夢

はたけカカシ

はたけカカシ
Kakashi Hatake

...---...

Three Weeks Ago

Kakashi Hatake cursed. He looked to his ninken, his eye saying, Pakkun, I said Plan F.

But said ninken only ignored the comment and sprang up as Raideshi entered the living room with a pan of pigs wrapped in blankets (not..literally. You know, the food). All the ninken crowded around him and barked in happiness. One even hopped on his lap as he set the pan on the coffee table and sat down.

How the heck did he get so smitten with them?

"So, about my genin," Raideshi stated, eating one of the snacks he'd made. "They're really horrible. And I was hoping you'd give a few pointers--"

Why does he have to act like we know each other so well? Kakashi thought as he absentmindedly flipped through his book, trying to appear uninterested to make Raideshi leave. Unconsciously, he found himself biting the snack, and held back a hum of delight. Raideshi smacked his lips together as he explained, ate, and fed the ninken.

"--because they don't seem to listen all that well," Raideshi continued. "They're a bunch of misfits, but once they learn to get along with each other and control their power, they'll become a powerful team. I know it."

That was another thing Kakashi Hatake hated about Raideshi--he was so sure about something. And then, he ends up being right. Was he able to predict the future? Kakashi had no idea.

"...so, you read Icha-Icha?"

...---...

"Sasuke-kun--!"

"Teme--!"

"--notice me--!"

"Hn."

"--can beat you!"

Kakashi Hatake's head throbbed with a headache. He itched to punch the girl in the face (if that would shut her up) and the other two (to shut them up as well), but resorting to such aggressive measures was definitely not his style. And yet, it seemed as though every second, they grew even more annoying.

He looks to Raideshi, wondering how has he not left them yet? But he looks in the man's eyes, and finds that Raideshi's view of his team is different from Kakashi's.

From Kakashi's point of view, all he sees is a group of troublemakers that have no cooperation. The pinkette is too focused on her crush. The blonde is too ambitious and is too challenging around his rival. The raven haired boy is so dead-set on his revenge, he doesn't bother conversing with any of his teammates.

This team is doomed to fall.

But when he looks at Raideshi, all he can see is hope. Raideshi can see, through all the flaws and consequences, the potential of his team--something Kakashi has given up trying to identify. There is no point having this team set up--

Bringing in a civilian girl with a jinchuriki and the last Uchiha meant chaos. There was no connection between them, unlike how Kurenai's team were destined to become trackers (with Hinata's Byakugan, Kiba's ninken and nose, and Shino's tracker bugs).

Simply put, there was no...purpose of their team.

And seeing that, Kakashi saw nothing in them that Raideshi saw.

But the man was so blinded by this hope, as if he were dedicating his entire life into making them a team,

That Kakashi Hatake didn't bother to intervene.

...---...

At the end of the day, Kakashi Hatake had finished picking apart Raideshi like a science experiment. Every detail he found, he tried to find a reason behind it--why Raideshi read the same books as him, why he had a yellow scarf stuffed inside his kunai pouch, why he had a summoning scroll of his own (Kakashi nearly got his arm chopped off when trying to grab it), why his fingers normally grazed the bottom half of his face (as if something were missing)--it was a small thing he did, yet Kakashi picked it up in a span of three hours.

Then he figured it out:

Raideshi was him.

A carbon copy.