Alternate title: Time travel, but make it sapphic
(Never thought I'd be writing something that had SasuSakuKarin, even as just a 'it happened and it's over' thing, but here we are.)
Quick mentions of some canon tragic backstory things, namely the Uchiha massacre and Sakumo's death.
Kakashi's on an ANBU mission when it all happens, and he comes back none the wiser.
He'd slog his way to the Hokage's office if he were less professional, but he's ANBU, and that means he hops onto the rooftops and sprints his way to headquarters, and then takes all the funny little backways and secret corridors to get to the Hokage's office.
Raidō is marginally less muddy than Kakashi is. Marginally.
They both still squelch when they step into the room.
"Hogake-sama."
Raidō takes the lead in actually talking. It's so late in the evening that Kakashi's somehow surprised that the Sandaime is even here. He looks tired, but that's… normal.
(It's been months, nearly a year, since the deaths of the Uchiha, and the village is… only mostly recovered.)
The elderly man looks at them for a long moment. "Any injuries?"
"No."
"Anything pressing or new?"
Kakashi knows what he means. ANBU have a tendency to come across information in missions that needs to be handled in a matter of hours. One of the risks of being hand-picked for infiltration and assassination, on the average.
"No, Hokage-sama. All clear."
He nods. "Full report tomorrow, then. You can pass it through the commander instead of in person."
Oh thank fuck.
"Sparrow, you're dismissed. Hound, a moment." Sarutobi says, and Kakashi halts, even though he'd just been about to follow Raidō out of the hallway and back to the barracks so he can collapse into bed.
"Hokage-sama?"
"Come by tomorrow, 11 AM," Sarutobi says, and Kakashi's busy trying to figure out if he can get away with sleeping in when the rest of the order comes in, "It's about Naruto."
Oh.
Kakashi nods sharply. "Understood."
"Dismissed."
#
Adopted.
Naruto's been adopted.
"Hokage-sama?" Kakashi asks, mind spinning and honestly unable to put the pieces together.
"No risk of being connected to his parents," Sarutobi says. There's an ease about him as he talks about it. "An Uzumaki woman came into town while you were on your mission and claimed him. She's joined as a Jounin, as has her wife."
Kakashi's head is still reeling.
"They are aware of his parentage," Sarutobi says, and Kakashi's brain screeches to a halt. "And the wife has stated that she'll gladly pretend to have encountered you on a prior mission to give you a chance to visit her and, in turn, Naruto."
Oh.
Oh.
That's—that's more than he ever hoped for.
"You trust her?" Kakashi asks, because he's only been gone three weeks, and that's not long enough for the village to trust a new shinobi without a very good reason. "How did they know he's… their son?"
Sarutobi smiles around his pipe. "Tsunade trained the wife for several years. She vouched for them. The Uzumaki knew his parentage because she knew Kushina, and was once near Minato. I know that shouldn't be enough, but she's apparently one of the best sensors on the continent, so it was… easy, from what she says."
That's—okay, that's mildly terrifying, because Kakashi vaguely remembers Tsunade, and she was a scary, scary woman, and any sensor that can figure out parentage based on half-remembered signatures of people eight years dead is terrifying—but it's good. Vouched for by Tsunade is good.
"If they know about his parents, then they know he's…"
Sarutobi nods. "Yes. And before you ask, they underwent a thorough check by Inoichi. They're clean."
Good news. Great news. Kakashi feels like he's about to vibrate out of his skin, or maybe just puke.
"How old are they? You said they were Jounin now?"
"About your age, and they're actually… well, I'd put them down at S-level shinobi, both of them. High A-rank at minimum. They'll be more than able to protect him, and there's a younger girl; Uzumaki has a little sister, only a year older than Naruto. She's already taken to fighting bullies for him, from what I've been told."
Maybe he should just cry.
It's taken eight years, sure, but Naruto has a family, now.
"Where—"
Sarutobi passes him the address, and Kakashi bolts out the window.
#
He's nervous, as he walks up the pathway to the little house that the Uzumaki have apparently taken up residence in. There's a lot he should have asked the Hokage, but names are at the top of that list. All he knows is that one of these women is an Uzumaki sensor, and the other is probably a medic.
He knocks and doesn't show how the anxiety is curdling in his gut.
The door opens, smooth and quiet, and a short woman with pink hair blinks up at him.
"Kakashi-kun!" she exclaims, and throws her arms around his neck. "I was wondering when you'd stop by!"
Kakashi stiffens, because this woman is a stranger, but he remembers what the Hokage said. They said they'd pretend to know him, just so he can have access to—
The woman pulls away, smiling in a way that is so staggeringly sincere that Kakashi can't wrap his head around it, and steps back. "Come in, come in, I was just putting some tea on."
