The next morning, Akira finished breakfast and sat cross-legged in his room, eyes half-focused as numbers flickered across his mind like phantom symbols.
"The day before yesterday, I sent Itachi a letter," he murmured. "Yesterday, Kakashi. For Itachi, one day has passed. That means I have today and tomorrow to give him a clue… enough to blackmail him properly."
After several minutes of mental calculation, Akira began writing again. Another letter — this time, addressed to Kakashi. When he sealed it, he left his room and wandered through the quieter streets of Konoha.
He passed vendors, shinobi, and the occasional child running with a wooden kunai, but none caught his attention — until he spotted an old man hauling a cart of household trash.
Akira stopped beside him. "Hey, old man. Want to earn some money?"
The man turned, surprised to see a child speaking like that. "Eh? You lost, kid? Where are your parents?"
Akira sighed internally. Right. I look like a child. Outwardly, he smiled. "I'm not lost. I need you to deliver this letter to a grave in the Konoha Cemetery — Nohara Rin. I'll pay you."
The old man frowned. "That's on the other side of the village. Three, maybe four hours walk."
Akira handed him a small envelope and five hundred yen. "Then it's worth the walk." He left before the man could refuse.
When he was a hundred meters away, Akira's left eye spun — a single tomoe Sharingan glinting faintly. Through it, he watched the old man.
Within minutes, the man turned his cart and began trudging toward the cemetery.
Akira smiled faintly. "Well, I'm not that bad at judging people."
---
After confirming the delivery, he returned home, had lunch, and began training.
Lately, he'd developed an odd fondness for Taijutsu. It was ridiculous — punching and kicking like one of those movie heroes who could send enemies flying in slow motion — but there was something addictive about it.
"In my past life," he thought, executing a clumsy roundhouse, "I'd have laughed at this." Now he felt exhilarated. "Guess this world changes priorities."
For the first time, the fantasy he once read about was something he could live.
---
Kakashi's POV
By afternoon, Kakashi Hatake trained in the wind-swept clearing behind the training grounds. The rhythm of his movements was mechanical — efficient, perfect, and empty. When evening fell, he walked to the Konoha Cemetery.
There, among rows of stone markers, he saw it — a small envelope resting atop Nohara Rin's grave.
The same careful handwriting. The same seal.
He opened it. Inside, only a few words:
" Rin's death was a conspiracy.
Her blood did not fall by chance.
Kakashi Hatake—
once again, let us conduct the equivalent exchange that has been the quiet law governing your entire existence.
I place before you a pendant.
A simple trinket to the blind,
a tether of fate to those who can see.
Deliver it into the hands of Danzo's shadow,
Yamanaka Fū.
Ensure he wears it—
from sunrise to sunrise,
without removing it,
without question.
Do this,
and I shall reveal to you the truth buried beneath Nohara Rin's death—
whether it was merely a tragedy of war…
…or the precise, calculated strike
of a conspiracy that never ended.
Remember, Copy Ninja:
the world is deeper than the lies you were forced to accept.
— Chronarch
"
Kakashi stared at the letter for a long time. The pendant inside was matte black — simple, almost unremarkable — a small kunai hanging from a thin chain.
He frowned. A conspiracy?
Everyone knew Rin's death had been part of the Hidden Mist's plan — sealing the Three-Tails inside her to detonate once she reached Konoha's walls. She'd chosen suicide to stop it. A tragedy, yes, but not a mystery.
And yet… the writer, Chronarch, had known things he shouldn't have. About Kakashi's eye. About truths even the Uchiha didn't share publicly.
So perhaps this, too, hid another layer.
---
The next morning, Kakashi headed toward the Root's underground base — a vast lattice of stone bridges, tunnels, and chambers. It wasn't a home. It was a hive.
Every Root operative lived here — emotionless, obedient, stripped of identity. The few exceptions were himself and Itachi, who'd joined later and still retained fragments of who they once were.
He stopped by the mission board. His assignment: assassinate a minor noble in the Land of Earth. Duration — fifteen days. Two subordinates to accompany him.
Fifteen days away. Fifteen days without any contact or message from Chronarch.
He sighed softly behind his mask. Then an idea formed — one that had kept him awake the previous night.
He turned and walked down another corridor until he reached a small room. Knocking twice, he heard a flat voice reply:
"You may enter."
Yamanaka Fū sat on a tatami mat, expression blank as always, eyes dull yet piercing in that unsettling Root way.
Kakashi matched his tone, emotionless. "I want to exchange missions with you."
Fū didn't react.
Kakashi continued, drawing the pendant from beneath his shirt — a flash of black metal in the dim light. "Danzo-sama gave me this when I first joined Root. He said he had high expectations for me. I'd like you to take it. Consider it a gesture of trust — in exchange for the mission."
For a moment, something flickered in Fū's eyes — a faint ripple beneath the still surface. Longing, perhaps. Admiration.
"The pendant of Danzo-sama… from the Second Hokage himself," he whispered. "Very well. We'll exchange."
Kakashi nodded, concealing the faint amusement that tugged at his lips as Fū accepted the chain.
---
Humans were strange, Kakashi thought as he left the room.
A scrap of metal could change meaning depending on whose hands it passed through. Give it sentiment — a memory, a name — and it became priceless.
Just like fans in the old world of Akira who would pay fortunes for a footballer's shoes or an actress's hairpin even though their worth was less than a fragment of it.
Fū wasn't trusting him — he was trusting Danzo. Because in Root, to doubt Danzo was to cease existing.
Kakashi wasn't worried. Even if Danzo learned of it, nothing could be done. He was still the Third Hokage's favored hound, and technically part of the Hokage's faction.
Besides, Hiruzen had been urging him to leave Root and return to Anbu anyway.
For now, though, he had achieved what he wanted.
He would go on his mission, while Yamanaka Fū — loyal, unquestioning Fū — would wear that pendant all day.
And somewhere, unseen, Chronarch would be watching.
---