Kakashi sat at a not-so-seedy bar, drowning his sorrows. Sorrows that mainly stemmed from this world's price of alcohol, mind you. The action itself was very contradictory, but alcohol. In his mind he knew the price made sense in the context of yen, but spending 800 of something on a cup of anything just felt wrong to his frugally minded self. It wasn't the smoothest cup of whatever it was, but it was the cheapest thing on the menu. The menu, like just about everything else in this world, he could barely even read.
The writing here was strange. While he was relieved beyond belief that it was a writing system somewhat similar to his own, it was still quite difficult to read most of the time. To best describe it... Kakashi would say it was very simplified. It was as if a child in the Academy got fed up with learning kanji and started to arbitrarily combine strokes and radicals. It would take some getting used to.
Kakashi took a sip of his drink. It wasn't very strong, but he was just starting to feel that pleasant warmth in the back of his throat.
The morning after his encounter with Matsushita, Kakashi decided to go to the library. The impressively sized building turned out to be a treasure trove of information. Reading troubles aside, he was able to find detailed books about this world's history, including influential figures and events. It turned out this was not Japan Country, just Japan. And there were many, many other countries out there. In those many, many countries, roughly 6,000 languages were spoken. And he'd somehow landed in the country that spoke his. But that didn't make him any less fucked.
On the surface, this world wasn't really all that unfamiliar. They had wars and political spats. This world was much bigger than his own, but somehow had less bloodshed. Active wars were not terribly common, and most countries had agreements of some sort or another. Shinobi were not used to fight battles. Instead, civilians were trained in the art of weaponry that could function without the use of chakra.
While the people here attempted to keep the superficial traditions alive, actual shinobi and samurai hadn't existed for roughly 150 years. And he wasn't even sure that this world's shinobi knew of the existence of chakra.
In fact, it didn't appear that chakra was used here at all.
Kakashi was still able to use chakra. He could scale walls and disguise himself without a problem. It made it hilariously easy to gather whatever information he needed when he was consistently against civilians with no knowledge of his abilities.
Kakashi took another sip, watching the civilians walk by on the street. Every now and then he could sense someone with barely civilian chakra levels, let alone that of a shinobi. He wondered if they had other physical abilities that made up for the lack of chakra-
"Hatake-sensei! Did something happen to your eye?"
Kakashi was not caught off guard often. In fact, he could probably say he never was at all. But he would give himself a pass, just this one time, because walking toward him was none other than Iruka-sensei.
"Iruka-sensei..." slipped out of his mouth, a hand unconsciously moving up to touch the eyepatch and adhesives he'd bought earlier that day that were working to conceal his scar. This was strange. Iruka-sensei always called him 'Kakashi-san,' never 'Hatake-sensei'... The man approaching him laughed.
"Don't let the kids hear you call me that, or I'll never hear the end of it! I know you're not feeling great, but did you fall or something? Can I sit?" Iruka-sensei rambled. Kakashi gave an absent nod and the man sat down at the table.
Once Kakashi got over the initial shock, he realized that this man looked much different than what he was used to. The first thing he noticed was that the scar across his nose was faint. It looked much shallower than he remembered.
The next thing he noticed was that his hair was much shorter. His signature ponytail was gone, replaced with a simple, short haircut. It was somewhat reminiscent of how Tenzo kept his hair, short enough that it spiked up while not being too short.
The third thing he noticed was that Iruka-sensei was not in his Chunin attire. And Iruka-sensei was never not in his Chunin attire. The familiar green vest was replaced with a sleek black jacket and the ever comfortable blue pants were replaced with black slacks. He was also wearing a collared shirt with a tie, which solidified Kakashi's realization.
This Iruka-sensei was not his Iruka-sensei. Although this Iruka-sensei clearly knew him. That only meant one thing. His mind started working a hundred miles per hour. If there was an Iruka duplicate in this world that knew him, that must mean that there was a Kakashi duplicate wandering around as well. And although his duplicate was almost certainly not a shinobi, he may be intelligent enough to help him think of a way to get back to his home world.
Iruka-not-Iruka was just coming to the end of a sentence that Kakashi wasn't paying attention to, but he nodded anyway to keep appearances. Not-Iruka paused and took a good look at him.
