Chapter Text
The HPSC came back a week later, this time with a far greater request. They also had a child with them. Kakashi had questions about the child.
“We’d like to see Takeo-kun use his quirk,” Takahashi said after brief greetings were exchanged. “This will help us get a gauge of his abilities.” He flashed a good natured smile probably meant to calm Kakashi’s parents.
“I’d also like to see your quirk,” Ichika snarked. “He’s been refusing to use it all week.”
All eyes turned to him. Kakashi figured this was the point where he had to give in and actually use it, even though he wasn’t particularly interested in showing off for the HPSC. He sighed and pulled the headband off of his face that he’d since acquired to cover his eye.
“I’d like to see you, Obito Uchiha.” He felt a strange tug in his eye before Obito was standing in front of him again.
Obito yelped in surprise as he jumped back and pulled out a knife, just like he had last time. “BAKASHI! WHY THE HELL DO YOU KEEP DOING THIS?!”
Kakashi sighed and shrugged. “This time I was asked to. You really think I wanted to see your ugly face again?”
Obito stalked forward, leaning down into his personal space. “You know, I can’t believe I forgot what an absolute asshole you are.”
Kakashi agreed with the sentiment, but decided to change the subject. There was something he wanted to test anyways. “Do you still have chakra?”
Obito paused. “Yes… you don’t?”
“No,” Kakashi replied.
A sadistic grin crossed Obito’s face. “Do you mean to say that I could absolutely throttle you right now and there’s nothing you could do about it?”
“Not necessarily,” Kakashi hummed. “After all, I’m still in control of whether or not you even exist here.”
Obito gaped. “Bakashi, I swear to the sages if you un-summon me—“
“Go away, Obito.” He told him and then Obito vanished again.
His family and the agents (plus the random child) all looked at Kakashi in surprise. Kakashi felt exhaustion wash over him again, but this time it wasn’t as bad as last time. Perhaps his body was starting to get used to his quirk.
“Maa, so that was Obito. He’s the only one I’ve summoned so far, but I might be able to summon others.”
“Takeo…” Mom started, fiddling with her fingers anxiously. “Did—do you know that man?”
Kakashi shrugged noncommittally, “Once.”
Silence fell over them all.
Suzuki cleared her throat. “Well, in that case we are indeed very intrigued by what Takeo-kun can do. If you don’t mind, we’d like to ask you to consider letting us enroll him.”
“Enroll him?” Mom asked.
“Yes,” Suzuki said and gestured to the child next to her that Kakashi had been wondering about. “Meet Hawks. He’s eleven years old and has been training with us for several years now. Hawks, would you like to tell Chiba-san about your experience with us?”
Hawks grinned, his smile bright and beaming, reminding Kakashi of Minato and Naruto. “Sure! So the HPSC took me under their wing,” he winked and held up one of his large red wings to make that pun really hit home. Oh, so he was one of those types. “And I’ve been training with them ever since! They’re really nice. I get three square meals a day and lots of exercise, and they teach me more than I would’ve learned in a normal school. On top of it all, I get to use my quirk to help people, and one day I’m going to be a big shot hero!”
Kakashi studied Hawks closely. He was lean with muscle, not malnourished in any way that he could see. The plumage of his wings was a bright red, which in birds meant that the creature was healthy. Kakashi figured the same applied to Hawks. He was, all in all, probably telling the truth about how the HPSC treated him.
Kakashi turned his gaze towards his parents next, studying their reactions. Mom looked nervous, still fiddling with her fingers while Dad seemed to be considering it. Ichika, on the other hand, looked like she was checking Hawks out, despite being several years too young for him.
“It would essentially be like going to a hero boarding school,” Suzuki continued her pitch. “Except the catch is that we’d be paying you to let us take care of him. Takeo-kun’s quirk is of interest to us, and he’d be in good hands with us.”
His parents looked between each other.
“How much would you be paying us?” Dad asked hesitantly.
“Five million yen a year.” Takahashi replied evenly. “Until he turns 18.”
Kakashi did the math: that was seventy-million yen by the end of the term. His family would be well off and happy if they took the deal, able to support themselves, Ichika, and the twins.
