Title: Braid Your Hair With Greener Leaves
Author: Timothy Wren
Fandom: Naruto, She-Ra and the Princesses Of Power
Relationship: Senju Tobirama/Hatake Kakashi, Hatake Kakashi & Uzumaki Naruto, Background Uzumaki Mito/Uchiha Madara/Senju Hashirama (their kid has the Rinnegan)
Challenge: Valentine’s Prompts
Genre: Anime, Romance, Time Travel, Fix-it
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, Extreme Grief, Mentions of Suicide + Suicidal Thoughts relevant to Kakashi’s backstory and general life, General Shinobi Violence/Horror/Blood (mentioned), This is set the day after Naruto’s parents died. It has a very fluffy and happy ending. Nothing bad happens that didn’t happen in canon. This is a fix-it. This is lighter than canon, which isn’t a high bar.
Word Count: 3,063 (complete)
Summary: Kakashi took the kid and ran.
The world is broken.
There is a sword in the old Hatake house, the one Kakashi hasn’t seen years. He haunts the memorial stone like a ghost instead of those already-haunted halls, fresh from ANBU and pale in hair, clothing, skin.
He traces Obito’s name next to Rin’s next to his father’s and tries not to think about being so petty and hateful you’d mark a suicide as dying in service to a village.
The world is broken in the way that a fifteen-almost-sixteen year old puts on a ceramic mask and black and white, and carves broad swathes of it in the same red as a tattoo.
He thinks he might have got a glimpse of it, once, the mirage of a fixed world viewed the cracks of this one; his father, saying people’s lives mattered more than a mission; Jiraiya, carding hands through his hair as he cried, the strength of human spirit; Minato, as bright as the sun, who Jiraiya had whispered might finally be the one to get them there, to that future cloaked in light, without all the killing and death.
The truth of the broken world started somewhere near ‘Shinobi aren’t tools’ and Kakashi could follow that line of sight to the horizon where it muddied into the atmosphere and the turn of the earth, too big and nebulous for him to grasp.
There is a sword in the Hatake compound that nobody has been able to wield since Ninshu became Ninjutsu, since shinobi took their first stumbling steps into dividing the world into war-stained territory, and Kakashi had once picked it up and felt something from the cold metal, a kind of sigh and a gentle no.
His father hadn’t been disappointed, merely clapped him on the shoulder and took him out for food, and then his father had bled out on the living room floor, and Minato was there.
Sometime– beyond the screaming and Kakashi’s nails covered in red, and the steady pressure that couldn’t become CPR yet– Minato arrived and tugged Kakashi away, and he couldn’t fix it yet, but Minato could do anything.
Somehow, Kakashi hadn’t considered ‘die’ on that list. Minato could do anything, but he wasn’t allowed to leave. Kushina followed him, breathing her last under a giant dome that kept them out, and Kakashi was well and truly alone.
There was something broken with the world. Something fundamentally flawed. Kakashi couldn’t imagine what a better world looked like– was too steeped in the tradition of his birth to see beyond the broadest shape of it– but he believed with everything inside of him that there was something wrong with the one they had now.
He didn’t know how to fix it. He didn’t have the power to fix it.
But there is a sword in the Hatake clanhome, broader than a katana that whispered to him when he was a child, and it is not a sword of power.
Uzumaki Naruto is born amid the chaos in a shinobi village, held close to one parent and then another, until the strongest god is shoved into his newborn naked soul, even as their blood drips onto his skin.
Sarutobi holds his great-grandson and weeps and mourns and calls him Jinchuuriki.
Jiraiya can barely stand to look at him, choked with grief and denial, and barely takes the time to call the seal good before he leaves the village behind again, a coward who can see the cracks but could never find anything to do about it.
The world is broken. It’s horrible, it’s fucked, it’s not how the world is supposed to be. Not how people are supposed to be. He feels it like a wave behind his ears, dizzying and drowning. He knows and the knowledge is a storm.
No, Kakashi says, a whisper-quiet breath of denial. He stops in the middle of his turbulent thoughts, between one step and another, finally pushed too far. He’s found the line he won’t cross, turned around and seen the broken sprawl of what they’ve built behind him. He has planted his feet.
This is wrong, he thought, like a drip of silver water in the darkest of oceans. Not just the situation but the fabric of the world, the ongoing history of their people.
