Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hatake Kakashi was born on a miserable Thursday morning in the bustling medical tent of a Konoha outpost, crying softly and with far more decorum than any newborn baby had a right to possess. He did not scream, as most babies are wont to do, but nobody in the outpost was particularly concerned with this; there was more than enough screaming coming from outside the tent, where Suna and Konoha shinobi could be found slaughtering each other indiscriminately.

“My sweet baby,” his mother crooned at him, even as she attempted to foist him off on a nearby medic so she could go join in the bloodshed. “You'll look just like your father, I can tell.”

She was not wrong, though how she could have already known such a thing is a mystery nobody ever solved. The medic grunted noncommittally and forced her back into bed. She ignored them.

The fading, semi-transparent specter standing behind her nodded in agreement, his long silver hair falling into his face as he did so.

“Yes, yes, the Hatake genes are as strong as ever,” he said mildly, reaching out to pat the child's tiny hands, and Kakashi’s soft cries tapered off as he looked to the man in wonder.

To all of the other occupants of the room, it appeared as if his mother had somehow quieted him with her words. They all cooed and babbled at him, in response, remarked upon how he already recognized his mother, how lucky she was to have such a cute and clever little baby. She shied away from the attention, for the most part, before giving Kakashi a small, pleased little smile. She would then tell her husband, hours later, all about how their little boy already knew his mama, and Hatake Sakumo would laugh joyfully in response. Kakashi would look at his parents in bleary, innocent, infantile confusion, and they would simply continue their cooing and gushing until he dozed off in his father's arms.

To the spirit of Hatake Kazuki, meanwhile, it had become abundantly clear that his great-grandson just heard him speak, saw him move, and felt him touch. Said great-grandson was also apparently entranced with his presence, if the way his underdeveloped eyes attempted to seek out his figure was any indication. Kazuki blinked a few times in mystified shock, unbelieving that such a thing had occurred, before laughing boisterously.

“Well, now,” he said jovially, staring down at the baby with pride sparkling in his eyes. “It looks like my legacy hasn't died out just yet.”

He crouched down low, poking an intangible finger through the child's chest and pressing icy lips to his forehead.

“Use it well, little scarecrow.”

Hatake Kazuki gave one last smile at the newest addition to his family, and then promptly dissolved in a small explosion of light and chakra.

Little Hatake Kakashi, who up until then had seemed to possess more decorum than any newborn baby had a right to, burst into loud, wailing tears, shocking everybody in the outpost tent enough to send both senbon and kunai flying.

It was merely the first of many such instances.

Chapter Text

Hatake Sakumo, despite his fearsome reputation across borders, was somewhat well-known amongst his fellow Konoha shinobi for being a massive worry-wart. To the surprise of anyone who was semi-familiar with the life and times of the White Fang off-duty, this was not the direct result of him doting on his three year-old son. He had instead earned this dubious title on a mission he’d run as a fresh jōnin with the recently-dubbed Sannin, where he spent the better part of two days fretting over an injured and chakra exhausted Orochimaru.

That Tsunade had been able to heal all but the chakra exhaustion was irrelevant. He had been very concerned. The snake summoner had spat metaphorical (and literal) venom at the smothering Hatake throughout the entire trip for his unwanted attention and sheer audacity. Jiraiya, meanwhile, had guffawed, chuckled, and chicken-clucked his way back to Konoha. Unsurprisingly, it was the latter that caught people’s attention. Sakumo’s future teams were simply resigned when his borderline paranoid protective instincts reared their ugly head. His previous ones found themselves feeling unbearably smug. They had tried to warn everyone, after all.

The origin of his status as Konoha’s number one mother hen, however, was not the important part. Said status was important only so that context might be provided when focus was shifted onto the unfortunate target of nearly all of his undivided attention: his three year-old son.

Anyone who knew Hatake Sakumo even peripherally knew that he adored his son. The Second War had been a horrific bout of bloodshed that left even the scattered veterans of the First War emotionally hardened, and he was no exception. The death of his wife Sayuri — a tragedy brought about by the poor conditions during Kakashi’s unexpectedly premature birth; tents, even medical ones, were not the most sanitary places — only left him further scarred. Little Kakashi was the sole light in his life, so it was no surprise that Sakumo smothered him with thrice as much care and affection as he would his grown shinobi comrades. Kakashi had always been a remarkably tolerant child in that regard.

Lately, however, Sakumo had become… worried. It was a little less than two months before Kakashi was to turn four, which meant it was a little less than two months before Kakashi was to begin his pre-Academy training. There was nothing in Sakumo that even remotely believed his son would be anything other than a shinobi. He was perhaps the most advanced child Sakumo had ever had the pleasure to come across in his life, speaking in broken phrases and walking shakily before age one, and he had always taken absolute pride in the fact. Their clan was notorious for churning out advanced and well-spoken children, but Kakashi was on another level entirely. He couldn’t believe how incredible his son was.

Yet, there had always been something slightly off with the youngest Hatake. Sakumo had first taken notice of it not long after Sayuri died. Kakashi would cry, constantly and relentlessly, for hours, no matter what Sakumo did to quiet him. Then his blue-black eyes would zero in on something out of sight, and he would fall quiet. Any pattern there might have been was too complex to grasp; even on the rare occasions where Sakumo was restricted to in-village assignments for multiple weeks at a time, he found himself scratching his head in perplexity at the random fits. They were a persistent problem for nearly a year, before they slowly tapered off into sullen, petulant silences.

It was then that things normalized. Or, well, it was then that things normalized as much they could, given the family in question. Kakashi’s screaming fits and silent treatment gradually faded into a thing of obscurity. He instead spent almost all of his time babbling semi-meaningful words and tottering around in a determined effort to become as coherent and impressive as his father. More than once Sakumo walked into his son’s room to find the toddler running his mouth at himself, narrating each action he took with the sort of concise clarity one would expect of a five year-old. Initially, he hadn’t thought much of it; all children, even genius Hatake children, liked the sound of their own voices, the feeling of self-importance that was brought about by giving their actions meaning or acknowledgement. He had been the same way, or so his mother had told him. He left Kakashi to his one-sided conversations, and that was the end of it.

Then his babysitter quit.

“I can’t take it,” she had hissed, spitting mad and a little wild-eyed. “The things he says, the way he— I am through working for you, Hatake. You and your… son stay as far away from my business as possible. I won’t sit back and allow whatever curse that child has afflict itself upon me, too.”

Sakumo had seen red. Curse, she said? As though his son were— were something vile, instead of the only source of joy in his dimming world— he had kicked her out of the house quickly enough to give her whiplash, demeanor as cold and biting as steel. There was nothing wrong with his son. Even if his tendency to mumble to himself was a bit over the top in frequency, that was no reason to accuse him of being cursed. He should have known better than to hire from a civilian company, really. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

But then, to Sakumo’s shock, the shinobi quit too. “There is something wrong with your child, Hatake,” they would say, or “he needs to keep his mouth shut.” He’s strange. He’s cruel. Things eerily reminiscent of the civilian’s cry of cursed. Time after time, again and again, each retired jōnin, desk chūnin, eternal genin, team of three little brats barely out of the Academy— they would all quit, unsettled and angry. Apologetic only in retrospect, and never willing to subject themselves to a few hours with Hatake Kakashi ever again. He was at a loss.

