Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kakashi's first reaction when he saw Naruto hold up a kunai with a familiar looking tag was horror. In the middle of a crowd of the rookie teams and Gai's team, no less. He hadn't been aware Jiraiya was even working with him on fuinjutsu, much less Minato-sensei's own speciality. The second was to get it away from him. Time and space jutsu were inherently messy and a quick path to death if they weren't actually mastered.

One shunshin later, plucking it from Naruto's hand, he realized his own error as he was slowing back down to normal speeds.

The tag was already primed to activate, overfull from Naruto's chakra.

He smacked face first into soft hanging clothing and then right into a wall. It wasn't the worst landing he ever had, but it was certainly the worst he had under his own power. It also made him extremely tense— where the hell was he?

Kakashi cautiously extracted himself from the open closet, slowly straightening up to take a look at his surroundings. It was a dark bedroom, with dim yellow light barely filtering in from the partially open window. Considering it had been late morning, the sudden shift in time of day offered no good answer.

There was also a woman sitting up in the bed positioned under the window, visibly tense herself as she slowly looked around the room, likely because of the noise he had made hitting the wall. Kakashi stilled.

The moment she saw him was obvious. The woman pushed herself back in the bed, until she was up against the headboard, with no more space to move back.

What Kakashi had not expected was the strangled laugh of disbelief and shock.

"No— no— you're not real—"

This was too much to take. In spite of the best exit being directly over the woman's head— which would have been a much more serious problem if he wasn't so sure she was only a civilian— he bolted for the window, quickly pushing it open enough to swing through, and was rolling on the strange black surface below before he was back on his feet.

The surrounding buildings weren't of any specific architectural style he had ever seen, and large painted metal forms rested in arrays in the middle of the black surfacing. The only things that weren't completely different were the street lights.

He disappeared into the night.

A few days later found Kakashi with a much better idea of where he was, with conclusions he didn't like, more questions than he had answers for, and no idea of how to get home.

It was a desert city, sprawling defiantly out up and around the mountain he had scrambled up to in his initial escape, larger than even Fire's capital. That on its own was a concern; there were no cities this large anywhere he knew of, much less in such a resource-deficient kind of terrain.

Chakra, for another, was totally inaccessible here. That he had discovered in his first hours here, when a simple fire jutsu failed entirely. He still knew how to start a fire without, of course, but it was an ominous sign.

Careful reconnaissance told him enough about what the local population looked like and dressed in. Carefully scrounged clothing— including a strange billed hat to cover his hair, so out of place and distinct here— let him blend in enough to avoid strange looks, and a couple wallets lifted off of men in suits helped the rest of the way.

The theft didn't bother him in the least. Dying his hair black and looking at two slightly unmatched dark eyes— the first time one had been its original color in over fourteen years— in the bathroom mirror of the questionable 'motel' he had gotten a night in did.

There was also the benefit of discovering the university. It was much more easily accessible than the one in Fire's capital, and both its size and the ages of its students meant he blended in easily. Combined with his strange, stolen money, and the hours the various facilities were open, it was trivially easy to collect his things from the cache he had made in a craggy point of the mountain and stash them in an unexpectedly-given-to-him-for-free backpack and instead lock most of his things up in one of the multiple locker rooms for the day.

His mornings were spent staking out the apartment complex he had originally shown up in. There was no sign the woman had notified anyone of his unexpected appearance, except perhaps to lie to the landlord, if the maintenance team who replaced the window screen were anything to go by. That only raised more questions. That wasn't normal for civilians, especially women.

The first morning she had left, he was surprised it was with a cane in one hand, but didn't let it distract him from noting her features in the light. With long black hair and olive brown skin she looked like many of the people here, but her clothes looked more like those of the professionals and older scholars at the university than the other workers in the complex who usually left earlier in the day. He watched her enter one of the vehicles, reverse it, and drive off. The moment she was out of sight he swung down from his cliffside perch and broke into the apartment.

The first day didn't turn up much. It was comfortably furnished, and mostly tidy. There was enough alcohol in the kitchen that it would have triggered some sort of intervention for most Konoha shinobi, but he wasn't concerned about a civilian's drinking habits. The office held a full bookshelf of various unfamiliar titles and a desk with a laptop that looked far beyond what Konoha had, but revealed nothing.

The only 'real' sign he had even been in here was the bedroom's closet. She had pulled most of her clothes in it to one side, leaving the spot where he had hit the inside wall visible. In the light, the wall was just slightly concave where he had crashed into it, barely visible under the paint. A bit morbid to make it be on display when she slept in the room, but Kakashi couldn't exactly say anything there.

He returned to the campus to sleep in the library and get a free meal. The cartography section had proven to be rarely used, with a good corner to nap in that didn't leave him exposed.

The second day he tried a different route, bringing Naruto's attempt at a hiraishin kunai with him. While he had never learned Minato-sensei's fuinjutsu tricks enough to attempt them himself, even he could tell there was something seriously off about the seal applied to it without serious study. Of course, a good bit of that came from the fact it was somehow acting as the teleporting mechanism itself, rather than the receiving point like Sensei's did.

He felt very self-conscious holding the kunai out in a strange woman's bedroom in hopes it would somehow trigger something. Without being able to activate his chakra, much less access it, it stayed completely inert.

It was only on the way out that he noticed the notepad on the couch, with Naruto's name written in letters across the paper's header. The rest of the paper was split between two columns, one labeled 'show' and the other 'dreams?'. A strange feeling settled into the pit of his stomach. He stole the notepad and left.

Investigating on one of the campus computers didn't help the feeling in the pit of his stomach. It took all his willpower to walk away and leave the computer in one piece.

He didn't sleep that day.

He wound up sitting on one of the mountain outcroppings, staring at the full moon until it sunk out of view. If Obito was alive, he hadn't just failed him, he had failed everyone.

He didn't leave that spot for the whole day after.

The next day he forced himself to descend, aware he needed to be going through the motions needed to be alive. He was no closer to finding a way back to Konoha, but maybe it would be better off if he was stuck here, instead, in this strange world where everything he knew was thought of as entertainment. Fictional. The moon haunted him.

On the campus, an open air informational event was serving free food with proof of visiting a number of the organizational tables present. Kakashi soon regretted it three tables in.

The woman was at that table, with another man, somewhat younger. This was the closest look he had of her yet, and it was with slow surprise that he realized she was around his age. The realization that bloomed faster was the fact that she was staring at him intently. Somehow, she had recognized him.

There wasn't enough of a crowd to disappear into and running would only attract more attention.

"I've got something to handle," she said, turning to her companion, before she gripped her cane and used it as much to propel herself over to him as she was using it for support. "Be back in a bit." To his shock, forming like frost over his half-numb state, she looped her free arm to lock with his, only looking up long enough to glare meaningfully at him. When he didn't immediately follow, a quietly hissed "Move it, Hatake," nudged him into action, if only from further surprise. There was something strangely familiar to all of this.

She half-dragged him with surprising intensity in spite of the cane and stringy nature up a set of stairs to an outlying balcony area overlooking the plaza below. In spite of the bustle below and in the building the balcony was attached to, there was no one there. She set the cane down against a bench and meaningfully tried to shove him into sitting down.

Kakashi stared down at her.

She glared back at him. She looked as exhausted as he felt.

Confusedly, it made him miss his genin.

"Sit," she demanded. He ignored it. "What the hell have you been up to for the last week, and how many times have you broken into my apartment?"

"You know about that?" he said, hollowly.

"You stole a whole legal pad," the woman pointed out. "I'm not an idiot, Kakashi."

The familiarity bothered him. He had no idea who she was, in spite of the fact she reminded him of someone, and the fact she was acting like she knew him— and well— only grated further. "Who are you?" he finally asked.

