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The Fourth and the greatest of the wars the Ninja world knew ended up with two of his idiot students bleeding out in a ditch because of course it did.
All Kakashi could do was to sigh deeply.
He was tempted to discreetly disappear, because it looked like his third student knew what she was doing despite the amount of screaming going on inside.
He was not discretely disappearing, because he had no idea where to.
The person he talked to for years in front of the Memorial Stone for so many years ended up not being even real. The other people, the names carefully carved into the stone, he had a chance to talk to them at one point or another during the past year.
Going straight back to the Stone just after he finally made peace and said his goodbyes… it didn’t felt right.
Kakashi couldn’t even hide behind the book, because the volume disappeared from his pocket sometime during all this fighting. All he could do, was to idly wonder if people from another dimension enjoyed fine literature as much as he did.
With a corner of his eye, his left eye and wasn’t that going to take awhile to get used to, Kakashi could see people gathering, shifting around, forming groups.
The tension slowly but surely was rising over the battlefield, already getting tangible, happy smiles and victorious shouts slowly turned into nervous glances at shinobi from other villages.
Well, that was quick, Kakashi noted.
All that showing off with being one unified force, all these little details like the Hitai-ate with the same symbol carved in the metal and it took no time at all for the things to turn back to the old ways of doing things.
As soon as people concluded that there was nothing exciting to look at anymore - Sakura’s screaming could be entertaining for only that long - they turned towards the people that were supposed to have all the answers.
They obviously didn’t, considering the suspicious glances Oonoki was shooting left and right, the stone mask that once again banished all facial expressions from Gaara and the overdone smirk on the Mizukage’s face.
“No, not doing that,” Senju Tsunade declared loudly. “No way I’m doing that. What I’m doing is getting drunk as far away from this idiocy as I can get.”
The Konoha shinobi looked deeply confused by this declaration, staring at the Fifth Hokage with deep confusion and concern, however no one was brave enough to question her.
Kakashi sighed again.
"Alright, then who's gonna to deal with this mess?" he asked, making a vague gesture with his hand. Even he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be pointing at. The flock of confused ninja, the peace that was about to crumble, the two idiots and the pissed off healer in the ditch, surrounded with bits and chunks of stone that only vaguely resembled what was once the greatest stone monument in the entire Elemental Nations, the ruins and the wasteland filled with dead humongous roots itself?
Now there was no monument and no Valley of the End, no enemy to fight, but all the ninja were gathered in one place. No need to do anything, the bad things were about to start happening on their own any moment now.
"Not it!" Tsunade replied immediately.
"May I ask why?"
"I was under the impression someone took the job while I was in a coma," Tsunade shrugged. "I consider myself retired, so whoever got the job is still having the job. No way I'm dealing with this circus."
Kakashi looked at said circus and sighed heavily.
Gaara looked calm, the current Mizukage was quirking eyebrow in his direction, but the rest...
Oonoki had a cunning gleam in his eyes informing him that a plan was forming and A looked more and more like he wanted to punch someone.
Then there was Kabuto, who tried very hard to keep the handcuffs on in a way that everyone could see them - which meant they were useless - with a sheepish smile on his face and Orochimaru, who didn't even bother with neither the handcuffs or looking sorry and the team of misfits was hiding behind him.
They weren’t doing a very good job, considering one of them was wearing a pajama and the other a window curtain of all things. It was a nice curtain, but it stuck out more than Naruto usually did.
“Wasn’t it Shimura Danzo who was supposed to be the next Hokage?” Mei finally asked.
“He’s very dead,” A pointed out. “So he’s not it, one of these dorks down there made sure of it. Which reminds me, I need his head.”
“Why would you need something like that?” Gaara inquired.
“He attacked and kidnapped… tried to kidnap my brother and was working for the Akatsuki,” A shrugged. “That’s enough for a reason for you?”
“He’s a shinobi from another village,” Gaara pointed out.
