Six months had passed since Kakashi Hatake found himself stranded in an alien world. He was in New York City in the country of United States of Arica.
During this ti, the Copy Ninja had done what he did best: adapt. Survival demanded it, and Kakashi was nothing if not a survivor.
Sitting in his modest apartnt, a single-room unit tucked in a quieter corner of the city, he pored over a laptop screen.
The silver hair that marked him as Kakashi Hatake was gone, replaced by the brown locks of his new identity: Sukea Tanaka.
Creating Sukea had been a calculated move. Kakashi knew his gravity-defying silver hair was a beacon, a trait too distinctive in a world where anonymity was his shield.
If soone's looking for himz they'd spot in a heartbeat. The thought had driven him to a seedy office on the city's outskirts, a place where forged identities were traded for cash.
A quick flash of his Sharingan, and the clerk had complied without question. Under genjutsu, the man crafted an identity for Sukea Tanaka: a Japanese migrant, 24 years old, seeking work in Arica.
Simple. Unremarkable. Kakashi had chosen the na Sukea from a disguise he'd used whenever he was without a mask.
Securing a job had been equally straightforward. A grocery store needed a cashier, and another subtle genjutsu ensured the manager saw Sukea as the perfect candidate.
'Thank you, Sharingan,' Kakashi thought wryly, his lips twitching. The eye, now fully his own, had beco his greatest asset in this world.
Its chakra drain was gone, its power seamless, and its genjutsu made navigating bureaucracy laughably easy.
Sukea worked the store's counter, ringing up canned goods and chatting idly with custors, but it was a shadow clone who handled the monotony. The real Kakashi had bigger plans.
In his apartnt, surrounded by stacks of library books and a secondhand laptop, Kakashi dove into the technology of this world.
The realization had hit him early: this place was leaps ahead of the Land of Fire. Phones that connect continents. Databases that hold more knowledge than the Hokage's archives.
Weapons that rival jutsu. He'd spent hours on the "internet," a marvel that still awed him, learning about smartphones, satellites, and military arsenals.
Guns could deliver damage akin to a C-rank jutsu, missiles matched B-rank techniques, and nuclear bombs—those are Tailed Beast Bombs, plain and simple.
The thought was sobering. In his world, a shinobi's strength ca from chakra and training. Here, raw destructive power was mass-produced, accessible to anyone with the right resources.
Kakashi's tactical mind churned.
'I need to understand how this technology is made. How it works. How to counter it. How to use it.'
He wasn't naive enough to think he'd master engineering overnight, but he could learn enough to exploit it.
'If I can hack a phone, I can track soone. If I understand their weapons, I can disable them.' He'd already taught himself basic coding from online tutorials, his Sharingan morizing syntax with ease.
Drones fascinated him—chanical summons, in a way—and he studied their schematics, imagining ways to disrupt their circuits with a well-placed Lightning jutsu. This world's strength is its machines. Its weakness is their fragility.
But knowledge alone couldn't fill the void growing in his chest. Kakashi leaned back in his chair, the laptop's hum fading as his thoughts turned inward.
Six months in this world, and he was no closer to returning ho. No clear goal. No mission. In Konoha, his purpose had been clear: protect the village, guide his students, honor the mory of those he'd lost.
Here, he was adrift, a shinobi without a ho. His friends, his students, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura—were dinsions away, fighting their own battles.
'If Sasuke's Rinnegan could've found , he'd be here by now.' The rinnegan's space-ti jutsu could surely traverse dinsions, yet no portal had opened, no rescue had co.
A chuckle escaped Kakashi's lips, dry and self-deprecating.
'Unless Sasuke's still mad about that ti I tied him to a tree and lectured him, he would have already co'. He rembered the scene: a younger Sasuke, glaring daggers as Kakashi droned on about teamwork while Naruto snickered.
'Petty revenge via abandonnt? That's more your style than I thought, Sasuke.' The humor was fleeting, a distraction from the truth: if Sasuke hadn't co, it ant the dinsions were too far, the rift too vast.
'I'm stuck here.'
The realization brought a familiar weight, the sa heaviness he'd carried after his father's suicide, after Obito's death, after Rin's blood stained his hands.
He stood, pacing the small apartnt, his footsteps silent from years of training.
'If I can't go back, I need a purpose. The thought crystallized, sharp and undeniable.'
He was a shinobi, forged in war and loss, and idleness didn't suit him.
'I've been a protector, a teacher, a killer. What can I be here? The answer ca naturally, as if it had been waiting: rcenary work.'
In the Elental Nations, shinobi took missions for hire—assassinations, escorts, espionage. This world, with its cri, corruption, and shadows, wasn't so different. They don't call it shinobi work here, but the job's the sa.
Kakashi stopped pacing, his eye narrowing as he considered the implications. rcenary work ans contacts, networks, risks.
He'd need to build a reputation first—soone reliable, discreet, and deadly.
He sat back at the laptop, pulling up a map of the city. Start small. Find the underbelly—dealers, gangs, fixers.
His shadow clone at the grocery store overheard snippets of gossip: muggings in certain alleys, whispers of "protection" rackets. Pakkun and the other ninja hounds have also gathered a good amount of information.
The thought of action steadied him, but a quieter voice lingered.
'Obito, Rin, Minato sensei—would you approve?' He saw their faces, fleeting as always, and felt the old guilt.
'I'm still alive, still fighting. That's what you'd want. I'll make a life here, for now. And if there's a way ho, I'll find it.' He made a silent vow to himself.
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