"My name is Socorro," she answered, looking vaguely reluctant. "But for the last month or so I've been dreaming about being Sasuke, and I thought I was losing my mind until you turned up in my bedroom in the middle of the night."

Kakashi finally sat down. "Oh." Looking at her again, he could see that the sort of vaguely dispassionate yet grumpy and mildly fed-up expression that was likely currently powered by exhaustion was very similar to the one the Uchiha on his team usually wore. Normally the fed-up portion was directed at Sakura and Naruto's antics, though, instead of him.

Socorro-who-was-also-somehow-apparently-one-of-his-tiny-genin sat down next to him. "Yeah." She looked ahead, instead of directly at him. That never presaged good news. "You've also been missing for awhile. Time doesn't, well. It doesn't run equally between here and what I've experienced there."

That definitely wasn't a good sign. "How long is 'awhile'?" he managed to ask.

"About three months? Officially, you're on a long-term mission, unofficially, Tsunade's angry at Naruto for trying to use an experimental time-space jutsu on a bunch of clan heirs and accidentally making you disappear into thin air, and Tenzō's taken over Team Seven for now even though Naruto's not allowed any missions out of the village right now."

The main takeaway Kakashi processed was that it meant Gai might actually be older than him now. Gai could never know. He curled up slightly in on himself, as though he could shield his face that way. It was one thing to be incognito, but knowing she didn't just recognize him but was apparently one of his genin made him feel suddenly naked in a way everything else hadn't before this.

Socorro eyed him warily. "Look. I'll quit tabling early, and take you home to my apartment. This was the last thing I had on my schedule for the week," she said. "I'll order some food— a lot of food—" she corrected, apparently noting the loss in mass he had been steadfastly ignoring— "And you can take a shower. I have a washer and dryer, we can launder your uniform and things. I'm assuming you have them hidden away somewhere. And you can stay there and not run away again while we figure this out."

Kakashi vaguely recognized the tone as one that was trying to talk him off a ledge. Up until this point he had thought he had more time until he received it from the genin. He didn't have enough mental energy left to argue. At least she wasn't trying to be touchy, but then again, if she was also somehow Sasuke, that wasn't surprising.

She seemed to take his lack of response as consent, standing up slowly and gripping the cane. "I'll be back," she told him. She descended down the stairs, free hand on the rail.

He stared into the distance. Three months gone in a week's time here… There had been more than enough to hint from the start that this was a very different world, but the other day's discovery and now this weighed on him. The last time he felt this hollow inside was back after Sensei and Kushina died.

She returned a few minutes later, with grim satisfaction across her face. When he didn't stand on his own, she walked over, and once she was standing in front of him, Socorro swapped her cane to her other hand, grabbing one of his wrists to pull him up. "C'mon," she muttered. "You're making me look like I have it together."

That was right, wasn't it? He remembered there being enough of an alcohol supply to warrant an intervention in Konoha. "Does one of my cute little genin really drink like a fish?" he asked, letting himself get hauled up. If any of them were going to develop that particular addiction he would have pinned it on Sakura, but this one had apparently come pre-broken.

"Not cute," Socorro grumbled, a refrain he was used to hearing from Sasuke. Paradoxically, it helped ground him. "I'm parked on the other side of the building," she told him. "Are your things hidden somewhere here, or off campus?" She started to walk, but waited until he actually followed.

"They're in the gym with the… racquetball courts?" The sport was entirely unknown to him until he had read the placard, and he had observed from a careful distance an ongoing match up until one of the players had taken the ball to the face. He had left just in case someone tried to ask him what happened.

"Not too far away, then," she noted, carefully going down the stairs once more. "And there's a bunch of food places across the street from there."

Kakashi had noticed that, and then immediately dismissed them on the grounds that while pickpocketing was easy, repeat thefts only made it more likely to be noticed or caught. His stomach growled at the mention— and thought— of food.

She stared at him accusingly. "When's the last time you ate?"

Ah, yes. Sasuke was aggressive over everyone's diets, wasn't he? It helped, since Kakashi didn't want to particularly dig into the terrifying mess that was Sakura's psyche over food, and Naruto was now willing to at least entertain the inclusion of vegetables in his meals and not rely so much on instant ramen all of the time. "A couple days ago?" At least two. He wasn't going to admit to three, not to the grown woman who was bothering him. It was much easier to ignore it coming from a sulky teenaged boy. Or perhaps not so sulky, after all, if this was the context.

"I am going to get some take-out while you get your things." It seemed he didn't get to have input on this decision, which besides the bizarre role-reversal this apparently involved, he didn't mind too much; he didn't have it in him to care or choose right now.

At her truck, Kakashi took a small bit of pleasure at the fact she was shocked by the fact he knew how to get in and buckle the seat belt before being told. A short drive later, she parked in front of the row of connected restaurants he had only curiously looked at before, and shooed him out. "Don't get hit crossing the street," she said, dryly. He only gave her a tired look in response as he got out.

When he returned, she wasn't yet out of whichever venue she had decided on. Kakashi leaned against the truck, chin buried against the bag. She soon came limping out, cane hooked over her elbow, one hand occupied with a flimsy plastic bag filled with containers, the other with her keys. The beep soon signaled the doors were no longer locked. "Put your stuff in the back, you'll need to hold onto the food."

Kakashi didn't reply, but apparently something in his countenance made her change her mind. He didn't know how to feel about that. "Fine, it can go in the front with you, but you still need to hold the food." Socorro waited expectantly for him to open the door and only once he was in did she get in herself, sliding the cane off with practice to tuck it in before heaving herself in with her free arm, before holding the bag of food out to Kakashi.

Unexpectedly, besides the scent of beef and chicken, he could make out miso and tempura. He looked at her.

She paused in the middle of buckling her seatbelt to give him a look. "Some of that is for me. Are you planning on not looking like someone said something mean to Pakkun any time soon?"

Oh. The whole pack was going to be very unhappy with him if he ever made it back, he realized. "No."

Travelling to her apartment like this was decently faster than making the trek entirely without chakra, but was in silence. At the end of it, Socorro got out of the truck smoothly, holding a hand up for him to wait. She opened the door to her apartment, before heading around to the side he was at, opening that door. "Hand the food over, you can take your things in."

He stared at her, suddenly aware that someone who used a cane was trying to pick up his slack.

Her eyes narrowed. "It's a bad knee. I'm not a complete cripple. Pass me the damn food." He probably should have realized she would have been aware of the general direction of his reaction. The former shinobi in Konoha who had been injured so badly they weren't able to recover were the same way. Kakashi handed her the bag.

Socorro aceded, and stepped back to give him room to get out.

It was very strange being actively invited in to her apartment instead of breaking in after making it a small habit. Especially when she knew he had done it.

Inside the apartment, after closing the door behind them, she moved to set the bag of food down on the kitchen table, before going into the kitchen itself and pouring two glasses of water, which she set on the table before taking the pitcher over. She looked back at him and made a face when she realized he was still standing by the entrance way with his face half buried into the bag he was holding.

She walked back over to him, and grabbed his arm. "Let's get your stuff washed," she said, looking at him tiredly.

He didn't budge. "Why are you doing this?" Even if she was Sasuke, it didn't make sense. He was an awful jounin-sensei, he had ruined multiple things over the years, and he had broken into her apartment multiple times to snoop.

She stared at him in disbelief. "You're an idiot," she said, before inhaling. "As bizarre as all of this is, you're still a person and very far from home because of me, and you don't deserve to be stuck here, especially not when you're not even taking care of yourself right. There's also the whole bit where people want you back," she said self-consciously. "Gai probably the most. And us."

"I ruined everything. Obito..."

