Edited on April 23, 2022. Apologies for the oversights, and thank you for mentioning them. I appreciate the criticism.
"We're home!" Megumin announced as both she and Darkness entered the mansion.
"Ah, welcome back." Kazuma greeted from the couch. "By the way, Kakashi and Aqua went on some recon near the Demon King's castle for whatever reason."
Immediately, both girls paused at the news before running over to Kazuma. Eyes wide, they yelled at him for allowing such a thing.
"You didn't stop them?!"
"Aqua could get hurt out there!"
Kazuma covered his ears with his hands. "Shut up! I already tried to talk Kakashi out of it but he was adamant in going, Aqua just tagged along with him."
Megumin gave a long sigh. "Well, if nothing else, Kakashi is a reliable guy. He can protect her."
"But even if you say that, the caliber of monster at the Demon King's castle are top of the line, if the rumors are to be believed." Darkness worried.
"You guys are overthinking it, I'm sure Kakashi has the sense to turn back if things take a turn for the worst."
Both girls gave him a look that screamed, 'I'm not too sure about that'. However, they decided that nothing could be done about it at the moment.
"Kamui!"
Immediately, the head of the one holding the knife disappeared into the void making the body collapse into the ground in a heap.
"What the hell!? He's dead!"
"Kill this bastard!"
With the threat on Aqua's life eliminated, Kakashi merely cast a genjutsu on the both of them. Their eyes looked at nothing and it was as if they were statues. They would need to be questioned and eliminated, and he might as well slit their throats to make it quick... However, he then saw Aqua, quivering on the ground and staring at the corpse of the man that was going to kill her.
Perhaps it would be best if he did the deed somewhere else.
"I'll be right back, Aqua. Stay hidden in case there are more of them." The girl only weakly nodded in response.
Kakashi grabbed both men until they were out of sight and he tied their hands behind them with the wire he had in his pouch. With a single hand sign, he released them.
Both men gasped for air as if they had been underwater the entire time. Tears flowed from their eyes as they struggled to comprehend where they found themselves.
"Wha-?"
As the men were on their knees, Kakashi towered over them, his sharingan eye a beacon in the dark. He brandished a kunai in his right hand and held the tip of it to the shoulder of the man on the right.
"Now, you two are going to tell me what I want to know, understand?"
The one being threatened with his kunai nodded vigorously, but the other idiot decided to show some bravado.
"Screw you! I'm not telling you a damn thing!"
With a sigh, Kakashi kicked the man in the face and knocked his face into the dirt, holding it there with his hand. "I'll say this once and once only, you will speak when I ask you to, got that?" The man in the dirt did not respond, so Kakashi shoved his face deeper into the ground.
"Got it?"
"...got it."
"Good." Kakashi released him from the dirt, and went back to the original target. "Now, are there more of you?"
"N-no! It's just the three of us, man!" The man was shaking in his boots. "I swear!"
"And how do I know you aren't covering for anyone?" Kakashi held the kunai to his eye, threateningly.
"Keep that away from me! I'm not lying!" A certain smell was then noticed, and Kakashi saw the man had urinated himself.
"Well, I suppose if you're soiling yourself then you probably are telling the truth." Kakashi mused. "Or, you are one hell of an actor." He moved over to the other man. "Don't worry, I wouldn't leave you with zero attention."
The man spit on the ground. "Bastard."
Kakashi breathed out in a show of disappointment. Quickly, the man realized his mistake and made to apologize when Kakashi stabbed him in the shoulder.
"Argh! FUCK!"
"I don't like this whole torture thing, you know. But it was part of my job a while ago, and you tried to hurt an innocent person." Kakashi didn't pull out the kunai either, he kept it there as blood flowed from the wound. "Two questions now, are there more bandit groups around, and if so, where are they?"
Tears flowed from the eyes of the man as he struggled to collect his thoughts.
"Don't make me jiggle the knife around in there."
"No! No. Uh, there isn't anyone else! The Demon King's castle is close to here, so we figured we would be pretty smart in being the only group to rob some folks. No competition, see?"
"Hm, I see." Kakashi stood up with finality and sharply pulled the kunai out. "Thank you for your cooperation."