“And he performed crimes against my village, I have the right!” A stomped onto the ground with a loud thud.
The space between the groups of shinobi grew, the tension rising, the faces grew stern and ready despite how everyone was at the brink of exhaustion.
Kakashi groaned. It looked like either he was going to do something or the sixth war was going to happen right here, in front of his eyes, a five minutes after the previous one.
"Technically speaking, I'm still a wanted criminal in Sunagakure and Iwa too, I think?" he asked, scratching his head in confusion.
Oonoki furrowed his brow, but carefully nodded.
"And Konoha is still somewhat salty about the kidnapping attempts and annihilating our close ally..." he mused. "I guess we should start pressing the charges too.”
“Sunagakure does not see any reason to seek repercussion from Konoha,” Gaara stepped in quickly. “We see Konoha as our closest ally and will support any decision the Sixth Hokage is going to make.”
“The sixth… since when?”
“Hatake Kakashi was to be the Sixth right until Shimura Danzo pulled the strings and put the hat on his own head,” Gaara explained before Kakashi managed to find the right words to protest. “Since the man is no more, along with deemed a war criminal himself, we have no choice but to accept the son of the White Fang as worthy of the title. Any objections?”
“Ha!” Tsunade grinned. Then patted Kakashi on the back, not bothering with controlling her strength. “Good luck!”
Kakashi wanted to do the exact same thing Tsunade just did and dump the job on some other poor loser. It wasn’t like he was going to run out of the candidates quickly - most of the members of the younger generation of Konoha shinobi declared the will to lead its people.
It was a nice thought, an uplifting thought but right now, they all were just children. Loud, naive and completely out of their water.
“Well then,” he coughed. It was enough to get the attention of everyone. The kages the shinobi, his own students. “I guess I’m it then. And I have a proposal. Or two.”
“We are listening,” A said, narrowing his eyes. He tried to cross hands on his chest, but the lack of an arm got in his way, so he finally set it on his hip. “Just be quick. My patience has already ran out.”
The rest of the Kage’s nodded.
“At this point,” Kakashi started. “We have only two options. Either to start completely anew or to start killing each other until there’s no man left standing.”
“That’s… quite a morbid picture you’re painting here, lord Hokage,” Mei said, tilting her head to the side, rich, beautiful hair following the movement.
“Is it?” Kakashi raised eyebrows. “Think about it for a moment. If we start digging through the past, even if it’s just the past week, we will find something to spark another war. Someone killed someone’s father, someone put a genjutsu on a trusted merchant, someone else stole a set of numbers from the black market and so on.”
“That’s surely…”
“Are you willing to risk it?” Kakashi looked her straight into the eyes. “You, the rebel leader?”
Terumi’s face twisted in an ugly grimace.
“If the memory serves right, if was one of Konoha missing nin that brainwashed Yagura into becoming a monster,” she hissed.
“Are you people serious?” Suddenly a new voice joined the conversation. “Are you fucking serious?!”
Naruto was standing on the edge of the ditch, straight despite having some troubles with finding the right balance, the bandage on the stump of his hand startling white. He was covered in scratches and bruises that only began to blossom in full color, his clothes were torn and dirty and by all means should be unable to still stand on his own, yet there he was.
Wind picked up and dirt danced around his feet, puffing up little clouds of smoke and sand. It was enough to remind everyone just who he was, just what he was.
“I turn my back for like, five minutes!” Naruto continued, the frustration more than obvious on his face. “Five minutes! And that’s what you guys do! You stand around and discuss if you should start killing each other right now or wait a day or two! What the hell is wrong with you?!”
“You’re young, you can’t possibly understand-” A started.
“No!” Naruto shouted. “You’re the one that doesn’t understand! It was all a plan, all the wars, all the bloodshed, it was all happening because Zetsu planned it, because he wanted enough… i don’t know, death and misery to bring the moon down from the sky and to revive Kaguya and guess what? He fucking succeeded because you’re a bunch of idiots that can’t sit down for a bloody minute and think before you cry for war!”
