Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Naruto world. I do not claim any ownership over them or the world of Naruto.

Part 1

The Land of Fangs

牙の国

"When the Master of the Great Land dwelt here,

there came riding on the crest of the waves in a boat

a deity dressed in skins of geese who, when asked his name, replied not.

Then the toad spoke, saying, "As for this, the Crumbling Prince will surely know it."

Then the Master of the Great Land summoned the Crumbling Prince,

who is known by the people as the scarecrow in the mountain fields,

a deity, though his legs do not walk,

knows everything in the Empire."

From the Kojiki, the Record of Ancient Matters

Chapter 1 The Sixth Hokage

He knew they believed his face would soon be carved into the towering rock wall at his back, a sixth colossus to stand sentry over the village hidden in the leaves, but it was not to be; he would not be the one to continue the legacy of those five former titans of Konohagakure. He stood now before the doors of the Hokage Tower but only half saw the dusty main road that stretched from his feet toward the village's imposing green gates and the horizon beyond. In the time he had been inside, the sun had dipped below those great stone heads and now twilight hung hushed over Konoha's roads. Street lamps flickered on throughout the village and behind him golden spotlights illuminated the resolute faces of the five stone Hokage whose ranks Kakashi hoped never to join.

He closed his eyes and inhaled the evening October air with its scents of crisp autumn leaves, of spiced cider, cinnamon, pumpkin, and chestnut from the nearby sweet shop, and the smoke of charcoal from the Yakiniku barbeque. His breath came out in a deep sigh. Lady Tsunade would find someone who was more suited to the responsibility, he knew, and until then, she was perfectly capable of keeping the job herself. She was more than capable, in fact, of remaining Hokage until Naruto could take over.

This had not been the first time she asked him, and he knew it wouldn't be the last. He knew she was weary of her position, and that the physical and emotional remnants of the war must be almost unbearable to her, but she had to know he wasn't the answer. He was more than willing to continue on as advisor, and an agent of Konoha's might, but he could not carry the torch of the highest office.

He and his team had barely stumbled through the village gates after the end of the war when she had first asked him, and it was clear his refusal then had annoyed her more than it had surprised her. He had turned down the offer with as much politeness and humility as he could summon but he could tell she attributed the resistance to his general weariness and aversion to responsibility more than anything else.

It must explain why today it had been an order. And today, his refusal had been much less polite. She had lost what tremulous hold on her temper remained and thundered at his insubordination, while he had stood silent against the gale. She had then cajoled and criticized him in turns, but when she saw that he still refused to budge, she had accused him of laziness and a dereliction of the duty he owed to Konohagakure and the Land of Fire. He had only stared at her, hands in his pockets, and asked if he was free to leave.

In truth, Kakashi's refusal had nothing to do with laziness or his distaste for responsibility. No, he knew even if Tsunade didn't, that his desperate unwillingness to take on the role of Hokage had everything to do with his sense of duty to the village and country he loved. He felt in his bones that he wasn't right for the role. That his leadership was not what Konoha needed. His mistakes had already cost too many lives and ruined too many others, and like Obito had said, he was tired of making excuses in front of graves. Let her think he was lazy, or that he'd rather read his novels. It was enough that he knew he was protecting Konoha by leaving it in her hands.

He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and started to walk. His apartment was at the far end of the village and unfortunately, his current favorite book was there too. Its words would have been a welcome distraction from Tsunade's, which continued to run through his mind. Was she right? Did he have a duty to accept the position, despite his reservations? Kakashi knew she and the others saw something in him, something more than the sum of his years of service, or his successful missions, or his command of the Third Division during the war. Maybe he did have whatever it was. But it didn't matter. All he could think of were the countless men and women he'd need to send in to battle once he was Hokage, all the deaths that would be on his hands. "I'm not a role model," he had told her. "I'm a cautionary tale."

With an effort of will, Kakashi pushed his thoughts from his mind and looked around. Konoha was beautiful in any month, but never so much as it was in October, when it was a golden marvel as brilliant and ablaze with color as any fabled city of myth or legend. The maples and ginkgo trees were a concert of vivid crimsons and golds and lingering greens, and the scents of sweets and chestnut rice hung on the air and breathed around every corner. The shops and stands of the main street's bustling night market smelled of savory korokke, and autumn fruits, and gyoza on sticks, and were full with the sounds of crisp leaves underfoot and the ringing of games. A group of academy students huddled before one stand, laughing with their attempts to scoop goldfish with paper pois.

Konoha was a festival in October, and this October more than any before, it was alive with the heady joy of peace. Everyone wanted to be out and together. Everyone he passed hailed him with a bow and a "Good evening Hatake-sama." Many stopped to talk. With each greeting, he was left feeling slightly embarrassed at the formality, and with each conversation, he itched to find a quick escape. He couldn't get home soon enough.

