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Without Fear or Favor

Kakashi isn’t blood of Uchiha, but he was permitted to keep a closely guarded clan talent. A look at the potential reasoning of the Uchiha. Drama, Angst, I-3

Character(s): Hatake Kakashi

Kakashi had passed out on his way back to the village from his first mission as a jounin, the mission that had changed his life yet again. He’d been told, once he woke up, that Minato-sensei had used his Hiraishin to get Kakashi to his home and then the hospital before the Sharingan killed him. Because, of course, that had been the problem. The Sharingan drained chakra. Normally, a critical drain would cause the Sharingan to deactivate, but Kakashi’s hadn’t.

“Hatake-kun, you must let us operate to remove it!” Arakaki-sensei exhorted him, leaning over the side of his cot earnestly. “You aren’t an Uchiha; your body can’t handle it!”

“It was a gift.” Kakashi folded his hands over his stomach, looking up at the ceiling with his own eye. The eye Obito had given him was now under a bandage with a suppression seal written on it.

Arakaki sighed and rubbed his forehead. Kakashi got that reaction from the medics a lot. “There might not be a choice, you know. The Uchiha clan has heard about this, and there’s a summons waiting for you as soon as you can get out of bed again. You know they won’t want their bloodline talent in the hands of someone outside their clan.”

Kakashi didn’t imagine they would, no. Just a week ago, he might well have accepted that. But Obito wouldn’t have, hadn’t, and so he wouldn’t either. Not now, when he was all of Obito that was left. “When will you release me, then?”

“You’re not going anywhere for at least two days.” Arakaki gave him a stern look. He’d been Kakashi’s attending medic before. “The north front is quiet and you’re not setting foot outside these walls until I’m sure that eye isn’t going to kill you!”

Kakashi nodded quietly. Two days, then. In two days, he would find a way to convince the Uchiha to respect Obito’s will. He closed his eyes and sent himself down to sleep.


The Uchiha were the village’s largest clan. They’d grown beyond a single compound, even one like the sprawling Aburame or Hyuuga complexes, and lived in their own district of the village.

At least half of them seemed to have something they wanted to say about Kakashi’s new Sharingan.

“…far too great a risk to the boy…”

“…can’t set a precedent like this! Before you know it the village would be stripping Uchiha bodies in the field!”

“…graft wasn’t rejected, though, so he must be compatible; perhaps he could marry in…”

Kakashi sat in calm seiza, just off to the side of the clan head, Hideaki, and his heir, Fugaku. The long room nearly rang with the babble of Uchiha clan members shouting at each other, despite the high rafters and crowd of bodies.

“…can’t control it, obviously…”

“He actually used it, within minutes of implantation! Those are some genes worth having…”

“…conflict of interest, if he’s the last of his name…”

“…fact is, it’s against our laws, and we don’t dare let the village’s law come before a clan’s own control of its bloodline!”

Kakashi unfocused his eye a little, so he could watch the moment of the room as a whole. There were knots of opinion, but no consensus yet, nothing he could target yet. He would have stifled a sigh if he hadn’t spent years training such revealing expressions out of himself. Instead, he sat still and watched the play of leaf shadows on the paper screens of the outside wall, and waited some more.

At last, Hideaki stood and called out, “Enough!” over the babble. It quieted slowly, and he sat back down. “I have heard your views,” he said, rather dryly, and Kakashi was amused to see a number of the Uchiha flush. “Now I think I would like to hear Hatake Kakashi.” Piercing black eyes caught Kakashi’s, and he straightened a little. “Why did you accept the Sharingan, and why do you wish to keep it?”

“It was Obito’s dying wish.” Unexpectedly, Kakashi had to stop and discipline his voice to keep huskiness out of it. He continued, as formally as he knew how, hoping that would move a noble clan—no matter how much they were acting like a class full of pre-genin right at this moment. “He bequeathed it to me to protect the things he cared for. I accepted that charge, and I will not dishonor his memory by releasing it.”

