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"Let's just get this over with," Shouta says. "I'm going to use my quirk, and theoretically it should send you back to wherever you came from. Anything else you want to add?"
"Thanks for letting me play with your dog," Eri says.
"It was nice to meet you all," Hatake says with a smile. "This was fun."
Shouta looks over at the unconscious Shie Hassaikai idiot who'd started this whole mess and activates Erasure. Hatake gives them a two-fingered salute… and remains standing exactly where he was. He blinks once, slowly, before looking down at himself as if to verify that he's still there.
"Well," Tsukauchi says into the silence. "That was... anticlimactic."
Yeah. That's one way to put it.
--
Eri is the only one happy with this turn of events.
--
“So you see, it’s not that Mr. Hatake is tethered to our world by Mr. Sakamoto’s quirk, as we had initially suspected, but merely that he was brought here by it.”
Shouta’s eye twitches.
“Erasing the yakuza’s quirk now won’t transport Mr. Hatake back to his dimension any more than destroying a staircase would teleport someone on the second story back down to the first. Now, this has fascinating ramifications on our broader understanding of multi-dimensional structuring…”
Nezu is, in Shouta’s opinion, entirely too cheery as he explains, scientifically, why Shouta’s life is going to be one massive headache for the foreseeable future.
The principal had already been wrapping up a closed-doors meeting with the government suits by the time Shouta and the others arrived at the local HPSC office, having rushed over the moment he’d heard dimension-travel was involved. Immediately following said meeting’s conclusion, he’d emerged to explain the situation to the rest of them.
With Hatake stranded in their world for the time being, the powers that be had decided that he's too dangerous to be left running around unattended. Normally (as if anything about a cross-dimensional shinobi is normal), the HPSC would detain and contain such a threat until a more ideal solution, like sending Hatake back to his dimension, could be arranged. In this particular case, however, there are two hang-ups.
The first is that, technically, Hatake didn’t really do anything criminal. They can’t get him on illegal quirk use since, by all available evidence, the man doesn’t have a quirk. He has a toe joint, neither Erasure nor quirk suppressants stopped him from standing on the ceiling (and how the man did that without a quirk, Shouta would kill to know), and every quirk-detector on the local government’s payroll came up blank. Whatever Hatake can do, he can do it quirkless.
He did technically kidnap Mirio and Eri, but somehow Shouta had a hard time imagining those charges would stick. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant removed two injured children from a dangerous battlefield, provided them with medical treatment, and promptly returned them to safety. He’s a menace and you must convict him.
Still, Shouta imagines the HPSC could probably get Hatake on something if they really wanted—perks of being the single most powerful political entity in the nation, and all. The second, more practical issue, is that Shouta has serious doubts that the HPSC could contain Hatake. The man’s skills apparently include lightning manipulation, teleportation, superhuman speed, and some form of mental attack multiple yakuza had reported. None of which were affected by quirk suppressants. How could you hold someone like that?
And so it had been decided that if they couldn’t keep Hatake under lockdown, they’d at least keep him chaperoned. Shouta somehow got volunteered.
He blames Nezu.
--
“In exchange for leniency in sentencing, Mr. Sakamoto has agreed to cooperate with our research efforts. The plan is to try and determine the exact mechanisms taking place when Mr. Sakamoto activates his quirk, and reconstruct them in a lab setting. A difficult task, sure, but not an unprecedented one. From there, it should be fairly simple to create a device capable of operating in the reverse direction…”
The talking rat is, in Kakashi’s opinion, looking entirely too punchable as he explains, scientifically, why Konoha is going to be without her Hokage for the next “three to seventy-four weeks” that he estimates it would take to create a machine to send Kakashi back home.
Kakashi’s eye twitches at the statement.
It’s not the rat’s fault, Hatake, Kakashi reminds himself as the obnoxiously cheerful furball makes a particularly punchable expression. There is no honor in smacking rodents.
At least they’re not trying to arrest him. Although, it would have been fun to see them try.
--
“Between the implications cross-dimensional transit has for quantum theory, and the novel applications of quirk studies to biotechnology that will be required to send him home, Mr. Hatake’s unlikely arrival has brought about a great deal of good for science. Really, you could say that this whole affair has been a blessing in disguise.” Nezu smiles widely as he finishes. He’s proud of himself—that sort of explanation could easily turn to rambling, but he kept it succinct and stuck to pertinent information for the sake of his audience. “Well, that just about does it. Any questions?”
The eyes of both men across from him twitch in unison, and Nezu internally sighs. Some people just don't appreciate the troubles he goes through for them.
--
UA’s accommodations (surveillance capabilities) are top-notch, and with the abundance of Pro Heroes guaranteed to be in the area at any time of day to offer assistance to the dimension-traveler (subdue the potential threat), the school makes for an ideal spot for Hatake to stay for the time being. Shouta is sure the man saw through the HPSC’s reasoning as easily as Shouta did, but he hadn’t objected. Shouta is also fairly sure that, in addition to everything else, Nezu’s wanting to study the dimension-traveler also ranked fairly highly among the reasons behind the decision. He almost feels bad for Hatake, except for the fact that he doesn’t feel bad at all. Having his own life uprooted is making him a little unsympathetic.
Oh right, Shouta’s moving in, too. He technically already had a room in the faculty quarters, but he'd never really used it, and it doesn't have anything of his other than a toothbrush. He’s not even sure he has toothpaste there.
