Chapter Text
In a room located on the second floor of the Hokage’s house, a blonde-haired boy drops his ink-dipped brush all over his homework and starts spitting curses.
All the work he put into that problem is illegible now! With a sigh Naruto slumps into his chair pushing it away from his desk and looks out his window. It has been six months since Naruto started studying under his father’s mentorship and, to put it bluntly, he feels like he is going crazy.
Growing up he’s heard all the stories of the legendary Yellow Flash and who wouldn’t be in awe of the man? His father has always felt too close yet too distant. The parental side of him is overbearing and almost too caring, asking him things like “How was your day at school Naruto?” “Have you made any friends?” “Naruto quit throwing pranks!”
It was annoying to be so smothered and yet the cool heroic side of Minato seemed to only appear right out of Naruto’s view.
Despite that pattern, Naruto always thought the moment he became a ‘real ninja’ his father would suddenly transform into his super badass Yellow Flash version and take him under his wing! But, ever since Naruto accepted Minato’s mentorship, he has just been repeatedly pummeled with the idea that he is nothing like his dad, that his dad has bigger things to worry about, and that he is just some troublesome kid to him.
And Naruto wants to lay his head down low and be a good kid for the sake of his family but… He wants some kind of action besides D-ranks! Pranks are fun but he always gets caught and because the world is ‘at peace’ or whatever, the world has frankly become too peaceful.
With a prayer, he stares at the moon.
God, could something interesting happen around here for once! I’ll take anything!
Minutes pass and he is left with nothing but the sound of a still breeze.
Naruto sighs, thanks a lot moon god—
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”
He hears shrieking erupt from the heavens. Four ninjas fall from the sky, and they don't even fall stealthily either. They fall screaming.
One moment, he’s staring out the window astonished — the next he’s clamoring out the door.
Shinobi rush to Konoha’s market plaza in search of what caused of the noise
Naruto pushes through the crowds of people in a huff, “Let… me… Through!”
Strong-arming two people aside and finally reaches the center of the crowd. He takes in the sight of the four mystery nin laying on the ground with a squeal of delight. Trying to get a closer look at them he is suddenly pulled into the air by the scruff of his neck.
Someone hissed, “Naruto…”
The Naruto in question dramatically groans into his scarf as he recognizes the voice.
His father, Minato Namikaze, the stupid hokage or whatever pulled him by the back of his scarf sent him an angry look, “What are you doing here? Get back, this could be dangerous!”
“Hey,” Naruto grinds his teeth and glares, “I’m dangerous! I’m a genin y’know, meaning it is like my job to look–!”
“No, it’s a genin’s job to wait for instructions from their commanding officer, aka me. You’re being irresponsible Naruto.” His father scolds, “And you have the worksheets I gave you to do–”
“No way!” Naruto seethes, “You can’t just send me to my room, I’m 15! A real ninja—”
The four mysterious figures groan wearily–causing the surrounding shinobi to become alert as they arm their kunai.
“Kakashi-kun, hold this for me please.” Minato passes Naruto to his trusted guard. Kakashi holds the displeased Naruto by the back of his scarf, akin to how you may hold a dead rat.
Naruto glowers, embarrassed by how pathetic he probably looks dangling around right now. He casts his eyes on the figures, becoming increasingly curious of the strange nin before him.
Minato raises a hand, telling his guards to stay put as he moves forward to examine them. He decides to pick the hood off the tallest one who seems to be the group's leader and gapes in surprise.
“...Kakashi?” Minato’s voice hangs loftly in the air
“Yes, hokage-sama?” His loyal guard responds diligently before pausing
His sensei is not talking to him.
He is talking to the man in the hood, and the man seems just as surprised. Minato’s gloved hand pulls down his hood to reveal Kakashi, a surprised and disbelieving version of Kakashi with his hitae-ate covering one eye.
“No way,” A smaller cloaked nin whispers
They push themself off the ground to reveal pink locks of hair. Her green eyes stare at Minato shell-shocked before hysterically saying, “Kaka-sensei did we DIE!?”
“Sakura?” Naruto, gasps, still hanging from the nape of his scarf, “What happened to your hair?”
“Naruto, where are your whiskers!” She yells, sounding more frightened by the minute
“Mmhmm,” Another cloaked figure beside her smacks their own cheeks, inadvertently letting his cloak fall down, “Wha’daya mean Sakura-chan, they’re right here?”
Sakura glances between her teammate and the odd version of him. The cloaked Naruto follows her glance.
…..
Naruto screamed pointing at the imposters, and the imposters screamed pointing right back.
“My ears—!” Minato hisses
“Quiet…” The guard Kakashi looks rattled and shakily points at himself(?), “You’re their sensei right? Do something!”
Team 7’s Kakashi-sensei just looks up at him, mellowed out amidst the screams, and simply waves a hand, “Maa… they’ll tire themselves out, give it a minute.”
“Dobe… Sakura-san….” the last figure groans darkly before roaring, “SHUT UP!”
“EEP!” They jumped and scrambled to put themselves together
The cloaked Kakashi simply sighs, pushes a hand to his knee and stands up fully.
“Kakashi-san is it? Could you—-“ Minato tries to start but the man only stares blankly at him before abruptly (rudely) turning away.
”Alright, Team 7 it's time for a headcount.” Kakashi drawls pointing ignoring the incredulous hokage beside him, “Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke—cool. Now using your deduction skills, what do you three think is going on here.”
