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Chapter Text

FIRE COUNTRY, WESTERN CONTINENT — NINE HOURS TO THE MORNING OF THE TENTH DAY OF OCTOBER

The fight with Kaguya was not going as well as Kakashi would have liked. Sure, they started with a slight advantage thanks to Obito, but Obito – being the selfless idiot he was after Kakashi pulled that fucking seal off his heart with a well-placed Chidori – had turned to dust and ashes after taking a hit that Zetsu was aiming for Naruto, this shortly after helping to pull Sasuke from the inhospitable dimension in which Kaguya had thrown him to prevent him and Naruto from sealing her back on the damn moon from which she shouldn't have left.

Kakashi would never understand how the hell the origin of literally all of his problems came down to the ancestor of all known ninja clans fucked and had children with a megalomaniac alien. Sage, just thinking about the logistics of this Kakashi already wanted to drink, no matter if he was in the middle of the fight to protect all life on the planet or not. Speaking of which, and as was completely expected of a villain like Kaguya – and Madara, but Madara, as powerful as he was, it was not a fucking literal god – the bitch was monologizing again, listing all the reasons that led her to engineer her escape from the seal and her intentions with the World Tree and become the fucking Juubi. Steal all of humanity's chakra just because she wanted and could? Create world peace by turning everyone into a half-brain-dead veggie with Infinity Tsukuyomi, and still, have the face to ask why they are fighting her?

These are the gods for you, folks.

"This is not going to end in a good way, Kaka-sensei," Sakura says, punching a White Zetsu the size of a two-story house until oblivion. "Where are Naruto and Sasuke-kun?"

"Dealing with Black Zetsu and keeping Kaguya busy," Kakashi replies, kicking a human-sized Zetsu away before roasting him with a Katon: Fireball. Not having others around to help deal with the monsters was starting to take its toll, but they had to keep acting like bait if they wanted to give Sasuke and Naruto a damn chance to seal her without more problems than expected from a goddess and an entity composed entirely of her will. "How are your chakra reserves?"

"Just over half." The girl replies, before screaming a particularly vile curse as she stomps her foot and sends another group of giant Zetsus to hell with a well-placed row of sharp rock stakes. Tsunade had taught her well. "You?"

"Alive and still kicking," Kakashi responds, completely evasive while kicking another Zetsu in what would be the balls before finishing him off with one of his last kunai with bomb tags. Too bad they had no more sense of pain. "Damn, does this shit never end?"

"It's the Tree." Answer one of the clones that Naruto had left around to help with the endless flood – ha, a pun! – of enemies made of plant matter. "It is feeding Juubi's body, which then creates more and more Zetsus under the command of the Black Zetsu. He wants to prevent us from getting close to the Tree because he knows that you and Sakura have domination in Doton and enough strength to pull it out by the roots. "

"This ... Is was not something I sincerely expected," Kakashi comments idly, accepting the green hand that Sakura placed on his newly stretched shoulder. "Was that information from the Sage?"

"Kind of? It's part of a very deliberate interpretation of what he said, and part of the things that come with the Power of Yin. I just ... know. Can you understand that?" Asks the clone, scratching his head as a shiny hand made of pure chakra came out of his side and whipped one of the biggest Zetsus on the battlefield, slicing the creature in half before eroding it. "But the way everything is going, I doubt we can get to the Tree stump before you two reach chakra depletion. More of my chakra and I could end up destroying your tenketsu."

Before Kakashi can say screw my tenketsu, let's do this, or Sakura can say some elaborate curse before informing the clone very clearly that she can handle the chakra overload, dig up the fucking Tree and save everyone is more important than an overloaded tenketsu, the world... tilts. The clone, as surprised by the sudden distortion of reality as they are, ends up dissipating in a spurt of boiling magma that fell from the "sky" while Kakashi and Sakura lean on each other and try to avoid falling off the small rock ledge where they were on a fall that would be deadly, given the lava lake at the bottom of the "cave" that was that new reality.

"What the fuck is this?!" Shouts the girl, carefully moving the heel imbued with a Doton jutsu to make the bulge increase a little, giving them the very necessary space that they need. "What the heck is happening?!"

The answer came in a Naruto – the real one this time – flying straight at them. Sakura and Kakashi, more accustomed to Naruto flying around for any ungodly reason than anything else, jumped out of the way and clung to the nearest stalactites with chakra-filled feet, just in time to watch Naruto crawl out of the shallow hole that his encounter with the wall had created.

"Fuck, it hurts!" Grunt the boy, dusting the dust and gravel from his hair with one hand while using the other to pull himself out of the hole. "Oh, Kaka-sensei! Sakura-chan! Were you dragged here too?!"

"And where exactly is 'here', Naruto?" Asks Kakashi, not even looking away from Naruto when Sasuke silently shunshined to their side and perched on a ledge near Naruto. For now, there is no sign of Kaguya or Black Zetsu, but Kakashi is not expecting this break in the fight to last very long, no matter what Sasuke and Naruto have done to achieve this. Sakura just looks at them all anxiously.

"An alternative dimension." Explains Sasuke, blinking a new tear of blood out of his Rinnegan. He wipes his face with the bandages on his wrist, but it only serves to spread the clotted blood even more. "She realized that she won't be able to deal with me and Naruto while trying to protect the Tree from you and Sakura, Kakashi. And as much as the Black Zetsu tries to distract us, he is practically useless in combat if he is not parasitizing a human or a White Zetsu."

"So she dragged us into a world in which the chances of her or Zetsu killing us increase." The – literally, what the fuck – orange boy ends. "And as good as Sakura-chan's Doton without hand signals are, with so little stone here, any ill-thought movement of super strength can and will kill us too, which we don't want." And as if it were just to make Naruto's point clear, more than one waterfall of lava plummets from the ceiling, while a good number of geysers explode from the boiling lake below, raising a heat wave that wiped away all of Kakashi's accumulated sweat. Sasuke just wraps them all around his Susanoo's ribs before they are all cooked alive and waits for the firestorm to end. "See?"

"Okay, you have a point." Admits Kakashi, not that he would disagree with Naruto in any way, especially with Sasuke glancing at him. Talk about constipated feelings. "Where are Kaguya and Zetsu?"

"I put them in a genjutsu." Says Sasuke, tilting his head just enough for the sweaty fringe to come out of the front of his Mangekiyo Sharingan as if to elucidate the argument. As with Rinnegan, the waterline in Sasuke's right eye was filled with blood mixed with tears. "They think they are chasing us, but they will soon realize that it is just an illusion."

"You know you're just jinxing us, don't you?" Naruto comments idly, and Sasuke makes a face at him.

And of course, he was right, in the most Naruto way possible.

It happens in a blur. One moment, Sasuke was about to retort to Naruto, and the next he was flying, hit by a Yin Release. Sakura and Naruto yelled for him, but they were soon flying, too, Naruto protecting Sakura with his own body when a Lightning Release swept them both towards Sasuke. Kakashi doesn't even have time to shout the name of any of his students, as Kaguya is in front of him, her hand coated with a Yang chakra blade pointed directly at Kakashi's chest.

At that moment, Kakashi realized that he was going to die.

Well... He lived a shitty life, but it was a life nonetheless. Dying would suck, really, but at least he would see Obito and Rin and Minato-sensei and ...

