Hatake Kakashi was not, by nature, an agreeable person.

It was understandable, to an extent. Combine an already prickly personality with the lifetime of special treatment that came with the label of 'genius' (with liberal amounts of mental and physical trauma, to boot) and the results were inarguably... not good. Kakashi had long suspected that his superiors tolerated his quirks of perpetual tardiness and porn addiction because he could be far, far worse.

As a result, the group of people that Kakashi considered precious to him was pitifully tiny. They ranged greatly, from red haired women with a propensity for physical violence to dark-haired brooders with a lust for revenge. Locking all (dozen or so) of them into a room would result in grievous injury to human bodies and landscape alike.

But for all their differences, they all tended to be remarkably similar. For one, they were incredibly tenacious. They were determinators to the end, and probably cared more than was good for them.

They were also, for the most part, very dead.

Being a genius, Kakashi saw patterns easily. He could read an enemy's next movement even without Obito's eye. He could predict whether or not a particular literary hot springs scene would end in copulation or a decapitation (which was one of the reasons he preferred Icha Icha over its competition - it was realistic.)

Obito turned from idiot teammate, to friend, to a shallowly engraved name on the Memorial Stone. Rin turned from useful medic nin with an annoying crush, to friend - lifeline - someone who understood, to cooling corpse still impaled on his trembling hand.

After Minato-sensei and Kushina, Kakashi could no longer ignore that particular pattern. He threw himself head-first into ANBU, because there was no risk of caring too much here, not when death and loss were expected on every mission.

And he continued stubbornly, although with increasing disbelief, to ignore the idiot in green spandex who seemed to have set up permanent post outside of the window of Kakashi's apartment.

Maito Gai had long occupied a periphery position in Kakashi's life. Their fathers had been friends, and so he had seen the boy occasionally during childhood. But after the other boy had failed his first attempt to enter the Academy, and continued to show little to no skill in any discipline other than taijutsu...

Kakashi had been incredibly unimpressed. That knowledge had just made Obito's defeat at Gai's hands even more damning.

He had never taken Gai's constant challenges seriously, occasionally agreeing to a game of 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' so that his team could get started on training. For whatever reason, the man continued to claim him as his 'Eternal Rival' regardless.

Still, Gai was good friends with Rin, a result of the constant visits he paid Team Minato in order to challenge Kakashi. For her sake, Kakashi bore his presence on several three-man missions. Eventually, he had even won his respect, after a particularly disastrous mission that almost ended in all of their deaths.

As loud and irritating as the man was, Gai was a good person – better than Kakashi was, anyways. He thought then that, had Obito lived, the Uchiha would have gotten along well with Gai – their personal philosophies and ideals were too similar for them not to have.

And then, Rin had died, and it had all gone to hell. Most of the other shinobi of their generation avoided Kakashi from then on, which was understandable – Rin had been universally liked, and it had been him who had killed her.

Gai, on the other hand, had taken the complete opposite approach. After the Kyuubi, the man had – somehow – increased his efforts to get Kakashi to accept another challenge.

'Yosh, 27 to 28!' The man would shout, a single fist clenched in front of him. 'I cannot let this stand – I challenge you, my eternal rival Kakashi, to a match of your choosing!'

Kakashi had never been so glad that his windows had curtains.

Honestly, Kakashi would be fine with just ignoring the man. But faced with an annoyed landlady shoving dozens of daily noise complaints at his face and threatening eviction, he didn't have much of a choice to accept a challenge, if for nothing else than to make Gai go away.

Four years later, fighting a spontaneous battle of kitchen supplies against a man in blinding green spandex on the rooftops, Kakashi realized that he might have miscalculated.

Maito Gai was not an idiot. He was not even a man. What he was, was a force of nature.

He blew right through every barrier Kakashi put in his way, both literal and metaphorical, and established himself in Kakashi's daily routine like a particularly excited green leech.

Drag self home from week long mission. Sleep. Shower. Win Gai's challenge. Eat. Sleep. Lose Gai's challenge. Leave on another long-term mission. And so on.

The Gai standing in front of him now looks nothing like a force of nature. But then, appearances had never an accurate measure in defining Maito Gai.

The boy points at him, his single finger outstretched and shaking slightly, as if from the amount of pure passion imbued within it. Twin bushy brows furrow above narrowed eyes.