Kakashi follows her in, head spinning. He grasps for the first comment that comes to mind. "I feel like I should have brought you some flowers. A housewarming gift, maybe."
She laughs, and Kakashi catches the spark of chakra that she presses into a subtle seal in the wall.
"Privacy seal?"
"Mm, Kanna-chan made it," she tells him. "Do you want to wait in the living room? The kids are at school right now, and Kanna's probably still at the laboratory, so I've just been puttering about. There's still quite a few boxes to unpack, and the neighbors have been a little…"
"It's a very civilian area," Kakashi offers.
She looks at him over her shoulder, grin wry. Black eyes sparkle with amusement and irritation. "Yes. You'd think they never saw a same-sex couple before."
"I know the feeling."
"Do you, now?" she asks. She comes back from the stove and hands him a cup. "Well then, to the living room! The couch is very comfortable, I assure you."
"Aa."
He follows her.
She's petite in a way that Kakashi is sure gets her underestimated all the time. Short hair, red dress, and the kind of muscle that looks much smaller than it is.
"I never got your name," he admits.
She laughs at him, and turns. She holds out a hand. "Uzumaki Sakura, nice to meet you."
He raises his eyebrows. "You're the Uzumaki, then? The hair—"
"Oh, no, I just married in," she corrects, taking a seat. "But I was never part of a clan, and Kanna-chan was so set on rebuilding hers that it only seemed right to take the name, you know?"
He doesn't. "I can imagine."
He takes a sip of his tea when she glances down at her lap, and he looks around. He catches a framed photo out the corner of his eye, brand new and still as saturated as the first printing.
Two women, one of them Sakura and the other, with vivid red hair and black glasses, presumably Uzumaki Kanna. A younger girl, with that same hair and similar glasses, the little sister that Sarutobi mentioned.
And Naruto, looking like he's about to cry with how happy he is.
Kakashi can feel a lump in his throat, and he tries to swallow around it.
"He's a sweet kid," Sakura says, and when he looks at her, she's… sad. The smile is wistful and pained. "Loves a bit of trouble, but he'll grow out of that. The first time Kanna-chan yelled at someone for trying to kick him out of the restaurant we'd gone to, he spent an hour clinging to her like a burr."
That's adorable.
"I don't think he's used to anyone defending him like that," Kakashi says. It's not a deep insight, or one that really needs to be said, but he has no idea how to play at small talk.
Something in Sakura's face spasms, and she drops her eyes. Her mouth twists. "Yes. I noticed."
Kakashi grasps for a topic. "Hokage-sama said you studied with Tsunade-sama."
Sakura looks up and grins, fierce and bright and sudden. "Looking for a spar, Kakashi-kun?"
"Ah—more that I want to know some things about my supposed friend," he says. "But I wouldn't say no to a spar, either."
"Great! One condition, though," she says, and Kakashi braces himself. "I hear you're on good terms with Maito Gai. Get him to fight me."
Kakashi blinks at her. "Eh?"
She grins and flexes one arm. "I'm a brawler, Kakashi-kun. I can't seem to run into him, but I hear he's as good as Taijutsu gets here. I'd like to fight him."
That's—okay. That's fair.
"I'll let him know," Kakashi says. "I think he'd be delighted. Might start crying, even."
Sakura's smile shows a few too many teeth, but she hides it behind her cup. "Good."
Kakashi waits a moment, and then says, "So… that supposedly-a-friend information?"
Sakura's eyes are sparkling again. They're a deep black, just slightly grey-ish, and familiar in ways he can't figure out. It's not a common color, not for civilians, who are generally shades of brown, blue, or green. Almost-black comes in brown for civilians, and grey comes as an offshoot of the paler blues, but a nearly-black with grey undertone says 'clan,' and she said she didn't have one. Paired with the hair… Kakashi's tempted to say someone sowed some wild oats they didn't know about.
"I'm a medic and a brawler; I did learn that much from Tsunade," she starts off. "Let's see… I like dango, my wife, and my work at the hospital. I dislike progress used as an excuse for unethical medical procedures, and those who would hurt me using my loved ones. My goal in life… to protect those loved ones, and to ensure no child needs to enter the shinobi world before their time."
Ow. That last one hits pretty hard.
"You seem to like kids a lot for someone who doesn't look much older than me," he offers. "We're a bit young to be thinking about adoption, huh?"
She laughs at him. Again. "Naruto was adopted as a little brother for Kanna and Karin, not as a son. He knows we're too young, and he's perfectly happy calling us nee-chan."