Then the burning of Obito's fire chakra travels chakra pathways in both Kakashi's eyes, and the Yang blade and Kaguya itself pass harmlessly through Kakashi with Kamui's familiar tingling sensation.

"Don't even think about coming to the Pure Lands yet, Bakakashi." Obito's voice echoes in Kakashi's ears, and he can feel his teammate's hands on his shoulders as he speaks. "You have a bunch of cute little genins to take care of, remember?"

And that was true. Kakashi always regretted not paying enough attention to his kids, always regretting being so caught up in his depression and survivor's guilt that he only started to see what was right in front of him after Sasuke left and Jiraiya took Naruto with him out of the village to finish the Fuiinjutsu and chakra control training that they had started the last time the Toad Sage had passed through the village. At the time, Sakura was still in Konoha, but she was so busy learning from Tsunade, that Kakashi ended up becoming a background character in her life as well.

He didn't blame any of them for anything of that, except himself.

Kakashi was a lonely Hatake for so long that he didn't realize what was right in front of his snout until he lost his father, Obito, Rin and Kushina-nee, and Minato-sensei. He would not lose his pups either. So when Kaguya passed for him and went to the kids, the only thing Kakashi thought was that he refused to allow himself to stand still while risking losing his pack again.

"I'm counting on you, Obito." Says Kakashi, and he hears Obito laugh in delight as the Sharingan in Kakashi's irises swirl and the tomoe bends in the shape of the Mangekiyo Kamui as Susanoo's bluish-gray skeleton extends and unfolds from Kakashi's spine, wrapping the man in its guts at the same time as Kakashi runs to his pups, the Hatake blade of the chakra construct sparking when Kakashi brandishes it and hits the false goddess on the ribs, practically flinging it to the other end of the cave where they were struggling.

"Kaka-sensei!" He doesn't stop to see who is calling him, just sweeps the kids with Susanoo's free hand and pushes them along with him in the chakra chamber on the avatar's forehead, where they would be safe. "How ... Woa!"

It was a matter of seconds. Kaguya twisted space with the Rinne Sharingan and used the distortion momentum to launch Yang chakra sticks while still flying due to Kakashi's blow, and Kakashi responded with Kamui, twisting the space in front of him and the space behind Kaguya in a tunnel which protected Kakashi and the kids from the attack and ricocheted it in the direction of Kaguya at twice the speed, hitting her directly in the middle of the back.

"Nice hit, Kaka-sensei!" Exclaims Naruto, extending a hand to one of his remaining Yang spheres and transforming the ball of dark matter into a nine-rimmed sakujou with a cruelly sharp point as tall as the boy himself. "Come on, Sasuke!" He shouts, shooting out of Kakashi's Susanoo with Sasuke on his heels, Sasuke's own purple Susanoo taking on bodily form around the boy and attacking Kaguya with an odachi blade while Naruto crashed into the Black Zetsu with a loud warcry.

"Are you okay, Sakura?" Asks Kakashi, without taking his eyes off the fight of the boys, who took turns to strike opponents. Kakashi prided himself on at least being able to hammer the importance of teamwork into them before both of them stopped being his students. "That was a strong Raiton."

"Naruto protected me from the blow and caught Sasuke-kun before anything more serious than a few burns and scrapes happened." She reports, gnawing on a soldier's pill with obstinacy. "Don't worry, I healed everything before it could become a problem."

"This is good. Ready to join the fight again?" Kakashi can feel Kamui spiraling when Obito gets ready, and he has to smile at Sakura's response.

"Let's kick this bitch's ass, Kaka-sensei!"

The Kamui chakra ignites and the space folds.

Uchiha Obito would never forgive himself for how much pain he input to Kakashi through due to a cursed seal and a great misunderstanding due to the manipulations of a crazy ancestor and the bodily manifestation of the will of an alien goddess. No matter what Naruto said – although it was good to hear – about none of this being Obito's fault, Obito still felt responsible for all the atrocities he was forced to commit.

Then he burned the rest of his chakra helping Sakura to keep a door open for his baby cousin to escape that desert dimension and placed himself between the Black Zetsu and Naruto. And despite doing all this, despite sacrificing not only for the children but for Kakashi as well, all of this... All of this was not enough. But Obito was dead, really this time, so what could he do for those he left behind except to end up watching them all die because of his mistakes?

"You want to do penance." Says a deep voice that comes from everywhere and nowhere in that golden ocean of peace that is the Pure Lands. "You want to pay a debt that could not be paid with your death."

"Yeah!" Exclaimed Obito, turning around to try to see the mysterious announcer. "This is all my fault! They shouldn't die for something I did and couldn't fix it afterward!"

"You already gave one of your eyes to the wolf child, didn't you?" The voice asks, and Obito's eyes widen in realization. "What keeps you from doing this again?"

"But ... Kakashi is still alive." Babble Obito; he can't understand where that voice – is it Shinigami-sama? Or is it something bigger? – wants to come with all this.

"And should that matter?" Spits out a voice that may not be Shinigami's, and the mist of silver and gold shining around Obito opens like a kabuki curtain, revealing a world of fire, lava, and stone, all exploding in a blazing firestorm. There are Kakashi and his genius, all of them wrapped in the purple blanket of Sasuke's Susanoo ribs, but before Obito can do anything besides raise one hand – for what, he has no idea –, Kaguya reaches out and attacks, knocking Sasuke down with a Yin jutsu and sweeping Sakura and Naruto out of Kakashi's reach with a lightning jutsu whose light leaves Obito flashing bright spots of his vision, which he stops seeing in time to watch the false goddess approach Kakashi dangerously with a Yang blade in his hand, pointed directly at Obito's friend's chest. "He's going to die." The voice points, without any inflection in its tone. Obito hardly pays any attention, too busy watching Kakashi's eyes dull with resignation. "What are you going to do about it, child? Are you going to stand there watching, or are you going to do something?"

And wasn't that the certainty of the Obito crisis?

"Make up your mind, child!" The voice screams, almost like the former professor of Obito during the Academy, scaring Obito back to his non-life.

He reaches out, reaches Kakashi's shoulder, grabbing the dusty fabric from his jounin vest and squeezing it to the point where he can feel the bones and muscles below. So Obito ignites his chakra and reaches inside Kakashi, following his chakra network to the cluster of chakra paths within Kakashi's eyes, and forces Kakashi's white chakra to blend in with his own gray chakra enough that, between one lower eyelid and the other, Kakashi has a pair of fully functional Sharingans active on his irises, just in time for Obito to force Kamui and make Kakashi's body intangible.

Obito will not allow Kakashi to meet him and the others ahead of time and ends up leaving those three children alone in the world, Obito says this to him while Kakashi pulls in Obito's spirit and, for the first time for both, forms Susanoo just in time to prevent a frontal attack on the kids. The late Uchiha laughs with delight and does not hesitate to give his all when Kakashi asks, plunging into the fight with Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, mixing both their chakras so that Obito doesn't know where he starts and Kakashi ends, both fighting as if they were practically one.

That's when Obito has an idea. If Kaguya could practically leaf through the quintiles of realities and choose a random world to fight in, why couldn't Obito and Kakashi do the same? Why couldn't they force it to fall into another dimension, instead of the other way around? What was preventing them?

