Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It really must have said something about Shotas life that dimension travel was not the weirdest thing to happen to him that day. Hell, it hardly even ranked on the list.

(Ok, that might have been an exaggeration, but honestly, when two people dressed like the background characters in one of those pre-quirk era king-fu movies that Hizashi was so fond of dropped out of the sky in the middle of a villain attack before proceeding to save the lives of both Shota and his students, where they’d come from had not exactly been the thought on the forefront of his mind.

No, that had been something along the lines of ‘oh shit’, followed by a no less vehement ‘oh fuck!’ when one of the mask-wearing strangers wasted absolutely no time shoving an entire handful of crackling blue lightning through the hulking, bird-like villains chest a moment before it would have no doubt pulverized Shotas poor bones into powder beneath his skin.)

So sue him, he more or less took the knowledge that class 1-A saviours and current guests were inter-dimensional travellers in stride. He wasn’t sure whose fault this was, but Shota was sure he could at least find a way to blame All Might for it. (It was kind of his fault the students had been attacked in the first place—not least because All Might had run out of time in his puffed up form that morning saving kittens from trees and autographing babies or whatever the fuck the Symbol of Peace got up to when he wasn’t making Shotas life a living hell.)

Shota had never heard of a quirk that could allow people to travel between universes—neither had Nedzu, judging from the unholy gleam in his beady eyes when he’d informed Shota of their new guests apparent origins while practically vibrating with excitement on the other side of his desk—but it wasn’t necessarily the craziest thing he’d ever encountered in a world where your average person could breathe fire or had tentacles instead of limbs. Shota had had a student a few years back who could adjust the pH balance of their literal piss, and regularly popped a squat in training in order to splash deadly acid on their enemies. (Last he’d heard, the man was now a moderately successful underground hero lauded for their vicious but non-fatal takedowns.)

The point was, he was sure he’d encountered stranger situations than the one involving his current wards. Oh, and that was another thing. Once it had become clear that the strangers— or ‘shinobi’ as they’d called themselves, not only had no fucking clue how to get home, but were also not even close to being of legal age to fend for themselves, there had come the issue of where they would stay. Apparently, Nedzu had taken Shotas general gratitude towards his masked saviours and their part in the continued intactness of his bones to mean he would be overjoyed to welcome them into his home. Where he slept. And thus, with a wad of cash and the promise of a new coffee machine in the teachers break lounge, Nedzu was able to wash his hand of the apparently treacherous notion of actually interacting with any members of the age group he dedicated his life to the service of, and pawned the care and keeping of the two pubescent trained killers from a distant world onto Shouta. (At least, he was pretty sure that they were pubescent. Although…)

Shouta eyed the boy across from him thoughtfully. “How old are you, kid?” He asked, breaking the silence for the first time in—he glanced up at the clock—fifteen minutes. Jesus Christ.

The spiky-haired child didn’t even glance up at him from where he was slowly but surely making his way through the bowl of rice he was hunched over. The boy had a pair of chopsticks in hand and was using them to painstakingly pick up individual pieces of rice before placing them one by one in his open mouth, like anything more than a single grain would just be far too heavy to make the journey from the bowl to his face. The boy’s dark eyes were half-lidded in an expression of unmistakable boredom, and Shouta was pretty sure he hadn’t actually chewed a single bite of the mountain of rice slowly accumulating in his mouth since they’d sat down. (It was one of the strangest ways Shouta had ever seen a person eat—and he’d once watched Amajiki Tamaki swallow an entire lock of one of his friends hair just to see if he’d be able to use her quirk afterwards. It hadn’t worked, to their disappointment. Fortunately, a passing teacher had noticed the un-sanctioned human experimentation happening in the hallway and stepped in before the then-second years could resort to more cannibalistic methods. Shouta probably would have stopped them but…well,he’d been curious.)

“Hey,” Shouta said, after a few more seconds ticked by without response from the other side of the cafeteria table. “I asked you a question.”

Finally, his presence was acknowledged by a lazy flick of dark eyes up to meet his. Shouta raised an eyebrow. He could wait.

