New self indulgent age regression/back from the dead fic idea just dropped, hear me out:
Because reasons (and an ancient, ritualiatic Uzumaki seal involving the shinigami) Kakashi gets zapped back into being a teenager— but, alongside that, it seems that both his father and grandmother too were brought back from the dead at around the same age.
Putting Kakashi in truly THE situation most ever as he interacts with a world he no longer fully recognizes, with his dead father who doesn't know who he is (let alone remembers killing himself from shame) and a dead grandmother neither he nor his father ever really knew in a similar position but times 10 because this bitch is from not only deep in the warring states era, but another country all together
They're all around 17-18 I think, which means;
Kakashi (now 17) is around the peak of his depression spiral, slowly approaching the start on the descent to the silly little guy we know and love from Naruto. Or at least, he was about to slowly begin to enter that arc of his life, before he seemingly (from his perspective) got zapped into a future filled with people claiming to be his friends, students, colleagues and even worse— his father.
He's extremely bothered by all these people— people wearing faces of those he knows but acting all too happy to see him —and many of said people, especially his friends, are bothered to see him, once again, at his worst.
Kakashi is getting BLASTED with all the bad news of the past few years; The Uchiha massacre, the apparent fact he failed his students (Sasuke mostly, though Kakashi remains convinced he failed Naruto and Sakura as well— which is hard to protest when, from his point of view, the elder him had literally sent them both away to other teachers); the many new deaths of people he knows that must have inevitably occured in the years between; The fact he failed his ANBU team, with Shisui dead and Itachi a defector and murderer; Orochimaru's defection and eventual assassination of the Hokage; Danzo being, apparently, still alive and in power (when Kakashi had just been ordered by him to kill the Hokage and ultimately resolved to tell Sarutobi instead of kill him)
All that and more! He is not having a good time.
I'd want to focus especially on the team ro dynamic, with them (along with Gai, though Kakashi still tries to avoid him most of the time at that age) being the most stable group of people in his life. Kakashi is looking around and wondering where his teammates may be in this new era. Almost everyone else is still here (and how lucky is that?) He knows there's a very real chance they may be dead, but he can't help but hope that his teammates have survived (no one tell him lmao)
I want to see him deeply, visibly shaken by Itachi's defection and the Uchiha massacre, as he had truly begun to warm up to the kid and had taken his position as his captain very seriously for several reasons— the duty of it, of course; Itachi's age certainly played a factor; Kakashi's pre existing relationship with Mikoto through Kushina and his debt and duty to the Uchiha as a whole via the sins of his gifted eye; the fact Itachi's age, skill and position reminded him of himself... the list goes on
Kakashi is gravitating towards Tenzo and Gai, but mostly Tenzo I think. He isn't quite in the headspace to truly get down w some youthful challenges, but Gai remains a safe space to him always— while Tenzo is this familiar figure and teammate Kakashi interacted with most regularly, and who, from Kakashi's perspective, is (or should be) used to how he is/gets on the daily
He physically can't look at Naruto or he's going to have a break down about it. He's trying not to be obvious about it but he's 100% at risk of a full system shut down if Naruto tries to talk to him. Naruto wants to know what his deal is soooo bad
And ofc that isn't even TOUCHING on how his father is here and almost is age????? So many old wounds are getting VIOLENTLY ripped open and Kakashi is, yet again, at risk at a full system shut down
He doesn't even know what to do with his apparent grandma. The only good news there is, since they don't have a pre existing relationship, they have a blank slate there, so at least that's one person in this mess he's not gonna spiral over.
Sakumo (now 18) is a happy, cocky, up and coming powerful Konoha nin who only just started to truly make a name for himself as the White Fang. He dreams of one day having a family of his own but doesn't know what to do with this future where he apparently did have a family, a son, even, but he lost that family through his own actions— and went so far as to kill himself out of shame for something no one seems to want to tell him too much about
Sakumo is probably the most stable Hatake here, he'd honestly be having a pretty fun time (and probably is, to an extent) if not for the whole "so apparently I killed myself and orphaned my son. Which has very clearly done terrible and long lasting damage to him, who seems to be dealing with a lot in general and on the path to follow me to the grave".
So that's kinda putting a damper on things.
