"I told you you would be a famous ninja one day," Kakashi says.

"I'm hardly famous!" sensei protests.

"Don't sell yourself short," Jiraiya says, clapping sensei on the back. "Smartest ninja of your generation."

"You're just after the reflected glory," Kushina says dryly.

Jiraiya puts a hand over his heart. "You wound me!"

"You're the smartest ninja in the village," Kakashi says, on a one-man mission to make sensei acknowledge his own accomplishments. "No one else has managed to replicate the Nidaime's Hiraishin no Jutsu."

"Well, I didn't invent it," sensei says. "I'm sure anyone could have done it, if they just took the time to study it. And you helped!"

Not really. As the Sharingan's perfect recall faded, Kakashi forgot how to draw a Hiraishin array from memory. Not that he could have explained how he knew how to do that. Mostly he let sensei explain what he thought the next part of the seal should look like until he had a breakthrough all on his own.

"You're both too modest," Kushina says, giving them a hug.

"If I were truly modest, I would have found a way out of this public demonstration," sensei says. "It's turning into a circus."

"Everyone wants to try and recreate it themselves," Kakashi says. "They don't believe that it's really as confusing as you made it sound in your presentation to the Hokage."

"Well I know a building full of researchers with glazed eyes and selective hearing that can set them straight," Jiraiya says. "Not to mention the ANBU squad that hospitalized themselves trying to learn it."

"I explained it very clearly!" sensei says, pouting. "And I have no idea why their chakra drained like that."

"Not everyone's a genius like you, Minato."

"But it was just hard work!" sensei says. "And more than a few mistakes."

"I certainly fished you out of enough trees," Kushina says, laughing.

"I think I've fixed that problem," sensei says sheepishly.

"Everyone should be impressed," Kakashi says. "You've done something no one else alive can do."

Sensei ruffles his hair. "Well, I hardly need the village to tell me that when I've got my number one fan right here. You always believed I could do it, even when I was ready to throw the whole project, desk and all, straight out the window."

"You did do that," Kushina says. "You came running to meet me at the gate, frantically begging for help fixing the wall before the landlord noticed."

"Shh!" sensei says, looking around. "He doesn't know about that!"

Kakashi rolls his eyes. Everyone in the village has heard that story.

"Well this thing is about to start," sensei says. "I should go; I don't want to be late."

"It would be sort of ironic," Jiraiya says. "Considering you're demonstrating an instant teleportation jutsu."

"Not helpful, sensei. Kakashi, why don't you gather up your friends and remind them about dinner at our apartment tonight."

"I'm sure they haven't forgotten, sensei."

"It's polite."

Kakashi has never found a useful counterargument to this. "Fine."

"You've seen the jutsu a thousand times already!" sensei calls after him. "It's not like you're going to miss anything!

A crowd is already gathering by the Hokage Mountain, eager to see a piece of village heritage reclaimed.

Kakashi leaps onto the rooftops, scanning the laughing, talking mass for a familiar face.

"Rival!"

Apparently he needn't have bothered.

"Morning, Gai."

"Have you ever seen such an exciting thing? The Nidaime's secret jutsu!"

Kakashi has seen it, of course, many times, but he doesn't ruin Gai's moment. "I'm supposed to remind you about dinner tonight."

"How could I forget? Your sensei makes the most amazing dishes!"

"That's what I said." Kakashi doesn't bother commenting on the draw of sensei's cooking. Sensei's gotten much, much better at it, to the point where Gai doesn't believe Kakashi when he tells him some of the horror stories.

"Shall we have an eating contest?" Gai asks.

Kakashi winces at the painful memory. "Let's not. Ever again."

"You're not usually one to shy away from a challenge!"

"Well you're winning, so it's my turn to pick."

"I am? You were the first to find and capture a wild goose."

"To my eternal regret," Kakashi says. That's also going on the list of banned challenges. No eating contests, no geese. He shudders. "Yeah, and after that you carried more rocks across the river than me."

"Ah yes! So it is your turn."