But the main street that led home soon took him past Ichiraku Ramen. Orange light from the small restaurant spilled onto the dim street and three familiar backsides were visible through the restaurant's flaps. This time Kakashi willingly stopped and smiled. Bathed in the warm glow from the restaurant's lamps, he saw Sakura turn toward Naruto and Sai with a grin. The best and brightest of Konoha.

As he was about to turn and walk on, Sakura caught a glimpse of him and immediately hailed him with an enthusiastic "Kakashi-sensei!" He lifted his hand in a wave, as Naruto too turned and grinned and let out his own excited "Kakashi-sensei!" It was a better distraction than most, Kakashi supposed, and he ducked under the flaps to take the stool beside Naruto.

"Are you coming back from your meeting with Granny Tsunade?" Naruto asked. "Should we be calling you Lord Hokage yet?"

"Naruto, I told you before. You'll never have to address me as Lord Hokage." He looked at the young ninja with a smile, and clapped him on the back. "The next Hokage will be you."

Sai raised an eyebrow, and Sakura laughed. "Kakashi-sensei, I thought you cared about the future of this village."

"Wow, thanks Sakura," Naruto said, scowling, then laughing. "You know I'd be the best Hokage this village has ever seen!" But before the others could respond, he turned to Kakashi. "But seriously, Sensei, what are you thinking? Are you holding out for more pay or something?"

Chuckling, Kakashi looked at Naruto. "Ah, I didn't think of that excuse. I'll have to use it next time."

"I think you'd be a good Hokage," Sai said.

"Yeah, Sensei," Sakura leaned forward so that she could look past Sai and Naruto to meet Kakahi's eyes. "I don't know of anyone who cares more about the people of this village than you do. None of us would be here today if it wasn't for you."

Kakashi looked at her. "Has Lady Tsunade put you up to this?"

"No, Sensei!" Sakura responded, looking offended. "I mean what I said!"

"Well, Sakura, I appreciate your vote of confidence, but really, there are many more suitable candidates than your old sensei."

Naruto spoke up then. "Sensei?"

"Hmm, Naruto?"

Naruto paused, looking momentarily down at his ramen. "Right now, there's no one more suitable to take Granny Tsunade's place than you." And rubbing the back of his head with his hand and looking uncomfortable, he raised his eyes to Kakashi's. "I mean, I'm just not ready for it, you know. And until I'm ready, I wouldn't trust this village to anyone else but you."

Kakashi opened his mouth to respond with another dismissive comment, but before he could speak, he was met with the simultaneous steady gaze of all three shinobi.

"You might not be up to the requirements of the position yet," Sai began.

Kakashi raised both eyebrows at the boy, still not accustomed to his unique combination of perception and lack of tact. But then Sai continued. "But I'm part of your team now. And as part of your team, I'm here for anything you need."

Kakashi was surprised, and unexpectedly touched.

"No matter what," Sai finished.

Then Sakura spoke up. "Me too, Sensei. No matter what."

"Yeah, Sensei, no matter what, you know!" Naruto said, through a mouthful of barbeque pork. "And I know Sasuke feels the same."

After a pause, Kakashi shook his head and smiled. "What will I do with you three?" He stood to leave and they all smiled up at him in return with expressions somehow combining admiration and admonishment, and for a moment he felt overwhelmed with emotion and wondered if Obito had been right all along.

Later that night, he lay awake for a long while, fingers interlaced beneath his head as he stared up at the ceiling without seeing. Ever since Tsunade had first asked him to become the next Hokage, he had gone to sleep the same way. Staring up at the ceiling, looking back on his life, trying to see the future, and more than either, struggling to decide what he should do. For even though he had refused the appointment twice, and his mind had revolted a hundred times more from the idea, he knew the matter was not at an end. Not when he went to sleep every night with the image of Obito's face as he stood near death in the last battle of the war. "Kakashi," he had said. "You stay here a little while longer. You must survive and support the next generation."

He thought of his team, of Naruto and Sakura and Sai, and of Sasuke, who sat alone in the Konoha jail awaiting trial. He thought of what they had all been through over the years, and what they had come to mean to him. He had never told them, but they were everything to him. They were dynamic, courageous, energetic and passionate, and they made his useless life, full of mistakes and regrets, worth living.

He thought of the comrades he had grown up with, those who still lived, and those who had given everything in service to the village. He had fought beside so many, in battle after battle that took lives and ravished the land and destroyed villages, and that were somehow still considered victories. They had all given so much. Was it possible for anyone to bring the cycle of conflict to a permanent end?

