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Jiraiya was an excellent teacher sometimes. Right now wasn't one of those times. While traveling with a 16-year-old girl, he had slipped off to some brothel to be entertained by other women. Naruto had been meditating when the silence of sensei became unbearable, peeking one eye open, she discovered unsurprisingly he was gone.
"Are you fucking kidding me!" She cursed, jumping up indignantly. "That dirty old geezer!" She grumbled, kicking up dirt, she marched back to the small cottage they were staying at. But as there is often a light at the end of the tunnel, Naruto found her own light as she rummaged through Jiraiya's stuff.
With elated joy, she dug through boxes of scrolls, unearthing awesome Jutsu's that Jiraiya never bothered to show her. Naruto had actually been looking for his latest manuscript so she could defile it with her own shitty writing (hopefully) unnoticed, but this latest discovery was even better!
One that particularly caught her attention was one about traveling through space and time. If she remembered correctly, this was a jutsu used by Konoha's yellow flash! A totally badass jutsu that made you move at the speed of light. Scrubbing the excited drool that had pooled to the corner of her lips, she slowly deflated as none of the scripts made much sense. She hadn't touched fūinjutsu since she was in the academy, and even then, she wasn't particularly good at it.
She delicately placed the scroll back onto the floor, thoroughly put out. No! She worked herself back up again. She was Konoha's most unpredictable ninja! What was more unpredictable than totally acing this Jutsu!?
With newfound determination, she picked the scroll back up and slammed it onto the short-legged table in the living room. Picking up some ink, she began scrawling out some notes and attempted to copy the seal written in the scroll. Yes, this will work.
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It wasn't fucking working! Aggravated, Naruto threw a kunai with a messily drawn seal on it to a tree and glared at it as nothing happened. What a joke. Growling, she marched back into the room to make another 10 copies of the seal she was failing spectacularly at utilising. Never once considering that it could be a problem with the implementation of the seal that was causing her woes.
On the fifth throw of her kunai, the metal hit the tree with a static shock that spent sparks into the air. Instead of being worried, Naruto was ecstatic! Finally, some results! She bounced excitedly on the spot, holding her sixth kunai, as her hair waved joyfully with her erratic movements. Tightening her pigtails with determination, as they had come loose with her jumping around. Naruto looked at her kunai with purpose.
"This time…" She grinned and kissed the kunai for good luck before pelting it in the air with deadly precision. She watched it soar through the air, and then for the briefest moment, she couldn't see anything at all.
She could feel nothing, not even the blood coursing through her veins. And then she was back. Dazed, Naruto blinked and registered her surroundings. Familiar, but not where she had been training. It really worked! Maybe a little too well….
She scratched the back of her head sheepishly as she recognised the trees belonging to Konoha's forests.
"Jiraiya is going to be pissed when he finds out I'm all the way over here…" she giggled. She and Jiraiya, at this point, had been well out of fire country. Shrugging it off, she strolled up to her kunai that was currently smoking a black ashen smoke. That couldn't be normal, but whatever, it worked! She could work on the finer points later, reaching to pull the kunai from the tree her hand snatched back at just how hot the sizzling piece of metal was.
With a little cry, she cradled her hand to her chest to nurse it. Maybe it was a situation of the further you travel, the hotter the tool was? Pitying herself, Naruto decided perhaps now would be a better time to get a summon to inform Jiraiya about her misadventure. Biting the thumb of her scolded her hand, Naruto never got to call her summon.
Before she could even properly pull her thumb out of her mouth, she went hurtling to the ground. Shrieking, totally unprepared, her head bounced heavily off the dirt as she made contact. Tickling her cheeks was a startling familiar shock of silver hair. However, what wasn't familiar was the owner of the hair, holding a kunai to her throat as his other arm held her down.
Still shaken up from the ambush, it took Naruto a few seconds to register what the hell was going on. She stared into two charcoal eyes who looked back at her with unconcealed suspicion. She swore if he wasn't in that mask, he insisted on wearing 24-7, she would be able to feel his breath on her face.
"Kakashi-sensei…?" She gurgled out, strained from the pressure on her chest. Kakashi's eyes widened, but he still didn't explain what he was doing. His arm that had been holding her down loosened a little giving her more breathing space before he returned to looking at her scrutinisingly.