"We meet again, my rival Kakashi!" He bellows. All around him, bystanders edge away carefully (and wisely), leaving an empty ten foot radius circle around him.

Still, for better or for worse, they have an audience. Several teams had returned from their missions today, and the hospital was a required checkpoint. Kakashi sweatdrops as he recognizes a younger but unmistakable Asuma standing to the side, just a hint of peach fuzz on his chin.

But… This could be good.

"Gai," he replies mildly. Beside him, Obito quickly takes a few steps back, apparently not looking forward to getting in either of their ways.

"Argh!" Gai shouts, staggering back a single step back. "Your attitude… always so hip - and so cool! Just as expected from my Eternal Rival! I see… then, I have no choice."

His eyes narrow. "The count currently stands in your favor… but you will not have the upper hand for long! I challenge you to a match!"

Kakashi stares at him lazily with half-lidded eyes.

A brown-haired figure cautiously approaches Gai from the side. After a few seconds, Kakashi recognizes him as Genma, so young it was disorienting.

"Yo, Gai," he says through the senbon in his mouth – at least some things stayed constant – with his hands held up placatingly. "It's probably a good idea to postpone that match, y'know? Ebisu could use some company, and Kakashi doesn't seem too… uh –"

"Maa…" Kakashi says slowly, in mock thought, putting a single hand to his masked chin. His eyes curve into crescents. "Sure."

Genma whips around to gawk at him. Kakashi doesn't look around to check, but judging from the sudden silence, he isn't the only one stunned at the new development.

Gai blinks once, the only sign of his surprise. "Kakashi, y-you…" Tears well up in his eyes and stream down his face even as he grins, the sun glinting off every one of his pearly white teeth. "Yosh! Rock-Paper-Scissors it is!"

It's familiar, comfortably so. Kakashi goes through the motions, bringing his fist on his palm twice as he shouts the requisite, "Rock, paper, scissors!"

But instead of showing any of the standard three options on the final go, Kakashi holds up a hand. Gai stops, in obvious confusion.

"Maa, how about something other than Rock-Paper-Scissors this time?" He asks.

Gai's jaw drops. "My Eternal Rival… what do you have in mind?"

Kakashi smiles. "How about… that?" He points a single finger at, over Gai's head.

A few dozen gazes follow it. "The Hokage Monument?" He hears Rin squeak.

"We start at the bottom, and then race to the top," he says, matter-of-fact. "But we can only use a single hand. No chakra."

Tears pour from Gai's wide eyes. He trembles. Kakashi is momentarily worried that the boy will combust where he stands, from pure excitement and (dare he say it) youthfulness.

"Eternal Rival…! That is truly a youthful challenge." Gai gives him a tearful thumbs up. "I accept! And, if I lose, I shall run fifty laps around the village on my hands!"

He Shunshin's away, and after a beat, Kakashi follows.

Rin swallows, suddenly very aware of the many stares that had just landed on her and Obito.

"Er, Rin," Genma says in a stage whisper. "…Did Kakashi… hit his head or something?"

She doesn't know quite what to say. She isn't even sure what happened. Rin saw, like everyone else, Kakashi not only accept Gai's challenge without complaint, but participate in the ensuing game of Rock, Paper, Scissors while wagging his bottom ridiculously. And now, both of them were gone, apparently at the Hokage Monument to compete in some challenge that Kakashi had suggested.

But she wasn't sure how to put those pieces together to make some explanation that fit. It wasn't as if she could say, "Well, actually, our whole team just came back from the future. Apparently, Kakashi is just a very weird adult."

"Oh, the challenge with Gai?" Obito asks. Rin slumps in relief. "I dunno. He's been like that for years."

She curses under her breath.

Genma blinks. "You're kidding me," he says flatly. "That was not normal."

Obito shrugs. "Maybe you didn't notice," he offers. "Kakashi always acts like that. I mean, Rin and I are his teammates. We do know him the best after all."

"Didn't you call him an asshole and an arrogant jerk?" The other boy asks skeptically.

"People change."

"You said that yesterday."

Obito nods. His poker face is perfect.

Genma stares at him, and then Rin, in utter disbelief.

"Uh, right," she says unconvincingly. An awkward silence prevails.

