Chapter Text
This wasn’t the most ideal situation.
It had been a week since the young Kakashi awoke in the hospital, tonight they were supposed to swap the two Kakashis and this mission would be finally completed.
And Yamato thought he was losing the bratty attitude the boy had started out with, (spoiler alert: he was wrong).
Yamato thought the past few days had gone pretty smooth other than the sharingan pain in the child’s eye on one of the first days. He thought the young Kakashi lightened up a bit. Sasuke even reported that he and the child had an actual conversation and Sakura got him to eat as well, everything looked to be going pretty good.
But he seemed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
It was already just after noon and Kakashi had tried escaping four fucking times , and Yamato was getting a headache.
Sakura couldn’t manage to calm down the kid. Even when it appeared she did, and he’d stop arguing, it seemed to just give him more time to think of another escape plan.
He had tried many cheeky things, one of which being, trying to put them under a genjutsu, only for Sasuke to call him out. The surprising part was that it almost worked on Sai, who looked to be in a daze for a few seconds before snapping out quickly. This twelve-year-old almost put an ex-ROOT member under a genjutsu.
Yamato had to admit, the kid was at an impressive level for a twelve-year-old.
Even with his failures, Kakashi kept trying. It was an endless cycle. And Yamato was getting tired of the kid’s antics.
Don't get him wrong, he appreciated and respected his senpai deeply, Kakashi had basically saved him, Yamato felt he was always in debt to the man. But this child version of him was quite annoying, he was nothing like the young ANBU Yamato remembers.
The younger Kakashi Yamato remembers was quiet, calm, and extremely scary if he wanted to be. He was also very protective over Tenzo which always made him smile whenever he thought back to those days.
Though teenage Kakashi was just as messed up, he would much prefer him than this snappy twelve-year-old.
“Let me leave !” The boy growled and pulled, Sasuke was holding him by the wrist, while they all stood in the middle of the Uchiha compound’s living room.
“What’s gotten into you?” He heard Sasuke murmur.
He could see that Kakashi was baring his fangs under the mask, Yamato knew it was something he only did when he was really pissed off, though it wasn’t as scary as when it came from the powerful Copy-Nin.
“Kakashi. Please, calm down.” Sakura tried, but it fell on deaf ears. The boy wasn’t listening to any reason Sakura had. He was just screaming, yelling and trying to run.
Words such as; ‘leave me alone’, ‘let me go’ and multiple unpleasant curse words were barked at by the small child.
The most outlandish curse word he used was when he called Sai a ‘pussy’, which, Yamato had to admit, was kind of funny.
None of them could ever see the older-sensei version of Kakashi speaking like this. Where did he learn all these words? Sai didn’t even know what pussy meant ! (After Kakashi called him that, Sai asked what it meant and Sakura squared him in the face as a response.)
The Moukton-user was convinced this team was going to be the death of him. (Kakashi included.)
“Asshole! Bitch! Fuck you! Die!” Kakashi swore aimlessly, trying to kick at Sasuke’s knees, then looked up at his eyes. “I’ll kill you!!”
“I’m sure you will,” Sasuke deadpanned.
“I will! I could rip your throat out if I wanted to!” The kid looked worryingly serious with that threat.
“Do it then!” Sasuke challenged. Yamato internally groaned.
Kakashi only let out a low growl at the challenge.
“Who’s the pussy now?” Sai said with his dull voice, and a small smile that certainly did not match his words.
“SAI!” Sakura yelled, and Naruto gripped his mouth trying desperately not to laugh.
“Shut up you, crop-top wearing, pale ass vampire-looking weirdo!!”
That finally earnt a funny laugh from Naruto, and the rest of the room attempted to keep their laughter down at the out-of-pocket insult. Holy shit, this kid was ruthless. Sai just looked offended and confused.
“I think I like this version of Kaka-sensei much better!” Naruto laughed.
Sasuke huffed and looked to the side, clearly trying to hide a grin. But in that moment Yamato seemed to notice it with Kakashi, he let his guard down.
Kakashi quickly slipped out of his grasp only for Sasuke to notice immediately and pull him back, nice try.
And then, the cycle continued. The kid went back to his prior yelling to be let go and how much he hated Sasuke.
Yamato felt as if they were doing something wrong, but in the end, it was for his safety. They couldn’t just let him leave on his own.
The Moukton-user watched with a furrowed brow as Sasuke and Sakura continued to try to coax the boy, he needed to do something.
He thought back to when they first caught the child Kakashi, not the shadow clone, but the real one, when he was walking up to the Hatake compound.
Sakura managed to calm him down almost instantly. How’d she do that again? Yamato thought back until he remembered.
The scarf! Once Sakura took it, Kakashi seemed to listen to everything she said.