Kakashi was… a bit too honest, that was true. That he was intelligent enough to dish out childish frankness with the tone and vocabulary of someone beyond his age only made his blunt statements all the more impactful. He also had the tendency to mention people who did not strictly exist— imaginary friends he had had as long as Sakumo could remember, a man he called “Uncle” and an indeterminately gendered ANBU called “Shi.” They were the two people his son narrated his daily life to so diligently each day, and though even Sakumo could admit that the intensity with which he did so was a bit worrying, there was nothing overtly strange about it. Children having imaginary friends was normal. Perhaps the intricacy of each story that Kakashi spun around them was impressive, but Kakashi also knew what neurofibromatosis meant. Sakumo wasn’t worried. Not until one of the jōnin instructors in charge of a babysitting team pulled him aside with a look of solemn concern.

“Hatake,” Yamanaka Inori had begun, eyes grave and shoulders tense. “Have you spoken to Kakashi about his— friends, before?” Sakumo had felt his brow furrow at the query, the corners of his lips turning down into a slight frown.

“No,” he replied, frown becoming further pronounced as Inori’s lips visibly thinned. “He’s had them for as long as he’s been walking and talking, so I’ve never felt the need. He’ll grow out of them eventually. Why?”

“I think your son may have a form of psychosis.”

Sakumo had blinked, entirely thrown by the suggestion. He what?

“He just turned three,” he said, clearly bewildered, but Inori had only become more agitated.

“Yes, I know, which is why I was reluctant to suggest it until now. It should very much be impossible, or at least unlikely. But— Hatake, how much attention do you actually pay to Kakashi’s stories?”

Not much, he could admit. He had been hearing them for so long that they’d become a bit like white noise to him. He vaguely recalled the recent addition of Uncle’s allegedly stuffy brother to the mix of colorful characters, though a name had never been given beyond a few choice ones he was certain Kakashi shouldn’t yet know. All mention of Shi had been curiously absent as of late, also. Beyond that… well, Sakumo couldn’t be sure. Something about Uzushio, perhaps?

“Enough,” was what he actually said, however, because that was also true. Sakumo was not just a father, he was a shinobi. A damned good one, at that. His senses and instincts were trained to a fine point the likes of which Yamanaka Inori could not even compare to. The mere mention of anything off or suspicious would draw his attention far more easily than his son’s tendency to badmouth “pack interlopers” via his imaginary friends. It was a good thing his son hadn’t managed to alarm him yet. Inori visibly restrained a sigh.

“Well, with all due respect, enough isn’t enough, Hatake. Please consider bringing him to one of the pediatric therapists of my clan if his insistence upon having ‘imaginary friends’ continues through the next six months. And listen more carefully to his stories. Please.”

And with that, Yamanaka Inori had collected his terrified genin and marched stiffly out of the Hatake home. Mystified and incensed, Sakumo had just nodded before slamming the door in his face.

The incident was not forgotten, however. It couldn’t have been. Not when Kakashi had continued to cycle through genin teams like a rotating door, withdrawing into himself more and more over time. Not when Sakumo noticed with increasing concern the way his son’s decreasing tales wove together into complex character webs too intricate to be the mere word of a genius three year old. Shi had apparently returned from wherever it was they had absconded to; Uncle’s brother was never mentioned again, as though he had never been brought up in the first place. The stories never completely stopped coming. Sakumo found himself uncertain as to whether or not he should be doing something about it.

Then he noticed that Kakashi had not fallen silent out of moodiness; he’d simply traded one method of communication for another. Six months after his third birthday, Sakumo found Kakashi stumbling through ANBU hand signs alone in his bedroom.

Contrary to popular belief, Sakumo had never been a member of ANBU. Between his hair, special chakra, fighting style, and clan-forged weapons, he was one of the most recognizable shinobi on the continent, and such notoriety did not lend itself well to stealth organizations. Offers had been made, but they had been out of formality rather than any genuine desire for him to join the organization. He was ANBU quality. He was also a front line combat specialist. There was no reason for him to join when espionage and sabotage were better suited towards Konoha shinobi without continent-wide Kill On Sight orders. Nobody in the organization had questioned the wisdom of such a decision.

Despite this, however, he did have passing familiarity with ANBU hand signs. He had seen them used frequently enough that he had picked up a few more common ones— all-clear, disengage, enemy, ally, break formation, other things of that nature. Distinguishing the slight, smooth signals from the haphazard gestures of Konoha Standard was as easy as breathing for him at that point. Which only made it all the more jarring to see Kakashi copying those miniscule movements alone in his room, words of bedtime and curfews crumbling to ash on Sakumo’s tongue.

“Where did you learn that?” He had asked sharply, and the answer had been as expected as it was frightening.

“Shi’s teaching me.”

Once, Sakumo could write off as happenstance. The complicated people and events Kakashi had prattled on about for years were mentioned to be a worrying topic with enough frequency that he perhaps should have been more initially concerned, but they were still just a single factor. He told himself the infantile fits were unrelated.

Twice, he could claim to be coincidence. Shi very well might have been an actual ANBU Kakashi had encountered a time or two, one that had taken to demonstrating the most basic hand signs for a boy who was obviously a young prodigy. Any stories about the mysterious figure could easily be embellishments made by Kakashi himself. Their being real would also explain why they had seemingly disappeared from his vocabulary for so many months; Kakashi hadn’t seen them during that time, and lost interest. It was a shaky explanation at best. Sakumo’s unease grew.

Three times, however. If things ballooned out of his control to the point that there were three times—

And so, that brought things back to now. Two months before Kakashi’s fourth birthday, Sakumo’s well-known tendency towards worry having almost boiled over with time and stress. Uncle and Shi had not been mentioned in two weeks. It was just as long since they last changed babysitters. Sakumo had decided to take Kakashi out for lunch as a treat for good behavior, Kakashi wandered off, and then—

Then he had followed indulgently after his wayward son, only to find him engaged in casual conversation with vacant air. Next to him, Orochimaru was crouched to his eye level, still and wary. There was a look somewhere between poleaxed and hungry on his face. Kakashi gestured, and the expression shattered into something he’d much sooner call haunted.

“—happy to keep waiting for you. So you don’t have to stay here for her, or Yashagorō,” his impossible son was saying, the name tickling something in the back of Sakumo’s head. He mulled it over for a moment, but he couldn’t quite recall where he’d heard it before. The snake summoner clearly knew it, at least. His eyes had widened ever so slightly before they fell half-lidded and narrow.

“And why is that?” He rasped back, in that disconcerting way only he could manage. His hands were fisted into his pants with enough strength to tear the fabric. Sakumo wasn’t sure if it was with interest, fury, or upset. If he noticed the elder Hatake’s approach, he gave no indication of such.

“Because you’ll see each other again anyway,” Kakashi said it like he was speaking to a particularly thick fool. “Why would she have waited for you, otherwise?”

Orochimaru’s shoulders trembled, and Sakumo knew it was time to intervene.