Apparently, it wasn’t the principal’s malice that had landed Shouta a job as a glorified babysitter, but the fact that he’s the only member of the UA staff that has a prior relationship with Hatake (if a thirty second conversation could be called a “prior relationship”). At least, according to Nezu. That only kicks the can down the road in Shouta’s opinion, considering the fact that he’s pretty sure it was the general malice of the cosmos that resulted in him getting dragged into the Hatake mess in the first place, but he doesn’t mention it.
As soon as he’s released from the HPSC’s offices, Shouta heads back to his apartment to gather his short list of essentials before moving in. Hatake is still at the offices being debriefed about something or other, which Shouta imagines is probably a “don’t give us trouble if you want our help” speech. Eri is with Nezu meeting with yet another HPSC agent, in addition to a CPS agent, trying to see if she has any other relatives to pick her up. From what Nezu had texted him a few minutes ago, though, it looks like she’s also going to be moving into the UA dorms for the time being.
Shouta takes a final look through his duffel bag to make sure he has all his essentials, and then a second final look to delay the inevitable, before sighing and closing it up. He grabs the bag, locks his door, and begins making his way to his building’s stairwell for the last time in the foreseeable future.
He idly imagines throwing his boss out of every window he passes on the way.
--
After hours of interrogations, meetings with government officials, and confirming under the effects of seven different truth detection and compulsion quirks that, no, he doesn’t have any desire to pillage, murder, or plunder, the powers that be finally decide that they can release Kakashi into the recognizance of a trusted Pro Hero. After that decision, it only takes a few more hours of being monologued at before they decide it’s time to actually do the releasing in question.
The leopard-eared woman he’s currently tuning out is supposedly his final debriefing before they let him go. The man who’d tried to send him back originally, Eraserhead, was waiting outside to bring him to the accommodations the government had generously agreed to provide him. Eri would also be joining them for reasons that were (shockingly) above the clearance of a total stranger, but based on what she’d told him of her quirk in the woods, he could guess at why.
After the woman revisits the generosity of the Japanese government for the third time, Kakashi starts mostly ignoring her in favor of watching the grass grow through the window behind her, but even with only half an ear on her words it’s clear she’s annoyed that her incredibly kind-generous-virtuous government is providing him with any accommodations other than a containment cell. The jabs she tosses in at the mouse-thing that apparently not only ran a school, but had volunteered it to hold Kakashi, are barely even veiled.
She reminds him vaguely of a watered-down version of Danzo. In a world that seems impossibly soft in so many ways (Kakashi had been certain he’d misheard when he’d been informed that Japan hadn’t been to war in over 200 years), it's nice to know that cutthroat government bureaucrats would always be a constant.
--
Finally, finally, Kakashi is released from the most redundant debrief he’s ever had to sit through, and is promptly shuffled into the lobby, where an agent formally reintroduces him to Aizawa Shouta, who clearly wants to deal with Kakashi as little as Kakashi wants to be dealt with.
“Hatake,” the man greets with a short nod. It’s not like this is the first time they’ve spoken, after all.
“Aizawa,” Kakashi returns.
Without another word, Aizawa pivots on his heel and starts walking. Eri is sitting on one of the chairs in the corner, staring at a coloring book which she’d been given no crayons for, but she looks up as Aizawa reaches her.
“Time to go,” he says awkwardly, in what Kakashi recognizes as his own ‘how do I talk to small children’ voice. Eri glances between the two of them, before getting up and quietly walking over to Kakashi’s side.
He internally sighs. This would be fun.
--
The car ride is awkward. Shockingly.
Kakashi has only a vague idea of what Eri had been through before he’d been summoned to this dimension, since he hadn’t been cleared for that information (or any information at all, aside from the basics of the world he's now in), but he doesn’t need details to fill in the broad strokes. There’s only so many ways a non-shinobi six-year-old could end up with that many bandages, and the fact that she’s attached herself to him as strongly as she has after knowing him for barely 36 hours is telling.
She’d ran from the HPSC agent’s side to wrap her arms around his leg the moment he’d left the principal’s office, and hadn't allowed herself to be separated until he'd been dragged away for interrogations. Honestly, he’s surprised she was willing to let go of him at all the first time they tried sending him back. Currently, as they ride in uncomfortable silence to UA in the back of Aizawa’s car, she seems to be trying to fuse with him with how close she’s sitting. He awkwardly puts an arm around her, if only because the only other options were using her head as an armrest or holding his arm in the air for the entire drive. She leans in even closer.
Eventually they pull through the school’s admittedly impressive gates and onto the campus proper. He feels Eri relax at his side as she takes in the huge towers of glass and steel. Kakashi is personally more interested in the security cameras he spots every couple dozen feet.
Soon they pull around to a series of smaller brick buildings a ways past the main towers, and stop in front of one of the larger ones at the end. Aizawa meets his eyes in the rear mirror as he shuts the car off. “Welcome home.”
Kakashi steps out of the vehicle, turns and offers a hand to help Eri out, and, in a movement of limbs that confuses even him, somehow ends up with a six-year-old girl wrapped around his neck. Aizawa acts as though nothing is wrong with the picture, and simply starts off towards the building. Kakashi, and in turn Eri, follow.
Aizawa enters a passcode on the keypad next to the door. Kakashi imagines how he’d have to rotate awkwardly to avoid braining Eri on the doorframe, and gives Aizawa a pleading look. The Pro rolls his eyes, but is apparently feeling merciful as he comes over to take Eri from Kakashi. Bless him.
They step into what appears to be a main lounge. A couple couches surround a coffee table, and there's a television set in the corner. “Your room is across from Mirio and his friends,” Aizawa tells Eri. Her eyes widen. “It’s on the third floor. Want to see?”
--
After leaving Eri with two third-years and assurances that they’d be a floor down if she needed anything, Aizawa leads Kakashi to his own room.