He was breathing heavily at this point, but it didn’t stop him from continuing the rant.
“It’s a bloody cycle!” Naruto shouted. “One person kills another, someone else is sad and angry and wants vengeance and goes for it and then another person is sad and angry and want payback and it goes on and on and on!”
The Kage, the shinobi alliance, they were all quiet, listening to a boy screaming out obvious things at them. Obvious, and yet.
“To stop it, to really stop it, we all have to just not make the next step. To not demand blood of the one that wronged us, to not do what the Black Zetsu wanted us to do all this time.”
“You are asking for a lot, kid…” Oonoki hummed. “But perhaps we should try this. Just to satisfy curiosity how long it would take for someone to break away from the line.”
“You know I’ll support you,” Gaara smiled softly.
“So, amnesty for all is it?” Terumi hummed, brushing her hair away. Hr eyes were dead set on Naruto, serious and cold. “Well, it doesn’t look like we have much choice anyway, don’t we? Either agree, or perish under the sheer weight of the new shinobi alliance and Hokage's little monster, isn’t it?”
A threw his hand up into the air.
“Fine!” he barked. “I’ll let you try, just to see how much time it’s going to take for the whole thing to fail miserably!”
“You’ll wait for a very long time, old man!” Naruto declared, pointing a finger at A.
The man rolled his eyes.
“That leaves just one thing to discuss,” Oonoki noted. “What to do with all the missing nin.”
“Thought we have already covered that,” Kakashi replied. “Amnesty.”
"Wait, wait wait, him too?! He literally created the fourth war!" Tsuchikage waved his hand in the direction where Kabuto stood. Kabuto had the sense to look guilty, but Orochimaru was still next to him and still looked like he was having the time of his life.
"I would prefer not to, but if we start looking for an excuse to exclude one person from the amnesty, then soon another person would be also excluded. And so on, until we are back where we started," Kakashi said, raising fingers to illustrate his point of view better. "It might not be perfect, it might not satisfy any of us, but it gives us a chance to try this peace thing out before we go back to all the fun and murder. So? Thoughts?"
"I agree," Gaara said. "Spilling any more blood after we have come so far would be distasteful. Too many people have given their lives for that to simply discard it."
"There was more than enough bloodspill in Kirigakure already," Mei shrugged.
"So, what it will be?"
"I don't like it, but I don't like the odds even more," Oonoki puffed up, more and more grumpy with every passing minute. "Three against one, that's just a recipe for getting razed to the round."
"Seems like you don't have much choice, A."
"When it all break apart I'll be laughing at all of you," the man declared, but nodded.
"See? Was it that difficult?" Kakashi smiled cheerfully. He felt anything but. Relieved, maybe, but happy, definitely not. "It's peace now! We... uh, we probably should sit down and talk some more about how to prevent our shinobi from killing each other during missions, ruin the economy by offing the wrong merchants and so on."
"Later," Mei waved her hand at him. "First we need to do a headcount and take care of our wounded. Once we know the numbers we might talk more.
"Reasonable enough," Gaara nodded.
"So who's gonna deal with the missing nins here?" A gestured towards Kabuto, who continued to look sorry and Orochimaru who still looked deeply entertained. "Or they are free to go and do whatever bullshit they were up to before all this shit happened?"
Kakashi narrowed his eyes and looked at the Sannin and his group of misfits.
There was an idea slowly coming to life inside his head, but Terumi was right. Priorities.
"Technically speaking they were Konoha shinobi," he said with a heavy sigh. "So I guess we have no choice..."
Orochimaru quirked an eyebrow.
"If you try something I'm siccing your former student on you. Or Lady Tsunade."
"We are going to be decent," Orochimaru said. "Pinky promise."
Kakashi deeply doubted in the decent part, but he couldn't have everything in his life.