“Kakashi,” he called out, not bothering to hide the anxiety in his voice. “There you are. It’s time to go home.” Kakashi turned towards him as if his presence were entirely expected. It was something that had always torn Sakumo between pride at the younger’s senses, and dismay that he couldn’t even sneak up on his son.

“Chichi-ue,” he replied contritely, “We’re not done talking to Hinoki-san yet. Can’t you wait?”

No, preferably not, he wanted to say, but any response he might have thought to give him was cut off when Orochimaru rose gracefully to his feet. His hands smoothed out the creases in his kimono shirt with an easy elegance Sakumo had always found fascinating.

“That won’t be necessary,” he said, spine straight and stiff. The tremble Sakumo had noticed was gone as quickly as it had come. “I believe I have heard enough. If… Hinoki-san has anything else she wishes to tell me, I’m sure you can find me at a later date.”

Kakashi’s eyes drifted unerringly towards the vacant space he’d spoken to earlier. His hair tousled itself lightly, as though ruffled by the breeze, but the air was as stagnant and stifling as Sakumo’s growing concern. Orochimaru watched the phenomenon with the barest touch of uncertainty. Finally, Kakashi nodded decisively, and Sakumo swooped down to pick him up almost before the he’d completed the action.

“Hatake,” Orochimaru greeted him neutrally. Sakumo dipped his head in faint greeting.

“Orochimaru. I’m… sorry about whatever my son might have said,” his reply was cautious at best. He had no idea who Hinoki was. That was a name Kakashi had never used before, and it was one Sakumo recognized only as faintly as he had Yashagorō. This was not one of the distinctive personalities he knew as intimately as his own family, like Shi and Uncle. Kakashi could have said anything ranging from kind to wildly inappropriate and insulting. It was hit or miss in circumstances like these.

“He is a unique conversationalist,” the Sannin replied, head inclined in acknowledgement of the apology. “I do not mind. Your… Chichi-ue knows where to find me should you have need of me, child. I am interested to hear more of your gift.”

The latter was clearly directed at Kakashi, and the three year-old nodded in solemn agreement to the passive request. Sakumo tried not to appear too indignant at the hint of humor contained in the word “Chichi-ue.” It was an archaic word, yes, but it was what Kakashi had always preferred to call him by. No matter how many times Sakumo tried to convince him that otou-san was just as acceptable.

“Keep a close eye on your son, Hatake. I can think of many people who would not take kindly to such abilities,” Orochimaru continued, smooth as the scales on his summons, and Sakumo stiffened. He had no doubt Orochimaru was among that number.

“Yes,” he agreed tersely. “I am aware. Have a nice day, Orochimaru-sama.”

An indulgent smirk stretched easily across the snake summoner’s lips, and then Sakumo was retreating, Kakashi held firmly in his arms. His steps home were as quick as he could manage without outright running. Kakashi’s silence was subdued.

He had lied, before; as aware as he might have been towards the harsh feelings others held for his son, Sakumo had never managed to figure out what it was Kakashi saw when he spoke aloud, alone in his room. The ANBU signs had been a tipping point, but this was the last straw. If even the clan texts held nothing of value, they’d be going to that pediatric therapist Yamanaka Inori had mentioned.

It was time to find out what was going on with his son.

*          *          *

Buried deep in the archives found in the far reaches of his clan home two days later, Sakumo could only sigh as yet another text brought forth no relevant information. He had only the vaguest details to look for — talking to air, knowing people and things that should not be known, particularly advanced thought — but he had hoped there would be something hidden amongst the reams of secrets and decades passed. The Hatake were an eclectic clan. Small, yes, but diverse. Even with the focus they had on weaponry, they had other signatures and quirks. Canine summons. Distinctive chakra. Agriculture, for the Sage’s sake. Surely someone over the course of history must have seen something similar to Kakashi’s odd behavior?

Apparently not. Six hours later, and still he had nothing. Only texts and journals from the First Hokage’s reign were left, alongside the very few spotty recounts from the Warring States Era, and Sakumo had a dim feeling that not even they would be much help. Very little from that time was. Shoulders drooping, he shuffled his way through another stack of books, scrolls set aside to be read and rerolled later. Most of them were simply full of smithing techniques. He was rapidly tiring of the word “steel.”

Thirty minutes of suffering later, he tossed the book aside. Shinobi arts again. Did nobody ever keep a normal journal? Were they truly so paranoid that they didn’t even recount their daily life? Only their shinobi knowledge, beneath chakra-lock and key? His hope was all but non-existent at this point. He picked up the next book—

Hatake Kazuki
11^th Head of the Hatake Clan

For those who see too much.

—and all the air left him in a rush. That was certainly not a smithing-related title. That was… promising, actually. There was a seal in the center of the cover, a chakra-lock Sakumo knew to be keyed specifically into the Hatake Clan. It was one he had to paint religiously onto each and every official document he left in the Clan Head archive. Opening only for those who carried the unique color of chakra found among their clan. That this journal had it despite being in the general archive spoke volumes of how much importance Hatake Kazuki placed upon it. Not quite daring to hope after so much disappointment, Sakumo channeled a small trace of chakra into the seal, apprehension only growing as it glowed and faded into obscurity. He opened to the first page slowly, and he read.

Then he read it again. And again. Then he turned the page and read the next one too. Then the next one. He read the entire journal in less than an hour, and then he read it again just to be sure he hadn’t missed any important information. Nearly two hours after he first picked up Hatake Kazuki’s journal, Sakumo stumbled out of the archives and into his son’s room with the book clutched in his hands like a lifeline.

“Kakashi?” He called, barely aware of the late hour. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have told his son to go to sleep an hour ago. Apparently, such a thing was just as necessary as he’d always thought, too. Kakashi was seated at a kotatsu, wide-awake.

“Chichi-ue?”

“Kakashi, please look at this.”

The journal was passed across the table, already open to the first page. Kakashi’s eyes lit up as soon as they passed the first line, bright with the giddy realization that they had just stumbled on a veritable gold mine of information.

“Kazuki-sofu left a journal?” He said with excitement, and Sakumo’s certainty that he had found an answer only further solidified.

“Apparently— how did you know about him already? Did one of the…”

“Uncle told me about him,” was the nonchalant reply. “He’s the one that invited Kazuki-sofu to the village, so he remembered him really well. He wasn’t sure if sofu left anything for me, though.”

Sakumo felt his heart seize in his chest.

“I see,” he said, faint. “Say, what was Uncle’s name? Before...?”

Kakashi hummed noncommittally, eyes still roving across the journal page with hunger. His head cocked to the side, clearly listening. Sakumo wondered what he was hearing.

“Uncle says I can tell you now, so I guess it’s alright,” the toddler said, matter-of-fact, and the next sentence only further spiraled things out of Sakumo’s slipping grasp. “His name’s Hashirama. He was the Hokage, I think.”

That was what Sakumo was afraid of.

The dead do not rest easily, Hatake Kazuki wrote, and Sakumo watched helplessly as his son’s eyes ate the words up with greed. Something told him parenting was going to be a bigger handful than he’d initially anticipated.