Between one attack and another, Kakashi blinks hot, bloody tears out of the borrowed Sharingan and Obito imagines a place where they have the best chance of defeating and sealing Kaguya while activating Kamui's properties and stretching the range of his Mangekiyo Sharingan as much as he can. At the same time, the Rinne Sharingan on the goddess's forehead blinks hard before widening to the point of almost jumping out of its orbit.

The world folds over itself and reality breaks.

The multiverse is composed of a checkered network where the horizontal lines are the timelines, while the vertical lines are composed of reality and the points of intersection between both are where the worlds are formed and located. It is clear that the position of each of these elements varies according to the point of view of the power in question that can visualize them, and often a timeline can be confused with a reality and vice versa. Worlds and pieces of the network have already been irreparably destroyed because of these mistakes, but even with events like this happening, the network has no end, and therefore the destruction of a world or a thousand is irrelevant at the end of the day, as there will always be more worlds, more lines and more realities to replace the lost ones thanks to the fixed elements that the network uses as "knitting needles", that is, pre-determined existences that support the existence of the network by creating copies of their worlds when they make a decision that ends up changing the whole progress of that world’s timeline.

Sawada Tsunayoshi is just the most recurrent example, as the number of changes the child made in his part of the net almost ended the plot more than once in a period ranging from ten weeks to ten years. And we are not even going to start talking about the clusterfuck that is the Tri-Ni-Set, because this is a can where the worms are already dead and still rotting.

Ahem, back to the subject.

Another example of a recurring element is Uchiha Obito. The influence of Uchiha Obito in the world where our current story takes place is not only about what Obito does but also about the type of power that Obito's Mangekiyo Sharingan has. Unlike Kotoamatsukami and even Tsukuyomi, Kamui does not have the slightest capacity to mess with the target's mind, but this is compensated by its ability to create a "hole" and "path" in the space-time network it supports the world. At first, can Obito only reach his "personal" dimension, but with the perfect external influence and the right motivations? Hehehe, well...

Obito's reach is infinite.

Therefore, when he wants to reach a place where Kaguya has no advantage over Kakashi and the children, Obito also looks for a place where everyone will be safe and out of reach of the goddess. Already Kaguya, whose broken mind beyond repair only wants the Fruit of the World Tree, ends up only opening the hole in the fabric of the reality of the world that Obito's Kamui needs to reach the network below, and before she can bend that thread of reality at her own will, Obito's Mangekiyo Sharingan stretches out his metaphorical fingers, reaches out and touches.

Two worlds and half of one more to the left. It is far enough, and most importantly, safe.

Having done their job, Kamui grabs Kakashi and the children and throws them unceremoniously, taking the opportunity to let Kaguya – and therefore that world and Black Zetsu – fall apart in the residual vortex that was left behind.

Seeing what his idea caused, Uchiha Obito makes a face – oops, sorry! – and thinks that at least Kakashi and the children will be fine in the end. Otsutsuki Hagoromo just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, already anticipating the headache he would have when starting the whole plot of the shinobi world almost from scratch. Well, at least the clumsy boy accidentally solved some of Hagoromo's most immediate problems, so the Sage concluded that that particular disaster would not be a total loss.

Meanwhile, Kakashi and his fluffy genins fall into Kamui's black vortex. And if they end up breaking up in the end, well...

That is history for another time.

Chapter Text

It is possible to say that, both in multidimensional cosmology and in normal chemistry, nothing is created while everything is transformed. Therefore, when the existence of Kakashi, Obito, and the children is sent through the network of the universe, Lavoasier's Law – which is more comprehensive than one would imagine – does not allow Obito to gain a new body, any more than it does allow Kakashi and his students to recreate the exact bodies they were using in the war.

So the Universal Laws of Physics and Chemistry change them.

Starting with Obito, who no longer had a physical body while he still had chakra, and therefore was transformed into the approximate equivalent of the shinobi of the new dimension called a Special Grade Curse. And due to still having his chakra running through Kakashi's chakra network, both shinobi ended up involuntarily forming what the jujutsu sorceres call of Pact of Possession and Binding Contract, where Obito lives with Kakashi acting as his Cursed Container, complete with all the advantages and disadvantages of this, plus an Innate Domain Expansion, which perfectly blended the Lightning Style of the Hatake Clan and the pocket dimension created by Obito's Mangekiyo Sharingan.

And then there is Sasuke, whose Susanoo has become a Domain Amplification, while Amaterasu has become an Innate Technique, along with his Chidori and Kirin, both elemental manifestations of Fire and Lightning Style jutsu, despite Amaterasu still manifesting through Sasuke's right eye, that still holds the Mangekiyo Sharingan that Sasuke took from Itachi. He might be able to use his Rinnegan or his Yang Seal as a trigger for a Domain Expansion, but that will only be discovered much later. For now, what matters is that they and Naruto and Sakura were on their way and that they were about to "land".

Too bad it was not a comfortable arrival for anyone.

And that none of them arrived at the same time. Or in the same place, for that matter.

This is going to be intense. Mischievous laughs.

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THERE AND HERE, AUGUST 15, 2018 – TOKYO, JAPAN

"Obito, you bloody moron!" Screams Kakashi, or the equivalent of Kakashi in that alive-but-not-whole state that they were all in while traveling wherever Kamui had thrown them. "What the fuck you did do?! And where are the pups?!"

"I don't know! I just wanted to take us to a place where we could seal Kaguya without one of us dying!" Shouts Obito back to Kakashi, completely frightened by what his Kamui had just done. He was honestly not expecting this. "I can try to open a way out for us, though."

"So what the hell are you waiting for?! My permission?!"

"Okay, first of all, rude!" Obito replies, concentrating on the surrounding environment, extending Kamui's invisible fingers through Kakashi's eyes in search of a weak point enough to pierce. It's almost like going back to the times of Genin, where he and Kakashi spent most, if not all, of the mission fighting like dog and cat, to the chagrin and despair of Rin and Minato-sensei. "Second, Bakakashi, as you can very well see, messing with space-time is a very complicated business. So close your trap mouth and lemme concentrate, dammit!"

Kakashi makes a familiar scoffing noise, and Obito grits his immaterial teeth with a frustrated anger that he hasn't felt in almost twenty years. You fucking bastard, thinks the Uchiha, at the same time that Kamui holds on to a point that he considers thin enough.

Obito pushes.

The reverse of the fabric of the world stretches and tears and all Kakashi and Obito can see is light, bright, warm, and white enough to make even the Sharingan blind.

Kakashi swears, Obito screams, and they fall.

As much as Mahito liked to say and Getou subtly agreed, Jogo was not stupid. He had emerged at a time when all mankind knew was war, and he saw kingdoms and civilizations rise and fall as easily and quickly as sunrise and sunset, and he had the pleasure of bringing down the fury of a volcano over more than one, burying the human waste under dust, ash, and lava. He was one of the oldest Curses to roam Mother Earth, and he would not be a rookie upstart with three pairs of sophisticated magic eyes who would intimidate Jogo by pretending to be the biggest and scariest thing in the room.

To prove his point that the plan to seal Gojō Satoru was foolishness, Jogo ambushed on the way to the mountain where the sorcerer's lair was.

Gojō Satoru falls like a duckling.

