Kakashi loved Naruto (not like that, you pervs), appreciated the boy's enthusiasm and cheerful nature, admired his crazy plans (and incredible luck in pulling them off), but he had a bad feeling about this.
"It's a great plan, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto insisted.
It was a terrible plan.
"It's not that hard, sensei, you just use this jutsu and go back in time and save Obito and fix everything!"
"I don't think it's that simple, Naruto," Kakashi said, sighing, "besides, what will happen to all of you?"
Naruto waved a hand dismissively. "Don't worry about us, it'll all work out."
"It won't if I cause a time paradox and the universe implodes," Kakashi deadpanned.
Naruto gave him an incredulous look. "Who would create a jutsu that implodes the universe?" He said condescendingly.
"He or she probably never used the jutsu," Kakashi pointed.
Naruto wasn't listening. "Don't worry so much, Kakashi-sensei! You can do it!"
"And why does it have to be me? It's your idea," Kakashi tried to argue, knowing it was a lost cause.
Naruto sighed, exasperated. "It says right here on the scroll," he said slowly, waving the scroll in Kakashi's face, "that a person cannot go back to a time before they were born."
Kakashi narrowed his eye. "If that means I have to be thirteen again…" He trailed off threateningly—no way in hell was he going through puberty again.
"No, no," Naruto hastened to reassure him, "no, you go back in your current body, it's just that your past self exists as a sort of anchor, so you don't end up in the middle of nowhere or space or something."
Well, that was a small relief, he supposed.
"Is this really necessary?" Kakashi plead—asked—knowing that it was pointless to try and change Naruto's mind.
"Well, no," Naruto admitted, "but it's a lot better than any other plan we've got right now, so hop to it! Think of it as an order from your Hokage-to-be!" He grinned.
"You know," Kakashi said, as he looked over the hand signs on the scroll one more time, "Obito wanted to be Hokage too. I should help him do it when Minato-sensei is done just to spite you."
Naruto's mouth dropped open. "Wha-I-you wouldn't!"
Kakashi smiled at his student (for the last time, technically) as he went through the signs. "I'm going to take so many embarrassing baby photos of you," he said cheerfully. The last thing he saw of his original timeline before it disappeared in a swirl of colors was Naruto's horrified face.
The colors faded, leaving Kakashi in a forest, disoriented. He leaned to the side and quickly grabbed onto the nearest tree for support. Damn, but time travel took a lot out of you. He carefully sank to the ground and rested against the tree. After a few moments recovering, he looked around to figure out where—and when—he was.
The forest looked vaguely familiar, but Kakashi had been in a lot of forests, so that didn't mean much. He strained his ears and heard the faint sound of voices. He took to the trees and headed in their direction. After a little bit he recognized the shouting. Well, he knew his location and time now—the day of Obito's death.
Good timing (heh), he supposed. Any earlier and he might have messed things up somehow, later and, well, that wouldn't fix anything. He wondered how he had pulled that off, then dismissed it as Naruto's crazy-plans-that-shouldn't-work-but-do luck.
He spotted Obito running off to go rescue Rin and stealthily followed him, knowing his younger self wouldn't be too far behind. He studied his old friend. Obito looked a little different from what he remembered, but it had been almost 20 years, he probably just didn't remember perfectly. He could have sworn the boy's hair was shorter though. Ah well, they said memory was the first thing to go.
The question now was when to interfere, Kakashi mused. Obviously it had to be before they went into the cave—it would be near impossible to save Obito once they were in there. He wanted to let his younger self have a brief moment with Obito, so not before he showed up. Right before his younger self lost his eye would be the best, Kakashi decided, after all, since Obito was going to live he wouldn't get the Sharingan, so why bother letting him lose an eye at all.
Everything went as it had before. Obito found the two ninja and Rin (and really, slapping his face and muttering to himself? No wonder he was found), and his younger self showed up to injure one of the ninja as he attacked Obito. Kakashi readied a kunai. Any minute…now!
Right as his younger self moved to protect Obito and the enemy's kunai moved to cut his eye, Kakashi let his kunai fly into the enemy's head. Kakashi moved swiftly and caught the man's body before it could hit the tree branch and make a sound. He quickly let another kunai loose to kill the remaining ninja who was holding the genjutsu on Rin, who started as the genjutsu broke.
