Archive of Our Own ^beta

This work in progress comic can also be found on my tumblr :) Enjoy!

Btw: Kakashi is 5 years old, Gai is 6, and Rin and Obito are 7.

Yep, Kakashi has a cleft lip + cleft palate. That's why he wore a mask from a young age and why he eats so obscenely fast (to avoid infection).

I imagine he does eventually get it fixed -- Rin is likely the one to help him -- but the habit of wearing a mask remains.

I love Gai so much ya'll ;__; <3
Children in the background of the Academy scene include Obito (7), Rin (7), Asuma (9), Anko (6), and Genma (8) :) The teacher is a chunin Hyuuga branch member who never developed the Byakugan.

Ebisu in canon doesn't have a last name, so I extrapolated from his use of sunglasses that he could be an Aburame, but given that he doesn't use bugs, I hypothesized he's a bastard son whose mother kept him a secret until he was too old to be implanted with kikaichu. Therefore Ebisu has the name, but not the ability -- it's partly why he's so obsessed with clans and why he initially only respects highborn ninja in canon.

And yeah, that is a 9 year old Asuma :) He and Kakashi have this sort of 'manly grunt of acknowledgement even though we're children' type relationship. It's pretty cute XD

I decided Minato wasn't Kakashi's first sensei, since he's only ten years older than Kakashi (which would make him 15 right now). I figure Minato got him after Kakashi became a chunin and unbearable to keep around other teams, because, lmao, Kakashi did NOT grow to be a team player XD

So Kakashi's first jonin sensei is one Aburame Shibi (22), who will one day be Shino's dad :V

Mooore of my headcanons! Rin's parents are civilian doctors who specialize in geriatrics, which means they don't see many shinobi since few of them live that long, lol.

Obito met Rin when they were toddlers through his grandma coming to get regular checkups, so that's how they became friends before the Academy :) Obito was basically Rin's eternal dummy patient growing up, so that's why she was so familiar with Obito's eyes -- enough to do freaking field surgery on it at 14.

Meanwhile, the contrast between Kakashi and normal children is highlighted...

Yep, that is Shikamaru's future mother (Yoshino) and father (the Deer-mask ANBU, Shikaku). After the Second War ended, Yoshino was secretly sent to the Hidden Sand Village as an undercover ninja implant to infiltrate their ranks and spy on the nation for the benefit of Konoha. It was likely a ROOT thing because Yoshino was <10 years old. Long story short, Sakumo burst her cover and extracted her, revealing Konoha's deception to the Land of Wind. It's absolutely a political disaster -- doubly so because, if you may recall, Sakumo was the one who killed Sasori's parents, Chiyo's son and his wife (which I hc was the third Kazekage's daughter), so he's already a persona non grata in the Land of Wind.

This isn't the only disastrous mission Sakumo will have, but it's certainly a damn big one.

The Uchiha, btw, is Fugaku (Sasuke's dad).

Uchiha Fugaku wasn't always an asshole! Since this is before the whole 'Uchiha being blamed for the Nine Tails' incident, he's just a grumpy policeguy who is miffed at his former sensei (he was part of Sakumo's genin team) for disappearing for 5 years after the end of the Second War. We'll get into the nitty gritty details of this resentment later...

Though now he's obsessed with kid geniuses, thank you Bakashi XD;; Itachi will definitely be a product of Fugaku trying to recreate Kakashi's success as a child.

Team 'Tsunade didn't show!' consists of Sarutobi Asuma (9), Kato Shizune (9), and Hyuuga Hizashi (11) -- Neji's future dad. He hasn’t been allowed to make chunin while his twin brother and Clan heir Hiashi hasn’t, either. He’s a very bitter boy as he's watched all his teammates get promoted while he’s had to forfeit last minute every time.

The ANBU in the owl mask is Namikaze Minato (15), Naruto's dad :3 He's in his Lost Tower outfit from the Naruto movie of the same name. Asuma's ANBU escort that hasn't been shown yet is Akimichi Choza (21), Choji's future dad.