"It'll have to wait until tomorrow, though. We-"

"Why not today? Anything can be a challenge with the right mindset!"

Kakashi supposes that's a fair point. "Alright then, whoever finds Hizashi first wins."

"Done!"

Gai races off into the crowd, shouting apologies at everyone he mows down in his enthusiasm.

Most people know to get out of the way when they see the green jumpsuit, so Kakashi doesn't feel too bad about unleashing him. Those with a healthy sense of self-preservation are looking around for the silver shadow that is usually right behind that green jumpsuit, but charging through the crowd at random isn't really Kakashi's style.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

Two weeks after Orochimaru told him what he was doing wrong with his chakra, Kakashi could have managed a single summon. If he didn't plan on doing anything else chakra-related for the rest of the day.

Though it took him six months to convince sensei of that.

But now he can summon with ease, and Pakkun is able to spend time with his family in the summon world and his human here in Konoha.

There's a puff of smoke.

"Yes, Boss?"

Kakashi doesn't know how he ended up being the butt of that same joke in two timelines. He's no more top dog now than he was then. "Can you help me find Hizashi?"

"You have a pretty good sense of smell, for a human," Pakkun says. "Why can't you find him yourself?"

"Gai."

Pakkun's nose twitches. He hates admitting that he's just as competitive as Kakashi is.

"Sensei's making a special dinner tonight," Kakashi wheedles.

"Now that's worth a hunt," Pakkun says, sniffs the air, and takes off running.

Kakashi shows about as much regard for the crowd's well-being as Gai did, except he doesn't bother with the apologies. Although in his defense, they were expecting him and grudgingly move to the side as he darts by.

"Ah, there you are," Kakashi says casually, like Pakkun isn't chewing on Hizashi's ankle.

Hizashi doesn't question their abrupt appearance; he's used to being the subject of challenges. "Don't you have friends your own age?" he grumbles.

Kakashi is always struck by how little resemblance there is between Hizashi and Neji. He doesn't think it's just his dimming memories; he's lost a Sharingan, not gone senile.

Hizashi is sixteen, about the same age as his future-son when Kakashi knew him best, and they're just… totally different people. They both have the classic Hyuuga looks, of course, but even when the whole world was ending, Neji never looked quite so… beaten down.

Kakashi had stumbled across him entirely by accident, after he and Gai had dared each other to run all the way along the top of the wall enclosing the Hyuuga compound without getting caught.

Okay, so perhaps not a complete coincidence that Hizashi was there, but Gai was the one who fell off practically into his lap, and that was definitely pure chance. With a healthy dose of Gai.

Sensei had to come and apologize to a bunch of Hyuuga higher-ups—but not Hizashi—and whether out of a sense of injustice at that or a desire to connect with a friend long dead and not even born yet, Kakashi took it upon himself to investigate—not stalk—Hizashi.

Hizashi has failed the chuunin exam four times, unspectacularly, and seems resigned to an unremarkable genin career, followed by a transition into early retirement.

It's not an uncommon track for the larger clans, who have plenty of employment to offer their members, but Kakashi doesn't think he's ever met anyone so determined to be dull and average.

Gai finds it personally offensive.

So one day they challenge each other to drop a bucket of water on Hizashi's head. He's a genin; if a couple of kids can sneak up on him, he deserves what he gets.

Kakashi doesn't realize that Gai doesn't know Hizashi has an identical twin until it's too late.

"I don't want to discourage this newfound sense of mischief," sensei says delicately, after another round of apologies. "But maybe leave the future Hyuuga clan head alone."

That's fine, Kakashi couldn't care less about Hiashi anyway.

Gai is grounded, which is sort of novel.

"You're not really supposed to be here with me," Gai says, moving rocks at another of his father's construction sites. Building sure seems to involve a lot of rocks.

"Well maybe I should be grounded, too," Kakashi says. "It was my idea."

Gai thinks that sounds reasonable, and with both of them working together they get all Gai's chores done and have time to go chase chickens (Gai wins that one).

Maito Dai and sensei just sort of shake their heads, throw up their hands, and go back to their actual jobs.