It’s about the size of his old apartment in Konoha, only without the kitchenette and with way more furniture. Next to the bed in the corner (which he's surprised to note doesn't look terrible), there's a dresser and a work bench pressed up against the walls. A small table sits in the center of the room, and there’s a door to what he imagines is a small bathroom connecting off to the side.
The vents would need to be warded, and the lack of windows is less than ideal, but other than that, it’s not too bad. Far from the worst quarters he’s ever had, at least.
“Try not to destroy anything,” Aizawa says dryly, before stepping into his own room across the hall and shutting the door. After confirming that there’s nothing in the walls he can’t break through if it locks behind him, Kakashi shuts his own door a few moments later.
A sweep of the room reveals no less than four cameras, seven listening devices, two motion sensors, and what he suspects may be a thermal sensor. Unless he feels like destroying the walls or setting off an EMP, though, there’s not much he can do about it. And, as funny as he’s sure Aizawa’s reaction would be to him doing either of those things, Kakashi is kind of relying on these people to get him home, so it’s probably not in his best interest to antagonize them.
Much. Yet.
It’s annoying, but not the end of the world. For now, he’ll just have to live with being surveilled. It’s nothing a shadow clone can’t get around, anyway.
--
It’s when Eri is alone with Aizawa for the first of their “help teach Eri how to not accidentally kill people with her quirk” lessons that Kakashi first meets the blond.
“I’m Yamada Hizashi, but you might know me as Present Mic!” the man introduces himself enthusiastically. Kakashi does not, in fact, know him. By any name. “I’m one of Aizawa’s coworkers. I don’t actually live in the dorms, but I’ll be dropping in occasionally to help out. It’s nice to meet you!”
Kakashi stares at the man’s impossible hairdo. “Do you have a cockatiel quirk?” he asks seriously.
“Do I have a cockatiel—” Yamada wheezes, an odd mix of vaguely offended and genuinely baffled. “Why would you think that?!”
Kakashi struggles to think of another reason for the man to style his hair that way. “…Are you hiding a sword in there?”
The man’s squawking reinforces Kakashi’s initial assessment of a bird quirk.
--
Shouta has a class to teach and a shinobi to watch. Shouta also lacks the ability to clone himself, unfortunately, which means that on the first day back to school after the raid, Hatake has to tail him around.
Why hadn't they just had Ectoplasm watch Hatake, again?
For homeroom, Aizawa leaves Hatake in the teacher’s lounge with Nemuri and Yagi. Neither Pro is incredibly comfortable being around the dimension-traveler, but one look at Shouta’s eye bags and they agree to stay with him for the period. Hatake, for his part, immediately sits in one of the chairs and begins reading a little orange book he pulls from somewhere, ignoring the other Pros.
Letting Hatake out of sight isn’t ideal, but it’s better than having to explain to all his students why the mysterious man from the Shie Hassaikai raid is lounging around in class. Besides, two Heroes should be more than enough to handle anything that comes up.
When Shouta reenters the lounge after homeroom—barely half an hour later—it’s to Nemuri listening, engrossed, as Hatake happily explains all the details of the series he’s reading. Nemuri occasionally asks for clarifications on certain… plot points… which Hatake seems more than happy to expand on. Yagi is sitting at the very opposite side of the room, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.
Yagi jumps up the moment he sees Shouta and speedwalks out of the room. Nemuri now seems to be taking notes in order to recreate Hatake’s book so she can publish it for herself.
Shouta doesn’t let Hatake out of his sight for the rest of the day.
--
Apparently, prior to mentally scarring Yagi, Hatake had asked the man about what exactly a “Heroics” class taught. In response, the former Number One Hero had invited Hatake to watch his class that day.
Shouta imagines that Yagi probably regrets that decision now, but personally he thinks the uncomfortable look the man throws at Hatake as they enter the gym is hilarious, so he makes no offer to leave. Besides, it’s not like he has anything better to do at the moment.
Which is how he finds himself commenting on students’ forms with Hatake as the two of them watch them spar.
Shouta is struck by how quickly the man’s demeanor shifts from intentionally goofy to calmly analytical as his audience changes from Nemuri to Shouta himself. Unsurprisingly, Hatake is extremely knowledgeable in hand-to-hand combat. Notably, however, all of the man’s commentary has a… deadly tint, he could say.
“The pink one has good instincts,” Hatake observes, watching as Mina throws a well-timed jab that Ojiro just barely slides out of the way of. He retaliates with a light hook that does little more than unbalance Mina. “But she’s got to get her guard back up faster. Tail-kid could have crushed her windpipe there, if he’d wanted.”
“Thankfully, Ojiro’s unlikely to go for lethal strikes in a spar,” Shouta replies dryly. Kakashi hums noncommittally. Shouta angles his head slightly to glance at him. “You’ve killed before, haven’t you?”
Hatake doesn’t turn, instead continuing to watch the students spar. “That’s not really a question.”
Shouta remembers what Hatake had said before they first tried sending him back. I learned how to use one when I was three. He sighs, and turns back to the class in time to see Mina go down hard as Ojiro throws her over his hip. “I suppose not.”
--
Aizawa eventually appeals to the rat principal, and it’s decided that, as long as Kakashi stays within the monitored dorms, he doesn’t have to shadow Aizawa while he’s working. Aizawa seems relieved by this, for reasons Kakashi can’t fathom.
On an unrelated note, shadow clones are really neat.
The thing is, shinobi get restless. There’s a reason they only spend time in hospitals when they physically cannot move themselves out of them. Being raised by the whole “shinobi are tools” spiel pretty much guarantees that you only feel like you’re worth something when you’re being useful, not to mention that a lifetime of trained hypervigilance and trauma makes sitting still pretty hard, regardless.