"How do you know my name?" He growled. Naruto just gaped at him, completely clueless on how to dine that with a response. He didn't relent, his kunai pointing into her neck, threatening. "Who were you summoning," it was astonishing that the pressure of the pointed end somehow wasn't piercing her skin.
"W-what? G-gamakichi of course!” She sputtered, now trying to shake Kakashi off her. He kept her down firmly as he continued to glare at her. "Kakashi-sensei is this a prank?" She cried helplessly, "I'm failing to find it funny! Can you get off me!" She wailed. When he still wouldn't respond to her or release her, she continued to rant under him. "I know, I'm still supposed to be away training, but I ended up here accidentally. Are you angry I didn't tell you I had returned!? I promise I literally just arrived," Crocodile tears began to edge on the corner of her eyes. Maybe he'd stop this stupid joke if she started crying?
"You think just because you're a cute girl, you can cry, and I'll let you go?" Kakashi spat.
C-cute?
Naruto blushed furiously, but it seemed regardless of what Kakashi had said, he actually did let her go. He stood up, still on guard and not offering her any help. "Whoever sent you here must be stupider than you. You will have to come with me, with or without force. I will need to report you to the Hokage."
Brushing off the insult, Naruto clumsily picked herself up from the ground making a shocking revelation as she looked down at her sensei. Eyes wide open, suddenly more alert than ever before, she gaped at her sensei, who usually towered over her.
"What the actual fuck!" She cursed, pointing accusatorily at her tiny sensei. He folded his arms, unimpressed. "I'm not going to just let you go if that's what you thought? All suspicious people must be assessed." He harrumphed. Suddenly the roundness of his face under his mask could not go unnoticed. His LACK of Sharingan! Naruto paled as she cupped her cheeks. "Kakashi-sensei!?" She gaped, "W-what happened to you!?" She screamed. "Why are you so small!?" He quirked a brow at that, "where is your Sharingan!?" Naruto could literally faint on the spot.
"What are you talking about," Kakashi rolled his eyes before his eyes seemed to pierce with sudden a sudden realisation. "You were after an Uchiha?" He glared steely at her.
Naruto deflated and fell back against the tree that her kunai was still lodged into. Naruto wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Maybe if she was, she would have realised something was amiss much earlier, but she also wasn't a complete idiot.
"I've made a huge mistake," Naruto uttered, staring into the distance. Kakashi, unimpressed, walked up to her slouching body. "Get up," he demanded. "Don't make me have to carry you," he continued. Naruto looked at the smaller version of her sensei skeptically. "You think you can carry me in those tiny arms? I'm almost three times your size," she snorted.
"Unless you weigh the same as a whale, I'd assume you're pretty easy to carry."
Naruto sighed and rolled her head back. "You can't take me to the Hokage."
Having none of that, Kakashi hoisted the girl that was about double his height into his arms and started walking. Naruto shook her head like crazy, struggling to get out of the preteen's grip. "I'm serious! You can't do this!" She grabbed at his shoulders, shaking him like a rag doll. This succeeded in making the child sway a little but unfortunately did not stop him on his brisk path to Konoha's Hokage tower.
Tears of frustration glazed Naruto's eyes. What the fuck could she do? She didn't realise her sensei was such a stubborn, unpitying brat when he was a kid!
"Please, you need to believe me. I didn't mean to end up here!" Naruto screeched, Kakashi paused to look at her momentarily. Until this point, he had been staring blankly ahead, seemingly uninterested in whatever she had to say. Naruto paused as well now that she had his attention, which was what she wanted. But what could she say? Saying she accidentally kunai'd her way into the past sounded insane!
"Well?" He asked impatiently, "how were your motived in 'accidentally' infiltrating the outskirts of Konoha then?" He glared at her. Naruto considered her options, sure this wasn't her Kakashi-sensei, but he was still Kakashi. Kakashi-sensei was level-headed, secretive, and clever. There's no way he'd know how to help her when he's this young, but surely he'd understand the problem of reporting someone from the future to the authorities?
