Chapter Text
There was this theory— the Butterfly Effect. That one, tiny, minuscule change in the timeline could cause everything around it to collapse. A butterfly could flap its wings just a beat too late, and a chain reaction of events would occur that could cause everything else to change.
But that theory was always a bit preposterous. A single butterfly wasn’t enough to change the timeline. Not realistically.
What was enough, was the life of one person.
Instead of taking a right on this street, Shimiku Cho took a left. Instead of getting cheap pizza that night for dinner, she decided to go to a new restaurant that had some onigiri that her friend had said was mouthwateringly good. Instead of ambling down the street, pizza in hand, she walked by a dark alley with quick, fearful steps.
A week later, instead of attending the tiring, listless job she was meant to, she met once again with a man in a bird mask who called himself Overhaul. He was powerful, handsome, and exactly the sort of person she’d always longed to meet.
Instead of eventually getting a promotion at her listless job, she donned a black suit and tie, placed her hair up in a bun, and slid a beaked plague doctor mask onto her face. The gloves she wore now were white, comfortable silk, and they no longer felt like a pair of shackles attached to her by a society that couldn’t handle her so-called “dangerous” power.
It was that simple left-hand turn that sparked this chain of events. It was that simple left-hand turn that resulted in Shimiku Cho standing next to Overhaul as they met the infamous League of Villains. It was that simple left-hand turn, that caused what was originally a stalemate battle in an abandoned warehouse to change the course of the world.
After all, if someone insignificant were to get hit with her quirk, chances were nothing major would happen. But the man she touched was not insignificant.
All five of her fingers fell across the arm of Shigaraki Tomura, just barely avoiding his own, much deadlier touch, and in a flash of light, her quirk activated.
In one minute, Shigaraki Tomura was the owner of his own mind and body. In the next, Kakashi Hatake found himself standing in an unfamiliar body, in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by unfamiliar people.
Shimiku backed away and so did Overhaul. The League of Villains didn’t know what had happened, and whoever was now in Shigaraki’s body certainly didn’t know. This was their chance.
“Let me say this again,” Overhaul drawled. The new Shigaraki looked up in confusion, and just now seemed to notice the hand covering his face, if the way his real hand lifted to prod at it was any indication. Overhaul wasn’t speaking to Shigaraki, in fact, his attention was now on the rest of the League of Villains behind him. “You will submit yourselves to me, or I will never have Shimiku return your precious leader to you.”
The League looked baffled. “Shigaraki” looked baffled, though his exact expression was hard to discern when there was a hand covering his face. Overhaul, however, was confident. They had won this battle.
“What do you mean?!” Twice yelled. “Shigaraki’s right there.”
The new Shigaraki raised a hand to quiet Twice, and the room waited in tense silence for his next words.
“Maa, I don’t know what’s happening here, but I will not be submitting myself or these people to you anytime soon.”
It was clear that what Overhaul and Shimiku didn’t know was that the man now inside Shigaraki’s body, could be considered even more dangerous than the original. What Hatake Kakashi did not know, was just about everything. What he did know was that there was a body on the floor that had been destroyed at the hips, and that fresh, still-warm blood coated the concrete beneath his feet in thick pools. What he did know was that these people in the masks had clearly caused it. He did not know the person who was dead on the floor, but whoever that Shigaraki guy was did know them, and Kakashi figured he had to do something.
“You wish to defy me?” Overhaul grated out.
“I don’t even know who you are.” Kakashi was also just now realizing that he had no weapons on his person— just a lot of hands. Like a lot of hands. Chakra was not running through his body like normal— but maybe there was something there— in his eye. The sharingan perhaps? What he could feel, other than the itch in his eye, was the itch in his hands. His real hands, not the gross ones everywhere else. They teemed with a power that was far different from his own, but power nonetheless.
He needed to assess the situation, and quickly. No chakra at his disposal, except for maybe his sharingan, which he distinctly remembered activating right before he’d been thrown into this body, but he did have an unknown power in his hands. The man in the beaked mask in front of him was clearly powerful— Kakashi assumed he was the reason for the blood on the floor, if the woman was the reason for his presence here. There was another smaller... creature... also wearing a bird mask. Kakashi recognized that those in bird masks were his enemies currently, and those who were not are “Shigaraki”’s friends.
He needed to play this out carefully. He didn’t want to accidentally kill the original owner of this body, or cause harm to the man’s friends either.
No chakra meant most of his go-to techniques were out the window, or more actually, out of his body. He could not fight, not yet.
Kakashi had never been a good negotiator, but it was starting to seem like that was his only remaining option. They were cornered in this warehouse, so running wasn’t an option. Fighting wasn’t an option. Only negotiation.
Time to talk no jutsu the fuck out of this then.
“I’m also getting the impression that this Shigaraki guy wouldn’t be too keen on joining you either, but I don’t want any further bloodshed. Why don’t you put me back where I was—“ Oh shit, he’d been in the middle of a completely different battle... that was probably going terribly without him. Oh no, was Shigaraki in his body? “—and you can have the real Shigaraki decide if he wants to join you.”
Overhaul seethed, “I won’t have Shimiku put you back if you don’t cooperate.”
At this point, he was getting the feeling he should cooperate and let the real Shigaraki figure it out from there.
“If you’re not Tomura, then who are you?” A blonde girl asked him, a knife in her hand. Her glare was directed at the man in the bird mask, even though her words were clearly for him.
“Me? I’m Kakashi Hatake.” He offered, his tone lazy despite Kakashi’s current internal struggle.
No one seemed to recognize the name, which clued Kakashi into the fact that he was a long way from home.
“Alright, Kakashi.” She growled. “I don’t want anything to do with these assholes, not after they killed Magne. So don’t say yes to anything they offer.”
Internally, Kakashi’s previous struggle transformed into mildly frustrated screaming. He just wanted to get back home. Back to his body. One that wasn’t covered in hands.
Externally, he sighed, shoulders slumping and— the feeling of the hands moving as he moved was very unpleasant. He sure hoped these things weren’t attached to him at all times— and he said, “Okay then.”
“You’re really going to take the word of a schoolgirl when we hold your life in the balance?” The woman seethed.
Kakashi considered it, “She has more authority here than I do. If she doesn’t want to join, then she can do whatever she wants.”
The girl flashed a bright, vampiric smile. “And I want to cut them.”
Oh no, maybe he shouldn’t have said that.
The man in the bird mask sighed, and raised a white-gloved hand. “Whatever, there’s no point in us all murdering each other, I came here for resources— the League’s name and connections— and killing all of you won’t give me that. We’ll just leave. When you start going insane and want your body back, Kakashi, then we’ll talk.”
The man in the bird mask took off one of his gloves and pressed his hand to the wall. In a matter of seconds, the solid metal had disintegrated and then reformed in front of Kakashi, blocking him from following.
He blinked.
That wasn’t what he’d expected to happen.
…Now what?