Prologue: Isn't This Familiar?
Warning: (M) Contains Gore, Explicit Language, and Death.
Rating: (T-M) Not for kids. At all.
Pairings: None, for now. A Gen-fic.
Summary: 25-year-old Hatake Kakashi should've known life would only get harder as a father. (Or, Gojo Satoru dies, gets reincarnated, and starts fucking up Konoha—all with(out) Kakashi's parental permission, of course.)
A/N: You know. It was only a matter of time before I wrote something like this. Sorry if my other fic isn't getting updated as frequently as I'd like, life is seriously knocking me down a peg. I thought if I wrote this (which has been bugging me since like, months ago) I could get a bit more inspiration writing my other fic. Regardless, I hope you guys like this.
[. . .]
"What are we, cavemen?" - Satoru, probably.
[. . .]
Prologue
Isn't This Familiar?
[. . .]
Being called in by his Hokage wasn't something out of the ordinary. As a demoted ANBU Captain, Hatake Kakashi of the Sharingan was often needed back on active line of duty, despite previous attempts of him being told that he was now grounded as a useless Jonin-Sensei.
He was a much-valued asset of Konoha regardless of his long history of losing team members vital to the Village's prosperity. If Kakashi wasn't so dead inside, he'd have felt smug that he was still getting tasked with S-ranked missions meant for ANBU only—even when his Hokage said enough with his suicidal habits. As far as he knew, he was the only one being called back because of his disheartening years of experience in such a morbid workspace. Ten years in ANBU could completely shrivel a normal Shinobi's sanity into the void and he was the only person capable of stomaching more time in there.
Kakashi was hardly part of the group of Shinobi coming out haunted by his time in ANBU if he was honest with himself. He had no emotions he could speak of, could not feel any more or any less than he currently did, and he owed it all to the loss of a neglected friend and the death of a girl he had failed to protect. It wasn't ANBU that Kakashi had any horrid experiences with. It was his time before he came to be there that ruined any chance of him ever likely to experience joy.
He'd already lost it all years ago.
As he walked through Konoha's crowded roads, Kakashi liked to think he was being called for another discreet S-Ranked mission to keep up his pay. That probably wasn't it, though. He had a sneaking suspicion it was because he continued failing the Genin teams he kept getting assigned to.
It wasn't his fault. He specifically informed Lord Third that he wanted children who valued teamwork. Instead, he kept getting noisy, snot-nosed brats who thought they were ready for a world of bloodshed and slaughter.
He gave them chances, still. Offered them insight on what he was looking for, and asked them to do their best because he wasn't entirely a douche-bag. Everyone deserved a chance to succeed.
But if they failed to meet his expectations, he wasn't light on sugarcoating it. They were never ready.
None of them ever were, and he was saving them now before they died or mourned their impulsive, flight-or-fight dynamism choices. In a convoluted way that nonentity acquiesced or bothered to understand, he was preventing them from becoming someone like him.
A man who lost it all because of his stubborn premises over a ghost that he continued seeing in his whisps of melancholic remembrances.
He didn't need to explain himself why to Lord Third. He wasn't an easy person—wouldn't ever be—and if anyone was to survive in this sunburnt hell and he had a hand in it, he was going to be brutal with them whether or not they liked it.
He didn't do it out of sadistic pleasure like a lot of others beheld him as. He just wanted one team—just one to comprehend his premise and develop it. A team of children who, despite the national age of immaturity, could articulate some form of camaraderie that would one day save them as it had failed him.
It didn't matter if they were weak or if they were strong. It sure as hell didn't matter if they were part of a clan or not, either.
Teamwork held no conditions.
And neither would he.
"Ah, Kakashi-kun. You made it."
Kakashi stepped through the door with a casual air, blank-faced as he stood before a grim-looking Hokage on the verge of elderly demise. "Lord Third," He inclined his head respectfully, shoving his hands into his pocket. He'd been called an hour ago, and normally he would've come by three hours later or more, but something nagged at him.
And seeing the face of his sitting Leader so sullen, his intuitive annoyance had been correct.
"Another mission?" He offered, flickering his eyes about the room. Nothing out of the ordinary stood out to him. Except perhaps the lack of ANBU he sensed, everything was fairly normal.