It doesn't answer the question, and a few seconds of silence make it clear that he was expecting something else.
She meets his eyes, and the tired smile is back. "I've known too many young shinobi who burned out early or lost themselves because people insisted they enter the shinobi world as soon as they were capable of killing, rather than waiting until the child's mind was old enough to handle the strain. Just in Konoha… look what happened last year."
It's a kind interpretation of the massacre, but not necessarily an incorrect one. Kakashi's not the only one that's had the thought, that Itachi's mind was broken by his early introduction to the horrors of shinobi life, rather than some hidden malice.
"So yeah," Sakura sighs. "I want to protect the kids, because nobody could protect my friends. Kanna and Karin come from a branch of the Uzumaki where you can be healed by biting them and absorbing their chakra."
Kakashi carefully doesn't make a face.
"Yeah," Sakura sighs. "It killed their mother, and one of Kanna's motivations for coming to Konoha was that we could get the Hokage's word that neither of them would be used like that again. With Tsunade backing us, it seemed the best solution, since we didn't really want to raise a child on the run, and since Naruto was already here… it just fell together very well."
Kakashi forces some cheer into his voice. "How about we go out for dango? You're new in town, has anyone shown you the best spots?"
"You're not very subtle, Kakashi-kun."
He doesn't twitch. Barely. "I can't say I'm trying to be."
She laughs at him. Again.
#
Uzumaki Sakura is generally well-liked by the people who interact with her. Kakashi meanders along behind, watching as she pauses to chat with people, friendly and bright in a way he'll never be capable of. He thinks back to Sarutobi's statement that both of these women were at minimum high A-rank, and wonders just how two complete unknowns are at a level like that. They'd be in the Bingo book, even as independent operators. Studying with Tsunade explains some of it, but he has to wonder how they got this good, this far, without anyone knowing who they are.
The Hokage seems to know, at least, and Kakashi has to trust that that's enough. Inoichi did the scans and interrogations himself. They're clean.
They're what Naruto needs in his life. They have to be clean.
Sakura's the one that keeps up the chatter as they move through the village, getting dango and… well, they go grocery shopping. Kakashi's been out of town for three weeks, and Sakura apparently keeps finding new things the house needs, like drain cleaner and laundry baskets and nails for hanging up photos.
Kakashi tells her all the things she'll need to know for the cover story, and she tells him more about herself. They couch it in friendly, casual terms, more like acquaintances catching up than two shinobi plotting a cover, but it gets the job done.
At one point, they come across a large cart stuck in a rut—apparently it's been in there for a few hours, and it's off on a side street, which is enough for the owner to skip calling in a D-rank and just trying to get it out himself. It's also more of a small wagon than a large cart, which Kakashi's pretty sure changes the pricing on these things, though it's been long enough since he did D-ranks that he can't be certain.
Sakura lifts the entire cart, likely at least half a ton, over her head. She sets it to the side and smiles and shakes hands and walks off like she didn't just completely humiliate several grown civilian men by making the whole thing look easy.
Definitely Tsunade's.
They keep on walking around, and Kakashi finds himself oddly comfortable. Sakura's easy to talk to, and she seems to know the best ways to work around his blind side without making him feel uncomfortable or triggering unnecessary paranoia, which is rare enough that he's grateful for it. She doesn't make a face when he pulls out Icha Icha at one point, just pulls it from his grasp and smacks him with the paperback, saying "we're in public, Kakashi-kun, at least wait until there aren't children about." It's a better reaction than he's gotten from some people, especially since she was more firm than judgmental or disgusted.
She's a good older sister for Naruto.
They end up heading for the Academy as the day wears on, because Sakura wants to meet her kids—little siblings, legally, but Kakashi can tell she considers them her own—at the gate. He hangs back, hands in his pockets, and while he does follow Sakura up to where she chats with Inuzuka Tsume, the youngest of the actual parents here, he doesn't do more than nod to Tsume.
He does pet Kuromaru, though. That's basically illegal to not do.
When the bell rings to let the kids out, an orange blur catches sight of Sakura and is attached to her in seconds, which is relatively impressive for an eight-year-old that was failing his classes last month.
"Nee-chan, nee-chan! Shika said he didn't believe me when I said you were the strongest shinobi ever!"
"Well, he's probably right about that," Sakura chides. "I am very strong, though. I'm probably the strongest physically in Konoha, right now, at least as far as my punches go."
Naruto's staring at her with wide eyes, disappointment seeping through about having to admit to Nara Shikamaru that he was wrong.