There was a sword in the Hatake clanhome that felt warm to his touch, to any touch, for the first time in thousands of years. It filled him with light. It thought you’ll do.
And he himself wasn’t correct, couldn’t be perfect, and might not be able to change anything at all, but he wasn’t– couldn’t be– like Jiraiya, aware of the deep-seated wrongness and resigned to it.
He didn’t have the perfect solution, but he would try. He could only try. Like Minato’s smile, like Tsunade’s outrage at the younger soldiers, like her grandfather’s attempt to find peace in all the wrong ways.
The world was broken, there was a sword in his hand, and to save the world one has to be willing to change it.
Kakashi took the kid and ran.
—
There are some perks to being the apprentice of the Fourth Hokage. Kakashi has seen his own brutally honest file in the archives– security is a bit of a joke, to him– and knows he was never classed as a flight risk.
Minato had asked him, once, if he thought about killing himself. Kakashi had flinched hard away from the thought, and even now could not stomach the idea of it. Minato had pulled him aside again, after Obito and Rin, and asked if he thought there was a difference between his own hands or anothers’.
Kakashi had stopped flinging himself into danger, then. The train of thought was painful– he hadn’t even consciously realized, but part of him had stopped caring if he made it home from a mission.
He still signed up for the most dangerous missions, but only because the challenge could get him out of his head, distract him from the grief for a few hours or days.
And Minato, who saw through the heart of him, allowed it. He knew Kakashi would fray apart at the seams without steel in his hands and a purpose, however grim of one.
He’d quickly risen through the ranks of ANBU. Together, he and Minato had discovered the remnants of Root and put a more thorough stop to it. Dimly, Kakashi thought that with Minato gone– gone— Danzo would start it up again, anyway, because Sarutobi either wouldn’t or couldn’t raise a hand to his old teammate.
Wrongness seeped into the very root of the village, darkness clawed in darkness, and Kakashi had been at the administrative heart of it, an ANBU captain and lone apprentice of the Hokage.
There was nowhere in the village he couldn’t access, no security seal he wasn’t added to. He’d read the Forbidden Scroll while sitting on the Hokage’s desk before, idly debating seal theory with Minato for long, sunny afternoon hours.
They didn’t realize he’d stolen the baby, at first, though of course they didn’t call him that. They called him jinchuuriki, even now when he’d only worn the title for a few hours, and his own name scantly longer.
Kakashi showed up for his guard shift, because Sarutobi was an idiot but he at least understood that if he didn’t want to deal with Hatake Kakashi instead of ANBU Hound, he needed to set the mask to work, and direct that hopeless grief into a new goal.
He assigned Hound to protection of the baby, and the other guards parted to let him through. It was a transparent tactic, dangling Minato and Kushina’s son over Kakashi’s head.
Look, it’s your little brother.
Fool. Kakashi bit back a snarl. Naruto was all alone in the world– the broken world– and Kakashi had overheard plans. Already talk of his parentage had been made an S-class secret overnight, and talk of the beast was being hushed by similar edict.
Jiraiya wouldn’t even hold his godson. Sarutobi wouldn’t raise him. Everyone else had been forbidden. Kakashi had already made up his mind before word of the orphanage reached him.
All this to say: nobody stopped Kakashi from taking the baby. He knocked out every member of the guard squad just in case, knew the right codes to reassure the others, and it was hours before they noticed him gone.
The security seals didn’t keep him out and they didn’t keep him in. Kakashi’s blood and chakra had gone into their forging, renewed as Minato and Kushina renewed them, a tapestry of protection woven around the village that they loved.
As the trees thinned out behind him, and the open grasslands beckoned, Kakashi held a blanket-wrapped baby in his arms and thought he didn’t love the village, anymore.
If he ever did.
Whatever embers of loyalty to the place had been watered down and killed as his father was, one day at a time by the capricious hatred in Konoha’s walls, and it was only love for a few people that kept Kakashi alive.
Now they were dead.
He thought of Konoha and the dream it was built to achieve, the end of the clan wars. Children killed in their beds, children dying untrained on massive battlegrounds that looked more like a love letter to slaughter, a senseless cycle of hatred that ate and ate and ate its way through every generation as though no amount of blood could sate it.
It had been a step in the right direction, his village. It was only fifty years ago, but fifty years is time enough for four Hokage, given the average Shinobi’s lifespan.