But Mom and Dad wouldn’t want to give him up, even for the money. He knew that much.
“I’d like to go,” he spoke up. He knew that his family was poor, he knew that they’d need the money, especially with twins on the way. And besides, it wasn’t like he was really their son anymore. He didn’t belong here. It would be better for them all if Kakashi went with the HPSC.
“Takeo—“
“Please, I want to do this.” He pleaded. “This sounds like a lot of fun and—“ he fished for an excuse to not want to stay and found a very convenient one. “I really don’t want to have to share a room with Ichika.”
Dad snorted.
Hawks beamed. “You’re gonna have so much fun! We might even get to train together or have sleepovers or something!”
Suzuki chuckled. “I’m sure we could arrange for Takeo-kun to hang out with Hawks often. He’ll also have plenty of other peers to spend time with.”
“We’ll have to talk about it…” Mom started. She would be the hardest one to convince about this whole situation, but Kakashi figured that she’d come around eventually.
“Please, take your time.” Takahashi said. “We’d love to have Takeo-kun with us, but we would hate to pull him away from his family if you’re not all willing.”
“We’ll consider it and get back to you later,” Dad said, and that was the final note. The agents handed over a card with a phone number on it and told them they’d like their final decision by the end of the week.
It didn’t even take a week. Mom got fired from her job due to being too far along with her pregnancy, and without her paychecks, they didn’t have enough money to stay afloat. It was either move to a smaller, cheaper house that wouldn’t have enough space for all of them, or send Takeo to the HPSC and take their money.
So that was what happened.
Kakashi walked through the vast halls of the Hero Public Safety Commission, Hawks by his side, excitedly chittering about the cafeteria food and how awesome the training is. The sun outside was bright, but the building’s windows were tinted, dimming the effect while still lighting up the hallways. Kakashi could see the city spread out before him and found that the view reminded him of hours spent at the Hokage Mountain, looking out at Konoha and the people he so dearly loved amongst it.
“And this is my room!” Hawks’ wing pointed towards a door. “You won’t be on this floor with me since you’re so young, but just keep it in mind if you ever want to visit me.”
Kakashi nodded at him appreciatively. “I will.”
“Come along, Chiba-kun.” Suzuki said, gesturing for Hawks to go into his room, which made the boy’s shoulder’s slumped upon realization that he was being kicked out of the tour. “We’ve got a lot to do today.”
“What kinds of stuff?”
“Here at the HPSC we like to give you a new name to go by instead of calling you by your real name. Like Hawks,” Suzuki hooked her thumb over her shoulder towards where Hawks had disappeared into his room. “On top of that, we’d like to get a better gauge of just what the people you summon can do, in the safety of one of our high class training rooms, of course. From there, you’ll get a room to yourself and get acquainted with the building and people in it.”
“Maa, that’s a lot for one day. Can’t say I’ll be able to do much after the quirk assessment though. Summoning him earlier already exhausted me, I’m not sure I have the energy to do it more than once.” Kakashi admitted. He wouldn’t be surprised if pulling people back and forth across the line between life and death was what was draining him so much. The initial pull wasn’t so bad, but then putting them back drained more energy. Regardless of his mental age, Kakashi was still in the body of a four year old; he simply didn’t have the strength or stamina built up yet to summon someone multiple times in a day.
Suzuki grinned. “That’s exactly the sort of information we’re interested in!”
Kakashi hummed and kept walking behind her. He was about two steps behind her, practically running in order to keep up with her strides. Damn his tiny legs—
Wait.
Was he going to have to go through puberty twice?
Oh. Fuck. No.
Why couldn’t he have spawned into this world as a fully formed human, huh? Why did he have to grow up twice?
Kakashi distinctly remembered all of the times he’d had to adjust how much power he put into throwing a kunai, all the times he’d tripped and fell on his face in the field because his legs had gotten longer, all the times he’d forgotten to pack deodorant for his mission because he wasn’t used to needing it—
Having to go through puberty twice was bullshit, in his professional opinion. He wasn’t looking forward to it.
But that was years from now. He was a toddler at the moment and that was okay. He could handle being a toddler. His only issue would be childlike mood swings, right?