Shibi totally asked his ANBU friends (who were scheduled to be there anyway) if they could help him out with his genin test, as it was kind of last minute that Kakashi passed and qualified as a potential genin candidate and presumably there was no jonin sensei available for him. So Shibi's just like 'Yo I'll take him...IF he passes my exam.'

His test is ANBU level lmfao XDD

Asuma isn't quite the overprivileged brat Konohamaru will be at this age, but he's still a privileged little shit XD As the youngest son of the longest-running and most successful Konohan Hokage, he's been raised alongside hand-picked playmates and protected by a high-ranking ANBU member nearly 24/7. At this time, he has an idealized view of the world, where justice and truth triumph every time.

In contrast, Hizashi was raised knowing quite keenly that he could have been part of the elite but, by having been born 5 minutes after his twin brother, is instead condemned through the Cursed Seal to serve the Main family until death. He is absolutely bitter about it (and, as we well know, will someday inherit that pessimistic outlook onto his son Neji).

Being part of the same genin team, Hizashi and Asuma will clash a lot about privilege and ignorance as time goes on. Asuma will grow sour and rebellious and Hizashi will grow more subdued and quiet. You can bet your bottom dollar Asuma canonically ditching Konoha for the capital will be related to his increasing frustration with how Konoha and its elite Clans run the place.

It's fun to explore what seasoned adult ninja think and feel, too, to contrast the child geniuses and the up-and-coming baby genins. There's such an immense skill difference between them it's not even funny. But, well, this is the world they're going to be thrown into...war's a-coming.

someone give this baby genin a headband his size lmao

It's my headcanon that the Aburame Clan cycles through different Clan Heads, switching leaders whenever cicada come out of the earth. Shikuro Aburame is Torune's father (the ANBU ROOT Aburame featured in both the manga and anime). Shibi canonically adopts Torune for a while after Shikuro's death, before Danzo takes him.

Bird calls being used to summon ninja / herald special events is canon in Naruto :)

The ANBU featured are the following:
Toad = Jiraiya (30)
Monkey = Asuma's older brother, Konohamaru's future father, currently 18
Snake = Orochimaru (30)
Boar = Inoichi Yamanaka (22), Ino's future dad
Deer = Shikaku Nara (22), we saw him earlier

The Konoha Council is composed of Utatane Koharu (48), Homura Mitokado (48), Danzo Shimura (47) and Hiruzen Sarutobi (47).

The other Clan Heads shown include:
- Akimichi Clan Head, named Torifu Akimichi. He is a canonical Naruto character who was part of Team Tobirama in his youth. Unfortunately he was never quite able to click with his childhood genin team and thus is not in the Konoha Council despite it being composed of his former teammates.
- Nara Clan Head. A terrifying, terribly sexist man, grandfather to Shikaku and great-grandfather to Shikamaru. Survivor of the warring states period, the first shinobi war, AND the second shinobi war due to sheer ruthlessness and cunning. His shadows literally eat people. His wife only bore him daughters, so thus far he has refused to pass on the title of Clan head despite being really fucking old.
- Aburame Clan Head, named Shikuro Aburame. Posesses the infamous rinkaichu, intracellular parasites that are fatal through mere contact. He will be Torune's father, whom Danzo will take for his ROOT divison. In my HC he is also Ebisu's father, though Ebisu was never given the Aburame last name as his mother concealed Ebisu, fearing her child being implanted with the parasites. This makes Ebisu an Aburame bastard :'(
- Yamanaka Clan Head. A relatively progressive man, lacking many of the sexist traits common in men during this time period (*cough* looking at you Nara Clan Head), he allowed his son Inoichi to marry a civilian noble he fell in love with without protest and gave them land to build a flower shop. Suffers from crippling migraines due to his technique.
- Hyuuga Clan Head. Father of the twins Hiashi and Hizashi, he condemned the latter to the Branch Family without hesitation. Though not much of a warrior himself, sporting himself a poet as opposed to an active ninja, he nonetheless is often disappointed in the slow progress of his shy son Hiashi, who will echo this disappointment to his own shy daughter Hinata.
- Uchiha Clan Head. Fugaku's mother, a vicious and cruel woman who takes pride in sharing blood with Madara being his brother Izuna's granddaughter. Its rumoured she killed her husband for being useless (and to gain power). Fugaku KNOWS she killed his father. He is always terrified of her and she is always disappointed in him. You can kind of see why Fugaku will develop this dynamic with his own children. (Ahh, the Uchiha clan. Where your fucked up genes only activate through severe emotional trauma...)