"I guess that's one way to confirm if you found out." Socorro pinched the bridge of her nose. "He isn't your fault. Most of this bullshit can be traced back to Madara or Danzo being assholes. Not you."

He stared at her.

"Ugh." She stared back at him in disbelief, before pulling the bag away. He didn't stop her.

Without bothering with asking his permission, she went and dumped the contents upside on the couch. She raised an eyebrow at the one stolen wallet he hadn't thrown out, and pushed his sandals off and onto the ground. She moved his flak jacket to one side of the couch, leaving just his uniform, accessories, and a small assortment of clothes from here in a pile. She glanced over at him. "I'm washing your things," she told him. "Go eat. The tendon is mine. So is a miso. The rest is yours."

She didn't move until Kakashi did.

He didn't open the bag of food until she was out of sight. There were three larger bowl shaped containers inside for food, and two smaller styrofoam cups filled to just under the lids with miso, along with chopsticks and plastic cutlery. He set the top container off to the side without looking— from the smell he could already tell it was the one with the tempura. His stomach growled.

He grabbed the next container and pulled it and one of the cups of miso out, as well as one of the sets of chopsticks before sitting in one of the chairs that let him look at as much of the apartment as possible.

A rumbling sound started before she finally came back to the living area of her apartment. By then Kakashi had long finished off the miso and was already into the second donburi meant for him.

"I figured you'd be hungry enough to demolish both, but I wasn't expecting it to be at a speed that would put Naruto to shame," Socorro said, blinking as she took everything in, before sitting down to eat.

He made a face as the scent of tempura was fully unleashed into the air.

She looked up at him. "I'm trying to be polite and not look at your face," she deadpanned. Belatedly, he realized it was true. Outside of when she had first identified him, she had mostly avoided staring too much at his face, generally keeping her attention locked on his eyes if she did. "If you could stop making faces at my food I'd appreciate it."

He only gave her a look in return, before turning his attention back to his food. Even with having someone else to pace himself by, he still finished off the second bowl with speed. Socorro, much like Sasuke, seemed to not be the sort to go for much conversation over a meal. Kakashi wondered if that was her norm, because of the unreality of the whole situation, or the exhaustion.

She pulled out her phone while she ate. This was the first opportunity he had to watch one of them be used from this close a distance. He watched with enough interest that after awhile she stopped, setting it down. "You don't need to sit here if you don't want to," she said, misinterpreting his attention.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to figure out what I'll need to get to help strip that hair dye if we can figure out how to get you back to Konoha," she said. "Do you remember what you used?"

He did, and told her.

She sighed with relief. "Well, that shouldn't be too difficult to deal with." She gave him a more examinatory look. "Does it look the same color to you as it did when you dyed it?"

Kakashi shook his head.

"Maybe it'll come out on its own," she said, though her tone sounded dubious. Anything else she might have had to say was forestalled by the sound of a buzzer going off. She stood up and left down the corridor, leaving him to wonder what it was.

He stood up a moment later, and had only made it to the opening when she came back around the corner, something black balled up in her hand. Kakashi instantly knew what it was. She threw it at him, and he snatched it out of the air. His mask. "Thank you," he said quietly, after he had pulled it on and back into place. The faint mix of scents from strange soap and then her own from briefly handling it aside, it was comforting to be able to regain at least a piece of his identity, even if he was aware he would have to remove it if he left this apartment.

She shrugged at him awkwardly. "Yeah, well. You needed it," she said, plainly. "I'm going to go finish my food now." She passed by him and went back to the table.

He trailed after her, but sat at the couch close to the table, turning to look at her over the back. "You said you 'dream' about being Sasuke," he started. "What do you mean?"

She gave him a mildly annoyed look, biting into a piece of tempura. She waited until she finished chewing and swallowed to answer him. "You're really going to ask that while I'm eating?" She sighed. "The first time it was the night of the massacre."

He could see why she wouldn't want to talk about that while eating.

"It was…" she trailed off for a moment, lost in thought on how to explain. "One moment I was entering the compound, and then the first time I saw the clan symbol it hit me how wrong everything was, that I was way too small. I realized I was Sasuke." She cracked a small, hard laugh. "In retrospect, it makes no sense why I was so absolutely sure of that? I could have been any kid in the clan, but instead of walking obliviously to my doom, I was walking right to it because I thought it was just a bizarre nightmare." Socorro's expression faltered, and the healthy undertone to her skin turned ashy. "Oh. Shit. This is real." She had already said that before, but somehow it had occurred to her differently, now.

"What's wrong?" By all reports the last Uchiha in the village hadn't seemed that negatively impacted by the massacre— something he disagreed with— but if Socorro— and thus Sasuke, in some way he was still trying to untangle— hadn't processed it as being real until just now, that would explain why.

"Itachi," she said, distantly. "I told him none of it was real."

"Your—" he dismissed multiple options with barely a delay in speaking. "—brother probably wouldn't have cared."

"No, no," she said, shaking her head. "You didn't look at everything you found, did you?"

Kakashi had slightly shut out everything besides the revelation people here thought he was a fictional character and that Obito was alive with an apocalyptic world goal, so no, he hadn't. He shook his head.

"Danzo made him kill the clan." She stabbed one of the remaining tempura pieces through with a chopstick, pinning it into the bed of rice. Rude table manners, but for good reason. "A good portion of the Uchiha weren't happy with the treatment they were getting after the Fourth died, and they were plotting an uprising. Danzo had his hands all over that treatment, pushing his own prerogatives. Itachi and Shisui were trying to stop it from happening, so Danzo killed Shisui off and outmaneuvered Itachi into thinking the only option he had was to kill the clan off for the sake of the village." She paused.

This was a grim discovery, and one that aligned with Kakashi's own experiences with the councilman. Itachi had been heralded as the next prodigy of the village, after him. But being a prodigy didn't give you the experience needed to hold one's own against one of the village's most experienced elders when it came to statecraft and manipulation. "By the time of the massacre it was too late for you to change anything, even if you could have in the first place." No one in their right minds would have taken an apparent child's word as truth on something like that. The math and time involved made everything particularly convoluted. Socorro was about the same age as he was now, when she first dreamed of being an eight year old Sasuke. Kakashi was just short of turning twenty-one when it happened.

"That's not what I mean. I told Itachi, explicitly, that it was just a story, and that he had let himself get fooled into thinking he had no options. And then I told him to not let himself die and some other stuff." The last part was barely a mutter.

"Oh." That would introduce more factors than Kakashi felt like dealing with, even apart from the ones she had noted on her list.

"I don't know if he actually took me seriously or not. I might have told him to figure out how to not let Orochimaru kill the Third?"

Kakashi took that to mean it had been a direct suggestion. "Short of asking him I doubt we'll find out that answer."

"And we still need to figure out how to get you back, first…" She eyed him speculatively. "Chakra really doesn't work here, does it? Since your sharingan isn't active."

He shook his head. "Not even for simple things."

"Seals can cross over, but anything using chakra goes inert, then. There's no way it can be one way, right? Chakra is supposed to be energy. It can't just disappear."

"You seem very sure about the seals." Going by only one for a time and space technique seemed presumptuous.

"Well…" She pushed the collar of her shirt down and pulled her long hair out of the way, turning to show him something. At the base of her neck were three black tomoe.

A cursed seal. That was one of the things Anko had been so worried about when she realized Orochimaru had infiltrated the second part of the chuunin exam, after they learned he had gone after Team Seven. Until this moment, Kakashi had thought the sannin simply hadn't attempted it at all. "Hmm."

"Don't judge me," she grumbled, straightening up and fixing her shirt and hair. "I thought I was going insane. And as far as Naruto and Sakura are concerned, they saw me get bit and pass out. They never saw the seal form there. I woke up with it here. I also have a guess on why you ended up here but that's Naruto's fault."

