"It takes a lot to know a man,it takes a lot to understand. The warrior, the sage; the little boy enraged."

It Takes a Lot to Know a Man; Damien Rice & Cantus Domus - PEOPLE Festival 16

KAKASHI EXHALED SLOWLY and folded his hands into calm fists on top of his thighs. "I'm going to share some things with you. I need you to just listen and hear me before you jump to conclusions."

Sakumo's face fell momentarily before being immediately his features were schooled into a calm mask.

"My father is right. I am his son," his father's shoulders sagged ever so minutely. "But I am not the son he raised… I am a son from a different time."

Jiraiya barked out a laugh. "Come on, kid. If you're an imposter just say that."

"I am saying that, Jiraiya," Kakashi said sharply. "I am Kakashi. But I am not six years old. I am thirty one. I cannot prove this with my body or my life but I can prove this with what I know to be true of the future. If I had known that this was the… topic for the evening I would have prepared better."

The room was quiet as they stared at him, unsure of how to respond. Jiraiya, for all his quietness in the earlier part of the conversation, was quite talkative now.

"So what are you saying, kid, time-travel?" Jiraiya laughed a little and took a sip of sake. "Hard to imagine that you're older than I am."

Kakashi really didn't mean to wound him, but it was the easiest most effective way to make his point.. "It will be even harder to imagine that the reason Konoha is razed to the ground is because of the children you left in Ame. Danzo gets involved with the Salamander and one of them dies. The other two form a group that is intent on bringing peace to the world by essentially destroying it."

Jiraiya froze, looking stunned and then angry. "How do you even know about that?" Tsunade's own expression was clouded, as though she had regressed into herself. "And that's a pretty big accusation to make against a village elder."

"And yet here you three are, worried that Danzo is trying to snatch me up for his Root program. Am I wrong?" Kakashi knew he should be scared, knew that he should feel anxious about ousting himself like this but it was such a relief. He didn't even care if he died, the weight was finally gone.

He glanced over to Minato, knowing that the man had to be experiencing an emotional variety show. The blond's face was set, severe looking. But Kakashi knew that it was just him thinking through all of the different options.

Sakumo sat quietly next to him, unmoving. "This explains a lot. It seemed like you just … grew up overnight."

"Well," Kakashi drawled out, unable to look his father in the eyes. "I did. I said what I said to you because I honestly thought that I was dead. I thought I was getting to say goodbye to you the way I should have… before."

"You've said that before." Minato intoned.

"I have?" Kakashi scratched his head sheepishly.

"When we were on the field the first time after you got out of the hospital. I was talking to you about it and you said… you said you thought you were dead." Minato folded his arms across his chest. "Some of this makes sense. There are some preliminaries we'll have to run with the Yamanakas– some mind-walking is going to be absolutely necessary to verify this. But we'll have to keep it very much to ourselves for the time being. I have some things I'd like to sort out before we go to Hiruzen. If we go to him."

Jiraiya glared at him with a dark look. "That's treasonous."

Before Minato could respond, Kakashi cut in.

"The man is blinded by his friendship with Danzo. There are also some… it is possible that this initially began as a symbiotic relationship that has evolved into something more parasitic," Kakashi interjected. "Konoha operates on the image of being 'the good guys,' quite often. But it is entirely possible that the Hokage was initially comfortable letting Danzo do the dirty work in the shadows until he realized how dirty it was getting. By then, it's possible that Danzo strong-armed his way into remaining active. Or lied about shutting certain aspects down and then continued on in what he felt was best for the village."

Jiraiya paused and considered him. "You are not a child. I don't know if I believe that you are from the future, but you're not a child. Minato-kun is willing to vouch for you and he knows you quite well. I'm friends with Sakumo but I don't have any problems eliminating you if I find out that you are a spy, internal or external. If you are who you say you are from when you're saying you are, then you can understand my skepticism."

"As is expected of the future spy-master of Konoha," quipped Kakashi, resting his hands on his thighs. "Alright, so who's taking first watch? I assume I am not allowed to leave here until you get a discrete and skilled enough Yamanaka to come mind-walk me."

Jiraiya pursed his lips and held up his hand. "Maa, why don't we go back to that first statement. Spy master?"

Tsunade whacked him in the back of the head immediately. "Hard to tell what your true vice is, Jiraiya, you've got so many."

She stood up, not nearly as sober as she seemed. "Jiraiya can take first watch. Sakumo, let's have a chat in the kitchen, eh?"

Kakashi cringed and looked expectantly at his sensei, avoiding his father's put-upon sigh as the two meandered out of the room. "Well…" It was sinking in that reality was now forever altered. He wondered to himself what his sensei was thinking. If they could be friends.

Minato looked a bit lost in thought. He regarded Kakashi thoughtfully and hummed to himself. "What did you look like in the future?"