...

:(

... :((

More of my headcanons!
Kushina and Mikoto were childhood sweethearts. Mikoto has been engaged to Fugaku since she was a child, but she's actually a lesbian. She wanted to defy her family but at the end of the day she caved. Kushina was super duper heartbroken 'dattebane :(

Kushina is bi, btw. As for their ages, Kushina is 17 and Mikoto is 19. I hc Kushina is older than Minato (15) because I like older women :V

*continues to juxtapose the casually cute with the casually depressing as fuck*

Yep, the implication is that Hiruzen's father, the infamous Sarutobi Sasuke, destroyed the Hatake farmland and took on the orphaned Sakumo as his pupil. Was it a-la Jiraiya (in that the destruction was unintentional collateral and the adoption a result of guilt), or was it deliberate from the start...? The Sarutobi clan appears to enjoy 'collecting' other clans, after all...

(I mean, the Akimichi, Nara and Yamanaka clans have canonically 15 generations recieving earrings from a Sarutobi. Whose to say the Sarutobi clan haven't cajoled other clans into serving them over the years...)

And, oh, if it wasn't clear -- my headcanon is that Sakumo's genin sensei was Sarutobi Sasuke. Sakumo is a little younger than Hiruzen, so they weren't exactly raised as brothers, but the reason Sakumo has gotten away with a lot of politically iffy stuff in my convoluted background story for him (ie, marrying a foreigner from Iron, ditching Konoha after the second war for five years only to come back without real punishment, etc) is because Hiruzen has a soft spot for him.

Tsunade's PTSD rambling is good for exposition xD;; More on Sakumo's post Second War adventures in the next strip...

And yup, I made Sasori's mom the Sandaime Kazekage's daughter. This explains to me, at least, how Sasori managed to get close enough to kill/puppet-fy the Sandaime Kazekage at such a young age -- the Kazekage was his grandpa!
Sasori's father was canonically the old lady Chiyo's son, and that's why she desperately tried to kill Sakumo in this flashback. (In canon, she attacks Kakashi when she mistakes him for his father, too :V Her grudge was strong enough to last thirty years into the future!)

Sakumo is absolutely a persona non grata in the Land of Wind. You can start to see why him revealing his presence there to save the deep cover spy Yoshino has presently created a political clusterfuck.

Tsunade steals money from baby genin just like Jiraiya did in canon XD;;;

In my hc Kakashi's mother was a samurai :V In canon it's shown that the Land of Iron is a samurai country, and they're pretty alienated from the shinobi countries and their politics (they kind of look down on shinobi from what I can tell?). The only canonical samurai we see actively living in shinobi lands are hired bodyguards, so I figured Kakashi's mom was a young, adventurous samurai lady that wanted to get out of stuffy Iron for a while and got hired protecting Rain country farmland folk in the midst of the second shinobi war.

Sakumo abandoned Konoha for five years to be with her (a desertion that would've given him the death penalty via hunter nin had Hiruzen not vouched for him and his infant son). He really, really loved her :')

So yep, Jiraiya would've eaten up Sakumo's romantic, forbidden, and ultimately tragic relationship. I like to think Kakashi got his love of romance novels from his own nostalgic (partial) understanding of what his parents had before his birth.

Orochimaru is a total creep (as he should be). He's most certainly an ANBU ROOT operative under Danzo's supervision. The reason he was interested in Kakashi's Earth affinity is because he's looking for kids with both Earth and Water affinity for a pet project that just got greenlit. Something to do with Hashirama's Wood release hmm....