“Twenty.” The boys tone was a dry deadpan which would probably have been much more effective if it wasn’t being spoken around a mouthful of rice, and by a voice which had clearly only barely just started cracking. The kids cheeks were still chubby with baby fat, and from this close Shouta could make out a slight smattering of freckles dusting the tan skin under his eyes and across the bridge of his nose. There was a grain of rice stuck to his cheek, which was honestly impressive given how carefully the boy was eating. He was still dressed in the strange black and grey uniform he’d dropped out of the sky in, sleeveless so that the bright crimson ink of the swirl tattooed on his shoulder was on full display. (What the fuck kind of sicko gave a kid a tattoo? …Probably the same one that taught said kid how to kill things with knives, know that he thought of it.) The boy was young, undeniably, no doubt younger than any of Shoutas students, and it had him feeling distinctly off-kilter. Teenagers, he could deal with. Children? Not so much.

“Funny,” Shota remarked sardonically, eyeing him. “I would have said 9 or 10.”

That got a reaction. The kid scowled, eyebrows drawing together. It was the most expression Shouta had seen on the boy since he had—with great persuasion—pulled off the painted porcelain mask covering his face a few hours earlier.

“I’ll be thirteen in a month, old man.”

“So you’re twelve.” Shouta confirmed, ignoring the brats jab at his own age. He was thirty, god dammit! He was still in his prime. That was around what he’d been expecting, though a part of him had hoped that the kid was just an incredibly baby-faced teenager. Shouta didn’t really want to think about the implications that arose when he considered how a twelve-year old got to be good enough at fighting to go toe to toe with multiple full-grown villains. And completely trounce them, at that.

The child heaved a massive sigh more befitting an elderly man complaining about his aching joints than this literal infant and went back to picking at his rice. “Troublesome.”

Shouta shared the sentiment. He watched the kid eat for a few more minutes, feeling more than a little weird about it before breaking the silence again. “What’s your name?” It was probably something he should figure out sooner rather than later—if not only to stop referring to the kid as ‘the kid’ in his head.

The kid squinted at him. A few beats of silence passed, enough that Shota was starting to think he wasn’t going to get an answer, before he mumbled out a name. “…Shikamaru Nara.”

Shouta nodded, filing the name away for future use. He tried to remember the few times he’d seen Hizashi interact with kids as Present Mic, the gentle smile he used to put them at ease. It didn’t feel right on his face, coming out as more of an awkward grimace than anything reassuring. Oh well. “Shouta Aizawa,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

The kid—Nara— leaned back in his chair, arms crossed and wearing a complicated expression that Shouta couldn’t begin to decipher. There was a glint in his eye that kind of reminded Shota of Nedzu for a split second before he vehemently pushed the comparison out of mind with a shudder. Nara was clearly thinking hard about something though, Shotas reaction apparently having meant something. Shota raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to wait long.

Nara huffed. “We really are in another dimension, huh?” His voice was thoughtful, quiet enough that Shouta couldn’t be sure if he was talking to himself or not.

Shouta shrugged, not really sure what else to do. “Sorry,” he said lamely, grimacing as soon as the word escaped his lips. He cast around for a safer topic, eyes flickering up to the clock again. “Your friend should be waking up soon,” he realized.

(It had been a little over two hours since the other shinobi—the one with the lightning hand— had collapsed—almost immediately after All Might had come to detroit smash the massive bird fucker through the ceiling and into oblivion. Shouta wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong with Nara’s… accomplice, but he suspected it had something to do with the glimpse of bone he’d seen peaking out of the other kids leg. At least he suspected it was a kid, or a teenager at the oldest, and Nara hadn’t exactly said anything to dissuade him of the fact. Shouta had been a little preoccupied with dealing with one underaged ninja to catch much more from Recovery Girl than the words ‘surgery’, ‘two hours’, and ‘get the fuck out of my infirmary before I make you’.)

Nara honestly hadn’t seemed all that worried about the other kids injuries at the time, but apparently something had changed between then and now. He sure seemed interested at the moment. The boy had stiffened at Shouta’s words, sitting straight in his seat for the first time since they’d sat down. His dark eyes were fully open as he shovelled the rest of the rice into his mouth, apparently having given up on the snail-paced one-grain-per-minute method.

