Kakashi is six years old, almost seven, and a chunin. As a chunin, it's his duty to fight for Konoha on the frontlines of the war with the other Konoha-nin.
Minato has been on the frontlines for two weeks now and had only been gone for five days before Kakashi was approached and given the orders to head out. The Chunin Commander didn't say anything more but Kakashi has had enough practice to know when people look through him and see his disgraced father.
Rin and Obito, still only genin and following Kakashi's training schedule since Minato was gone, throw an absolute fit hearing a six year old was being sent off. Obito offers to break Kakashi's leg, Rin offers to hide him in her house.
"I'm a chunin, I can handle myself," Kakashi huffs, narrowing his eyes at them. "You two behave while I'm gone, and don't slack off Obito."
"I won't!" Obito cries in outrage. "I take training very seriously!"
"You can't even hit Rin properly! If you keep going easily on her, when she's sent out to the frontlines she won't last a day!"
"I'll protect her!"
"You're too weak to even protect yourself!"
Their last meeting is a fight that Rin tries futilely to break up and then Kakashi leaves immediately after with another group of people being sent out.
He wishes they didn't fight.
War is messy, and the medical tents are overrun, and you'd think people would be too busy to hate him but they find ways. He doesn't get enough food at the canteen, people don't have his back in a fight, and no one will tell him where Minato is. Minato probably got assigned to a different area.
Kakashi can handle it though, he's a chunin and exceptionally pragmatic. People don't bother him anymore, their gazes are ignored and Kakashi knows how to fight quick and dirty, he's too small for people to focus on and he knows how to slip away.
Minato teaches him a lot of ninjutsu to distract him when he gets bored, like that time he had to watch Obito and Rin trying to water walk for a week straight. Kakashi doesn't have the reserves to be smashing them out like some jonin he sees on the battlefield but he's efficient and combining jutsu is double the power with half the chakra.
Kakashi wishes they didn't fight when he left. He really wanted to find Minato out here. He can't see anyone he knows from the Academy. He's sick of getting lost in a sea of adult knees everywhere.
It's the complaints that come to him now, veering on chakra exhaustion and all the little cuts stinging as he runs with the other four Konoha-nin who are still live. They were swallowed by Iwa-nin in the chaos, absorbed into the enemy's forces and then barely managed to fight their way out, now behind enemy lines and being chased, no backup, no rest points, out of weapons.
The only saving grace is that the Iwa-nin tracking them just barely out of view are also exhausted. There's no leader in the Konoha group, they're just running desperately. If they head down, it's Sunas forces but up is more of Iwa.
Not like that matters when they won't last the next hour.
ANBU Hound drops off a report at the tower and takes the long way back through the forest since he has nothing else to do today. He even stops to summon Pakkun for a walk.
There's a puff and Pakkun looks around. "Doing anything important? One of the pups broke his leg doing something stupid and we're going to need opposable thumbs."
"Sure, just reverse summon me," Kakashi says easily enough. "Do I need anything in particular? I still have a basic med kit on me."
"Nah, that's good enough," Pakkun dismisses. He puffs and away and then Kakashi is yanked through.
The dimension for the canine contract has dogs, wolves and even foxes running around but Pakkun pulled Kakashi through straight into the compound made by cute little dogs. They walk ten minutes after Kakashi has to pick Pakkun up so he won't stop to pet all the dogs he sees.
The broken leg is fine, just a bit tricky. Kakashi has copied enough medical jutsu to set it properly and he bandages it with a splint after. Then he sits beside the puppy and gives her vigorous pets for being such a good girl during the treatment.
The other puppies creep over to poke hesitantly at the human and soon after Kakashi is covered in them.
"Oh no, I've been trapped," the powerful, killer ANBU Hound tells Pakkun dramatically as he scoops up armfuls of puppies.
Pakkun rolls his eyes.
"More are coming from the trees," one kunoichi wheezes, arm held to her chest.
They're running across tall grass, lots of divots and potential traps so it'd be better to move to another terrain, but Iwa backup, looking fresh enough to probably be just called out from the village, is coming from the strip of forest that could have otherwise been used to hide in.
"Head towards the trees," Kakashi pants.
"Towards the Iwa-nin?!" a shinobi snaps, still bleeding from a head wound, a Hyuuga.
"Towards cover and forest that we know better than them," Kakashi argues. "It's better than getting hit with a pincer attack out here."
"Head towards Suna, maybe we'll shake them off," tries another shinobi who looks to be on the verge of frustrated tears.
The forth Konoha-nin is a shinobi who's been lagging behind progressively worse the entire run, putting most of his weight on one leg with maybe a twisted ankle. The Aburame is silent, still struggling but he's getting worn down.
Kakashi pats his pockets, the empty weapons pouches, the last roll of bandages, half a strip of ninja wire. Nothing, there's nothing else. If he had supplies he could make exploding tags before Iwa catches up, maybe.
Even if they get past the two groups, they all know from the annotated maps hanging up in camp that the Iwa supply station is only a bit further ahead, under the cliffs they can see off in the distance.
"Does anyone have weapons still?" Hyuuga demands. "A summons, anything? Aburame, did you get any bugs out to call for help?"
"I wasn't able to. Why? I had too little of my hive left by the time I realised we had been lured in."
Kakashi grits his teeth. "What's the summoning hand signs? I can try and get my dad's."
"What?" the kunoichi blurts out. "That's not how that works – is it?"
Hyuuga is already rattling off the hand signs for the initial summon. "Get blood, smear it on the ground to finish it."
Kakashi flies through the hand signs and skids to a halt, slamming a palm down on the ground, blood from his already sliced up fingers completing the summon. There's a puff of smoke and-
An ANBU appears.
Tight black clothes under bone white armour, bare shoulders with a bright red ANBU tattoo and a shock of silver hair. The mask is a feral sort of grin and it tilts as the ANBU looks down at Kakashi.