Anyway, around this time he and Tsunade are best friends -- like, for real, they are genuinely each other's closest confidant. Unfortunately this also means they enable each other's bad habits and cover for each other's indiscretions without hesitation.

This continues even after Orochimaru ditches Konoha, btw. It's the reason why Tsunade had no trouble finding and talking candidly to 100%criminal-massmurdering-Hokagekiller-fugitive Orochimaru when Naruto was running around trying to get her to become Godaime. She and him were still in amicable contact even all those years later. Its only until Naruto makes her finally chose a higher moral ground that she breaks off that unconditional friendship.

So, until then? Yeah, they are absolutely morally dubious divas together.

Yes, I made Orochimaru's first name Yashagoro as a nod towards his counterpart in the Japanese folklore "Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari", which is where the inspiration and names for Tsunade, Orochimaru, and Jiraiya originally came from.

;___;

Here you might get a better sense of Sakumo and Kakashi's relationship... usually warm and caring, but quite often distant and walled off. You can start to see the traces of the adult Kakashi will become -- trained to repress and resent emotional vulnerability.

As for why Kakashi's mom died...I'll leave it ambiguous, because Kakashi doesn't know what happened to her, either.

(Was she killed? Did she kill herself?
Did Sakumo witness it or did he only see the aftermath...?)

Whatever her end was, it crippled Sakumo...and Kakashi has had to grow up with her shadow.

I borrowed Kakashi's mom's name from an actual historical figure -- Gozen Tomoe was a famous onna bugeisha or female samurai warrior.

The "white rabbit" the Elder Dog is talking about is Princess Kaguya, who is indeed the source of all chakra in the Naruto world. Gives you an idea of just how old this guy is :v

I've been meaning to draw Shibi and Sakumo in a scene together :) They're team politeness, haha!

The running joke of the Aburame being overlooked/ignored is one I love/hate, but at least it gave me an opportunity to depict Sakumo's canonical ditzy, social-anxiety side.

Sakumo has single-handedly raised Kakashi for five years, and only now it's hitting him that Kakashi's time and wellbeing is something he no longer has any control over.

Finally! Pakkun!!! :D
(And yes, his name was originally supposed to be 'Pug-kun', but Kakashi started slurring it together so it eventually became Pakkun. Not a very creative name...but give the kid a break, he's only five years old XD)

As for what Tetsu means by "history repeating itself"... Sakumo raised Kakashi more like a soldier than a son, so Kakashi saying he's going to make Pakkun the best 'ninja' dog ever (as opposed to samurai dog) is echoing what Sakumo may have said about Kakashi at one point.

Yep, Kakashi signed the dog summoning contract with the Henohenomoheji instead of his own because he couldn't write Hatake due to the dog's prejudice against his father and he didn't want to sign with his mom's last name because of his own bias against her -- what a little shit, haha! It's my hot take on why his dogs wear the Henohenomoheji on their outfits instead of any other symbol :3c

And if you spotted Buru with Pakkun atop of his head, good catch! In this take on canon, Kakashi's largest summon animal Buru is also a samurai dog (hence his studded collar, which is characteristic of samurai dogs in my 'verse). That's the last of the samurai dogs that will chose to sign on with our protagonist, though. The rest of Kakashi's dogs will be stray ones he picks up and trains along the way throughout his childhood and young adolescence.

Drawing Kushina is always interesting. The contrast between her bubbly personality and her malicious fox demon chakra is fun to play with.

I like to think the Nine-Tail's insanely huge and abrasive chakra makes all animals feel uncomfortable around her -- shinobi included, hence Kakashi's hostile reaction. Shibi's bugs are also instinctually terrified of Kushina, that's why they crowded around him when she got emotional.

Must be tough living with that when you can't control it so well :( But she's better off than Naruto because at least Kushina knows why people are instinctively scared of her... Luckily Mikoto loves her unconditionally and Minato does too, though at this point in time he's still shy around Kushina hehe. More on their relationship later!