Besides, Kakashi has to get his kicks somehow. At this point, it’s not like causing a little bit of chaos would keep him here any longer than he’s already stuck for. Really, there’s no reason for him not to work out some of that extra energy.
At least, that’s what he thinks as he buys a cheap dog mask from a vendor a few blocks away from UA. He’d only gone out to get a feel for the surrounding city while a clone follows Aizawa around during the day, but when he'd seen the elderly man shouting to passerby about the finest discount theater masks in Musutafu, he knew he couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
Hey, at least protecting his identity should theoretically protect Aizawa from repercussions as his chaperone. So really, Aizawa should be grateful that Kakashi is sneaking out behind his back.
Kakashi pauses for a moment as he walks down the street to consider that, before nodding decisively and continuing. Yes, that makes sense. He’s almost sure of it.
--
Eri had become rather attached to Kakashi over the course of time he’d kidnapped her, which Kakashi thinks is logical enough. She was in the middle of a dangerous situation, he removed her from it, and she had appreciated it. What makes less sense is that, now that she’s not in danger, and he’s not doing anything for her, she’s still following him around.
Kakashi looks up from where he’s reading his book on the couch to where Eri was sitting, doing nothing, on the next couch over.
“Don’t you want to-” Kakashi gestures vaguely back in the direction they came from. “Do stuff? That doesn’t involve me?”
Eri stares. “Like what?”
Excellent question. Fuck, what did Sakura like doing when she was younger? “Fawn over emotionally traumatized boys?” he tries.
Eri blinks. Yeah, maybe that wasn’t the best he could have come up with.
“What about Aizawa?” he says. “Don’t you have a lesson with him or something?”
She shakes her head. “He’s getting ready for a class right now. Mr. Yamada is sleeping.”
“Ah.” Out of ideas, Kakashi tries going back to reading for another few minutes, hoping Eri would spontaneously decide she’d rather do something fun on her own. No such luck.
He sighs, putting the book away as he stands.
“Come on,” he says, gesturing to the back door as Eri gets up to follow him. “You want to see something cool?”
--
Eri inhales sharply behind him as a cloud of smoke explodes from the grass at his hand. After a moment it dissipates, revealing the clearly expectant forms of his ninken, all of whom are sniffing the air excitedly.
Uhei opens his mouth.
“I don’t know what Pakkun told you, but she’s not mine,” Kakashi cuts him off.
Uhei closes his mouth.
Akino opens his mouth.
“She’s not any Hatake,” Kakashi clarifies.
Akino closes his mouth.
Bisuke opens his mouth.
Kakashi sighs. “And I don’t have any treats right now. I’ll find some by the end of the day.”
Bisuke closes his mouth.
“Now,” Kakashi takes a large step to the side, revealing Eri standing behind him. “Gentle.”
Eri’s eyes are the widest he’s ever seen them as the dogs approach as one. She doesn’t seem nervous, but maybe a little overwhelmed. At least, until she recognizes Pakkun at the front of the group. The pug gives Kakashi a look, which Kakashi pointedly ignores, before reaching his paw out for Eri to touch. That seems to be the cue for the other dogs to start nosing and poking at her, and in exactly no time at all, Eri is trying to pet them all at once.
It brings him back to the later days of Team 7, before everything had gone wrong at the Crush. There were days he’d involve the ninken in training, usually to harass his students during endurance runs or just rub in their faces how a bunch of dogs were better at water walking than they were. Naruto would always complain that it was easier for the pack, since they had more legs.
Those days would invariably end in dog piles and treats, much to Kakashi’s exasperation. As training wound down, one of the dogs (usually Bisuke or Guruku) would get in a playful mood, and drag one of the genin (usually Naruto) into a game of chase. From there, trying to get any lesson back on track was a lost cause.
In those days, all he could see was a team of inexperienced shinobi barely a few years out from potentially horrific deaths in the field. He saw Naruto one distracted moment away from getting crushed under a boulder, Sakura one moment too slow to avoid a lethal strike, Sasuke one mission and two fatalities away from the world losing its color forever. He’d accused his dogs of spoiling the brats by playing with them constantly. It was hypocritical, he knew, considering that he himself was a pretty lousy teacher, but that was different. Kakashi had always been a failure, from the day he’d sarcastically told his dad to off himself if he wasn’t going to go on any more missions to the day he hadn’t been able to save Minato-sensei from sacrificing himself for the village. It wasn’t like he’d been planning on failing his students, but it would have been in character. The dogs were supposed to be better.
Now, though, seeing Eri’s bright eyes as she pets, scratches, and rubs ears, he’s struck not for the first time by the thought that his dogs are so much smarter than him. Is this what they’d seen in his genin? Children, in desperate need of happy memories before shinobi life took its toll, where he’d seen nothing but soldiers?
Eri goes still as Guruko hops on her shoulder, before slowly reaching up to stroke his ears, as though she’ll frighten him off if she moves too quickly. Her eyes shine.
Kakashi makes a sign, and the pack immediately responds. They usually use this when he needs to get an injured comrade out of the area quickly, but…
Eri lets out a soft gasp as Urushi picks her up from behind by her shirt collar and Bull lumbers over. He gently deposits her on the larger dog’s back, and Pakkun hops on Bull's head to look her in the eye. “Hold on, kid.”
With that, Bull takes off, Eri gripping onto his collar for dear life as he bounds through the grass of the sprawling yard. After a few seconds, he wheels back towards the pack, charging at Uhei and Akino before leaping over the both of them.