"So, you're gonna let us go now, right?" He asked, hopeful.
Kakashi didn't respond, but lowered his headband over his left eye and merely shook his head. He took out a second kunai, one for each hand.
"What are you doing?!"
"W-we told you what you wanted!"
"Sorry, you two." And with that, he threw the kunai straight at their foreheads, killing them instantly. The bodies slumped to the ground and Kakashi collected his knives. Feeling something off, he patted himself over but discovered nothing wrong with him before he noticed a small burning sensation in his pocket. He took out his adventuring card and realized that killing these bandits had granted him a good amount of experience points. It seems that these men were former adventurers of a respectable level. If that's the case, he made the right move in using Kamui right away. They may have had some tricks up their sleeves. Still, he could worry about allocating the points he received later, for now, he had to head back to Aqua.
Returning to the corpse of the first man, he looked around for Aqua.
"Aqua, are you here?" He'd curse himself forever if she got picked off by someone or something else. He turned his head to some bushes that were being disturbed and discovered her walking out of them.
"I'm here." Her voice sounded small, and when she laid eyes on him, she burst into tears and started wailing. "Thank you, Kakashi!" Aqua grabbed him by the torso and cried all over it, while Kakashi held his hands in the air not knowing where to put them. Eventually, he settled on having one arm to the side and the other awkwardly patting her head and he muttered, "There, there."
After a torturous few minutes (for Kakashi), Aqua finally released him and asked, "Did you.. kill them?"
"Let's just head back to the carriage." He moved his head in its direction, and Aqua silently followed.
The night then passed quickly, but Aqua had clearly seen better days. Evidently, last night's events took their toll on her. Her normally bright eyes were now laid with dark bags under them, and her eyes clearly were asking to be closed for sleep. It worried him because he knew his old team was like this on their first kills. Even the team he mentored had been like this to a degree. Sasuke took to it quickly, but Naruto and Sakura were a different story. While Aqua hasn't actually killed anyone, seeing it happen in front of your own eyes can be... sobering, to say the least. Moreover, while adventurers weren't 'citizens' in the normal sense, they were a far cry from actual military.
"You killed them, Kakashi." She told him as they were riding in the carriage. It wasn't a question. but a matter of fact.
A sigh. "Yes, I did." Silence continued again for a little while.
"I understand why, but it doesn't sit right with me."
"That's alright. It shouldn't."
"Really? But they tried to... hurt me. Shouldn't I be glad?"
Kakashi shook his head. "The moment you're glad someone is dead, you lose your humanity. Your morals become skewed. I don't take any pleasure from it."
"But you hurt them when you took them away. I heard the screams. Why would you prolong it if you didn't enjoy it?" Aqua nearly whispered.
"I questioned them on if there were more of them around so we could avoid them. Thankfully, it seems they told the truth that they were acting alone. To get that information, I had to play a bit of hardball."
"But you're a murderer now, Kakashi. It will be forever stained on your card. As a Goddess, I can't just ignore that."
"I don't expect you to. If I die, you can send me wherever you see fit." Kakashi didn't feel the need to correct her on how he has been a murderer since he was a child.
"I didn't mean it like that." She looked away from him then, and shook herself awake. "I... thank you, Kakashi, for saving me. I appreciate it." She bowed her head slightly.
He waved his hand, "Don't mention it." Kakashi didn't like attention, it was one of the reasons he really never wanted to be Hokage and was happy to let Obito have the hat. All those responsibilities and paperwork, he would be much better on the field completing missions.
The rest of the ride passed by silently with Aqua napping on her side and Kakashi watching the scenery pass by outside. Once they made it within walking distance to the castle, the driver told them:
"This is as far as I'm willing to go. I'll wait here for your return, but by the evening, I'll be going whether you're with me or not."
Kakashi could understand that, you had to protect yourself at the end of the day and they were strangers. "No problem at all, see you later." He waved at the man as he and Aqua went in the direction she claimed the castle was.