Jinchuuriki were originally war deterrents of a sort, right? Hashirama set it up that way, what with gathering them all and selling them at a price to end the first war. So I thought -- Kushina MUST have been deployed during the third war. It's literally her most important purpose.

So I'm sending her to Wind -- alonsgide Sakumo's corpse -- as a "here's what you asked for and don't fuck with us because we've got a nuclear weapon aimed right at you". I thought it'd be an interesting way to set up Gaara and why Rasa became so obsessed with making him a weapon...

I bet Rasa must've faced a junchuuriki during the war and his shinobi got creamed. It cemented his obsession with "I need one of those stat!! No matter what I must sacrifice!!" For the purposes of this comic, I'm thinking the one he faced was Kushina :V

My headcanon re: Whirlpool's canonical mysterious overnight destruction is that it was destroyed by Kurama.

The Nine Tailed Beast overpowered Mito's age-weakened seal and escaped. Mito survived this split for a couple of days thanks to her Uzumaki Blood^TM. She helped draft the seal that would hold Kurama into a new human container -- and that's where we see the canonical scene between her and young Kushina (who was kind of a last minute sacrifice). But Kurama wrecked the SHIT out of Whirlpool before they could properly re-seal him. Konoha is forever Ashamed because they didn't deploy ninja until the seal had been finished, to avoid unnecessary casualties, and by that time it was too late... Whirlpool had been wiped out from the map.

Whirlpool in canon is an obvious nod to the real-world Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so I figured it'd be appropriate if it was destroyed by the Naruto-equivalent of an atomic bomb, too.

The Flower Shop lady is Yamanaka Ino's future mom, and Inoichi's wife. She's a high-class civilian from the capital. Her dream is to build a flowershop and fill the world with flowers.

Inoichi fell in love with her because of that lovely mental image :) Her mind is like a balm to him, haha. They're pretty cute and very much in love. More on them in the next strip.

Here's Inoichi Yamanaka (Ino's dad; he's the Boar-masked ANBU), and his best friend Shikaku Nara (Shikamaru's dad; Deer-masked ANBU).

They're initially communicating via their joint Shadow Jutsu-Mind Share technique, which we saw them using earlier in the comic. They developed it together and are so in tune that they automatically synchronize with each other without need of hand signs :)

It's not relevant to the comic, but some of ya'll enjoy my headcanons so here's some more:

Shikaku's first love was Inoichi. It was somewhat inevitable, given that they literally shared each other's minds and techniques growing up. Inoichi, for his part, is quite heterosexual and while Shikaku's crush never disgusted him, it always made him feel borderline guilty for not being able to return his friend's feelings. Shikaku therefore got really REALLY good at deflecting and protecting his secrets out of sheer embarrassment and self-loathing; it also made him become interested in learning everybody else's secrets, so he could have ammo against others in case they used his stupid crush against him. Thus Shikaku became a really good spy :V

He's mostly over it as an adult, but that hasn't stopped him feeling lowkey depressed now that Inoichi's married his civilian girlfriend and Shikaku's being pressured to marry a girl, too. He's not 100% gay -- Shikaku's totally into women, their bodies are sexy as hell, those curves, yup, super hot -- but he's definitely more gay than straight, lol.

I wanted to explore the suffering of other shinobi because of the system... but also their complicity because of their loyalty to the system.
They're birds trapped in a cage of their own making...feeding their children to it, keeping each other in check, and quietly allowing all manner of atrocities to happen in the dark...

Also yeah, Danzo is referring to the program that will produce Kinoe/Tenzo/Yamato. He's four years younger than Kakashi so he's 1 year old right now.

... :')

Sarutobi Sasuke was a veteran of the Warring States period, disciple of the legendary Monkey King, and father to Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage. He was well known for his good humour, explosive temper, and incredible charisma. The Sarutobi family have historically been a “collector of loyalties”, and Sasuke was no different, enthralling many clans to his banner and cleverly expanding the Sarutobi’s political power.