"Naruto's fault," he repeated.

"He asked if he could practice inking seals on skin on us," she said, in the way of someone realizing exactly how foolish an idea was after the fact.

"You said yes," Kakashi said, shortly.

"So did Sakura," she muttered. "In retrospect, I'm pretty sure it wasn't just 'practice'."

"They were receivers," he realized. "Naruto must have been experimenting with the hiraishin before that with enough success to want to try combining it with using living beings. That's what he was trying to do." There was one large issue with the whole idea. "How did he end up learning about that technique in the first place?"

"I don't know. The fictional version of him never did," she told him, ignoring his slight wince. "I gave up on trying to assume what was going to happen when Zabuza showed up in Konoha calling himself the Mizukage-in-exile."

"I take it that didn't happen in the… story."

Kakashi sensed hesitation. "No. They both died." She didn't elaborate, instead biting the earlier skewered tempura shrimp to avoid saying more.

He decided he didn't want to know more. So far everything that he had learned here were things he would have been better off without the knowledge of.

In the silence, she eventually finished eating. "I actually have some work I need to get done," she told him, apologetically, as she stood up and put the now empty plastic and styrofoam containers into the plastic bag. "If you need me I'll be in my office, but with how tired you look you should take a nap or something."

He stared at her.

She stared back. "You can sleep normally. I can't, not without weird shit happening." From just what she had told him, he couldn't exactly disagree. She eventually rolled her eyes. "Hhn. Do whatever, then." She walked off.

Kakashi didn't intend to pass out, and yet he eventually did. At some point she had dropped a blanket on top of him. While he vaguely appreciated it from how cold she kept her apartment at night, he would have preferred to have been woken up and given it, instead of having a partially unfolded blanket dropped on his head and torso. The blanket wasn't the priority at the moment, however.

Someone had padded into the room on bare feet and turned on the light, only to suddenly freeze, trying to be quiet, when they realized the room was occupied. Between his mask, the blanket, and the inability to channel chakra, all he could make out was the scent of soap and laundry and Socorro.

Kakashi deliberately turned towards the side of the couch. A little movement, a response to the light, but no more.

They sighed in relief. It sounded like a woman, but without visual identification he wouldn't know for sure.

None of this made sense, put together. No late night intruder would take their footwear off, and Socorro would be aware he was in here.

"Ugh, she would have someone here the first chance I had in forever…" Socorro's voice said softly, in an intonation that didn't belong to the woman at all.

He waited until she switched the light off and began to walk away before he quietly shoved the blanket off and stood up without a sound. He quickly and silently approached her from behind, and pulled her arms into a one handed hold, his other arm restraining her against his side. In her attempted struggle, Kakashi felt one of her shoulders momentarily bulge from its socket, and heard the slight gasp of pain. Interesting information to know. He would have to apologize for that later, maybe.

"I'd like to know what's going on here," Kakashi said.

"Kakashi-sensei?" Socorro's voice sounded stunned.

Well. This complicated things, but it still unintentionally gave some answers. None of his genin could steal bodies, even temporarily, but they certainly knew someone who did and would immediately think of him as a sensei first.

"Ino," Kakashi said. He released her, and stepped backwards.

"We thought Naruto vaporized you," she said, heading back into the living room and turning the lamp back on. "Uh. Wow. Your hair."

Ino in Socorro's body only emphasized the strangeness of the situation, and highlighted parts he probably should have picked up on earlier. Sasuke— and Socorro— moved like an adult, something that he had dismissed as being part of his student's solitary nature and apparent forced maturity because of the massacre. In retrospect, it was glaring to have overlooked. Ino, on the other hand, while a confident young kunoichi, still moved like the teenager she was, even while wearing Socorro's body.

There was also the fact that apparently some of them thought that Naruto had killed him, but that could be handled later.

"No, I'm still very alive," he told her, feigning his usual competent laziness as best as he could while in a free t-shirt and stolen sweatpants. At least he had his mask. "Just somehow in the wrong world. I'm very interested in how you're here."

The nervous expression was interesting, especially when she folded her stolen arms across her chest defensively. "The first time happened when I was practicing a clan technique and got distracted by Sasuke," she said, flushing. "I woke up in this woman."

"The mind body switch technique," Kakashi realized. "And then?"

"I looked around and…" Ino was trying to avoid looking at his eyes. "I found some things."

The sudden cageyness aligned with her dismay at finding the room with the television in it unexpectedly occupied. "The show?"

"Oh! You know, then," she said, with much more relief than Kakashi felt comfortable with. "I found out the first time I wound up here. So I had to keep looking to find out more."

"You've been doing this for how long, now?" Kakashi asked, trying to not think about what the young Yamanaka thought she was doing or what she thought he knew.

"I started a few months before the chuunin exams," she told him.

Some time, then. He wondered how long ago that was for Socorro, and how much it played into the exhaustion he had seen. If Ino's idea of research was keeping Socorro's body awake on even a semi-regular basis, it would be deleterious on its own. "You're aware she somehow has a connection to Sasuke?" he asked.

"I tried to look things up, but there's nothing in Konoha's library and I'm not allowed to look into the clan archives on my own until I make chuunin," Ino huffed.

"Have you thought about what that connection could be?"

"Uh…"

He would take that as a no. "The woman whose body you've been taking over has been dreaming about being Sasuke since he was a child."

A series of conflicted expressions crossed Socorro's face as Ino processed what he said. "W-what!? Who do have I had a crush on, then?"

Not the takeaway he had expected. That was going to be yet another thing to handle back in Konoha. He felt more confident that part was going to be possible now, with Ino's irresponsible— and fairly unethical when against another Leaf-nin— behavior as evidence. "End the technique, and don't use it on Sasuke without permission again," he told her, seriously.

Ino realized that much was serious, at least, and with very little transition, Socorro's body went from awake and speaking to him to slumping over, fully asleep. Kakashi lifted her up into an over the shoulder carry before she had the chance to hit her head on the wall or drop to the ground.

He set Socorro on her bed carefully. Blanched of all color in the contrast of darkness, the small neutral frown on her sleeping face was much more comparable to Sasuke's. Because all things deserved to be equal, he dropped her comforter on her face.

After that, Kakashi ended up on the mountain again that night, only descending after the sun rose.

She was already awake, sitting at her kitchen table with a steaming mug, when he returned, pulling his mask back up over his face. "I wondered where you went," Socorro said, as he removed the cheap shoes he was wearing.

He eyed the coffee maker on the kitchen counter. There was a bottle of liqueur next to it that hadn't been there earlier. "Early, isn't it?"

"I woke up feeling like crap," she muttered, reaching back to rub at the shoulder that had acted out when he restrained Ino just a few hours before. "It's not like I have anything important to do today. Let me be miserable."

"There's a reason for that," Kakashi said.

She squinted at him.

"How often have you noticed Ino Yamanaka around you in Konoha?"

Socorro's expression said enough. "Enough to know she hasn't given up on her crush, and I think it's turned into stalking which I hate thinking about, thanks. At least Sakura's stopped reminding me she has one constantly by now." She shuddered.

That part was uniquely awful enough that he decided to pretend to ignore most of it. "Would I be right in guessing that it started sometime after Wave?"

"Jesus Christ, just spit it out instead of stretching it out for once, Kakashi."

He would take that as a yes. "We had a not-so-little visitor last night borrowing your body," he said. "Somehow Ino's use of one of her clan techniques is letting her take over your body here, instead of Sasuke's. She's been doing this repeatedly for 'research'."

"What the actual fuck." Socorro let her head thud against the table. "Why is this my life?"

He didn't bother to answer.

