Kakashi's apartment was fair sized for a single adult living alone. It had a bed, a desk, a small table, and a kitchenette. Everything a person needed to live well. For three teenagers and their sensei though, it was a little cramped.
"We couldn't have done this at my apartment?" Naruto whined as they crossed the threshold. As shitty as his place was, at least it had more space.
"No," Kakashi-sensei immediately shot down. "You don't have privacy seals."
Naruto cursed himself for not even considering that. "Right," he tried instead. "I knew that." He did not know that.
"You three, sit down," Kakashi-sensei ordered, pointing to his kitchen table. They complied while he started to busy himself in the kitchen, pulling out an electric kettle and four cups. The three of them sat in silence as they watched their sensei angrily make tea. Naruto didn't even know someone could DO that. Yet here they were. Well, maybe angry wasn't the right word. Stressed? Could someone even doing something stressfully? Shaking himself of the thought, Naruto focused back on their sensei, who was now done with the preparations.
The few minutes it took to steep the tea were one of the most awkward ones of Naruto's life.
Once the cups of matcha were placed in front of them, their sensei finally sat down.
"Alright," he said. "Start."
"Uh, where do you want us to start?" Sakura asked.
"Well, for starters," Kakashi-sensei replied. "First of all, how old are you?" He asked.
"Seventeen," they answered in unison.
"Well," Sakura added. "Naruto's still sixteen."
"Hey!" The blonde cried. "It was after midnight. I'm seventeen!"
"Timespace stops mattering once you enter another dimension," Sakura argued. "Ergo, you're not seventeen!"
"It was definitely after midnight when she shot us into that lava realm," he argued.
"Guys," Sasuke interrupted. "Focus."
Across the table, a certain jōnin was trying his best to comprehend the conversation that'd just been had in front of him. He wasn't successful.
"Right, sorry," Sakura mumbled, dropping it. Meanwhile Naruto was sending them both filthy looks.
"Anyways," Kakashi-sensei started again. "How about you start from the beginning."
Naruto frowned. "The beginning?"
"You already vaguely explained how you got here," he elaborated. "But I want to know what led up to that, and what has to be fixed."
"That's a little complicated, sensei," Naruto bemoaned.
Kakashi-sensei just shrugged, crossing his arms nonchalant. "I have all day."
Naruto let out a huff of air. "Alright fine," he sighed. "But you're probably gonna wanna make some more tea. This'll take a while."
Once they were done, the kitchen was silent. In front of them, Kakashi-sensei leaned against his counter with a pensive expression. His visible eye seemed to give nothing away, staring blankly off into space.
He was taking it all in, they knew. But they wished they knew what he was thinking.
They had started by telling him about the war and what he already knew. They'd told him about Kaguya and where she'd come from, what she'd been planning to do. They explained how Sasuke with his mangekyō, Naruto with Kurama, Sakura with her byakugo, and Kakashi with his kamui had managed to beat Kaguya before being blasted back here.
Then they'd explained what had originally happened. They started with the Wave mission. It had been their first real mission. The one that had shaped who they were as shinobi. And then they went on. The chunin exams, Orochimaru, Tsunade, Itachi, the Akatsuki. They explained how the organization had been after jinchuuriki, extracting their bijuu in the hopes of reforming the juubi.
But when they'd gotten to Obito/Madara, they'd paused.
They couldn't tell him. Not now. This wasn't the Kakashi-sensei who had lost a student. Not the one who'd had to fight tooth and nail to keep his team together. Not the one who they'd fought side by side with on the battlefield. He hadn't seen Konoha destroyed, or witnessed a mass resurrection by the very man who killed him.
No. This was their twenty six year old, barely-knows-what-he's-doing, ex-Anbu commander, sensei who'd been thrust into a situation far above his payroll.
This wasn't the man who could know that the owner of his sharingan was still out there. Nor that said owner had been the cause of the Kyuubi attack nearly thirteen years ago.
The Kakashi Hatake of now didn't need to know what their Kakashi knew.
Not yet anyways.
They hadn't told him about Sasuke leaving the village or how he'd killed Danzō, either. They felt that was better left out. Their poor sensei had already had enough dumped on him today. Adding a possible traitor to the list definitely wouldn't help.
So there they sat. Three time travelers waiting on their sensei to break the silence. Empty cups of tea sat in front of all of them, having all been drankin up over the course of the talk. Outside the sound of Konoha's nightlife was picking up, but only as a distance buzzing in their ears.
Finally, their sensei did move, breaking the awful silence.
"So," he began. He looked unsure of himself. "You all have been through a lot," he finally managed.
"Yes," Sakura replied, voice hoarse from emotion. Talking about everything hadn't been easy on them.
"And what do you want to do about it?" He asked.
"We want to stop it," Naruto announced. "We want to save our friends and make sure none of that ever happens again."