It was a step in the right direction, but the founders made a mistake. They set the bar too low. They wanted to have time to train the children before they sent them to war. They wanted to end a war and keep the fighting; end the fighting but keep the lifestyle, the missions, the only thing they’ve ever known.
Kakashi couldn’t see the right way forward, but he could see where they’d gone wrong, and that was a step. Protection over power.
The sword lit up like a star in his hand. For a moment, Kakashi was among the constellations, held against the backdrop of warm space– not black but dyed blue and pink and soft browns by the nearby cascade of light– and he felt the power of worlds crash through him.
It left him glowing softly in new raiments, touched by starlight, a flowing ensemble tight across the chest but not the shoulders. He felt the night air against his bare face for the first time in years.
His hair was longer, flowing down his spine like the warriors of old, but it was pushed back from his face by soft metal and he was still holding Naruto in the crook of one arm, the sword in the palm of the other.
He felt unstoppable. The power in him went beyond chakra, spoke of galaxies and hope.
There was a portal in front of him, rent open in the quiet night between Fire and Grass country. Kakashi leveled his gaze at it, eyes silver with an inner light, and knew in his heart he could trust it, that the sword would take him where he needed to go.
Naruto stirred in his arm, restless, and Kakashi stepped through.
—
Theirs is a blood-coated life, but salvation exists in the past– in changing the path before they ever step foot on it, leading the way to a brighter future.
—
The Uchiha and the Senju are engaged in a bloody battle, stretching across miles. Tobirama, renowned sensor that he is, struggles to keep track of his brothers, let alone the hordes of cousins and clan members.
A distortion appears in the center of the field of slaughter. Light spins out, plasma and fire made stable in a circular design. Out of the portal steps a warrior, glowing golden white around the edges.
Their hair is white bordering on silver, their eyes glow the latter, and they are holding a sword and a babe. White fabric under gold armor clings to them like a second skin.
Somehow, the next few details get lost. Tobirama finds himself holding the babe. The warrior… ends the war.
Afterward, they heal the injured on both sides in a rush of color that sweeps over everyone, vivid enough that Tobirama flinches back from it instinctively, holding the infant close.
The baby has soft blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He looks uncannily like Tobirama’s mother.
Without pause in their stride, the warrior picks Madara and Hashirama up in one hand each. Tobirama is not close enough to hear what is said, but manages a fairly exact approximation based on Hashirama’s loud facial expressions, the way both react.
Hashirama wanted to build a village where Shinobi can be on the same side no matter what their clan.
Kakashi does him one better.
—
“A-tou, A-tou!” A little blonde menace wriggles between Tobirama’s bedding, yelling in a ‘whisper’ in deference to the weak morning light.
Tobirama groaned.
“Nooooooo, A-tou!” Naruto’s hands patted his face, and he giggled.
Tobirama swooped him up, sending the blankets flying.
“I see a tiny monster has infiltrated my home.” He says cooly. Naruto’s eyes dance and he squirms to escape, swallowing snickers.
Tobirama turns him upside-down in retribution and the toddler shrieks.
“A-tou!” He yells, voice baby-shrill, and Tobirama rights him carefully.
“Ah, no– I see that it is only my monster.” Naruto beams as his father presses a soft kiss to his brow, before shifting and moving until he’s in the man’s lap properly.
Strong arms come around his waist, pulling him close, his back against Tobirama’s chest, and his chin landing on a mop of blonde curls. Naruto hums, pleased.
“Why is my little monster waking me up so early, hmm?” Tobirama eventually asks.
“Oh!” Naruto blinks in surprise. “A-tou, I’m hungry.”
His stomach rumbles obligingly. Tobirama isn’t impressed; the kid can cry on command, too.
“Well, we can’t have that. Come on, sweet boy, let’s see what we have about this place for food.” He gently tugs Naruto out of the bed and through the halls of their home, to the kitchen.
The morning sun slants through the flowers in the window, dappling the counters in gold.
“A-tou, we gotta be quick though!” Naruto scrambles up on the counter, sunlight rippling across his face and clothes. “Do you remember what happens today?”
Tobirama has an eidetic memory, rivaling that of the sharingan. He hums loudly as he prepares a breakfast.
“Well… it could be… hmmm.”
“A-tooouuu.” Naruto whines, young child that he is. His foot taps impatiently against the air.
“Yes, child, I remember the date.” Tobirama pauses to flick his nose softly, watching his face screw up with distaste.