Eventually she picked her head up, and took a strong swig of her coffee. "So I'm guessing Ino knows, for whatever good it does her since the story barely applies by now. Ugh. I'm going to have to talk to her now, aren't I? And I thought my news was going to suck."

"And your news is?"

"On the positive side, Tsunade decided to promote me to chuunin, which means I've somehow done better than the Sasuke from the story even though I thought I was going nuts and constructing a fantasy world inside my head." She didn't seem to think this was good news, considering the fact that she drained the mug right after. Socorro pushed her chair out, and moved from it to refill it from the coffee carafe, pouring more liquor in on top than was strictly necessary.

He raised an eyebrow. "Congratulations?"

"The downside is it was for village bullshit. Instead of being just on Team Seven, I'm now in charge of reestablishing the Konoha Military Police Force. I don't even like police!" She tested her coffee, winced at the heat, and set it back down.

Kakashi shrugged.

"Thanks for your support," she said dryly.

"You're welcome."

Socorro leaned back against the countertop, hands clutching the edge on both sides. "Look," she said with a sigh. "You're making me seriously concerned here. I know this is unfair because I know far more about you and your giant piles of trauma than you know about me, but between the series and my own experience, I'm at least aware your bad normal is being passively suicidal by being a sacrificial acting-on-orders shinobi instead of whatever the hell this is. Active self-neglect? You haven't even moved since you came through the door."

She was right. He did find it unfair. He still didn't move from his position by the door, though.

Socorro pushed off from the counter and began to make her way over. Whether it was due to weather, the alcohol, it being the beginning of the day or something else, her limp was less pronounced than it was yesterday afternoon.

It wasn't until she was about a foot away that he wondered what she was planning.

She grabbed both of his arms around the wrist and pulled.

Kakashi didn't budge. While he might have lost some weight from not eating nearly enough, he was still in much better physical shape than the stringy, injured woman who was trying to pull him. He raised an eyebrow at her.

She furrowed her brows together looking back at him with a much more intense look in her eyes than was necessary. Kakashi recognized that expression, but not in time to push through the fog of apathy and remove her hands from his wrists or do anything. Socorro tugged to the side and dropped her legs out from under her, suddenly dead weight he hadn't accounted for. Kakashi toppled over, partially on top of her, and didn't bother to move on the cool tile. Socorro grunted, and shoved her way out from under him.

"Really?" She sounded disappointed. "You're just going to lie there?"

He looked at her with half lidded eyes. "Why shouldn't I?"

Socorro heaved herself up, and grabbed hold of his legs. "I'll tolerate your normal bullshit but there is no way I have the mental energy to put up with you not bothering to at least take care of yourself." She started to drag him across the floor. "This sort of shit is probably why Gai is your best friend."

"Is it?" He watched the ceiling change as she pulled him out of the living room and into the hallway. It was textured and the part in the hallway showed signs of a sloppier paint job.

"It's the only reason I can figure," she said, pausing to catch her breath.

"You're very out of shape," Kakashi said, flatly.

"I use a cane, what sort of shape do you expect me to be in!?" His comment, if anything, just incensed her into immediately starting to drag him across the floor again. Soon she dragged him into a room he had some misgivings about staying on the floor in. The toilet vaguely loomed in the corner, with clothes folded on top of the lid. His uniform.

She only stopped when her back hit the wall, and looked down at him. "Don't come out of here until you've showered or are less of a human puddle. I refuse to deal with you looking and smelling like a depressed hobo. Pick one or the other." Socorro stepped over him, nudged his head forward with her foot, and closed the door behind her, surprisingly gently for someone who was so bossy.

Left alone, lying on the tile, he vaguely realized that she had set this up and must have been waiting for him to come back. The lights had already been on in both the hallway and the bathroom when she dragged him in here. Clean dark blue towels were hanging from a wide towel rack, and the tiled shower tub looked freshly rinsed down and clean, the plastic liner pushed back. His Konoha uniform, freshly laundered and folded set on top of the toilet, just waiting for him. This was a trap, and his uniform was a lure for him to go through with it.

From their 'obstacle course' training he was very familiar with each of his students' styles by now. Naruto enjoyed a chaotic approach that usually had multiple ways to be triggered. Sakura's were still very by the book when she set any up on her own. Sasuke, unlike either of them, tended to set unusually effective bait to lure people in. While last night certainly confirmed her claims even without her update, and everything else was serving as supplementary proof… It didn't mean he had to accept it happily. It was almost enough to make him reject showering outright.

These clothes were beginning to smell questionable even to him, though. While it was easy to ignore in the field or during travel, being limited to short showers in slightly questionable facilities and cycling through the same unwashed clothing wasn't particularly enjoyable. The only positive was that because of the dry climate here he didn't have to worry about the potential of his clothes growing mildew.

Kakashi stood up. To his bemusement, since the last time he had snooped, she had cleared most of the bathroom counter off. She had also pointedly left a spot where a still plastic-wrapped toothbrush rested, next to a tube of toothpaste and a hairbrush.

He glanced at the mirror. Even with having eaten and being slightly more rested, his reflection looked noticeably haggard even with his mask on. He resisted the renewed urge to look away as he focused on his eyes. His and Obito's. In some ways it had been much easier to deal with looking into the mirror and seeing the red sharingan stare back, blatantly not belonging in his face, than this. Obito's eye was only a few shades darker than his, without chakra constantly feeding into it. The bright light panel arrayed above the mirror made the difference more apparent than it was at the questionable motel a few days ago. It would be so, so simple to—

No.

He shook his head, as though the act alone could completely displace those thoughts. Even with his failures where Obito was concerned— left alone alive and half crushed to go mad and plot the end of the world— Rin had implanted that eye at Obito's behest. He had failed her too, but it didn't mean he should rip the last work of hers left out of his face.

Kakashi closed his eyes and pulled his mask down. The earlier vague scent of 'chemically clean' wasn't overwhelming without it. Either she had gone light on the cleaning materials when he was gone, or the bathroom hadn't been cleaned so recently that it would fry his nose. For a civilian woman's bathroom, it was relatively lacking in the strong floral scents he usually associated with civilians who lived in homes or apartments with more modern bathrooms. Then again, he supposed nothing about this one was that normal.

He grabbed the toothbrush, removed the wrapper, wet the bristles, and squeezed a small amount of the toothpaste onto it, only to promptly choke in surprise at the suddenly overwhelming artificial flavor of peppermint, before trying to spit most of it out. He gave the half used tube of toothpaste a suspicious look. He still did his best to finish brushing his teeth in spite of the taste.

Afterwards, Kakashi turned towards the tub, studying it for a moment, before testing the tap. Hot water immediately ran from the faucet, and after pulling the shower curtain forward, he tried a couple experimental tugs before finally shifting the water to run from the shower head. He finally pulled his mask off, carefully setting it down on the side of the sink, and then removed everything else.

The shower facilities at the university gym he had been sneaking into hadn't been particularly terrible— not compared to the one in the rented room he paid for with stolen money, at least— but their age had shown. This, though? There was something awful about the fact a civilian woman had a shower with better water pressure than his apartment did, with jounin pay. Even with the fact that this was a different world. He managed to tune everything out except the water, letting it beat against his head, neck, and back, the heat and pressure slowly working its way through stress-tensed muscles. After some time, he resigned himself to needing to figure out the washing situation.

All of her shower products were in distinct and different bottles, which would have been more useful to go from if he had any idea what they were without having to look at every single label. To make it more confusing than it had to be, she actually had multiple shampoo bottles. Kakashi ended up using the one in a green bottle that was supposed to be 'clarifying'. The rinsed off suds floated off newly charcoal grey, in rivulets of ash colored water.