The boy still had the light green scarf, loose around his neck. Maybe if Yamato were to snatch it, he’d finally calm down?
It sounded mean, very mean, to take advantage of the child like that. But he probably just found it a nice scarf and wanted it back the last time. It couldn’t have that much meaning. And Kakashi was hurting himself, trying to wiggle his wrist out of Sasuke’s grasp. Surely just taking his scarf for a little bit as bait would be better than letting him continue to hurt himself like this. Plus; they were getting slightly desperate.
Yamato huffed, and it got Naruto’s attention, who was standing right next to him. “Yamato-taichou?”
He decided to pitch his idea to him quietly, though it didn’t really matter since any talk about being drowned out by the yelling of Kakashi.
“Hey Naruto, Remember last time when Kakashi didn’t cooperate with us?”
“Yeah.. Why?” Naruto asked.
“Remember when Sakura took his scarf and then was quiet and listened to pretty much whatever she said?”
“Ohh, are you gonna try to do that again?”
“I was thinking about it. We don’t have many other options, should I?”
“Eh, it’s worth a shot I guess..” Naruto shrugged.
Yamato took that as his cue, and he subtly made the hand sign for his Moukton. He weaved a thin branch from behind the boy and hooked the scarf on it before pulling away as fast and gentle as possible. He quickly walked over and grew the branch over the boy until the scarf was hanging in front of him. Yamato plucked the scarf off the Moukton and sucked the branch back into the ground.
Kakashi, to say the least, was stunned.
The room was eerily silent and anxiety crawled its way up Yamato’s neck as the boy stared at him dead in the eyes. (With his sharingan eye open, as it had been all this morning)
“I-“ The boy stuttered before seeming to ground himself, “Give that back.” Kakashi threatened, a low growl building up in the back of his throat again. At least he was talking quieter now..
“You’ve gotta calm down, Kakashi.” It was weird not saying ‘senpai’ after the name, but it also felt weird to call this twelve-year-old ‘ senpai’ .
“You can’t just take that! Give it back and let me leave! It’s not yours bitch!” The boy shouted.
Sakura took a few steps towards the kid, “Kakashi please, we can’t just let you leave. If you want to go somewhere we could always come with you-“
“NO! Give me back my scarf!” He growled, yanking at Sasuke’s grip on his wrist.
“We will give it back if you just-“ Sakura was cut off again by the kid, “No! I’m not doing this again!”
Kakashi’s gaze turned to Yamato and he felt his heart skip a beat, the look in the child’s eyes were helpless, like him taking his scarf was the most devastating thing ever.
“Give it back !” He screamed, voice cracking slightly.
“You’ve gotta calm down first.” Sasuke said.
“No!”
They continued to argue, the boy desperately asking for the scarf back, but they kept denying him. None of them knew what to do. But Yamato noticed Kakashi was slowly wearing himself out.
“Just give my scarf back, please..” Kakashi’s eyes were glazed over, like he was about to break any moment now.
“Will you stop all this?” Sakura said.
Kakashi ignored her, “I want my scarf back, It’s not yours..” his voice was raspy from yelling, looking Yamato in the eyes. Sympathy panged in Yamato’s heart.
“Kakashi-“ Yamato started but was cut off,
“No! It’s mine! My father got that for me! Give it back!” A few heavy tears finally fell from the mismatched eyes.
Yamato felt sick, he had definitely crossed the line with this, the cursing bratty child was gone now. “I-“
Sasuke turned to look at him with a dull expression, “Give it back, Yamato.” Sasuke’s voice was flat, no one argued as Yamato nodded emotionlessly and walked up to return the scarf to the boy who was now letting out a few sobs.
Sasuke’s grip must’ve loosened on Kakashi, because both his hands shot up to clutch the scarf and bury himself in it.
Sakura paced up to crouch down to him and she gently wrapped her arms around the kid, who wept into her shoulder.
Everyone sat in silence, the child’s crying was the only noise anyone could hear. Yamato couldn’t help but to think it was all his fault. (And it definitely was.)
As Yamato started to back away from the two, Kakashi pushed away from Sakura, revealing tear-stained cheeks. “Listen, we’re sorry.”
The young Kakashi’s face only turned to anger at the words Sakura spoke. “Fuck you!!” And he turned around to sprint out the door.
Sasuke managed to catch him on the same wrist he was holding again, and before he did Yamato winced at the slight red mark circling around the tiny wrist, he must’ve gotten it from trying to wiggle out of Sasuke’s grasp.
Just as Sasuke grabbed his wrist again, Kakashi’s hand quickly grew bright with lightning chakra, catching Sasuke off guard and shocking him.
Yamato felt frozen as he watched the kid bolt out of the Uchiha compound.
——————
Kakashi ran, he ran and ran through an unfamiliar forest.
He had no clue where he was going, all he knew was that he needed to leave .