“Right.” Nara pushed his bowl away and stood up with a squeak of metal chair on linoleum. “Let’s go.” The kids tone was flat, almost commanding, which probably would have been funny to hear coming from a twelve-year old if Shouta hadn’t automatically reacted to it by standing up too, posture almost battle-ready. He made himself relax as soon as he noticed it, slouching his shoulders and shoving his hands in his jumpsuit pockets, but his own reaction was weird enough that it took him a moment to get over it, by which point Nara was already halfway out the window.

“Hey!” Shouta had the kid wrapped up in his capture weapon before the exclamation was fully out of his mouth. “What the fuck!”

Nara glared back at him, looking only mildly inconvenienced at the loss of bodily autonomy as Shouta yanked him back from the windowsill. (Seriously, what the fuck?)

“What?” The kid snapped, obviously annoyed.

Shouta boggled at him. “What the hell are you doing?”

Nara eyed him like he thought Shouta was stupid. (As if he was the one who’d just attempted to fling themself out a window.) “You said Hound-taichou was waking up,” he said pointedly, wriggling a little in the capture weapon but not attempting to slip his bounds. Shouta tightened his hold just in case. “Trust me, you really don’t want me not to be there when he does.”

Shouta eyed him, but he couldn’t really fault that logic. From what he’d seen of the kids, they were trained fighters. Shouta knew better than most how someone like that might react to waking up in pain, in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar faces. Nara had taken the whole dimensional travel thing surprisingly well, but who knew how his companion would react. He conceded after a moment. “Fine. But we’re taking the stairs.”

____________________

The infirmary looked like a tornado had swept through it when Shouta burst through the door with his quirk already activated, Nara hot on his heels. They’d heard the commotion from down the hall—the source of which was now becoming clear—and taken the last ten metres or so at a dead sprint.

Shouta quickly took stock of the situation. The small room was packed with pro heroes, almost all of them yelling and in various states of injury. None of the wounds looked grievous, but Hizashi had his hands pressed to what looked like a broken nose, eyes watering furiously, and Vlad King was cradling a bloody hand to his chest that looked to be—was that a bite mark?

Recovery Girl was holding an IV stand, fending off a slight figure in the corner of the room with the prongs while periodically trying to wack it on the head.

Shouta hadn’t seen the other kid without their painted mask, but he assumed that they were the unfamiliar person Recovery Girl was currently attempting to concuss, mostly based on process of elimination.

(Not that the shinobi really resembled a kid all that much at the moment. Shouta thought they were doing a much better impression of a cornered predator.)

They were crouched on the floor on all fours, clad in nothing but a papery hospital gown and an aura of sheer panic, and looked for all intents and purposes like an actual wild animal. The teenagers mouth was open, lips pulled back to reveal sharp canines as he snarled at the other occupants of the room with a harsh, guttural sound that seemed more canine than human. Their eyes were wide and manic, one swirling, shining red and one charcoal black against pale, sweat-damp skin, and one of their legs was in a plaster cast that seemed to be doing absolutely nothing to inhibit their range of motion.

What was it Nara had called them? Hound? He thought that sounded about right, eyeing the feral looking figure.

Shouta glanced towards Hizashi, meeting the man’s teary, panicked gaze. ‘Do something’, his pleading eyes seemed to say, flickering towards the silver-haired shinobi.

The fuck was Shouta supposed to do? His quirk didn’t exactly work against inter-dimensional, sharp-toothed little gremlins.

Whatever Hizashi thought was going to happen, Shouta never actually got a chance to do anything.

He hardly even saw Nara move; one moment he was standing behind Shouta, half in the room, and the next he’d reappeared next to Hound, who was springing out of his crouch to intercept him with a vicious snarl, catching the kid by the throat and slamming him forcefully into the wall.

Shouta lunged towards them, a hand on his capture weapon as the rest of the room startled into silence. The teen caught the movement and darted their eyes towards Shouta, an inhuman sound escaping their throat even as they kept the majority of their attention on the younger kid pressed up against the wall beneath their hands. His pupils were like pinpricks. Shouta froze within a metre of the shinobi. He felt uncomfortably like a mouse pinned beneath the stare of a predator, (and knew Nedzu would be very opposed to the comparison).