Kakashi blanched at the prospect of himself, collected as he was, having a mental breakdown over being denied chicken nuggets. Of course he would be denied chicken nuggets—Hawks was here. It would be insensitive to eat birds in front of another bird. So that meant that Kakashi just needed to calculate all of the potential things he could have a mental breakdown over and prepare himself to deal with them logically—
“In here,” Suzuki gestured him into an office, where there was a strict looking woman sitting at a desk with a single empty chair sitting across from her. Kakashi made his way to the seat and clamored up onto it. Suzuki bowed and left the room.
Kakashi blinked at the woman. The nameplate on her desk simply said DIRECTOR.
“Good morning,” He greeted.
She nodded at him, “Good morning. Let’s get to work on a hero name for you, shall we? I was thinking perhaps Necro or Shokan.”
Kakashi cringed at the names. “No.”
She pursed her lips at him. “Very well. How about—“
“All the people call me Kakashi,” he suggested. “Could that work?”
“The people you summon call you Kakashi?” She asked, raising an eyebrow at him in confusion. “Why would they call you that?”
Kakashi fished for an answer, “I don’t know. Maybe I look like someone they used to know.”
She pursed her lips. “I see. Kakashi is fine, I’d suppose. Any other ideas?”
Kakashi frowned. Why did he even need a new name? Couldn’t he just be nameless and go with that?
Nameless… almost like he’d been in ANBU.
“Hound?” He suggested.
The woman’s eye twitched, as though she were finally starting to realize that she was asking a four year old for name suggestions. “Now why would we call you that?”
“I like dogs,” Kakashi responded cheerfully.
She pinched the bridge of her nose, “Perhaps we should go back to my suggestions.”
“I like Hound or Kakashi,” Kakashi said adamantly. Part of him realized that this would be the ideal time to whip out the four-year old emotional breakdown in order to get his way. Huh… maybe that was something he should test out. Emotionally manipulating these people could be helpful, and it would be easy since he still had the toddler card to pull. Though, he’d likely have to prepare different tactics for when he no longer had cute going for him.
“Fine. Hound, then.” She huffed adamantly.
“Hound,” Takahashi smiled appreciatively at the name. “Not bad.”
“Thanks,” Kakashi responded. “Not very heroic, but it sounds cool, eh?”
“Sure does,” he responded. “Now, let’s get to work. We’re going to focus on finding out the specifics of how your quirk works. For example, you called out a name before you were able to summon that man, right?”
The two of them stood in a massive room that Kakashi’d been informed was called Training Room Beta. According to Hawks, he usually used it for flight practice, which seemed fitting seeing as the ceilings were just as tall as the room was wide. Kakashi didn’t know just how large the room was exactly, but he’d be willing to wager that a house or two could comfortably fit inside the room. Maybe they’d even get lawns.
The size and general emptiness of the room meant that their voices echoed off the walls, bouncing back towards them, repeating Takahashi’s question a few seconds after it had been asked.
Kakashi hummed for a moment before he spoke. “I’d say that’s the case, yes. The last two times I’ve used it, my left eye has been uncovered. I think that’s part of the activation process.”
Takahashi pulled out a notebook from his suit, opening up and sliding a pen out from its spirals. “Mind uncovering your eye for me now? I’d like to get a good look at it.”
Kakashi complied, pulling the headband off of his face again. A mask covered his lower face now, a convenient addition he’d managed to acquire when he’d passed by a box of disposable face masks sitting out on someone’s desk. He felt more comfortable with the mask on, but there was still something about the way Takahashi leaned down to inspect Kakashi’s eye that felt invasive to him.
“And your eye wasn’t like this before your quirk manifested?”
“If you mean black and red with cracks all around it,” Kakashi deadpanned. “Then no, I can’t say it was.”
“And the scar?” Takahashi poked the scar bisecting his eye with the end of his pen. “Was that there before or is that also a new addition?”
“That’s new too.” Kakashi responded, figuring that it would be way to hard to explain the technicalities of his current situation. Yes, the scar’s been here since I was nine. Yes, I’m four years old. No, I won’t explain.