”Um.” Minato, the hokage, asks bewildered, “Excuse me—-“
The three students blatantly ignore said hokage as they groan
Sasuke starts, “Genjutsu?”
”Nope we’ve already thrown off any remaining chakra.”
Sakura questions, ”Kaguya fuckery?”
”Nope she’s very 6-feet under, burnt to a crisp, dead.”
”Uhh,” Naruto shrugs, “We got hotboxed?”
”Very close, Naruto,” His sensei sends him a cheery eye, “The right answer is hallucination.”
Minato and his guard sputter at the foreign Kakashi’s declaration
Sakura bemoans, “Agh, I knew it!”
”This is clearly a shared hallucination and we are quite possibly going insane right now,” Kakashi cheers, “Bonus Question—What’s the best way to deal with your problems?”
The whiskered Naruto raises a hand, “Sleep it off!”
”Bingo!” Kakashi pats his back, “I always knew you were my favorite! Now let's get the hell outta here before we start hallucinating Obito.”
”Hokage-sama you called?” Obito appears by Minato’s side
And suddenly all of the cloaked team 7 start screaming again. Even Kakashi visibly tenses as he whispers to his students, “Oh, fuuuck this.”
Minato finally reigns himself in enough to put a shoulder on the cloaked Kakashi, “Shinobi. You all have to come with me,”
Imposter Kakashi visibly tenses further before staring bewildered at his student
Minato frowns expecting some sort of backlash
He however could not expect having to hear the whiskered version of his son mutter, “I’m starting to miss the Infinite Tsukuyomi.”
Still hanging from his scarf, Naruto stares at his dad and back at the weird imposter versions of himself and his friends. Naruto has to admit this situation isn’t entirely what he had in mind but it’ll do. This is far more interesting than anything he could come up with.
The Hokage’s office was tense with awkward silence. They sat in adjacent couches—the cloaked nin on one side and Minato, Naruto, and Kakashi on the other.
“Hey,” Naruto huddled close to his father, “I’m not changing my name, I’m Naruto.”
His cloaked counterpart twitched, “I’m also Naruto y’know…”
Minato agreed, “If we call both parties by the same names it will cause confusion.”
Kakashi’s clone (rather leisurely) suggested, “We could go by our undercover names?”
The short haired version of Sakura started, “Call me Saya.”
Sasuke’s moody version huffed, “Kira is fine.”
And then the boy who looked far too familiar grinned, “Uzumaki Kaya at your service.”
”Wait,” Kakashi cut into the conversation, “He can’t use my fake name, it’s still active for some missions.”
”In that case Hatake is fine,” Hatake’s lazy gaze seemed to pierce his other self, “It’s not like you’re using it, right Kakashi-san?”
Something cold cut through Kakashi’s expression. He relented, “Fine, that’s appropriate enough.”
Minato clears his throat, “So, explain your arrival–how did you manage to travel across dimensions and why?”
And the ever mysterious team seemed to sweat bullets eyeing each other
Minato taps his fingers along the table waiting for a response, as the time begins to stretch he becomes impatient and nervously calls out
“Kaya, explain?”
“Well,” Scratching his head, Kaya nervously chuckles, “Things just happen sometimes, dattebayo.”
Minato and his guard stare at him incredulously before looking at Hatake with pleading eyes
The allusive Hatake nods seriously, “What he said.”
Naruto openly laughs watching Minato and Kakashi’s expressions fall comically unimpressed
“Alright, housing situations are going to be a little tight because of how sudden your arrival was,” Minato says pinching his nose bridge
Naruto supplied, “You guys fell from the sky two hours ago.”
Team 7 nodded expectantly
”So for now uh—Kaya-kun—you'll have to live on your own.” Minato said a bit mournfully, as he stared concerned at his son’s reflection.
“Sounds great!” Kaya agreed without fuss. Throughout the conversation his gaze seemed to subconsciously avert away from Minato’s, his body almost leaning on his teammates for support.
”Kaya…” Minato began, “Are you sure this is alright? I’m just a bit worried.”
”Worried?” Kaya smiled assuringly, “No need to worry about me, Hokage-sama. For as long as I could remember I’ve been living a—“
Kaya’s mouth snapped shut as if it had a mind of its own. The boy seemed to freeze while staring at Naruto who was currently laying his head on Minato’s shoulder.
”A?” Minato mimicked confused
Kaya suddenly looked towards Hatake, the grin on his face morphing into a feeble pleading smile.
Hatake quickly interjected with a nervous laugh, “Minato-sensei, how about my team and I stay at the Hatake-compound. I assume my counterpart isn’t using it and it’s large enough for all the kids to live together. My kids… Super clingy you see. Can’t stand to be apart.”
Minato intoned exasperated, “I just saw the two boys brawling.”
“Very clingy.” Hatake nodded seriously
Minato looked towards his guard, “Any thoughts on this?”
Kakashi huffed, “Do whatever you want. Just know, it’s dirty and I won’t help with repairs.”
“We’ll treat it like an extended d-rank.” Sayu shrugged, “I could use some monotony anyways.”
“Well, if you’re all fine with it…” Minato muttered, “Kira, are you sure you wouldn’t like to live in your clan compound.”
Kira stiffened, disturbed by something and grunted, “I’m staying with my team.”
“Oh,” Minato blinked, “Alright then… I just need you guys to fill out some papers—”