"How about this," Sakura says, dropping to one knee. "Do you wanna show him how totally awesome your Nee-chan is? It's gonna be dangerous."
Naruto's eyes widen more, and now he's vibrating with excitement. Kakashi's not going to pull out his book in a schoolyard, but only because he's never done so around Tsume, and he doesn't know how she'd react. Her disapproval isn't on the table. He really wishes he had something to hide behind, though.
"HEY SHIKAMARU," Naruto yells, so loud that Kakashi wonders how his lungs can manage it. "WATCH THIS!"
He jumps up into Sakura's arms, and Kakashi notices that her fingers are laced, exactly the way people usually prepare a boost.
Sakura shoots little Nara Shikamaru a grin, the kind that would be bloodthirsty if she wasn't filing off the scary serial numbers for the kids, and throws Naruto straight up.
Several. Hundred. Meters.
Kakashi feels his stomach drop out the bottom of his chest and into the Earth's core. He can catch Naruto, he's sure of it, but—
"He'll be fine," Sakura says, tone mild, eyes on the sky. Naruto's already coming back down, screaming and whooping at the top of his lungs. "I've done this before."
What the fuck.
When Naruto is almost back down, and Kakashi's panic is reaching a boiling point, Sakura leaps into the air, catches Naruto, and lands so hard that her feet crack the earth.
The Academy courtyard is completely silent, genuinely horrified, except for Naruto squealing and demanding they do it again.
"Uzumaki-san," Kakashi says. "I think you just took ten years off my life."
"Meh, I'm a medic. I can add them back," she says. She tosses Naruto up again, just a few feet this time, and then swings him around onto her shoulders. "Mind waiting another minute for my other brat?"
"I'm not a brat, Nee-chan!"
"Yeah, you are, but we love you anyway," Sakura dismisses, and Kakashi pretends he can't see the mix of emotions that pass over Naruto's face at the casual declaration of love.
"Maa, I think I can spare a few minutes, Uzumaki-san," Kakashi says, making an aborted move for his book. Damn, but that habit's hard to break right now.
"Eh? Who're you?" Naruto demands. "How do you know my Nee-chan?"
Less than three weeks, and Naruto's already so, so attached to this woman. It's not hard to see why.
"This is Kakashi," Sakura says. "He's a friend of mine. I mentioned him before, remember?"
Naruto clearly doesn't remember, but he pretends he does. It's cute.
Kakashi smiles as best he can with his face covered up as much as it is, and waves. "Hello, tiny human."
"I'm not tiny!"
"You're a kid," Sakura reminds him. "Anyway, Kakashi-kun, please stop calling me Uzumaki-san. We're friends."
"But what if someone thinks I'm trying to steal you away from your lovely wife?" Kakashi asks.
Sakura snorts. "Not likely. I swore off of emotionally stunted geniuses years ago."
"Really?"
Sakura shrugs. "Well. Year and a half, but still. Not my type anymore."
Kakashi shrugs and pulls out his bo—no. No, he does not.
There's a flash of pink at the corner of his vision, and he turns in confusion. It takes a moment for his brain to catch up with his instincts, and then he realizes that the confusion stems from the particular shade of pink being almost exactly the same as his new friend. It's a little girl, Naruto's age, and while it's not quite the same pink, it's very close. Maybe the missing clan link?
Their facial structures are similar, too, but the little girl's eyes are a pale, fresh green, and the confusingly familiar eyes were part of why Kakashi was wondering about sown oats in the first place.
"First time seeing it, huh?"
Kakashi looks back at Tsume and makes an inquisitive noise.
"Same hair, same name. Very confusing the first time Naruto ran outside, dragging poor little Haruno-chan to meet 'the older Sakura,'" Tsume explains. She's amused, more than anything. "I think Haruno's scared of her."
"Did she throw Naruto that time, too?"
Tsume snorts. "Nah, but she was with her wife, and that woman is… well, I wouldn't want to put her in a room with anyone that pissed her off."
Kakashi's interest is piqued. "I haven't seen Kanna around. Is she…"
He trails off, letting Tsume fill in the blanks he doesn't know himself. "That woman is a holy terror, but I guess you already knew that. They put her in Orochimaru's old labs, and she's been scaring off all the assistants they assign her because of poor procedure and all that."
"Impressive. What does that have to do with the little Sakura?"
"Kanna got in the face of a civilian parent who was trying to be a jackass to Naruto, basically," Tsume offers. "Threw around killing intent a bit, made some very loud threats, the kind of stuff civvies don't want their kids hearing. Sakura just stepped up with a smile and asked Kanna to move, and then… well, I couldn't hear what she said, but the civilian looked more scared of her than of Kanna."
