Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Kabuto, how old are you now?”

It wasn’t the first thing Kabuto had expected to hear from Lord Orochimaru’s mouth after he had made the effort to meet them in person, but it was hardly the strangest way they had started their meetings. While he had expected that they would discuss their plans after they had left Akatsuki, he was willing to see where this particular line of questioning was going.

“...Eighteen.”

“And graying already!” Orochimaru laughed. Kabuto waited. “Ah, you’re no fun anymore. Eighteen, you say…that’s too old for the Ninja Academy, is it not?”

“...Even according to my official record, I graduated from the Academy eight years ago. But as you know, I was already a shinobi nine years ago.”

“My, but time flies,” Orochimaru said, leaning back against a tree. “It feels like just yesterday I stole you away from Danzō.”

“Quite.” Nonō, dead before he could heal her. His shaky reflection in the water as he washed his hands of her blood; shattering as Orochimaru emerged from the center of it to offer the true culprit. Yes, Kabuto remembered . He adjusted his glasses and exhaled. “I believe the current Academy graduation age has been set to twelve. There were talks about allowing exceptions, but with the Uchiha … situation, such discussions have cooled.”

“I see,” Orochimaru hummed. “Twelve, really? That’s practically chūnin age, is it not?”

“According to my information, it’s now the fairly standard genin graduation age across the major villages.”

“Fascinating. Well, as much as I’d love for you to pull out your little cards to prove your point with numbers, and I do like to support you in your little creative endeavors--” Kabuto suppressed his twitch, but Orochimaru smirked like they still saw it. “But we do have some pressing topics of conversation. Given the Uchiha situation, as you have brought up.”

“I had assumed as much, ser.”

“Well, there’s a little Uchiha remaining, right? Itachi’s younger brother?”

“Yes, I believe he’s seven or eight now. Goes by the name Sasuke.” Kabuto hadn’t created a card for the boy, not willing to expend that much energy, but some things were simply common knowledge in Konoha these days.

“My efforts to claim Itachi’s body did not go as planned, which is what led to my parting ways with Akatsuki, as you might recall.” Sometimes, Kabuto wondered if Orochimaru had to practice to find the most disturbing way of phrasing things, or if it just came naturally. In the face of his silence, they continued. “And well, I’ve of course moved on to other ventures.”

“Yes, you have been focused on recruiting and developing the ranks of Oto.” Kabuto knew that to be the case, because the last time he had been summoned out of his spying, it had been to heal the arms of a boy after Orochimaru' had shoved tubes into them for some unexplained reason. The kid hadn’t even looked his way the whole time, ungrateful brat.

“I…yes, actually,” Orochimaru looked at him. “You keep well informed of Sound’s happenings, despite your distance.”

“...You send your paperwork to me through the snakes, ser.”

“I do, don’t I.” Orochimaru hummed. “Well, I don’t have time for that sort of thing. I don’t have nearly enough time for everything I want to do, Kabuto. But I think I know how to fix that!”

Was this meeting, for which Kabuto had spent most all his accumulated PTO just getting here, going to be about the perfect vessel thing again?

“That… Sasuke boy, he’s still in the Academy. And—you’re quite certain that you’re too old to pass as an Academy student?”

“If it weren’t for my genin rank, I would be better suited to pass as a teacher,” Kabuto raised a brow.

“That settles it then.  It might as well be you, given your identity is old enough to pass without suspicion…I need someone to be influencing Sasuke; shaping him to want to seek me out of his own will once he’s older and has the proper body.”

Sage wept. Phrasing. Kabuto revised his earlier opinion, no longer sure if it would be better or worse for Lord Orochimaru to have planned to say it in such a way.

“...How do you mean?” he managed.

“Well, if you’re too old to be a student, you’ll just need to adopt one of Sasuke’s classmates. He’s probably lonely after his clan died, and wants connection. If you build that connection to you through them, when you leave, he will follow, so as not to be alone once more. Especially given what I can offer, compared to the village.”

Even by Orochimaru’s standards, this plan had apparently skipped several steps before reaching Kabuto’s ears. 

“I need to do what?” Kabuto was proud of his ability to keep his true emotions from entering his voice. It was a skill that had served him well after almost a decade in espionage, and one he was relying heavily on currently. But genuinely— what ?

“Surely there’s some orphan or two in his class. Find one; take care of them; adopt them. Blend in as a concerned parent. Encourage your new child to befriend the Uchiha boy, who must be lonely.” Orochimaru waved a hand dismissively. “Something like that. Once you’ve got them friends with him, work on getting him close to you, and maybe establish myself as a powerful force he might align himself with. After a few years, he’ll be a genin, and once he’s tired of that village’s walls, he’ll know where to go.”

Kabuto seized the most obvious obstacle like a lifeline. “Well, Konoha only allows married couples to adopt, so I am not sure such a plan will work…”

Such hopes died quickly at Orochimaru’s immediate dismissal. “What’s so hard about getting married? It only takes a few minutes.”

“...Well, who am I expected to marry?”

Orochimaru looked him up and down and raised a judgmental brow. “A man, I would assume.”

“...I see,” Resigned, Kabuto accepted his fate in this latest of convoluted schemes. Always the pawn, and never the mastermind. “I understand, ser. I will find a suitable child, … get married, all so that I can establish myself as a parent and lay some groundwork for Sasuke to defect to you willingly.”

“Naturally,” Orochimaru nodded, beginning to look bored once Kabuto began bringing up logistics.

“What happens to the adopted child after the plan is complete?”

“What does that matter?” Orochimaru eyed him, and then continued. “Either they leave with you, or you leave them back at the orphanage. No worse for wear.”

“...Understood. I will commence the affair upon my return to the village.”

“Yes, yes." Orochimaru waved a careless hand. "Dismissed.”

Kabuto began running back to Konoha. Hopefully, he’d make it far enough that the distance would muffle his scream of disbelief when he could no longer repress it.

Chapter Text

From the information Kabuto had managed to sneak from an aspiring Orochimaru defector at the Academy, Uchiha Sasuke was a loner, who ignored the friendly overtures made by his classmates, particularly from the Yamanaka heiress and her pink-haired friend. There was, however, only one other orphan in his class.

Somehow, despite the majority of the village’s forces being filled by orphans, this particular class had but two. And that other orphan was the jinchūriki for the nine-tails. Because of course he was, given Kabuto’s luck.

Of course his best option would have that level of scrutiny and surveillance on him at all times. Kabuto carefully shoved his frustration down. Lord Orochimaru needed this done, and Kabuto had not failed a mission yet.

He wondered if he’d be able to get away with killing the parents of one of the civilian girls in his class, and work his way in from there. For all intents and purposes, he was just a friendly, trustworthy medic, after all.

Of course the little girl would turn to him in a panic; “Doctor, please, I saw a snake bite my parents and they’re not moving!”

And he could calm her down, and make sure they were properly dead under guise of healing them, and then he could encourage the natural clinginess resulting from such an event to demonstrate the need for him to adopt her. And then he’d have a kid in the same class as Sasuke and reason to be an overly active parent.

But apparently Sasuke was rejecting all the girls’ attention, so it seemed that plan was dead before it started. How fortunate for the Haruno family that their daughter was so iced out by the last of the Leaf’s Uchiha.

Jinchūriki it was, then. And there was the boy now, blond and loud and screeching as he took off down a crowded street with two Anbu in hot pursuit above.

“Hm,” said Kabuto. 

According to his notes, the boy liked to end his misadventures with a bowl of ramen at Ichiraku’s. He was currently running south, but the ramen shop was east of their current location, and he was unlikely to divert himself too far from his final location. If Kabuto went southeast now, he might be able to intersect with his path directly.

He began walking at a normal, unsuspicious pace. Some turns, and several blocks later, a sticky eight-year-old blond crashed into him head-on. Uzumaki Naruto, the container of the nine-tailed, was sprawled in a heap on the ground before him. 

“Hey, watch it, Mister! Some of us have places to be!” the jinchūriki rubbed at his face as he bounced back up, only smearing the dirt on it in a different pattern across his  telltale whiskers. “Yeesh, I gotta get out of here.”

“How about I help you hide from whoever’s chasing you, to make up for being in your way?” Kabuto remembered to shift his smirk into a smile, though even that felt lacking in the wake of the blinding grin the boy gave him.

“That'd be great! Wow, mister, I thought you’d be all lame like the others, ‘cause you got that old people hair, but you seem like a real great guy.”

“...Sure. Just follow me,” Kabuto managed, smiling, and the boy grinned impossibly wider in response.

“Yeowch! Why do you gotta rub so hard?” 

“I’m getting the dirt off. I said that I would buy you a bowl of ramen to make up for getting in your way earlier, but no one will let you in if you bring filth with you.”

“Eh? Old man Ichiraku doesn’t mind!” The contrast of the boy’s clean left cheek to his right was made even more ridiculous by the artificial lighting of the shop’s bathroom. 

“I’m certain he’ll be even happier to see what you look like clean,” muttered Kabuto. He’d pulled them into the first store he’d known to have a public bathroom, but there was only so much he could do with the cheap paper towels they used here. Still, he managed to at least get a decent look at the boy’s face, though he imagined the red was from irritation rather than his natural color.

He sensed a presence observing them, muted though it was. That would be the jinchūriki’s Anbu, as he had planned. Ideally, this show of care from him would  lay something of a groundwork for the Hokage to trust him with the care of the jinchūriki.

“Alright, that’s good enough for now. Let’s go to…Ichiraku’s, was it?”

“Yes, yes, yes!! Ah, mister, you’re really the best! I’m sorry I said you had wrinkles and hair like an old man and probably only needed glasses because your eyes were so old they forgot how to see and—”

“You only said the part about my hair,” Kabuto said drily. 

The boy laughed sheepishly. “Wha…really?”

“Let’s … just get moving.” He was eighteen. He was not old, though he was older than he had expected himself to get. He did not have wrinkles. If he had bags under his eyes it was from having to spend his nights figuring out how to make Lord Orochimaru’s ridiculous plan work —

“I’ll race you! Loser has to pay!”

“I was already going to—”

“Exactly!” Naruto grinned at him again and took off running, laughing as he did. Despite himself, a genuine sense of amusement began to tick at the corner of Kabuto’s mouth.

Kabuto made to follow, but a gloved hand closed the door before he could and another shoved him against the door.

Anbu, and the infamous Hound, no less, from the design of the mask. Kabuto resisted the instinctual panic at what had clearly been the last sight of many a spy. Instead, he allowed an expression of fear and respect shift his face slightly, to look as nervous as any upstanding Konoha nin might be at the sight of one of their black ops members.

“What are your intentions with Naruto?” The filter on the mask made the low voice sound inhuman.

“Well, I intend to buy him a meal.” Kabuto said snidely. Let Hound’s report describe him as an upstanding, if somewhat prideful, Konoha shinobi, too full of Will of Fire despite his low rank. It could only help him to be defensive of the jinchūriki here.

“Will you poison the meal? Will you do anything to harm him during this meal?” Looking at the mask, Kabuto felt compelled to answer. If this was a genjutsu, it was one too strong for even him to break. Indeed, he felt incapable of even looking away.

“No, of course not.” The urge to be fully honest gnawed at him relentlessly, enough that he sated it by shifting the damning truths to more vague observations. “A boy like him is hard not to care for, but instead, he seems neglected. I don’t think he has cleaned properly in weeks, at least, and he doesn’t seem to know how . He has told me how he loves this particular ramen shop, and I decided to buy him a bowl.”

“Neglected..?” asked Hound, sounding a little lost even through that uncanny filter.

“He’s covered in dirt; he’s got no adult taking care of him. He doesn’t even know the basic food groups!” Kabuto shifted to his more clinical notes on the boy. “Apparently, he doesn’t eat any vegetables unless they’re in ramen. From a medical perspective, I’m frankly concerned about his sodium intake. But I suppose the first priority is that he is fed at all.”

“You’re a doctor?" Hound paused, and then spoke again, now with some recognition. "Ah, medic nin… Yakushi Kabuto. Your adoptive mother was a captain in the medical forces. You remain a genin despite efforts to advance.”

“Have my file memorized, do you?” He replied snidely, brow raised. A pause. “Yes, that’s me. Now then. I’ve got a hungry kid to catch up with.”

The agent released him, and allowed him to open the door. With a few body-flickers, Kabuto was able to make the race close enough for Naruto to feel as though he’d earned the free meal.

The ramen was…hot. He wasn’t much for broth, but this was aromatic enough that it was no trouble to sip it, and just let the pure noise of Naruto’s talking wash over him.

“He’s just eating a hot meal with the kid, Hound. What’s it matter?”

“Why is he doing it, though? Did you complete the background check I asked for, Panther?”

“Yeah, yeah. Bit of a rush job, but he’s clean. Adopted son of a medic corps captain, uhh.. Yakushi Nonō. He works in the hospital and keeps failing the Chūnin Exams, though that might be attributed to him being in the Medical Corps and not having a standard team.”

“I remember that much.” With the death of the Uchiha (and, more pressingly, their Sharingan), it had become Hound’s duty to memorize the cover sheet of every personnel file to better spot spies if something changed year to year. “Was he adopted…within the village? Or was he an outsider?”

“You concerned he’s a sleeper? It doesn’t look like it. Apparently, he came from the orphanage that Captain Yakushi used to work at, though I didn’t have time to piece how she decided to take home that one. He’s doing a lot of complicated surgeries at the hospital despite being a genin, but with how understaffed it is, I’m not sure if that’s due to any skill of his. He probably got trained by his mother, though, so can’t be too shabby.”

“I’ve never met Captain Yakushi, and I don’t recall her name on the logs. Can we confirm with her that he’s her son?”

“Well, she’s been missing for six years now, and is listed as KIA for the past five. The ink’s old on the adoption papers, though. I believe this Kabuto guy is who he says he is. Honestly, Hound, why does it bother you that the jinchūriki gets a hot meal? Don’t tell me you blame him for…” Panther trailed off at the sudden gleam of red through Hound’s mask. It faded, and she exhaled.