Chapter Text

From the journal of Hatake Kazuki:

Year 896 A.N.
XX of November

To my descendent, whomever you may be—

There are many things I do not understand about this curs gift of mine. My father was no help; his father was even less so. Grandmother would swear by her forge that these abilities were those possessed by her own mother Nanoha, but we hold nothing substantial from that era of slaughter except for stale grief. Whether or not this gift is one our family cultivated in the past is yet to be seen. Knowing what I do, I would not be surprised if it were the case.

Either way, I write this with the hopes that you, should you inherit this gift, will be more prepared for the responsibilities it brings than I. The dead do not rest easily. I have found the reality of that statement to be a chilling, towering roadblock throughout my career as a shinobi. Perhaps you are wiser, and will not follow that same path— regardless, I have found joy in the knowledge that I, that we, can nudge them onwards in their journey towards the Pure Land. That such is what is expected of us, as the only ones capable of it in the first place.

I have included in this journal all that I have managed to learn about my gift, my great-grandmother Nanoha’s supposed legacy. I rest easy knowing that only those who possess the necessary clan trait may access this journal at all; I die restlessly with the hope that the legacy carries on into the new generation, and that you might be the one to do so. That if you are not, you would at least pass this remnant down onto your own descendants, until it reaches the one for whom it was intended. Doubtlessly they are as eager to understand why the dead haunt their steps as I once was.

With faith—
Hatake Kazuki
11^th Head of the Hatake Clan

Chapter Text

When the Third had approached him with the offer of an apprenticeship (rather, when the Third had ordered him to take on an apprentice), Namikaze Minato had not been sure what to think. He was still a fresh jōnin; he’d been promoted a little over a year ago, and though he’d admittedly been part of the Chūnin Corps since he was eleven, his mission repertoire was not yet on the impressive level anticipated for early graduates such as himself. He had only just met the required number of A-ranks.

He was also only sixteen. Teaching was not something he’d expected to do until he was at least in his twenties, assuming he survived that long. To be perfectly honest, it was not something he felt ready for. But the Hokage had been firm in his assertion that Minato was the only one he trusted to take on this particular student, so he had kept his mouth shut and complied. Though he had admitted to being rather curious as to who it was he was being entrusted with. The Third had just smiled placidly and said:

“He’s a rather unique case. There are many people who would exploit his… quirks, and not all of them would do so out of loyalty to me. Were Jiraiya here, I would have asked he take the boy on, but he is not, and so here we are. Perhaps my student would be willing to do so when he returns. I am certain you, at least, will handle him well in the meantime.”

It had felt overwhelmingly ominous. There were a lot of people Minato could think of that had “quirks.” Every single one of them was terrifying, and not someone he would ever willingly mentor, regardless of the fact that all of them were older than him anyway. Jiraiya-sensei had the habit of peeping in on hot springs and writing sub-par smut stories; he was part of the Sannin and the first person to receive approval from the toads as summoner since the Warring States. Tsunade was apparently something of a gambler, although Minato had only ever heard his sensei say so; she was the greatest medic the Elemental Nations had ever seen. Orochimaru was frightening in an entirely different manner that only served to further prove his point. Captain Hatake was a notoriously aggressive and persistent mother hen, and also held on the same level as the aforementioned Sannin themselves.

Even Minato’s girlfriend Kushina — a recent development that still had a goofy smile plastered on his face — had her fair share of tics, verbal one notwithstanding. Quirky, as far as he was concerned, was a sure sign of potential power and future fear-factor. He wasn’t sure if he could handle a quirky student. A quirky student whose oddities could be exploited? The simple thought of it made him uneasy. But Minato was nothing if not resilient and determined, and his title of “genius” was not undeserved. He would make it work. Somehow.

Alas, those thoughts did not last any further than the night before team assignments, when Minato finally opened his prospective student’s file. All he had to do was read the name “Hatake” before he felt the weight of his task settle onto his shoulders with unrelenting force.

Minato had not been a genin when Hatake Sakumo had started up his infamous babysitting D-rank. He and his team had all become chūnin when Minato was age eleven, only a year after their assignment to Jiraiya-sensei’s team. It wasn’t until a year after this promotion that the D-rank had gone into circulation. Given that the Second War was also reaching its climax around the time, members of the Chūnin Corps such as himself were running exclusively C- and B-rank missions. He had never been (mis)fortunate enough to babysit the youngest Hatake Clan member. That was not to say that he had not heard about the child, however.

Following the end of Second War, there had been a slew of formal promotions. Field promotions received during the War were finalized in the Chūnin Exams and Jōnin Trials over the course of the next two years. Academy graduation age was reverted to peacetime standard. Fresh genin were encouraged to take their time more carefully honing their skills outside of wartime, while graduations lulled to a near standstill— and senior genin were shuffled off to the Chūnin Corps, as Minato himself had been. By the time the dreaded Hatake D-rank had been around long enough to make a lasting impression, nearly all of the genin who had been forced to take it were running missions with him in the Corps. And boy, did they like to complain. “At least it’s not the Hatake kid,” had become a common phrase to hear while running the more grueling B-ranks.

The bulk of Minato’s understanding boiled down to this: there was something strange about Hatake Kakashi, something fundamentally unsettling that couldn’t be dismissed as the uncanny intelligence of a prodigal shinobi-to-be. What started as the ravings of a civilian babysitter unaccustomed to the wonders of a high-functioning chakra-enhanced brain had, in the time since, ballooned rapidly out into the hysteric, bitter, terrified realization that the ghosts of your past were not so easy to shake off as originally believed. How a child who rarely left the confines of his home was able to learn about them was a mystery nobody in the Corps had yet solved, but that, if anything, only made the situation all the more rattling.

Life as a weapon inevitably yielded a body count. Everyone had blood on their hands. Being reminded of the fact was something few ever wanted.

Beneath his own misgivings, however, Minato couldn’t help but feel a touch of curiosity towards his prospective student. It was simply part of his nature. His specialty lay in an art comprised of unravelling and rewrapping mathematical formulas into pretty poems; he was a problem solver first and foremost, someone trained to look underneath the surface and beneath the subsequent layers again. He had never met Hatake Kakashi. This was intentional on the Third’s part. He was also the only jōnin ambitious enough to disregard his own uncertainty, possible social ostracization, the conventional standards for “normal”, and the looming shadow of mentorship for the sake of duty and intrigue alone. Few others would be willing to give Hatake Kakashi a chance. Fewer would do it with his earnest efficiency.

Minato knew the moment he delved further into Kakashi’s file why nobody else would have been suited to such a task. Kushina had always called him a pushover.

Of course, he thought, faint, nobody ever mentioned having to deal with politics.

*           *           *

Standing rigid in an Academy classroom the next day, bags twice as thick as his thumbs smudged beneath his eyes, Minato could not help but feel that he’d perhaps been a bit overzealous in his determination to carry out the new mission assigned to him. For once. He’d gotten only two hours of sleep before he had to report into the Hokage’s office and fill out his apprenticeship paperwork— a torture his fellow jōnin didn’t have to worry about until they’d actually passed their prospective students. That alone had taken him another three hours, and then he’d barely had time to take Kushina out to lunch before he’d had to report to the Academy for team assignments.