"I'm afraid not, Kakashi-kun," Came the gloomy response, and Kakashi locked eyes with the elder.
He wondered just what had the old man looking more downtrodden than usual. Was it another war...? Had a peace treaty been broken? "Hm? Another team?" His tone was light, but his spine straightened. Something wasn't right.
The old man leaned back on his chair and moved the steaming pipe burning Kakashi's sensitive nose around in his mouth. It took him a few minutes to articulate a response, but when he did, the Silver Hound wasn't prepared for it. "We recently came to find another one of Orochimaru's laboratories."
Kakashi tensed.
"According to our spymaster and Inoichi's lead T&I team, this lab was recently abandoned. It's not as old as any of the others we've found."
Withered intent refueled in his veins. So the snake had returned. "How long ago was this information given?" Kakashi asked, stoic.
A steam cloud puffed past the old master's lips. "About three days. The team leading this investigation was sent out about two months ago, and a week before today, they found the lab."
Kakashi's eye narrowed. "Was there anything of worth inside?"
If possible, the Hokage's flaccid gaze further deepened in age. "Yes. They found a dozen bruised, malnourished children and about seven corpses of Missing-nin. There are also plans for an invasion, but we've yet to know for what. It's the first Lab we've found with live experiments."
The information made Kakashi's gut roll. It wasn't due to the disgusting report of the innocent lives at the mercy of the Snake—though even with his hard-edged reality check, just knowing that there were children involved made him slightly nauseous—but because there was something else he knew he wasn't being told. By the sounds of it, everything had already been taken care of. The lab was found, the children were discovered, and it was up to Konoha to take care of the mess.
So what was he doing here?
"Pardon for my bluntness Hokage-sama, but... What do you need me for?" His concern wasn't pronounced, but his blank facade had cracked the slightest of ways. Could it be that they needed him to go after Orochimaru again?
At the question, the old man sighed defeatedly. "I'm afraid this is the news I required you for."
Kakashi's heart sped just a little. Had someone died?
"...Among these children," Continued Hiruzen, seeing that Kakashi's deadly silence was an approximation to continue, "Was a boy."
His heart dropped.
"...Naruto?" He inquired weakly.
The Sandaime shook his head. "No," He said, and Kakashi sagged his coiled shoulders in relief, "But you might... know of him. Though I'm not sure."
Kakashi furrowed his brow. "Hokage-sama?"
The elder stood, exhausted. "It's better if you see for yourself."
Kakashi didn't like this.
Not at all.
[. . .]
He heeded dutifully after the Village Elder.
While on the inside he felt puzzled turmoil about just what he was needed for, in the presence of the public, he looked relaxed. Much like the Hokage, who stopped to briefly greet some of the villagers out of respect, the two of them walked in the direction of the Hospital with lax consonance. A few ANBU guards lingered behind them that parted the crowded presences to authorize them an easier voyage through the busybody.
He didn't know why the Hokage was making them walk when they could easily body-flicker to where they needed to be, but he wasn't going to verbally question his leader. If he deemed it this way, then he'd follow. He kept all reluctances and questions back in the recesses of his mind for inner contemplation. There was no need for him to get demoted even further.
After several long minutes of the constant murmuring of the awed populace, they made it to the entrance of a place he liked the least.
Being back in the hospital wasn't a pleasant experience. At least this time he wasn't injured.
"Hokage-sama!" A nurse with glasses greeted the man beside him, perking up from her seat at the front desk. "What an honor! What brings—"
"It's a pleasure to meet again, Nana-san," Started the man with a seriousness he spared the villagers, "I'd love to stay and chat about our funds and Medic-nin force but, unfortunately, current matters are urgent. We'd like to see Room 103, please. Of the West wing."
Her piqued expression sobered. "Oh, yes, of course! The one with the boy, right? Right away! Mina-san will take you there," She blabbered, turning around to scamper about a door.
A blonde nurse stepped out of the said door a minute later and smiled at them. "Hokage-sama," She bowed, "Please follow me."
Out with her was the woman named Nana looking a bit haggard. "Do be careful!" She quickly breathed out, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. "The child has been a little troublemaker since he arrived. Nothing too serious, but... his mouth has been quite foul, Hokage-sama." She looked sheepish.