“Of course not. No." Hound bit out. After a pause, he continued, sounding more openly confused than she was used to from him, "But why Kabuto? Why has he been the one to show Naruto this kindness? Why this particular man, and why did he pick him to care for?”

“Well, he’s a medic, Captain. Caring sort of comes with the territory.”

They watched the meal in silence. The medic-nin confided in Naruto that he, too, had been an orphan once, but had found a home eventually. From their angle, it was hard to see his eyes behind the light shining off his glasses, but his smile made his face appear rather charming. Hound clicked his tongue derisively.

“Oi, what’s your problem? It does get better.”

“There’s no such thing as a home that lasts.”

A beat.

“Sage wept, Hound, that’s the saddest thing I’ve heard in a while.” Panther fully turned to face him, mask to mask. “You know, I’ll say it. You’ve been doing black ops for too long and now you’re losing track of normal human interests.”

Hound scoffed.

”I’m serious. You’ve got to get someone on the outside whose looking after you. You got a girlfriend? Boyfriend?”

“Where would I find time for something like that?” Hound huffed, after another uncharacteristic pause.

“I manage, but then, I’m also not spending my off-duty hours monitoring a kid I’ve never spoken to.”

“Leave then.” Hound growled, before noticing how he had begun to curl into himself defensively. He carefully unclenched his fists, and looked away from Panther.

“I’m on duty! Why don’t you leave?”

“...”

“I hear you, man.” Panther slouched back. “Listen to me, though. You have to stop bringing your personal shit into the job like this.”

“Are you trying to give me orders, Panther?”

“Just some advice, big man. You’ve still got people you care about on the outside. You should have them in your life on the outside, or else there’ll be nothing of you left.”

“There is no one left. There’s nothing left of me, either.”

Panther tilted her head towards the scene in front of them, as the young medic carefully counted out money for the bill. Hound grew somehow more tense before he exhaled in a hiss. 

A single dark eye stared at Panther from behind the mask. “A date, you said?”

“Go get ‘em, Hound,” Panther quietly cheered, before pausing. “Say, Captain, how long has it been since you’ve been on a date? I’m not talking hookups, here, either. When have you last tried to connect with someone at a purely personal level like that?”

Never. “A while.”

“How long have you been in ANBU, Captain?”

“...A while.” Hound was losing whatever patience he’d managed to scrape together, but Panther soldiered on. It would probably be a violation of her duties to the Will of Fire to set Hound loose on the dating pool without reminding him …

“Just, remember to watch your strength if you do end up meeting someone."

Hound nodded, and watched until the marks left the restaurant. He paused once the medic split off from the blond, deliberated, and ultimately followed the boy home instead of the man who’d done nothing but show him care.

He spent the night in the tree outside Naruto’s unit, though, just in case. It was nice to have someone he still cared about, even if it was a nightmare on his back. 

Once the boy had gone to bed, and the street fell into an easy silence, Hound was left with little to do but consider Panther’s advice.

It would be nice to be part of Naruto’s life, he thought, finally. But aren’t my hands too bloody for that?

At least it seemed that someone wanted to take care of Naruto, now. Hound wasn’t sure how to label the feeling this thought conjured up in his chest.

Chapter Text

“How are you already dirty again?” Kabuto said, almost impressed that Naruto had managed to get himself so covered in the twelve hours it had been. For the first time in ages, he recalled his childhood, those scant years of it he’d managed for himself. Urushi, always so cheerful, stumbling about; Kabuto gently cleaning his wounds, only for Urushi to get more dirt in them before they’d manage to reach Nonō’s healing hands.

Kabuto pulled his hand back from where it had begun to clean the boy’s cheek, startled at the memory the action had stirred in him. Naruto tilted his head as though to follow the motion before he stopped. Something flickered across those blue eyes, and then he grinned. “Heh, for a second, it was like…”

Naruto trailed off and crossed his arms across his chest. It was hard to see his eyes, so Kabuto crouched down to look at him directly. Bloodshot eyes, tight skin where his cheeks should have boyishly full. The part of Kabuto that had rejoiced in finally getting medical textbooks cataloged each sign of neglect for what it was.

It could only help speed his official approval to become a caretaker if the neglect was so visible upon him, but even so…“Let’s get you cleaned up, Naruto.” 

It just wasn’t hygienic, Kabuto thought, watching the boy’s beaming smile opened up his whole face, like a daisy in the sun. It was for the best. He glanced around, and finally sensed the presence of at least one shinobi watching them from afar. Likely one of the Anbu.

“Yeah, let’s go!” Naruto grabbed Kabuto’s hand and nearly yanked his arm out of his socket. “I’ll show you my apartment and everything!”

“You did mention that…so you haven’t been in the orphanage at all?”

“I got my own spot! I pay my rent, believe it!” 

Kabuto wished they weren’t moving so he could actually take notes. “Where do you get the money for rent? Food?”

“Oh, Gramps give me some every month!”

Kabuto paused. “Now, when you say ‘Gramps’, you refer to…?”

There had been no living family in the boy’s file, after all.

“The old guy, you know him. He gives me the money and sometimes even takes me for ramen!”

Kabuto pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright. So an old man gives you money. We can come back to that later. Your apartment is not itself fully subsidized; you are paying rent each month despite being eight years old?”

“I’m real grown up that way!” Naruto announced, beaming up at him with his hands exchanged in a peace sign, and once again, Kabuto found himself thinking of Urushi, who he’d not seen in nearly a decade now.

“I see,” murmured Kabuto, feeling tired for reasons he could not name. He pushed up his glasses and refocused.  They had reached the address listed on Naruto’s file, but the danchi seemed too drab; too gray to have been Naruto’s home.

If there had once been a lock for the outside door, it had since broken. Kabuto followed Naruto inside the entrance to the building, noting the thick smell of tobacco and the yellowed paint on the walls. 

“Second floor, second floor!” Naruto urged him, pulling at his hand. Kabuto did not speed up. Instead, he watched amused as Naruto turned every few steps to check that he was still following.

It was an interesting departure from Lord Orochimaru, who assumed Kabuto would follow them anywhere. The corner of Kabuto’s mouth ticked upward.

“We’re here!” Naruto cheered, shoving a key haphazardly into the lock to reveal a mostly tidy apartment. However, as the scent of mildew hit Kabuto, he resigned himself to a deep clean that morning.

“Isn’t my place nice?” Naruto said. “I cleaned it up just in case you wanted to see, believe it!”

Kabuto suddenly had a vivid image of the blond boy combining house chemicals in the toilet, and had to restrain his immediate impulse to scan him for exposure to chlorine gas.

Realizing the boy was waiting for a response, he offered a smile. “It is nice, Naruto. What groceries do you have? I’ll make breakfast, if you rinse off.”

“I don’t like the bath, though! It only gets a little warm!” 

“Do you not have hot water?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“...Let me take a look.” Had his hot water been turned off? There were no letters from the public utility on his counter, but who knew if Naruto even realized to check his mail…

Kabuto followed him to the bathroom, and turned the tap for hot water. Cold, indeed. But Kabuto had learned, in all those hours doing clinical work for the medic corps, how to get kids’ attention.

More obviously than he needed for such a simple technique, he began to form hand seals. He hid his smirk at the obvious inhale from behind his shoulder.

“Ahh, Kabuto, you’re gonna do a ninja technique?” Naruto whispered, at a volume that from anyone else would suggest yelling.

Instead of answering, Kabuto controlled the water flowing through the drain until he found the issue. “Your hot water is working, but your pipes are clogged.” He twitched his hand, and corrected himself. “ Were clogged. The pressure issue just made it feel barely warm.”

“Uh-huh,” said Naruto, staring at his hands in awe, not having listened to a single word.

“Enjoy your shower, Naruto,” Kabuto said, simply, and exited towards the kitchen.

He paused. No vegetables, but if he was such a ramen fan, surely he had…? Perfect. He grabbed the eggs and a bowl. Paused, and washed the bowl before breaking the eggs.

“Is there anything not instant in here?” he sighed. Some sugar packets from a cafe? He wasn’t going to question it at this point. He grabbed them and mixed into the eggs. Soy sauce, also in packet form. Sure.

It had been Nonō who taught him to make tamagoyaki; or rather, it had been his insistence on helping her in the orphanage’s kitchen that had left him with the knowledge. He had been something of a sticky child, eager to please, which had gotten him into the current situation with his Lord —

Carefully he stopped beating the eggs before he shattered the bowl.

By the time Naruto emerged, pink cheeked and damp in his previous clothes, Kabuto had just finished plating the breakfast.

“Huh? What’s this?” Naruto asked, eyeing it skeptically. 

“It’s a kind of egg dish,” Kabuto answered.

“Why’s it all yellow then?”

“...It’s an egg dish,” Kabuto repeated, blandly. Seeing the mulish set of Naruto’s mouth, he explained, “When you mix the egg up, it all becomes the yolk color, and in dishes like this, the yellow stays even when it’s cooked. It won’t make you sick.”

“...If you say so,” Naruto allowed, and Kabuto tried not to twitch at the display of trust as he  dutifully began trying to eat it. His efforts to lift the larger slices were somewhat foiled by the haphazard way he held his chopsticks, the backs crossing each other.

When Naruto, apparently defeated, lifted the plate and began to tilt it towards his mouth, as though about to eat it in one bite, Kabuto’s restraint snapped. On pure instinct, he pushed Naruto’s hands back to the table, and with a strained smile, he cut the tamagoyaki into more manageable bites. 

He returned the plate to a suddenly quiet Naruto and cleared his throat. “Say, Naruto, the way you’re holding your chopsticks makes it harder to pick things up off a plate. Do you see how I’m holding them? Can you make your hand look like mine?”

Naruto clumsily shifted his grip to the proper form, and somehow, from somewhere, found another beaming grin to direct at him when he succeeded in lifting a piece to his mouth. Kabuto had only seen so many directed his way before when he had been practicing his own disarming, genial smile in the mirror. He wondered if Naruto had practiced his, too; had clenched his cheeks in such a way to crinkle the whiskers that differentiated him from the other children, or if it was just a genuine coincidence his too-wide smile drew all attention away from the rest of his face.

“Hey, this isn’t bad!” The surprise in Naruto’s voice bordered on rude, but Kabuto was too relieved that the boy was at least willing to try unfamiliar dishes to bother even feigning offense. Mission or no, Kabuto would not eat ramen more than once a week. “It’s no ramen, though.”

…No more than twice a week, he revised.

“Naruto, you said you’re living on your own. Has anyone taught you to cook before?” By all indications, it was unlikely Naruto had been taught much of anything.

“Nuh-uh, I just follow the pictures!” Naruto said. The ones on the cup ramen? Could the boy even read? Kabuto wondered, not for the first time.

“I see,” Kabuto said. “...Naruto, I have to confess something. I’m a little concerned that no one is taking care of you.”

A raised brow quelled the protest on the boy’s face. “No matter how well you’re managing on your own, you’re still a young boy, and should be focused on your childhood and education instead of all these adult things like rent and meals.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not sure how the logistics of it would work,” Kabuto lied, easy as anything, “and I haven’t known you very long, but I’d like to … well, I suppose adopt you, is the term for it.”

Naruto’s eyes were very blue, in the moments before he looked away. “You don’t want to do that. You’re lying! You’re going to get tired of me and send me away!”

“Am I?” Kabuto said, mildly. “I don’t think so. You seem like a child who deserves a caretaker, and I seem to be the only one who notices.”

Naruto deflated before his tantrum could get started. Without all the bluster, he looked even younger. “No one else has said anything about nutrish…nutrition before, an’ it’s just! I don’t even know all the stuff about how things are supposed to be, and it just seems like stuff keeps getting broken but I don’t know it’s not right. But you came in and,” he moved through what seemed to be impressions of the hand seals Kabuto had used, though his position there, too, was off, “Boom! you got my water all fixed, like that…do you really want to spend your time on me?”

Want had little to do with it, given his orders, but it was hardly one of the more challenging assignments he’d taken.

“Of course,” Kabuto said. “I’ll need to sort things out, but I think I can afford a larger apartment for the both of us. Once you’re done eating, I’ll go to the Hokage Tower and find someone who knows the next steps.”

“We’ll go!” said Naruto, excited.

“Eh, but that’s not fair! Kabuto said he wants to take care of me! Why can’t he adopt me?” Though still smiling, Naruto’s face was red and wet with frustrated tears.

“Listen, kid, it’s just the rules. For an adoption to go through, either surviving parents must disclaim their rights or the child is orphaned and not a member of one of the treaty clans,” the desk-nin explained, visibly bored of them.

“Naruto is eligible for adoption then,” said Kabuto, feigning ignorance to the barrier here.

“Yeah, but look at the form, glasses. See where it includes another box for the second adopting parent? You got a,” she glanced at him, as though to confirm a suspicion, “husband hiding around who can sign his section?”

“Maa, it’s a bit of a secret,” said an unfamiliar voice with a chuckle, as a heavy arm draped across Kabuto’s shoulder. On pure instinct, he jabbed at the waist of the presumptuous speaker, only to be met with the solid armor of a jōnin vest.

Kabuto looked up to see the mostly-concealed face of a man he had only read the description of. He recognized him nonetheless. 

Kakashi of the Sharingan.

Chapter Text

“Before my little husband and I finish filling this out, can I speak with him for a little bit?” the man winked (or was it a blink?) at the desk nin. 

Kabuto attempted to reorient himself, but the insistent tugging at his arm was beyond him to resist without lending chakra assistance to his strength.

Hatake Kakashi was a man he’d heard much about, though ever since the death of his sensei, the Fourth Hokage, he had gone under the radar, with only the occasional A-rank mission on his file.  Given he was the last surviving student of Namikaze, and given that the Third Hokage’s students were otherwise indisposed, he was likely being kept in the village to be groomed as a successor. Hiruzen’s more promising son had died, leaving behind an infant child much too young to inherit, and his second son worked within the Fire Daimyō’s guard. Hatake seemed to have stumbled into the line of succession by process of elimination, but he was in line nonetheless.