"W-well you see…." Naruto struggled to put her thoughts into words. "I was traveling with my sensei, and I found this totally awesome jutsu!" She waved her arms in the air for emphasis, unable to hide a little bit of excitement about what she was going to reveal (because really, wasn't it totally awesome she succeeded in using a space-time jutsu! …despite the implications…)
She explained how she had been trying to copy the infamous hiraishin no jutsu, and because of a little bit of hiccup, she traveled into the past. Kakashi dropped her without a second thought and looked down at her incredulously after her insane explanation.
"I didn't realise I was dealing with an escapee from the mental asylum." He frowned in complete seriousness. Naruto gaped at him as Kakashi put his hand on his chin thoughtfully. "I thought it was suspicious you were wearing a Konoha hitai-ate when I'd never seen you before. Did one of the nurses give you that to make you feel better about your condition? I'll still need to report this…" He finished off mumbling. Naruto bounced off from the ground she had been deposited onto, "I'm not insane! I can prove it! Ask me anything, and I'll prove it. I'm seriously from the future!" Naruto yelled, pointing her finger into the child's face.
Kakashi looked at her sceptically, unsure whether he should be indulging her delusions. "Why did you ask me about my Sharingan?" He asked, letting curiosity win out. Naruto's pointed finger deflated. Kakashi-sensei had never really said much about his Sharingan, except that it was from a dead friend. And that dead friend could only have been an Uchiha, which seemed like a potentially dangerous topic to discuss for many reasons.
"Uhm. That was a mistake. Can you ask me something less likely to get me stuck in some paradox?" She chuckled, scratching the back of her head awkwardly, already knowing she was losing her credibility (as if she had much in the first place). Kakashi, as predicted, looked unimpressed.
"Right." He stated sarcastically.
Rolling his eyes, he gave Naruto a deadpan expression once more. "You called me Kakashi-sensei," he emphasised, not losing the disbelief in his eyes. "If I'm your sensei in the future, what was my first test?" He folded his arms across his chest as he looked at Naruto as if she were a bug.
Naruto weighed the consequences of her answer to the best of her abilities and decided it was probably relatively harmless. "A bell test, we had to try and retrieve two bells from you, but in the end, it didn't matter. It was all about teamwork!" Naruto pumped her chest proudly. Kakashi's eyes widened a fraction. He had recently done that same unorthodox test with Minato-sensei. If what this girl was saying was true, he was a little surprised that he would have adopted the same tactic in the future.
Naruto took his silence as encouragement and smiled a little more, relieved now she had her hostile child-sensei on her side. With a self-indulgent smile, she turned from Kakashi and skipped over the once smoking tree where her kunai was still lodged. A little shook up from the crazy girl who was bouncing merrily away from him, Kakashi forced his stiffened body to make chase after her. What was wrong with her! He never said he was just going to let her go free! Sure, her answer was unusually close to home, but that didn't mean he believed her insane delusions!
Their awkward chase didn't last long, Naruto not even realising it was a chase in the first place. She paused at the tree and hunched over the kunai, blocking it from Kakashi's view. He had halted behind her, instantly going on guard for whatever she was about to do. What he had not been expecting was for her to turn around smiling gleefully, her scarred cheeks succeeding in making her look like a preening fox. He could admit she looked kind of cute with a face like that, sort of like one of his ninken after getting a treat.
She waved her hand, indicating she wanted him to come closer. Against Kakashi's better judgment, he did as requested and inched closer, so he could hover over her and peek over her shoulder. There, he saw a kunai lodged deeply into the tree, a familiar-looking seal on it.
"That looks just like one of Minato-sensei kunai," he said, a little awed. Her story actually coming together was unexpected. Naruto's smile dropped as she looked at the boy curiously, still hunched forward, so they were at equal heights. She brought her face closer to Kakashi's. Her blue eyes were wide and astonished. He felt his cheeks grow hot at her proximity, only managing to feel even more embarrassed when her lips spread into a wide toothy grin.
"No way! He's your sensei! That's amazing. No wonder you're so strong!" Naruto admired enthusiastically. Why had Kakashi-sensei never mentioned he was trained by the fourth Hokage!?
If Kakashi was already feeling a little… off, since she shoved her face so close to his own, words couldn't describe the suddenly fluttering he felt in his heart. So he did the only thing a 10-year-old boy could think to do, he shoved Naruto over, forcefully making the 16-year-old girl stumble and fall back.