He scratched his head awkwardly and then sighed, deliberately performing the seals for the henge. When transformed back into the image of what he'd looked like before, Jiraiya's eyebrows went up and his lips and chin puffed out in an approving way.

"How old were you, Kakashi?" Minato sounded a little winded. "And… your eye. What happened to your eye?"

Oop. He was hoping Minato would overlook that. He'd known it would be noticed, but hope is hard to kill.

"Ah… Let's talk about that another time. There's already been enough stressful information thrust at you, sensei."

Jiraiya clapped Kakashi on the shoulder, chuckling a little. "Go to bed, kid."

"You gonna tie me up?" Kakashi asked cheekily, batting his lashes at Jiraiya. "I can change my henge. I'm feeling rather agreeable this evening."

The sannin laughed and shoved him towards his bedroom. "Get outta here, you brat."

"I've got exactly zero places to go so I'll see you in the morning," Kakashi said, offering up a mock salute. He dropped the henge and then slipped into his bedroom with a heavy sigh. He felt both relieved and very, very burdened. He was not in the clear by any means. He could not submit to any illusion of them being on his side, just because they hadn't outright called him a fraud and had seemed amiable enough.

He'd have to wait til the morning when an appropriate Yamanaka of skill was found. Kakashi wondered absently what would change. Maybe they'd decide he was crazy and he'd live out his days in a cell.

Sleep came easier than expected.

"Spin me 'round again and rub my eyes. This can't be happening."- Hide and Seek; Imogen Heap

"HIM? YOU REALLY went all the way to the top on this, Jiraiya," Sakumo sighed, rubbing the back of his head.

Jiraiya grunted and the head of the Yamanaka clan tilted his head to the left with a small smile."You haven't lost any children from your clan, yet, Sakumo."

Kenta gave Kakashi a gentle smile. "I"m not sure what I'll find but I have personally found you to be most interesting up until this point."

Kakashi's lips quirked up in a smile underneath the fabric of his mask. He was pleased to meet this man this time around. He hoped it would be a good working relationship, but he wasn't exactly comfortable with the man poking around in his head right off the bat.

"I'll need you to restrain him, Jiraiya." Kenta was saying, opening a large, empty book in front of him. This was beginning to look less like simple mind-walking and more like a full blown T&I investigation. Kakashi felt a drip of sweat begin to slide down his back.

He tried to be as still as he could while Jiraiya strapped his arm to the chair he was sitting in. "Kenta, am I going to have to see what you see?"

Kenta tilted his head to the side. "Why do you ask?"

"Would you want to see it, if you were in my position?"

The blonde paused, running a hand through his facial hair and staring at Kakashi as he thought. "I am not yet convinced of your position."

It felt like a trap door had opened beneath him and he was falling into a pit. He had avoided the very thought of all these things. He'd known it was coming, but hoped for a way around. Now he could see that there was no way around, only through.

"Well, you'll find out soon enough," Kakashi muttered darkly. He looked up to the ceiling of the little basement room they were in as Jiraiya moved back to his seat next to Minato. This building was one of the less frequently used structures in the Yamanaka district, and it showed in the upkeep of the room. One of the tiles was tattered and barely hanging on in the corner of the room. "I love the way you've decorated the place, Kenta-san. Some screams off in the distance and a dripping pipe and you'd have yourself a proper dungeon."

The clan head laughed at that, properly amused by the comment. He was sitting to Kakashi's left at a table, where Minato and Jiraiya sat next to his father. At the center of the table was a pile of blank paper and pencils for them to take notes on later. His father's arms were folded angrily over his chest– the two hadn't spoken since that morning and it was apparent that his father was in deep turmoil over what he was meant to do with this situation. Kakashi had elected to give him space rather than try to offer comfort to the man, knowing that it was akin to losing a son and a whole life he thought he could build.

Minato seemed to be taking it the hardest, though Kakashi was not sure why. There had to be a lot of confounding variables for the young Jonin, though Kakashi was not privy to that kind of historical information. The two blondes were colluding over the large seals that Kenta was drawing out on double-sided sticky paper. This was a far more advanced version of the jutsu than Kakashi had ever seen, but he'd mostly only ever seen it done in a rushed way on the field with foreign ninja who needed to be quickly tapped for information.

When he had been in ANBU, he'd brought many ninja back in catatonic states for Inoichi and the rest of T & I to deal with. He just hadn't been there to help them with the delicate cases like this. He was more of a stab and rip off a finger kind of an investigator outside his sharingan abilities. It depended on the day which method he was more in the mood for.

As Minato leered at a particular seal array, Kakashi wondered if the young man before him knew that Kushina was a jinchuriki. They were dating and very close, but did he know? Did he have any idea what the future held for him?