So why was he …? Kabuto glanced back at the distinctly blond hair of Naruto, and some pieces fell into place. Nothing in Naruto’s file, even in the redacted areas, indicated his parents were known. But his family name was Uzumaki, the same as the previous jinchūriki, who he faintly recalled spending time with the Fourth Hokage…The secrecy and blanks in Naruto’s file would make more sense if ….

Was Naruto the Fourth Hokage’s son, and so was Hatake attempting to assist Kabuto in caring for him out of loyalty? Or was he merely seeing Namikaze’s ghost in Naruto’s bright hair and eyes?

As a wielder of the Sharingan, even without the genes for it, it was not impossible for Hatake to have the same grief-based psychosis that had affected so many of the elder Uchiha. Once their vision began declining, they tended to live purely in their memory of how things were. Almost entirely blind to their surroundings, they had seen only the ghosts of the past overlaid on the present.

For some, it had presented like dementia. Kabuto had wondered, in those grim hours of autopsy after their massacre, what those elders might have seen instead of Itachi. Now, he wondered what Hatake saw when he looked at Naruto.

“Let’s talk privately, husband!” Hatake reminded. Despite the saccharine affectation of his voice, his grip was solid, and his dark gray eye offered no leeway.

The room he pulled them to was clearly intended for mission debriefing, though a desk chūnin seemed to be taking a break. A glance from Hatake, and the man scattered out the room.

In the abrupt emptiness of the room, their position seemed absurdly intimate. Hatake now towered behind him, still holding Kabuto’s right hand in his own, like a mockery of a dance.

For a time, Hatake just tilted his head down and watched Kabuto, before he scrunched his eye in a smile. “You’re not going to ask anything? Curious.”

“I confess, I’m not sure where to even start,” Kabuto managed. “I’ve heard of you, Hatake Kakashi, but we’ve not met. And now you’ve called me husband to a bureaucrat.”

Kakashi hummed. In their proximity, Kabuto could feel the vibration of the noise against his shoulder. “I’m a well known guy, sensei.”

So, Hatake knew that Kabuto was a doctor. Hound, too, had been able to recognize Kabuto and his official position. It discomfited Kabuto to realize he was a known quantity by multiple members of Konoha’s elite. He hadn’t noticed there being so many eyes on him, but he supposed he must accept it as the cost of adopting a jinchūriki.

Damn the Uchiha for ignoring the girls. Their orphaning and subsequent adoption would have been much easier to arrange…

“Do you think it’s okay to leave Naruto alone like that?” Kabuto asked, stalling. He half-expected they would return to see the boy chewing on a chair leg. 

Kakashi shrugged. “We should make this quick, then.”

“….Fine. Why did you tell the desk that we are married?” It would make things easier if that were the case, certainly, but this step of his mission was proving easy to the point of suspicion. 

“Ah, call it a personal interest in the kid. You’re planning to treat him right? Take good care of him?” Despite his casual slouching, Kabuto could feel the full weight of his attention.

“Yes,” Kabuto said. That much wasn’t a lie. It would do more harm to his mission than good to treat the kid. 

“And there’s no boyfriend in your life, then?” One would think Kabuto had a sign around his neck the way people assumed his preferences.

“No,” he gritted out. “Personal interest or no, I do have to wonder why you would confess some intentions to a stranger, particularly as I was filling out paperwork.”

“You wouldn’t be approved,” Kakashi said bluntly. He scratched at his masked chin. The motion of it served to make Kabuto more aware of their closeness, and his internal alarms shrieked danger. He itched to move back, but he couldn’t afford to cede ground, either. 

Kakashi continued speaking. “You know what that boy is. You’re old enough to know the mandate. But you’re too low-ranking to be able to care for him, even without getting into being unmarried. I’m strong enough, and…certain people have suggested I start developing more of a home life.”

The last of this was said uncharacteristically fast, almost under his breath. 

From what Kabuto knew, Kakashi had been a shinobi as long as he had been alive. From that context, Kabuto studied Kakashi’s mostly-covered face and considered his meaning, as the man finally looked away over his shoulder.

For whatever reason, he wanted Kabuto to be able to adopt Naruto. He was portraying himself as the best option to get that done, referencing the boy’s status as the Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki. He was emphasizing both his ranking and his strength, which might indicate either his suspicion on Kabuto, or the increased threat associated with caring for the boy. He, bizarrely, mentioned needing a home life, despite being a known recluse.

Kabuto would need to flesh out his ninfo card on Kakashi, it seemed.

Realizing he had been silent too long, Kabuto adjusted his glasses before replying. “I see. I think it would be detrimental for Naruto to be on his own longer, but I’m limited in what I can do for him without legal status.”

Kakashi interrupted. “You agree then? We’ll get married, you take care of Naruto, and my friends get off my back about meeting someone.” 

Ah, there it was. Kakashi likely needed a family to be taken seriously as a political actor rather than a soldier. Kabuto exhaled, glad at least that was sorted. “Fine. I guess we’ll go to the courthouse and then return to complete these forms together. We will likely need a marriage license as proof of our relationship, given our lack of shared address. Or history.”

“Oh, marriage certificate? Like this?” Kakashi held out a paper already signed by the clerk, just awaiting Kabuto’s signature. “I backdated it a week so it wouldn’t flag any of the fraud checks.”

“Right, the flags that would come from our relationship being fraudulent.” Kabuto raised a brow. He had admittedly planned for the same, if he had ended up marrying one of the Oto plants in the village as expected.

“Ah, did you want a wedding, sensei?” Kakashi teased, low. Kabuto tempered the strange urge to shiver that resulted. “I’m sorry to disappoint. If you want, we can still seal it with a kiss…”

“This way is more efficient,” Kabuto managed to finally shrug the larger man off and turned to face him properly. “I’ll sign now, and we can get Naruto sorted. I’d planned to start looking for a two-bedroom, but if you don’t mind contributing to rent, we’ll find a three-bedroom.”

“My apartment has three. Move in with me, I guess,” Kakashi said, carefree. 

After Kabuto signed, Kakashi pulled out a notary stamp clearly stolen from the courthouse and embossed the certificate. Despite the ridiculous signature he had used for himself, he managed to forge the clerk’s signature perfectly. Copy-nin, indeed.

He looked at Kabuto, again, before shutting that gray eye into another smile. “Congratulations on our marriage, husband!”

“Congratulations,” Kabuto echoed, in disbelief. 

“What a shame I didn’t bring any sake today,” Kakashi said, rocking back on his heels. “Ah, and you’re not even wearing red…”

“Do you normally keep sake in your vest?” It would explain the reports of the man spending his days staring at the Memorial Stone. An alcoholic in Kakashi’s position in the village would be easier to blackmail, too, if things came to it. Easier to poison, too.

“Ah, not lately.” Kakashi smiled at him, closing his eye. It was an aggressively fake smile, even by Kabuto’s standards.  “I’m gone quite often, so it will be nice to have a cute husband at home.”

“…Quite,” Kabuto managed. He glanced down at the papers again and found himself stuck staring at his signature. He was dumbfounded at how quickly things had settled into place. “Well, let’s get the adoption papers in. I’ll need to update my contacts at the hospital, as well, though I suppose that can…wait.”

He began walking back, dazed. Kakashi looped an arm through his elbow and pulled him the right direction.

At the desk, Kakashi signed a henohenomoheji for his name on Naruto’s forms. Kabuto, meanwhile, scanned the room to locate the boy in question. Oh, for–

“Really?” the desk nin said, snapping her gum. “That’s your signature?”

Kakashi nodded agreeably, hands in his vest pockets.

“Sure, whatever. Marriage license?” 

He handed it across the desk. She scanned over it, eyes stopping at the listed date. She glanced over at Kabuto.

“Glasses, you really agreed to put up with this guy?”

“I’m sorry, do you know me?” said Kakashi, smiling. Whatever the desk nin saw in his face was enough to make her blanch.

“…Right. I’ll stamp this and get it sent up, top priority,” she said, voice shaking. She shook her head. When she spoke again, her voice returned to its normal faux-affability. “Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes, thank you for your time,” Kabuto smiled tightly, and went to extricate Naruto from the chairs he had been climbing under. 

 (How was he sticky now? What had he gotten into?)

“Hey, who’s this guy?” Naruto complained, immediately upon seeing Kakashi. “Oi, why are you hanging all over Kabuto?”

“Ah,” said Kakashi, and even through the mask, his amusement was obvious. “Because he’s my husband, of course.”

The shinobi who had filled out the office since Kabuto had first arrived that morning stopped pretending to not pay attention. In the abrupt silence, Kabuto felt the itch of eyes on him. After years of attention sliding off him like quicksilver, it was uncanny.

“What? Kabuto wouldn’t bother with an old loser like you!”

Kakashi’s hair drooped. “I’m twenty-two.”

“Old!”

“We’ll be moving in with him shortly,” said Kabuto, looking at Naruto meaningfully. Surely, the boy was intuitive enough to recognize he shouldn’t push things here—

Naruto tilted his head and scrunched up his face. “What are you looking at me for? Do you need better glasses or somethin’? Pff. Not being able to see would explain why you’re married to this grandpa—”

A man, with a deep scar across his face, who had entered the room towards the beginning of Naruto’s speech, interrupted him with a snort. “Hear that, Hatake? The new generation says your time is up.”

“You’re older than me, Raidō,” Kakashi complained. 

“Ah, the bachelor life keeps me young. What’s this about getting married and starting a family?” the tokubetsu jōnin rolled back onto his feet. Kenjutsu specialist, according to Kabuto’s notes, and it was clear from the balanced, fluid way he carried himself.

“Oh, the old ball and chain said it was time to settle down, you know how it goes.” Kakashi looped a too-familiar arm about his waist, resting a large gloved hand above his hip. “Kabuto, dear, this is Namiashi Raidō. An old acquaintance of mine.”

Kabuto twitched, and resisted the urge to elbow him.

“Well, Hokage wants to talk with you and your husband about this …prospective addition. I’m here to bring you up to see him.”

“I figured as much. Are you ready to go, honey?”

Kabuto folded his irritation into a sugar-sweet, grit-teeth smile, and nodded. Kakashi looked at him for a second. This close to the other man, Kabuto could hear his breath stutter for a moment. Had he smelled something? Hopefully, the stench of the hospital that clung to his clothing was enough to mask the tell-tale sign of snakes. He’d have to be sure to neutralize that going forward. 

“It would be nice to see the Lord Third again. I have not had the pleasure since I was a young boy.” He doubted the man remembered him, small as he had been as a boy, trailing behind Nonō, and the second time, Danzō like a shadow.

It seemed he would find out if he had been worth remembering. With a twitch, he suppressed the sweat dampening his neck from the thought.

Chapter Text

Though the feeling of the eyes on him had been strange enough, it was only amplified once they left the shelter of bureaucracy. As though sensing his discomfort, Kakashi had offered him a hand to the rooftop, as though even a true genin would be incapable of such a run. Kabuto had handed off  Naruto for him to carry, who was thrilled by the height.

Glancing askance at Kakashi, he considered that the man might as well use his strength for something. He looked away, and ran with them and Namiashi to the Hokage Tower.

“We’re going in the normal way?” Kakashi asked Namiashi.

“Yes, because you are a regular shinobi,” Namiashi replied inanely. Kabuto wanted to puzzle on the remark further, but the sight of the Hokage Tower stopped his thoughts.

Beyond the paperwork, this would make or break his mission. If the Hokage recognized him, or if he said the wrong words, he would, at best, have to retry with another child, a blatantly suspicious move. At worst, he would not make it to the end of the meeting with a pulse.

Hopefully, he’d be able to take out his killer with him, but he doubted Orochimaru would let him rest that long. Kabuto had done too much work on soul summoning and reincarnation to be left in peace.

“Let’s head up, husband,” Kakashi looked back at him and smiled. Kabuto managed a grimace in response. 

“Of course, dear. Naruto, we’re going to need to meet with the Hokage to talk about adopting you. He’s the head of the Village, so be polite.” The last thing he needed was for this to stretch too long. “I’ll teach you how to make ramen if you do.”

“Psh, I know how to make ramen!”

“Actual ramen, not instant.” The boy screwed his face up to contemplate the offer, like it was of utmost importance. Kabuto, bizarrely, wanted to pinch his cheek. 

“Alright, I’ll be polite!” he pointed at him, as he now dangled loosely, held up about the midsection by Kakashi’s right arm. Honestly, had the man never held a child before? 

Kabuto had just met the man, and admittedly did need him to make the adoption process, so everything else would work out. But how would their adoption be approved if the man was so obviously unparental?

He grabbed Kakashi’s arms and adjusted them properly. “You want his body to be supported. Like this. And when you’re running, hold his head so the speed doesn’t hurt him.” He lifted his head to address him once they were done, and again became aware of their closeness, and the intensity of that one eyed stare. He stepped back decisively, and gestured for the tokubetsu to lead them up.

The man inclined his head and began to, though not before smirking in Kakashi’s direction. “I see why you haven’t introduced him to everyone. You’re embarrassed of how easily you get bossed around, eh, Cap—Kakashi?” 

The strange stutter in his speaking aside, Kabuto wondered what it said about Kakashi that at least one of his apparent friends genuinely seemed to  believe he was capable of hiding a marriage from them. He resisted the urge to study the limited part of Kakashi’s face that was visible, to see how he felt about the implication that he would be the one to take orders from a partner. It would be fruitless, anyway.

The stairs up were longer than Kabuto had realized. He wondered if he should perform some display of exertion, like he was incapable of climbing them. After all, a regular genin, particularly a medical one, would. Idly, he sped up his breathing and heart rate and activated the sweat glands at his temples and neck. After about a minute of this, Kakashi paused, bringing them all to a stop.

“Does everyone truly climb this far just to meet with the Hokage?” he asked, and Kabuto took the moment to breathe deeply, and begin to slow his heartrate back down. 