Kakashi’s close enough to see the wonder in Eri’s eyes as she’s suspended in mid-air. A cheerful sound rings through the air, and Kakashi realizes it’s the first time he’s heard her laugh.
He smiles. Dogs solve all problems.
--
“Where does Mr. Hatake go when he wears the dog mask?” Eri asks Shouta after they finish their training sessions one day.
Shouta blinks. Half the police departments across the city were trying to figure out which new vigilante had been responsible for the incapacitated minor villains and petty criminals that were being left on their doorsteps, and all they had to go off of were the criminals’ reports of red eyes and dog masks.
It’s not like Shouta hadn’t put the pieces together already, but he admittedly had more information than most. He’d have to ask Hatake if he had shown her the mask, or if Eri was just that perceptive.
“Probably to ruin some poor villain’s day,” he deadpans.
Her nose scrunches up in confusion. “But he said he wasn’t a hero.”
“He isn’t,” Shouta replies honestly. “He never went to any school for heroism, and he’s not licensed. Using quirks to fight villains when you’re not allowed is vigilantism, which is illegal.”
“If he’s not a hero, then why does he do hero stuff?” Eri asks, confused.
Because he’s bored, and he can, and he thinks villains are acceptable targets, Shouta doesn’t say. Not because it isn’t true, but because Eri still seems to idolize the man, and he figures it’s best if she doesn’t idolize that kind of thinking.
“Because you don’t need to be a hero to do good,” he says instead. “Hatake’s going about it wrong—vigilantism is illegal for a reason. But he’s trying to do what he thinks is right.”
Eri is silent at that. Shouta can almost see the gears turning in her head.
He’s not sure that he actually believes that last part—Hatake had all but admitted to killing in the past, after all, and Shouta’s pretty sure he still doesn’t really understand why he shouldn’t teach Eri to kill. It’s hard to imagine that the man has much in the way of a traditional moral compass.
But then again, his first instinct back at the yakuza raid had been to abandon the man who could send him home in favor of saving a little girl, so who knows.
“So it’s wrong for him to fight those villains?” Eri finally asks.
Shouta hesitates before answering. “He shouldn’t be doing it,” he settles on.
Eri is quiet for a second, but before she can say anything else, Hizashi chooses that moment to barge into the room, shouting something about a new ice cream bar nearby, and the moment passes.
--
It’s three in the morning when Aizawa rounds the corner, bleary eyed and nursing a cup of coffee. The man stops and stares silently for a few seconds, as if willing the sight before him to go away. Kakashi, wearing his dog mask and with one leg out the fourth story window, can sympathize.
A moment passes, before Aizawa closes his eyes with a put upon sigh. He pulls crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and wordlessly holds it out for Kakashi to take. Kakashi blinks as he does so, still half out the window. Aizawa turns around silently and walks back the way he came.
On the roof a few moments later, Kakashi uncrumples the paper to find a list of the names and suspected locations of several members of the so-called “League of Villains”. “Acceptable Targets” is scrawled across the top.
Kakashi grins.
--
Kakashi blinks.
It’s the next day, and the bank is on fire. The bank is very on fire, which he imagines probably isn’t intentional on the bank’s part. He doesn’t know what the average response time for a fire unit in the city is, but he's pretty sure it's longer than it would take for him to put it out with a water jutsu.
He doesn’t have his dog mask on him, but come on. They can’t possibly get mad at him for putting a fire out. He hadn't even gone looking for trouble this time, it just found him. What is he supposed to do, let the bank burn down?
--
Apparently, yes, he is. At least, according to the costumed red-head yelling at him, who is nearly as on fire as the bank had been before Kakashi summoned a convenient water wall. Endeavor, the man had called himself. Kakashi’s not sure if he can really trust the word of the man who he’s pretty sure started the fire in the first place, but he does know he doesn’t care enough to argue.
Or pay attention, for that matter. What was the man saying, again?
Something something “licensed battle with a villain” something something “the building had already been evacuated, no one was in danger” something something “Thank you, Kakashi, for your outstanding community service for putting out this fire and also accidentally subduing the villain with your mini tidal wave.”
Oh wait, that last one had only been in his head.
“So it was that you set the building on fire?” Kakashi cuts the man off to clarify, deliberately obtuse.
The man doesn’t quite splutter, which is a shame, but the flames flaring off him do begin glowing brighter. Kakashi almost hopes he loses control of his quirk so that he has an excuse to drench the Pro again.
“Unlicensed quirk usage is a serious offense.” Endeavor begins again, visibly restraining himself from shouting. “You’re lucky no one was hurt. If I hadn’t cleared the building…”
Kakashi nods along for exactly three more seconds before he hears sirens and decides not to push his luck, and body-flickers away mid-sentence.
This time, the man really does splutter.
--
“Did you douse the Number 1 Pro Hero?” Shouta asks the moment the door to the common room opens.
“No, and if someone did, you can’t prove it was me,” Hatake replies immediately, breezing past him on his way to the kitchen. “But if the fire guy doesn’t want someone to put out his messes, then maybe he should learn how to control his flames better.”
Shouta sighs.
--
“…You don’t actually put your finger through the ring most of the time—that’s an easy way to break your finger, and it makes it harder to throw or switch grips,” Hatake is explaining as Shouta enters the main room, holding a kunai in demonstration. Eri looks on, enraptured, and mimics his grip with her own knife. “Now, if you have wire…”
“Eri. Hatake,” Shouta interrupts. Eri looks up quickly, nearly cutting herself as she jerks her arm with the weapon.
Hatake gently grabs her wrist before she hurts herself, before eye-smiling at Shouta as if nothing was wrong about this scene. “Aizawa.”
