Chapter Text
The first thing Kakashi noticed when he opened his eyes was the fact that he was still alive.
Of course, being alive was something Kakashi was painfully used to- he'd lived through his years as a child soldier, through dozens of missions, through the Kyuubi attack... After Minato-sensei had died, he had wished for death and finally, at age seventeen, it had been handed to him.
Only... something strange had happened right before the knife met his chest. Memories of his life had flickered through him- his father's suicide, Obito's death, Rin's death, Minato-sensei and Kushina-san, the Kyuubi, the blonde infant- but it hadn't stopped there-
Memories where he'd survived through Orochimaru's invasion, through Pain's, through the mess of the Fourth War and then... he'd become Rokudaime in his early thirties.
Then the knife had twisted in his chest and he'd died.
And now he was left in a state of complete and utter confusion.
(And frustration. Deep, seething frustration because as much as Gai liked to agonise dramatically over his book choice of 'How to Die as a Shinobi', he really did want to die.
Painfully or not, he didn't care. Even if he was to be captured and tortured to death, he would have felt it was only right- that at least he was finally getting some of the pain he deserved.
The only reason why he hadn't truly swung the blade at his throat was because it'd be cowardly like his father, and Obito's eye would have nowhere to go... Rin's last words would also have no one left to haunt.)
He stared at the ceiling- stained and bare and flat- for a solid minute before he remembers to move, remembers to breath and function again. Kakashi heaved himself up and immediately felt a displacement in his weight and body-
His hands were too small- his callouses were different- his Sharingan- he realised as a hand trembled against his face. Gone. Whipping his head back and forth, his eyes latched onto every object in sight- not many, and that was strange because his little Genin had long since made it colourful and gross, but he loved it- he didn't have Genin-
With a grimace, Kakashi stumbled to his feet, adjusting his balance a moment later as he acclimated to his new body. His bare feet made light 'thup-thup' noises as he padded towards where his bathroom should be.
This was his flat, yes, but this was the flat Kakashi had before Minato-sensei had dragged him into ANBU. He wasn't an idiot, and paired with the disorienting height difference, this apartment, and an array of memories that didn't belong, he could gather that he was either-
A child stared back at him in the reflection.
-In an absurdly strong Genjutsu, in a horrifically realistic nightmare, or shoved back into time.
Nausea rose up in his throat and he had barely any time to shove down his mask before he threw up in the toilet.