In front of them, Kakashi-sensei's lone gray eye scrutinized the three. They could see the wheels turning in his head. They watched as he chewed over their words, calculative look hanging about him. He seemed to be making a decision.
"Good," he finally said before straightening up. "Then let's get started."
Team 7 smiled.
It was so easy not to believe what was going to happen from the safety of a house. With tea in your hands and the sound of bustling life outside the window. When your heart was full and everything right with the world. Like the worst that tomorrow would bring was a scraped knee or a kunai cut. It was easy to believe nothing could go wrong when everything around you told you it wouldn't.
But Kakashi knew better.
War was coming. Not necessarily soon, but it was coming. His team was proof of that. Immediately though was the attack against Konoha that Orochimaru would have headed. Except that was no longer a problem seeing as he was in prison. But there were still Oto and Suna ninja out there waiting for their orders. Namely, the Kazekage's children. And out of those three, Gaara of the Sand. Or rather, the Ichibi jinchuuriki
According to his team, Gaara became a competent Kage, and friend to Naruto later on. Now though he was a bloodthirsty monster who wouldn't blink twice at killing his own siblings.
"Maa," Kakashi sighed, sagging against the railing of his balcony. "What a mess you three dragged me into."
The words weren't addressed to anyone, as his team had all gone home over an hour ago. But he felt it still needed saying.
And what a mess he would have to clean up. Well, he would help them clean up, seeing as they had done all of the work prior to now. But honestly, did they really think they could stop a war single handedly? Hell, even with his help he doubted they'd succeed. They'd needed more. Not just the four of them.
But they couldn't go to Hiruzen. Not after everything he'd just learned. He didn't even know if he could trust the man, knowing that he was partly to blame for the Uchiha massacre. Kakashi shook his head, dropping it down to his chest.
And to think, Itachi had been innocent the whole time.
"Just how much are you hiding, Hiruzen?" He breathed.
They needed someone powerful on their side. But not him. Someone better.
If only Minato-sensei were still alive.
With one last sigh, Kakashi took in the sight of Konoha's nightlife before heading back inside, knowing he wouldn't get a wink of sleep that night.
Since they had one more day of being on bedrest, Sasuke was forced to come back to Sakura's house for the night. Her parents didn't seem to mind in the least, happy to have their special guest back over for one more night. Sakura's mom made yakisoba for dinner and her dad kept making stupid jokes. Afterwards he and Sakura had been ushered to bed, but sometime later Sakura had snuck out to the living room and laid her futon down next to his makeshift bed on the couch, seeming intent on staying with him for the night.
Sasuke wasn't about to complain though. After the day they'd had, he wasn't about to fault her for her actions. Telling Kakashi hadn't been easy. For any of them.
The two were silent for a long time before Sakura suddenly spoke up.
"Sasuke?" Sakura asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper, hushed by the heavy atmosphere around them.
"Yeah?" He whispered back.
A short silence stretched between the two before his teammate responded. "I was thinking," she said. "If we had managed to beat Kaguya and get back to our own dimension… would you have stayed?"
As Sasuke stared up at the dark ceiling of Sakura's house, he realized he didn't know how to answer that. Yes, he was ready to say, but something stopped him. He hated to admit it now, but part of him back then had still wanted vengeance on the leaf. He'd wanted reform, no matter how he did it. No matter who he had to kill.
And that meant no team 7.
Before he could say as much, Sakura spoke up.
"It's okay," she sighed forlornly. "I get it. I do. What Konoha did to Itachi… it's unspeakable. I understand you wanting revenge."
"No," he jumped up. "That's not it."
In the dark, he managed to see Sakura's confused gaze find his. "I mean," he continued. "Yes I wanted revenge, but…" But what? Part of him still wanted revenge. But the other half just wanted his family. And maybe he was starting to realize that that family wasn't just made up of Uchiha anymore.
"But?" Sakura echoed.
"But…" He trailed off, unsure how to continue. "Yes I'm mad at Konoha. I'm mad at Danzo. I'll still kill him for what he did to Itachi. To my clan. But…" he let out a long breath. "But not everyone has to suffer for the choices of a few. And I know that now. I guess there's still some good in this stupid world."
He wasn't sure what he expected Sakura's reaction to be to his admission, but it certainly wasn't laughter.
"What?" He sneered, propping himself up to to see her better. She was laying on her futon cackling. How annoying.
"I just-" She gasped. "I just wonder who made you change your mind."
Sasuke scowled. They both knew damn well who Sakura was thinking about. Naruto.
Puffing up in annoyance, Sasuke grabbed his pillow from behind him and chucked it at his laughing teammate. It hit her square in the face, bowling her over. She didn't seem to mind.
"Naruto finally- finally got you-" she gasped between laughing. "You- you fucking tsundere."
"If you keep laughing I'm going to kill you for real this time."
She didn't stop.
And if he was being honest, he didn't really want her too either.
AN: Thanks for reading! I can't promise when the next update will be because of how busy school is, but know I'm not abandoning this!