As they neared the location, they found themselves on a hill that would lead to the castle. The castle itself was gargantuan, with many floors and dark decor outside. A strong barrier seemingly forbade anyone not allowed to enter, but from what Kakashi could see, there were also some monsters placed outside of the castle walls to serve as possible alarm systems or they were strong enough to fight anyone dumb enough to approach. Not that Kakashi would be, to enter into a fight with no prior information on them was not his style if he could help it. While the monsters of this world had not offered any substantial challenge yet, he would be a fool to say it would remain that way. This world was already pretty wacky, so he should keep his guard up.
He crouched atop the grassy hill, indicating Aqua to copy him. She was no ninja, but he hoped she could follow simple directions.
He picked up two blades of grass and stuffed them into his pocket. "I'm going to send a clone of myself down there to do some reconnaissance on the castle."
"A clone? How the heck are you gonna do that?"
With a single hand sign, Kakashi made a clone of himself. Not a shadow clone or anything, but an illusionary one. The clone waved at her as Aqua stared at it, dumbfounded. She got up slightly and went to touch the clone and almost yelped when her hand went right through it. In response, it repeated the motion to her and Aqua felt a shudder run through her as the clone's hand went right through her.
"That's creepy."
"Maybe. But this clone is just an illusion. It can't actually fight or anything, but it looks real enough. I could make one that's solid that can interact with you, but that requires more chakra than I'm willing to part with right now."
"So, if I made a clone like that, then I could make it do all my chores for me!"
Kakashi looked at her as if she had said something totally ridiculous. But hell, he decided to humor her.
"Careful, if you make your clone do stuff like that too often, it'll rebel against you."
"Really?!"
"No, that's just stupid."
She stomped her boot on the ground. "You tricked me!"
"Anyway, try not to make so much noise. We don't want the soldiers on us." Kakashi looked toward the clone and nodded as it mimicked the gesture and went down to the castle gates.
Before it fully approached, the clone changed its appearance to Sukea, his alter ego. It then grabbed the two pieces of grass within his pocket and transformed them into a notepad and quill. Once the clone ran up to the monsters there, they stared at him. It seemed one of them was a goblin of some kind, but with much rougher skin and had an aged appearance. The other being a minatour, at least from what Kakashi had read from the descriptions in the guild books and word of mouth around town. Supposedly, goblins were only really scary in a group, but minatours were serious opponents. Not the fastest or smartest beast around, but getting hit by any attack from it was just asking to die.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"Oh, terribly sorry to intrude. My name is Sukea, I'm a wandering photographer and journalist, you see. I've heard so much about the castle of the Demon King, that I just had to see it from myself!"
"... do you think this place is a tourist attraction or something?"
"Not at all, in fact, I see this place as a marvelous work of art. If you'd allow it, I would love to take the time to draw it in my sketchbook here."
Both the goblin and the minatour looked at each other, the unspoken question of 'Is this guy for real?' going unspoken.
"Uh, whatever. But the big guy is gonna stick with you, for security purposes and all that."
The 'big guy' huffed, seemingly not happy at having to play babysitter.
"Not a problem at all. I love all kinds of company."
"...right."
And so it was, Sukea drew the outer castle in extremely accurate detail, noting everything he could about the structure. Each side was its own page. Once he was finished, he turned towards his guard, and asked, "I don't suppose I could be allowed inside to draw, right?"
The powerful exhale and glowing of its beady red eyes was all Sukea needed to know that he would be granted no such leniency.
"Ah, well, at least I tried. Thank you for your time." With an imperceptible nod, it let him go his own way once they returned to the castle gates.
The clone then ran back up the hill to Kakashi, showing him the drawing that it created, Kakashi copied it using his sharingan into his own memory. Later on, he would be able to recreate it.
"So what? You just drew the castle, how the heck is that gonna help us?"
Kakashi covered his other eye, as the clone and its drawing disappeared. "If you must know, the purpose of those drawings were to ascertain if there was some structural deficiency we could use to maybe break inside somehow later on, and I think I found one, but that barrier will have to come down first. I get the feeling that nothing good will come from trying to break our way though."
Aqua then took this as a moment to establish her intellect. "You'd be right on that. That barrier is maintained by the generals of the Demon King Army, and it will kill whoever touches it, assuming they aren't a part of his army anyway."
"So, if we take down the generals-" Kakashi started.
"-the barrier goes down!" Aqua finished.