Hatake Kakashi’s file was absurdly, incomprehensibly involved for someone who hadn’t even made genin. It doubled back on itself. It obscured half of its contents. It made references to things and people Minato had never even heard of, and that was only the bits and pieces he’d been able to actually see. There had been entire pages of vague allusions and blacked out names. He wouldn’t be surprised if it were thicker than his own; he had spent the entire night attempting to slog his way through it, and in the end, he still didn’t have a full picture. He resisted the urge to rub wearily at his eyes.

Every Konoha shinobi worth their salt knew about the scandal that took place the year before. Half of the Black Ops division cut or reassigned; a somewhat notable lack of people exiting the T&I building; Hatake Sakumo’s promotion to Assistant Jōnin Commander; Orochimaru’s freshly inked arms; the quiet, understated announcement of council member Shimura’s retirement, and his subsequent disappearance from public eye. One would have to be blind, deaf, and willfully ignorant to dismiss the shift in power dynamic. The issue was the absence of details.

There were rumors, of course. Konoha always had rumors. Most claimed Orochimaru to be the instigator. The instigator of what, nobody was sure— though it was assumed Jiraiya and Tsunade’s departures had caused a political struggle between himself and Shimura. It was well known that the snake summoner had always been the Third’s favorite, after all, and Shimura had been pushy on his own policies of late. Meanwhile, a smaller but more vocal portion insisted that Hatake was the true instigator. The others were the collateral. “It had to be Hatake,” they said, “His brat was packed off to the Academy the same year; it can’t be a coincidence, can it?” Minato had never cared much for either explanation. More factors were at play than it seemed, he’d thought.

Apparently, he’d been right. He just hadn’t thought Hatake Kakashi would actually be one of those factors. Not that he knew much more than he had before laying eyes on the five year-old’s file. Minato wondered just what sort of student he’d agreed to teach. He wasn’t even accounting for what the Third had told him this morning. A shiver of foreboding trickled down his spine at the thought.

“Hatake Kakashi will be placed under Namikaze Minato for apprenticeship until such a time that he reaches shinobi age of majority or the equivalent rank of special jōnin or higher,” came the voice of the Academy teacher, snapping the teenager quickly out of his thoughts.

He steeled himself. The conditions were ones he was already aware of, but the reminder that he was to be responsible for the young Hatake for the foreseeable future only further drove his new role home. It didn’t matter that Kakashi was involved in shady business. It didn’t matter that the village at large saw him as frightening or strange. It didn’t even matter that Minato had, until yesterday, been just as unsure of his own thoughts on the child as everyone else in the village. He had a duty as a shinobi, and now as a jōnin sensei, to do his best to guide a child of Konoha’s next generation towards success (and, maybe, hopefully, happiness).

He stepped to the front of the classroom. All eyes fell on him with unerring accuracy. Unbeknownst to him, a single pair had been following his path from the moment he entered the building.

“That would be me,” Minato said, a small, nervous smile in place. He was acutely aware of the fact that he was only a handful of years older than the majority of the graduates. “Please follow me, Kakashi-kun.”

A child pale and bleak as a specter stood dutifully to trail after him, and Minato felt his resolve waver.

No, he told himself, furious with his own uncertainty. No. He’s five years old. You’ve never met him. Everything you know about him is from rumors and a classified file. He’s your responsibility. You won’t do this to him. He knew intimately what it was like to grow up isolated. He wouldn’t make Kakashi’s life any harder than it already was. They’d just cleared the threshold before the genin was turning to him, eyes distant and glinting.

“Minato-sensei,” he said, hushed and serious. “Did they tell you? About… me.” Minato stilled.

“Yes,” he replied, voice even. “The Third told me this morning, and I read the declassified aspects of your file. You don’t have to worry, Kakashi-kun. I know about your, ah, gift.”

“Then… can I…”

“Say whatever you need to,” Minato encouraged.

Kakashi’s eyes crinkled above the edge of his mask. A touch sly. “I— the— the Second says to stop ruining his Flying Thunder God. You’re a disgrace at seals.”

Startled, Minato let out a burble of laughter. Bright and disbelieving. He did not comment on the relief plainly visible in Kakashi’s distant gaze. He wondered what sort of reaction that would have garnered from the average citizen. His pulse was undeniably racing, with shock, with fear, but there was— wonder. Eager curiosity. Minato had always been easy, when it came to matters of the heart.

No, he thought, his life won’t be made any harder so long as I have something to say about it.

Chapter Text

If there was any one idea Nara Shikaku believed in with all his heart, any statement he swore by, any claim he would risk his life affirming, it was the idea that the Hatake Clan were the most troublesome family in all of the Elemental Nations.

Having grown up with Yamanaka Inoichi, this was a serious accusation to make. Inoichi had been the most intolerable pre-teen Shikaku had ever encountered. He didn’t understand how a clan of mind-readers, hardened interrogators, and professional psychologists could consist of so many drama queens, but their genin years spoke for themselves. Chūnin had been spotty at best. Things were only beginning to mellow out now that they’d all reached jōnin. Shikaku knew troublesome more intimately than anyone sans perhaps Inoichi’s current poor bastard of a significant other, whoever that might be; he couldn’t keep track anymore. Still, his visceral understanding of what “pain in the ass” meant only further proved his point. For any clan to be worse than the Yamanaka was a problem indeed. How could people keep up with them? It was exhausting.

Case in point: Hatake Sakumo. The White Fang. A living legend, the current Assistant Jōnin Commander, a shinobi the other Hidden Villages had learned to both fear and respect. Even mentioning his name in Suna could still cause diplomatic incidents, Shikaku had heard, despite the armistice between Wind and Fire. Unfortunately, the name Hatake Sakumo carried a much different meaning in his home village. He was not the White Fang in Konoha. He was a notorious mother hen. An incessant worrywart. The most protective parent Shikaku had ever seen, with a child most of the population would sooner call terrifying than precious. Currently, he was also the bane of Shikaku’s very existence.

Hatake Sakumo’s promotion to Assistant Jōnin Commander was a turn of events unexpected by everyone sans maybe Orochimaru of the Sannin and his own son. It wasn’t one Shikaku had ever anticipated. That wasn’t to say it was underserved— quite the opposite. More, it wasn’t an outcome that could have been achieved through normal circumstances. Only something as monumental as the incident with councilman Shimura could have messed with the status quo enough to warrant the appointment of an Assistant Jōnin Commander in the first place. Aunt Kaname had been doing a fine job on her own.

So, Hatake Sakumo had rocked the boat. He’d ushered in a new hierarchy with reckless abandon, or maybe with the rabid fervor of a worrywart parent. The two were interchangeable here. Shikaku could deal with that. Konoha’s ranking system had been in dire need of a review, anyway, and one could never go wrong with elevating Black Ops standards. Abolishment of unsavory experimentation was a good thing. Less tolerable were the new Assistant Commander’s other decisions.

Decisions like conspiring with aunt Kaname to name Shikaku as his replacement Assistant Commander should the spot be left open. Mere weeks before Kaname announced her planned retirement in two years time, and, oh yeah, Sakumo’s own planned promotion to Jōnin Commander.