“What are you two doing, exactly?” Shouta asks, as though it isn’t obvious.
Hatake gestures with the weapon still in his hand, still smiling. “I’m teaching Eri how to use her kunai. She’s a natural.”
Eri blushes.
Shouta sighs. “Eri, didn’t you say that you’d help Hizashi look at what clothes you might like online today?”
Eri gasps, quickly placing the kunai down on the coffee table before darting off. Shouta watches her run down the hall, and by the time he turns back, Hatake already has his damn porn out, which could not have been a more obvious indicator of not wanting to have the imminent conversation. Unfortunately for him, ignoring social cues is old hat for Shouta.
“You’re teaching her combat grips.” He starts bluntly. “That’s how you hold a kunai if you want to stab someone.”
“Or slash,” Hatake corrects, not even attempting to deny it.
“You’re teaching a six-year-old to kill.”
“Her being six didn’t stop the Yakuza from torturing her,” Hatake says lightly, flipping a page in his book.
Shouta swallows the bile that rises at that statement. “She’s at UA. She’s safe here.”
“And she’d be safer if she could defend herself,” Hatake replies reasonably.
He’s not even wrong, factually speaking. It’s just—how can you explain ‘children shouldn’t be taught to kill’ to someone who doesn't intuitively understand that? “She is a child.”
Hatake rolls his shoulders in what might have been a shrug. “You’re never too young to die. I started training even younger. It’s why I’m alive.”
Shouta remembers the man’s tacit admission to murder earlier that week. “Do you really want Eri to live the kind of life you have?”
Hatake raises his eyes from his book and studies him. Shouta meets his gaze.
A long moment passes like that. Hatake eventually looks away first, shifting in his seat and returning to his book. “Well, when you put it like that.”
Shouta can’t tell if it’s an agreement or a placation.
“Put it how you’d like. But teaching a child to kill isn’t right,” he replies simply. There’s no response, and it’s clear the other man has no intention of continuing the conversation.
Shouta sighs. It’s not like he’s incapable of stepping in a little more forcefully if Hatake doesn’t back off, he supposes. “Now stop reading that damned book around children.”
Hatake snorts.
--
Do you really want Eri to live the kind of life you have? is what Aizawa had actually said, but it’s not what Kakashi had heard.
You really want her to be like you?
No, he’d realized. He really doesn’t. Konoha isn’t yet at the point where children can be raised without needing to know how to kill. In his more honest moments, Kakashi would admit that that point probably wouldn’t be reached in his lifetime. In his most honest moments, he doubts it would ever be reached.
Somehow, though, this world is there. Eri probably wouldn’t ever have to kill. Kakashi always had been and always would be a weapon, but he doesn’t need to drag Eri down into the muck with him.
It’s a poetic thought, really. Very sweet. He’s sure Sakura would love it. He’s also having a very hard time getting himself to actually buy into it.
Because, yeah, Eri probably wouldn’t need to kill, and no, it’s not like Kakashi’s under any delusions that his ideas and references for normal childhood skillsets are healthy. But it’s not like knowing how to defend yourself doesn’t have merit. Eri being too young to be trained didn’t make her too young for the yakuza to have kidnapped her.
Conundrums, conundrums.
Well, he supposes, if he can’t teach her to fend off danger when it finds her, then he’ll just have to teach her how to make sure it never finds her in the first place.
Mind made up, Kakashi starts outlining what he’ll have to go over.
--
“The key to not being noticed is absolute stillness. Without movement to latch onto, the human eye will happily ignore a lot…”
--
Hizashi’s whistling abruptly transforms into frightened screaming and the telltale clatter of dropped dishes as he passes one of the dark corners Eri’s been practicing hiding in all day. Shouta places the coffee pot down with a quiet clack and sighs.
“SHOUTA! SHE'S LIKE A MINI YOU!”
--
“Please,” the shinobi says one day, voice unusually sincere, “You’ve done so much for me these past weeks. Call me Kakashi.”
Shouta doesn’t look away from where he’s making coffee. “I’m not bailing you out of your promise to go shopping with Eri and Yamada today.”
Hatake sighs behind him. “Worth a shot.”
--
“And you’re sure you want this?” Kakashi tries not to sound skeptical, considering he has exactly zero leg to stand on, but it’s a losing battle. He almost wants to go to the cockatiel hero for support, but he'd been dragged off by a nearby group of fans, leaving Kakashi and Eri alone for the moment.
Eri nods resolutely, before a look of contemplation crosses her face.
“Do I have to have buck teeth to wear it?” she asks. Kakashi blinks. Right. He briefly considers how likely it is he’d be successful in gaslighting her into believing he'd never said that.
“Not at all,” he replies instead. “They have all sorts of other uses. They make you look cool, help you hide your civilian identity, and are a great way to frustrate all your friends and comrades!”
Eri stares. Kakashi sighs. “Let’s just get you fitted, shall we?”
--
For the first time since their practice sessions had started, Eri is late. Shouta doesn’t particularly mind, and doesn’t plan on bringing it up when she bursts through the door a minute later. The first words out of her mouth, though…
“Sorry!” she pants, evidently having run from wherever she'd been previously. She hesitates for a moment, and then… “I got lost on the road of life.”
Shouta blinks at the unfortunately familiar excuse. Sweat begins pouring down Eri’s face.
He doesn’t even finish raising his eyebrow before she breaks. “I was playing with the cats but then didn’t see the time so when I saw I only had a minute to get here, I ran but it was too far so now I’m late, I’m sorry! ”
Shouta sighs.