Too difficult. He’ll just have to pretend like he has no idea what’s going on. The HPSC can write off the summons recognizing him as a weird coincidence, or something. They’ll come up with something to explain it, surely.
Takahashi scribbled down several notes onto his notepad before he stood up straight again. “Okay, summon him for me.”
Kakashi bit his lip. “Would you mind if I… tried to summon someone else this time?”
Takahashi’s eyebrow raised. “You can summon others?”
Kakashi shrugged, “I don’t know, but I’d like to try.”
“Huh, okay. Have at it, kiddo.”
Kakashi nodded and took a deep breath. He’d summoned Obito hours ago, and had since had time to recover from the backlash, but he was still worried about the exhaustion. Summoning two people in one day might push his limits too far.
But he was curious to know if Obito was the only person he could summon or not.
On the exhale, he pushed his nerves out along with the air from his lungs.
Who should he call upon? Given the prerequisite of his quirk being Edo Tensei, the people he could summon probably had to be dead, but that still left him with a long list. Rin? Minato? Father? Kushina?
His mind continued to spit names at him as he inhaled once again. Sandaime-sama, Asuma, Itachi.
He settled on the person he wanted to see most, and on the exhale, he let their name fall from his lips. “Minato Namikaze.”
A tugging sensation pulled at his gut, leaving Kakashi feeling like he’d activated the mangekyo sharingan, and the space in front of him twisted. He blinked, and Minato-Sensei was standing right in front of him.
Holy sages. It worked.
Minato-sensei was here.
And just like Obito, he immediately pulled out a knife.
“It’s Kakashi,” Kakashi said quickly. He didn’t say Minato’s name, that wouldn’t have done anything—but Minato’s student’s name, Kakashi’s name, that was enough to make the man pause.
Minato stared down at Kakashi in confusion. His blue eyes searched Kakashi’s form, recognizing him yet unbelieving of what he was seeing.
“I don’t understand,” Minato whispered, stepping close to Kakashi. He felt several pulses of chakra. The man must’ve been trying to dispel any genjutsu.
“It’s not genjutsu,” Kakashi told him. “It’s a lot to explain but I just wanted to see… I wanted to see if I could see you again.”
Minato’s eyes were black, his blue irises popping against the slate void, the glare in his gaze softening into something akin to love. He knelt down to Kakashi’s height, and laid a hand on Kakashi’s head.
“Kakashi-kun,” he whispered, a smile splitting his face.
“It’s been awhile,” he muttered. “I’ve missed you.”
“Not as much as I’ve missed you,” Minato chuckled. “What’s happening? What happened to your eye and… your body?”
Kakashi shook his head and flashed a hand sign. We’re being watched.
Minato stiffened, eyes glancing to either side, finding their target in Takahashi’s presence, the man watching their exchange closely, jotting down notes onto his notepad.
Minato returned the sign for Understood, and then stood to attention, the gentle affection leaving his posture, replaced with the presence of a man that was once Hokage.
“There’s something I need you to try for me,” Kakashi said. This was potentially a very bad idea, but he was here to experiment.
“What?”
“I need you to use jutsu,” he gestured to the vast training room. “Do anything, I just need to see if you can.”
Minato raised an eyebrow and signed, are you being forced?
Negative.
Okay.
Minato put his hands together into a few hand signs that Kakashi recognized. A simple wind jutsu. Well, even simple jutsus were never simple when they were in Minato’s hands.
Minato pushed his hands forward and a gust of wind blasted from them, the force so powerful that it nearly knocked Kakashi off of his feet, even though the blast hadn’t been facing him.
Nearby, Takakshi actually did get swept up by the air current, his notebook going flying, leaving him flailing, trying to regain his footing despite having been blasted several inches off the ground.
“Catch him,” Kakashi muttered, and Minato rushed forward in an instant, hands wrapping around Takahashi’s torso, catching him before he could hit the concrete.
Minato put Takahashi back on his feet, smiling widely, “Looks like you fell for me.” He winked at the agent, whose face instantly went bright red.
Kakashi facepalmed.