"HAH!" Mocks the vulcanic Curse, delighted when the trap he set on the hill detonates and launches an extremely hot shot of pure heat at Gojō, strong enough to vaporize the moisture in the air and charred almost half a mile into the forest, leaving nothing but ashes and burned ground on its way, beyond Gojō Satoru's bones, of course. 'The strongest Sorcerer' my ass, the Curse thinks, smiling so hard that the corners of his single eye crinkled. "That was easier than I expected." He is about to turn to go back to the hideout in the sewers when he realizes something is wrong. "Hmm?"

The wind blows and the dense fog dissipates, revealing a sphere of embers the size of an adult human in the middle of the road. Jogo can feel the pressure of the lava on his body rise when the thing opens to reveal a Gojo Satoru completely unscathed in all his glory of white hair and black clothes.

That shitty punk.

"Who are you calling easy, huh?" Asks him, prissy as a cucumber as he waved his hand, casually dissipating the rest of the fire that surrounded him. Jogo takes his hand to the large cork fitted where his left ear should have been and begins to turn it, irritated by the boy's boldness. "Ne, who are you, by the way?"

"Shitty brat." Mumbles the Curse, turning the cork even tighter, to the point that it starts to creak. Jogo almost feels a molar crack when the brat opens a shit-eating smile and puts his hands in his pockets, not in the least threatened by one of the strongest Special Grade Curses in the country.

"Special Grade Curses are only special because they are rare and difficult to find." He comments after a moment of silence, casually tilting his head to the side while still smiling, although Jogo can't see his eyes because of the blindfold. "So having a bunch of Special Grade and First Grade Curses sprouting out of nowhere is getting in the way a little bit, ya know?"

"Do you think I care?" Asks Jogo, preparing to attack again, managing to keep a carefree smile on his face through the skin of his dark teeth.

"Nope." The brat replies, still smiling as he snaps his knuckles. "But I'm starting to think that this can end up being fun, hehe."

"Fun, he says." Observes Jogo, still not moving, at ease in letting the boy move first. One of his insects leaps into the air and falls back into the boiling boiler on his head. "You little shit, don't have an ounce of self-preservation, do you?"

A finger clicks.

"Ember Insects!" Shouts Jogo, and about half a dozen small curses similar to a crossbreed of mosquitoes, wasps, and beetles leap out of his boiler, hovering momentarily over Jogo before shooting themselves towards Gojō Satoru, who just smiles and extends one hand forward while laughing, still completely calm despite being attacked.

"Well, if you're coming after me to kill me... Ehehehe." He finishes raising his right hand, leaving only two fingers raised while closing the rest in a loose fist. "You are certainly quite right to say that I have no sense of self-preservation."

The insect attack, the sound and pressure of their little bodies breaking the sound barrier echoing up the mountain so high it makes the broken and burned asphalt fly, especially when they crash into what seemed to be Gojō's Domain Amplification barrier.

"Ne, what would happen if they hit me?" Asks the sorcerer, seconds before the insects explode with more force than a bomb. "A simultaneous stunning and concussion attack? How sneaky." Says Gojō Satoru, who somehow had jumped out of the blast and landed at the pedestrian crossroad about five meters above the partially destroyed highway.

Jogo takes advantage of the distraction and runs for a short-range attack, and it is with a scream that he hits Gojō Satoru's face with a handful of lava, effectively setting his empty, pale head on fire and hopefully shutting the fuck up the brat forever.

"There's still more!" And as a guarantee is never too much, Jogo maneuvers around the sorcerer and hits him in the back with an open hand, releasing a wave of Cursed Energy that soon becomes a whirlwind of flames hot enough to turn a normal human to dust. "And so it ends." Says the Curse, shaking his steaming hand to get rid of the smoke and turning around to leave with a magnanimous undulating of his cloak. "How anticlimactic."

"We just did that a minute ago, sir. Didn't you learn anything?" Jogo freezes and slowly turns around. HOW THE BRAT STILL ALIVE?! "Ugh, that smoke sucks for the lungs, ya know?"

In another timeline – one where a certain person did not destroy an entire reality in the name of the greater good – it would be at that moment that Jogo would start a nervous breakdown and take the biggest one-sided beating of his non-life, ending with him beheaded by a shitty brat with a god complex.

This is not that world.

In this world, at the moment when Jogo is about to have the aforementioned collapse, thunder explodes in the sky like a nuclear bomb at the same time that a great bright silver-white lightning falls between Gojo Satoru and Jogo, forcing the Curse to take a step back while protecting the eye from the intense shine, which remains in touch with the ground for more than just a few seconds before dissipating in a wave of Cursed Energy. There is a buzz in the air, similar to static, and if Jogo had hair, he would certainly be tingled – and not just because of the electricity being conducted by the oxygen molecules and humidity in the air. No, Jogo would be chilled because where there used to be lightning, now there is a man as pale as Gojō Satoru, wearing more torn rags than whole clothes, although his body is intact. There is electricity crackling around him, bouncing between one finger and the other, sparkling in his hair, in his veins, even in his eyelashes. And then he turns his head towards Jogo, and the Curse has to physically prevent himself from turning away and running because the eyes of the stranger... The eyes of the stranger are not what he expected from a human or even any sorcerer – or Curse, except for the King of Curses himself. The man's eyes are redder than blood and have a mesmerizing pinwheel pattern spinning dizzily around the pupil, and Jogo has the feeling that those eyes can read him almost as well as the Six Eyes. And his Cursed Energy...

"Maa, Obito. I think we interrupted something important." Says the stranger, whose smiling face was hidden by a dark blue mask that stretched from his neck to the bridge of his nose. And that only confirms what Jogo already suspected – the man is a Cursed Vessel, and if Jogo's reading was right – which it was – the man carried within him a Curse as or stronger than Sukuna himself. And the worst was not that; no, the worst of all of this was realizing that the Special Grade Curse inside the man had a Binding Contract with its host, which made him even more dangerous than Jogo had initially imagined. Then he lazily turned to look at Gojo Satoru, who was still standing where he'd left off after Jogo's failed attack, glaring at the newcomer blindfolded and – probably – with one eyebrow raised. "Hey, hello there. Do you need a little hand here?"

Jogo feels his stomach drop for some reason.

It must be because he is witnessing the first meeting of Hatake Kakashi and Gojō Satoru.

(Somewhere in Tokyo's sewers, Nanami Kento feels a shiver of foreboding running down his spine like fingernails on a blackboard. Just in case, he'll blame Gojō-senpai when the shit finally hit the fan.)

"Yo!" Gojō replies, smiling happily at the newcomer, to the growing irritation of Jogo. "Not necessarily, but feel free to do what you want, buddy." The Curse could see the son of a bitch's teeth gleaming from where it was, and pure and absolute anger replaced his discomfort.

"DO NOT IGNORE ME!" Howl Jogo, firing himself at the newcomer with an outstretched hand full of lava, ready and able to turn the new guy into burned fries. "DISASTER FLAMES!"

"Kamui."

There is a strange sucking sound, and the image of the stranger distorts, disappearing from Jogo's front and causing him to miss the attack despite having hit the blow, which causes the Curse to goggle his eye, surprised and properly terrified by what it appears to be an Inherited Technique from one of the great sorcerer clans. Jogo breaks and spins on his heels, everything about him screaming for him to look for the man and kill him, when the sound of a thousand chirping birds comes from above. And if Jogo had been human, he certainly would have soiled his pants with fear, because the sight of a sorcerer with the ability to teleport falling on him with flaming vane eyes and lightning-filled hands is dreadfully terrifying.