--
One of the weirdest things about dimension traveling is that, at some point, it’s no longer confusing to see a non-Otsutsuki rabbit woman fighting alongside a washing machine.
It’s a little sad to think about, honestly, so Kakashi resolutely does not think about it.
The pair, who Kakashi vaguely recognizes from the news as Pro Heroes, are fighting some lightning-themed villain when Kakashi arrives at where he’d heard explosions coming from on his illegal walk.
Just as he recognizes who’s fighting, the villain scores a direct lightning blast on the washing machine, laughing maniacally. A rookie mistake, frankly.
It takes the distracted villain a moment too long to realize his other opponent is gone, and he barely has time to raise an arm to block before the rabbit woman is there with a vicious drop kick. The villain goes flying through the air, slamming into a car on the opposite side of the road with enough force to dent the metal before collapsing to the ground. Rabbit-woman spares a glance to make sure he’s not getting back up, before shouting for her injured comrade in a panic and running to check on him.
Kakashi is honestly pretty surprised that the villain manages to get up after that—it must have been some secondary effect of his quirk, because there’s no way the man should have been able to move after that, let alone be conscious.
Regardless, Kakashi can feel charge in the air as the villain wheels an arm in the beginning of the same striking motion he’d made when he hit the washing machine earlier. Neither of the Pros, with their backs turned, seem to notice it.
The scent of ozone is sharp on the air, and Kakashi can feel the strength of the charge as he prepares to step in. It’s a pretty impressive lightning quirk—probably stronger than what Kakashi had seen of that Bodanari kid’s, honestly.
Not nearly strong enough, though.
The villain fires. Within a blink, Kakashi is in front of the Pros, palm extended as lightning crashes into him, his chakra already surging to meet it. Within a breath the current races up-through-down-OUT-!
Energy rushes across his chakra paths, exploding out of his other outstretched arm as lightning an instant later. Rubble explodes where the redirected lightning strikes the asphalt just a few feet from the villain. The shockwave throws the man to the ground with a pained shout, and Kakashi body-flickers behind him as he scrambles up. He gives the man an amusing second to scour empty street in a panic, before whacking him over the head with the hilt of a kunai.
Not wanting a repeat of the Endeavor incident, Kakashi gives a quick two-fingered salute to the shocked-looking rabbit woman before body flickering away.
--
The moment Kakashi crosses the threshold to the dorms that evening, Eri instantly runs into him and wraps herself around his waist. At first he thinks it’s a severely miscalculated attempt at a takedown—it takes a moment to realize he’s being hugged. He's not quite sure what to do with that realization.
He looks helplessly to Aizawa, seated at the table behind Eri, who in turn nods at the muted television still on in the corner of the room. Kakashi follows his gaze and blinks.
On screen, Kakashi is standing tall with one arm extended, lightning arcing and spitting off his body in all directions as the two Pros stare in awe and shock from the ground behind him. A bold Hatake Kakashi’s SHOCKING Reappearance! is splashed across the bottom of the screen. According to the subtitles, the news anchor is speculating on whether Kakashi is a villain with a soft spot or a full-on vigilante.
If he knew he was going to be filmed, he probably would have worn something other than an English Pug in an Ugg novelty t-shirt. He’d bought it to get a rise out of Pakkun, but it sort of ruined the dramatic flair the newscasters were going for, in his opinion.
“You’re a hero,” Eri mumbles into his clothes. Part of Kakashi is touched, a larger part of him wants to disagree, and an even larger part of him wants to teleport out of being hugged.
Instead, he awkwardly pats Eri on the back. Aizawa, who looks incredibly unsurprised to see Kakashi on the news considering he’d been with a shadow clone all day, smiles at his discomfort, before hiding it behind a sip of coffee.
When Hizashi walks in and starts squealing at the sight, he really does body-flicker away.
--
The four of them are just about to walk out the door when Eri suddenly says she needs to grab something. Shouta narrows his eyes at the gleam in Hatake’s eyes when the man ushers them out, saying he’ll help Eri find whatever it is. It’s suspicious, but Shouta can’t imagine what he might be up to, so he doesn’t resist as Hizashi continues to drag him out the door to the car.
After a week of updates from Nezu basically amounting to “any day now,” the principal had finally informed them that morning that the lab techs had figured everything out. Every bug was fixed, every detail ironed out—the device to send Hatake back was ready. The higher ups wanted to wait a day to invite a few officials who wanted to see the device in use, but that was the only delay. By noon tomorrow, Hatake would be gone.
It had been Hizashi’s idea for them all to spend the evening out together before then. Hatake had thought it a great idea, and Shouta hadn’t found it in himself to shoot it down.
He still can’t quite say he likes Hatake, but after knowing him for a month, he’s decided he doesn’t hate him either, and figures it would probably be rude to turn the occasion down. He doesn’t want to sit through another lecture from Hizashi about his lack of social tact, after all.
When Eri had quietly mentioned that she’d like to see what a restaurant is like, because of course she’s never been to one before, the issue had been settled.
Shouta listens with half an ear to Hizashi gushing over some American band as he climbs in to start the car. It’s only a minute later when Hatake comes out.
Even under the mask, it’s clear the man is grinning, and Shouta is immediately on edge. It makes sense when Eri comes out a moment later, wearing an all-too-familiar mask of her own. Hizashi’s smile freezes in place as he abruptly cuts off, and for a moment Shouta thinks his friend is rightly horrified at the sight, but then Hizashi starts talking again and Shouta realizes he’s trying not to laugh.
The blond grins as he opens the rear door for her. “What’s up with the mask, little listener?”
“Mr. Hatake got me one when I asked about his,” she mumbles through the fabric as she climbs into the seat.