"Are you sure you're feeling alright?" he asked. Kakashi let out a small 'hm,' not wanting to be out of character. Clearly, that was not the right thing to do, because the other man's face frowned with worry. That was interesting. Apparently Not-Iruka cared about Not-Kakashi quite a bit.
"You don't look like you're feeling too well..." Not-Iruka started. Kakashi was startled at the touch of the back of a hand against his forehead. The soft skin was cool against his own, a stark contrast to the warm summer air. He then remembered the mask he was wearing. Back in his world, a mask was common enough. Nobody thought twice about a person wearing one. But he didn't have his normal mask. He had on a medical mask, which people of this world wore when they were feeling sick.
"Maa, I'm feeling much better now," he responded quickly.
"It was bad enough to call in sick," Not-Iruka said in his familiar Teacher Voice, "Are you sure you should be up and about? You seem a little out of it."
Shit. "Not at all," Kakashi said, "I just have a lot on my mind."
"Whatever you say," Not-Iruka responded. He was clearly still worried for his friend, but Kakashi had a cover to keep. Kakashi continued to watch the people go by and took another sip. His previous buzz had completely vanished now that he was on alert. Such a sad loss.
They sat for a while in silence before Not-Iruka started to get up.
"Will I see you in school tomorrow?" he asked. Kakashi took a second to process. Were Not-Iruka and Not-Kakashi students? Or...
Then it hit him that Not-Iruka had called him 'Hatake-sensei' when he first approached. He was so used to the title that he barely even noticed it anymore. Could they possibly be teachers? It would be ironic that their professions would span across dimensions. Though Kakashi had a feeling they were a very different type of teacher in this world.
"I'm sure I'll be feeling more myself by then," Kakashi gave a non-answer. Hopefully that would keep Not-Iruka satisfied while keeping his cover. He got a 'hm' in response.
"Do you want me to walk you home?"
Kakashi almost said yes. It would be a surefire way to find out where Not-Kakashi lived in order to enlist his help. Then again, his duplicate was clearly sick today, and was most likely at home, in bed. If Not-Iruka walked him home, he would want to make sure he made it in the door alright. And that would clearly be a problem if 'his' dwelling was already occupied.
"No, I'll be alright," Kakashi said. It would be for the best. Being a shinobi in a world where they didn't exist, it would be easy enough to figure out where his new target lived. Kakashi would just have to plan a reconnaissance mission in the near future.
Not-Iruka pulled out his small communication-box (cellphone, Kakashi reminded himself) and excused himself. If Not-Iruka was walking as opposed to taking a bike or car, that meant he had to live close. It's not like he could run at any kind of speed like a shinobi could. But if Not-Iruka lived close, that meant that hopefully the school he worked at was near. And if he and Not-Kakashi worked at the same school, that would mean that Not-Kakashi lived somewhere in the vicinity as well.
Once Not-Iruka was out of sight, Kakashi downed the remainder of his drink, left some money on the counter, and started to figure out what the hell he was going to do next.
Man Jumps Out Of Window, Commits Robbery
Kizamu City. A man who had been transferred to the hospital after a possible suicide attempt last Thursday afternoon had awoken without complication. He proved to be violent, attacking hospital staff before jumping through a fifth story window.
Nurse Watanabe Aiko was the attending nurse at hand. Watanabe told us in an interview, "He was able to knock out three male nurses, and then jumped out the window. But he somehow went… up?"
It is believed that the suspect had scaled the outside of the building to the roof.
Witness Tanaka Kenji claims to have been assaulted by the suspect later that afternoon.
"He just showed up in a paper gown and said he needed some money. I didn't have any to spare and I said so, but then he attacked me! When I woke up, I was in my underwear and my wallet was missing," Tanaka said in a brief interview.
According to Watanabe and Tanaka, the suspect appears to be a 25 to 35 year old man who is roughly 175 to 185 centimeters. He has grey/white hair and was last seen wearing dark blue jeans and a black jacket.
If you have any pertinent information on the suspect, please call 110 and notify the proper officials.
This story is currently developing. More details will come out as they are released by the police.