"CHIDORI!"

"Domain Amplification!" Shouts Jogo, covering himself with his barrier just in time to reflect an attack that certainly would have killed him in the act. The man's hand bounces off his barrier – but not before the energy field almost collapses on itself, to Jogo's horror –, and the force of the impact causes Jogo's feet to sink into the asphalt. He felt his ankles crackled. "Bastard!"

"Hey, don't forget about me." Purred Gojō Satoru, suddenly in Jogo's personal space. A bare palm hits Jogo in the ribs – which certainly defeats the purpose of Jogo's Domain Amplification, as the blow forces him to move outside his circle of influence besides breaking all the ribs on that side, of course – and the next thing the Curse knows is that it is moving, flying from the pedestrian crossroad towards the forest beside the highway while something is forming on the tip of the raised indicator of Gojō Satoru. "Cursed Technique Reversal: Red."

"Son of...!" And all Jogo knows is red light and pain.

"Maa, I didn't expect to be reflected." The masked man ponders, stopping, and crouches beside Gojō between breaths. Sparks still roamed his skin, but not as much as when he arrived, or rather, landed in the middle of Satoru's little amusement with the Special Grade Curse. "Nice technique of yours, by the way."

"Aw, you're going to make me blush," Satoru replies, snickering a laugh from the other man. "Gojō Satoru."

"Hatake Kakashi." The man's eyes are curved into an inverted U, before they open again, although they remain half-closed. This time there was no pinwheel spinning in red iris, just a trio of tomoe lazily circling the pupils. "And Uchiha Obito, at your service."

"Ho? A Cursed Vessel then?" Gojō comments, tilting his head to the side while his Six Eyes scanned Hatake. There was something different about the man, but Gojō couldn't tell whether it was the cursed energy of the man that ran in a strange pattern or whether it was the eyes, which were an Inherited Technique. But he never hears about a Hatake Clan, even though he is the Gojō Clan Head.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Gojō-san," Hatake replies, turning his attention back to the forest. There was something about the other man that made Satoru compare him to some kind of apex predator, like a jaguar or a wolf. The tomoe in his eyes spins faster. "Ah. That guy is still alive."

"Really?" Satoru puts his hand to his forehead in a parody of shading his eyes and lets his Inherited Technique examine the forest, quickly finding the presence of the Curse among the trees. "Who knew? He's tougher than he looked at first." Satoru murmurs, turning his attention back to Hatake, who was watching the forest with the focused attention of a hound. "Do you want to go after him?"

"I don't know. Do you want to?" Retorts the man, and Satoru can see lean muscles changing through the tears in the back of Hatake's clothes. The corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiles again at Satoru, but this time there is nothing diplomatic or fun on it, just something sharp and hungry that makes the hair on the back of Satoru's neck stand up in anticipation. "You do, don't you?"

"Some company never hurts." That's what Satoru replies, and Hatake laughs again as his eyes shift back to the pinwheels, and the light from his iris casts a faint crimson glow over the top of his cheeks. "Ready?"

"Of course." And Satoru has to laugh when Hatake disappears in a small explosion of white smoke and white static. The sorcerer soon goes after the other man and Satoru's smile is all teeth and heat when he hears a thousand birds whistling, and the Curse – properly electrocuted – comes flying towards him.

How cute.

"Nice hit!" Satoru yells to Hatake, grabbing the Curse in midair by the face before launching them both toward the ground with an impulse from Infinity. The Curse let out a scream that was muffled by Satoru's hand as he was dragged through the woods toward the lake, practically opening a crack deep enough in the small clearing floor to lift the sedimentary rocks beneath the earth and make the grass fly, plus sway the trees at their roots to the point of bending and, in the case of some, falling to the ground. Satoru then throws him back up as if he were throwing a baseball, but before he can go in pursuit, a silvery blur jumps from the treetops, a smear of silver and alabaster against the moonless sky, sparks of electricity and Cursed Energy surrounding him like a comet trail. Satoru can only watch with his mouth half open as Hatake's legs grip the Curse's neck into a vicious thigh lock before the man moves his upper body in a twist that sends the Special Grade back down so fast and so hard that the impact of the fall lifts a wave of water that makes Satoru think the Curse may have emptied half the lake and made a crater at the bottom. And it's with an unfairly feline grace that Hatake lands in a crouch a few feet from where Satoru is standing like a horny idiot. "Damn..."

"Oh, that was just a pat," Hatake says, and if not for the Six Eyes, Satoru would have lost the really big incisors in the other man's grin. It was two pairs of dangerous-looking fangs, similar to wolf teeth, that pressed against the thick fabric of the face mask and looked sharp enough to rip someone's throat out. Satoru wanted those teeth on him. "If my student Sakura caught him the same way I did, that guy over there would be dead before he hit the ground."

Satoru whistles. "She would get along with my Nobara-chan then." Comments the sorcerer, before a great idea occurred to him. "Ne, ne, Ha-ta-ke-saan~"

"Why do I feel like I won't like this?"

"Aw, you hurt me!" Exclaims Gojō, acting like the drama queen that Megumi accused him of being since the boy was six by making a show of leaning back with a hand on the chest as if he's been hit. "But one of my students is nearby, and I'm sure Yuuji-kun would love to meet you!" And besides, Satoru had some things he wanted to show the brat that couldn't be done inside a basement under the school's Shinto shrine. "It will only take a few seconds, I promise!"

Hatake's red eyes narrow at Satoru critically, before he lets out an amused little snort through his nose and turns towards the lake, waving one hand over his shoulder as he tucks the other into his pants pocket. "Don't be too long, or there won't be a Curse when you get back."

How bold!

"Don't worry, I won't be long!" And Gojo disappears with a bending of Infinity.

"Eh, Gojo-sensei?"

"Yuuji-kun, we're going for a walk, so hold on tight!"

"EH?!"

At that moment, Itadori Yuuji was a very confused person. He was watching Jigsaw, Saw's Legacy – it premiered last year, but Yuuji hadn't gone to the movies because of the rating – with Yaga-sensei's training doll in his lap when Gojo-sensei practically came out of nowhere in front of the television, threw the doll away, grabbed Yuuji under his arm as if he were a sack of rice and teleported the two of them to the airspace over the lake in the forest beside the mountain where the school was located faster than the time it took to Yuuji to scream on surprise.

"What the fuck, Gojo-sensei?!" Exclaims Yuuji, because hello! He was pulled out of school out of nowhere and hovered over a hundred meters above the lake with nothing to keep him aloft besides Gojō-sensei! "What is going on?!"

"I wanted to introduce you to someone, Yuuji-kun!" The man responds happily, and now Yuuji understands why Fushiguro and Kugisaki always seemed to want to hit Gojō-sensei with something heavy right in the face whenever he does something like that. "And I also wanted to show some things in practice that really couldn't be done in the basement."

"Alright ok, got it. Now can we go back to the ground? Please?" Yuuji begs, and between the blinks of an eye and another, they are on the surface of the lake, just in time for a man a little paler than Gojō-sensei to appear beside Yuuji, who lets out a small cry of scare.