"Huh."
"The kids saw it happen," Tsume finishes with a grin, as her own ankle-biter sprints over from a conversation with his friends. "They decided that if Sakura can control Kanna, then Sakura must be even scarier, too."
That makes sense, though Kakashi can't help but think that Sakura's been a weirdly kind person for the short time he's known her. She's good at boxing up the scary bits and just being the kind of woman even a civilian would think is approachable. The same-name thing is actually easier to explain than anything else: pink hair and unimaginative parents.
There's a little girl with red hair and glasses—Karin, he remembers—that comes over from the slightly older class that apparently got held a few extra minutes. Her hair is odd, all spiky on one side and smooth on the other, but she stands by Sakura without hesitation, and eyes Kakashi with suspicion.
He eye-smiles at her and waves. "Yo."
Karin makes a face and looks up at Sakura. "Naruto tried to convince me to help him put thumbtacks on Mori-sensei's chair."
Sakura looks up at Naruto, who's still sitting on her shoulders. "This true?"
"Yeah."
"Wow, no ramen for dinner."
"Wait, no! No, it's not true!"
"Too bad. Karin, good on you for being a snitch. We're having okonomiyaki."
Karin grins brightly, but it's a shade of vicious that doesn't match Sakura. Kakashi wonders if maybe she learned from the other mom. "Thank you, Nee-chan."
"No fair," Naruto whines, and Sakura swings him off to set him down next to Karin so they can bicker more easily. Kakashi isn't particularly interested in the intricacies, so he pays enough attention to notice how Sakura's eyes stray to one lone child on the Academy stairs, still having a conversation with a teacher.
"It's rude to stare, you know," Kakashi says.
Sakura shoots him a dark look, and it's the first he's gotten from her all day. "That boy needs grief therapy."
"I doubt he'll accept it, and with the way things are right now, forcing it might just make things worse," Kakashi tells her.
Sakura's expression sours. "I know that. I just… I keep hoping I can get him to talk to Kanna."
Kakashi frowns, and does the math. "If you're my age—"
"She's a year older than me."
"—then she still can't have been much more than a toddler when Uzushio fell," Kakashi finishes. "He might not accept that as a point of…"
The word he wants is not comparison, but what is—oh. "Connection."
Sakura shrugs, just a little helpless. "It's the best idea I can come up with. She's lost her clan, and her village twice over. It was never by someone as close to her as the incident last year, but…"
Kakashi doesn't poke at the 'twice over' bit. That seems like the kind of question that gets asked in private. "People have tried. He's not letting anyone in."
"He's a child," Sakura grumbles, but it's not anger at him. It's the situation. That much is obvious. "He deserves better."
Kakashi shrugs. He's never been great at emotions, and 'what is an acceptable level of trauma for a child' is definitely not his strong suit. He walked in on his father's suicide when he was Sasuke's age, after all.
Sakura sighs. "Kanna's picking them up tomorrow. Maybe she'll give it a shot."
"Maybe," Kakashi says, though he has no faith in it working. "I have tomorrow off. Any plans, or can I call in that spar?"
"Kakashi-kun, we can do that as soon as the kids have a snack," Sakura tells him, and that sparkle is back in her eyes. "We'll go right out to the training grounds, and they can practice their throwing while you and I pound each other into the dirt."
"Sure," Kakashi says, because he doesn't actually have anything better to do today. "Training ground 17 should be free."
"I'll meet you there!"
#
So.
Yeah.
Sparring with Sakura is just as difficult as Kakashi expected of Tsunade's student.
I have no idea if/when I'll be posting more, but I have some vague thoughts on things I want to touch on. There is... probably not going to be a plot. Most of my plotting is currently wrapped up in GG fic. I post non-Naruto stuff almost exclusively on AO3 (same username), so if you want to know what the hell I've been up to in terms of writing (doubtful, since I've barely posted on FFnet in, uh, literal years), duck on over there.
Things to clarify:
- If timelines don't make sense, it's probably because someone's lying (most obvious case: this Tsunade hasn't spent years with Sakura, because if Sakura and Karin had gotten here years ago, they'd have tried to stop the massacre)br /
- "Kanna" is future Karin. They can't have supposed sisters having the same name without raising suspicions. That said, Sakura gets to keep her name because her hair is a REALLY good excuse. I tried out a bunch of different fake names before my brain was like "Hey remember the little girl with the mirror from Inuyasha? That" and I tried it and it worked so there we /
- Sakura's eyes are black now due to Tragic Backstory Reasons that you can probably guess.