Minato laughed, the lightness of his tone reminding Kakashi of days spent training alongside the man, of dinners spent with him and Kushina, of playing games and training Kakashi’s ninken together. “Sorry, sorry, I’m actually married.” Minato straightened Takahashi’s suit, patting his shoulders once he was done. “I just saw the opportunity for the joke and had to take it. Hope you don’t mind.”
Takahashi gulped, face still tomato red. “It’s fine, uh, thank you for catching me.”
“No problem,” Minato grinned, and then turned back to Kakashi. “How was that?”
“That was good, thank you.” He replied. “I’m going to have to let you go now, but Obito remembered being summoned, so I’m sure you will too.”
Minato smiled, hands signing, explain later. “Sure thing. See you!”
Kakashi focused his gaze on Minato and felt the familiar tug again, “Goodbye, Minato-sensei.” He said, and Minato vanished in a whirlwind.
Exhaustion washed over Kakashi like a tidal wave, and before he could steady himself, his vision blacked out and he hit the ground.
He woke up eight hours later with a raging headache and the strong urge to go back to sleep. He would’ve actually done it too, if it weren’t for the voices speaking around him.
“It seems that his quirk takes quite the toll on his stamina. He’ll have to build up a lot of resistance for it to be of any use.”
“But once he does?”
“I’m sure that he’ll be powerful. Maybe even stronger than Hawks. The man that he summoned created a wind blast strong enough to knock me off my feet, even when it wasn’t directed at me, and managed the cross the space between us to catch me before I could even hit the ground. A wind quirk that’s been applied in order to create super speed, is my theory.”
“Fascinating. And you think the people he summons each have different abilities?”
“He’s only summoned two people so far, and today’s summon— Minato Namikaze, he called him—was the first to show a quirk. But assuming the other, Obito, has a quirk of his own, then yes. We’re going to have to test how many people he can summon.”
“We have to wait until he gets stronger. We can’t have him blacking out every time we try to test him.”
“You think we need to start him on some physical training?”
“Yes. Put him with Hawks, will you? He’ll keep our little Hound here on his toes.”
“Will do, Director. Anything else?”
“Find out where the people come from. If they’re alive, if they’re dead, if they never existed at all. I’m concerned about how he seems to know them, and vice versa.”
“Understood.”
The woman said something else, but Kakashi’s ears failed to register the words as he slipped back into unconsciousness.
Kakashi’s schedule was grueling. The Commission had decided that it was best to have Kakashi build up stamina, and that meant a lot of working out, apparently. He started his day with a workout, followed by a small breakfast, study time, another workout, break, lunch, study time, a quirk training session, break, and then dinner. After dinner, he was expected to either socialize or study more. Typically, he chose to study. Hawks didn’t always let that happen.
Like today.
“So I heard you’ve got like, an army of people you can summon,” Hawks leaned into his space. “Is that true? Where do they come from?”
“Maa,” Kakashi waved a hand through the air. “I can only summon one at a time. It’s not an stamina thing, I just can’t summon more than one at a time. I’ve tried. Sure, I have a lot of people I can summon, but not all of them are cooperative—“ Sasuke. “—and some of them just aren’t worth the backlash summoning them has on me at the moment.” Naruto.
Hawks waited with bated breath, biting his lip in anticipation at what Kakashi would say next.
“As far as where they come from, it seems they come from the afterlife. However, a lot of them don’t seem to remember dying, so I’m not sure about them.” Kakashi explained.
He’d come to the conclusion that he could summon anyone he’d known personally in his past life, regardless or whether they were dead or alive at the time that Kakashi had died. He’d been able to summon Obito, Minato-Sensei, Rin, Tenzo, Itachi, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, and Gai so far. All of the above had been interesting reunions. There was still one more person he wanted to try to summon, but he hadn’t quite worked up the courage for that one yet.
As far as people he couldn’t summon, it seemed anyone he hadn’t known well was off limits. Hashirama and Tobirama Senju were no’s, several of Naruto’s friends were no’s, and he figured that Naruto or Sasuke kids would draw blanks too, but he hadn’t worked up the courage to try those out either.
Don’t get him wrong, he loves those kids. But for the love of god, unless he’s in desperate need of Boruto Uzumaki specifically, he’d like to keep that child in his own dimension.