His life had become a neverending runaround of politics, gofer duty, and paperwork. His clearance may have gone up a whole two levels — and he may have gotten all the dirt on the Shimura-Hatake scandal that the jōnin in the lounge were still gagging for — but the paperwork. The constant back and forth of council meetings. Unending, hellish discussions on ethics, spanning hours of his day. He hadn’t gotten to go relax with the deer in weeks. Weeks. The deer lived in his backyard! Responsibility of this caliber wasn’t something he’d planned for this early on, and he was suffering for it. He’d rather spend his days taking care of Inoichi’s screaming cousins again. At least then he didn’t have to put in so much goddamn effort.

Predictably, when offered the chance to proctor the Chūnin Exams, instead of sit in on yet more political meetings, he’d jumped on it. With frantic enthusiasm. Now, watching Hatake Sakumo’s kid speak with his jōnin sensei from across the room, Shikaku realized he should have known better. Kakashi’s eyes zeroed in on him with pinpoint accuracy. His stance all but radiated suffering. Really, the Hatake were just so troublesome.

“—...ve to rely on your wits, here,” Namikaze was lecturing as he approached, a glance of acknowledgement providing him with lukewarm comfort. “They’ll be bigger, stronger, and better trained than you. Use your brain.”

“That’s fine,” the four foot nothing menace dismissed. “Psychological warfare is the easier part of being a shinobi, anyway. Hello, Shikaku-san.”

“Brat,” Shikaku allowed. That wasn’t disturbing at all. “What do you want?”

Kakashi looked far too pleased with the easy acquiescence. Shikaku couldn’t bring himself to care. His methods for dealing with the youngest Hatake were to approach it like ripping off a very large, sticky band-aid: quick and painful, but worth the momentary misery. It was better to bend over backwards to the whims of a tiny psychic six year-old than suffer the humiliation of being manipulated by him. Shikaku may be a lazy, no-good bastard, but he wasn’t stupid.

“Nothing,” was the simple reply, which he didn’t trust whatsoever. “Just to say hello.”

“Sure,” he drawled back, suspicious. “In that case, you can go join the other examinees. We’ll be starting soon.”

To Shikaku’s bewilderment, Kakashi did, sparing them each a bow before wandering off. He was left feeling a bit as though a rug had been pulled out from beneath his feet, or maybe like he’d set off an exploding tag and gotten a benign puff of smoke instead. Next to him, Namikaze hummed.

“Do you think he’ll be alright?” The jōnin sensei murmured with concern. “He’s so young, and his team…”

Right. The Chūnin Exams could only be entered in three man teams. Kakashi must have been assigned a temporary one, in order to proceed. That has to be a disaster. Shikaku opened his mouth — to offer platitudes, maybe a bland observation that if Kakashi could make even some of the T&I members blubber nonsense, he could certainly handle some genin, in many, creative ways — but he was cut off by a noise of frustration from the blond.

“I just worry. You know him better than most of the other jōnin, Shikaku-san, working with Captain Hatake and all, so I’m sure you know how… sensitive he can be, about his abilities. If the other contestants do or say something to upset him… it’s a shinobi’s job, but he’s very young, and I don’t want him to go overboard—”

A feeling of foreboding overtook him. Alarmed, Shikaku’s eyes darted around the exam area, searching for the telltale puff of silver hair. Kakashi’s gaze met his first, smug and knowing. His team was giving him a wide berth. He didn’t even seem aware of the distance. The brat was all but radiating glee.

“—doesn’t need a team, but I’m sure we’ll be assigned one eventually, and—”

Really, Shikaku was sure of it now. There was nobody quite so troublesome as the Hatake Clan. Not even his gossip-mongering, pushover, drama-queen former classmates. Nothing was worth the mortified horror of knowing you’d been manipulated into socializing by a six year-old. He resisted the urge to snort. Namikaze had nothing to worry about. Psychological warfare indeed.

(He was not surprised, when at the end of the month, Hatake Kakashi became the youngest chūnin in village history.)

Chapter Text

Kakashi knew what people said about him. He always had. The memory of his first babysitter hissing the word unnatural in his face was not one he could forget, and similar instances had only piled on in the time since. It was a fact of his life: his father was a worrier. Uncle was a chatterbox. Shi spoke with their hands, the man near the Uchiha’s shrine did not speak at all, and the living spoke of him in terrified whispers when they thought he couldn’t hear. As though the way his gaze stayed focused on a razor’s edge of living-and-not said anything about how well he could hear, or kept him from seeing them flinch. Kakashi was eight. He was not a fool. The Second would never forgive him for that sort of willful ignorance. Yes, he knew exactly what people said about him; it was unavoidable. That didn't mean he had to care.

Before, when he was so young he couldn't even understand the difference between the shades wandering about and the flesh-and-blood humans hovering in his peripherals, he'd cared a lot. He might have cared too much. It felt different, then. There had been no rhyme or reason to the scorn, in his eyes, no real differentiation between one person and the next and the dead beside them. All he knew was that he was surrounded by kind words and chattering, and then he was— not. Being silent was easier than speaking up, he learned. There was more sense in holding his tongue and keeping his secrets than there was in making enemies left and right. So Kakashi was quiet.

The problem was: being quiet was hard. His secrets had so much to say, so many things for him to do. His secrets were people, after all, not just their knowledge. Keeping what amounted to dozens of lives bottled up inside him was too much. What did it matter to him what the living thought of him, then? They’d scorn him regardless, in one way or another. Better to do what he should to help the dead. Shi alone already had so many regrets, so many secrets, so many things to do, and that had been only one person, and Kakashi himself had been only four. He did not want to live hundreds of lives at once. He did not want to hold all of their regrets and secrets and actions inside himself forever. He wouldn’t care what people said, anymore. He wouldn’t.

Then his father found sofu’s journal, and he decided he really didn’t care. Because what he was doing was right. He was helping. He was alleviating the pain, regrets, secrets. He was fixing things. Maybe the living didn’t see it that way, but he knew the truth, and his father knew the truth, and the spectres dogging his heels knew it, too. That was what mattered.

So, yes. Kakashi knew what people said about him. He heard the whispers. He saw the turning heads, the shuffling feet. He knew he was reviled and coveted in equal measure, and he could live and die with that. It was fine. Even if it meant his only friends were a tongueless assassin and the half-faded tatters of a war hero.

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait? Your father should be returning from his mission soon.”

And Uncle, of course. Though he was more of, well, an uncle, than a friend.

"Yes," Kakashi responded. His voice remained as vague and flat as it always was when speaking with the dead. It unsettled the living even further than usual, when he took on the tone, which was useful when he didn't want to be bothered by them. (Coincidentally, he found he didn't want to be bothered by them, hm, ever.) "That's exactly why. Chichi-ue would never let me get away with this."

Uncle groaned. Perched in a nearby tree, Shi watched on in silent amusement. They were much more faded than they had been just four years ago, thanks to his father and the Snake Sannin's… purge, but they must have found another tether to the world since their initial death. They were missing random chunks of their left leg and a large amount of their torso, at the moment. Kakashi was just thankful it was not the gory sort of "missing."

"What's this?" Came a new voice, wonderingly. He had to force himself not to sigh.