Kenta smoothed the papers, a self-satisfied grin on his lips. "That should do it."

"Fantastic. Just remember– when we have to work together in the future I don't want to hold a grudge against you for how you treated me here," Kakashi said lightly, crinkling his eyes above his mask.

"Yeah, yeah." Kenta pressed the double sided paper against the back of his neck, over his hair. He could feel all of his little hairs protest whenever he moved his head, so promptly stopped doing that. No need to go bald for this.

Another, smaller seal was placed on his forehead. Kenta pulled a chair over in front of him and sat down in front of him. It made Kakashi feel claustrophobic to be so close and so utterly vulnerable, but he supposed it would be more uncomfortable when Kenta was actually in his head.

"You ready?" Kenta asked, lifting a single brow in expectation. "No matter, let's get started."

Kakashi made an attempt to roll his eyes and found he already couldn't move his body. He couldn't look away from Kenta's eyes– it seemed as though his vision was narrowing into a tunnel. It was like an old-timey tv screen blinking out and then all he could see was nothingness.

"Come on in, I've gotta tell you what a state I'm in. I gotta tell you in my loudest tones." Warning Sign; Coldplay

AT SOME POINT or another Kakashi's consciousness had forgotten where he'd been. He let go of the idea that he was supposed to be somewhere else and tried to hone in on something other than the niggling feeling of forgetfulness that swam around him.

A prickly mat of sharp grass was beneath his body and it felt uncomfortable so he shifted his weight a bit. Air that smelled sweet wafted by and he sat up suddenly, recognizing the aroma. It smelled like the sunny knoll he'd fallen asleep on at a festival where he, Obito, and Rin had been sent by Minato to blow off some steam between particularly grueling missions.

When he opened his eyes though, there was nothing before him. As he floated through gray-dark air, he could see the memory in his mind. Obito had been a childish fool and he'd been a bitter old man while Rin looked at with bemused melancholy. It could have been different. But he knew better and knew how he'd been. How things would end up to be.

There was a whirring sensation around him and he watched as the darkness twisted and yawned. Images began to flicker into place like a kaleidoscope. Any colour would have been goonish and bright against the gray nothingness before him, but the nightmarish flickering as the image settled into place turned his stomach.

War was ahead of him and all of a sudden he remembered where he was and why he was in this place. He was meant to share his most intimate losses with someone he barely knew. It was the most naked he'd ever felt and he loathed it.

He felt absolutely humiliated. Inadequate and so very alone. Like a marionette, he danced through the memory. His body moved on auto-pilot through the battle and he watched in a detached way as his fists dismembered enemy after enemy. He'd been in such a rush at whatever time this had transpired that he'd never caught the micro-expressions of the people dying at his hand. It was fascinating and terrible.

Kakashi wanted to be anywhere else. He wondered if the spirits of these people were actually guided into death by the Shinigami or if they had been flung back into their past mistakes as he was. Perhaps this was his path to enlightenment.

The feelings he'd learned to manage in the last few weeks came crashing back down upon him in full force. They were so heavy he wondered if the weight would crush him. Kill him.

Like a hot dish prepared just for him, the memory of his father's death was before him in startling detail. Was his mind a filing cabinet that Kenta was rifling through? Or was he doing this to himself?

The smell of his father's blood and entrails filled his nostrils and he felt vomit rise in his throat. The pain in his chest felt like a bone breaking and a bruise forming all at once. Regret filled him and he wished sourly that he had never agreed to this. Konoha be damned, he'd rather die. But he was already here, crouching in the living room and staring at his fathers back. Blood pooled around the body in a disgusting congealed mess.

He tried to remember why he was doing what he was doing. He pictured Naruto's face and suddenly the boy was there. Kakashi looked around, trying to pick apart the genjutsu as he had when Itachi had put him in the Tsukiyomi. He knew his mind was strong. He just needed to slow down and find the parameters of the genjutsu or whatever it was that Kenta was doing to him so he could get the upper hand back.

But why did he need the upper hand again? Why was he here again? Kakashi realized he was in Ichiraku's, eating ramen with Naruto. Sasuke dipped into the tent and Kakashi felt his heart swell with pride and hopefulness. He'd come. He remembered this day. It was a team-building effort to get the two boys to like each other. It had worked a little bit.

Naruto turned to smile at him and all he could see was Minato's face. He remembered the coronation where Minato was officially slated as the fourth Hokage. Orochimaru's pinched face came to mind and he remembered how unhappy the man had been at the snub from his sensei. This thread unraveled violently, like someone had yanked on it and all of a sudden he could see memory after memory related to ol' snake eyes whirling by as though sped up double.

The world was tilting and yawing like a ship as he was flung through time and space with each found himself again at the battle in the Valley of the End where Sasuke and Naruto had tried to kill each other. Naruto was in his arms and he was praying to the dead, asking Minato for his forgiveness for being so late. To Mikoto for not doing a better job with her child.