“Most people don’t meet regularly with the Hokage,” Kabuto replied. He glanced at Raido, and stiffly smiled around a, “Dear.”

“As you know, Kakashi, this is how regular forces do it,” Raido said. Such an odd emphasis. Perhaps Kakashi was of high enough status that he was used to the Hokage coming to him , or sending his orders directly. Kabuto received most of his orders through the snakes, after all, and Orochimaru had been taught directly by the Hokage.

Huh. Kabuto hadn’t before considered how the Hokage might be to blame for how Orochimaru was as a leader. Another misfortune the man had caused in Kabuto’s life.

When they reached the correct floor, Kabuto feigned the expected signs of exertion, and removed a handkerchief to dab at his face. Kakashi had begun some back and forth with Naruto about the “coolest jutsu ever.” It seemed that his newly-found husband was distracting others from his faked difficulties. 

Oddly courteous, though it defeated the point of the display in the first place. Regardless, he inclined his head in thanks, and the man nodded at him in return.

“You may enter,” one of the Anbu guards appeared before them to say. Namiashi nodded, and jumped left. 

As they entered, Kabuto planted a hand on Naruto’s back, to ensure he bowed the proper depth. There was no chance he would figure it out, otherwise, and he had forgotten to teach him before.

“Ah, Naruto, it seems you’ve found someone who wants to take you in?”

Naruto popped right back out of the bow. “Oh, hi Gramps!”

It took a second to click. Was the old man Naruto had mentioned who personally gave him money the, excuse his language, fucking Hokage?

Kabuto noted as another Anbu guard about the same size and build of Namiashi joined the others in the rafters. Did they not teach subtlety anymore, or was that truly just reserved to Root? It was not ideal that Kakashi had friends in the black ops, either. He could do with a bit less scrutiny, but it was already too late to go back now.

Naruto was still talking, though Kabuto must have missed about half of it. He refocused. “...even though Kakashi is so old, he seems like he’s kind of cool, too. But not as cool as Kabuto! He said if I’m po-lite, he’ll teach me how to make real ramen!”

“You have met the Hokage before, Naruto?” Kabuto managed. “My lord, I don’t know if you recall…”

“Ah, my apologies. I have not had cause to visit the hospital in years! I have heard you are the son of Yakushi Nonō?”

“Adopted, sir.”

“Ah, looking to follow in her footsteps with young Naruto, then. How did you and Kakashi meet?”

Kakashi laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. “Well, it is a bit inappropriate to answer with a child present.”

Kabuto didn’t even need to fake a fluster, to his shock. He hadn’t realized he could be genuinely embarrassed, like some kind of child. His blood rose infuriatingly easily to his cheeks even without him channeling it there. Indeed, the only bodily reaction he did need to control was the sudden urge to cuff Kakashi on the back of his head.

He smiled, instead, and said, “I admit, my lord,, it was a surprise when he proposed to me, but it is nice to be able to build a home again. We had both been alone for a long time beforehand.”

The Hokage, who was responsible in at least three ways for the current disaster that was Kabuto’s life, looked emotional as he nodded. “Love is sudden, sometimes, but when you find it, you must cling to it. My late wife was a medic, and I grieve her loss still.” He sniffed a bit. “I apologize; I don’t know what came over me. I’m glad you two have found each other, then. Kakashi has needed someone to settle him.”

“I have gotten that sense, sir,” Kabuto said drily. The Hokage laughed, and Kabuto hated him for how genuine it sounded.

“Well, I was curious to meet the person who wanted to take in young Naruto and raise him. When the news of the marriage reached me, I was further curious to learn who had managed to tame our Hatake, here. What a coincidence that you have done both.”

Kabuto kept the rush of anxiety from showing on his face. “I don’t know about that, sir.”

“Kabuto is good at taking care of others,” Kakashi said, voice barely on the side of being polite rather than innuendo, before ruining it with, “As for myself, I’ve never heard any complaints.”

One of the Anbu above them snorted. Skies, but they were so unprofessional in Konoha. In Oto, such a failure would leave them on Kabuto’s autopsy table, where they belonged.

“Kabuto is the BEST, Gramps! He made me this fancy egg thing this morning, and he made my shower work, too!” At least, Naruto stuck up for him, too, and far more genuinely than Kakashi had managed. His effort had not gone unnoticed. “Even though he looks so old with that hair and the glasses. I didn’t think it at first, but he’s cool!”

“Thank you, Naruto,” Kabuto sighed, pressing his glasses against his nose. He was the second youngest person in the room, for all the good it did him.

“I have to ask, though. Kakashi, why didn’t you invite anyone to the ceremony?”

“Maa, I do have a lot more enemies than a medic is ready to handle. Keeping quiet seemed wise,” Kakashi said, before he paused and sheepishly continued: “I suppose the dog is out of the bag for that one, though.”

“I imagine you’ll have a reception of sorts waiting for you at your apartment, Kakashi,” the most powerful man in five countries chortled heartily. Kabuto was surprised to find within himself yet more scorn for the man, to smile at the idea of a new family as easily as he had allowed Kabuto’s own to be torn apart.

Two of the Anbu left silently at this, apparently taking it as a cue. At least Kabuto would be able to identify two of the masks after all of this. The Hokage continued, with a warm smile on that aged face.  “Congratulations again on your nuptials. Being able to start a family so quickly after is an auspicious sign. I will make sure the approval is speedy. It’s certainly past time for Naruto here to have some people taking care of him.”

Passing two obstacles in a single conversation. Kabuto felt some of the tension in his back lessen. Being attached to Kakashi opened as many doors as it brought eyes on him, it seemed. 

Kabuto would need to adjust. For now, the blond child that was apparently his , now, was cheering, and the husband that was apparently also his, was staring at him with what Kabuto recognized as the same baffled realization that had overtaken him upon seeing his name on that marriage certificate.

He returned Naruto's hug, mind churning. One thought emerged quickly through the rest, as he waited for the Hokage to dismiss them with a nod: he could not wait to leave this damned room.

Chapter Text

Hatake’s apartment was fairly devoid of hustlements. There were, as promised, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms. Kabuto had been quick to drop off his and Naruto’s small amount of belongings in their own rooms.

There was a photo above Kakashi’s bed of what must have been his childhood team, from what Kabuto had seen of the man’s bedroom. The only houseplant was a succulent, and there were some scattered few dog toys across the whole of the apartment, though the rest appeared to be stored in a basic chest.

It was unclear if Kakashi’s home was bare or just tidy, and the absence of things made it difficult for Kabuto to draw many conclusions of Kakashi’s character. He would have more time to study it once the friends and acquaintances of his newly-met husband left.

Though it took some time, regardless. The hours of the day slipped faster than he was comfortable. It was overwhelming in the moment to meet those friends; making his own observations from them in person rather than from his records of them. His sources had only indicated the skilled fighting and odd mannerisms of Might Guy, and not the terrifyingly iron-like feel of his muscles that was present in even a light hug. He would have to revise his ninfo cards to add further points to his strength.

Regardless, Naruto seemed rather enchanted to be meeting “real life ninjas.” Kabuto struggled to imagine what was so impressive about the lot, but then, most of the boy’s exposure to working shinobi had been his Academy teachers.

Their latest entry, an unfamiliar face named Tenzō, had at least brought enough food to serve as an early dinner, though he was otherwise an unknown.

At least he had gained some knowledge from this. He was able to match the faces of three Anbu operatives here to those he had studied before in the hospital. The face behind Cat was the late entry, Tenzō. Kabuto had not seen a record for him before. Had Tenzō used a false name with his friends, one that differed from his official record? His face was bland to the point of forgettability.

The two from the Hokage’s office he recognized as Namiashi Raidō and Shiranui Genma, who he had suspected to be members anyways given their skillset.

Tokubetsu tended to at least have done at least some work for Anbu; the nature of a jōnin-level specialty made them ideal for a small-strike team. Still, it was good to be able to officially mark them as such in his next report. The more that was in there, the easier it would be to diminish the significance of who, exactly, his husband was next time he spoke with Lord Orochimaru…

In a brief flash, perhaps brought on by the stress of being a spy surrounded by jōnin, Kabuto suddenly imagined himself taking Kakashi back to Oto and introducing him to Lord Orochimaru. Pictured the man’s lackadaisical attitude carrying through small talk over the particular horrible blend of tea his lord favored. He shuddered, despite himself.

“You good there, Kabuto?” Shiranui — Scorpion — asked, as he steadied him.

“Ah, just a sudden chill,” Kabuto smiled, letting the edges dimple at his cheeks. Shiranui hesitated, but nodded.

“Seems as good a time as any to cut this short,” Kakashi closed the book he was reading with a snap, and, in that cheerful yet vaguely threatening way of his, said: “Leave.”

The guests grumbled (barring one Might Guy’s enthusiastic well-wishes on the way out) but obliged efficiently. Kabuto scraped together enough of the etiquette Nonō had taught him to thank them for coming.

Once his friends had left, Kakashi remained standing, still posing with the book. In their abrupt loneliness, Kabuto felt rather awkward, watching the other man as he began to shift from one foot to the other.

“Naruto, it’s been a bit of a big day for you, hasn’t it?” Kabuto asked, eyes still on Kakashi. He looked away, finally, to Naruto, and offered a smile in response to the boy’s shut-eyed nod. “How about you go settle in and rest?”

Naruto didn’t protest being led to the room now designated as his, simply rubbing at his eyes and yawning agreeably. The small bed there was in clear disuse, but there were at least clean(-seeming) sheets. Kabuto, glancing skeptically at Kakashi, added linens to the shopping list. Still, the boy apparently was not fazed, and he sunk under the covers and turned to sleep easily.

Kabuto closed the door as he left and looked again to Kakashi, who had hovered silently about five steps behind him during the whole process.

“We should talk,” he said, and Kakashi nodded. He hesitated, as though about to reply, before he followed Kabuto into the kitchen to sit at the bar.

Kabuto put a kettle on.

“You seem comfortable,” Kakashi said, sounding amused.

“Do I?” Gray eyes flicked up behind glasses.

“Ah, it’s just your first time in my home, and you’re already using the kitchen,” the man closed his eye in a smile, and leaned on an elbow.

“Is it not my kitchen now, too?” Kabuto asked.

Kakashi hummed in response, chin in his hand. The sleeve of the man’s uniform blues had rolled up slightly, and Kabuto found himself fixated on the revealed slip of skin. The tan line was not as harsh as he would have expected for a man who seemingly only wore his uniform. Idly, he wondered at the circumference of the forearm; how to calculate the slope of the curve that narrowed it to that pale wrist.

The kettle began to whistle, and Kabuto removed it from the burners.

“Mugs are in the upper left cabinet,” Kakashi said, eye watching him lazily. Kabuto had to stand on his toes to reach properly, instincts screaming at him for exposing his back to danger.

The mugs, at least, offered some sign of Kakashi’s personality for Kabuto to puzzle out.

They were a mismatched collection, and no small number were novelty. But there were ones of styles Kabuto recognized as being from different villages: in the back, one fine porcelain teacup in Iwa’s traditional blue and white. Another, in the painted stoneware style of Kiri.

Had being the Fourth Hokage’s student granted Kakashi more leeway to develop interest in other village cultures? It was interesting for Kabuto to consider.

Among the novelty items, one white mug, in bold red, declared in neutral print: “WORLD’S OKAYEST BOSS!” Another was a particularly garish green, and having recently met Might Guy that evening, Kabuto had a suspicion who it was reserved for. There was one with plants painted across it — none poisonous, Kabuto noted, and so selected that one for himself. For Kakashi, he pulled out a brown mug which had been sculpted to suggest floppy dog ears. Two large, pleading eyes painted on the front stared out.

Kakashi clapped. “Ah, that is my favorite mug! You know me already, my husband.”

Kabuto removed the loose tea from the kettle and poured for them both.

“We do, actually, need to discuss what exactly we’re doing here, at some point,” he said, once done.

“It’s working out nicely, though, isn’t it?” Kakashi said.

Kabuto took a sip, weighing his response. Took another. “What is our story, then? Based on what you … suggested, to the Hokage this morning…”

Kakashi rubbed at the side of his mug, looking oddly shy. “Ah….was that not alright then?”

Truthfully, Kabuto hardly cared. He shrugged. “It’s not like I show my face there enough to have lost any of it in front of them. But Kakashi, you and I hardly know each other. It was a presumption on your part that got us to this point to start with.”

“It was, wasn’t it?”

“I am only here to take care of Naruto,” Kabuto lied after a pause, unable to tell if the low hum of Kakashi’s words had been mocking. “It remains unclear to me why you are so insistent on being involved in his life, and I doubt you will let me know easily. I suppose I will figure it out eventually. Now, so we know in the future, how did we meet?”

“You are in the medical corps. Perhaps you stumbled across me injured and helped me out several months ago.” Kakashi leaned back, unconcerned. “It’s not unlikely. Everyone who matters knows I hate the hospital.”

Kabuto mentally noted to add that to the man’s ninfo card. “Were you injured several months ago?”

“Ah, not officially,” Kakashi said. “I think I twisted something in my left shoulder, but I’ve managed.”

With barely a thought, blue-green chakra flickered to Kabuto’s hands. “Let me take a look, then, at how shoddy a job it was which made you decide to marry me.”

Kakashi tensed and inhaled as Kabuto stepped into his space, between the chair and the counter, but then loosened, a slow, purposeful movement.

Kabuto felt at the ragged edges of what was a much older injury than indicated. Not treated, it seemed, beyond what must have been patch healing on the field, and no pain relief, given the inflammation.

“This has got to hurt something fierce. I’ll need to work with you on this for the next few days if it will look like anyone halfway competent worked on it,” Kabuto noted, using his own chakra to force Kakashi’s to flow correctly through the tear. He began soothing the still-yawning gap of it, until Kakashi’s cut-off grunt made him falter. “I’m sorry, did you not want it healed? No one would believe you fell in love from a job that shitty. Did you seek no medical aid at all?”