But the thoughts that overshadowed all the others were those of days gone by, of forgotten rooms and old photographs, the magic of long ago dreams and half-remembered conversations, and of all the firsts and lasts of his life. The residue surrounded him, the air thick with ghosts. He regretted so many things, and didn't want to add another to the list. More than anything, he wanted to be what the last few people he loved in the world thought he was.

They had grown up, like him, believing in heroes. Those warrior shinobi, the ones who were able to protect entire ways of life, and those few in his lifetime like the Third and Fourth Hokages. Did such heroes exist anymore? Is that what Tsunade, his comrades, and his team expected him to be? Tormented with these thoughts, hours passed before he finally drifted into a restless and troubled sleep.

He awoke before dawn the next morning, and as he had done for over fifteen years, he showered, dressed, ate, and walked to the Memorial Stone that stood in the Third Training Grounds. For a long while, he stood silent, looking at the familiar names, his hands in his pockets. The morning was cool, the grass wet with dew and the air heavy with the mist of the hazy autumn morning. "Obito, they want me to be the Hokage." He sighed. "It should be you."

He had found Obito alive after all those years, and had fought against him and then fought alongside him. And in the end, they all owed their lives to him. Those memories would forever be some of the worst and best of Kakashi's life. But now Obito was gone again, and it hurt worse than it had when they were children. He was the one who should be the Sixth. It had been his dream. Just like it had always been Naruto's. Obito would expect him to accept the role unquestioningly, with a sense of honor and duty. Just as Naruto did. And he remembered Obito's last words to him. "You know how I told Naruto to become Hokage? I meant to say as the Seventh. You be the Sixth Hokage, Kakashi."

He supposed each evening had brought him closer to the decision that a part of him, even on that first meeting with Tsunade, had known was inevitable. And each morning had brought him closer to acceptance. On this morning, clarity finally came with the sun. He didn't feel ready, or capable, but he felt the will of Fire, and knew that his only choice was the one before him. "I wish you were here with me Obito. How am I going to protect all of them?"

Shortly afterward, Kakashi walked once again down the main street of the village, past the dark and silent restaurants and shuttered businesses, down the tree-lined avenue and up to the steps of the Hokage Tower. His feet took him steadily up the spiral staircase toward the Hokage's office and with each step, with each pound of his heart against his chest, his decision felt more right. He reached Tsunade's door and knocked.

"Come in," he heard a tired voice call from within. He entered, and raised his eyebrows at the sight before him. Tsunade sat before her desk, her head in her arms, which were crossed and sprawled out over its surface. She slowly raised her head, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Kakashi," she said, squinting at him, and then quickly grimaced. "Ugh, my head," she muttered, laying it back on her arms. "What do you want?"

"I came to tell you that I've reached a decision. But first I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve our village," he said. "Like all the shinobi who came before us, the people of this village are precious to me. Though we may not share ties of blood, they are my family."

Tsunade raised her head again, a confused expression on her face. "What are you saying, Kakashi? Because it's really too early for this poetry nonsense," she said, again squinting, her words mumbled as she spoke around the hand holding her head up.

"What I'm saying is that if the position of Sixth Hokage is still open, I'll accept it. I've come to realize it's my duty."

Tsunade then straightened, and finally met his eyes squarely. Her arm fell to the desk with a thud, and a slow smile spread across her face. "It's about damn time."

And this time, the masked jonin, with the unreadable face, returned her smile.

Six months later, Kakashi stood before the Hokage Tower, and looked out over and beyond it, at the towering cliff faces of the previous Hokages that loomed over the village. The village stone carver hung suspended up there, high in the air and chipping away at the vast expanse of rock cliff that would become his face on the Hokage Rock. The bearded man clutched at the metal railing of the suspended scaffolding with one hand as the afternoon wind howled past the cliff, sweeping his metal cage in a wide arc. The scaffolding swung back and forth and gradually settled again before the great stone wall, and the stone carver pulled his hammer and chisel from the pouch at his waste to begin tapping away again at the cliff rock. Kakashi imagined he could hear the sharp rings of the iron tools against the stone. How long would it take, he wondered, for his face to be carved into the rock up there?

Grimacing slightly beneath his mask, he put his head down and walked into the building. His entry into the Hokage's office was met with a glance of acknowledgment and a jerk of the head to the chair before her desk. Tsunade then returned her fingers to her temples and continued to read over the day's mission requests and news.

"Anything interesting?" he asked and walked around to sit in front of her desk, taking his hands out of his pockets and crossing them behind his head as he leaned back in the chair. She looked tired, he thought as he looked at Tsunade's face, her eyes downcast on the stacks of papers before her on the desk.