This, too, was the voice of someone long since shifted beyond the mortal coil, but it induced just as much dread as any living human. Uchiha Kagami had become a thorn in Kakashi's side, since the purge, and it did not look like the situation with the man would be solving itself anytime soon. He had always been similar to the Second, before. Similar to the man at the Naka Shrine. Unstuck in time, flickering and half-present compared to more solid spectres such as Uncle. People who lingered for too long tended to do that. Their chakra wasn't as strong. Their drive wasn't as strong.

But much like how Shi had found a renewed purpose for lingering in-between, so too had Uchiha Kagami, and Kagami's came with vigor where the former assassin's had not. That meant another solid ghost at his heels nagging him for help or meaningless gossip at all hours of the day. And, my, could all of the Uchiha nag.

(There was no other clan who clung so desperately to their emotions, Kakashi found. No other clan who stuck to the living like burs to pelts. He had seen more Uchiha in his eight years of life than anyone else in Fire Country would see in triple the time. Nobody hated leaving people behind more than the Uchiha. Kakashi was sick to death of the gods damned Uchiha.)

"Kagami," he droned. "Oh, goodie. Can't you go hover over your grandsons?"

"My oldest grandson is at school," Kagami replied with excess cheer, "so that's a hard 'no.' And my youngest is four, and has just discovered the glory of asking his mother 'why?'. So that's an even harder 'no.' What are you doing here?"

"Something illegal," Uncle muttered.

Shi made a guttural laughing sound, drawing the trios attention long enough for them to sign "something inadvisable."

Kakashi closed his eyes and tried, desperately, to center himself. Kagami laughed. The sound was grating. He would never admit, even under pain of torture, that it was also encouraging.

"Illegal and inadvisable," the dead Uchiha mused. "Okay, I'm intrigued. Shall I try to figure it out myself?"

Yes, so shut up, Kakashi did not say, and focused again on what he himself was doing.

They were in a public training ground used, mostly, by jōnin. It was his father's favorite ground to use when sparring with the Sannin, and was, therefore, the site he was least likely to visit upon returning. Jiraiya was still in Ame training brats and cleaning up political bits of Danzō's purge guts, after all, while Tsunade was on extended leave of absence and Orochimaru… well. Orochimaru was the reason behind the aforementioned purge guts. As well as Kakashi performing inadvisable, illegal jutsu. The Sannin weren't even available to spar his father. Nobody would look twice at his son using their training ground.

He was hoping he could replicate the… effect? Phenomenon? It wasn't a jutsu, because it wasn't on purpose, but… he wanted to replicate whatever had happened to him the day he… when he was four. He'd been running entirely on adrenaline and half-remembered chakra theory, at the time. Every breath had felt laborious enough to call into question whether he was truly alive to begin with. The restraints around him had felt like a prison, cold and smooth and terrible. He had wanted away from them, as soon as possible, had wanted to crawl out of his own flesh like the dead who gripped at him at all hours of the day— and then something in him had just… slipped.

"I don't understand why you want to do it this way," Uncle whined. Kakashi tuned it out. "There are safer techniques for this, Kakashi. Kazuki had one, in a way. My own grandson had one. This method is just— it's too much like my brother's."

"Grandson? You— oh. Oh. That would make sense," Kagami marvelled. "But sensei's was—?"

"Tobirama's was wrong. This isn't the same, but the method— it's dangerous to work with raw chakra like this—"

"Surely he won't be able to…"

"He did it before! He—"

Kakashi imagined the restraints around him, again. Trapping him, squeezing him, icier than death could ever be. He imagined the heavy weight beneath his skin dribbling through its fleshy confines. He imagined escape.

Something in his chakra twisted, and— he slipped.

"Huh," he said, looking at his cold, collapsed body with all the interest of a child staring down a broken puppet. "I didn't think it'd work."

"Kakashi!" Uncle shrieked. "You can't just— you can't just astral project. You— that is ALL OF YOUR CHAKRA. Outside of your body!"

"Is it?" he wondered. "Uh, yeah. It is."

Well. Kakashi had already said he preferred the company of the dead to the living. He had a duty to them. It made sense there would be some other method to fulfilling that duty. Hadn't Uncle said sofu had a similar technique of his own? Maybe one less… extreme, but. Well. Kakashi was not one to do anything by halves.

"Is your body even alive?" Kagami said doubtfully. "You look— it doesn't look like you're breathing."

No. No it did not.

With great reluctance (with maybe more panic than he was willing to admit), Kakashi followed the tug on his chakra towards his too-still body. He ran a hand over his own chest, watching as the contact triggered a rattling inhale. Blackness danced across his vision, disorienting in it's suddenness, and he recoiled. He sounded like a dying man. He sounded like a dead man. Like the one from the Naka Shrine, with no eyes and a bleak, flickering presence.

"OKAY, back in your body, back into the body, go, go—" Uncle said hysterically, tipping him forward towards his body again, and his vision blackened once again as his hands sunk through cooling flesh to draw a shuddering breath—

He slipped. Again.

"Gods alive," he slurred, because everything hurt. This was not like it had been before. This was not a momentary slip into non-existence and then right back again. His body had been fully intact this time. It had not become spiritual with him. This was ripping all of the chakra out of his coils and then putting it back.

"He doesn't look so good," Kagami's voice was uneasy.

EVERYTHING HURT.

"Kakashi," Uncle urged, "Kakashi, I think you need to go to the hospital. This isn't— that wasn't what you did with… with them. You need to go to the hospital. Do you understand me? Can you walk?"

In an instant, Shi was hovering above him, a silent pillar of concern. Their hands flew through a series of signs.

"Are you still capable of speaking sign? Follow my movements with your eyes. Give signed and verbal responses to confirm awareness."

"Yeah," he said, and signed, and— and oh, god, his head felt like it was splitting apart. "Yes, Uncle. Shi. I'm— hospital."

Kakashi hated hospitals. Even the dead were too quiet in hospitals. At least until they were far, far too loud. Shinobi hospitals were places of battle wounds and violent tragedy just as much as battlefields were, but there was a heavier quality to the grief that saturated the area. It was pervasive enough to reach the living, who would always whisper and stare and recoil from him thrice as much as they would anywhere else. He didn't like it much. He also didn't like the— the poking, and prodding, and the needles. He hated hospitals.

But he knew when to grin and bear it, metaphorically speaking. Accidentally severing your soul from your body so thoroughly as to cause instantaneous death seemed like sufficient reason to do so. His head was pounding, his chakra coils felt bloated and burnt, and each inhale took enough effort to make his chest feel heavier than if he had a cast iron ribcage. He'd messed up, he could admit.

Belatedly, he wished he had chosen a training ground that wasn't so far away. Evading the worried gaze of his father felt far less important, now, as he trudged unsteadily towards the hospital. The walk felt like hours. Uncle was muttering, the whole time, a loyal dog yapping at his heels like always. Shi was a silent pillar of support at his back. He was almost disappointed to realize Kagami had disappeared.

Finally, the hospital loomed above him, bustling with enough activity to pass for a beehive. Pearlescent whites and silvers flashed in his peripherals as the dead drifted about. It was with great reluctance and an unintended grunt of pain that he pushed open the front doors, dragging himself in. He felt heavy. Had being alive always felt so terrible? He bypassed the line completely, certain from his own teetering vision and Uncle's sudden hush that he was on the verge of collapsing again.