“...There was a lot going on,” Kakashi said, shiftily. He rolled his shoulders, paused, and rolled his left again. He smiled then, something more genuine about it. “I can’t remember how long it’s…thank you, for that.”

“It’s my own reputation on the line, again, if that is our story. It seems believable enough.” Kabuto felt a tell-tale itch on his wrist.

“...I’m on call tonight, though, so I’ll need to sleep soon myself. I’ll write a list of what we will need from the store, if you want to pick it up before the shops close.” Bemused, Kakashi had slunk off to the store.

Kabuto remained standing in the hallway for a few moments longer. He shook himself, and went to his bedroom. He summoned the snake that had been pulling at him. One of Lord Orochimaru’s little messengers, a hognose that Kabuto had been subcontracted with.

“Yo, big boss wants to get your report on the kid thing,” she hissed, and opened her mouth presumptively.

“Give me five minutes,” Kabuto said, reaching for a fresh scroll. She closed her mouth petulantly to wait. While it took less time to ink out the situation than expected, it did read somewhat like a cry for help. Disgusted, he crumpled the paper, and rewrote something more professional. The hognose swallowed before he could even put away his pen.

“Thanks, glasses-boss. What’s the latest on the whole meds thing? Lots of guys back in Oto are fiending for the juice, you know.”

“They know that’s not the intended use of that medication,” Kabuto sighed. He truly did not have the time to deal with the growing obsession with performance enhancing drugs in Oto, but his lord only seemed to encourage the off-label use.^[1]

Kabuto continued. “Though there shouldn’t be issues in supply. I just sent a whole shipment out last week which should arrive in Oto by tomorrow. However, Oto’s exports are late by a few days now.”

“Do you think there was a bust, glasses-boss?” The hognose looped around his arm again. Whenever she tried to whisper conspiratorially like this, the sibilance became almost impossible to parse. “You think Konoha got into our, you know, stash?”

It was an awful lot of pain drugs to lose track of, not to mention the stimulants.

As Kakashi had just served as evidence of, too many shinobi, even among the elite, were walking around hiding injuries. No small number of them were willing to spend big on pain relief, and give information when they couldn’t pay.

“I’ll check it out,” Kabuto said. He grabbed some cloak and some hair clips for a disguise, and left a note that he was going in for his shift as he opened the window to leave. He paused, and added that Naruto should not wait up for him.

As he took to the rooftops, the hognose, satisfied, disappeared from his wrist in a poof. Kabuto pulled his cloak up and kept running.

¹ Oto’s own industry of drug manufacturing^[2] was one of its larger sources of funding, besides its predatory lending and casino businesses. Oto’s rank-and-file shinobi were apparently too off-putting for most potential clients, and so most took missions running drugs, collecting debts on high interest loans, and selling timeshares. ^{[ return to text ]}

² If there was a life destroying drug, Oto was happy to develop it, as the proud source of supplements advertised in porn magazines, cocaine, heroin, acid, and what some readers might recognize as “Ninja Oxycontin.”

Chapter Text

Kakashi returned to an apartment with a child and no husband.

“Huh,” he said, glancing around. He set the bags of groceries in his kitchen, and set the linens down as well. He whistled.

“Boss, couldn’t you have summoned Bull for this? I’m not meant to do heavy lifting,” Pakkun complained, letting the bag of books slide from his back. “You know, due to the … brachycephalic thing.”

“You can’t keep trying to get out of exercise because you’re a pug, Pakkun.” Kakashi reached down to scratch behind his ears.

“I feel like I should,” he grumbled, tilting his head so Kakashi would have a better angle.

“You managed well enough.”

“Hm. Well, it seems you’ve scared off the husband already. Sounds like the kid is asleep, though.”

Naruto was a snorer, if a quiet one, and Kakashi had grown used to the gentle sound of it over the years of occasional guarding. He was sleeping heavily this evening, and Kakashi moved away from his room to the third.

Kabuto had unpacked himself so quickly in there, apparently not having many possessions. The bed was still made, so either his husband had a habit of making it, or he hadn’t had the time to sleep. From the smell of it, Kakashi leaned to the latter, but he hadn’t been able to get much of a scent off Kabuto in general.

There was a note on the small desk in the room. Kakashi moved to read it.

Kabuto had, in fact, been called in to the hospital. Rooting about further, Kakashi found a small page, balled up behind the desk, likely pushed off. First draft?

Curious, he unfolded it. It was in cypher, and a more advanced one than genin typically bothered with.

Interesting. 

Unfortunately for his husband, Kakashi was adept at recognizing his name in all manner of coded language and working from there. Seeing the three-string of what must be his name, it was simple enough to decipher the rest.

“Snooping a little early, Boss. You trying to scare him off for real?”

Kakashi shushed him to read what looked more like a diary entry than anything else. He wondered if a better man than him would have felt shame at the realization. He felt something, certainly.

Panther had told him to get a civilian life, and he had done so easily. Even with Kabuto missing upon his return, there was something relieving about even the idea of there being others waiting for him at home. People who were safe, far from the risky life of Anbu. Kabuto had been incidental in that, but, thinking about the way the younger man had taken such efficient stock of the situation, going so far as to order him about…

There was a lot about Kabuto that wasn’t on the slim note of his file, Kakashi was realizing. It made sense; genin of his age rarely had the sort of missions that interested the village. But he had fixed, with a mere press of his hands, a lingering ache that Kakashi had grown used to carrying. He had suggested further sessions were necessary, and Kakashi couldn’t deny that he looked forward to them beyond their medical benefits.

Attraction to his husband was something he hadn’t expected, in all honesty, but he wasn’t unhappy it was there. His past relationships, where they’d occurred, had been brief, and between shinobi of his caliber. He hadn’t expected…but then, he’d hardly been ordered about in his own home by previous relationships. 

And yet, he wondered at his greed for learning that had him reading the man's private thoughts.

“I was able to adopt Uzumaki Naruto, who is in the third year of the Academy now. But I was not going to be able to take him, until Hatake Kakashi — Kakashi of the Sharingan — claimed we were married. Now, legally, we are. I’m a genin, and now I’m sure the village knows that the Copy Nin married me. I don’t want this kind of attention.”

Since shoving his way into things this morning, Kakashi had not considered Kabuto as a person beyond what he could offer. It was only now that he hesitated, staring at the words. 

He’d not thought of his own profile beyond attaching it to something civilian, but for a no-name like Kabuto, getting yanked into the light had been ... unexpected. In retrospect, it should have been obvious.

Kakashi had long since found his own ways to discourage attention, and was strong enough to scare off anyone too interested. But Kabuto did not have the name or power to protect him beyond what Kakashi could offer, and Kakashi had, in their conversation, been almost blatantly dismissive of his concern for the fraudulent aspect.

Their little forgery would not affect him, if it came out. But it would Kabuto. He recrumpled and replaced the note where it had been and hummed to himself. 

“Am I the worst person you know?” he asked Pakkun, suddenly a bit morose.

“I don’t know many people, Boss, and one of them is Tenzou. You’re putting me in a difficult position here,” Pakkun hedged. 

“Oi.” Kakashi bent down to flick him gently.

“Ah, fine. Not the worst, worst. Still, Boss, shouldn’t you consider not invading his privacy in the future? It's better for relationships, I’ve heard.”

“Who’s talking to you about relationships?” Kakashi glanced down at him as they walked out of Kabuto’s room.

“There is a world of literature beyond Icha-Icha ,” Pakkun said, somewhat primly.

Kakashi stopped to stare at him, caught between horror and curiosity.

“Don’t—why did you think I meant something dirty by that?” Pakkun just sounded exhausted now. Probably the brachycephaly catching up with him. “One of us has to know what you’re doing, and you’ve never been particularly gifted on that interpersonal front.”

Kakashi didn’t have time to snark back as he was hoping. They had returned to the kitchen, where there was a scroll on the counter. It was Kakashi who reached for it, but it was Hound who read it.

Pakkun looked at him and sighed. “I’ll dismiss myself. Congrats on the spouse and kid, Boss.”

Hound nodded, already focused on reading through the report. Due to his recent commitments to the village, he would be assigned more solo missions related to internal matters, to keep him closer to home.

The first of those was already issued, it seems, due to the recent confiscation of a large shipment of narcotics. The drug runners had managed to flee pursuit, and had worn no identifying marks. Hound was ordered to investigate the initial scene of confrontation, and track down the source of the trade.

Konoha had long suspected there to be at least one hidden village involved to support the sheer scale of production, but as of yet, had been unable to pin it on any village in particular. Hound was to identify the source of the drugs, and uncover as much of the operation as he could. In the future, he might be tasked to either dismantle it, or absorb it into Konoha’s own operation.

(“Whoever’s making this, it’s consistently top quality. They’ve got either skill or resources, and likely some level of both,” blue ink annotated beside the black printed text of the report.)

Hound re-read the mission with his Sharingan, memorizing it, and burned it before closing the eye again. It was more muscle memory than anything conscious that led him to change into his Anbu uniform. Blues into black, and he pulled out his mask. He paused, and lowered it.

He glanced into the second bedroom again, and observed the quiet snoring from the small boy in the bed. He hesitated, another beat further.

It wouldn’t do to leave Naruto alone on their first night. Calling a copy of himself was easy as breathing, regardless the stretch on his chakra. The clone looked at him, and transformed its clothing to look like Kakashi’s standard jōnin  uniform.

“Keep care of him until Kabuto gets back from work,” Hound instructed the clone. He then took off towards the location where the shipment had been intercepted.

Kabuto pulled the hood of his cloak up further. His chakra control was enough where he could keep his clothing from moving without thinking, but there was some base comfort in the manual steadying of things. A fidget to his different glasses, an adjustment of his hood, and the easy pulse of chakra to keep it stuck — each comforting in different times.

His natural hair was underneath a cap, and he wore a simple black wig. A few strategically placed hairpins stretched his skin thin enough to alter the shape of his face without the need for henge, and he was not wearing Nonō’s glasses, but rather a frameless rectangular style. The only chakra technique was the one he used to alter his chakra system, living, as he did, in a village of Hyūga. 

For the most part, these were simple changes; in combination, they were enough to make him unrecognizable.

It was one of a few profiles he assumed while working outside the village. This one he preferred when doing covert medical work on Oto nin. It was easy to assemble, but the strategic placement of purple around his eyes suggested a connection to Orochimaru without being too blatant. 

For reasons that Kabuto had yet to figure out, the shinobi of Oto were disturbed enough, at a general baseline, to actually be comforted by the image of Orochimaru.

It was not something Kabuto could understand, but the fact that the resemblance lowered overall anxiety was nonetheless something he had observed. 

As always, he kept an additional genjutsu prepared, in case he was discovered, but he rarely needed chakra to affect others’ perceptions.

It was clear upon arrival that Oto’s runners had fled, rather than fight whoever had met them. This close to the village, it was likely Konoha. Their flight was likely good for the long term success of the intervillage trafficking ring, but suggested either Konoha had been unusually armed or these had been particularly weak Oto nin.

And weak Oto nin wouldn’t have made it this close to begin with, and certainly not this far from Oto. Had there been an illness? Injury?

Kabuto examined the scuff marks on the branches, and the fine white powder where some of the product had spilled in the confrontation. There was not much, but there was enough to indicate a direction of travel.

He followed it, leaping from branch to branch until he’d made it to the mountains.

Drag marks, and footprints that lingered, at least a day after. His guess was that one of the runners had gotten injured in the confrontation, and the other had fled carrying them.

Unusual loyalty to each other for Oto, but ultimately better for keeping things under wraps. Even if they’d let a whole shipment get confiscated as a sacrifice.

A glimmer in the dim light of dusk. A wire, aimed to trip pursuers.

Kabuto stepped over it and pressed on. He must be close.

A loud gasp shattered a basic camouflage illusion, and his eyes flicked over to the revealed woman and unconscious man beside her. 

“Oh, thank snake heavens, it’s, uh. The glasses one. Hi, doctor man,” the woman said. “Wake up, Hiroto! The doctor man is here.”

She kicked the unconscious man in the side, and he mumbled something. He rubbed at his eyes, bleary. Even from this distance, Kabuto observed the dilation in his eyes and sweat across his brows. Signals of the mild neurotoxin commonly used in Konoha's T&I for inducing confessions. Among other things.

“Wassit?” he grumbled.

“Lucky none of you are wearing the Oto symbol. That’s something you followed procedure on, at least,” Kabuto said somewhat coldly. He flickered blue-green chakra to his hands, and began flushing the toxin from the man’s system. “Report.”

The woman, Hisa, launched into a retelling of a Konoha patrol and returning genin team running into them. Not even Anbu, but a precise needle shot had nailed her partner in the neck, taking him out instantly. 

It had been pure instinct, more than remembered protocol or any strategy, that had led her to explode a bag of pure product in one of the genin’s faces, throwing another at the offended jōnin sensei, before fleeing  with Hiroto.

She’d at least remembered to flee in a direction that was directly pointing to any of Oto’s bases, but Kabuto had a suspicion that was not so much intentional as it seemed. His guess was that she had just run wherever she could find the most cover, and it had been a random direction. Good instinct for her to dress it up like she had any recollection of protocol. All the effort he’d made on drafting it, ignored because his lord seemed to draw in those nin who had flunked out of their home village academies. 

In Hisa’s case, she’d likely joined as an adult, hence her relative lack of finesse with chakra. Or strategy.

Sage, but Orochimaru really had just been letting anyone join, huh. To advance in rank (if not recruited, as Kabuto was) required proving oneself in the Pit, which was its own headache-inducing nightmare.

"For future reference, Hisa, you can just swear by the heavens. Even in Oto, there is no snake heaven.” The woman gasped, sounding genuinely wounded. Bless her heart, but she was lucky to at least be strong, thought Kabuto more than a little uncharitably. He rolled his eyes, and continued. “Hiroto, was it? Stand up, you should be able to.”

The man did, shaky. “Scales and sound, but you’re a miracle worker, Doc.”