"What the hell!" Naruto cried as she was tripped into the dirt for the third time that day, "learn how to take a compliment, you little twerp!" She whined as she rubbed her back pitifully. Kakashi averted his eyes, not even wanting to think about what had just happened.
"Whatever…" he mumbled. Naruto sighed, "you know, you sure are different in the future," she grumbled. Kakashi felt his eyebrow twitch a little in annoyance. What was that supposed to mean? He glared at the girl on the ground and grabbed her kunai that was still stuck in the tree. He felt a slight electrical shock when he made contact with it, which was curious, to say the least.
Strolling up to the girl who still hadn't gotten up, he shoved the weapon into her chest. "Hurry up and throw it, and get out of here." Naruto looked at him curiously and tilted her head. "You mean you actually believe me?" She asked, a grin crawling its way back onto her face. He shrugged. He wasn't sure what he believed anymore.
"I knew you would!" Her grin had grown to obnoxious proportions. "But it would be nice to hear you say it, you know?" Her unwavering smile was making Kakashi feel that annoying fluttery feeling again. Suddenly he couldn't stand looking at her face. "Sure, I believe you. Now go away," He said unfeelingly. Naruto pouted, her bottom lip jutting out. If her smile was cute, her pout was even more adorable, much to Kakashi's horror. He had never been so thankful for his mask in his life because he knew he probably had pink permanently dusted to his cheeks at this point.
She held the kunai in her hand a little hesitantly and looked towards Kakashi helplessly. "I might have over-exaggerated my skills with this jutsu…" She started hesitantly. Kakashi just stared at her blankly as she described just how many attempts she made with the jutsu and how it was actually a fluke any of this happened.
When he never responded, she started to sweat. "Don't just leave me hanging like this! I'm seriously worried!" She complained. Naruto held the kunai to her face as she fretted, "what if I don't go back!? I can't live here!" She cried, "or even worse! What if I go even further back, next thing you know, I'm in the middle of nowhere before humans even existed!"
Kakashi sighed as Naruto continued to rant. He put his hand up, suddenly halting her in skittish movements and speech. "Look, do what you want. But if you don't want to leave we need to go to the Hokage. I'm supposed to meet up with Minato-sensei in an hour, and
there's no way I'm going to be late because you couldn't make up your mind on what you want to do." He told her blandly.
He wasn't even going to bother questioning her disbelieving face. Naruto closed her eyes and sighed. When she opened them, her eyes had lost their cowardice and fears. She looked sturdy and confident. "Okay!" She exclaimed, clenching her fist around the kunai. She glared at the thing as she recalled the process of what had happened to get to this point.
She looked down at her small sensei and crouched a little to get to his height. She silently beckoned him closer, and him, not bothering to question her, did as instructed. Whatever it took to get her out of here. Even if with every movement he took to get closer to her, the lighter he felt.
Once he was close enough, Naruto put a hand on Kakashi's shoulder to steady herself. "A kiss for good luck." She stated, ignoring the widening of Kakashi's eyes. Leaning in close, Naruto placed a chaste kiss onto the skin just above his mask, on his cheek. When she pulled back, a shell-shocked boy's hand instantly slammed onto where her lips had just touched him.
Naruto's eyes squinted as she giggled a little. Maybe Kakashi-sensei was actually a pretty cute kid. Who could have known? With more confidence, she threw the kunai and watched it soar once more before her vision blacked out.
Kakashi stood in the spot for longer than he would have liked to admit, his hand glued to where Naruto kissed him and his head making leaps to make sense of what happened and what he was feeling. Why did he feel regret that she was gone?
Naruto's eyes opened once more, this time in the familiar shrubbery surrounding her and Jiraiya's cottage. She ignored the smoking kunai that was pierced into the dirt and ran straight for the cottage, and much to her relief, it was still in the devastating state she had left it. She decided instantly she needed to clean this up and never let Jiraiya know what the hell she had been up to while he was away. As she packed the scrolls back up into their boxes, she couldn't stop the shit-eating grin taking over her face. She couldn't wait until they returned to Konoha so she could tease Kakashi-sensei about what an insufferable child he had been. And maybe a little bit about how cute he was. She giggled ominously as she tidied up.