And then the war came again and he was fighting with Tenzo to help assist Naruto. The highlights and the lowlights shuddered through his existence and he tried to relax himself the way one would if they were about to be crushed by a wave. It was so exhausting to feel these things. He longed for nothingness, to not feel anything.

Suddenly he was in a dark tunnel, sneaking through to the end. Sarutobi's words clanged in his mind. "There is a plot to take my life. I need you to make sense of it."

Hell broke loose and there were agents on every side and he was a flurry of motion against the robotic forces Danzo had unleashed on him. His heart was in his throat. A ball of light appeared as someone ripped a hole in the side of the tunnel. Wood lurched through the hole and tore it open wide. He was moving through it before he could think about it.

It was so easy to fall into the moment and relive it, instead of just watching it from the outside like it wasn't his own situation. This jutsu that Kenta was using, whatever it was, was not something he'd ever encountered or even heard of from Inoichi. Whatever Kenta had done to perfect it must have died with him.

His soul felt dry and withered up in a way he couldn't explain. He'd experienced chakra-fatigue, severe dehydration and malnutrition, but he'd never felt anything like this before. It was a soul-deep tiredness and it ached.

The vicious flurry of memories ceased and he found himself standing on a grassy slope, staring down at the sea-side. He suspected that it wasn't real, but his ability to tell the difference was beginning to slip. It felt like mere moments had flown by, but it also felt like it had been years since he'd sat down in that little room with them hoping to convince them of his existence.

He watched the waves crashing into the rocks at the bottom of the hill and closed his eyes. It was calming. He remembered the many nights at war how he'd calmed himself by imagining places like this again.

There had to be a way to avoid that this time, even if it meant prostituting out his mind like. Part of him hoped that Kenta didn't believe him so he could just be exterminated and this strange experiment that his life had become could end.

As much as he wanted the pain to be over though, he knew it wouldn't save the very people who were causing him such grief right now. He'd rather suffer like this than suffer through losing each of them again.

Kakashi wondered absently how the people in the room would respond if they knew that their death was looming closer and closer each day without proper intervention. But that was the thing of it, wasn't it. They did know. He was the one who couldn't accept it. Every ninja knew the possibility of their own death. But Kakashi knew the reality of their deaths, as they hadn't been there to experience it once it came.

Gentle rustling sounds came from the left, behind him. He twisted to see Kenta wandered toward him looking older in the same way that a young man did after his first real taste of war. The clan-head lowered himself onto the ground next to Kakashi. He smelled the same here as he did in the waking world. That was a comfort to him somehow.

"You will be very low energy for the next week or two, I'm afraid." Kenta said, staring out at the horizon. Kakashi bit back a smile at the display of concern.

"Oh?"

"I… I believed you quite quickly. But I was so overcome by what I saw that I pushed you a lot harder than I should have– harder than I had right to."

He stared at his lap, realizing that here his body was back to its old proportions. "I understand. I hope you'll understand if I don't ever want to come back here, though."

Kenta sighed, heavy and long. "We will have to return here. How else will we scour the details and strategize? This is more accurate for memory recall than self-recall. I pushed you quite hard today because I knew it was possible for you to deny re-entry."

Kakashi leveled Kenta with a hard look. "You realize that if this was a sexual encounter that would be an entirely non-consentual maneuver. I warned you in the beginning that I was not your enemy."

The blonde nodded and looked down. "Yes, I am aware. As it stands, you are likely going to have to continue to work with me. You vomited in your natural body and that was when I realized how… far I was pushing you. I am sure this won't bring you any peace, but I would have done the same to my own son if it meant I could save the village from whatever things are coming."

"Perhaps this is why Inoichi never used this method of interrogation– at least from what I'm aware. Did you use this form of technique on him before?" Kakashi asked, not caring if he was being too bold.

Kenta smiled sadly. "All of our techniques are learned by experience. So while the content of the experience differs, the way we learn is through experience. Everything I have done to you today my own father did to teach me and show me how it works. If Inoichi was not able to use this technique, it's because I was not able to teach him."

Kakashi nodded quietly. He didn't feel so talkative anymore. "Can you not tell my dad that he killed himself?"

"He will have already seen that, unfortunately."

"Any good news, then?"

"Well. Any thoughts of imprisonment or murdering you are out the window."

"And you're sure you won't reconsider?"

"Sorry."

A/N: That's all for now. Sorry if it feels disjointed, it was again a difficult chapter to write. A lot of happenings. Hopefully the next ones will be more easy to create.

Things aren't going to be flying forward. This story will most likely linger in this time window for a good amount of time. Lots to flesh out and find interesting in this era. OC's are sure to come, but they will propel the plot not take it over.