"Maa, do you have a pink-haired one too?" It's the first thing out of the man's mouth, and Gojō-sensei lets out a booming laugh as he lifts Yuuji to his feet. For some reason, none of the three are sinking into the water, which leaves the teenager surprised and even more confused. "I'm pretty sure that Sakura's name isn't just because of the flower." He says as he looks Yuuji up and down with red appraising eyes. There is a trio of black symbols swirling around the man's pupils, and this leaves Yuuji slightly hypnotized before the man blinks, which breaks Yuuji's trance and brings him back to the present, just in time to hear the man come back talking to Gojō-sensei, this time in a more serious tone. "The Curse is still alive, but I have no idea why it remains underwater."

"Huh... Curses aren't affected by the elements, at least not when they aren't imbued with Cursed Energy." Explains Gojō-sensei. "Oh, I almost forgot. Yuuji-kun, this is Hatake Kakashi. Hatake-san, this is one of my students, Itadori Yuuji-kun."

"Yo!" Yuuji finds it funny the way the man's eyes buckle when he smiles and reciprocates Yuuji's little nod of his head with one of his own. "Nice to meet you, Itadori-kun."

"Nice to meet you too, Hatake-san," Yuuji replies, who finally notices the destroyed state of the man's clothes. The teenager quickly has to look away so he doesn't turn red and spoil his first impression. "Oh, it's Mount Fuji."

"Hmm?" Gojō-sensei and Hatake-san followed Yuuji's line of sight, and immediately had to try to contain their laughter, because the Curse had just emerged from the lake, and they had to admit that the thing's head did look like the mountain – but in Kakashi's case, looks more like the Mt. Mobyoku than that Mt. Fuji. "Oh my God, how did I not notice this before?" Gojō-sensei squeaks, leaning on Yuuji's shoulders as he lets out hysterical laughs and nudges Hatake-san in the arm, whose silent giggles are betrayed by his shaking shoulders. "Mt. Fuji! Got it? Mt. Fuji!"

Meanwhile, on the other side of the lake, with steam coming out of his head, drenched clothes and pride completely kicked and dead, a very dejected – and beaten – Jogo rises from the water and steadies himself on the surface with some Cursed Energy, right in time to see Gojo Satoru and the Cursed Container double over with laughter as Sukuna's Vessel looks between the two of them in confusion and a silly smile on his face; it's so syrupy that it's almost enough to make the pressure in the Jogo boiler go up.

Then he hears the Words of Doom™.

The corks in Jogo's ears fly off and he finally erupts – much like Mount Fuji, to tell you the truth, but it wouldn't be the sorcerers or the ninja who would point it out to him.

That's it, dammit, Gojō Satoru and that damn Cursed Vessel are dead, even if it's the last thing Jogo does!

"DON'T MOCK WITH ME, YOU BRATS!" Howls the Curse, lava flying from the ears and the top of the head like triple geysers, the glow and heat shadowing the lake as the water evaporated with the sudden temperature change and the pressure of the explosions made earth, rocks, and mud fly towards everywhere. "I'M GOING TO ENJOY SWALLOWING UP THAT SMUG FACE OF YOURS, GOJŌ SATORU!" Then a new wave of Cursed Energy shakes the lake as the lava blasts stop, and the Curse joins its hands in a seal that makes Kakashi narrow his eyes and switch from normal Sharingan to Mangekiyo so he doesn't miss any of it. "Domain Expansion!"

The fabric of reality screams in agony and the world goes black before bursting into light, a profane mixture of red black, and yellow-orange magma bounces off the obsidian walls and runs down the floor, coming towards them like a wave that is blocked by Satoru's Cursed Technique while the rest bubble around them with an immeasurable heat that, bless, was also blocked by the Infinity.

"Coffin of the Iron Mountain!" Announces the Curse, smiling with pitch-black teeth.

"I don't like this, Kakashi." Obito's voice echoes in Kakashi's skull, and the white-haired man can feel his best friend's invisible hand squeezing his wrist. "Want to use Kamui?"

"Let's wait for now, Obito," Kakashi answers inside his head, still getting used to the fact that Obito would literally and personally watch the world through Kakashi's eyes. How ironic. "If Gojo-san or Itadori-kun can't handle it, we'll interfere."

"Understood."

"Gojō-sensei, what is this place?" Yuuji asks, moving closer to his teacher, afraid he'd end up getting burned if he wasn't careful. The Sorcerer noticed that Hatake had partially placed himself between Yuuji and the Special Grade Curse.

"This, Yuuji-kun, is a Domain Expansion." Explains the white-haired man, taking his left hand to the leather and silk blindfold he has used practically since Yuuji met him, never taking it away for anything, at least not in front of the pink-haired boy. "And the best way to deal with a Domain Expansion – pay attention to that part too, Hatake-san, it's very important – is to release your Domain."

Gojo pulled the blindfold down, and both Yuuji's and Kakashi's breath caught, because those eyes weren't normal blue eyes, even though Yuuji couldn't say how or why he knew it. As for Kakashi, it was like looking at Kaguya's Red Rinnegan, or Shisui's Mangekiyou Sharingan – infinite, unreachable, divine as they cast their holy light on Gojō's white eyelashes and pale cheekbones. His eyes were the same blue of the fire of a dying star, flecked with silver comets and white sunlight, opposite the bloody red and darkish black of the Sharingan or the pearly gray of the Byakugan. They were beautiful, even more so in the warm light of the Special Grade Curse's Domain Expansion.

"WILL NOT BE LEFT ANY ASH FROM YOU, GOJŌ SATORU!" Screams the Curse and the volcanic Domain Expansion roars in fury as a real tsunami of debris and boiling magma comes towards the trio of humans, Yuuji ends up grabbing the hem of Kakashi's shirt as the huge wave crashes over them.

"Domain Expansion." The universe holds its breath, the planet stops spinning, and Gojō Satoru crosses the index and middle finger of his right hand. "Infinite Void."

The Curse's Domain Expansion rips at the seams. Then there is noise, there is silence, there is fire, wind, water, earth, and lightning. There is yin and yang, there is everything and at the same time, there is nothing. There is the brightness of a thousand suns and the darkness of a thousand shadows. There's Obito and Rin, there's Minato-sensei, Kushina-nee, and the White Fang. There are a multitude of Uchihas and Hatakes, and somewhere, a wolf pack howls. There is retrocess and innovation, there is revolution and defeat. There are an infinite number of possibilities while there are none, and Kakashi and Obito can see absolutely everything while, at the same time, they are completely blind.

There is infinity and, in the middle of it all, a black hole.

Then they see Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. They are there, lost along the way, and Obito immediately grabs them and pulls them toward him and Kakashi.

So there's a familiar pressure on Kakashi's shoulders, and he blinks, snapping out of his trance, but that's okay. His pups will be fine. They're almost there, as Kamui has pulled them in the right direction, and now it's mostly up to Sasuke's Rinnegan. And the Hatake in Kakashi knows that the Uchiha pup would take his littermates home.

"Are you okay?" Itadori asks where he was hanging under Gojō's arm, who had the head of Mount Fuji in his other hand as he looked worriedly at Kakashi. The Curse is so focused on the Domain Expansion that it doesn't even realize its head is literally on the Sorcerer's hand. "Hatake-san?"

"Yes, pup. I'm fine." The man answers, leaning over and shaking his hand in front of the Curse's face after patting Yuuji on the head. The Curse doesn't even blink, just stands there, pointing to itself as he stares off into space. "So what exactly is this all about, Gojo-san?"

