t hard, he wasn’t actually acting.
Minato finally smiled after regarding Kakashi for a moment. The smile ached, his eyes and hair so like Naruto, that Kakashi almost flinched away from it.
“You’ve been doing a lot of thinking in that old training ground, haven’t you?”
Kakashi let a small smile break through his stone face. He regarded his sensei. “I have. I think I have spent so much time hiding from others that I’ve only hurt myself instead of protecting myself. Obito … Rin … how much could have been prevented if only things were different, if I was different.”
“Kakashi-” Minato began taking a step to place a hand on Kakashi’s shoulder. Kakashi, interrupted too used to the face his sensei made before he went into mother hen mode.
“It’s okay sensei. I realize my faults and mistakes, and I’ve accepted them. Now, I just need your help so that I don’t make them anymore. I’m tired of forcing myself to be alone.”
Tears gathered in his sensei’s eyes. All the things Kakashi had wanted to say finally came out and instead of scorn he received a warm hug. Kakashi, even the more open adult Kakashi never got used to hugs so his arms were tentative as they tried to return the feelings that Minato poured into his gesture.
“Come on, I’ll make you dinner, Kushina and I would love to have you.”
Kushina, another name that tore through Kakashi’s heart even as it made it skip merrily. His precious people were still alive. Well almost all of them were. Rin would still weigh heavily on his mind, just as his father had. But now, he had the chance to make both of them proud when sometime in the very far future he saw them again.
The house that Kushina and Minato lived in was not the Hokage tower as his predecessor’s had lived in. Minato could be on the top floor faster than someone in the building’s ground floor could be even kilometers away so there was no need to sleep on site. As he opened the heavy door, which contained quite a few seals Kakashi had no hope of recognizing, the smell of warmth and home enveloped Kakashi. It wasn’t a particular smell. It was a mix of Kushina and Minato and their favourite spices, and the citrus cleaner Kushina loved and something just them that Kakashi had to force down the tears.
Kushina was sitting in the living room with a book propped up on her heavily pregnant belly. It looked like she’d pop anytime, meaning Kakashi didn’t have much time. Obito was probably already watching, waiting to strike.
“Kashi-kun!” Kushina greeted getting up and going to greet her husband's student, she still smelled of sealing ink and old spice.
Kakashi returned the hug, pulling away first to stare at her belly. This was his future student. This was the man who would one day unite the world and fight a Goddess.
He put one hand on her belly gently tilting his head in an eye smile. “I guess it won’t be long now huh?”
Kushina smiled gently caressing her belly then holding his hand there. “A few days at most.”
Kakashi stared at the belly holding the man who would one day save the world. “One day, when your child is older, I want to teach him, I want to watch him grow happily and find his own precious people. I’m sure he’ll have a smile that will change the world.”
Kushina gasped, tears flowing down her cheeks as she pulled Kakashi into her tightly. “Kakashi-kun you are so cute. You will make a great big brother, you know.”
She tensed as what she said caught up to her, scared that it would push the aloof child away but instead he just nuzzled closer whispering, “Kashi-nii sounds good to me, you know?”
He was blatantly making fun of her speech tick, earning himself a pinch before he was roughly pulled away from Kushina and into a warm hug by Minato.
“I don’t know how much thinking you’ve been doing but I love the results”
Kakashi rolled his eyes softly, his sensei was really too soft for this world. He now had a second chance to protect the goodness that was this family. He would not fail this time.
Minato let him go so he could go and start dinner, Kakashi going and sitting on the couch besides Kushina at her behest.
She propped her feet in his lap sticking her tongue out childishly at his huffs. He let them be just glad to be close to her once again.
“How have you been,” she said nonchalantly, thumbing the pages of her book. He wasn’t fooled for a second, so he hid his smile by tilting his head and pretending to stare at the books resting in the bookshelf across the room.
He had never been a very honest person, always hiding behind books and masks and sarcasm, but while everything in him wanted to continue hiding, he had learned his lesson the first time around. He shrugged clumsily, still getting used to his smaller body, he really was surprised that they never noticed how awkwardly he was carrying himself. The two were some of the greatest ninjas out there but observant around people they trusted they were not. At least Kakashi could be their eyes for them now.
“Tired, sad, lonely, scared.” Kakashi listed.
Kushina went rigid, pain and surprise flashing in her eyes. “Kakashi … I’m so sorry. I never…”
“It’s okay, I’ve never been good at accepting comfort but… something’s changed. I realize now that protecting my precious people is all that matters.”