"Whatever!" Someone shouts from the quasi-crowd, breaking the spell. "I just wanna see two dumbasses try to climb the Monument with one hand!"

To Rin's relief, the majority of the audience leaves with the foul-mouthed, purple haired girl. So does Genma, but he does give her a knowing look before he does. Everyone else disperses, disappointed by the lack of continued excitement.

"…Obito?"

He shrugs. "Acting stupid usually stops awkward questions," he explains, with the certainty of experience.

"Sooner or later, someone's going to know something's wrong," Rin says worriedly. "Even now, Genma…"

"There's nothing they can do anyways. No one's going to go to the Hokage because Kakashi started reading porn. Maybe they'll tell Minato-sensei, but…" Obito grins. "He already knows what's going on. Though, he might burn Kakashi's entire collection."

It is clear from the expression on his face that he considers the latter a plus. Rin, however, is stuck on a different point.

"...Icha Icha?" She says faintly. "Kakashi reads porn?"

"Yeah. In public, too," Obito adds, almost triumphantly.

Rin puts a hand to her mouth in feigned horror, and decides that Obito must never find out about a certain collection of books hidden carefully in various parts of her room. (It was just a phase, she swears.)

"I can't believe it," she says, utterly unconvincingly.

Obito doesn't seem to notice, thankfully. He turns to face her fully, evidently on a roll. "Oh yeah… he's also late to everything. I guess he's trying to copy me, but the asshole doesn't even actually help old grannies get their cats out of their trees. He just stands in front of the –"

"Obito," Rin says slowly, "is that blood on your jacket?"

He freezes. "It's… not mine?"

"…It's Kakashi's, isn't it."

"Er –"

"I bet he was the one who broke your nose too."

"Well…" Obito slumps. "Yeah."

It was like they were actually teenagers, not the grown men they actually were. It hits Rin that maybe, she shouldn't have been that worried about her team not needing her any longer.

"I thought you and Kakashi were going to talk," she exclaims, aghast.

"We did!" He yelps. "It just got, uh, a little heated –"

"What were you two talking about?"

Obito glances around, before motioning Rin to come a bit closer. She obliges, and he whispers in her ear, "One of the Hokage's advisors is trying to slowly usurp power from the Sandaime. Kakashi and I were trying to figure out what to do about it."

"What?"

"No, seriously!"

"But then -" Rin swallows. "When are we telling the Hokage?"

"We're not," Obito replies in a whisper, face shuttered off. "We can't. Rin, let's not talk about this stuff here. There might be people listening."

She starts at the revelation. Not telling the Hokage? And... this was obviously something important, something that could affect the whole village. That was bordering on treason, really, as Rin knows from the lessons drummed in over countless hours in the Academy.

Rin isn't an idiot, however. She nods. "We can talk at my place," she tells Obito seriously. "My dad's definitely not part of... some political scheme against the Hokage."

"Your place?" He echoes, somewhat blankly. "Are you sure?"

"...Obito, you've met my dad," she says slowly. "You came over plenty of times."

Obito had met her father even before Kakashi and Minato-sensei had, since they had been friends for years before.

Being a civilian, Rin's father had made her promise to tell him everything she could about shinobi and, once learning that she had made a friend from a shinobi clan, demanded to meet him. Occasional talks over take-out over the local barbeque joint became a lot more frequent after Obito's grandmother passed away, eventually turning into a twice-a-week tradition.

Her father had never said anything outright, but Rin knew that he felt some relief that, even as she entered the strange and alien world of shinobi, she was still on a team with someone he trusted to watch her back.

He had been very quiet, the days after she came back from the mission that Obito had died on. That had been when her father had tried to get her to retire from the shinobi life, and it was the first time they had disagreed.

In the end, he couldn't force her to stop. He was a civilian, and she outranked him. But Rin did promise him that she would be careful. She spent most of her time working in the hospital, not out in the field, and that she wouldn't die and - it was quietly understood - leave him alone.

(Oh no.)

"It's been almost twenty years, Rin," Obito says reluctantly, jarring her - gladly - out of her thoughts. "There's a lot of things that I don't remember. Most of the stuff I remember is just... you and Kakashi and, well, our team."