Shouta glares at the man in question. Hatake ignores him, instead beaming one of his eye smiles as he climbs in next to her. “It looks great!”
Hizashi nods emphatically, and Shouta wants to slam his head into the steering wheel. “You look adorable!”
The mask doesn’t hide Eri’s wide eyes, nor does it fully cover the blush creeping up her cheeks.
--
They decide on a local sushi place that Hizashi read about online. Eri seems overwhelmed by all the options initially, but eventually decides on a simple vegetable roll. Hizashi gets some western-styled roll, while Hatake orders a saury dish. Shouta himself asks for the cheapest roll available without looking at the menu.
The service is quick, the food is good, the conversation is surprisingly not terrible as Hizashi leaves no room for potentially awkward silences, and Eri has hearts in her eyes at the meal. For a solid half hour, the evening goes spectacularly. And then, it all abruptly goes terribly wrong.
Instead of keeping the mask down as she had been, Eri tries Hatake’s trick where he shovels food in his mouth the instant no one’s looking, but she goes a little too fast and starts choking on something. Hizashi, rather than getting up and going around the table, instead cuts himself off with a gasp and shoots up in a half-aborted move to lunge over the table to help, nearly knocking the whole thing over in the process. Dishes clatter the floor, drawing surprised shouts from the tables surrounding them. Now rushing to get around the table, Hizashi manages to step on one of the fallen plates and goes tumbling forward when it flies out from under him, in turn falling into Eri, who with a small eep! then falls onto Hizashi in a tangle of limbs. Hizashi groans, and Eri weakly coughs up the offending bit of sushi that started the whole mess.
Shouta stares at the pile of human disaster, before looking up to glare at Hatake, who looks a little sheepish as they both get up to help. Concerned murmurs rise from the other patrons all around them as waitstaff come rushing over to see what the commotion is. Shouta softens his expression so as not to upset Eri as he picks her up off the ground, but his glare returns in force when he meets Hatake’s gaze over her shoulder.
“This is your fault,” Shouta mouths.
Hatake just laughs as he helps Hizashi up.
--
It’s a stupid way to end the evening, Shouta reflects on the ride home ten minutes later. Hizashi is shouting over the radio to be heard as he whines about his hair getting messed up, and in the rearview mirror, Hatake is dramatically miming tripping and falling while gesturing at Hizashi’s back, Eri smiling softly at his theatrics. Shouta quirks a lip.
But I suppose it’s not the worst night we could have had.
--
The scene is startlingly reminiscent of the one a month ago, the last time they tried to send Hatake back, only a lot more cramped.
Shouta, along with Eri, Hatake, the principal, a few other scientists, and a bunch of government suits are all crowded into one of the basement labs of the HPSC building this whole mess had started in. He and Eri don’t actually have any reason to be there, but Nezu had somehow gotten them in to say their goodbyes.
Shouta’s pretty sure he’s not going to miss Hatake—the man is a menace on his sanity—but he knows that Eri will, and that means something. It means enough that he’s willing to show up, at least.
Nezu is holding the device that would actually send Hatake back, which for some surely scientific reason apparently had to be designed like a gun. Shouta gives him a skeptical look. “Are we sure this is going to work this time?”
“Reasonably,” Nezu says, unconcerned.
Hatake blinks at that, but doesn’t say anything. Standing alone in the center of the room, he’s the only one who has any real personal space in the crowded lab.
Eri, tightly gripping the kunai that Shouta had begrudgingly allowed her to bring, doesn’t ask him to stay this time, but Shouta can see she clearly wants to. “Thank you for teaching me and letting me play with your dogs,” she says instead.
Hatake gives a small smile. “Anytime,” he says, reaching out to lightly flick Eri’s kunai as he does. For a moment, jagged lines and curls of yellow light seem to glow from the handle, but then Eri shifts her grip and they’re gone. Shouta narrows his eyes.
Hatake stands up straighter, and looks around the room. “Now, not that this hasn’t been fun, but can I leave for real this time?” He asks with a pointed glance at Nezu, who grins.
The principal obliges, pulling the trigger with a cackle. Hatake repeats his two-fingered salute from last time, and, thankfully, actually disappears.
All the suits around the room immediately start furiously taking notes, and Shouta sighs as he and Eri make their way out.
--
In the parking lot, Shouta takes another look at Eri’s kunai, but finds nothing. He decides it must have been a trick of the light.
--
A few days after Hatake leaves, Shouta goes into the man’s old room for the first time since he’d left, mainly because it finally occurred to him that he doesn't want the next person to use the room to lay down and stab themselves on a forgotten shuriken or something.
It’s only because he’s specifically looking for hidden weaponry that he notices the undone corner of the bed’s fitted sheet, as though someone had removed it and not quite replaced it correctly.
It’s possible that it just came loose, but…
Shouta frowns, and grabs a fistful of the blanket and sheets in each hand.
In a single motion he yanks all of them off. A vast matrix of interconnected inkings and seals sprawls out to cover nearly the entire mattress before him, like something out of a mad scientist’s lab.
Shouta leans in to study the inkings. He has exactly zero idea what they mean, but something tugs at his memory. Upon closer inspection, it seems like Hatake had been repeating a relatively small sequence over and over, with slight variations, as if he’d been practicing or modifying something. From iteration to iteration, there are countless small changes—a wider stroke of ink, a spiral looping one more time, characters occasionally scribbled out and replaced with similar ones.
Hiraishin, is scrawled above one of the earlier iterations.
Whatever. He doesn’t think Hatake would leave anything malicious behind, but he’d have the mattress destroyed just in case.
He wishes he could remember why the patterns seem familiar, though.