“Even though you can’t fully control it?” Hideaki asked, sounding more curious than dismissive. “You’ll have to re-train in all your techniques, both to use one eye and to use the Sharingan with a regular eye. You’ll have a significant weakness, now, too. If any enemy realizes the drain the Sharingan is on you, they have only to take away your seal,” he nodded at the eye-patch Kakashi had stitched a River Under Mountain seal into while he waited out the medics, “to incapacitate you.”

“Closing the eye slows the drain,” Kakashi said, keeping still and straight-backed. “Re-training will require an effort, but I believe my previous record indicates that it will not keep me out of the field for an unreasonable length of time.”

“Hmm.” Hideaki was watching him like he was a puzzle. Minato-sensei had watched him like that, sometimes, his genin year. “And what do you think Obito cared for?” he asked at last, quietly. “What have you dedicated yourself to protect in his place?”

Kakashi breathed freely for the first time in days. Hideaki-san understood. “The village. Our teammate, Rin.” He spread a hand out toward the room. “His clan.” He hesitated for a long moment, but the last answer tugged at him, and he had promised this to Obito also, even if he’d never said it out loud. Finally, Kakashi looked down at his hands and added, softly, “His friends.”

“Uchiha Obito was a credit to us,” Hideaki said gently, and Kakashi fiercely swallowed down the tightness of tears in his throat. “And Hatake Kakashi,” he continued, louder, speaking to the whole clan, now, “has willingly taken up the responsibility to continue on that path. I say this is admirable, and that the codes of our clan must approve. Nevertheless, it is true that our laws say only members of Uchiha may bear the Sharingan.” The listening clan members stirred, and Kakashi waited tensely to see what the price of his choice would be. Would they require a marriage? An adoption? He’d just started coming to some kind of terms with his father’s legacy, he didn’t want to have that covered up or taken away…

“Hatake Kakashi will be affiliated with us,” Hideaki said calmly. “His name will be carried in the records of our clan. If he wishes to marry or father children outside the clan, he will require the same permissions as anyone born of our blood.” A few people looked disgruntled, the ones who had been insisting most loudly that Kakashi not be allowed to keep Obito’s eye at all, but most of the room was nodding, satisfied. Kakashi, on the other hand, had seen a tiny quirk at the corners of Hideaki’s lips, and was waiting for what came next. “He will be carried in our records as one of us. But the fact remains that he was born to another line, and one that was long honored in our village. I say that, if it is his will, he may remain on the Hatake family register, rather than the Uchiha.”

Kakashi couldn’t help himself from drawing a long, shaky breath of relief at that, even as sharp exclamations burst out among the crowd. Hideaki raised his voice over them.

“Would you really have me take his name from him, when he has clearly been striving to do it honor? Is that the justice of our clan?” He frowned at his gathered clan members, most of whom subsided sheepishly. “It’s decided then.”

“Unconventional,” Fugaku observed softly to his father, as people started to leave, talking quietly among themselves. “Some won’t think it’s enough.”

“You’ll find you can rarely make everyone happy, in any large decision,” Hideaki returned, a bit wry. “We do the best we can, by the precepts of our clan.”

Kakashi didn’t think Fugaku entirely agreed, but he nodded quietly and slipped out after the last murmuring clan members. That left Hideaki and Kakashi, and he looked up at… well, his new clan head, he supposed. “What are my duties, as a… an affiliate of Uchiha?” he asked, wanting to offer something in return for the name Hideaki had left him.

Hideaki was watching him thoughtfully again. “Learn to use what you have inherited. Fulfill Obito’s last wishes. I think, if you do that, you will make a fine clan member.” His mouth quirked. “I don’t think you’ll need to think about marriage for some time, yet, but when you’re older you should consider taking a lover from the clan once or twice; we would welcome your blood, and there are traditions we keep among ourselves you might like to learn.” He stood and Kakashi followed, smoothly. “I’ll assign Kazuo to tutor you in the uses of the Sharingan.”

Kakashi nodded. “Yes…” he hesitated, thinking, and finally finished, “Toushu-sama.” At least he thought that was what Obito would have called his clan head.