"That's alright," Hiruzen brushed off. "Thank you."
She nodded, sitting down and giving Kakashi a knowing look.
By the minute, Kakashi was growing anxious. Just what the hell was going on?
[. . .]
They followed after the woman to the designated room.
"Here it is," She diverted, looking at them.
"Thank you, Mina-san. You're dismissed," Hiruzen spoke, lifting a hand to wave off the ANBU that followed them too. In a fleeting after-image, all three masked Shinobi disappeared in a cusp of winds and leaves.
The nurse bowed again and left them outside the door with an ominous chill.
Once out of earshot, Kakashi turned to regard his leader with a puzzled edge. "Hokage-sama, why are we here?" He asked because he still didn't know what the hell he was doing outside the door of a child he had no connection with. Just what was it that was bugging this old coot?
The old man sighed. "I'm not sure how to tell you this, Kakashi. But before you see who resides in this room, there is something you must acknowledge."
Kakashi waited patiently as the old man reached for the handle and turned.
"It seems, out of the papers kept by Orochimaru, he has experimented on pregnant women."
Kakashi internally cringed. Fucking disgusting.
"One of them had... an interesting speculation."
Kakashi watched the old man open the door.
"My former student had reason to suspect she had been affiliated with you at least once."
Kakashi stopped short just as he stepped into the room. "Pardon?" He asked incredulously, feeling ice cold. Immediately, he burrowed through his mind for any instances he may have had with anybody, but he couldn't find any that boggled his mind. Any... unsafe, to be precise.
In front of him, facing only partially on his side, the third Hokage frowned sadly. "We took the liberty of figuring that out for ourselves, Kakashi-kun," He said, walking further into the room.
Kakashi looked at his back, baffled. "Hokage-sama, I've never... At least, from what I can recall, I've never been involved with anyone. Not recently."
The old man sighed. "And how recent are we talking about?" He questioned while his subordinate closed the door.
"I don't know. A couple of years? I don't go around flaunting with women regularly, Hokage-sama," He drawled tiredly, stepping in line with his Hokage. He would've been embarrassed if he wasn't so off-put by the situation. Whatever it was that involved this child. He dared not look. Not yet.
He was starting to speculate that this child had been... the affiliation his leader was speaking about.
The thought filled him with dread. Him, with a child he somehow didn't know about? That he left abandoned without realizing it?
He was not father material, but just the dawning that a child, possibly his, had been out there in the clutches of Orochimaru burdened him with abhorrent guilt.
The Hokage hummed. "It just so happens that this child is presumed five years of age," He said, facing the bed.
In the direction he looked into, Kakashi did the same and froze.
On the bed, with hair as white as snow and eyes impossibly vibrant with excruciating, beautiful azure colors, an impassive-faced boy looked back at him in a dulled manner. There he lay with a hospital gown, covered from his waist down with a white, thin blanket, injected with needles in his puny body. He looked bony, but he wasn't so pale, as there was but a hint of rosy hue on his hollow cheeks.
"And it just so happens," The Hokage repeated, relaxing his face into a soft expression, "That this boy here, is your son."
All cognizant thought instantly spared his mind.
Son? Dozens of voices littered Kakashi's head—all his own—tangled up in impossibly, improbably tangents of shock, realization, and denial.
He was sure he looked horrified.
Kami, no.
Before he spoke, the boy seemed to react to the information. His passive countenance formed into intrigue, and the boy finally scrutinized him. "Wait," His voice was so squeaky and hoarse—
Was it from overuse? Had Orochimaru tortured him? Why did he have a kid? Why? Why, why, why?
They remained facing each other, quiet as the Hokage observed.
Then, innocently and yet with a disappointed edge, the little boy rattled through his mind-fuck.
"You're my dad?"
Unknown to Kakashi, he hadn't reacted at all.
And thus, it insulted the little boy that this male wasn't impressed by his presence (besides knowing that nobody will ever know of who he had been).
"Ew..."
[. . .]
A/N: Here it is! The reverse crazy-shit of Kakashi entering Jujutsu Kaisen. I hope you guys liked this version, I just thought it'd be a little funny.
Toodles~
Ana.