In contrast to Shoutas own wildly beating heart, Nara looked surprisingly calm for someone being violently choked by their supposed ally, especially when Hound looked about two inches from tearing the boys throat out with his teeth.

“Gurk,“ Nara said, patting the hands around his throat in the universal gesture for ‘can’t breathe, please lemme go’ but otherwise hung limply in the larger boy—and Shouta was almost certain it was a boy, now—‘s grasp.

Hound growled, honest to god growled at the boy. “Iwa,” he said lowly, which didn’t mean much of anything to Shouta, but apparently did to the other boy because he got very still all of a sudden and let his hands drop to his side.

“No,” Nara breathed, and tilted his face towards the ceiling, squeezing his eyes shut and baring his throat to the wolf under a boys skin. His voice was carefully monotone when he spoke again, even struggling for breath. “No. We’re not in Iwa. My name is Shikamaru Nara, yours is Hatake Kakashi. We’re not in Iwa. We- There was a seal. We’re outside the El-elemental Nations. Non-hostile environment. You’re in a hospital room. You’re not in Iwa.” Nara opened his eyes again and very carefully didn’t look at anyone in the room that wasn’t the newly named Hatake. When he next opened his mouth, his voice was quiet enough that Shouta doubted anyone but himself and the Shinobi heard what he said next. “The war is over.”

Shouta felt his breath hitch as the words registered. Fuck. Fuck. He mentally rearranged the profile in his head that he’d designed for the shinobi and emphatically decided he was not being paid enough for this. There was a pretty big difference between trained fighters and child soldiers and Shouta had not signed on to get involved with either.

Hatake had stopped snarling. He looked a little less likely to teeth on anyone’s organs with his bare teeth now, recognition slowly dawning in his eyes as he stared at Nara. The silver-haired boy lowered Nara to the floor and retracted his hand from the vice grip it had been in around his neck. “Sorry,” Hatake said. He brushed imaginary dust from the smaller boys shoulders, looking a little bit sheepish as colour returned to his face.

Nara shrugged one shoulder. “It’s fine.” His voice was hoarse. “You should probably close the sharingan.”

“Oh.” Hatake blinked the glowing red eye shut. There was a silvery scar bisecting the eyelid, stretching from above his eyebrow to halfway down his left cheek. He swayed a little on his feet. “Thanks.”

Nara shrugged again. He looked bored. “No biggie.”

Hatake turned to Recovery Girl, the first real sign he’d made to acknowledge that there was anyone else in the room. She was still holding the IV pole in a white knuckled grip. “Mah,” Hatake said, eyes crinkling at the edges into the fakest smile Shouta had ever seen, and he double-takes at the complete personality 180 he’d just witnessed. The arm Hatake raised to rub the back of his neck had a trickle of blood dripping down it, presumably from where he’d ripped out an IV needle. “I don’t suppose you’d have a mask I could wear?”

Chapter Text

In Kakashi’s humble opinion, the world that him and Shikamaru have landed in is incredibly disorganized, and irresponsibly ill-managed. No wonder there is no war here—from what he’s managed to infer from the reactions of the citizens he’s met, he’s doubtful the leading authorities have enough brain cells among them to make a full genin, much less mobilize troops in any meaningful fashion. Plus, the people here are weak. And lazy. Shikamaru, of course, is finding the whole thing very refreshing.

After Kakashi’s little breakdown- the one he’s resolutely pretending did not happen, for the sake of his continued (albeit questionable) sanity- he took the stilted explanation that they’d landed in some sort of wildly different universe than his own and more or less rolled with it. (It had been, admittedly, a little bit of a shock at first, but the entire situation was not even close to the worst thing that had ever happened to Kakashi on a mission, so he wasn’t too worked up about it.) The only thing that really sucked was that Shikamaru was here with him, which was undoubtedly Kakashi’s fault because— well, these things always were, weren’t they? Sharingan no Kakashi never abandons a teammate, no, no, he just drags them along with him to another fucking dimension and then immediately tries to kill them because he’s so sage-damned cracked—

Anyways, Kakashi had been expecting a lot of things after that little revelation. They’d no doubt be handed over to whatever government this place had in place, interrogated—probably with gratuitous amounts of torture, but a guy could hope to get off with some light mind-probing— following which they would be either dissected or forced to swear unwavering fidelity to the leaders of this nation as agents of their own military (hopefully not both at the same time). He was ready for it. Resigned, even, if not to dissection than to the slaughter of whoever inevitably tried. (If Shikamaru was not here with him, and he was not functionally disabled for the time being, he would have run already. As it was, he was prepared for the worst.)