She bites her lip. "I'll explain to my dad," she decides. "I'll say it was some training accident or something, and you lost some memory because of it. He doesn't know that much about shinobi, anyways, so he won't question it."

"I'm not sure, Rin, I -"

"It's been a long time since you've lived in the village," she says, very quietly. "It'll definitely help for you to talk to people you knew. You're not in the future anymore, right? You can't always act like you did before."

He doesn't say anything out loud, but after a long moment, Obito nods slightly.

Even discounting his own death and subsequent time travel, Namikaze Minato had had a strange day.

Somewhat confident that none of his students would try to kill each other anytime in the immediate future, he had taken the afternoon to explore his village. It felt strange to walk around with a (admittedly small) degree of anonymity. There were people who didn't know about the Yellow Flash, but everyone had known the Yondaime. There were no ANBU bowing to him as he passed, no villagers pointing and whispering in wonder, no Hokage's Guard surreptitiously following him around.

There were, however, many familiar faces. Minato had mixed emotions about that.

Some of those faces were ones he had never thought he would see again. There were fellow jounin that he had seen die in the battlefield. Some were men and women who he had sent out to die, because he had been the Hokage and that was what the leader of a military dictatorship did. Others, like (obito rin) his team, had been people who he hadn't been able to save.

Much more common were chunin and genin, painfully young, that he recognized as adult shinobi under his command. Why, the vast majority of his Guard were still chuunin at this point, the same age as his students.

But others... He frowns at the reminder. There were traitors in every village, and as Hokage, Minato had been the ones to order their captures and their executions. Orochimaru (did the man start up his experimentation yet? could he be redeemed, like jiraiya-sensei had always hoped?) was the most prominent of the village's ranks to turn traitor, but there had been dozens more beside him.

Many of them had been eliminated by the village's hunter nin. Some had still been active at the time of his death. Minato still remembers many of their names, but that raised a question.

He was the Hokage, and the Hokage always acts in the best interest of the village. With what he knew, he could eliminate traitors even before they showed their true colors, often killing teammates or other Konoha shinobi before they left. But what if redemption was still possible for them? Was it worth the safety of the village to give them a chance?

Except, that was the problem. Even if Minato decided to put his knowledge of the future to use, he didn't have the authority to act. Not without telling the Sandaime everything and gaining his approval, which was... grating. He respected his predecessor, but Minato had become used to the power that came with the position. That, and he knew that the older man would not be nearly as merciful towards possible enemies of the village.

If Minato informed the Sandaime of his team's time-travel and knowledge of the future, it was very possible that they could be interrogated for everything that they knew. Obito would most likely be executed. There was also no reason that he would allow them - a team of two jounin and two chunin - to confront an unknown such as Uchiha Madara, which was objectively reasonable, but would also mean a higher chance of detection and failure. After that, any pertinent information from Kakashi and Obito would become null and void.

But if he didn't... it was treason. He would be keeping important, vital information from the supreme leader of the village.

Minato sighs. This would be a lot easier if he was still Yondaime.

A moment later, a heavy picnic basket slams onto his head.

Minato stumbles forward with a yelp, a single hand instinctively moving to cover his head. "What -?" He manages, and looks up to see furious blue eyes and flaming red hair.

Oh.

"What the hell, Minato!" Kushina shouts, her free hand clenched in a fist. She had evidently been forced to stand on tip-toes in order to get the basket over his head. "You told me yesterday that you were training with your team over in Training Ground 8, so I went and made lunch for everyone! But then I get there, and nobody's there! Nobody! Not even a note!"

"Kushina -"

"Don't Kushina me! Now these -" She waves the basket in front of his face. "- are all cold and mushy! You could have at least told me that training was canceled. Then, I could have eaten these myself instead of having them go to waste!"

"Something important came up," he says quickly. Emboldened by the lack of picnic basket injury, Minato adds, "Kushina, I'm sorry. I really had no idea this would happen."

She puts her basket down, but there's still a frown on her face. After a long pause, Kushina gestures impatiently at him. "Well? Aren't you going to explain?"

Is he? Minato hadn't even had enough time to accept all the strange things that had happened in the past day. There had been no chance for him to contemplate who he would tell, other than the Sandaime.