“It’s gonna be so awesome! I’ve never seen’a festival before.”
Naruto had seen every land raising ceremony and attended every festival since the founding of their kingdom, but he was only four. They would be fuzzy memories of excitement for him at best.
Kakashi had claimed their home on the fringes of the spirit forest at the edge of the summons realm, where the wolves he was contracted with welcomed them.
Floating islands separated from the mainland, hundreds of meters above the silver sea. Once a year Kakashi took the transformation from his sword and rose another mass of land, rainbow energy washing over him and the new island, fixing it firmly in the air with the strange magic.
Mito and Tobirama, along with their other seal masters, integrated it more permanently into the haven they’d created.
One day soon, Hashirama’s oldest son would take over the duty, the ringed silver eyes he was born with giving power over gravity and the elements. He was nowhere near ready now, though, and Tobirama had his own ideas about inheritance and what sons would get from their fathers.
He ruffled Naruto’s hair and just as the food was ready to eat, Kakashi slipped through like a wraith.
“Husband.” He said into the skin of Tobirama’s throat, a possessive kiss as arms wound around his middle. Naruto crowed in delight.
“Da!” He says, reaching out, and Kakashi hesitates only briefly before releasing Tobirama in favor of the squishier option. Naruto is a terrifyingly efficient climber and makes quick work of his father, ending up on the man’s shoulders before one can blink.
“Welcome home. How was your mission?” It’s instinct to frame it like that, but Tobirama has a smile for the man who made the word into something nice.
In one world, shinobi are killers in the dark, saboteurs at best and soldiers most often. In this place that Kakashi has carved out for them, they are safe. ‘Missions’ consist of hunting parties for meat on the mainland and braving the dangerous waters for fish.
They are farmers and craftsmen and fight for fun if they fight at all, training only to defend the place they call home should a need arise. More and more often, techniques are developed not to end a life but to save one.
Last week, Tobirama saw a young kunoichi develop a light show of chakra just because it was nice to look at.
He has known peace for the first time in his life. Their children will never know anything less.
Tobirama leans close and presses a kiss to the corner of Kakashi’s mouth, and another to their squirming son’s cheek.
“Good.” Kakashi ducked his head. Sometimes his husband acted as though he was wearing a mask, though Tobirama had never seen him in one. “We’ll have plenty for the party. Did this brat behave for you while I was gone?”
“No!” Naruto declared with excitement, proudly. “I’m a menace!”
Tobirama groaned.
“He spends too much time with Mito, clearly.”
“Mm, it’s in his blood.” Kakashi allowed, a small grin twitching his lips. “I love you. Both of you.”
It was stuttering but true. Naruto expressed his return of such feelings with a child’s confidence, loudly and unapologetically. Tobirama reciprocated with a warm plate of breakfast, passed over with a fond look.
He laced their fingers together and smiled.
Their life wasn’t perfect, but compared to what it had been before?
The world was beautiful.
Notes: the title is the final line I settled on after a long time agonizing. The poem itself is beautiful. Here’s a small excerpt of the longer thing, which is from Adonis, tr. by Samuel Hazo, Elegy for the Time at Hand, which I found in the book “The Pages of Day and Night.” (On google books here.) There were approximately ten other lines that vied for title.
The prompt, if you couldn’t tell by the ship, is from Uintuva.
I like to imagine Uzushio is slightly more Chinese-inspired than Japanese, and that Mito is teaching Naruto that dialect along with seals, which is why he calls Tobirama A-tou, a toddler’s mix of A-die and Tou-san. “Hashirama’s oldest son” is biologically Mito’s and Madara’s, since they’re all married, which is why he’s the Rinnegan. He may or may not be Sasuke. Their oldest daughter, Hashirama and Mito’s by bloodline, may or may not be Sakura.
I didn’t say it outright, but Kakashi has the Sword of Protection and the She-Ra transformation. The sword wouldn’t go to anyone for the longest time because shinobi ideology is such an antithesis to what the magic of the planet they’re on stands for. When they grow up, Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto explore the spirit wilds and find the sacred runestones, and may or may not become princesses.
Oh, and by changing the foundation of the modern village system, Kakashi does save the world. The throwback to Jiraiya teaching him a little cements his place as prophesy child, though Jiraiya is too stupid to consider children he only taught briefly to be candidates for that role.