What he was emphatically not expecting was this.

The scraggly-looking man with the long black hair and the sometimes glowing red eyes—she’d be tempted to compare him to an Uchiha if not for the fact that no Uchiha would ever let themselves be seen looking as bedraggled as he was—swung open the apartment door and flipped a light switch on.

“Home sweet home,” the man grumbled, seeming to slump impossibly farther, until it almost looked like he was about to keel over and take a nap right there on the cheerful yellow welcome mat. Kakashi was starting to get the feeling that the man—he’d said his name was Aizawa— was not all that happy with them being in his space.

Kakashi stepped through the threshold and into the lightly furnished apartment, aided by a wooden set of crutches. He didn’t bother to pull the sandal off his non-injured foot as he examined the surroundings. The place was small, but clean, with a soft looking couch and a television and— ah. Cats. “You have a lovely home,” Kakashi said brightly, with the kind of cheer that had Shikamaru edging discreetly away from him. He did not break eye contact with the fuzzy brown creature lounging on the window sill, and it in turn did the same.

“No shoes in the house.” Aizawa said.

Kakashi took his shoe off. He did not move from his spot on the carpet, nor did he break eye contact, which made the motion a pretty difficult thing to do on crutches and with one of his legs in a cast. The cat was looking a little bit disturbed now, and so was Aizawa.

“That’s Pickles,” Aizawa said. “The other one, Sir Meows, is probably in the bedroom. Do you…like cats?” It was clear from the hesitant tone of voice that the man was not sure which answer he wanted to hear.

“Hm.” Kakashi licked his teeth thoughtfully. He had eaten cat a few times. Tiger, once. They were fun to chase. Stringy, though. Shikamaru sometimes reminded him a little bit of a cat, but he’d hardly ever had thoughts of eating him. As if reading his thoughts, the boy in question took another discreet step away from him. Aw. His cute little kohai was so smart! Kakashi rewarded this with a ruffle of the boys small spiky head while he tore his gaze away to smile at Aizawa, eye curving into a perfect crescent. It was his best and fakest smile, the one he spent the most time practicing in the mirror. “Maa,” He said, “I’m more of a dog person myself.”

Shikamaru sighed very quietly, swatting away Kakashi’s hand from his head with a small scowl. He turned towards Aizawa, eyes drooping more than usual. “Where can we sleep?” Trust Shikamaru to always have his priorities in order. His predictability was definitely his best trait, in Kakashi’s opinion, besides his ever increasing little habit of skewering and rearranging the organs of enemy-nin with their own shadows.

Aizawa looked relieved to change the subject. He was a little skittish around Kakashi still. The jonin could not for the life of him fathom why.

“You both can take the guest room,” he said, gesturing with a hand to the nearby door. He used the same hand to catch the back of Shikamaru’s flack jacket as the boy immediately started to head in that direction. “Food first,” Aizawa said with a pointed look at Kakashi, shaking the paper bag in his other hand.

Ah, yes. Kakashi made a face. He’d almost forgotten about that. The old lady medic at the school had apparently decided to do Kakashi’s medical examination while he was unconscious—(a detail which he wasn’t sure if he was thankful for or not)—and, upon realizing that he was a teensy, weensy bit underweight, had proceeded to draw up a detailed meal plan for him to follow to ‘get his strength back’. Kakashi did not inform her that he had been underweight since he was at least ten years old, as he doubted that that information was likely to help his case. He technically had a specialized meal plan back in Konoha too— every Anbu did— but no one really expected anyone to follow it, especially Kakashi. The people in this world did not seem to have the same expectations.