Hideaki’s sharp, black eyes softened, and he laid a hand on Kakashi’s shoulder. “Obito was a precious son of my clan,” he said softly. “For all that his carelessness was sometimes the despair of his teachers, he delighted in the life around him, in all its beauty and detail. He would have been a very great shinobi, if he’d grown to pay as much attention to his duties as he did to good food and good company and the life of the village.”

Kakashi didn’t think it would serve anything for him to become careless. But appreciating the little bits of village life… perhaps he could do more of that, yes. In Obito’s memory. He nodded again, quietly determined.

Hideaki patted his shoulder. “Remember that you can call on this clan as your own, now.” He left Kakashi to make his own way out through the Uchiha district, freely as if he’d actually belonged there.


Kakashi had always been proud, and he never had called on the Uchiha, his second clan. But the offer had stayed with him, as a little warmth in his heart, for seventeen years.

For another seven after that, it burned as one more reminder of the things he couldn’t keep.

In the end, though, when he had the chance to gift that belonging back to the last son of Uchiha, he decided he was glad to have had it.

End

Last Modified: Apr 16, 14
Posted: Oct 12, 11
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Devolucao, Theodosia21, TangoAlpha, tucuxi, deathgeonous, p3x, Silver Magiccraft (silver_magiccraft), starr_falling, Icka M Chif (mischif), obwzdrfn and 13 other readers sent Plaudits.

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25 Comments

  1. jjhunter

    Ay, again you strike to the heart of things. I like the detail with Fugaku not entirely agreeing; the hint of Kakashi’s future ways of honoring Obito with careful ‘carelessness’; the soul-deep different that has taken root in him with the graft of Obito’s way of looking at the world. And what a wonderful character Hideaki is!

    In short, this short works for me on many levels. Thank you so much for sharing it!

    Reply
    1. branchandroot Post author

      *hearts* Thank you! I kind of fell in love with Hideaki, even in just one story, really. He was exactly what I needed for Kakashi to bond to, and someone who makes sense for Fugaku to react against a little. I think Fugaku figures his dad’s too soft.

      Reply
    1. branchandroot Post author

      Thank you! It’s one of those little things that kind of drives me nuts. Everyone /else/ who has some other clan’s eyes has to steal them surreptitiously. Why was Kakashi different?

      Reply
  2. edenfalling

    Nifty! I really like Hideaki and his way of managing his clan. He pulls a very neat balance here between upholding the traditions of the Uchiha while also respecting Kakashi’s own wishes and family name. And while it’s been obvious since Obito’s introduction that Kakashi is perpetually late in his honor, I like that you extend that (via Hideaki’s advice) to more of a genuine appreciation of life instead of just a ritualized habit.

    Reply
    1. branchandroot Post author

      *sparkles* Yes! The fact that it’s Obito who seems to make Kakashi understand what Minato is always going on about teamwork for always said to me that Kakashi really accepted Obito’s /worldview/.

      Hideaki is a cool guy. By my calculations, he’s Madara’s son, and he’s always felt he has something to live down, there. He’s very dedicated to justice and honor.

      Reply
  3. tucuxi

    This is really lovely — I really like the way Kakashi hears only snippets of the arguments about his future, and the medics’ reactions to the eye’s chakra drain was great.

    (This topic is particularly interesting to me because I’ve been working on a fic set just after Kannabi Bridge, which also goes into Uchiha politics a little bit. I’m glad to see someone else is interested in what happens next!)

    Reply
    1. branchandroot Post author

      Thank you! Yes, it’s something I’ve wondered about increasingly as Kishimoto shows just how common body-part theft seems to be and how justified clan paranoia about that is.

      Reply
      1. tucuxi

        It’s really frightening and creepy. And it’s clearly an idea that’s been there from the start — he explains hunter nin and the destruction of bodies in the Wave Country arc! Not to mention the Hyuga seal on branch house members.

        I want more Kakashi Gaiden and younger!adults flashbacks. But then, the teachers/adults are my favorite characters in Naruto for the most part, so I suppose that’s not really a surprise.