Gai is actually a child, and generally obedient, but it doesn't take too much effort to convince him to resume their campaign to annoy Hizashi. Kakashi carefully explains Gai's error, points out the differences between the two brothers—basically, how they wear their hitai-ate, if you have a human-normal sense of smell—and reminds Gai of the Tragic Thing that is Hizashi's total disinterest in the shinobi arts.

Hizashi is a genin, and probably could have avoided Gai—though one has to factor in a certain Gai-ness that defies rational explanation—but he has no hope against Kakashi.

They swipe his shoes from the bathhouse. They duck him in a river. They throw a duck at him.

Sensei despairs. "How did you even meet this boy? What did he ever do to you?"

"We want to be his friend," Kakashi says. "Jiraiya-sensei says it's a good strategy. He said to tell you it's a pigtail thing."

Sensei puts his head in his hands and mumbles something incoherent.

They do have other things that interest them, and only bother Hizashi about once a week, so Kakashi doesn't see what the big deal is.

After he fails his fourth chuunin exam, Hizashi is quietly shuffled off the team roster and into some mind-numbing accounting job. He has peace for a whole two days before he finds himself with only sparkling green ink to write with.

"Can't you find something else to do?" he asks, tracking them down in one of the practice fields.

It's the first time he's acknowledged them in any way. Kakashi senses victory.

"Yes!" Gai says. "Let's be friends!"

"What," Hizashi says.

"You can teach us ninjutsu!" Kakashi says.

"You're little kids."

Gai casts a despairing look at Kakashi. That cannot be refuted.

"We'll call you senpai," Kakashi offers.

Hizashi sighs. "If I agree, will you stop pranking me?"

"Probably not."

"Fine, whatever. Just leave me alone at work, alright?"

"I thought it made your reports a lot more interesting," Kakashi says, "but if you insist."

And so a friendship was born. Sort of. Hizashi certainly doesn't seem to talk to anyone else, and his perpetual grumpiness is sometimes too much for Gai, but it's good practice for him. He'll know just how to nip this nonsense in the bud when he gets Neji as a student, and avoid a lot of angst and woe and that time Neji almost killed his cousin in the chuunin exams.

Kakashi managed to greatly improve his own relationship with his father, even if it was never everything he hoped it could be, and he's determined to do the same for Neji. He owes him that much.

And poking at Hizashi just never gets old. Kakashi understands Naruto a lot better these days, horrifying as that thought is.

"I found you!" Gai shouts, crashing into Hizashi.

Hizashi keeps his balance through long practice. "Why me?"

"I win!" Kakashi says. "I've been here for ages. I thought you stopped for a snack or something."

"There's a lot of people here," Gai says. "And a lot of Hyuuga. I had to be careful."

"Yeah, it'd be a real shame if Hiashi were embarrassed in public. Again," Kakashi says, not even trying to sound sincere.

Hizashi makes a tiny sound of amusement.

Kakashi is pretty sure this is the axis on which their mutual tolerance rotates. Kakashi and Gai are casually disrespectful toward the Revered Future Clan Head and Hizashi low-key basks in it.

"Did you tell him?" Gai says.

"Oh, I forgot. I'm supposed to remind you about dinner at sensei's apartment. You know where that is, right?"

"You've dragged me there a few times," Hizashi says.

"Well. Good."

"Is this thing ever going to start?" Gai asks. "I'm hungry."

"Hopefully not for another few minutes, because we still have to find Anko," Kakashi says.

"I'll find her first!" Gai says. He takes off, Kakashi right on his heels.

"Wait!" Hizashi calls after them. "Am I supposed to bring anything?"

"No idea!" Kakashi shouts back.

Anko is usually easy to find, because she's always with Orochimaru, and he's tall and distinctive-looking.

Also, there's always a bubble of space around him.

They find Orochimaru quickly enough, but Anko isn't there.

"Dog boy," Orochimaru says. "Other one."

Gai is kind of intimidated by Orochimaru still, and sort of bows nervously before pretending he isn't there. It's probably for the best.