"Hatake," he slurred at the stressed nurse. His voice still managed to sound hollow. "Chūnin. Zero-zero-nine-seven-two-zero. Need— 's an emergency. Please."

"Hatake?" She asked, sharp. "You got here faster than we— come this way, please, he's been moved to recovery. Quickly."

… What?

"What?" He asked, lips numb. His vision sharpened to a fine point, even as his body continued to wobble and scream. Eight year-olds were not meant to endure this kind of feeling for long, he was sure. "He—? But I—"

"You're his next of kin, aren't you?" The nurse retorted. "Zero-zero-nine-seven-two-zero. He's stable but not conscious. We followed protocol as he listed in his living will and shinobi directives, but as next of kin you have a right to oversee other aspects of his treatment—"

He made it as far as the large window pane of the ICU recovery room before he realized. Panic gripped him in a vice. Cold, solid, like the restraints from when he was four. His exhausted, overstuffed body was unravelling at the seams.

Against his will, Kakashi slipped.

"Dad?" He asked, voice cracking, only half-aware of the way his body collapsed beneath him and the nurse began shouting loud enough to rile the (many) dead. He paid no mind to Uncle, or Shi. He didn't even notice the way the casual address for his father slipped off his tongue.

All he was fully conscious of was the shape on the bed. Big, as always. Moonlight pale hair splayed across the pillow sheets. Half his face obscured with bandages, bloody and seeping near the eye.

Half his arm just— not there.

(This was a cleanup mission, Kakashi remembered. This was a Danzō mission, intended for failure before it had even been conceived.)

"Dad?" He said again, staggering towards his father's bedside and away from where his own body was being looked over by a myriad of frantic medics. Uncle and Shi trailed behind him, as ever. "I— dad? Can you answer me?"

"He's alive, Kakashi," Uncle said, somber. "He's alive. He can't hear you right now."

Half-dead and in tears, Kakashi hated him for it.

(Kakashi always preferred the company of the dead. It hurt far less than the company of the living.)

Chapter Text

From the journal of Hatake Kazuki:

In order to understand this gift we possess — this attunement towards the spiritual, the insubstantial — one must understand how it came about in the first place. It is not a coincidence that we, of the Hatake Clan, were the ones to manifest such an ability. Our chakra is the key; but then, that has likely been obvious since the first entry in this journal, which could be opened only through that chakra itself.

If you have been trained as a shinobi, as I assume — perhaps foolishly — you must have been, then you know how we came to be known as the clan of White Steel. If you have not, then I suppose you will learn even more than anticipated. Though the weapons we forge account for a large amount of such a reputation, those very same weapons would not be even half as flashy and prominent were it not for our unique chakra. The streaks of white they cast like moonbeams only exist thanks to the abnormality. It is a curious phenomenon; we did not understand why it was our chakra manifested so pale in color until we aligned ourselves with Konohagakure. I find myself thankful that the Hyūga and Uchiha were willing to assist us in that. I doubt I could have found the cause of my, our, abilities without knowing what we do.

Though I can only assume you have been trained in at least the most basic shinobi arts, there is always the possibility that you have not. I find I am similarly at a loss as to how far along in training you might be, if you are indeed a shinobi, and so I am unsure just how much you know of chakra theory. Perhaps you might enlist the assistance of a fellow clansmen if you find the terms I use unfamiliar. I am certain there must be basic theory books found amongst the pile of relics you pulled this very journal out of, as well. Regardless, even if you find this to be a simple repetition of information your current Clan Head has imparted to you, it is necessary I explain to you a few characteristics of our unique chakra before we find the cause of our gift.

Ordinarily, white is a color characteristic of Yang chakra. This chakra in its purest form relates directly to the mind, and is frequently associated with heaven. It is the opposite of Yin chakra, which is black and relates directly to the body and earth. However, this is an inversion of how Yang chakra is used in ninjutsu; Yang Release techniques are used to reinforce or alter the body in some way, while Yin Release consists of spiritual and/or perception-altering techniques such as genjutsu.

This discrepancy is what we refer to as “inner Yin-Yang.” Yin without Yang is not possible any more than Yang without Yin. I am unsure if symbolism has changed since the year I have written this. In the event that it has, I have detailed below an image of our symbol for Yin and Yang; notice that each magatama shape has within it an eye of the opposing aspect, the moon of Yin casting light into its darkness which then gives way to the blot of Yang’s sun amongst the sky, chasing one another infinitely.

Yin and Yang Release are much like these opposing eyes. When you draw upon your inner Yin, you bring forth the larger Yang. When you draw upon your inner Yang, you bring forth the larger Yin. In simple terms, you must use chakra of the opposing type to create a substantial Yin or Yang ninjutsu. Yin breathes life into form, grounding itself in the spiritual energies of Yang. Yang creates form from nothing, grounding itself in the physical energies of Yin.

The Hatake Clan’s pure white chakra is the result of an affinity for Yang Release. Having enlisted the assistance of the Hyūga, who are able to see chakra pathways, and the Uchiha, who are able to see chakra movement and color, we have discovered that we tap naturally into our inner Yin, causing our chakra’s strange paleness. You might find it more accurate to say that our chakra’s “natural resting state” is the same as any other person’s “Yang Release state.”

(Excepting members with abilities such as ours, the Hatake have always been quite terrible at genjutsu.) 

This is, perhaps, the result of our non-human ancestry. My own parents and grandparents certainly seemed to believe such, and I am ashamed to say that even as Clan Head I do not know enough of our history before the Warring States to confirm the notion one way or another. Regardless, it is irrelevant in relation to how my gift came about. With the help of comrades in the Hyūga and Uchiha Clans, it was determined that though I possess the Hatake white chakra, it is not caused by an affinity for Yang Release. Of course not; if it were, all our clan would possess this ability. The results are instead somewhat unsettling.

My own chakra is, theoretically, the same as any other Hatake. There is no discrepancy in Yang to Yin ratio. However, with the help of dear Hashirama and his clan's medical techniques, we were able to analyze my raw chakra output— and we found that there is an incredible density to my raw Yang chakra. So much so that I find it near impossible to draw upon my inner Yin. This has always been the case; I have always been quite poor at the more traditional Hatake techniques. Drawing upon inner Yang is far easier, likely due to similar reasons. I am much better at genjutsu than the rest of our family.

The ordinary density of raw chakra, so Hashirama has been saying, is something like 9 MJ/m³. The exact meaning behind the number is a touch beyond me, I'm afraid. What I placed importance upon is my own results. My raw Yang chakra has a density he is estimating to be around 15 MJ/m³. It is also, for all intents and purposes, raw Yang chakra. There is no foundation upon physical Yin energies. My chakra is not white due to a natural affinity towards Yang Release, but due to a natural affinity for spiritual chakra in its rawest form. It is this odd mutation which I believe to be the cause of my abilities. I suggest you have yourself checked for the same discrepancy, if possible. Who knows what one might find, if they look closely enough.

With many thoughts—
Hatake Kazuki
11th Head of the Hatake Clan