He was involved in the destruction of the Hatake farmland during a skirmish with ninja from Lightning some years after the founding of Konoha. It was he who took the newly orphaned Sakumo under his wing and raised him as his soldier. Hiruzen was a few years older than Sakumo, and came to view him as a younger brother; this was not quite mutual, because Sakumo was always deferential and formal, aware of his status as a vassal to the Sarutobi family.

Sasuke, for his part, only ever saw Sakumo as a tool.

rip someone save this overworked/overstressed/overachieving family

Lotsa ladies in this installment because I refuse to let this comic be a meatfest!!

Featuring Rin (7), Anko (6) and Tsume (8) who are all still academy students. Anko does not have a clan, as Tsume claims, and therefore is a "minority" in the shinobi world and discriminated against. Though her pupil-less eyes make me think she's probably some diluted Yamanaka and/or Hyuga clan bastard, and maybe partly why Orochimaru will one day take interest in her... buut that's another story x'D

Biwako Sarutobi (46), the old lady at the end there, is Hiruzen's wife and Asuma's mom :V She's the director of the hospital and an active medic nin / OBGYN.

The medic nin attending Kakashi is a canonical character named Taji whom I have an exceedingly convoluted backstory for. More on that in a bit.

So in my exceedingly convoluted headcanon, Taji the medic nin is Danzo and Utatane Koharu's child (out of wedlock). Neither of them claimed her because it would affect their political career, and Biwako -- their midwife -- grudgingly agreed to keep it a secret. She still kept an eye out for Taji, though, and took her on as a student once Taji demonstrated interest in medicine.

Taji grew up to marry a man with the last name Hagane, and by this time she's already borne her son called Hagane Kotetsu (spiky haired chunin from the Chunin Exams! Remember him? :D).

.....All this started because Kotetsu looks a lot like Danzo and I wanted to explain that XDDD Pineapple haired men...

The other headcanon is that Hayate Gekko (sword-wielding jonin from the Chunin Exams) was born with cystic fibrosis and that's why he grows up to have a chronic cough :3 He's 5 years younger than Kakashi in canon so he's a newborn right now.

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someone protect Gai he is too precious 🥺

HEY HERE'S EVERYONE'S FAVOURITE VODKA AUNT!! Here to rant away the sinister oigins of the Shinobi World Wars!!!!

(Yes, she is indeed giving her team the bell test lmao. Better late than never...? xD)

Tsunade stop traumatizing the children :V

Tsunade continues to be a hot mess :)

Tsunade finally adopts her team!! ...it's a mess just like her XD

So, in canon Shizune is apparently Dan's niece, with the implication that Dan's sister (who died just like Tsunade's brother Nowaki) is Shizune's mom. But the timeline was driving me nuts, and Shizune's too young to have been born then anyway, so I tweaked canon :3 In my headcanon, Shizune is related to Dan and belongs to his clan who has the bloodline limit of Astral Projection (that was unique to Dan in canon but I'm making it a heritable Genkai Kekkei instead), though obviously Shizune didn't inherit it since she doesn't have that ability. I imagine the Kato Clan must be like... an offshoot of the Yamanaka, or vice versa. But that's a headcanon rant for another day :V

And yeah!! The implication is that Jiraiya is the ANBU-san that ate the poisoned dango, nyuk nyuk. It's a callback to the manga when Tsunade poisons him, ahahaha. That's what you get by stealing from kids! XD

Some of my Jiraya headcanons... :) I always wondered how he was allowed to stay behind and train some foreign kids for years without being branded a traitor. I figured there's no way Hiruzen didn't know about the Amegakure kids while it was happening, likewise there's no way he didn't factor them into his long term calculations as they were possible assets to Konoha by being loyal to Jiraiya. Alas, Danzo goes in and messes them up in canon hm.... wonder if that was yet another powerplay between them over the years...