All he wanted was to go visit Rin, Obito and maybe his father. Why was that so hard? A red mark on his wrist burned, and his feet felt numb as he weaved through trees, trying to lose anyone that could follow him.
They were keeping him there like it was a prison. Not to mention, they took his fucking scarf away again. Kakashi mentally scowled at the new scent that was now pressed into his scarf by the brown-haired man. It was light, but Kakashi’s sharp noise could point it out easily. He wasn’t a fan of it, to say the least.
Kakashi kept running through trees, using chakra to enhance his speed. He made sure every turn he made was completely random. The boy surveyed the area as he ran, checking for chakra signatures around him and scents of other people.
When he was sure he’d lost them, Kakashi landed on a thick branch, holding the tree trunk as he heaved breaths.
Where was Minato-sensei? What happened to him?.. Kakashi wasn’t stupid, he knew the feeling he had when he first stepped into sensei’s home. The thick scent of death, Kakashi thought bitterly.
His mind felt like it was spinning, but that other guy said he was just on a mission. Emotions conflicted in his mind and he couldn’t bring himself to think about it. It was overwhelming and Kakashi felt himself fall into more panic, pretty much hyperventilating as he tightened the grip he had on the tree trunk.
‘BOOM !!’
A loud explosion coming from the distance breaks Kakashi out of his dark thoughts.
What the hell was that?
It didn’t sound too far away, alarmingly close, actually, and Kakashi’s curiosity peaked.
Welcoming the distraction, he ran towards where he heard it come from, being careful as to not fall as he leapt from tree to tree. Kakashi could still feel himself shaking.
He found the source of the commotion and hid in a bush to observe.
There was a large clearing in the forest with about twenty to thirty shinobi around the edges. In the middle of the clearing was something Kakashi had never seen before.
There was a massive grayish beast-like monster. It was wailing into the air, it looked to have multiple arms and they were swinging violently around. There was another large crushing sound as one of the arms smashed down into part of the forest that was opposite to him.
The shinobi ran and shouted at each other as they threw attack over attacks, ninja tools hit the beast, along with a couple earth and fire style jutsu. But it didn’t really seem to affect the monster.
Another arm from the beast raised up, only to slam down into more forest, but this time it dragged across the ground quickly; catching multiple shinobi off-guard and it knocked them over with great force. Now, that made Kakashi a bit pissed off.
Kakashi jumped out from the bush he was hiding in and pulled a defensive kunai as he stood in a fighting position.
His chakra was already quite low, considering he’d been using his sharingan all morning, and he had shocked Sasuke with his lightning style.
There was a smaller unmoving arm in front of him, attached to the beast, Kakashi could probably cut it off with Chidori.. It was unmoving but it wasn’t completely limp, meaning the beast could probably only use a few arms at once.
Kakashi backed up and got ready to strike, physically preparing and mentally.
He jumped back, giving himself room to run at the arm, he put back his kunai and did the correct hand signs and grabbed his wrist. As he pulled from his chakra reserves, a bright lightning blade sparked into his palm.
Distantly, he heard a yell from a nearby shinobi to tell him to look out.
As soon as he raced out, the beasts’ arm that he had been aiming for lashed out. Kakashi saw it with his Sharingan, but Chidori was too fast.
Kakashi immediately got slammed back by the long tentacle-like arm, his small body flew back and slammed harshly into a tree. He felt his side, where the arm hit, start to bleed.
He heard a wail come from the beast, Kakashi looked up with wide eyes and saw the arm that hit him fly up above him. Just before the arm slammed down on his weak body, the boy felt himself be lifted up and out of the way.
Kakashi was being held by someone, he looked only to be met with a flash of pink, he recognized it immediately, Sakura.
They flew into the forest, but it was close enough that they could still see the fight happening.
“Kakashi! A-are you alright? Here let me help you.” Sakura stumbled over her words.
She started tending to the wound he had on his side, but Kakashi couldn’t really process it, he just focused on the fight going on in front of him.
He saw some of the people who kidnapped him now fighting against the beast. The shinobi on the ground were yelling about some sort of seal.
Kakashi’s attention shifted back to Sakura healing his side, feeling the comforting warmth it radiated. “Are you okay?” Sakura looked up.
He nodded with a muffled ‘mmhm’.
Just as Sakura finished healing his side, a woman jumped down in front of the beast, and all the shinobi seemed to pause at that. Kakashi looked closer and recognized it to be the so-called ‘ 5th hokage ’. There was also another man beside her. He was wearing a normal jonin jacket and a similar mask to his own. If he looked closer he’d see the similar silver hair the man had.
When they arrived Kakashi saw Sakura furrow her brow, with a small “What?!” under her breath.
The hokage woman barked something out to the man, and the man responded by passing a large scroll to her. She rolled it out on the ground, and it looked like some sort of complicated seal.