"Hmm, do we have to take care of all of them? Or is there a threshold good enough?"
Aqua put a finger to her chin, "I'm not too sure, but we could ask Wiz when we get back to Axel."
"That shopkeeper? Why would she know that?"
"Oh uh... she knows some people that know people that know people who worked in the army...yeah!" Aqua realized that she almost spilled Wiz's secret inadvertently, but she easily covered it back up! A job well done.
"Of course, Aqua." He said, still completely skeptical of her explanation. "Still, with that barrier up, there isn't anything we can really do about it, so we'll head back for now."
"I didn't even get to do anything!" She complained and pouted.
"Does it matter? You weren't meant to be with me anyway."
"Of course it does! I want to contribute!" She crossed her arms in stark defiance.
Kakashi really did not want to deal with Aqua being a baby the entire way back, so he cut his finger and planned on letting her heal it. It was about the same he would for a summoning.
Wait...
"Why did you cut yourself like that? Are you into that or something? Because I think you and Darkness would get along even better if she knew-"
"Quiet for a moment, Aqua." The girl squawked in anger at being told to shut up, but he had an idea. He channeled his chakra in a familiar way and let the blood seep into a point on the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu!" A plume of smoke popped into existence, and cleared to reveal... nothing.
"Damn." For a moment, Kakashi thought he would have his dogs with him. He dared to hope, but it was not to be. Not that he really expected for it to work, considering he wasn't even on his own planet anymore.
"What was that-"
Just then, a familiar voice broke out.
"Hey! I knew there was something going on up here with all that smoke!"
It was the goblin from before, along with the minatour.
"Stay here and take care of these chumps, I gotta take this up to the boss!" It ran away from them, but Kakashi sent a lightning beast to hopefully stop it but the minatour stepped in and tanked the blow with seemingly zero effort.
"Minatours have high elemental resistance, Kakashi! Magic won't work on it."
He didn't really consider his jutsus magic, but that was besides the point. "Then we'll just have to do this the old fashioned way." He brandished a kunai, and readied himself for the fight ahead.
"Boss! Boss!" The goblin yelled as it ran into the throne room, completely unannounced.
The Demon King sat in his throne, looking completely the part of an evil king, if it wasn't for the fact that he was practically falling asleep in the lavish chair.
"H-huh? What do you want? I'm busy."
"Outside, there was some human spies it seems."
The Demon King immediately woke up fully, leaning forward in his chair. "Continue."
"This guy named Sukea asked to draw up the whole castle outside for whatever reason, so we let him, but then once he left, we found these two people on top of the hill overlooking this place."
"You let some random man draw everything about the building?! That easily could have been him trying to scan the castle for weaknesses!" He roared in anger. The goblin shrieked in fear, but did not run away. "What do these three people look like?"
"T-the Sukea guy had some purple markings running down his eyes, a mole on the left side of his chin, brown shaggy hair, and a green coat with a brown scarf. The other two was a girl, about a teenager or so, with blue hair, a blue dress with yellow accents, and a nice ass-"
"Ahem."
"Oh right, sorry. Anyway, the last guy was this man with gray hair. I would say he was some senior grandpa, but I can't say for certain since most of his face is covered up besides one eye. He had a headband with a weird symbol on it covering his left eye, and a blue mask covering the lower half of his face. He had a uniform on too, with a green flak jacket and blue clothes under. Oh, and I think I heard the girl yell 'Kakashi' at him while I ran away, so I'm assuming that's his name."
"Hmm, for them to approach the castle they must be exceptionally strong, or extremely foolish. Where are they now?"
"Fighting the minatour, boss."
"Interesting. Go and detail to me the outcome of the battle. If they win, I'll be keeping an eye on them. If not, then none of this matters."
"You got it boss!" The goblin ran back and out of the room, leaving the Demon King by himself for the moment.
"Kakashi, huh? Just who are you to approach my castle?"
These will be my responses to some reviews, so if you don't care about that, you can just stop here. Edit: Added some more since I was editing this anyway.
