Kakashi awoke with a start, his body tensing as his instincts screamed danger. The air was wrong—too crisp, laced with unfamiliar scents: metal, smoke, and something acrid, like burning oil.
His head throbbed, a dull reminder of the vortex that had swallowed him whole. He lay still for a moment, eyes closed, letting his senses map his surroundings.
The surface beneath him was hard, gritty, not the earth of a battlefield but something man-made, cold and unyielding.
'Where am I?' His mind, sharp despite the disorientation, began to piece together fragments. The last thing he remembered was the clash of his Kamui against Kaguya's dimension shift, the sky fracturing, and the pull of the void.
Naruto's shout, Sasuke's curse, Sakura's cry—they echoed faintly, then faded. He was alone now, cut off from Team 7, from the Elemental Nations, from everything he knew.
He opened his eyes, blinking against the harsh light of a sun too bright, too yellow. He was sprawled on a flat, elevated surface—a rooftop, he realized, as he sat up and scanned his surroundings.
The edge of the structure was bordered by a low wall, and beyond it, a city sprawled, vast and alien. Towering buildings of glass and steel stretched toward the sky, their surfaces gleaming like polished kunai.
The sheer scale dwarfed anything in the Hidden Leaf, even the Hokage Monument. This isn't Konoha. This isn't any of the Five Nations.
Kakashi rose to his feet, his movements fluid despite the ache in his muscles. His flak jacket was torn, but his gear—kunai, scrolls, shuriken—were still there thanks to him keeping them on him with tight straps.
He stepped to the edge of the rooftop, crouching to peer over the wall. Below, the city pulsed with life. Strange machines—sleek, box-like, with wheels—moved in orderly rows along paved paths. They carried people, their interiors visible through transparent panels.
'Carriages without horses?' Kakashi's brow furrowed. The machines stopped at intersections where glowing lights—red, yellow, green—dictated their rhythm.
'A signal system. Organized, efficient.' He noted the precision, the way the machines obeyed the lights without hesitation.
'This place values order.'
His gaze shifted to the people. They moved in streams, some hurried, others leisurely, their clothes a stark contrast to the robes and armor of the Elemental Nations.
Men wore fitted shirts and trousers, some in stiff, formal suits that reminded Kakashi of the Fire Daimyō's court, but less ornate. Women wore a mix of similar suits, flowing dresses, or tight garments that left little to the imagination. 'Not a single kimono or haori, he mused.'
No clan symbols, no headbands. The absence of shinobi attire was jarring. Even in civilian villages, you'd see hints of ninja influence—bandages, utility belts, hidden weapons. Here, there was nothing.
'This isn't Kaguya's work,' Kakashi concluded, his mind ticking through possibilities. Her dimensions—ice, lava, sand, gravity—were hostile, designed to kill. This place was vibrant, alive, teeming with people who seemed unaware of any threat.
'If not her, then what?' He replayed the battle in his mind: his Kamui clashing with her portal, the vortex, the crack in reality.
'Did something else interfere, something beyond chakra. Another force?'
He straightened, his eyes narrowed as he scanned the horizon. The city stretched endlessly, punctuated by more towers.
Signs glowed with unfamiliar symbols—not kanji, but sharp, angular letters. A different language. He'd seen foreign scripts in different elemental nations, but this was wholly alien.
A massive screen on a distant building flickered, displaying moving images of people smiling, holding strange objects.
'Genjutsu?'He dismissed the thought. There was no chakra signature and his chakra flow was normal. 'Technology, then. Advanced. Far beyond anything in the Nations.'
Kakashi's thoughts drifted to his team. 'Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura—are they safe?' Guilt gnawed at him, an old companion. He'd failed to protect Obito, Rin, Minato, Kushina. Now, he'd been torn from his students, his village.
'I'm still alive, which means I can find a way back.' His father's face flashed in his mind—Sakumo, broken by shame, his tanto stained with blood.
'I won't end up like you, Father. Not yet.'
He reached for his headband, adjusting it out of habit, then froze. His eyes——felt… different. He lowered the headband, expecting the familiar red glow, the three tomoe spinning.
But his vision was normal, unenhanced. 'What?'His heart rate spiked, a rare crack in his composure. He focused, willing the Sharingan to activate. Nothing.
'The chakra Obito gave me… it's gone?'
Panic flickered since Obito's Kamui was the only way he could travel between dimensions and go back home, but Kakashi tamped it down.
'Think.' He closed his eyes, breathing deeply, searching for the spark of chakra within. It was there, faint but steady, his own reserves depleted but intact. He focused harder, channeling chakra to both of his eyes.
A faint warmth spread, and when he opened his eyes, the world sharpened. The Sharingan blazed to life, its red glow reflecting off a nearby metal vent. It's still here. Not just in one of his eyes, the Sharingan was in both of his eyes.
But something was off. The strain, the drain on his chakra—it was minimal, almost negligible. He pushed further, activating the Mangekyō Sharingan. The jagged pattern formed, and the world warped slightly, Kamui's power humming at his fingertips.
Yet there was no pain, no blurring, no blood. 'Impossible.' Kakashi thought
The Mangekyō had always been a double-edged sword for him, its power costing him vision, stamina, and a lot of his chakra. Now, it felt… natural.
Kakashi deactivated the Mangekyō, then the Sharingan, cycling through them again to test his control.
Each time, the eyes responded effortlessly, as if they were his own, not a transplant. Not something that can be activated only by Obito's chakra.
'The Sharingan is not functioning on Obito's chakra. This is… me?'
A wry smile curved beneath his mask. "Helping me even in an unknown world, huh, Obito?" he murmured, his voice soft, tinged with gratitude and grief.
Obito's death had shattered him, left him adrift in guilt and self-loathing. Yet here, in this alien place, his friend's gift had somehow become part of him. Did the vortex do this? The crack in reality? He didn't know, but the implications were staggering.
The Sharingan, the Mangekyō, were no longer a borrowed burden. They were his, fully, without the cost that had once threatened to blind him.
His thoughts turned inward, dissecting the change.
'The Sharingan requires Uchiha blood to awaken naturally. I'm not Uchiha. Yet it's as if my body adapted, rewrote itself. He recalled the vortex, the strange energy that had pulled him through. That crack—it wasn't just Kaguya's power or mine. Something else was there, something that altered me.'
The idea was unsettling, but Kakashi was no stranger to the impossible. He'd fought many strong foes, survived wars, and carried the weight of too many ghosts.
He sat back, leaning against the rooftop's low wall, and let his mind wander to lighter things, a habit to keep the darkness at bay.
'I wonder if they have books here.' His hand twitched, longing for the familiar weight of Icha Icha Paradise. Master Jiraiya's novels had been his escape, a way to laugh at life's absurdity while burying his pain.
'If this place has romance novels, I'm set. If not… I'll have to find a new hobby.'
His gaze drifted to the city again, his tactical mind kicking into gear.
'First priority: information. I need to know where I am, what this world is, and how to get back. The absence of strong chakra signatures is troubling. I sense no shinobi, no jutsu.'
He stood, stretching his arms, his body protesting but obeying. Second priority: resources. Food, water, weapons. He had no ryo, no idea if this world used currency, but he'd survived on less.
The sun was dipping lower, casting long shadows across the rooftop. Kakashi adjusted his headband.
'I'll make it back. For them. For Team 7.'
He stepped to the edge of the rooftop. The Copy Ninja, Kakashi of the Sharingan, the son of the White Fang, the man of a thousand jutsus, was in a new world.
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Author Notes: I did not just integrate the Sharingan to him for no reason. There is a perfectly good explanation that I have prepared for this. It would be revealed in the coming chapters