Kakashi has kept an eye on Orochimaru these last few years. He seeks him out every couple of months to make sure he hasn't fallen back on old habits and started dissecting people.

"He broke into my house," Orochimaru says one night, depositing Kakashi on sensei's doorstep.

This is before the Hyuuga Incident and its Corollaries, so sensei was still more worried than annoyed when Kakashi got into places he wasn't supposed to be and had to be returned, or bothered people he wasn't supposed to be bothering. "Sorry?"

"I'm impressed," Orochimaru says. "I'll have to think of something nastier."

"Why the sudden interest in Orochimaru?" sensei asks, after Orochimaru has left.

"I wanted to make sure he wasn't doing something shady."

"He's a respected jounin," sensei says, which totally isn't a denial of potential shadiness. "And that really isn't your responsibility."

"Someone has to," Kakashi says. He's developed a theory about Orochimaru. The man is missing certain fundamental cogs in the wheels of his decision-making process. Kakashi used to wonder how the experiments that produced Tenzou came about. Now he assumes that Danzou just handed Orochimaru a baby and told him to take it apart and figure out how it worked, and Orochimaru did it, with no intervening thought that, hmm, maybe this is a Bad Thing.

Kakashi explains his theory, minus the Tenzou part.

Sensei finds it very troubling.

"Don't worry," Kakashi says. "Danzou is dead now."

"Yes, because that's what I was worried about," sensei says.

Kakashi keeps sneaking into Orochimaru's home and lab, and since it doesn't seem to bother him that much sensei stops apologizing. "Just part of the joys of having a genin," sensei says, dragging Kakashi back to their apartment after the most recent incident.

Orochimaru takes that as advice that he should get a genin of his own.

"What," sensei says, when he gets called in front of the Hokage.

Apparently Orochimaru just took her out of the Academy one day.

"This isn't my fault!" sensei protests.

The Academy can't wait to see the back of her (apparently she's a "troublemaker", which Kakashi has no problem believing), and Orochimaru can be very persuasive, so there's a special graduation exam of dubious standards and suddenly Anko is a genin.

She's the only other genin besides Kakashi without a team, so people who have never met either them or their respective sensei think that they should be natural friends and allies.

Anko is vicious and nasty, and she's on a fast track to being one of Konoha's best assassins.

Which is all very well, but she has this terrifically annoying habit of going on and on about what an amazing sensei Orochimaru is, and it's too bad Kakashi had to settle for the village idiot.

Sensei, impossible man, thinks this is hilarious.

"Hey!" Anko shouts, jumping on Kakashi and almost sticking him in the eye with the dango she's carrying. "I hear your sensei finally did something interesting!"

Kakashi grinds his teeth.

"It's very exciting!" Gai says.

Gai and Anko get along just fine, both completely unable to sit still and endlessly enthused about absolutely everything. She and Hizashi, on the other hand, hate each other. Kakashi just never tries to interact with them at the same time after the Incident of the "Accidental" Poisoning.

"So I'll see you at dinner tonight?" Kakashi asks.

"Yes! Orochimaru-sensei doesn't have time to cook; he's too busy researching new jutsu for the village."

The Hokage interrupts whatever Kakashi might have said. He delivers a speech about how what an historical moment this is, reclaiming a piece of the village heritage, and praising all the young minds that make Konoha what it is today.

Kakashi has heard it all already, and concentrates on finding a good vantage point instead. He's seen the Hiraishin before, of course, but it's the principle of the thing.

Gai clambers up the roof behind him, still a little unsteady on his feet despite all the extra training with sensei and with Kakashi.

Sensei had taken him aside in the early days of his friendship with Gai, and carefully explained to him that some people take a bit longer to gain mastery of their chakra than others, and Kakashi is on the faster side of that scale and Gai is on the slower side.

Kakashi hadn't needed to be told that, and when their "eternal rivalry" was reborn, they confined their challenges to things they could both do.

"Otherwise what's the point?" he asked sensei.

"You always surprise me," sensei says, which seems to be his preferred way of admitting that Kakashi is right without actually conceding the argument.