“So what can they all do? And how do you know their names if they’re dead?” Hawks asked.
Kakashi rolled his eyes. Hawks could be serious and was serious more often than not, but it seemed that the second they’d been left to their own devices, Hawks came out of his shell in order to interrogate Kakashi about his quirk.
“They can all do lots of things,” he responded. “As far as how I know them, when I summon them, it’s like I get these memories of them, as if I knew them before. I didn’t, obviously, but it’s like I did.”
Hawks’ mouth dropped into a o. “So cool.”
Kakashi hummed his agreement. “They’re fun to talk to, some of them. But some of them are grumpy. Like Obito just insults me the entire time he’s here, and Sasuke just crosses his arms and hn’s at me until I put him back.”
Hawks snorted, “So you can’t control them?”
Kakashi shook his head. “Not at all. If I want them to do anything for me, I have to convince them. Not easy, especially when half the time they’re too busy commenting on how cute and huggable I am.”
Hawks roared with laughter. Kakashi smacked him. “Not funny.”
Hawks held his arm where Kakashi had hit him, “You know, you hit hard for someone so cute and huggable.”
Kakashi groaned. “That’s it. I’m leaving. I’m going to go study.”
“Noooooooo,” Hawks whined, hands grabbing at Kakashi’s wrists, feathers detaching in order to form a big X in front of the door. “Come on, Kakashi-kun. You know there’s not any other kids around for me to play with. I get bored.”
Kakashi sighed. The Commission had been truthful about most of the things they’d told his parents during their sales pitch, but there being other kids around wasn’t one of them. As far as he could tell, Hawks and Kakashi were the only trainees the Commission currently had around, though he had heard rumors of an older girl who’d graduated the program a few years back. Luckily, Kakashi saw Hawks on the regular, although the boy was 7 years older than him and had a vastly different personality from Kakashi outside of training, so they didn’t always get along.
“Fine, just don’t be so annoying.” He sat back down. “Are we going to watch that movie you claimed we were going to, or was that just a ruse to get me to gossip with you?”
Hawks huffed, “You’re grumpy for a five year old.” His feathers flew away from the door, and several of them found the tv remote, bringing it over to Hawks’ hand. “What do you want to watch?”
Kakashi shrugged. “Anything.”
“Okay, in that case…” Hawks flipped through the channels a few times before picking one. “This’ll do.”
As Kakashi made himself comfortable on the couch, he noticed Hawks’ feathers bring a blanket over to him and settle it over his lap.
“Thanks,” he muttered, taking the blanket away from the feathers so he could pull it up higher over his body.
“No problem,” Hawks returned. “I always get cold during the winter here. The heating sucks in this room.”
Kakashi hummed his agreement and settled down the watch the movie Hawks had put on.
Kakashi sat alone in his bedroom late at night, knowing that he needed to try this, but still unsure if he was ready yet.
What if it didn’t work? What if it did? Which would be worse? Which would hurt more?
He wiped his hands on his bedspread, hoping to dry them from the nervous sweat they’d accumulated.
Why the hell was he so scared? He was a grown man for fuck’s sake—oh right. 5 year old body. Mood swings are still a thing.
He chose to blame the existential fear and dread on the five year old mind. It made him feel better to think that he was so worried about this because he had no control over his emotions, rather than to admit that he was just unsure if he was ready to see him again.
No. He wanted to see him again. He was scared that he wouldn’t be able to. After so many failed summons, he was scared that he wouldn’t be able to summon the one person he wanted to see so desperately.
Ugh. Screw it.
He huffed and ripped the headband off of his head, tossing it to the side.
“Sakumo Hatake,” he called into the silence, and almost as if his father had been waiting for him, the man swirled into existence in front of Kakashi.
Unlike the others, who usually pulled a knife on Kakashi or otherwise tried to kill him, Sakumo didn’t react in any way that would suggest he was a seasoned shinobi. Instead, he turned slowly, looking around the dark room with it’s one light source being the candle Kakashi had lit, until his eyes fell on the room’s only other occupant.
He smiled softly, “Kakashi.”
