Au idea
An older version of Naruto gets sent back in time after loosing everything and uses forged documents to hide in plain sight as a mysterious ANBU named Fox, the thing is now there are two Naruto's in this time, our Naruto who's 12 and Fox who's 26 roughly the same age as Kakashi. Fox and Kakashi meet on a mission that Kakashi gets recruited to help with and Fox is internally freaking out since 1. This is the first time he's seen a version of Kakashi again up close. And 2. A puppy crush he had on Kakashi comes back after it being surpressed for so long
Call it the Fox and the Wolf au (play on the fox and the hound)
I have long since loved the idea of Naruto having the skillset of an infiltrator bc of his natural feel for other people’s emotions / ability to gain trust by being himself and I genuinely think this is the au where it could be used to the best effect without it being an “oh and he can also—!” type skill.
Because if he sneaks into ANBU you just know there’s a crazy level of behind the scene shit going on. He not only has to make it seem normal for an new 26ish yr old to be there (which I imagine is pretty old for a new ANBU recruit considering shinobi life spans in general), but also get past the hokage and commander not knowing who’s reporting to them.
In one scenario, Naruto finds himself in the past and heads straight to a very much intact konoha. And what does he do? Infiltrate root of course.
He stalks one of the few agents without a seal that forces them to stay silent, almost all of which are infiltrators themselves since the seal tends not to discriminate between “info I’m tasked with using as part of my cover I got in a root briefing” and “info I’m forbidden from revealing that I got in a root briefing,” kills them, transforms into them, and takes their place in the ranks.
After that, it’s a matter of messing with missions. He could just kill danzo directly, but that wouldn’t be any good in the long term. No, he needs to expose root and make them kill danzo themselves.
So, he assigns the second best person to do a mission instead of the best. Adds some orders in their mission scrolls that wouldn’t be looked at twice by a normal shinobi, but puts strain on the “follow orders to a T” agents that make up roots forces.
In the meantime, he finishes all his own missions quickly and spends the rest of the time putting out feelers for the Akatsuki and Zetsu for this time period.
Then finally, all the little bumps he’s placed in the path cause the whole thing to tip over.
An infiltrator (one Naruto makes sure is worse at stealth than they should be for this job) gets caught looking through files in T&I to check what they have on Orochimaru
The shinobi even knock him out before he can swallow a suicide capsule and pull the false tooth out before he can wake up again
The infiltrator only talks enough to claim to work for konoha and say they refuse to report to anyone but “Danzo-sama”
Ah. Baby infiltrators. Giving so much away with so little.
T&I is in a tizzy about it and word gets out to the clan heads (via inoichi) about the “danzo-sama” claim. That’s worrying, especially with how their hokages face goes completely flat when it’s addressed during an emergency clan heads meeting called for by ino-shika-cho.
Danzo has an agent go kill the captured infiltrator before T&I can make them talk more, but Naruto makes sure to give them off info about the guard schedule.
It pays off. The infiltrator is still killed in their cell before they can confess anything else, but the extractor is caught in the middle of the act. And that one? She’s a Hyuga clear as day with a seal tattooed in bold black lines on her tongue.
Bloodline theft. Connected to Danzo.
Roots exposed to all the clan heads, danzo is executed for treason, the evidence linking him to orochimaru and the the Uchiha massacre isn’t destroyed (man is it hard to tweak self-destruct seals into uselessness without setting them off or alerting anyone), and root agents are quietly shuffled into the ranks.
It isn’t particularly hard to drop the transformation in the turmoil and become just another agent without a past or person to remember him. Hes just glad his hair changed to red after the time travel.
He gets shoved into ANBU with his root mission history marking him as specializing in information gathering (it gives him an excuse to know things so he can report it)
He tends to go on solo missions because of it (which he takes full advantage of to hunt zetsu / destroy the ten tails statue) until the hokage clearly takes an interest in his other skills and starts ramping up the team assignments so they’ll assess him discreetly (and unknowingly)
Eventually, the hokages curiosity outweighs his desire to keep prodding, so he gets a mission that is concidered too dangerous for him to go alone or risk being spotted with a normal team.
With the intel he’s after linked to Orochimaru, it’s Kakashi who’s assigned to follow him unseen while he’s undercover, each of them donning ANBU masks though Kakashi is technically retired from it
Working with his old sensei like this is weird. This version of him trusts him to be able to do his job and protect himself, but only to the extent a normal jonin like asuma could.
The puppy crush he’s long since repressed promptly reactivates when kakashi throws himself in the line of fire for him when everything goes to shit bc of faulty information.
He always knew his sensei had a thing about team, but he honestly didn’t expect him to act like this for someone he’s only known for a few days at this point.
It is, however, completely unnecessary so he obviously joins the fight
Not being able to use his signature jutsu will never not be annoying but he’s created enough of his own techniques to make up for it.
The double take Kakashi’s does when Naruto uses his sword to channel wind and water chakra to behead six of the guys they were fighting at once is kinda adorable.
Kakashi passing out from chakra exhaustion when they’re done carving their way through the veritable horde of A and B ranked shinobi isn’t half as cute.
Still, he carries him to their camp, sets up mor e protective barrier selas, and nudges just enough chakra into kakashi to stimulate his chakra coils into quickly producing more. It’s more habit from the war than anything, but part of him relaxes at how easily his chakra is accepted and responded to. It’s still kakashi.
It only takes a few hours for kakashi to wake up, and god is he unimpressed with konoha’s mission distribution.