Eventually, he had no excuse for staying in the shower anymore he could make to himself, and reluctantly turned the water off and dried himself with the towel. The return to his original clothing was at least comforting, even if he wasn't likely to venture far from this apartment in them.

Glancing at the mirror when he grabbed the hairbrush, his hair showed signs of more of the dye having lifted. There was an off-blue tinge to it, the black no longer as deep in some spots. He pulled his mask back on and opened the bathroom door, after picking up everything he had changed out of.

The smell of cooked food immediately hit him when he opened the door. Eggs and meat, and the less heavy hanging scene of cooked vegetables. For lack of better ideas, he carried the filthy clothes with him into the living room.

Socorro was reading a book on the couch across from her television when he entered the room. She looked up and wrinkled her nose at the sight of the clothes. "Eugh. Throw those by the washer."

He gave her a very deliberate look, balled the clothes up, and flung them behind him. They landed close enough to where she meant.

Socorro stared at him over the top of the book. "That was petty, but I'll take it over you lying down on my floor. There's a plate of food on the counter for you." She stood up and began to make her way to the hallway, leaving him wondering if he missed something.

"Where are you going?"

"To my office? So you can take your time to eat with your mask off instead of feeling compelled to do that thing where you somehow shove half of your meal into your mouth at once without anyone seeing your face?" She huffed. "You're the one with the weird complex here, not me, just accept I'm giving you space for it." Socorro left down the hallway and into her office, firmly closing the door behind her.

Mildly baffled, Kakashi was left unsure whether in this case this was a Sasuke thing in specific or a general woman thing. He went into the kitchen to investigate the food she said she left for him. A dirty plate was in the sink, and as promised, there was a plate covered with an unfolded paper napkin set on the counter, with a fork on a napkin beside it. He eyed the hallway before he pulled his mask down. He didn't smell anything questionable about it. He removed the napkin.

There was a large omelet centered on the plate. It was large enough he wouldn't have made this much for himself. He gave another suspicious glance directed down the hallway before he poked it. The egg tore away under his finger, revealing the inner fillings of diced up cooked vegetables and sausage. It was still warm. After a moment of deliberation, he took the plate and food to the same spot he had sat at before. Kakashi surprised himself by easily eating the whole thing, if not quite at the same speed he had blown through the two bowls of donburi.

He had been left alone the whole time, which was incredibly different. He had to eat alone in his apartment if he wanted to eat at his own pace, and even then he would have to keep some of his attention out for Gai just in case, who seemed to think Kakashi needed to regularly be bothered.

He pulled his mask back up and set the dish and fork in the sink with the other one, napkins in the trash, and after a moment of deliberation, went to the door of her office. He knocked before opening the door.

Socorro turned around, swiveling her desk chair to look at him with a wry expression on a tired looking face. The desk surface before her was mostly cleared except for a pad of lined paper, the laptop computer that was pushed back playing some kind of music at a low volume. "You know it's normal to wait for an answer, right?

Kakashi shrugged lightly.

She sighed, momentarily turning to press a key on the keyboard that muted the music before returning her attention to him. "Kakashi. Look." She kneaded the bridge of her nose. "I know this is all completely weird and I have no idea when exactly you learned about the whole story thing, or even what parts, besides what happened with Obito. I'm sorry shit sucks. Just, can you hold it together enough to at least take care of yourself? I know that's a lot to ask for."

He gave her a tired look in return. "Do I really have a choice?"

"Yes, you do, which is why I'm asking," she countered.

"What choice do I have?" he reiterated. "If I want to go home, there aren't any alternatives."

"While I guess you're right, I'm not sure how I feel about how you're seeing this, putting it like that," she said with a sigh. "You at least do want to go home, right?"

Kakashi stared at her. "I can't stay here," he answered, slowly. "I don't have the resources or ability to establish an identity here."

"Fine, that was a stupid question," she admitted. "Let me try again. If you had the ability to choose, what would you choose?"

"Konoha," Kakashi promptly answered.

"Glad we have that figured out," she half-muttered under her breath. "You're a real pain in the ass, but I really can't blame you for it."

He met her eyes. "That would be a first," he said, quietly.

"What? That's bullshit," she answered firmly. "Before you showed up here, I wasn't thinking of you in any way except as being fictional, my brain doing whatever the hell it was on the way to completely losing it. Just because plenty of your 'precious people' have died doesn't mean there aren't people who haven't paid attention to you or care about you and ignore it because they know better. Gai's probably your best friend because you're both dramatic weirdos, but he's known you since you were both kids, hasn't he?"

"Yes," he warily answered.

"He's seen you through everything. He's probably the most mentally healthy ninja in the whole village, and as far as I can tell he's never held you accountable for anything that's happened to you, has he?"

Kakashi turned to leave the room. He wasn't having this conversation.

He was already down the hallway when she called after him. "You're being an idiot, Kakashi!"

Maybe, but it didn't mean he had to stand there and be confronted with it.

He paused in the living room with the realization that he had no idea what to do at this point. In Konoha, he would have just been able to leave. Dressed in most of his uniform like he was now, he would only attract undue attention at this time of day if he left. The first couple days had proven that much.

It came back to the same problem he had just pointed out to her. He didn't have real choices.

Socorro trailed into the room after him. "I'm surprised you didn't run away again." The notepad was still in one hand.

"I said I have no choices. This is just another part of it," he tried to answer lazily, before he dropped onto one of the couches, looking away from her. "Leave dressed like this? To where? I would only have to come back eventually."

"See, being able to spin things like this is why Sakura's always one comment away from punching you," she said, going to sit on the other couch, before grabbing a pen from the coffee table. "Masking depression as laziness is a terrible way to live."

"And alcoholism isn't?" Kakashi asked.

Her eyes narrowed at him. "Fine, we're both awful at functioning. Does that make you feel better?"

"No," he half-lied.

She flung the notepad at his face, the pad spinning in a way that kept the paper from fluttering outwards. Judging from her reaction when he plucked it out of the air inches from his face, she hadn't intended to actually throw it like a shuriken. Now that was interesting.

Kakashi glanced at the top of the pad. "A list of names? You plan to bring others into this?"

"It's not like I know any seals," she pointed out. "Unless you feel like waiting for however long it will take for me to learn enough to work backwards from what Naruto did and figure out a solution…"

Without a teacher, fuinjutsu was arduous and time consuming to learn, past the most basic of seals. "No. I see you added Naruto's name and scratched it out."

"Do you want him to find out he's the main character of a multimedia empire?"

"Ah, good point." That wouldn't do at all. It also only underlined how much of a good decision it was earlier that he had decided to try to blend in as much as he could. He stared at the list of names for another few moments. A few he dismissed outright, or concluded would learn about it in the recovery process regardless. "Gai, then. And Yamanaka Inoichi." He steepled his fingers against their names in the strange writing of this world. "He'll be able to verify using the same technique as Ino."

"You want Gai to know because it means suffering for me and because he's your friend, don't you?" she asked, eyes narrowed once more in suspicion.

"No," he lied.

She did not look like she particularly believed him, but that was fine, as long as she kept at least some distance from the earlier subject. "Fine. Gai and Inoichi, then," she confirmed.

He nodded.

She shrugged, a lopsided one that favored one shoulder. "Works for me. If I'm going to do this tonight, you should go take a nap in my bed."

In her— "What?"

"Go. Take a nap. In my bed." She pointed down the hall. "I actually got sleep last night. You still look exhausted, which probably wasn't helped by deciding to fuck off to wherever it was you disappeared to before you came back this morning. You're going to have to be awake tonight to talk to Inoichi, if I can convince him to try and use the jutsu."

It was much easier to shut down people who were much younger than him. The fact he was staying in her apartment didn't help much here either. He was usually able to ignore the ones who were around the same age as him because he could just leave and go home.