Sakumo wants so badly to be a father, and after the initial 'oh god I'm too young to be a dad' awkwardness he very much wants to get to know Kakashi— but of course can barely get Kakashi to meet his eyes, let alone get words out of him, forget about a conversation. But he's trying very hard to approach him, and wants nothing more than to learn about him.
The age thing doesn't bother him as much as it probably should (and it's definitely bothering Kakashi), it's a bit awkward but he can quickly get past it as he focuses on his true goal of getting to know his son
Which is around the time he thinks to ask about his good friends, the sannin :)
That. Goes about as well as you'd expect.
So anyways, Sakumo makes it his personal mission to bring Tsunade and Orochimaru back to the village <3
I want the comedy of it being revealed that Sakumo and Orochimaru went on at least a handful of dates or smthn like that. I think it'd be hillarious and I very specifically want reactions to this knowledge. Unfortunately Sakumo is NOT cool with the whole child murder experiments thing tho, but he's sure he can talk sense into Orochimaru— they've always been a reasonable person, after all, and there's nothing reasonable about what they're doing now.
And, of course, upon discovering Sakumo was brought back from the dead but younger, Orochimaru is gonna want to dissect the FUCK out of him. But he might still have some lingering fondness for the man, so out of respect for that he could settle for dissecting the grandmother instead. Isn't he so generous?
I think the timeline for this would be set in the middle of Naruto trying to convince Tsunade to come back to the village: which means Sakumo is 1000% asking to be sent on that mission too. And they might even send him, considering their history? Like, it'd be a valid tactic!
Plus, they're gonna want Jiraiya to come back to look at the seal that started this mess, and Tsunade could be a big help to it too.
Speaking of: all of the sannin are going to lose their collective SHIT over Sakumo. There will be NO normal reactions, I need to see these guys going THROUGH IT about his return— especially his return as this happy, youthful young man with big shinobi dreams and a heart that still cherishes their friendship so dearly <3
But Sakumo isn't free from his own parental drama, as he reunites with a mother he can barely remember— who died on a mission when he was six, leaving him alone with an uncle who promised to take care of him only to then too die shortly after. He doesn't have very many memories of the woman herself, though he has stronger memories as the clan as a whole and some blurry, half conjured visions of the simple joy and warmth of those first years, when the clan was whole and happy
Meeting her now is... something. He doesn't really know how to feel about it, but finds himself oddly... Shy? Almost? And oh so desperate to recall those buried memories and all the little things of his clan— the people, the culture, the uncle who's face he's somehow able to remember better than his own mother's —that he's forgotten as the years passed by
Give me a 'reconnecting with your roots and culture' arc like YESTERDAY please.
I do actually think Sakumo and Haruka, especially now at the same age, would get along very well once they got past some things first, which would be interesting to see too.
Haruka (now 18) is a strange, violent, and deeply troubled girl who thinks the concept of a shinobi village is blatant insanity.
She comes not just from the warring states era Iron Country, but from the depths of a blood hunter prison (aka the Dog Pound) where she, along with countless other kidnapped shinobi children, have been trapped for years now. She was about to make her grand escape, to finally help tear down the prison that kept her and her kin, and is not pleased to have been ripped away from the grand revenge she's planned for so long.
Although at least she can find comfort in the fact that, with how the seal works, she wasn't truly stolen from her time and the revenge will still have— wait a fucking second stop the fucking train did you just say she had a son?!
She's switching wildly between being this feral girl who spent most of her upbringing locked in a prison centered around breaking young shinobi, where she was regularly made to fight and kill others her age or younger — and this confident, powerful, go with the flow natural leader who'd go on to be chosen as clan head in only another year or so.
She's similarly swapping between being deeply suspicious and cautious of every single thing around her and treating this all like one big joke and vacation. It's almost impossible to get a proper read on her or what she truly thinks about this all
She is a fucking nightmare of a girl who has no respect whatsoever for the village system, placing her full belief in instead the individual clan systems, and is all too loud about her many opinions of Konoha and the modern age.
She thinks the village is weird, and that the fact it seems to have worked to improve things overall for shinobi even weirder. She is not taking kindly whatsoever to the idea that the Uchiha were wiped out— especially coming off the back of the dog pound, who's entire purpose leaned heavily on the idea of wiping the Hatake, along with many other wild clans, out in a similar manner.