"This, Yuuji-kun, Hatake-san, Mt. Fuji-san, is the combined technique of my Six Eyes and Infinity. This is the inner world of Limitless." Explains Gojō, twisting the Curse's head slowly. The thing's neck starts to creak. Gojō's looks delighted with the sounds from the Curse's bones. "It's a bit ironic, don't you think, Mt. Fuji-san? When granted everything, you can't do anything against me because, after all, you are weak."

Then Gojō pulls, and the reality returns to normal when the Curse's head is thrown on the ground.

"Maa... This is what I call an educational experience." Kakashi comments idly while rolling his shoulders languidly to ease the remaining stiffness from using Kamui to pierce the fabric of the universe through someone else's power again. And given that Sasuke's Rinnegan was stolen from Madara, who stole that said Rinnegan when the dojutsu was still Obito's original Sharingan eye that was in Kakashi's eye socket at the time... Well. At least the boy wouldn't have to worry about headaches and fatigue plus the chakra drain that came with this kind of advanced technique – Kakashi is ignoring the fact that his chakra was now, in addition to running strangely through his tenketsu channels, much bigger and more lasting than ever, which was making the man paranoid as he tried to predict when exactly the other shoe would fall off. He doesn't notice Yuuji nudging Gojō so he wipes the drop of saliva running down the corner of his lip. "Now, Gojō-san... What are we going to do with this guy here?" The half-naked man asks, nudging the Curse's severed head with his foot. It tinkled like pottery.

"Usually just standard cleaning service, but since it hasn't faded away yet..." Gojō planted the sole of his foot on the Curse's cheek, the blindfold just half lifted over his right eye as he adjusted the rest around his head, and the thing moaned in pain under the Sorcerer's weight coupled with his Cursed Technique. "...I think I should question him. So I ask you, Mt. Fuji-san... Who sent you?"

The decapitated Curse bared its teeth, but before Satoru could apply more pressure – literally and figuratively – for an answer, Hatake's nostrils flared under the mask – what was that guy, a hound? – and the man moved, literally passing through Satoru and Infinity – and what the fuck is this Cursed Technique?! –, just in time to avoid being hit by what appeared to be a giant sprout of auratum lilies that pierced the ground where Hatake had been standing seconds before. Yuuji screamed in fright and fear, but before Satoru could extend his Infinity to protect Yuuji from whatever was coming, a field of wildflowers sprouted from the branch roots, spreading in all directions until forming a circle of almost fifty meters in diameter, standard size for a Domain Amplification.

"Don't breathe!" Warns Kakashi, closing his nasal passages with chakra, but it was too late; Gojou and Itadori had inhaled the hallucinogenic pollen, and now exclaimed how good and pleasant those flowers were. And amid that mess of glowing chakra, petals flying everywhere, fake sunlight in Hashirama-style – and that rang loud alarms in Kakashi's head – and pearly mist, Kakashi and Obito had lost sight of the Curse's head. "Fuck it! Gojō!"

The man – thanks Sage – seemed to hear Kakashi and stopped laughing – and why he is singing that he will kill someone with that voice as he bounce around like that? –, slapping himself on the cheek and definitively interrupting the effect of the pollen. Just in time for a root to seize Yuuji by the ankle and toss him in the air like a trap noose, sending him flying upward, screaming for help. And as Yuuji is yelling at Gojo to save him from being devoured by a cursed man-eating tree trunk – thanks for the explanation, Obito, very helpful –, the three hundred-and-sixty-degree vision of the Sharingan caught the cause of this clear distraction just in time to see it grabbing something off the ground before running away.

Well, Kakashi was not the ANBU Hound, the best hunter, and tracker that the Leaf Hidden Village had produced since Senju Tobirama himself – who was also Hatake on his mother's side – for nothing.

He soared in the trail of what was another Curse, his senses now free of any blockage against the hallucinogenic pollen locked in the signature and nearly invisible tracks of the one-armed Curse that raced through the forest with what was the head of the volcanic Curse. Under any other circumstances, the Special Grade Curse known as Hanami would have lost its pursuer amid its natural element, but to their misfortune, Hatake Kakashi was a Konoha-nin accustomed to tracking and killing in much larger and denser forests than this one, which barely compared to a garden by white-haired ninja standards. So anything the Curse tried to throw against him was summarily ignored or brushed aside until Kakashi saw the road on the mountainside where he and Gojo had departed earlier that night in their little game of passing the Curse-like-a-hot-potato.

Huh, now there's an idea.

Kakashi cuts his thumb on the hair-thin needle he keeps under his index fingernail, runs through the correct signals so fast his hands are a blur while he's still in the air, and slaps with the hand of the injured finger on the branch of the tree where he stopped crouched.

"Summoning Jutsu!" The howls of a pack of something between dogs and lions shake the forest. There are eight of them, ranging from a tiny little thing the size of a pug to a mastiff bulldog so big that the withers almost reached Hatake's ribs. They all had a mane of curly hair on their necks the same color as their summoner's hair, as well as lion's ears, fangs and claws, and the bodies and tails of dogs of different breeds. The smallest of them leaped onto Kakashi's shoulder as the others darted in the wake of their prey with a commanding whistle and a couple of hand signals. "Hello Pakkun."

"What the fuck you dig yourself into now, boss?" Asks the pug that was no longer a pug at all, glaring at the red-eyed man with a look of fond exasperation. "And what the hell are we chasing? That thing doesn't smell like anything we've hunted before."

"That was a Curse." Explains Kakashi, changing direction at Guruko's howl and speeding through the tree branches. They weren't as big or thick as those he was used to, but it didn't matter. The thing they were chasing was ingenious, but nothing escaped Kakashi's pack once they caught the scent. "Special Grade. I still don't know exactly what a Curse is, but the one we're chasing has come to the rescue of another, which we were planning to interrogate. Almost killed two people. It can use a genjutsu, but that can be easily broken." The man reports, and soon the angry and frustrated howl of the rest of the pack reaches them. That wasn't good. "What happened?" Asks the man as he and Pakkun reach where the other hounds – now lion dogs – are.

"That thing is gone. In mid-air, like it's never been here." Guruko growls, spittle dripping from his new upper fangs as his hook claws ripped small cracks in the earth as he walked back and forth, completely livid, which was to be expected, as Guruko was the best tracker in the pack after Pakkun. The other dogs grunted in agreement. "And there's nothing here to mask the smell! The trail just disappears by the side of the road!"

"It's alright, Guruko, guys. All of you did great." Praises Kakashi, bending down to scratch behind the hound's ears. The fur on Guruko's curly mane was soft, and that made Kakashi wonder where his dogs' henohenomoheji scarves and forehead protectors had gone. "Come on, let's go back. If we're lucky, Gojō-san and Itadori-kun will still be waiting for us."

With a myriad of whines and barks, Kakashi and his ninken were gone with a twist of the Kamui, cutting through Obito's pocket dimension before re-emerging alongside Gojō and Itadori, who were still on the lake's edge, apparently waiting for him.