It feels inexplicably wrong not to tell Kushina, however. She was his wife, after all... except, she wasn't yet. In a moment of panic, Minato tries to remember exactly how long they had been dating at this point. How much of this was he basing off of his Kushina?

"I'll explain," he tries. "But since it has to do with the rest of my team as well... I would rather them be here as well."

"...Your team?" She narrows her eyes. "Does this have to do why Kakashi-kun's climbing the Hokage Monument with one hand?"

"Kakashi's... what?"

She motions behind her, specifically to the distant Hokage Monument - and the two figures making their way up its face, one of them dark blue and the other blinding green. "I think he's competing with Gai - y'know, the kid who talks in capital letters."

Minato stares. "Is that a crowd?" He says weakly. Kushina nods.

[A/N: Thank you for all the reviews and feedback! Here's a super long chapter for all of you.

Rin's family situation is based on 'Three Scratched Out Words' by fowl68, which is an amazing (and honestly heartbreaking) fic on AO3.

Gai... is surprisingly hard to write. He's youthful and all, but he's not stupid or a joke. I really do love his weird friendship with Kakashi, and I'm not very sure how compliant my version of it is with canon, but... there it is. The challenge is based off of some filler episode I vaguely remember with Kakashi and Gai climbing up the Hokage Monument, but honestly at this point, I could probably imagine a whole new Naruto anime.

Below is the bonus! I originally planned for something a lot more lighthearted and (frankly) really cracky, but it revealed too much of the future of this fic. I'll save that for the next time. On that note... y'all can now find me at dubsdeedubs on Tumblr. I'm planning on posting random fics/snippets that I don't feel like continuing, and I already have some up.

Premise of this is, what if Team Minato had arrived in the past at a much less convenient time? That is, right smack-dab in the middle of the Kannabi Bridge mission.]

The warm glow of the crackling fire, the heavy press of his father's hand on his back, the feeling of weightlessness as that dark world fades into an incomprehensible nothingness, and

Kakashi's eyes snap open, and feels a brief moment of complete disorientation, because he hadn't been this short a few minutes ago, where was he, he was supposed to be dead -

It is only because of twenty-five years of shinobi training that he is able to avoid the kunai that would have slammed its way into his throat.

He immediately dodges to the left, a handful of shuriken already flying from his outstretched hand at his opponent. Kakashi is dimly aware of the duality of his vision, which meant one thing to him – Obito's Sharingan was gone.

But this was no time to dwell on that. Three of the projectiles thud into wood, which meant –

A pained yell. Two of the shuriken had found their target. Kakashi whips his head around, narrows his eyes in order to make out the features of his opponent, and – he freezes for just a second, eyes widening as he realized that he had seen that particular face before.

Twenty years ago, on the mission that had changed his life, Hatake Kakashi had fought against an enemy shinobi who had looked exactly like this man. A single sweep of his surroundings confirmed Kakashi's suspicions.

The bamboo, the dryness of the air, the gravel under his feet instead of familiar dirt – this was Iwa territory, and Kakashi was somehow reliving one of the worst days in his life.

"You fucking brat, " He hears distantly. It is a reminder that Kakashi could not stop to think just yet.

His go-to techniques were out of the question. No Sharingan, no Chidori, no Raikiri. Still, Kakashi had always been prepared for the day that Obito's last present was stripped from him.

A single hand slammed to the ground brings up a wall of earth. Seconds later, several wooden stakes slam into it, embedding themselves several inches into the densely packed dirt with the sheer force of their launch.

By the time the wall comes down in a shower of rubble, Kakashi is already gone.

The Iwa jounin turns on his feet the moment he sees the empty space.

Too slow.

There is nothing he can do to defend against Kakashi's chakra-strengthened punch to the chest. There is an audible crack as ribs cracked and broke. Blood flew from the man's mouth as he screams in agony.

Still, the man recovers enough to catch Kakashi's other fist with an iron grip, only to scream with a pained gurgle as Kakashi flips, taking advantage of his small size (how was he this small again-) to slam both feet into his face.

Blood blinds the jounin for just seconds before he wipes it away, but it is just long enough time for Kakashi's blown fireball to consume his form. Strengthened by Kakashi's chakra, the fire is relentless. Fabric and skin melt together under the heat of the flame, and Kakashi's opponent drops to the ground screaming, rolling.