The Sandaime does like to talk, and Gai has plenty of time to get himself settled before sensei finally takes a step forward, looking rather sheepish and awkward with everyone's attention on him.

"I'll just get to it then, shall I?" sensei asks.

Several people laugh; they were expecting another speech.

Sensei moves into the center of the array, trying out a solemn look to respect the dignity of the moment. He is holding a leaf. It's from one of the great trees created by the Shodaime's mokuton, a species entirely unique to Konoha.

Sensei has an overdeveloped sense of the dramatic.

Also he has more leaves in his hair.

The crowd dutifully falls silent, or at least confines themselves to whispered conversations with their neighbors. A number of learned people of the village come forward to inspect the array sensei has drawn in the dirt—he finished that early this morning, because it was boring and no one would want to watch that part. The foot traffic of this crowd will scuff it out of existence by evening, so even if someone manages to accidentally unlock the secrets of the Hiraishin in a few hours (sensei is convinced it could happen), there won't be a shortcut right into the heart of the village.

The other array is on top of the Nidaime's stone head, which sensei thinks is poetic and the Sandaime thinks would have annoyed him immensely.

"So, er," sensei says, "here we go."

Kakashi rolls his eyes.

Sensei drops the leaf, and he's gone in a flash.

There are gasps—at least the jutsu is dramatic and impressive enough—and the leaf drifts in the wind once, twice, then-

Flash.

Sensei catches it.

There's a moment of total silence, then everyone erupts into cheers.

"That was amazing!" Gai shouts in Kakashi's ear.

Kakashi has the distinctly unimpressed look of someone who has watched their brilliant and theoretically mature sensei teleport around for weeks chasing leaves.

"Very… flashy," some council killjoy says. "But explain to me how this will be of some practical use?"

Kakashi bristles. It's one thing for him to be exasperated with sensei's occasional bout of ridiculousness, but everyone else had better be one hundred percent awed.

"Oh, it's a work in progress," sensei says, enthusiasm undeterred. "We're already working to increase the range and capacity, so one person could sneak across enemy lines and draw the seal, then teleport a substantial force to that location."

He pauses, searching the crowd.

"And my student, Kakashi—come over here!—has had an idea about compressing the seal, so it can be inscribed on the fly."

Kakashi jumps down and shuffles forward, mortified. "It was really your idea," he mutters. He always feels like the worst kind of fraud when he pretends to 'discover' something that he already knew from the future. Though in this case he actually had to do the research to find something to back up his 'sudden insight', so maybe it's not quite as bad.

Sensei seizes him and ruffles his hair. "Nonsense! He's been invaluable in uncovering this jutsu's secrets, tirelessly researching for me. He's the one who found an obscure reference to a form of seal shorthand, which is a fascinating concept, really, because-"

"No one cares about this sensei," Kakashi whispers, stepping on his foot.

"Er, right. Anyway, I think that I can find a way to compress the seal enough that it can be inscribed on something that can be easily moved. A rock, maybe, that can be carried from place to place. Or even a kunai! You could throw it at your opponent, and they think you missed, but bam! You're behind them!"

Sensei gets that slightly manic grin that precedes his greatest successes or his most spectacular failures.

"Though a kunai is kind of small, it might have to be a larger blade…"

"Yes, this is very exciting," the Sandaime says. "A great accomplishment, and already looking to the future. I'm sure this is only the start of all the marvelous things you will bring to this village."

"He needs a nickname," Jiraiya says, and the look on his face is best described as gleeful.

"No."

"Yes."

"No!"

"I was thinking 'the Streak'."

Sensei tries to grab Jiraiya, but he dances out of the way, laughing like a hyena.

Kakashi shouldn't. He really, really shouldn't. "I don't know," he says. "That makes it sound like he's just really fast."

"Or some kind of pervert," sensei mutters, still trying to strangle Jiraiya.

"But it's more like he's here and then he's suddenly there, gone in a, what's the word, a flash?"

Jiraiya comes to a sudden stop, and sensei crashes into him and bounces off. "The Flash? I like it."