He still decided to put it off for longer, blocking out his thoughts. "'If'?" He shook his head. "No, go to Gai first. He'll be able to talk Inoichi around."

She gave him an extremely dubious look. "Gai. And what am I supposed to tell him?"

Kakashi shrugged. "The truth, if you have to."

"That I'm actually a woman his age and I need his help to convince the head of the Yamanaka clan to try to possess my body in order to figure out how to travel between dimensions to bring you back to Konoha and free my couch up?" she drawled.

"Not like that." Even if Gai would probably believe it, that would just result in awful questions eventually. He suddenly had a very specific insight on her particular horrors where it came to Sakura and Ino's crushes on Sasuke.

"I'll figure something out. Now go and sleep. I mean it."

"And what about you?"

She waved his concern off. "I'll take a nap or something on the couch if I feel like it. Those don't seem to trigger it, so far."

"But it's your bed," he tried to protest.

"And you're the one who's been sleeping God knows where for a week. I don't fucking care that it's my bed, you need rest, too."

"You swear a lot, here."

"In private, sure. Even when I thought it was a dream I felt too weird swearing in front of children. Like if I did, my grandmother would find out and skewer me." She bit her bottom lip as she thought for a moment, and then blushed. "Oh."

"Oh?"

"Your ability to smell— is that why? Because—" she faltered, as she looked away. "Oh, urgh. The bedding is fresh, okay?"

It was just as well because he could feel his cheeks beginning to burn at what she was implying, and decided that the bedroom was better to risk after all, than staying and seeing how more awkward the situation could get. He fled as fast as he could without outright running.

The bedroom's blinds were closed, leaving it dimly lit in spite of the strong sunlight trying to break through. The bedding was actually 'fresh' as she had said, smelling only of her and the detergent and not… other things.

He still avoided the obviously slept on side all the same. He eyed the comforter on the bed uneasily.

There was a brief knock at the door, and she opened it, just wide enough to toss the blanket she had dropped on him last night at him. Kakashi caught it, and stared at her.

She was still red in the face. "Don't give me that look." She turned around and shut the door behind her, leaving him baffled.

Left to his own devices, and still more tired than he was willing to admit, he eventually ended up falling into a light sleep that actually deepened from exhaustion.

"Kakashi, wake up."

His eyes snapped open. The room was entirely dark now, and she was standing in the doorway, a dim silhouette against the light from the hallway. "I thought you would have woken up earlier on your own," she said, not quite apologetically. "But I guess you were exhausted."

He sat up, pushing the blanket away. While he did feel the most rested he had in roughly a week— since he had ended up in this world — he wasn't going to admit it.

"I just finished making dinner, so." She shrugged, punctuating her statement. "Figured I might as well wake you up instead of letting it go cold."

"What time is it?" Kakashi asked as he stood up. It was a safe question, compared to others he could think of. He could already smell the cooked chicken from here.

"Bit after seven," she told him, heading back to the main living area. He trailed after her, glancing at the window before he left. "The sun just barely set."

"You let me sleep the whole day?" It was still morning when he had fallen asleep.

"It isn't like you missed much," she pointed out. "And you clearly needed it."

"It was still the whole day," he repeated, not quite trying to protest.

"So?" she countered, as she walked into her kitchen. Both its light and the dining room light were on. "You're the one in a foreign place, you need to be healthy. I'm not even sure if the germs are the same between here and there." She eyed him with this realization.

Kakashi suddenly became aware of an itch in the back of his throat and narrowed his eyes in her direction.

"You better not get sick," she said, finally. She pulled two plates out of one of the cupboards, before pulling a tray out of the oven with two black oven mitts.

He stopped at the counter that separated the kitchen from her dining room and looked at the tray with suspicion. He knew he had smelt chicken, but he had no idea what this was supposed to be.

It looked like chicken katsu, but it had been baked, layered with a red sauce with something white and creamy oozing on top of it all. The noodles she was ladling onto the plates didn't help make the dish any more identifiable, before she put the chicken on top.

She looked up, and frowned at him, before setting them on the counter in front of him. "It's called chicken parmesan. It's edible. It's not going to hurt you. If you want to be helpful, you can take the plates over to the table." That said, she pulled out forks and unimpressed knives, setting them next to the plates as well, before pulling out a water pitcher from her fridge and glasses.

He gave the food a skeptical look.

"It's just breaded chicken, cheese and a tomato sauce," she said, taking in what she could see of his expression. "I've seen cheese in Konoha. Stop being weird."

"Not like this," he answered, though he did finally take the plates and utensils and set them on the table. While he was well aware it was petulant sounding, he didn't really care right now.

"I both don't actually know how to make most of the typical food over there or have some of those ingredients so you're going to have to settle for what I know how to make. I'm not getting Japanese take-out every day for you." She brought the water pitcher and glasses over. "I know you're permanently mentally something like fourteen but you don't have to act like it, too."

"Fourteen?"

"I think that's the math, at least."

He decided he didn't want to think about it, much less ask. "You're not running off while I eat this time?" he asked wryly. While it did make him feel more at ease, it was still awkward because she was retreating in her own home. He was socially aware enough for that.

She gave her little half shrug again. "I'll leave if you want. Sitting at my desk bothers my shoulder too much, and it's already acting up thanks to Ino." As she mentioned Ino's name, she made a face.

"No, that's fine," he said, if reluctantly.

She gave him a look, and went and moved two of the chairs around. Instead of one on each side of the table, she moved them to be adjacent to each other on one of the long sides, both angled slightly outwards. She pulled one plate to the one she was still standing next to. "Will this make you feel better?"

"...Yes," he admitted. He still waited until she sat down to turn in the opposite direction to pull his mask down before he sat down, surreptitiously glancing in her direction first to see how she was using the utensils in this case.

She quietly huffed in amusement after a while, before she looked up. "You really aren't used to food served like this, are you? Push your plate over," she told him.

He stiffened. "What?"

"Push your plate over," she repeated. "I'll cut it up for you."

"I can do it myself," he said slowly.

"Which is why you were eyeing what I was doing and you haven't touched your plate at all. I wasn't trying to set you up with this, I promise." She motioned for the plate.

Not entirely sure why he was giving in, he reluctantly shoved it over.

She moved her fork and knife over, and immediately began to slice the cheese and sauce coated chicken into ribbons. "You should talk to Gai if— no, when you get back," she said, keeping her eyes on the plate. "I'm not trying to condescend to you or anything, but as messed up as I'm finding all of this, you're not handling this well at all."

"Should I be? I ended up in another world where apparently everything I know is fictional, I found out one of my old teammates is trying to end the world because of me, and one of my male teenaged students is also an adult woman my age. I'm sure there's more."

"Point taken," she answered dryly. "I've had a month here and a year there to think I've been going crazy. You've had less than a week outside of landing here, I'm guessing." She finished, and slid his plate back over. "Just the fact that I ended up cutting your chicken for you says enough about your mental state, I think."

He turned to actually stare at her. "You decided you had to drag me across the floor earlier."

"That too. I wasn't expecting you to do that and just lay there," she admitted, before raising an arched eyebrow at him. "And for someone who's been acting shy since you realized I recognized you without your mask, you seem to keep looking in my direction without it."

He ducked his head as he turned back away, choosing to poke at the food instead for a moment, before he finally speared a piece and cautiously bit into it.

She shook her head. "You really are ridiculous." She settled into eating as well, letting everything lapse into quietness.

By the time he finished and was pulling his mask back into place, she was still only halfway through. He was at a loss for what to do. "You… teach?" he asked, unsure if he actually wanted to commit to learning more.