Kushina nodded firmly, sitting up to pull Kakashi into her side snuggly. “Well, what better way to protect your precious people than to be with us all the time.”
Kakashi stared at her unsurprised. He knew what she was doing. She had tried offering something similar in the past. By making himself seem so vulnerable there was no way Kushina and Minato wouldn’t ask him to move in. While Kakashi had been entrusted to protect pregnant Kushina in the past it wasn’t enough. Actually being there, all the time, that’s what he needed, at least until he could talk Obito back to his senses. Or beat him into seeing the error of his ways, it worked so well for Naruto.
Minato called them in for dinner, a simple dinner that he obviously had rushed to prep but still delicious. Kushina sat at the head of the table and Minato beside her, both smiling as Kakashi sat across from Minato. He stared down at his prepped plate. The bowl of rice is more firmly packed than the ones in front of Kushina and Minato. He looked up, the couple trying not to make it obvious that they were going to try and take a peek at Kakashi’s face. Kakashi chuckled quietly.
The moment shared with two of his students, a large pang that the third wasn’t there, and his teammate when he finally bared his face, was so intimate and yet gratifying. While Kakashi liked his mask, for both practical ninja reasons, as well as the teasing and lording over others it offered him, he knew just how important to others it was when he removed that barrier. While he wasn’t about to go around without it often, Kakashi was willing to give them this much.
He looked at them both pointedly, grabbing a spoon of rice before deliberately pulling his mask down. He savoured the looks of shock on his sensei and his wife's face as they took him in for the first time. Sure his headband still covered his sharingan but he didn’t think they needed the reminder of Obito in this moment.
Kakashi found that this reaction was just as good as the ones when his team had failed to demask him in the past.
“Oh Kakashi, you’re so handsome!” Kushina gushed. Kakashi kind of wished for the mask that would hide his blush from her. He knew she’d use it against him. “Aw, you’re blushing!”
“I never said I wasn’t handsome. What a rude thought to have, thinking poor little me is ugly.”
Kushina practically cackled. Minato just continues staring at a point underneath Kakashi’s mouth. “You have a birthmark.”
Kakashi slowly lifted his hand to brush the beauty mark. “Ah, so I do,” he deadpanned.
He continued to eat, ravished from what was surely hours of brutal training his young self had put in at the training field that morning. It was strange to have his younger selves memories but not. He had the memories as he lived them, not as his past self lived them. Rather he could remember the timeline of his life, but his memories faded with time, even the memories he should have of what he ate for breakfast that morning were missing. He supposed Naruto was at least a little right, he had completely replaced his younger self and not simply started to coexist. Or something. Really if it wasn’t so dire Kakashi never would have dabbled in time travel, it was too complicated.
The dishes were taken away by Minato who refused Kakashi’s help. He slipped his mask back up, honestly more comfortable with it on, always would be. Kushina pouted but Kakashi standing to bring her a hot tea that he had smelled Minato making made the pout disappear. She really did remind him of Naruto, or was it the other way around?
“So Kakashi-chan,” Minato teased, sitting down again with his wife and student. “You...plan to stay, yes? Our offer still stands.”
Kakashi was aware the closer he was to his precious people the more likely they were to notice that he was different, that there were things he knew that he shouldn’t.
Kakashi was willing to take the chance, anything was better than not making the most of the second chance his precious people had given him at the cost of their own lives.
“I suppose that means I’ll get babysitting duty more often than I planned.”
The beaming smiles he got in return were so bright they were blinding, he looked down at his tea keeping back the tears.
“We’ll get your stuff tomorrow, for tonight Minato can lend you something,” Kushina suggested, patting his hand gently.
Kakashi agreed, more than ready to sleep after the emotional day he’d had.
Laying down in the lovingly prepared bed in the guest room Kakashi breathed in the smell of a familiar laundry detergent. It was one that Minato had always smelled of. If it wasn’t for his role as Hokage Minato really would have made an amazing housewife.
The thought made Kakashi giggle.
He quickly sobered up though as he realized he only had a few days to prepare for Obito. He had no idea what his body could handle. Kakashi in the future had over 17 years to get a handle on his sharingan. This body only had a few months.
He’d have to get up early and test it. If he couldn’t use his sharingan that put him at a disadvantage against Obito. Although he didn’t necessarily need to defeat Obito, just talk him out of his take over the world plans. There was also the issue of the curse tag on Obito’s heart. He could risk it, destroy it the way he did the first time. But would Obito be able to heal this time around? Did Kakashi need a med-nin in on his plan, would they even be able to make a difference.