I think she'd actually have some interesting things to say when it comes to the topic of Itachi and Sasuke as "the last Uchiha"— like, from the perspective of 'this sort of forced scarcity is what the bloodline hunters dreamed of attaining'. Could just be an interesting conversation there
She would also, notably, go absoloutley fucking BALLISTIC at the mere concept of ROOT— and then doubly so, when she learns many of their programming tactics were actually directly taken and inspired from the methods used at the dog pound, as the very few documents remaining revolving that mess (aka the ones that the Hatake, among the other clans involved back in the day, didn't manage to destroy) ended up in Danzo's hands, and he was very happy to take notes from his predecessors when it comes from kidnapping and brainwashing shinobi children
Not that the dog pound could have ever dreamed as doing it so effectively as Danzo eventually managed to.
Anyways, Haruka is believed to be infertile and would infact lose her goddamn mind over the knowledge that she has a son. Not just a son, but a grandson— both of them powerful and strong in spirit, men she would be proud to know, let alone have as part of her lineage. She so, so, so badly wants them both to like her. Almost desperately, even. She's for sure going to make a fool of herself a few times trying to get them to like her— I fear she's about to come on way too strong
I think it'd be interesting if, as she's swinging wildly between moods, Sakumo is drawn to that laid back woman he can see— the one that reminds him of what little he remembers of his mother. While Kakashi is drawn and feels safe with— almost even understood by— that wilder, violent her who shows distain for Konoha's flaws and has clear, lasting damage from the things she's been through.
Rip to Sakumo tho, because he can ask about his clan and uncle all he wants but Haruka doesn't know shit about almost all of the names he can remember (of which it's mostly just like 3, hers included, and the other two not even being born yet from Haruka's perspective)
Haruka also actually interacted with Tsunade semi regularly as a child— and while Tsunade is in a similar boat of Sakumo of barely remembering her, I think it'd be neat if she remembered her just enough to get a small reaction out of it. They're actually directly blood related— as Haruka's twin was Hashirama's mother, but literally no one, including Haruka herself, has that knowledge right now, so that's just a sort of funny fact floating around waiting for someone to realize
Then, of course, comes the issue of her learning her entire clan save them is dead by decades. Not only that but, looking into it, that they had been killed in battle as a direct result of bad orders from the Hokage— aka, they were lead to their deaths by the village itself.
Not gonna go well. Not one bit. It never would have gone well but she is also coming directly from a time where people are actively trying to wipe out her clan— and now, it seems, they have.
Also! I want Haruka to see Kakashi's tano, the one belonging to his father, and recognize it as her friend Maru's blade. Maru being her closest friend and ally in the dog pound for many years, and his blade having been given to him by his teacher before being stolen by one of the bloodline hunters of the pound. Maru bitches about it constantly and was very eager to get his blade back via indiscriminate slaughter
And, recognizing the blade and learning it was passed down to Kakashi via Sakumo via that mysterious uncle she doesn't recognize the name of— having, according to Sakumo's hazy memories, been given to him by his father— realizes that,
a) Maru was able to get his blade back in the end
And b) the uncle in question must either be the son of Maru— which just kind of makes her get emotional about it all all over again
In general just. Haruka Sakumo and Kakashi using the few, limited clues each of them has to piece together the shared tapestry of their family history <3
I think itd be neat, is all
Anyways I'm not too sure on the exact details of how this story would go (save for the idea of them going to try and drag Tsunade back / getting general reactions from people/probably some ROOT and anti-Danzo stuff) but I really love the idea and set up of this super complicated and layered family dynamic going back generations suddenly being shoved into a room together and turned back to some of the most difficult times in (at least 2 of) their lives. And them interacting with each other and the baggage that they have with each other even as they don't know the details of what they'd done/would do in the future
I also just think the idea of the dynamic of this super depressed kinda fucked up Kakashi, his happy adrenaline junky dad trying to make a name for himself amidst a shinobi war, and his ancient, traumatized, really weird and feral grandmother from a time before Madara Uchiha was even BORN being stuck in a room together. I think the dynamic would go super hard and be super interesting and I'd love to see it
As per usual, I have a few more thoughts but I'm getting a headache, so I'll leave it here fori now but I might come back to this later. Thanks for listening to my rambles!