The food ended up being more or less the same thing you’d fine in Konoha. Fine. It was cooked pork, which always rather unfortunately reminded Kakashi of the taste of human flesh, but breaded and paired with rice and steamed vegetables so he was able to choke it down pretty easily without letting Aizawa glimpse his unmasked face. (It had already happened once and he was determined that it would not happen again.)

About halfway through the meal (for the other two at least—Kakashi had wolfed his down as soon as possible, pardon the pun— Shikamaru started to nod off, forcing Kakashi to catch his face so his nose didn’t smash into the half-eaten plate of food.

Aizawa huffed a tired laugh. He looked very old all of a sudden, even more than before, and a little bit sad. “I guess you guys had a pretty big day, huh?”

Kakashi didn’t say anything. He eyed Shikamaru. He couldn’t be quite sure if the boy was actually asleep or not. The Nara was by no means narcoleptic, but he did have a bad habit of pretending to be to get out of interactions with civilians he decided were troublesome, or doing paperwork. Kakashi usually let it slide because it was good practice in case of enemy capture and also because he thought it was funny.

Shikamaru’s chakra twitched in a subtly unseen signal and Kakashi sat back in his chair with a slightly exaggerated eye roll he was sure Aizawa took as the gesture of a teenager irritated with having to take care of a younger child.

Apparently Shikamaru wanted to be treated like a kid, at least functionally. That was…fine, for now. Kakashi understood being underestimated, of course, but he wasn’t sure what strategic value it would have in this situation. The “heroes” as they called themselves—something Kakashi found endlessly hilarious, and more than a little absurd— had already seen enough of the shinobi’s skills to be appropriately wary and yet here they were in an un-trapped, un-surveillanced living space with a total of one guard, who despite seeming to be an admittedly adept fighter for someone who apparently lacked chakra (though Kakashi had his own untested theories about that), seemed more likely to feed them candy and pat them on the head than try to take them out, if it came to that. Also, Shikamaru was letting the man think he was 3 years older than actuality, for some reason, so the whole acting incapable thing was a little baffling.

Maybe…was it a strategic choice, or a sentimental one? Kakashi would usually assume strategic, of course, it was Shikamaru, and they didn’t put just anyone in Anbu, but— hadn’t Aizawa had seemed a little similar to Shikaku in demeanour, at least compared with Kakashi’s limited interactions with him? It wasn’t unfathomable to think Shikamaru might try to seek comfort in something that seemed familiar to him, especially in such an unfamiliar situation. It wasn’t as if Kakashi had a leg to stand on, when it came to healthy coping mechanisms. Still, he would talk to Shikamaru about it, remind his kouhai about the dangers involved in getting attached. Just…not right now, Kakashi decided, watching a little stiffly as the dark-haired man gathered Shikamaru’s floppy form in his arm, a weird tightness gathering behind his ribs.

Kakashi hobbled gracelessly after them on his crutches, trying not to rub at the strange feeling in his chest. He stood in the doorway awkwardly as Aizawa lay Shikamaru’s sleeping form onto one of the futons rolled out on the floor of the small room. The boy looked very small and very young all of a sudden, and it was Kakashi’s fault that he was here and Kakashi’s fault that there was blood on his tiny hands—but he was probably going to end up getting him killed anyways so who cared, right?

Aizawa shifted to catch Kakashi’s eye, and while he half-expected loathing on the man’s face there was nothing but weariness and a careful kind of softness. Of course. He didn’t know what Kakashi was yet. No doubt he’d find out, if they intended to stay long enough to figure out a way home.

“You’ll have to sleep in those clothes,” Aizawa said, gruffly apologetic. “I don’t have anything that would fit either of you.”

Kakashi shrugged. He’d gotten the blood out okay when they’d let him shower at the school, and he and Shikamaru had shed their flak jackets before the meal. His undershirt and armour was soft, made to wear for long periods of time and sleep in while on missions. The same went for his pants and shin wrappings, though right now they only extended down one leg. The medic had cut his pant leg above the thigh to get to his leg, which he was actually more than a little peeved about. That was his only pair of pants.