There was no way he could tell Minato or Kushina. Kushina would not be able to handle the stress of it, and Minato needed to be beside Kushina to reseal the fox, regardless of the fact that he wasn’t letting Obito interfere this time around.
Kakashi falls asleep slowly as he plans his new future.
~~~~
Kakashi woke early the next morning and headed straight to a training ground. First thing first was testing the limits of his sharingan.
The first attempt to open up the kamui dimension immediately took so much out of Kakashi that he fell to his knees panting. He stayed on his hands and knees watching sweat drip from his face.
If that’s what it felt like to even try to use it then he really could not afford to actually fight Obito. Kakashi breathed out a laugh, Obito was leagues ahead of him, the irony was almost overwhelming.
He eventually got his bearings again and pulled himself to stand. He’d have to rely on his ability to talk… he’d have to “Naruto” Obito to submission. The irony. Too much.
Kakashi instead practiced the jutsu he knew he had collected by this age. There were only so many he had seen in the two years he had the sharingan.
It was a few hours later and Kakashi had just finished an impressive combination of earth and fire jutsus that he was interrupted by a presence on the training ground. He turned to see Kushina waving brightly, one hand holding her stomach a small bag hanging off of her arm.
Using Shunshin Kakashi appeared at her side. “Kushina-san”
“Kakashi, I was just wondering if you have time to go to the market with me? We can stop at your apartment after and grab your things.”
Kakashi remembered this well from his past. His mission to protect Kushina, the mission he failed so terribly at, in part thanks to the fourth’s barrier but also because he just wasn’t strong enough. Well, now he knew better, he knew true strength and his true potential.
He wasn’t going to fail to protect his precious people again.
~~~~
The next few days were spent training in the early morning and late at night with plenty of afternoons spent by Kushina’s side. She was getting restless as Naruto made his impatience to come out even more known and while being so far in her pregnancy usually meant some form of bed rest for the woman, Kushina was no ordinary woman. She dragged Kakashi all around the village picking up all the things she wanted to welcome her baby home with. There were so many frogs and dog plushies. So many dog plushies. Kakashi was starting to suspect by the frequent glances sent his way as she picked them up that Kushina was laughing at him.
Kakashi still wasn’t sure what he was going to say to Obito when he came or even how to go about orchestrating the transfer of the nine tails. He suspected that the nine tails would do far better being sealed into Naruto, someone who had grown to understand him. He just couldn’t bear his sensei dying to do it.
~~~~
Kakashi had missed the comforting weight of his Ichi Ichi books, and their bubble of protection from unwanted social interactions. It was only after he had been stopped by yet another civilian, this one an elderly retired ninja wanting to introduce her granddaughter to the Yellow Flash’s student, that Kakashi spotted a bookstore and a plan took root. He excused himself hurriedly but mostly politely and shuffled his way into the bookstore. He knew it was a few years too early, and Kakashi a few years too young, for any type of Ichi book to be acceptable or available but Kakashi had taken to reading at a young age. There were other books in the world for him to read.
Kakashi made his way over to the romance section. For all his young self’s obsession with books on war tactics, Kakashi was a closet romantic. He would just remove the book sleeves from the works and hope no one noticed.
He picked up a few books which sounded interesting and took them to the counter to pay. He ignored the bored teenagers' eye raise at the titles, and paid for his novels. Keeping the rest in the bag he pulled one at random and removed the sleeve.
Walking through the village with his nose once again in a book, Kakashi felt more at ease. Far fewer people dared to stop him and speak with him.
~~~~
It was cloudy and the moon was only a sliver in the sky. Naruto wouldn’t be there yet but Kakashi remembered the full moon in the sky on the day of Naruto’s birth. Even if he didn’t already know Naruto’s birthdate, the moon would serve as a grave reminder of his depleting time.
There was a tingling sensation in the back of Kakashi’s mind as he stared at the moon. It was as if a long buried memory was trying to make its way to the forefront of his mind. It was with a jolt that Kakashi sat up in his bed. A moon scroll. A scroll that was of no use to Kakashi but sat on the same shelf as one that could literally save his sensei’s and his wife’s lives.
Kakshi slipped out the window of his bedroom carefully suppressing his chakra. He had snuck into the sealed scroll room once before with Naruto. It was more of a dare, to see if he could do it than for any real reason. However, this time he needed to take it seriously. There was no way he could be caught.