She looked slightly bemused at his question, and swallowed before answering. "No, I'm still a student here, too, if an upper level one. That is what I'm hoping to do after I'm finished, though. Just not for children."

Kakashi thought for a moment before speaking. "You mean being one in Konoha isn't inspiring you to teach children?"

"I had to cut your food up for you, drag you to the bathroom to shower, and tell you to sleep and that is how you decide to tease me," she answered though there was an amused look in her eyes, now. "You're awful. What else do you want to know about my life here, Kakashi?"

"Everything," he answered, before he realized how it could be taken, and clarified. "...not like that."

"I know better than to expect anything along those lines from you," she drawled, "though I notice you like to ambush me with questions when I'm eating."

He said nothing.

She rolled her eyes. "Where to start… you already know my name, so I'll skip that. I'm twenty-seven, I turn twenty-eight in a few months, so I'm still actually older than you, I think." Her lips quirked into a small smirk. "Let's see… likes… reading is a bit too obvious, I used to enjoy camping, among other things. Dislikes…" she shrugged vaguely. "Dreams for the future…"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at her. "You're making fun of me."

"Only a little bit," she admitted. "I got too busy for most of my old hobbies after I graduated from school the first time, on top of getting hurt. I haven't exactly gotten around to finding new ones and saying I dislike pain is a bit too obvious," she said, with a snort. "And I didn't actually mean to ruin the team introductions when you tried, if that helps you feel any better."

He eyed her, wondering. "And the bell test…?"

"Also didn't mean for it to go that far," she answered, slightly self-conscious. "I didn't think any of this was real until you wound up here. I also wasn't… always dreaming? I'm not sure how to put it, but there is— or was, I'm not really sure— a version of Sasuke who wasn't aware of the dreaming parts, at least."

"Wave," he said, with realization.

She cringed. "If I could have nightmares still, I would. I still feel queasy looking at raw meat, worse if it's actually bloody. I can manage chicken, but that's it. As Sasuke, too."

That was the first he had heard of that issue, and it had been months since then. "That's fixable," Kakashi said. "That also explains the change of behavior after…" Many things were suddenly falling into place.

She looked down at her plate, pushing the noodles around. "I'm pretty sure I traumatized two versions of myself with that. I'm still figuring things out there. I remember some things that I haven't dreamed about doing, but as Sasuke I wasn't really aware of all of this until you wound up here and I realized it was real, here. I guess the denial was enough to be a mental block. The dreams since that ended have been… interesting."

Kakashi thought on the moments she hadn't explicitly mentioned as dreams, and the quietest member of Team Seven, as well as the profile he had been given on Sasuke when they were all assigned to him. His maturity compared to most of his class had been notable enough to be mentioned in it. In retrospect, it must have been his subconscious due to this other life, somehow. "'Interesting'?"

"As Sasuke I'm not pleased with this self when I'm not dreaming, now that I'm aware," she said, awkwardly. "I woke up there the night before I found you to a five page angry letter to me. It didn't exactly help that I remembered writing it, either, or being angry at the note I left in response."

That was a new take on self-loathing to him. "You're communicating with yourself through notes?" Kakashi asked.

"It's the best way I've figured out so far," she said, with a shrug. "He— God, this just bizarre," she sighed. "As Sasuke, I'm pleased that I came up with the idea in the first place without dreaming. Like it's some sort of competition. Teenaged self versus adult self. I'm aware I can be competitive, but like this? It's just strange. Especially when I can tell things I know from here are starting to seep in that direction even when I'm not dreaming. That might be a problem."

This only left him more intrigued. "Such as?"

"I used to do fencing and kendo as hobbies," she said, wincing again. "Neither use live blades, and it's been a few years since I did either. I think I've at least realized over there from last night how stupid it would be to try without a real teacher, but I'm not sure how long that's going to last. The Sasuke in the story used a sword, and I've become aware of that over there."

Of course he did. "Ah."

"I think the only thing stopping me— him?— from going ahead without one is the fact that the memories he picked up are for a woman who's still a couple inches taller," she said, dryly. "I have some common sense."

"You're a menace," he told her. Even without the knowledge he was going to have to fix a teenager's suddenly gained and potentially questionable kenjutsu skills, it was becoming clear how much of an unintentional influence Socorro had been on all of his students, not just when dreaming she was Sasuke.

She put a large forkful of food into her mouth and didn't respond immediately. "I wasn't trying to be on purpose," she answered, after awhile. "Knowing kenjutsu properly would be useful, though. I don't think I ruined things enough to put Naruto and Sakura off track from the apprenticeships they had in the story." She gave him an apologetic look. "I can tell you don't like it from every time I've brought it up, but I think you're going to have to read or watch it while you're here."

"How long is it?" he felt forced into asking.

"Mmm, about seven hundred episodes or something like that, same with chapters for the manga, I think," she said, before taking a bite and looking thoughtful as she chewed. "I don't think we actually have time for the whole show— at least I hope we don't— but having someone else who's actually seen or read most of it in some way will help. Especially since you know more than I do, even as Sasuke, since while I'm slowly remembering more from between the dreams, it isn't everything," she added, mildly. "I'm at least assuming you do, since you're older there and have more experience."

He sighed. "I should start that tonight while I wait for Inoichi, then."

"I'll grab my tablet and look for a manga site after I'm done," she told him.

"A 'tablet'?"

"It's like my phone, except larger," she explained, as she pulled the item in question from one of her pockets and held it up. "It's basically a touch screen computer."

He felt very interested now, and eyed it.

She looked at him properly. "I'm sorry, I'm an idiot. You were curious about it last night, weren't you?" She pressed a side button and then pressed her finger on the screen, before handing it over to him.

Kakashi peered at the small and colorful screen, and experimentally pushed one of the small blocky images on it with his finger that looked like the abstract of a camera. He pulled away slightly when the screen suddenly showed his face, looking back at back at him. "A fully computerized camera?"

He tilted it back and forth, poking at the screen to see what the different false buttons would do, watching as it turned on its side for a more traditional ratio. One switched it to showing the other side from the screen, even more like a normal camera. He knew how to handle that. He held it up and centered it on Socorro, before pressing the one that took a photo.

"Okay, give it back, mister 'traveling photographer'," she said, leaning towards him to try and grab it.

He reluctantly surrendered it. As fascinating as the phone was, it would stand out too much if he managed to take it back with him, even if he limited it to his Sukea identity. He raised an eyebrow at her over that comment. "You know about that, too?"

"That's why I was able to recognize you without your mask," she said, apologetically, setting it down. "I won't tell the other two if you try to mess around with us and I'm dreaming for it."

Well, sometimes it was useful to have a co-conspirator. "And if you aren't?"

She looked thoughtful. "Either I don't remember at all and you get the drop on all three of us, or if I do I still probably wouldn't say anything."

Eventually, she finished eating, and put both plates in the sink, before heading into her office. She returned with what he assumed was the tablet in question. It looked like a larger and wider version of her phone. She briefly showed him how to use it before she opened the internet browser and found what she mentioned before.

"This was that easy to find on the internet?" he asked, feeling slightly disconcerted at the drawn version of Naruto looking back on the first page.

She looked at him with a bemused expression. "Where were you hiding the whole time to find what the internet is?"

"The campus library," he answered, eyes on the drawing.

"Of course you were."

She walked to the coffee table, and grabbed a book that was on it, before easing herself down onto one of the sofas, leaving the one that was currently his bed free.

Kakashi stood up and moved to sit on his claimed couch. He might as well be physically comfortable, because he certainly wasn't going to be any other way.

It was unnerving seeing things he knew about or could guess play out in the images on the screen.

The actions on the pages were certainly different from how most events had ended up conspiring, and he could see how early changes began to affect each one.