A single kunai ends the pained writhing. The ear-pitching shouts of agony cuts off with a sudden choke.

Kakashi takes a single step back from the corpse in front of him, and whips around in a hope of finding out just what the fuck was going on.

The clearing becomes even more familiar, now that he had the time to examine it closer than he could have in battle. Immediately, he sees the figure of a long-dead teammate, standing just a few feet away. Rin is wide eyed, but the chakra scalpels that she had perfected in the weeks after Obito's death are visible in her hands. Judging from the limp form bleeding out at her feet, she had used them. But she is looking somewhere else as well, and -

Just beyond her, stumbling as if terribly disoriented and confusion clear as day on his young face –

Kakashi remembers what was supposed to happen here. "Obito, watch out!" He shouts as he runs toward that familiar blue-and-orange figure, pushing every bit of chakra he could toward his legs so that he could get to Obito in time.

The boy snaps toward him, pure astonishment plastered over his face. "Kakashi -?" He asks.

That's all he gets out before a single arm locks around his neck, cutting off his words as easily as it did his source of oxygen. The remaining Iwa nin points his kunai at Obito's throat. "You fucking brats, don't come a single step forward!"

Kakashi stumbles forward a single step, the result of the momentum lost. The blade digs into the Uchiha's throat, drawing a trickle of blood that wells up into a blotch on the boy's collar.

"I'll slit his goddamn throat," the man promises. It takes one look at his face for Kakashi to know that his opponent was beyond logic, so furious and embarrassed he was at the loss of his teammates to children.

He holds up both hands, hoping to placate his opponent to some degree. "Rin," Kakashi says. "…Dispel your weapons."

As stunned as she is, Rin follows his directions. Still, she stares at Obito as if she couldn't believe her eyes. Kakashi could understand – he couldn't either. But it was not the time for that, not when Obito was somehow alive and – more importantly - in the hands of the enemy.

"If you let my teammate go," he tries, hoping for an opening, "we'll let you escape. We won't come after you."

But even as he says it, Kakashi knows he had made a mistake.

"Let me go?" The Iwa nin says, voice shaking with fury. "You fuckers butchered my team – the moment I let go of this kid, I'm just as dead as they are." There is a glint of insanity in his eyes, of a man who saw death as the only path open to him –

- and wanted to take anyone he could with him. The blade of the kunai flashes down.

"Obito!" Rin screams, as she runs forward futilely – and halts in her step, face pale with shock.

There is no blood. The weapon had half-disappeared into Obito's body, part of the base and handle still visible – but it was as if Obito was no more than an illusionary image – or a ghost. The boy's eyes shine crimson red, and there is a pinwheel pattern in them that Kakashi recognizes as his own Mangekyo.

An unfamiliar grin appears on Obito's face. For a second, he seems positively excited.

The next few seconds pass fast enough that even Kakashi had trouble following them. One moment, Obito hangs from the Iwa nin's iron grip – and then, he's standing on his own two feet, a glint in his eyes as he blurs into motion.

The man stares in horror at the hand that had punched its way through his chest.

It seemed to Kakashi like a twisted version of Chidori, though there is no telltale chirping of birds, no electricity spurting from the wound. It could hardly be called a technique.

This is nothing more than a display of brute strength.

Dark blood blossoms from the wound like ink on paper. It flows from the man's slack mouth as he gurgles faintly, and pools on the gravel ground.

A moment later, the arm is withdrawn. The body thuds onto the ground, like a puppet with cut strings.

Obito turns to meets their eyes, both eyes crimson, the smile on his lips an unfamiliar expression on his face. His body is sprayed with his enemy's lifeblood, his right arm practically coated with it, but he doesn't seem to care. Kakashi fights the urge to flinch back – Obito seemed to him, for a moment, positively demonic.

"O-Obito…?" Rin stammers. "W-what –"

The smile slides off Obito's face, to be replaced by a much more familiar look of childish wonderment – and then he grins, bright and joyful, in a way that reminds Kakashi of blonde hair and whisker marks.

He takes an unsteady step forward, and does not notice the way that Rin stumbles back in horror, or the way that Kakashi fingers the Hiraishin kunai in his pouch.

"Kakashi, Rin," Obito breathes, as if every one of his dreams had come true at once. "You're all here."