“We’ll go shopping tomorrow,” Aizawa continued like he’d known what Kakashi was thinking. He did not sound any more enthusiastic about the idea than Kakashi felt. “Get you guys some more clothes, and stuff.”

“Ah,” Kakashi said, when it was clear the man had no intention of leaving before he acknowledged him. “That’s—there’s really no need—“

Aizawa levelled him with a look, eyebrows raised. Kakashi’s jaw clicked shut. He tried very hard not to look as off-kilter as he felt.

Aizawa sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes, before gesturing at Kakashi’s get-up with a hand. “That’s clearly some sort of…uniform,” he said, continuing before Kakashi got a chance to open his mouth. “I’m not going to ask, yet, because I honestly don’t think I want to know, but it’s not exactly conspicuous, and—well, kids aren’t soldiers here. They don’t carry weapons without a license, and they don’t fight villains, and they are not soldiers. So, we’re going to get you some clothes, and food, and whatever else you want that isn’t used to kill and/or maim people, because it’s coming out of Nedzu’s pocket and he’s the reason you’re stuck with me. Got it?”

Kakashi nodded slowly and did not inform the man that the ‘child’ he was referring to was the type of monster who could turn anything in his hands into a weapon capable of killing someone— who was a weapon himself, because in this world he was still a kid for the singular fact that he was under the age of majority and he honestly did not know what to do with that.

Kakashi cleared his throat and was proud when his voice came out steady. “How do I get a license?”

Aizawa stared at him for a long moment. Kakashi gave him his best impression of innocent curiosity. It was modelled after Itachi Uchiha, of all people, because despite being a mass-murdering kin killer and S-ranked missing nin, he was still the cutest person Kakashi had ever met. Aizawa, unfortunately, seemed to see through his clever ruse, rolling his eyes skywards and exhaling forcefully through his nose in irritation. “Goodnight, kid,” he gritted out. The man made to leave before pausing at the doorway. “And…thank you.” A cough. “For saving my life, before.”

And then he’s gone very suddenly and Kakashi is left standing there, mouth agape like a fish. There was a long moment where Kakashi wondered at how the fuck a normal person would be expected to react to that, before abruptly remembering that thought experiments like that are a lost cause on account of him being himself. Usually, when Kakashi is thanked by civilians he makes a hasty exit out the nearest window. He’s thankful that Aizawa has spared him from that, at least.

Kakashi lowered himself onto the other futon, leg screaming at him in protest. It’s times like this that he regret refusing to learn even a little bit of medical jutsu. His ongoing philosophy was that if he was injured during a mission the team iryo-nin could fix him, and if Sandaime forbid something ever happened to them, well, then Kakashi didn’t exactly deserve fixing, did he?

At one point Shikamaru had apparently decided to stop playing possum, because when Kakashi glanced his way there was a single dark eye watching him from where the boy was slightly smushed against the futon, radiating amusement.

“Shut up,” Kakashi told him. And then, “You can set the traps.”

It wasn’t like either of them were sleeping tonight. Shikamaru might get a wink or two, but Kakashi was much too keyed up from everything that had happened to pretend that sleep would bring anything but nightmares.

Shikamaru huffed dramatically—the little shit— but got to his feet with minimal grumbling. Kakashi sat back on the futon and dearly wished for his beloved copy of Icha-Icha. He’d left it in his pack, which had disappeared somewhere between blindly throwing the rest of his team out of the path of a glowing, unfamiliar seal and falling out of the sky in the middle of the strangest battlefield he’d ever seen with Shikamaru clinging to his side.

While Shikamaru rigged shuriken to fly at anyone who opened the window, Kakashi allowed himself approximately 30 seconds to curse himself out along with every decision he’d ever made and a few he hadn’t yet, contemplate crushing the cyanide pill stored in a tiny seal in his back molar and generally despair at what his gods-forsaken life had come to.

“Are you done?”

Kakashi inhaled, sat up, and did not think about setting Shikamaru on fire because that would be rude and also he’d already tried to kill him once today. “So mean to your taichou,” he said instead, before making Shikamaru go find him something to write on. He might as well start trying to figure out the seal that sent them across worlds now, while the memory was relatively fresh. It was going to be a long night.