Kabuto was reminded, speaking to them, why Orochimaru officially categorized the drug runners in the “Expendable” section of the budget. “Again, you don’t need to customize your swearing to be snake themed. You can do as you did prior to joining the Sound.”

“I don’t know, Doc. Lord Orochi seems to like the whole cult around them thing.” The man leaned forward to whisper, if one increased the volume range for which something might be considered such.  “One hench to another, it’s best to be consistent with theming.”

“No,” Kabuto said, rejecting everything about this. “Don’t say ‘one hench to another.’ We are not at the same level. Head back to base, and don’t get caught this time. If you did, use your fake tooth. If you can’t get to it, remember, you never saw me .”

“Uh, I think we did, Doc.” Hiroto had the audacity to look concerned at him.

Hisa made a loud OH! noise, and clapped her hands. She whispered loudly to the man, “Hiroto, I think Doc is saying that we gotta lie about ‘not seeing’ him if we get caught. Since he’s gots a secret identity and all.”

Did they think being from Sound meant they needed to be loud? Kabuto wondered when his annoyance had turned to a more existential despair.

 “Nah, why didn’t he say that then?” grumbled Hiroto.

“He was being surretiti…seerup…He was being sneaky, because of the spy thing. Don’t worry, Boss, if anyone asks, we remember the lines!”

“We do?” 

Hisa elbowed him and recited. “We’ve left Kiri, die Leaf Scum, etc. And uh..the woman who helped us had blue hair. Not down and black, and no glasses. And so straight, like you wouldn’t believe.” 

She winked and gave Kabuto a thumbs up.

 It was good to know his yin healing technique extended to preventing tension headaches. The relief was welcome.

“Less detail than that.” Kabuto bit out, pinching the bridge of his nose. He breathed, and continued politely. “Remember to bite down hard on your left molar if you get caught….there is a chemical that will prevent you from spilling any secrets.” Or breathing, he didn’t say. “More importantly, don’t get caught.”

“Anything you say, Doc! Thanks again for the heal. My plan had just been to wait for him to snap out of it.”

“He wouldn’t have, without medical treatment.” Or, well, certain Yamanaka techniques that were best left unsaid.

“Huh, not a great plan then.” She shrugged. Hiroto waved at him, and the two began sprinting off.

Kabuto took a second to be glad he had remembered to alter his appearance before healing them. On his way back to the village, he would disguise their trail, and continue removing his own scent. But the path back was not as clear as it had been out.

Indeed, as he got closer to where Hisa and Hiroto’s confrontation with Konoha had occurred, there was a man in a familiar mask who turned to look at him, head tilted. 

Before the man could turn fully, Kabuto sucked in the middle of his lips somewhat, and changed the placement of his tongue in his mouth. Hound had met Kabuto with his natural face, recently, and any slight modification to his appearance was worth it to further distance one version of his face from the other. 

Still, if it came to blows, Kabuto was willing to distract him the way Hisa had, sacrificing one pawn for another. It would be easy enough to send the Hound off to hunt them down to give him time to escape.

Kabuto could handle and take down most teams of Anbu on his own, even exhausted and somewhat chakra drained. But Hound was one he’d heard of.

It was never a great sign when a black ops assassin had a personal reputation.

Hound looked at him, and Kabuto tensed further. 

His voice was the same, deep, modulated thing Kabuto had remembered. Indeed, Kabuto found himself taking in more of the man than he had been able to in the crammed shop bathroom. In the dim light of dusk, filtered through the leaves, the shadow along the man’s bared arms made the divots of muscle hard to miss. The Anbu brand on his bicep was the only spot of color besides the red on his mask..

“Hello, wanderer.   How did you find this spot?”

Kabuto could do a similar effect, if he wanted. In this persona, he would punch his voice low and cold, and tinge his vowels with the accent of another land. For the past two years, he’d even been able to do it without any embarrassing voice cracks. 

“I apologize, officer.” Not breaking eye contact with the mask holes, he dipped his head, letting the maroon fabric of the hood cover more of his face. “This one is merely passing through, and did not intend to interrupt. Has something happened?”

“There’s been a crime,” Hound said shortly, crossing his arms across his chest. Kabuto tracked the movement, preparing himself to…flee, he supposed. “Have you seen any suspicious figures?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t, sir. I am travelling from — well, you would not know it, but a village in the Land of Waves to Konoha to request assistance in a local matter.” 

A pause, as Hound continued to study him. Kabuto, wanting to move , prompted: “By your leave, sir. I do not wish to keep you from your duties.”

“Do not come this way on your way back,” Hound replied, after another pause. 

Kabuto nodded, and bowed the way a farmer might to a high-level shinobi.

He walked away at a civilian pace for about a mile, and cast about his senses. Hound had not pursued, and he began to remove his disguise in pieces.

Pins, wig, cap, and cloak, tucked into a storage seal, before he began sprinting, mind churning. 

In his years undercover, he had lied to the faces of multiple Kage. Yet, successfully passing himself off as harmless to Hound …he felt almost giddy with it.

It was not a feeling that came easily to him, but it carried him home nonetheless. 

And wasn’t that interesting? He had a home now, legally speaking, with a room of his own, one with a window he could climb in. 

One with a child still asleep. He could sense Kakashi was waiting in the boy’s room, a still, silent protector. 

Kabuto washed his face clear of any lingering makeup with the water technique he mostly used when working with chemicals, before stepping in to greet them.

“He’s going to school tomorrow, at the Academy,” he murmured. 

Kakashi nodded, then remarked.“You don’t smell much like hospital.”

Kabuto hadn’t realized Kakashi’s sense of smell was that good. He made a note to edit his card to reflect this. “I try to clean the smell of it from me, as you might understand. I’m glad it was effective. I was able to help someone heal, so at least I was not called in for nothing.”

Scraping together something of his politeness, he offered, “I’m sorry I was not here when you returned.”

Kakashi exhaled. “It’s…don’t worry about it. Get some rest.”

Kabuto nodded and returned to his room to do just that. He didn't notice the slight pop as the clone dismissed itself.

He’d been a spy since he was nine years old, and had been following orders even longer. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was asleep.

Chapter Text

The bento Kabuto had barely remembered to put together for Naruto surely didn’t deserve the weepy embrace it earned him.

“It’s just tamago and rice. I didn’t even need to buy the pickled vegetables.  Hata—Kakashi had them already.” This did not slow the tears from Naruto, who had pressed his face into Kabuto’s hip.

The response was muffled. “No one’s ever made me a bento before…I never have the same lunch as the other kids…” 

“There, there,” Kabuto said awkwardly, patting at the top of Naruto’s head with his free hand as the boy clung to him. This also did not work to stop Naruto from crying.

Most children he dealt with were either older or dead. Comforting was a bit beyond him.

“Did you make a bento for me?” Kakashi loped in from the hallway before he came to a sudden stop, leaning against the door frame. Even in the morning, he was in his uniform, just missing his jōnin vest. Kabuto had no room to judge; he rarely left his room in the morning less than fully uniformed. Truthfully, he slept in his mesh armor more often than not.

“It would be a waste of food if I didn’t,” Kabuto said, feeling somewhat bewildered by the widened eye this earned him.  “This is the most efficient way to do it. There are three containers, and the weekend’s done. I made enough for everyone.”

“Hm,” Kakashi said, and glanced away. Back. “Your hair is down.”

“Yes, I haven’t put it up yet.” He rarely bothered brushing it, but it made his afternoon headaches less likely if he left his hair down at night and in the morning.

“It looks good,” Kakashi said, inanely. He pressed off from where he was leaning and came into the kitchen. 

Appearance had little to do with why Kabuto preferred his hair long. It was more that there were very few things he could claim as distinctly his, and the length was something that was his alone. 

Kakashi twirled the end of a piece through his fingers, cutting off Kabuto’s thought. He raised a brow.

“Sorry,” Kakashi said, holding it unrepentantly. “It looked soft.”

“Did it now,” Kabuto replied coolly.

He tugged his hair free from Kakashi’s grip and turned his attention back to the bento boxes, arranging them on the counter to distract from the unsuredness he suddenly felt. The weight of Kakashi’s lingering gaze only added to the faint flush creeping up his neck. Thankfully his hair covered the sight. 

Naruto, still clutching Kabuto’s leg, sniffled loudly. "Can I have breakfast too?" The question brought Kabuto back from his thinking. Naruto’s wide, teary eyes stared up at him with hopeful anticipation.

Kabuto awkwardly rubbed his temple with his free hand. “Yes. I’d already made something. Sit at the table, and I’ll serve it to you.”

Naruto beamed, the earlier tears seemingly forgotten as he quickly scrambled to the table. Kakashi followed suit, silently taking a seat beside Naruto. The domesticity of it all made Kabuto feel like he’d stumbled into an alternate reality. Last night he had outfoxed the Hound, and now here he was, serving breakfast to one of Konoha’s more famous jōnin and its lone jinchūriki—like some sort of... civilian house husband.

“Taking care of people suits you well, Kabuto,” Kakashi said. Kabuto’s traitorous flush spread to his face before he forced the blood away.. 

Before he could examine why his body had reacted like that to Hatake’s statement, Naruto nodded and chirped, “Yeah! Kabuto is the best!” 

His enthusiasm caught Kabuto even further off guard, the unexpected compliment striking deeper than he was willing to acknowledge. It had been a long time since he’d been praised so easily. Once more, he bizarrely found himself thinking of Urushi, and the orphanage, all those years ago.

Forcing nonchalance, Kabuto turned his back to the table and busied himself with the dishes as they ate, scrubbing them more aggressively than was necessary. He truly wasn’t used to this, undercover or not. That was to say, being appreciated in general, much less for something as simple as a meal. Cooking had always been about maximizing nutritional content against cost, and hardly something worthy of all this praise.

“Are you alright?” Kakashi’s voice was closer now, and Kabuto stiffened as he realized the man had moved to stand beside him, close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating off his body. How long had he been washing the dishes..?

“Just tired,” Kabuto muttered, eyes fixed on the soapy water. It wasn’t entirely a lie. He checked the time. “Naruto, you’ll need to get going soon if you want to make it to the Academy on time.”

“Do I have to? I don’t learn anything there!”

“Concerning. That’s something we should come back to later,” Kakashi said. “What do they even teach these days?”

“Ehhh….” Naruto tilted his head and squinted. “Daikoku-sensei kept talking about math, and said we would be doing calcu..calc’lations instead of fighting.”

“Learn your numbers,” Kabuto said, drying the dishes. Kakashi reached behind him to put them up in the cabinet; the proximity of him rooted itself in Kabuto’s mind, dragging all thoughts back to the weight of it. Kabuto cleared his throat to distract himself. “Do you have the form I gave you updating your change of address and guardianship?”

“Yes!” Naruto cheered, pulling the crumpled forms from his small backpack.

“…Okay, put them back properly. You will need to give them to your teacher before class starts.”

Even with the new additions, the week proceeded relatively normally for Kabuto.

He woke early, made some easy meals for the household (albeit in triplicate, now), went to the hospital, and managed not to strangle any medic-nins for incompetence.

(With the recent encounter with Hound and until he learned worked out the limits on Kakashi’s own sense of smell, he was somewhat leery of having to disappear anyone in the near future.)

After work, he would locate wherever Naruto was currently causing mayhem, collect him, and take him back to Kakashi’s apartment.

(“Hey! I had a super great prank planned, believe it!”

“A prank shouldn’t be traceable to you. Stop signing your name to things.”)

There, he’d set Naruto to his homework. Naruto would try to get out of it, and Kabuto would read whatever reports the snakes had delivered on the current state of deliveries. He would write mission orders for the Oto runners, while asking Naruto about his day.

It had proved surprisingly informative on Orochimaru’s target. It seemed much of Naruto’s days came back to complaining about Sasuke, or his classmates’ focus on him. The Uchiha was advancing well for his age-group, it seemed.

Meanwhile, Kakashi was gone, most of the time, though he usually returned late, just as Kabuto was setting aside the extra portion of dinner. Kakashi would thank him, and make awkward small talk with Naruto. Not willing to risk putting anything Oto within eyesight of the Sharingan, Kabuto would switch to helping Naruto with his homework properly, and Kakashi would stretch out on the couch reading a book.

Kakashi’s contributions were more motivational than anything else. Kabuto wondered if the man even remembered the Academy, young as he was when he graduated. Kabuto had never actually gone, himself, but even his education at Nonō’s knee was a hazy memory that slipped through his fingers whenever he tried to reach for it.

(“Maa, Naruto, if you did your homework, you might have a better understanding of what’s happening in class. Don’t you want to show up this Sasuke kid?”

“But what if I try my hardest, and still don’t?”

“You might not. Try anyway.”

Bold words from one of Konoha’s most famous prodigies. Kabuto wondered if the man was thinking about someone in particular when he said them.)

Of course, it was a full week before this routine changed. Naruto had not gone to his usual spots after classes were dismissed, and it took Kabuto nearly thirty minutes to find him. He was still at the Academy, sitting on a swing. He was barely swinging, though, mostly digging into the dirt with his toes.

“Naruto, why didn’t you leave with the other kids?” The boy didn’t look up. To get his attention, Kabuto crouched in front of him. 

Naruto frowned and pointed his chin down further. “Dunno.”

“Do you want to come back with me? The days are longer this time of year, so we will have some sunlight.” Kabuto wracked his brain for something to keep the boy engaged, in case it truly was important. “If you tell me what’s wrong, I’ll buy you a treat on the way home. Something my … mother used to get me.”

“You have a mom?” Naruto looked up, finally.

“I did, yes.” Would Nonō be proud or resentful that she remained his mother even as he worked against the village she believed in? He’d certainly never asked her if he could take her name. “She is…not with us anymore.”

“What does that mean? Did she move?”

“She died, in service of Konoha.” It was true. Even if Kabuto had been the weapon, Konoha had been the one to wield them against each other. He ignored Naruto’s soft oh . “It has been some years since. Walk with me, Naruto.”