"The usual," she muttered. "D-rank construction work from the Land of Lightning and the Land of Hot Water, a few C-rank escort missions. Mission requests have been declining steadily since the war."

Kakashi's thoughts turned to the looming responsibility before him, and again marveled at how he had let himself get roped into it. He supposed in a detached way that he would have continued to decline the appointment in another world, but in this world such choices were not his to make. He was a tool of his village and his decision to accept the appointment had ultimately been forced upon him by what he was and who he was and the world he lived in. His will to protect his village and country and its place in the newly formed Shinobi Union was part of his identity and as much as he detested the responsibility and doubted his abilities, he had no choice but to accept the duty. It wasn't for him to question the whys, or whether any of it was right or wrong. It just was. But he wasn't Naruto. He had never wanted to be the Hokage and still didn't, and even though he no longer questioned it as his duty, he wanted to put it off for as long as possible. And as long as the sitting Hokage was willing to humor him and delay the inevitable, he would let her.

She looked up at him then, and while the lines of her face may have revealed the stress of the last year, her eyes now held a fiery spark as she turned them on his. "Look at this," she said, and taking the scroll she had just read in one hand, she pushed it across the table toward him. He pulled his hands from behind his head and let the front legs of the chair fall forward to land on the floor with a thud as he reached out for the paper. It was a request for assistance, but it wasn't from a local or foreign villager, or from the head of a small village needing basic assistance. It was an official cable from the Land of Earth, labeled secret, and signed by the Tsuchikage.

He looked up, surprised, at Tsunade. "From Iwa?" he asked, eyebrows raised, before looking down to read. If he had formed any idea of what to expect as he began to read the message, it still didn't prepare him for what the words before him actually conveyed.

"My dear Lady Hokage,

It is with grateful thanks that I again acknowledge the gifts that have been extended to our country from Konoha since the Fourth War and I express again the gratitude of the people of the Land of Earth.

But I have a more important and pressing purpose in addressing you, and it is to apprise you of a rapidly deteriorating situation taking place within the borders of our southern neighbor, the Land of Fangs. The Daimyo of that Land has been assassinated by his own shinobi, his government dismantled and a shinobi government put in its place, and its civilian population placed into forced labor or killed.

Although the hostilities were at first perceived to be a local disturbance with no large-scale implications for neighboring countries or the Shinobi union, the situation there has rapidly deteriorated. In the last month, Fang shinobi forces have infiltrated the Land of Claws and the Claw capitol of Toba is now under siege. The Claw has called on my country for help, and it is apparent that the discord between the Fang and the Claw, which as you know has been going on since the borders were established after the First War, has reached a crisis.

But even with these events, I would not have troubled you, but for the circumstances surrounding a diplomatic envoy of our Stone shinobi that was sent to the Fang last week. The envoy, whose arrival was expected by the new Fang government, was ambushed and attacked just outside the Fang's capitol city of Fushimi by an official contingent of Fang shinobi.

Now, as you know, under normal circumstances, it would be nothing for the shinobi of our country to quiet such a barbarous mob of worthless nin. However, during the ambush at Fushimi, one of the enemy shinobi was surrounded by powerful chakra that could only be a beast cloak. This fear was realized when the shinobi was near death and the tailed beast was extracted from his body and sealed into another Fang shinobi right on the battlefield. But after almost complete loss of lives on both sides, this shinobi was captured and is now being held at Iwakagure prison. Despite repeated and increasingly targeted questioning, however, our Intelligence has been unable to extract any information from the prisoner.

I need not say that your country's assistance in this regard, and in discussing long term action, will be gratefully and immediately accepted. We therefore humbly request the assistance of Konohakagure, and specifically Uzumaki Naruto, in extracting information from the prisoner.

Best wishes and respect, Kamizuru Onoki"

Kakashi looked up to find Tsunade's eyes on him. Their eyes met as he reached forward to hand the scroll back to her. "How did they get a tailed beast?" he said, leaning back in his chair again, weighing the implications in his mind.

"I don't know, but I won't tolerate a threat to the union or the reconstruction, certainly not from the barbarians of the Land of Fangs." Tsunade said. She then gave him a grim smile that didn't reach her tired eyes. "And you are apparently again off the hook here for the immediate future. I need your team out there as soon as possible. How soon can you get Naruto and Sakura and set out?"

As much as Kakashi did not like the idea of heading out to the wastelands of the Earth or Fang or the as-yet unforeseeable consequences of the events taking place there, he was relieved to be assigned to a mission that would take him far from the Hokage's office. "One hour," he replied, and letting the chair legs fall to the floor again, he stood up, took the scroll from Tsunade, and walked out of the office.