In any case, in my convoluted timeline canon for Five, Jiraiya strayed similar to how Sakumo did after the Second War ended, but he came back a little sooner and worked his shame off by raising the genin team assigned to him (consisting of Minato and two other as yet unmentioned Shinobi). Minato was such a stellar genius that he quickly outgrew Jiraiya and was picked up by Research and Development as a chunin (which, if you recall, Danzo mentioned as being the department that will one day create Tenzo). Minato's job in R&D is mostly recovering and developing fuinjustu, which we know was the long-destroyed Uzushiogakure's speciality.... aaand that's how he met Kushina in the first place. But that's their story to tell :)

Hiruzen is a pretty machiavellian leader, but he's a kind one. He plays favourites with those he's close to and gives them leniency he does not grant to anybody else. Sakumo and Jiraiya (and Orochimaru and Tsunade-- and yes, Danzo, too) all fall under this umbrella. But he's still, at his very core, a leader of a village whose existence depends on the development and deployment of soldiers. And this factory requires a never ending stream of bodies... that is and will always be his priority....

So many passionate people, kind people, fed to a machine that is, by its very nature, uncaring... who started this system, I wonder? And for what purpose? The Will of Fire, hm...

Content warnings for gross old men making doe eyes at each other because I ship it, damnit! (sorry Monkey).

So yeah, I believe Hirzuen & Danzo were bros with benefits, fite me. How else do you explain how much Hiruzen tolerated Danzo's genuinely evil antics, and how long Danzo (who was clearly powerhungry af) took to finally move against his Hokage for real? They respected and loathed and loved each other.

Recall that in my HC Danzo and the other council member Hokaru Utatane had a kid out of wedlock, too-- the medic nin lady who gave birth to Hagane Kotetsu. So all this is building up to me saying that-- I actually think the whole Konoha Council (Hiruzen, Danzo, Koharu, and Homura) were in a mutual complicated four-way polycule and also ruled Konoha behind the scenes together. Old folks fuck too yanno :3

What their legal partners thought of the issue is food for thought. We never see Hiruzen and his wife Biwako together, that I can recall, or talking fondly about one another. I imagine Biwako knew of it and grimaced and chose not to mention it. She seems a very stiff upper lip kind of woman. I hope she eventually found a boytoy of her own, lol.

The quote “strike hard, strike fast, and don’t strike again” is ripped directly from the AMAZING fanfic series Sharingan Rising by weialala. The only Sasuke-centric fic I will read and reread forever. ITS JUST THAT GOOD…!! Give it a gander!

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Shadow cloaks!!! Don't they look like proper ANBU Root now? :3c

The Uchiha policeguy is Yashiro Uchiha, who is a canonical character with like... two lines. The other fella behind him is Yakumi Uchiha who is also a canonical policefella, but I'm making her a girl because I can :V

Yashiro canonically tried to arrest his own kin (Itachi) in the manga so I figured he's a lawful evil kind of guy, stickler for the rules when it suits him and always up for a fight when he thinks he's in the right.

Yakumi is a canon character with no speaking role so I repurposed her. In my headcanon she was born to an alcoholic mom so she's kinda slow at times, but she grew useful to the police force because she exclusively uses her sharingan to document legal stuff. Naturally she can be... easily persuaded to selectively remember events, lol.

As for why this oversized policeguy is being such a dick to Kakashi-- it's canon that Konohan people are prejudiced AF and assholes even to children (stares sadly at Naruto, Gaara, etc, etc) so I figured Kakashi got his own fair share of second-hand disdain after Sakumo's public failure.

Inabi and Tekka are canonical Uchiha characters who are part of Yashiro's 'Arrest Itachi' possee, so I figured they've been a team for a long time.

At this moment, Tekka is just a 15 year old genin-- he's actually from Minato's generation, but he's nowhere near as prodigious (in fact he's actually yet to develop his sharingan), so he works at the police station as a paid intern thanks to his family connections.

Inabi is a 17 year old chunin and also an intern-- she's Kushina's age but never got along with her, probably even bullied her here and there when they were younger. Fun fact! Growing up she was actually SUPER jealous of Kushina because her older and infinitely cooler cousin Mikoto hung out with Kushina all the time instead of her and that made her feel some sort of way.