Naruto got up, quietly, and reached out his hand. Kabuto stared at it for a moment before gingerly taking it into his own. The afternoon was unseasonably warm this early into summer, sun bright and strong on their backs as they walked to the kakigōri stall. There was something about it still standing there unchanged, in all the years he’d gone witrhout visiting, that rattled Kabuto. When he’d began working for Danzō — was that truly over a decade ago? — Nonō had indeed taken him there. Now Nonō was dead, and he was working against Danzō, and the only indication of change was a few extra wrinkles in the ice maker’s face.

Naruto quickly selected a horrific combination of flavors for his ice, and even as Kabuto began ordering his own, he began shoveling it in like it would melt immediately if he didn’t.

“Ow….brain freeze,” complained Naruto, continuing to eat through it. Kabuto watched him, amused. 

“Ah, you should know, I don’t care for sweets,” a low voice said just as Kabuto was reaching for his wallet to pay. After barely restraining himself from jumping out of his skin, he turned to greet Kakashi with a tightlipped smile.

“Hello, Kakashi. You’re joining us early.”

“Am I? That doesn’t seem like me, husband.”

“Your change, sir,” said the vendor, valiantly ignoring whatever the hell was happening in front of him. Just as Kabuto remembered him. 

Taking the hint, they left.

“Kakashi, Naruto had something he wanted to tell us about. Why don’t you tell us about your day, Naruto?” 

Naruto’s lip quivered, though he could not avoid this for much longer, having powered through most of the shaved ice already. “I got in trouble.”

“What did you do?”

 Kabuto learned several things in quick succession.

First, that Naruto had a crush on a little girl in his class. This was not altogether surprising, though he seemed rather more jealous of her friendship with his Yamanaka classmate. Second, that this girl, an otherwise well-mannered student, had a rather violent reaction towards those who misbehaved in class. Like Naruto. Third, that this had not dissuaded Naruto at all. Rather, lonely dog seeking attention that he was, he had begun purposefully doing things he knew would bother her.

(“Do you think he gets that from me?” Kakashi asked.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Kabuto didn’t say, though his expression likely carried most of the meaning.)

All of these had led to an explosion of red glitter, a crying Sakura, her angry friend beating up Naruto, and a letter home that was currently crumpled in Naruto’s pocket, requesting Naruto’s guardians — whoever had written this had put sarcastic quotes around the word, which struck Kabuto as rather unprofessional — come to the school the next night to discuss their ward’s behavior.

“Ah… they know Naruto is our son, right?” Kakashi asked, having leaned shamelessly over Kabuto’s shoulder to read. 

“They seem somewhat skeptical of the idea,” Kabuto pointed out.

“We should correct them at this parent-teacher meeting then,” Kakashi said, closing an eye in a facsimile of a smile.

“Eh? You guys are going?” Naruto asked. “You’re not…you’re not mad at me?”

Did he still think they were going to give him back? It was a little late for that. He could hardly start over with a new kid at this point…

“Of course we’re going,” he said instead. “Let’s meet this girl’s parents and talk it out.”

The Harunos. Where had he heard that name before—Oh. These were the parents he had considered killing. Idly, Kabuto wondered if he deserved this.

Chapter Text

Kakashi flicked to the next page in his book, idly taking in the description of Saeko-san’s heaving—why did everything in Icha-Icha heave ? He had yet to see the word used to the same extent elsewhere—bosoms. In any case, he wasn’t anxiously waiting for Kabuto and Naruto to return, and he certainly wasn’t hoping Akino would suddenly call on him with an update about the drug case and force him away.

He had traced the scent of those dealers to a dead end, and had not found anything along the trail of the cloaked man he’d run into either. It had been two days. He left behind Bull and Akino to stake out the place. If anyone matching the scent returned, Bull would hold them down while Akino would collect Kakashi.

He turned to the next page. Ah, he wasn’t sure if that position was anatomically possible, though it was…compelling. 

If Hound was needed, though, at least he would know how to handle the mission.  But…it had been nearly twenty years since the last time he’d even stepped foot in the Academy, and he was expected to act like a … parent? Who would look at him and see him as anything but what he was?

“Hello, Kakashi. Why are you pacing?” Kabuto asked, closing the door behind him. Naruto slipped off his shoes and carried a takeout bag to the table.

Kakashi shut Icha-Icha Bossy CEO!! and slipped it into his pocket. “Hm? I was reading, not pacing.”

His husband eyed him skeptically. So judgmental, Kakashi thought, amused.

“Are you nervous about the conference tonight?” The shock in his voice was, in Kakashi’s opinion, unnecessary. Naruto poured the ramen broth into a large bowl, adding the noodles and toppings, and began to eat.

“What’s there to be scared of in speaking to a few civilian parents and a chūnin?” Kakashi deflected.

“Healthy attitude to take going in. I’m sure it will serve you well.”

The sarcasm was also unnecessary, Kakashi thought, though his own mouth curled as he replied: “Maa, with my cute little husband there, who will want to listen to this old man?”

“You’re twenty-two,” Kabuto said flatly, though his ears were slightly pink. He pushed his glasses up. “And you will be participating. If you need to pull rank to get us through this in under thirty-minutes, please do it.”

“You know, it sounds like you want me to abuse my authority.”

“For me? Yes.”

Kakashi felt very warm all of a sudden, belatedly realizing his face was flushed. Kabuto hadn’t even flicked a glance over at him while he teased him, instead focused on retying his thick hair into a ponytail. Kakashi itched to get those dark eyes back on him, even as he delighted in being ignored. 

It had been a long time since anyone had turned their back to him so casually.

He swallowed, but gathered his cool back from where it had been scattered.

“If you insist.” Kakashi’s voice had been lower than he had intended, but Kabuto did look back at him, finally. 

“Well then,” Kabuto said, and coughed, pulling out some cards. “I’ve prepared some information on Naruto’s instructor, who we will be meeting, along with the Harunos, if you want to read.”

“Aw, you took notes?” From his annual Sharingan-review of the personnel files, he would be familiar with the shinobi in that group, anyway.

“Don’t mock me for preparing for this,” Kabuto said. Not for the first time, Kakashi wondered if he had misstepped somewhere.

“Of course I’m not,” Kakashi said, and leaned over to read them. The notes were more thorough than he had anticipated. “How did you even get this information?”

Kabuto paused for a moment. “I work in the hospital. I overhear a lot.”

So…he broke into the records, then? Kakashi closed his eye, amused. “I’m not the only one who will have abused his authority today, I take it.”

Kabuto pushed his glasses up and made no comment. Kakashi snorted. “I might as well read them, if you went to all that effort. Still, I can tell you’re skilled at this sort of thing. Have you ever been approached to do intelligence work? I think you would be good at it.”

“I think I’ll stick to the hospital and related missions,” Kabuto said with a polite chuckle, though the rest of his body remained still. Nerves? He probably wasn't interested in spending much time outside the village. 

It was better for Kakashi’s peace of mind, honestly, for him to stay put. He struggled to put a name to how he felt regarding Kabuto, but there was…comfort. Warmth. Some sense of ease to living with him, to having him create this home out of Kakashi’s apartment that the idea of that being risked on a mission… 

“Ah, it’s safer to stay there. Lets you specialize more, which will be good for your advancement, too.”

“Hm,” Kabuto said noncommittally, still smiling. He turned to speak to Naruto, who had somehow powered through the takeout noodles in minutes. “Are you ready, Naruto? We’re going to be late at this rate.”

“Can’t have that,” Kakashi agreed, watching as Naruto frantically wiped his face and rushed to put on his shoes.

“I told you that wasn’t a real detour,” Kabuto said, once they reached the Academy twenty minutes after the scheduled time. 

“Why did you want us to be late, Kakashi?” Naruto tugged at the bottom of his jōnin vest, looking up at him with sad blue eyes. 

“Of course I didn’t want us to be late,” Kakashi lied. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

They made their way to the room number on the letter.

“Well, finally, you decide to grace us with your presence,” a man with pink hair huffed.

“You must be Haruno Kizashi,” Kabuto said, painfully polite. “I apologize for our lateness. I have been busy at the hospital, and my husband—” here, the civilian finally seemed to take in the jōnin vest, based on how he paled “—is so very busy in his work for the village.”

“Is he?” Yamanaka Inoichi asked, stepping out to join them. Ah, so he was here too. His name hadn’t been on the notice, but Kakashi knew he had a daughter about Naruto’s age…was that the one who had beat him up?

If it was, the little hellion was poking her head around her father now. She appeared very sweet, Kakashi thought, until the moment she saw Naruto, and her face twisted up. 

“Finally, you show up! Sakura and I have been waiting when we were supposed to be..supposed to be hangin’ out today!”

“We were going to paint each others’ nails,” another girl said quietly from behind her, eyes darting between her friend and Kakashi. This must be Sakura, then. “But Mom said we were all coming tonight.”

A short woman nodded. 

“Yes, I’m Haruno Mebuki. You must be Naruto’s mom and dad,” she said, her final  words causing Kakashi’s brain to flatline for a few moments. “Let’s just get this sorted out. That instructor just stepped out for a moment.”

“Which one of us is the mother, do you think?” Kabuto asked dryly, close enough to Kakashi’s ear to avoid being overheard.

Ignoring the odd tingling sensation this brought, Kakashi shrugged. “I couldn’t possibly guess whether she meant this old man or his little wife.”

His reward was a glimpse at the flushed red on the younger man’s neck as he elbowed him.

In the meantime, a large man joined them. Kakashi recognized him as the chūnin Funeno Daikoku.

“Finally, we’re all here. Let’s get this over with, yes?” he smiled, wiping his palms against the pockets of his vest nervously.. “We’ll start in a few minutes.”

As the instructor led the others into the classroom where they’d be meeting, Kakashi moved to follow, though his way was stopped by a pale arm closing the door.

Ka—kabedon? The porn-addled part of Kakashi’s brain stuttered.  He intended to raise an eyebrow and ask what Kabuto though he was doing. Instead, slightly boxed in like this, he just flustered.

“No acting up, understand? If we want to be in and out, you’re going to need to behave ,” Kabuto said lowly. Kakashi swallowed. There wasn’t much threatening about a medic nin, much less a genin, but the audacity was itself … intriguing, he could admit.

He raised his hands in mocking surrender. “Don’t worry so much, honey.”

If Kakashi were the sort to be honest to himself, he might acknowledge at this point that he had little intent of behaving himself at this juncture. As they entered the room, Kakashi leaned back casually against the wall as the chūnin began addressing proper ways to treat one’s classmate.

As Daikoku laid out the events of the day previous, he considered speaking up in Naruto’s defense. This would both annoy Kabuto, potentially into trying to threaten him, and likely be the Supportive Dad thing, no? As he deliberated, he missed his chance.

“If I may,” Mebuki said, “Isn’t it the instructor’s job to keep his students engaged? It seems unfair that my Sakura has to take up the task of policing her classmates. She should just be allowed to learn, no?”

“Well, Haruno-san, can I call you Mebuki—?”

“No.”

“Ah…well. I’ve certainly never asked Sakura to take on that job, and I wouldn’t authorize her to use her fists against one of her future comrades, in any case. Though I am concerned by Naruto’s refusal to pay attention in class. He speaks much of becoming a ninja, though I see little actual effort put in on his part. Indeed, he spends more time daydreaming about being a shinobi than actually training to become one.”

Kakashi eyed Naruto, who was certainly paying attention now , for all that he appeared to be blankly watching the floor while shuffling his weight from foot to foot. He wished he knew the words, but how could he even comfort Naruto? He’d been a chūnin  by the time he was his age. He wasn’t even sure how to explain the boy’s homework in any terms more simple than it was already written.

Inoichi coughed. “I admit, that sounds like it may be a learning difficulty on his part. How do you accommodate students with similar … inattentiveness?”

“Most students who are this inattentive are still performing well on their exams, so they are learning the material. Naruto isn’t.”

“That’s why I tell him to focus!” Sakura said hotly, before shrinking back under the attention. Ino grabbed her hand, and she continued. “He’s got to learn while we’re still kids!”

“Sakura, of course I agree with you, honey. But it shouldn’t be your responsibility to get him to learn, should it? You’re still a kid, too.”

“Sakura, when you yelled at Naruto, you escalated the situation. Naruto, when you threw the glitter bomb , you escalated the situation. Ino, when you began to punch Naruto, you escalated the situation even further,” Daikoku said. 

“Perhaps someone should have stepped in before fists needed to be used,” Inoichi said.

“Regardless, they must learn to conduct themselves.”

“They’re eight ,” Kizashi said. 

“Naruto, do you think it would help you pay attention in class if you could do something with your hands?” Kabuto asked, drawing everyone’s attention. He adjusted his glasses. “Some children are hyperkinetic. It may benefit his mind’s focus if his hands are distracted, so to speak.”

“Maybe?” Naruto said. “I dunno. When I draw in class, I’m just all, yknow, concentrated on that.”

“Drawing still makes you think, though. How about…,” Kabuto paused, a slight purse on his lips as he reached into his pocket, fishing out a cube with squares of different colors. “Here, I’ll show you how to match the colors on the sides later. But if you just slide a row at a time, that can be something for your hands to do while your brain focuses on work.”

He glanced at Daikoku. “Does that work, or is there a reason we cannot end this meeting now?”

Kakashi hadn’t considered much about how others learned, only that they had always done it worse and more slowly than him even prior to the Sharingan. Kabuto was so thoughtful in how he showed his care, so cunning in how he navigated things, and suddenly Kakashi fiercely hated himself for the falseness of their relationship.

It was a new regret to add to those he already carried. Strange, how the others never felt less heavy.

He had never really considered himself someone disposed to romantic feelings, but he’d read enough descriptions of this feeling to recognize it, even in himself.

The chūnin instructor was blathering on about a group project to get the children to work together. Kakashi could not find it in himself to care. 

“Are we resolved then? Thank you, Harunos, Hatakes, Yamanaka,” said Daikoku. “You may leave.”

Kakashi was prepared to flicker most of the way back when the Harunos approached, and a pale hand grabbed his arm to hold him still. Mebuki cleared her throat. 