He made his way up the side of the Hokage’s building, the clouds covering the moon at just the right time to give him coverage. This was usually when the guards changed patrols, so Kakashi should be able to avoid them.
Sneaking through a window that was unlocked and unsealed on the same floor as the sealing room, Kakashi made a note to help Minato upgrade security. He opened the empty office’s door a crack and listened for anyone in the hall. Hearing and smelling nothing, Kakashi slipped through, his breath hot in his mask.
Reaching the door to the room he quickly withdrew an ink brush and drew the counter seal carefully.
The sound of footsteps jolted Kakashi into opening the door before he could verify the seal worked. Lucky for him it did.
Kakashi slowly closed the door, careful to not make a sound just as the sounds of two footsteps turned the corner. Kakashi waited at the door, careful not even to breath as the patrol walked by the door, not even pausing to check the seal. Thank god for lazy guards, but also, Kakashi really needed to have a chat with his sensei about security.
Once Kakashi couldn’t hear the patrolling shinobi he quietly walked through the aisles of secret and forbidden scrolls. He knew most Hokage had no idea what was even in here, most being lost to the memory of time. The cataloging and reorganizing of a scroll room wasn’t high on the list of priorities for most Kage.
Luckily, Kakashi knew exactly where the scroll he needed was. A scroll that Naruto had used to tweak his own seal after carefully studying it’s techniques. The scroll was one that had been on loan from the Uzumaki of Uzushio during its fall, therefore making it one of the few remaining Uzumaki scrolls to exist. Maybe, Kakashi could figure a way to get Kushina interested in cataloguing the scrolls in this room so she could reclaim that part of her ancestry.
Kakashi spotted the scroll and carefully dusted it off. He took it to a nearby table and with careful penmanship copied the relevant information onto a new scroll he had brought with him.
He would leave the scroll on the Hokage’s home desk and let him guess as to where it came from. It was risky but the only way he knew how to get the information to his sensei in time. There was no way he’d be able to slip it into his library and just hope his sensei stumbled upon it in time.
Kakashi carefully rolled the scroll and slid it back in place. He was careful to exit the room and erase any signs of his presence. He slipped back into the abandoned office he had entered through and out the way he came.
He disappeared into the night quietly just as the cloud cover broke and once again illuminated the Hokage tower.
The next day Kakashi casually shrugged as his sensei asked if he had any idea where the scroll had come from. The man looked worried until he started reading the contents.
“Perhaps I took this out of the library myself and forgot.”
Kakashi just hummed as he moved onto the last chapter of his book.
~~~~
Kakashi had been sent into the village to pick up some books and new sealing paper for Kushina. She was finally on a more strict bed rest now that Naruto would be there any day and was growing restlessly bored.
It was while he was walking through the market that he realized the mistake he had made. He left himself out in the open, a perfect target for an attack.
Kakashi threw himself to the side and dodged around a thankfully empty fruit cart. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a bright green blur.
“My eternal rival!”
Kakashi loved Gai, in his own detached and collected way. This was the man that in one future died for him, to give Kakashi the time to rush their students away from a particularly overwhelming attack. It was an attack in which they lost some of their best. Kakashi cried that day, not for the last time, but it was the first time he had cried for Gai.
Seeing him again, young and bright and full of energy hurt in a way similar to seeing Minato for the first time.
“Gai,” Kakashi grumbled, not letting his emotional breakdown show.
“Young Kakashi! I challenge you on this beautiful day to a race around the village! First one to complete 100 laps on their hands wins!”
Kakashi sighed. He had missed his rival, but with the amount of training he had been sneaking out to do at night he was chakra exhausted and his muscles ached.
“You know Gai,” Kakashi mused, putting his book away (another cheesy, sappy romance but without the sleeve it was impossible to tell). “A good shinobi needs energy to win against all opponents.So maybe, this time our contest can be who can eat the most bowls of miso soup.” Kakashi had been hoping to stop for lunch and this way he could kill two birds with one stone.
“Yes! My rival, you make a great observation as always!” Gai agreed. “I am glad my rival is taking this rivalry more seriously!”
Sitting with the first of many bowls of soup in front of him and his friend, Kakashi carefully hid a smirk at the nostalgia of it all. It was nice to have his old friend back, even if he playfully pretended to ignore his rivals' antics as he embarrassingly stuck out his burned tongue flapping his hands in an attempt to cool it.
It was nice to reconnect with his precious people once again. Even if Kakashi could practically smell the nine tails chakra in the air already.