Oh! And yeah, in case you forgot, Senju Tobirama / the Nidaime is the one that created the police force in the first place, to keep all the Uchiha under his thumb, and also the one who wrote up all the rules and laws of Konoha upon its founding. So he's the reason why the Uchiha were unable to seek revenge against his brother Senju Hashirama / the Shodaime after he killed Madara, the most beloved Uchiha Clan Head. 'Cause it was "martial law", aka, wartime laws. How convenient for him, huh?

There are many Uchiha that still resent this, very, very deeply. Yashiro is among them, and bends that odious Senju's rules very deliberately in a lawful evil way. It's permitted because it's still within the constraint of the law, and it goes unquestioned because the Uchiha are the ones enforcing the law...

How 'bout those Uchiha huh??? Ahahaha... they're fucked up.

Fugaku was a shit dad but you gotta understand-- he had a terrible example.

Anyway, regarding Kakashi's prison cellmate: yep! That's Yoshino! The sand spy soldier Sakumo rescued on his ill-fated mission. She has the same seal on her tongue that Sai will have in canon (hexagram " ䷠ " meaning 'concealment'). It's a ROOT seal for silence! Wonder how she ended up in civilian jail...? Hmmm....

Fugaku is canonically well known as a man who is very difficult to sneak up on...

He used the Amateratsu Black Flame Technique btw!

Yoshino drops some unsolicited advice onto Kakashi, whom she mistakenly assumes is a green ROOT soldier like she probably once was...

ANBU!Nara is doing the sign language equivalent of "what a drag" / "how troublesome" / "mendokuse" that her grandson Shikamaru will one day be fond of doing because I like the idea of certain catchphrases transcending generations xDDD

I like the idea of Madara paralleling Kushina: he loved Hashirama like she loved Mikoto, and Hashirama chose his family over him like Mikoto chose her family over her, but their ultimate response was different-- Madara chose to go against Konoha while Kushina chose to uphold it.

Kurama, for his part, has been an unwilling witness to multiple generational dramas and finds all human conflict borne of such emotional pettiness worthy of derision. Thus far no one has ever shown kindness or compassion to him so he does not know how to extend it to another, much less to someone he views as his captor.

Yep, Fugaku is a healer :) He's nowhere near as prodigious as Sakura or Tsunade, in fact, he's solidly mediocre in that area, but he was his genin team's medic nin back in the war. He taught himself the basics as a kid to hide the physical evidence of damage to his person, because he was supposed to look pristine at all times. He wasn't so good at hiding the emotional damage done to his person, though. He's gotten better at it.

Don't feel like Fugaku being treated like shit by his guardians despite being a Clan Heir was a rare thing, tho! Shikaku's grandfather was a particularly nasty human and, when he deigned to pay attention to his only male heir, was solidly horrible to him too. Shikaku's response was to get better at hiding.

Yay! Childhood trauma for everyone! :D

Torture and Interrogation (T&I) is a separate branch from the Military Police Force. They're kinda like... the CIA and FBI for Americans? International vs. National security, as it were. So they don't communicate much due to internal rivalries and it can cause problems. Yoshino's exploiting that for fun and also leverage-- she WAS a spy after all.

...

Baby Gai is a treasure and I love him. Therefore I must wreck him <3

I bullshit-no-jutsu'd the laws there asjkhtak

...

The implication here is the Nara ROOT ANBU, who Shikaku earlier established is his long thought dead mother, is actually also Sakumo's old genin teammate, Shikata.

So on this final, fateful mission, every single one of Sakumo's old genin teammates are together again...

If you guys are interested, ya'll can read a bit more about Team Sarutobi on my tumblr :)

Stickler-for-rules Kakashi starts now :')

I hurt my own heart thinking about Gai becoming a genin, just for Kakashi to become a Chunin and leave him behind... So Gai works hard to become a Chunin!!! But Kakashi's a baby ANBU by then... they finally sync up when Kakashi downgrades back to Jonin rank, so they can be proper equal rivals again :D