He’s like “they classified you as just an infiltrator? And had me come to play front liner for you? Are they blind? You used touch transfer explosive seals! There’s barriers around us rn!”
So Naruto has to be like “ah…well my missions used be mostly solo intel gathering and since we weren’t assessed before sorting into general forces, those are the jobs I’ve been getting”
As if he didn’t fully expect that to happen. Didn’t actively plan for someone to push for him do more combat work and the homage to give now that he has intel on akatsuki movements
The hokage has him do several back to back combat missions with Kakashi (his crush is getting worse!) before outright pulling him from the less important intel assignments (aka, non-akatsuki, orochimaru, Sound, and Sand stuff) so he can act as a visible Jonin of konoha
Even then, he and Kakashi tend to get sent out together since they make a scary good team.
(Sarutobi is doing a gd jig in his head. He now has an intel gatherer, front liner, and sealer all in one even if it took a while for him to find out bc of the apparent oversight of not assessing all the shinobi shuffled into gen forces. In his defense (not) he was sending all the unstable ones on suicide runs so he didn’t have to deal with them)
And Kakashi and Naruto have the strangest relationship that makes some of the other jonin do double takes when they’re together in the standby station bc they’re both fucking TROLLS. they keep snipping at eachother and poking and arguing like a married couple about seals and jutsus. It’s disgusting. It’s fascinating. It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened this week.
Nothing Kakashi does seems to bother him. Pulling out porn just makes him laugh and ramble about shitty literature. The mask tricks earn some amused looks but no real annoyance or surprise. The lateness is thwarted by the fact they never specify times for non-mission plans. Even the bad excuses just get snickers and prodding that forces him to make them even more terrible and complex.
“Sorry, I got lost on the road of life”
“Turned right on “interesting times street” instead of left on “kitten lane”?”
“What can I say, I’m a dog person”
“Is that why you saved the cat from the tree yesterday?”
“You must have misheard me. I clearly remember saving a dog from a tree”
“And how’d the dog get there?”
“Well you see, a large bird picked it up and tried to fly off with it. But I nobly threw a kunai at it and the dog landed in the tree. Then I got it out.”
“Very noble. And it does explain why you had to go back home last week when you saw a black cat on your path”
“Exactly”
It’s disgustingly fun.
Blah blah blah Kakashi gets his team
He freaks out, shows up at Naruto’s apartment like pls for the love of fuck help me they’re so squishy
Naruto helps a guy out to train them up
There’s rumors of one of the defected seven swordsmen being in wave so Naruto is sent there with team seven to try and get some info + see if it’s kisame who’s been linked to the akatsuki already (and check out the gato situation while team seven focuses on a normal escort mission)
Kakashi has Naruto scout ahead after they get attacked by the demon brothers or whatever they’re called and he kinda stumbles on haku doing normal shit together like buying food from a stall
He can’t really stop himself from talking to him when he notices haku staring at his red hair.
At first it’s just polite chatter, but he was a weird kid with weird ideas about his place in life. It doesn’t take long for them to get into the “whys” of existence and fighting.
By the end haku kinda adores him and when Zabuza rocks up and is bluntly like “why the hell is a konoha shinobi here?” Naruto is just like “oh you know. just looking into a business man that likes to not pay the shinobi he hires. Hate when that happens don’t you?”
Haku and Zabuza share a longgggg look at that
And right as Naruto leaves he’s like “can i see you again?” Naruto is like “if you’d like”
So Naruto runs back to team seven with info. Haku and Zabuza find that he’s right and gato did plan to stiff them, and haku uses his new perspective on being his own person to insist on seeing Naruto again
So instead of some big battle, team seven vs Zabuza and haku is basically the adults watching the kids roll around like puppies together because why not
They keep coming back as the bridge is being built until a final attack is staged and gato (stupidly) reveals his plan and gets killed for it. Zabuza + haku fuck off with all his money for the mist rebellion and boom a relationship between the two villages is secured
Later on, naruto gets intel linking Orochimaru to otogakure and sands invasion. Kabuto is had and is subtly fed false info by konoha
Sasuke still gets the mark in the forest but it’s removed just as quickly at the end of the second exam
Konoha lets the invasion happen after the third to show off their strength
Naruto’s part of the guard in the kage seating so he slaps a nice seal on Orochimaru to stop him from changing bodies and basically pins him while Kakashi chidoris his ass and other jonin close ranks to prevent him from escaping
Instead of just the kids being the “mini wars” on display all the other kages see two shinobi kick sannin ass while the hokage literally fights two undead hokages into a standstill and eventually fucking wins
The third hokages alive and the village is strong w/ new ties to Sand thanks to 12yroldNaruto making friends with gaara and older Naruto fixing the seal on him
Team seven makes chunin bc of their performance in the exams + how involved they were in stopping a rampaging jinchuriki
Tsunade is brought back into it
As chunin, Kakashi isn’t technically their full time sensei anymore so his mission restrictions are let up and he gets back on the field.
Although, Sakura still learns from Tsunade and Naruto from Jiryiah. Sasuke is basically the shared personal student of kakashi and older Naruto.
Both Kakashi and Naruto get sent on missions with Tenzo to start handling the akatsuki (and since the danzo thing revealed itachi to be innocent he’s been able to actually send intel back to konoha) and fuck do they handle them
Bitches are getting thrashed by these guys frfr. Straight up violated.
It also means poor Tenzo is forced to bear witness to the gayest shit he’s ever seen.
Icha icha has less cheesy romcom moments than these two freaks. Somehow watching them cook over a campfire feels sexually charged. It’s terrible.