Kakashi had seen his father once since the man had died—during that brief period in the Pain attack that he’d been dead. Kakashi had sat and talked with Sakumo for hours beside the campfire he’d come to in the afterlife, telling his father his story. The man was the only one that knew it in it’s entirety, the only one Kakashi had ever spilled his whole heart out to.
“Tou-san,” he murmured, heart fluttering at the notion that Sakumo hadn’t even questioned why he was here or why Kakashi looked so different. He’d just known that the boy sitting in front of him was his son.
Sakumo sat down on the bed next to Kakashi, reaching up to run a hand along Kakashi’s hair. “I’ll admit, this is not where I expected to see you next.”
Kakashi sunk into the warmth of his father’s hand. “It’s a long story.”
“You said that last time,” Sakumo reminded. “Don’t worry, I’ve got time.”
Kakashi nodded and then found himself scooting forward until he was snuggled into Sakumo’s side. Blame it on the damn five year old mood swings.
Sakumo held him close, just like he had more than fifty years ago, back when Kakashi was a small boy and Sakumo was his dad and they were happy. They were so happy back then. Before everything had turned awful.
“This is a different dimension,” Kakashi murmured to him. “This world is full of people that don’t have chakra, but instead they have quirks. There are no shinobi here, but there’s heroes. Heroes are people that make a living out of saving people with their powers.
“I got my quirk a little less than a year ago, and with it came all the memories. Memories of when I wasn’t Takeo, but I was Kakashi. I remembered it all. I miss it all.” He confessed.
Sakumo’s hands ran up and down Kakashi’s back, comforting him in a way no one else ever could. Kakashi sunk into that warmth, feeling so childish yet so at peace at the same time.
“My quirk lets me summon people from that life. Obito, Rin, Gai, Minato-sensei, his son, others. You. It comes at the cost of exhausting me, but you all have your full powers and can help me out if I need it. Gai loves helping, but I think that’s ‘cause I make it into a competition.”
Sakumo chuckled, the sound coming from deep in his chest. God, Kakashi missed that laugh so much. Tears slipped from his eyes before he could stop them.
“I get to see everyone I’ve lost again,” Kakashi balled his fists into the fabric of Sakumo’s shirt. “I love it. I really love it.”
“I love it too, Kashi.” Sakumo pulled Kakashi away from him so that they could look at each other. Kakashi felt vulnerable like this, but he didn’t dare look away, even as Sakumo wiped Kakashi’s tears away with his thumb. “You get to start again, it seems.”
Kakashi nodded, not trusting his voice to speak any further.
Sakumo pulled him back into the hug. “I missed seeing you when you were this small,” he commented. “You’re so cute when you’re little like this. The perfect son.”
Kakashi dug his face into Sakumo’s vest. “I missed you. I missed you so much, Tou-san.”
Sakumo’s head dipped down to bury itself into Kakashi’s wild silver hair. “I missed you too, Kakashi. I’m sorry.”
And that was all Kakashi needed. He wrapped his arms tighter around his father and vowed to summon his father as often as he could, if only so that he could see him more.
A commotion had been going around the Commission for the past several hours, and Kakashi, who’d had his nose buried in a book up until now, decided to go see what it was all about.
“—attacked UA? Damn, that takes balls.”
“No shit, they really tried to attack the number one hero school? Not to mention that All Might started working there recently. They must be insane—oh shit, the Director’s here—“
“Do we have numbers for the casualty reports yet?” The Director asked, her voice stern.
“Yeah, uh… here they are. One teacher with several back lacerations, another in critical condition with several broken bones, both being treated at Musutafu General Hospital. One student broke both legs, but the report says that was due to his quirk, not the villains.”
“Noted. Cover the press reports, make it clear that UA is not at fault for this attack. Put extra emphasis on the teacher’s keeping the students safe, the press’ll eat that up.”
“Yes, Director.”
“Good. All Might was involved too, right?”
“He was. He beat one of the main villains, who police now have in custody. The other two got away.”
“I see. Focus on the ‘beating one of the strongest villains’ part and gloss over that other part. We don’t want anyone thinking that these villains are stronger than the Symbol of Peace.”
“Yes, Director. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Where the hell is Hound?”