Masterx01 - First off, thank you for pointing out the inconsistencies in this chapter. I do re-read the chapter a few times to catch things but I'm bound to miss some things so thank you. But I diasgree about asking opinions for romance being an inherent negative. Like I said prior, if I feel like the direction the story is going has no place for it, I won't forcibly include it. I just asked to see what people might want to see, I won't live or die by it. That's what's nice about fanfiction, I can ask the audience what they feel they want to see and then see if I can bring it to fruition. If I can, cool. If not, then so be it. I see where you're coming from though, so we can agree to disagree.
The bandits were adventurers, so their stats were not that of a basic citizen. I figure that if Kakashi doesn't know what a group is capable of, he would whip out his most trusted ability to take care of it. Quite frankly, the only reason Kakashi didn't use Kamui more often (prior to learning of how it degrades his vision) is because the show is about Naruto and he is the one that needs to beat the villain most times. If you think about it, Kakashi couldn't form Kamui quickly enough to kill the strongest Pain body, but when the nail is thrown at a immense speed at his eye, he was able to activate it instantly even though we clearly see it was a normal sharingan as the nail was shot forward. Plus, this is a fatigued Kakashi who is on the brink of chakra exhaustion, it's not very consistent. Same thing with Kakazu, Kakashi was going to Kamui him but Naruto showed up before he went and did it. It's a shonen anime, Kakashi isn't going to be the one defeating the bad guys. Since I want to write this story in a more serious and non-shonen manner, I feel Kakashi would realistically use Kamui more often since it is such a reliable attack. Like how Naruto spams shadow clones since he just can so why wouldn't he?
Also, in my version of things and considering Naruto is a show from the eastern side of the world, magic and chakra are pretty much identical. To us in the West, they are different in presentation, and Konosuba is extremely vague on how magic works though the body, but the concept is the same. They feel some inner energy and draw it out in practiced ways to produce attacks, etc.
Frank-K-L - I doubt that theory. For one, Kakashi didn't even really seem to realize Itachi has a Mangekyo sharingan to begin with and didn't know anything about it himself. Case in point, he thought his one basic Sharingan could combat it and he found out the hard way that it wasn't the case. Plus, Kakashi never mentions any strain on his eye until the War Arc, much less blindness itself. Maybe I'm wrong, as I haven't watched the series in a while, but I'm pretty sure he's fine until the War Arc as in the Pain Arc he is still pinpoint accurate with it.
Aka Daka - I initially wanted to write this story with DMS Kakashi, but realized that regular Kakashi is already super strong in the world of Konosuba, if he had both sharingan eyes, I don't think I could ever make it so he would struggle at all in this world. He would literally tear through everything with zero effort.
JRZ - Yes, I agree. Kakashi could have blitzed the bandits. Although, Kakashi doesn't know what these guys are capable of, and he doesn't underestimate people in such serious situations unless they give him a reason to. They had Aqua hostage, so it was the safest bet to use Kamui. Let's be real, the only reason Mangekyo sharingan eyes degrade was because they are so broken that they had to come up with a way to nerf it (unless you get the eternal version or have Hashirama cells like Obito). Moreover, at this point in Kakashi's journey, he doesn't even know that using Kamui will cause his eye to go blind eventually. He only learns about that in the War Arc when he spammed it all the time. For now, he just thinks it's a heavier chakra draining move. Plus, I like to have a little fun. If I just have Kakashi kill everything with a basic jutsu, it'll get boring really fast. As such, I will be changing the strength of the monsters to be stronger, or at least more resistant to things, so Kakashi doesn't just stomp everything but also so that the Konosuba cast can still participate.
apo21 - While Aqua is technically more than old enough, her and Kakashi would never click on a romantic level, sorry. That and her youthful appearance would make Kakashi uncomfortable.
Cand - That's fair, I did put some humor here and there, but yeah as I write more it takes a backseat, so I changed it.
InHumanMan - I must disagree, Kakashi has had a love interest if we look at his novel. It is non-canon as far as I'm aware, but the fact that it was put in there at all tells me it is certainly possible for Kakashi to love someone. And that woman was a criminal, no less. But you are right, no one in Konosuba could hope to understand his trauma, but they don't have to. Sometimes, a sense of normalcy is all you need to ground you, and to me, someone like Luna could provide that. I'm not sure if I'll do the romance yet though, it won't happen for awhile if it does.