Kakashi’s eyes widened as he saw the hokage make a few hand signs then slam a hand down on the seal like it was a summoning scroll. Once she slammed her palm down writing and symbols started appearing on the ground, surrounding the beast. It was amazing.
Kakashi knew the minute it was activated.
The beast wailed and swung its arms around frantically, as it looked to be burning. There were flames that were blinding white and Kakashi could barely look at it.
The child covered his face from it, and the next time he looked back, the monster was completely gone.
———————-
Kakashi was tired.
The twenty-seven year old had finally completed his mission of being in the past for a week. It went pretty smoothly, thankfully nothing significant happened.
He got back to an angry Tsunade, (which was sometimes something scarier than death) he was informed that his team had yet to return with his younger self, and there was another beast on the border on Konoha.
They raced over to where the beast was and Kakashi gave Tsunade the seal and within a few moments, the beast was gone.
It was a stressful welcome back, all he wanted to do was shower and sleep.
“Tsunade-sama!” Yamato was out of breath when he, Sai and Sasuke jumped down in front of them.
“Where is the child?!” Tsunade barked.
“Right here!”
Kakashi felt his brain stop. In front of him was Sakura who was carrying his younger self bridal style. The two Kakashis made eye contact.
The younger version of himself looked to be surprised, he couldn’t blame the kid, Kakashi himself was already getting uncomfortable with this. “What the fuck-“ The younger Kakashi started, but was cut off.
“We need to send him back to the past right now. Let’s go!” Tsunade yelled and was already jumping away towards the Hokage tower.
The run to the tower felt impossibly slow, as he carefully watched the younger kid in Sakura’s arms, it was something that freaked Kakashi out more than he’d thought it would.
Making eye-contact with himself, not through a mirror or picture was the weirdest thing ever. He could almost feel the same emotions he knew he had back then, when he looked at the kid’s eyes.
A panic attack started to show itself in the corners of Kakashi’s brain, how nice! He managed to numb it for the time being, he could do that later.
They all made it back to the room Kakashi was originally sent to the past in, and Sakura set his younger self down, and they both just- looked at eachother.
“Wow.” Young Kakashi mused.
“Yeah- right back at you..”
As he said that, Yamato stepped up and crouched down in front of the kid, “Hey listen, I-’’ He started carefully, “I’m sorry about the whole ‘scarf thing’..’’ The young Kakashi just looked at the Moukton-user suspiciously.
“Here, have this as my apology.’’ Yamato held out his hands and cupped them together, both Kakashis watched as a bright blue flower grew from his hands. Yamato plucked the flower from his palm and gave it to the child, who started twirling it in awe.
“Hmm,’’ The kid started with a bratty tone, looking at Yamato, “I don’t forgive you! But,’’ He shifted his gaze down, “this flower is kinda cool so I guess It’s okay..’’ He mumbled the last part.
Yamato chuckled and stood up, “I’m glad.’’ Then he turned to rejoin the rest of team seven, leaving both Kakashis in an awkward silence, as they stared at each other.
Tsunade cleared her throat, catching both their attention, “Alright, I know this might be pretty weird, but we really don’t have time for staring contests and flowers.”
“Yes m’lady.” Kakashi responded.
The younger Kakashi squinted and furrowed his brow at him. “What?” Kakashi, (The sensei one), asked.
“You're so old looking.” The kid said.
Everyone in the room but Kakashi seemed to find this funny.
“Wow, thanks.”
“No problem.”
“Alright that’s enough, time to send you back.” Tsunade poked the younger Kakashi. She guided him over to the middle of the ink writing, as team seven watched.
“Bye bye, child Kaka-sensei!!” Naruto waved with a large smile, to which the child smiled back.
Kakashi went back to stand with his team as they all watched the hokage start the ritual. The glowing ink returned around the child, who was fidgeting nervously. Again, the light grew bright and warm until it all went away. The kid version of himself was gone. And Kakashi couldn’t help but sigh in relief.
“Finally..’’ Sasuke said.
And Kakashi turned to look at the whole team, a bit of sweat running down his face.
“How was I?’’ Kakashi asked.
“Terrible.’’ Sasuke deadpanned as a response.
“Oh god..’’ Kakashi cradled the side of his face with his hand, and Naruto grinned.
“He called Sai a pussy!!’’
“WHAT?!’’
–END–
Somewhere in the past, Kakashi wakes up on the ground. ‘What?’ It was as if he fell asleep on the way back to his home. The boy noticed he was holding a bright blue flower, and Kakashi wasn’t quite sure why, but he smiled at it. Usually, waking up on the ground would be alarming, but something told him it was okay. He continued his way to the Hatake compound, with an odd warmth in his chest as he twirled the familiar blue flower.