"Are these komainus?" It's the first thing Satoru says when Hatake and a pack of lion dogs – real fucking lion dogs, these things weren't even Shikigami, how in the seven hells Hatake have a pack of them? And more importantly, where did he get them and where can Satoru get one? – come through Hatake's Cursed Technique. The smallest of the dogs is a menacing-looking pug due to its protruding lower tusks and tiny claws that seemed to be able to pluck out someone's eyes, while the largest was something more similar to the lions at the temple doors, except for the fact that it having, you know, two pairs of real tusks the size of Satoru's thumb and claws as big as a bear's on all fours, plus massive size – the bulldog's shoulders are almost higher than Satoru's belly button. The Sorcerer felt sorry for whoever ended up getting the bad side of those dogs. "Oh, well. It doesn't matter. It's still dogs at the end of the day, so as long as they don't try to eat me or my students, it's okay. Did you manage to catch the Curses?"

"They're ninken, and they won't eat anyone without my prompting, at least," Hatake replies, and wasn't that comforting? The two men deliberately pretend they can't see Yuuji bending down next to the dog with the black stripe in the middle of his mane and reaching out for him and the others to sniff. "The Curses escaped. The dogs lost them near the road."

"Hm...Maybe they have some allies with a teleport technique?" The Sorcerer meditates, crossing his arms as he thinks. Alongside the two, Yuuji was playing catch the stick – which was a piece of the cursed tree that almost killed him minutes before – with Kakashi's dogs, who were barking excitedly. The pug remained on the shoulder of the spiky-haired man. "What do you think?"

"It wouldn't be the first time this has happened to me," Kakashi replies, shrugging. The leonine pug doesn't move. "What do you think of that, Pakkun?"

"It's a good hypothesis." Says Pakkun, and okay, Satoru was not expecting this. Did the other dogs talk too? "For now, it's best to secure a hiding place before you make any moves, boss. And some clothes while we're at it."

"Ahahaha..." Kakashi laughs, running his right hand over the back of his neck and messing up his hair even more. Satoru desperately looks and appreciates the show. "Can you believe I forgot about that?"

"Honestly boss, what would you do without us?" Asks the pug, and Satoru takes this as his cue to make the offer he's been holding on the tip of his tongue since the moment he spotted Hatake being a hot badass against the volcano head.

"Ne, I may have a solution for this, Hatake-san, Pakkun-san." Says Satoru, smiling at the dog and his human. The pug raises a highly suspicious eyebrow while Hatake just tilts his head to the side. So cute! "Me and my student are Jujutsu Sorcerers. And Jujutsu Tech is right there on top of the mountain."

The lion pug and the man look at each other, communicating clearly through micro-expressions and looks. Satoru patiently waited for them to make a decision, taking the opportunity to keep an eye on Yuuji. He and the bulldog mastiff were fighting tug-of-war over the branch, with Yuuji managing to hold his ground against the dog that was probably a hundred kilos heavier than him.

"Maa, it doesn't hurt to take a look." The man finally says, and the pug lets out a short bark. Immediately, the other dogs gather around Hatake's legs, including the bulldog. Satoru has to praise Hatake's komainus – not even Megumi's Divine Dogs are as obedient or well-behaved, even after years of dressage. Yuuji followed shortly thereafter, smiling as he threw away the ruffled branch and shook the grass from his clothes. "Lead the way, Gojo-san, Itadori-kun."

Satoru has never smiled so wildly in his life. Oh man, the superiors would be so pissed about that!

"Oh and by the way." Says the man and the red and black of his eyes turn to a charcoal grey smeared with silver that makes Satoru shiver inside. He smiles and his eyes curl into a cheerful U. "Call me Kakashi."

There is a tug. Invisible hands that reach out, grasping pieces of what might be clothing or bare skin, pulling in a specific direction. This makes a purple and a red eye blink lethargically, confused. It - he? Was it a he, not an it? - did not move, completely exhausted.

The tug became more insistent.

Sasuke?

Sasuke-kun?

Shut up.

Aww, don't be like that! Get up and shine, little cousin!

An entirely purple eye full of circles and tomoes opens and glows with anger. The universe trembles and for what may be the fourth or fifth time in less than twenty-four hours, reality opens up and insensibly spits out foreign and unwanted bodies.

Damned dimensional travelers and universe destroyers. Oh well. At least it wasn't that Vongola brat and his bunch of weirdos or that inconsequential god playing with the Space Stone again. God knows that corner of the universe is fucked up enough without things like that interfering at all times.

Humpf. Twats.

SOMEWHERE IN THE SEWAGES, AUGUST 16, 2018 - TOKYO, JAPAN

"I hate my life." It's the first thing out of Uchiha Sasuke's mouth as he regains consciousness in what appears to be a sewer latrine much like the ones he Team Taka had once used as a hideout somewhere in Lightning Country. At least the sewers in that city in the Lightning Country were moderately clean. These, on the other hand, smelled so bad that Sasuke could feel the little hairs on his nose curling and his eyes – very sensitive, by the way, holy crap – start to water. Oh well; at least he wasn't crying blood again. It was going to suck trying to wipe his eyes with his dirty hands, and besides, Sakura would probably kill him if he caught conjunctivitis in the Rinnegan, or worse, in his new Sharingan – her words, not his. It wasn't Sasuke's fault that Karin couldn't accurately heal delicate things like optical nerves, chakra channels, and veins. Sakura just didn't heal him while they were at war because of the short time they had; either she put the Rinnegan in place, or she healed the eye Sasuke took from Itachi. And they had other priorities at that time, such as the crazy great-great-grandfather beating everyone's arses down, the cousin controlled by a seal in his heart trying to put everyone on an eternal genjutsu, the plant army, and the crazy alien goddess. So, as can be seen, Sasuke had reason to hate his life like this, which seemed to be one disastrous event after another since the clan's massacre. But now it was no use crying over spilled shochu, as Sasuke's grandmother would say, so the boy gritted his teeth, braced his hands on the floor, and finally stood up.

And wow! Vertigo! Yey!

"I fucking hate my life." The teenager grunts, leaning against the wall of the pipe and resisting the urge to cover his eyes with his hands in disgrain. Fucking sewer bacterias and fucking cousin Obito – Sasuke was pretty sure this bullshit was his fault because Kakashi had enough brain cells to know that messing with reality was a big NO, especially if you were an impressionable Uchiha or if you have the eye of one – Sasuke will pretend that Obito didn't just drop them into another dimension via the Kaguya Express, because fuck his life, of course Uchiha karma would be bad at this point, even more so if combined with Naruto's Uzumaki luck. "Cuss. Shit. Fuck." Grumbles Sasuke, completely pissed off, groping in his weapon bag for a pack of soldier pills he took from Sakura and a protein bar he got from Choji before everything goes to hell in a handbasket in nine different forms before Naruto's birthday. He gulps down two of the chakra-replacement pills before starting to nibble on the jounin-level food bar, and immediately his headache and dizziness eased as Sasuke's chakra levels soared to just beyond the bottom of the pit. Okay, now that he was back in business as best he could – and he wasn't all hurt from the fight with Madara, Zetsu, and Kaguya anymore, so how... –, Sasuke decided that his first course of action would be to get out of that latrine a million times cursed and finding a way out of those sewers – and a shower, but more pressing priorities first.

Checking that Kusanagi was in the sheath – yes, one less worry – and that his chakra reserves were rising as he digested the pills and the protein bar – yes, they were almost half full now – Sasuke chose the direction where the scent of shit was fresher and started walking to the opposite side. There had to be a way out of there somewhere.

He just had to find it.