“I apologize for my earlier assumption, Kabuto,” she said. “With the ponytail and… I digress. I think it would be good to fully clear the air with dinner. You all should come to ours next weekend, and we should arrange a playdate for Naruto with the girls, too. I worry that Ino—now, she’s a very sweet girl, but very good at getting her way, if you understand—will overrule him in this project assignment if she doesn’t have a reason to like him.”

“Parenting manuals suggest playdates to encourage age-appropriate bonding,” Kabuto said. He’s found time to read those? “Yes, that sounds like a good suggestion. I confess, I am somewhat busy at the hospital to supervise…”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it. Kizashi and I have a more relaxed schedule when we’re in village. What you pointed out about his, ah, hyperkinesia. Well, one of my cousins is that way, and I had to rethink a few of my girl’s stories...he was near silent tonight.”

“I haven’t known him to be shy before,” Kakashi admitted. He looked over at where Ino was explaining who would be doing what in their project, and where Naruto was nodding, still so unlike his usual self.

“Regardless, he doesn’t seem like a bad kid. I think it would be good for Sakura to be friends with him,” she said. “Especially since she hasn’t bonded to others in her class, and it’s rare for two kunoichi to be on the same team together. I don’t want her to graduate and not reach her full potential because of her shyness around strangers.”

“I’d like Naruto to have friends,” Kakashi said. “And Kabuto really has been working a lot. I think he could use some days off.”

Kabuto eyed him, looking somewhat taken aback at the consideration.

“You could also step up more, if he’s struggling,” Mebuki pointed out drily.

“Ah,” Kakashi rubbed the back of his neck. “You see, I’ve got some…pressing jobs ongoing.”

“Really.”

“Yes. Well, we’ll see you next weekend, won’t we?” he looked to Kabuto for aid, who rolled his eyes and called Naruto over. 

“Thank you for the invitation, Haruno-san. I look forward to it. Would it be alright to just send Naruto home with Sakura after school sometime? She is invited to come over as well, if Naruto invites her.”

“Ino has clan training most afternoons,” Inoichi joined their conversation. “However, on days she is free, I would be happy to allow her to your home, Hatake.”

“....sounds good,” Kakashi, unsure of how to respond to this, offered a thumbs-up. “We’re leaving. Bye.”

“Rude one, isn’t he?” he heard Kizashi say as he and Kabuto flickered away with Naruto.

“You should’ve seen him when…” Inoichi had begun, though he was too far away to hear him finish.

When they arrived back at his apartment, he was too strung out to think. Thankfully, there was a distraction by way of Akino in his room, waiting for him. He could smell him even before they reached the apartment, and he left Kabuto and Naruto in the kitchen to check in.

“Boss, it’s time. We found a kid. I talked him in to staying with Bull, but it looked like he was runnin’ from something. We’ve got to get going.”

Kakashi inclined his head and pivoted on his heel. He re-entered the kitchen where Kabuto was quietly speaking to Naruto over a cup of tea. Kabuto looked up at him, and tilted his head. In standard sign, Kabuto signaled: “Mission.”

“When will you be back?”

“Not sure.”

“Stay alive.”

Kakashi was grateful most of his face was too covered to show his reaction. He swallowed and curled his hand casually into a peace sign.

When he returned to his room, he removed Kakashi’s vest and put on Hound. Akino had already jumped to the window ledge, waiting for him.

Hound followed him out.

Chapter Text

In the days that Kakashi had been gone, Sakura had taken to coming home with Naruto on the days Ino had “clan stuff.” This was as much information as Kabuto had been able to glean on the first day, and she had not offered any more detail on the second.

Good instincts. Perhaps it really was for the best he had taken in Naruto, instead.

“So, you’re a healer, right? A medic-nin at the hospital?” 

Kabuto let a genjutsu fall on his notes to disguise them from prying green eyes. “Yes, Sakura-chan.”

“Do you see lots of blood?” 

“On occasion.”

Naruto popped his head up at this, and flopped down beside them. “Really? Do you see more blood than Kakashi?”

Kabuto paused. “I’m not actually sure—”

“What’s the weirdest injury you’ve ever seen?” Sakura interrupted. 

None of them had been in Konoha, Kabuto could say that much, thinking back to what he’d seen come out of the Pit fights between Oto nin trying to catch Orochimaru’s interest.

“Why are you trying to take Kabuto’s time up?” Naruto complained. “He’s my guardian.”

“Yeah, but my parents can’t tell me about emergency room injuries!”

“Ah, but neither can I, I imagine. I would feel uncomfortable if you learned who one of my patients had been because of such a story,” Kabuto lied easily. 

“Ugh, fine. You have to at least show off those chakra scalpels at dinner again!”

“It’s easier to use a knife when chopping,” Kabuto said. Still, perhaps it was better to work on being an approachable young adult. It would be a useful skill. “Fine, I’ll let you watch. Can you identify the signs I’ll use for it?”

“I’ll have to find out!” Sakura cheered. 

Naruto glanced at her, then nodded at Kabuto and grinned. “And me too! I’ll get the hand signs right first, believe it!”

He didn’t, but Sakura had soon given up the competition to show Naruto how to fold his fingers correctly.

“Like this, see?” she’d asked. “Try it again.”

“I was doing that!” Naruto had sulked, but tried again until she was satisfied.

Kabuto hid the odd smile this sight inspired by tucking his head to focus on his slicing.

The kid that Bull had found was drumming two extra sets of hands against his legs when Hound arrived. At the sight of the mask, he jumped to his feet, wide-eyed and panicked.

“Akino said you were running from something,” Hound said, eyeing the limb-situation to weigh the boy’s threat level. “What is it?”

“Who are you—right, the Konoha guy investigating, Akino said,” the boy fidgeted, and rubbed a hesitant hand behind Bull’s ears. The tension in his shoulders slacked, and he laced his lower two pairs of hands together. “My name is Kidōmaru. You can get me out of all this?”

“Are you a drug runner?”

“What—? No, get me out from the Pit.”

Hound could hear the emphasis on the word. This was a place, then: the Pit.

“Is this Pit where the drugs are coming from?”

“Drugs? It’s where most of that stuff is going to, I reckon,” Kidōmaru snorted. “Everyone is looking for an advantage in there, especially those with weaker bloodline abilities. I’m strong enough to make it clean, but that’s why it’s harder for me to run. But since I could escape at all, those freaks will know I’m worth catching.”

Concerning.

“What is the Pit?” Hound asked, now studying the visible bruises on the boy more closely. He wished, suddenly, he had soft hands beside him glowing a blue-green. The absence felt like a coil unwound, aching to be released and snapped back to form.

It’s not like that, Hound chided himself for the fool urge. It’s not like that at all.

The mission, first and always. Voice rough through the mask, he asked again: “Explain this Pit. What happens in it?”

“It’s fights, battles really. Lots of extras trying to prove they’ve got something worth keeping.”

“Why? What do the winners get for being kept?”

The boy paused again and scowled. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want it.”

“Answer the question,” Hound said. He learned he could grip two of the boy’s left wrists in one hand.

Kidōmaru frowned again, but did not fight. “Look, the story is that the winners get special attention. Actual training, and important roles, not like those goons in the village.”

“There’s a village involved?” If the drugs were being trafficked through the Land of Fire by another hidden village, then someone was breaching the terms of the last war’s treaty. And then Kakashi would have to evaluate the political implications of identifying which village was connected, and figure out a way to present that information to Hiruzen and his council of warhawks in a way that wouldn’t immediately lead to the Fourth Great Ninja War. 

Please don’t be Kumo , the part of him that was Kakashi thought desperately. Please be some random village we can annex in a day or two. 

“Yeah, Otogakure,” Kidōmaru said as though the term would mean anything. Behind his mask, Hound’s eyebrow twitched.

“Where is that?”

“How should I know? I was in the Pit!” 

“Have you any idea?” Hound asked, tone flattened even further through the voice filter. “I’ll need to know something to help you.”

Kidōmaru drew in his breath before clearly thinking better of it. He closed his mouth, before finally, he exhaled. “Yeah, but I haven’t seen it. All of the Oto goons enter from the northeast, so it’s either the Land of Rice Paddies or Lightning, and Kumo wouldn’t let it exist there .”

A pause.

“I’m not sure how they got me out of Lightning, so I think it has to be close to the border. They sounded so convincing when I was a kid, but I hadn’t realized…”

“You’re still a kid,” Hound said, reminding himself more than the boy.

He gentled his grasp on Kidōmaru so that the sharp edge of the Anbu gloves did not agitate his injuries further, and another mark of tension eased from the boy’s shoulders as he did. 

“So the Pit is connected with this Otogakure ? Do you know the name of the leader of that village?”

“Ah…they’re called Orochimaru, I think?” 

Hound nodded, but Kakashi reeled. 

“OI!” the boy used his extra sets of arms to break out of the hold Hound had put him in to run faster. Even though he had not thought before moving, he allowed some self-recrimination for forgetting to lock down all of him.

“It was an instinctive response to the name,” Hound said tersely. How long had the kid been gone before Akino had found him? It had taken two days to get here. How long would it be before The Snake Sannin descended upon them?

“Don’t just grab me. What kind of a weirdo freak are you?” 

Anyone who had seen those tanks would have done the same, Hound did not say. He was lucky Cat wasn’t here with him.

“Kidōmaru,” Hound said, instead. “Konoha will need your testimony about this Pit. I should take you back to the village with me.”

“I’m not going to no stinkin—”

“While we gather information on potential criminal aspects of this case, you will of course be provided shelter, food, and some training, should you wish it,” Hound said. It was not, strictly speaking, something he was authorized to offer, but he knew he could at least keep this promise.

And it would be useful for the case, surely, but Hound would need to keep the kid out of Danzo’s grasp for the indefinite future. But who could he even trust with the boy’s care?

Oh, he knew precisely which jōnin as soon as the name came to him. Yes, he would work.

“I—truly? Then yeah, I’ll come with you to Konoha. Not sure what my other option is when it comes fleeing those guys. I’m not moving to Kiri .”

“No one would,” Hound agreed, mock-solemnly. 

Kidōmaru smirked. “Alright, let’s get a move on.”

He was fast, for a kid, but it was still a long hike back. Hound nodded, and picked up the pace.

Kabuto closed the file he had been duplicating for Oto’s uses, alerted by the noise of two sharp raps at his window. It was late, with Sakura gone and Naruto asleep.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Psst!” was his response. Kabuto took a moment to roll his eyes towards the ceiling before walking over to open the window.

Hiroto of Oto gestured towards him, from where he perched on Hisa’s shoulders. How had they even gotten into the village—Sage, but Konoha security was weak in peacetime. “Oi, are you Kabuto?”

“Who is asking?” Kabuto replied, curious how they’d answer.

“Oh, Hisa and me are hired goons.” Straight to the point, then. “Here to take you to the boss-person.”

“Between you and me, I hope it’s a friendly visit. For some reason, you remind me of a guy who helped me out recently, and if it’s an unfriendly visit with the Boss…those snakes take so long to digest guys your size.”

“Quite,” Kabuto answered. “Allow me to leave a shadow clone to watch my child, and— I see. I suggest you let me finish before touching me again.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, sorry abouts that,” Hisa piped up from below. Kabuto made his shadow clone, and signalled for them to take him.

Luckily, the two were faster and less exhausting than traveling by foot, and Orochimaru was perilously close to the village’s city limits. It was the next morning by the time they met.

“Kabuto, are you gaining weight?” Orochimaru greeted him with.

“No.”

“Well, you certainly look … rested,” his Lord continued. Kabuto could not imagine this was the case, as Sakura had forced him to smear cream on his face that afternoon to address his ‘undereye darkness’ after complaining of how exhausted he looked. “I imagine my goons helped on that, letting you be hand delivered. It’s really the dignified way to do business, you understand.”

“My Lord, what did you wish of me?” Unspoken, Kabuto wondered why this meeting could not have been conducted via snake messages.

“Messages can be intercepted,” Orochimaru sniffed. “I need a status report on the Uchiha boy.  Is he within our grasp? How soon can I expect to mark him as mine?”

Right, Uchiha Sasuke. That was his mission, not making house with a jōnin  and a jinchūriki. “It develops slowly, my Lord. But that is not a bad sign. It is not unusual for a prodigy to isolate themselves from their peers — and there is time yet in the school year for the child I’ve adopted to befriend him.”

“Hm. I expect results, Kabuto. You were always my most diligent…why all the delay?” Orochimaru tapped a finger against their mouth. “You wouldn’t be too invested in your little role, would you? It’s all just paperwork, and you are playing a part. No, I know you’re too good to get so invested in this. I wouldn’t have trusted it to you otherwise.”

“Right,” Kabuto managed. “I will continue sending my reports through the snakes then? And I will step up with encouraging Naruto to bridge that connection…”

“As long as you recognize how important this is to me, Kabuto, then I’m sure you will get this done,” Orochimaru said, and smiled. It was amazing that the same tension of muscles that looked so warm on Naruto’s face was so cold on his Lord’s. “Goodbye now, Kabuto. Run on back to your mission, so long as we are clear .”

By the time Kabuto made it back to the village, it was shortly before the time Naruto would return home from school. He dispelled his clone, and took a moment to process the memory rush.

He returned to his—Kakashi’s apartment, and stepped inside, prepared to greet Sakura as well as Naruto. But instead, quietly working on homework, there was a third with them.

The last Uchiha was sitting at the table, eating tomatoes as Sakura cut him slices. He looked up when Kabuto entered, his flat black eyes widening. If Kabuto had to put an adjective to the expression on his face, he would say uncertain .

“Naruto said you had some tomato plants growing. I’ll leave now. Sorry.” He quickly put away his homework into folders and then his bag, and bowed as he rushed out, Naruto and Sakura’s calls for him to stay ignored.

He hardly seemed the arrogant boy he’d been described as to Kabuto. He turned and watched as Sasuke fled, and hummed as he reconsidered.