"That's not any better!" sensei wails. "Whose side are you on?"

"That just describes the technique," Kushina says. "It lacks a certain… personal touch."

Sensei makes doe-eyes at her.

Kakashi thinks he sometimes forgets certain essential elements of Kushina's personality.

She gives a truly wicked grin. "I had a sort of after-image of that dandelion fluff, how about you Kakashi?"

"Definitely," he says.

"But he doesn't seem to like the name idea. Perhaps we should compose a haiku: Oh yellow fluff/here one moment then gone away/does he flash or streak?"

Sensei makes a strangled noise of utter despair. "That isn't even the right number of syllables!"

The Sandaime finally intervenes, far too late to salvage the dignity of these proceedings. "Citizens, I give you, Konoha's Yellow Flash!"

Dinner is about as much of a success as one could expect with sensei, Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Anko and Hizashi in the same room.

Kakashi and Kushina spend a majority of the meal exchanging mildly disbelieving glances at finding themselves the well-behaved ones.

Gai and his father eat with a single-minded intensity that's a little frightening to watch. At least Gai is growing so fast he seems taller every time Kakashi looks at him; he doesn't know what Dai's excuse is.

But no one dies, and sensei makes so much food that everyone gets to take some home with them, and Kakashi collapses into bed after, pleasantly exhausted from so much socializing in one day.

He has a nightmare, but changes his clothes and falls back into bed without ever fully waking up, curling up around Pakkun.

He's up early the next morning, because having sensei and Kushina both home for morning training is a rare treat. Sensei has been practically living in the research building, picking apart the Hiraishin, and Kushina is determined to prove to the entire world that she's a fantastic ninja and should definitely be the first female Hokage.

"Let's go!" he says, pushing them out the door.

"Bwuh," sensei says.

"Well then you shouldn't have stayed up drinking with Jiraiya-sensei," Kakashi says repressively.

Kushina, who has the same inhuman tolerance for alcohol as Naruto, just laughs.

Sensei recovers quickly. Years of being the designated driver—basically, his entire stint as genin—and a few awkward incidents where Kakashi had a completely irrational reaction to perfectly normal social drinking, have left him with little interest in drinking to excess.

Also Kushina tends to get annoyed that she is completely left out of the experience.

"Okay, show me what you remember," Kushina says.

Kakashi never really won a single argument to increase their training beyond whatever pace sensei had set in his head, but Kushina was at least willing to teach him some new things, even if she strictly enforced sensei's ridiculous time limits.

Anything was better than drilling the Academy kata over and over.

Most recently, Kushina has been teaching him one of the kata traditional to Uzushio. She didn't begin training until after she came to Konoha, but on her most recent mission she met a group of survivors from her village and brought them back with her. She's been almost as excited about this tie to her past as sensei about his jutsu.

Kakashi likes it; it's full of dodges and misdirections. If he had to compare it to a technique he already knew, or used to know, he would say it was most like the Gentle Fist. This is especially interesting because Kakashi can't imagine a style less suited to Kushina's personality and strengths.

He runs through the first six moves, then she has him do it slowly so she can correct his hand position.

"You pick up on new things very quickly," sensei says, startling Kakashi right out of his stance. He'd almost forgotten the man was there, he'd been so quiet.

Kakashi tries not to scowl. He doesn't miss the Sharingan, with its debilitating physical effects and all the emotional trauma attached to it, but he has not enjoyed learning things the slow way.

"I'm serious," sensei says. "I'm impressed by how well you adapt to different styles."

Kakashi shrugs. It's an old argument, and one that's never going to be resolved because Kakashi can't explain what has him so frustrated.

It's annoying to lose the vast library of jutsu he was (once) famous for, but he could hardly have explained how he knew all of that anyway.

"I think it will help you to see it in action," Kushina says. "Minato, go stand over there."

The rest of the kata, it turns out, involves a lot of takedowns. Sensei spends a lot of time lying on his back in a cloud of dust.

"You're doing that on purpose," sensei says, coughing.

Kushina laughs and makes Kakashi give her a high five.