        Reply
        1. branchandroot Post author

          Oh goodness, yes, I am in so much agreement with wanting more backstory. How did they all get to be where they are when the story opens? We get just enough about Kakashi to know there must be more, and almost nothing for anyone else; so frustrating! Kishimoto really does tend to blow the adults off. I mean, we don’t even have a /hint/ how Kakashi achieved his Mangekyou Sharingan, for pity’s sake.

          (Not that I’ve just been working on that question because it was driving me crazy or anything.)

          Reply
          1. tucuxi

            … LJ just ate my comment.

            So suffice it to say: I would totally read a fic about how Kakashi achieved his Mangekyou Sharingan, because that would be awesome. And more information on how the grown-ups got the way they are (relatively normal or completely haywire) would make me do a little happy dance.

            Reply
  4. mitsuhachi

    Oh, this is FUN. I’m really enjoying how tired and still determined Kakashi is here, you always write him as having the best headspace. And I really like this as a reflection of the one with him and sasuke–how Kakashi really DOES understand, cause he’s lost something personally too in the Uchiha Massacre. I’m wondering now whether Kakashi actually did take an Uchiha lover ever, now, or hooked up, and if so how much that impacted how he was with Sasuke later. Mmm. I really really love the clan-politics and the almost miniature culture they’ve got going on. I like how you’ve handled the worldview thing too, as though Kakashi doesn’t entirely think of himself as himself anymore, like he’s partly Obito too, both in the literal sense and as personalities, how he seems determined to allow the obito-personality to drive sometimes. I’m not sure that’s quite the right way of putting it, but it explains personality ‘gap’ better than anything else I’ve read, so I’m finding it pretty shiny.<3

    Reply
    1. branchandroot Post author

      *wry* I kind of figured Kakashi must have had to fight to keep that eye, considering how paranoid (with justice!) all the clans are about body snatching. And personally? I bet he /did/ take a lover from the clan at some point, probably someone a little older who approved of his guts and was a little amused by the scrappy kid (who’s growing up to be a real looker).

      And yes! There are so many anime characters who do that, you know, who try to keep a loved one alive by becoming them. Kakashi seemed like a natural to be doing that, given what we see in canon.

      Reply
  5. TangoAlpha

    What I think is so great about all of your stories is how you leave no stone unturned. You look closely at what Kishimoto has created and see little details. You think of what he left out, elaborate on what was vague, and interpret in new ways. I’m always so impressed with how intricately you have built up your own Naruto world. A world which I am starting to love more than the original. When I think about how valued these kekkei genial are, of course there would be dissent in the Uchiha clan. However, when I watched/read Kakashi Gaiden, all I thought was, “Oh no, Obito! You and Kakashi just started getting along! Little Kakashi, I want to give you a hug!” I never really paid attention to the clan politics that would be involves in the aftermath.

    Once again, another great little story.

    Reply
    1. Branch Post author

      *sparkles* Thank you! The Gaiden was totally a “hug chibi Kakashi!” moment, wasn’t it? But Kishimoto keeps making it so very clear that the bloodlines really /are/ this focus of incredible tension and anxiety and outright theft. *shivers* Obito was making a really, really huge gesture, there!

      Reply
      1. TangoAlpha

        Oh, yes. I agree he does make it clear. Like Ao having the Byakugan as a war prize. It was just during Kakashi Gaiden I had a hard time looking at things in a more political scope. I saw only what was going on on the surface level even though there were underlying meanings right in front of me. I think what your stories make me realize is that I sometimes don’t look closely at what is being presented. That I take what is obvious and gloss over the deeper more complicated themes. So thank you for challenging me and making me think! :]

        Reply
  6. Qem

    I reLly liked the reasoning of the Uchiha and the way Kakashi broke up over realising he’d need to look after himself as part of the promise for Obito.

    Reply
    1. Branch Post author

      *hearts* I’m completely convinced Kakashi is one of the most messed up characters in here. He’s just found a way to be functionally messed up, poor guy. I think he makes all the shades of his friends and loved ones tear their hair over him.

      Reply