Kakashi turned slightly so he could see all three genin staring at him. He raised a hand in greeting. "Yo."
"So you're Kakashi from the future?"
"Yes," Kakashi answered again with a sigh. The three kids had managed to destroy the bridge with his help and met up with Minato-sensei. The sun was setting on the clearing they were sitting in as Kakashi explained the situation. They seemed to be having some trouble with his story.
"And you came back just to save Obito?"
"And hopefully some other things, but that was a big one, yes," Kakashi agreed.
The four exchanged disbelieving looks.
"Not that I'm not grateful or anything," Obito said hesitantly (had his voice always been that high-pitched?), "but, uh, why? I mean, you're kind of…" He glanced at the young Kakashi, who, to his credit, looked only a little disgruntled at the slight to his person.
"I'm twenty-nine," Kakashi complained, "is it really so hard to believe I might change and grow up?" He had already decided to not mention the whole mess with Madara and the Akatsuki and "Tobi" and the Fourth Great War. No need to get into that—not with the kids, at least. Maybe with Minato-sensei and the Sandaime later.
"I think it's nice," Rin said, although she looked at young Kakashi with a bit of melancholy, "kind of romantic, even."
Kakashi gave her a weird look. Romantic? He didn't know Rin was into those sorts of relationships. Young Kakashi and Obito looked alarmed and scooted away from each other.
"Don't say weird things, Rin," young Kakashi said, "I don't want to imagine any version of me that would be interested in an annoying, useless, flat-chested girl like Obito."
Kakashi's mind stuttered to a halt and went blank as Obito started yelling at his younger self. Wait. Stop. What? Mind slowly restarting, Kakashi studied Obito. Longer hair? Check. Higher pitched voice? Check. Slight curves? Check. Lack of an Adam's apple? Check. Feminine features (more than usual for an Uchiha male)? Check.
Huh. Well.
"Oh, I thought something was different," Kakashi said numbly, staring at Obito, "you're a girl this time."
All four stopped and stared at him.
"Wha-what?" Obito gaped at him.
"Well," Kakashi explained, still feeling numb, "you were a boy in my time. I guess the jutsu put me in a slightly different timeline. I suppose it saves me from paradoxes, which is nice."
Minato-sensei coughed to muffle his laughter. Kakashi turned to look at him.
"This is all your son's fault," he calmly informed the man.
Minato-sensei stared at him, startled. "I have a son?"
"Not yet." Kakashi smiled and took out a kunai. "Let's keep it that way."
The three genin watched older Kakashi chase around Minato-sensei, ignoring the blond's screams.
"So," Obito finally said, "on a scale of one to groped Tsunade-sama, how pissed should I be that he mistook me for a boy?"
"To be fair," Rin said thoughtfully, "I think you grabbed one of your cousin's shirts—it's pretty baggy—and the hair dresser definitely cut your hair way too short. But still pretty pissed; probably around Ebisu losing his glasses."
"He came back to save you," Kakashi, their Kakashi, pointed out.
"Which is why I'm not going to do anything about it," Obito retorted, "but I'm still allowed to be pissed off."
Kakashi grunted.
"Should we be helping sensei?" Rin asked after a bit.
"Probably," Obito said, although she made no move to do so. Hey, it was pretty funny seeing sensei, the almighty and feared Yellow Flash, being chased around at kunai point by a weird version of Kakashi.
With a sigh, Rin got up to go interfere.
"…thanks," Obito muttered, embarrassed, as Rin tried to talk older Kakashi down.
"I didn't do anything," Kakashi muttered back, looking away, "he's the one you should thank."
"…would you do the same thing?" She hesitantly asked. She wasn't sure why she wanted to know.
"I, uh, well," Kakashi actually floundered for a moment. "I better go help Rin and sensei," he said hastily as he shoved himself to his feet and hurried off.
Obito thought she could see a bit of red coloring his ears. She leaned back with a grin and an odd, warm fuzzy feeling. Maybe the bastard wasn't so bad after all.