Chapter 1.5

A Series of Firsts

Disclaimer : I don't own FT and Naruto. They belong to their rightful owners. Not me, unfortunately.

Author's Note : I'll repeat this for the benefit of those who haven't read the updated version of chapter 1. A lot of you have been wondering why Kakashi doesn't have any chakra. Give me a chance to explain.

When I was writing this story, I really considered his mental condition at the time. He was at the edge of depression, he had no scruples, and most importantly, he wouldn't work as a team.

So then what made him go to the mages? Obviously from the story, we can see how secretive Kakashi is regarding his origin. He wouldn't contact the locals for help if he could. But he couldn't, because he doesn't have chakra. It'll force him to get out of his comfort zone and seek help. Not only that, this new problem will make him undergo major character development.

So there you go! Now to the story...


The first time a local talks to him, Kakashi nearly lets the man fall to his own death.

It's not intentional.

He's not that cruel.

He blames the shock.

"I'm glad," the man says, with a tone that borders between displeasure and gratefulness, if possible. "That there's some mages out there who still care about poor old fools like me—oh no, don't put them there. There's a shack at the back of the house."

Shack. It's the only word that passes through the pound pound pound in his head. His feet sway. His fingers shake. The ladder nearly slips twice from his shoulder, the hammer, from his hand. Grass trips him thrice, and nails almost put holes in his feet. But he manages to reach the rickety old thing and shoves everything inside unharmed.

Kakashi leans, and stays very very still.

The man is still talking.

"Hey, kid. Should I be rewarding you or something? But I ain't got anything of value. How 'bout breakfast? We still have some fish left from yesterday's catch."

The man, does not see a nod, or a yes, or any indication of his consent. But he assumes, and he is sure that a boy wandering at his cottage miles from civilization must be starving his own stomach. He trusts that he will follow, and he does a few moments later.

Kakashi hasn't had breakfast.


His first meal in Earthland is not rice with egg yolk, ketchup, and home-made miso soup. It's rice with fried fish, and a plain glass of water. He does not touch them. Not yet.

The wife stares at him with growing scorn, the husband with growing worry. How ungrateful this boy is, they must think. Poor lonely couples don't give up half of their meals for lost children. Mages, whatever that is. He takes the spoon, and the fork, and feels cold strangeness crawl into his fingertips. Too thick. Too cold. Too solid. Where are the chopsticks?

The wife is named Mabel. The man he saved, is Ishmael. Mabel asks his name, and he gives it to her three seconds later. Ismael asks why he's alone in the woods at this hour, whether he's just gone back from a mission and is heading back to town. He asks about his guild. Kakashi shrugs at every one of those questions. It's not like they make sense to him. It's not like he cares. A shrug is better than silence.

"It's not," he says.

Both raise their brows at him.

"Not a snail. Or a bird." He pokes the meat with his fork. "It's a leaf. Symbol of the Hidden Leaf Village."

They're supposed to nod. Give an indication. A look of knowing. Kakashi looks into their eyes and sees sincere confusion. Not even a hint of recognition. And it scares him, so very much to be trapped in this twisted reality. Of questions. Of lies. Of—of

"Never heard of it," Ishmael says, and it feels like someone's just cut the veins holding his heart together. Down down it go until it burns in acid. "Is it a new guild?"

He shrugs, stabs the meat, pulls his mask down, and for once does not care.

Eat. Just fucking eat it. Isn't this what Obito would do in this situation?


The first time he discovers the lack of chakra in...well everyone, the world is spinning too hard for him to arrange anything coherent.

The sequence is like this :

First comes the shock. It's a pool of unanswered questions, sudden thoughts, and the inability to response to any of them. It lasts for a second.

Then comes the pain. Stinging and hot; jabbing and prodding his bones and muscles, from head to toe—but mostly the head. Especially the head. It's pulsing as hard as his heart. Pound pound pound. For a moment, all he could do is blink back dancing spots.

Then comes consciousness. When the treelines clear and no longer a fuzzy kaleidoscope of green and brown, Kakashi realizes, with growing trepidation, that he shouldn't have fallen. He should have been up there, dozing against the trunk, eating a freshly picked peach. He shouldn't be looking up to pink chipmunk-like creatures who had undoubtly come out to check on the ruccus he'd made.

He shouldn't be—he shouldn't be this.

Kakashi stands up. He's frantic. His hands are frantic, and he turns around patting his body like a dog chasing his own tail. Each slap across his skin tells him that everything's there and not there. Something is missing. Something that's not his kunai, or his pants, of his pouch. Something. Something like—

Oh.

He stills. Feels the world spin until he's heaving against the trunk. He thought he was going to be alright. He thought he was going to return. He thought he was going to wake up from this nightmare as easy as a slap to the cheek.

But now his chakra is gone. And Kakashi feels dead already.


The first time Kakashi sees mages is the first thing so extraordinary ordinary in three days that he nearly runs over to hug them.

The chorus of steels, war cries, and action. They reels him, call him until what's left tween him and the raucious battle is a plain bush he can easily trample over. His dying logic and muted consciousness. The distinct realization that no. No, they are not ninjas.

They are mages.

He turns, and the world is holding him down, and it feels like he's taking a million steps at once. Move, he thinks. Forget this. Forget everything.

He does not look back, not even once, even when the earth shakes and he is nearly sent crushed by a falling tree.


The first Earthland garb he acquires are not given, but are generously lent. He settles for things that he is sure will not be missed—shirts, stained in too many places, pants, trimmed at the edges, shoes, flimpsy at the soles, a cloth, long enough to cover his face—then he snatches them off, quick and unnoticed, as how any shinobi should.

There are risks in what he is about to do. Consequences that he has mulled and pondered over restless nights. The moment he sheds his clothes is the moment he sheds his identity. The fact that he is about to play a very dangerous charade does not bother him, but the fact that it might not end at all makes him shake.

No one must know, he thinks. No one must know of Kakashi Hatake. Of the hidden leaf village. Of shinobis and kunioichis.

I do not exist.

His face will twitch at pretense and his body will cripple with the lack of action running through his veins, but under the cloth of innocence and childishness he is protected. With this mantra, he burns the remains of his past self into ashes. With this mantra, he introduces himself to the world, naked yet confident. For from now on onwards, he is merely Kakashi. A lost boy seeking home.


Any thoughts?