Mmm. young Kagami accidental time travel gone wrong when Danzo is the first to find him,,
Danzo wants him as a loyal ROOT shinobi soooo baddd, it would fix all of his issues and give him 30 new ones and also make all of his everything so much worse
Kurumi comes with him too, but Danzo doesnt really give a shit ab her she's only here so that Danzo can make Kagami kill her to further his own ROOT training. She is having the worst time ever in the bg and also really mad that she's being ignored
Both kids have so much clan pride too,, the time they're from, they're only a couple years into Konoha being a thing, their clans make up the foundation of their personalities and lives. So them being forced to "forget" ab it,,, ough,,,
Being put through the process of forgetting themes to devote everything to ROOT, made so much worse because they don't even have 'true' Konoha loyalty to amplify like a modern shinobi kid might,, their clans are all they have,,, u cant just take it away,,
Kurumi especially I think would react SO violently to the concept of being forced to forget her clan. She is a HATAKE, she was raised in isolation and her clan is literally all she's ever had. They are raised into insane levels of loyalty to eachother and the spirit of their clans, Kurumi herself would have one day become her clans spiritual leader—in general too shes just. Very, very clan focused. All warring state era kids are.
Anyways, Kagami and Danzo
I think Kagami doesnt want to believe it's Danzo behind all of their suffering. And Danzo also probably does not present himself as the cause of it, at first anyways.
As is, Kagami is PRIMED for being groomed and gaslit tbh. The power imbalances are off the charts— he wants to be loyal and put his trust in Danzo so bad bc thats his best friend but also a whole adult now. A big, strong adult who Kagami is predisposed to trust.
Danzo is in the perfect position to present himself as a saving grace to Kagami. Slowly easing him into the realization that he's the one forcing him to go through all of this,,, by the time Kagami fully understands it was all Danzo's plans this whole time, he's already too thoroughly wrapped in his web to really see the facts straight
He also just has like. NO one left. Danzo is his only source of comfort in the darkness he carefully designed and submerged him into </3
Mmmm. Just Kagami and Kurumi depression hours up in ROOT club. They are having THE worst time ever in the world. When they're first caught, Kurumi tries to howl for help (with howling being a legitimate chakra technique all Hatake are taught as kids, often used to signal and communicate over long distances) so they have to fucking muzzle her as they go to get the chakra suppressants (its probably mostly a statement tbh, they could totally just get the suppresants and leave it at that)
Only a bit away, Kakashi hears the howl of a wolf in the distance and for a second, he is filled with the urge to run towards it. But the howling stops, and with it the strange urge. How odd. He'll have forgotten about it, not even a week later.
No one is coming for them btw, back in their time they're presumed dead in the lab explosion that sent them here. They're stuck in the torture machine with no rescue in sight <///3
I do wanna to see them escape together ,, but like Kurumi is now half feral and ready to fucking bite anyone who so much as looks at her and Kagami is now dissociating 80% of the time and cant seem to recognize anyone anymore
meanwhile the Uchiha massacre is only a week or two away, and their escape and subsequent discovery is a tipping point for the uchiha that makes them do the coup sooner rather than later,,,
No one other than Danzo knows ab the time travel and both the kids are a) very disoriented + dont super understand whats happening themselves, and b) filled to the fucking brim with trust issues now, thanks Danzo, so when they show up it's just. Kind of understood that Danzo was kidnapping actual babies. Like, no one recognizes Kagami, but he's clearly an Uchiha and the girl with him is insisting he's part of the clan (Kagami himself is fucking dead to the world and way too deep in his head to hold a conversation rn)
Meanwhile someone goes to get Kakashi and now Kakashi is understanding that Danzo was straight up kidnapping Hatake babies.
This is around the point where Kakashi was debating killing the Hokage for Danzo anyways so he's just kinda. Throwing down the towel. Man, FUCK this shit. Fuck ALL of this shit.
Uhhh Kakashi joins the Uchiha in their coup anyone? Anyone? No? Ok well he's doing it anyways.
The Uchiha overthrow the government and they peer pressure Shikaku into being new Hokage bc he serves as a good neutral figure for most in Konoha (and itd look bad if an Uchiha took the seat directly) and Kurumi and Kagami get to heal in the Uchiha compound, yayyy <3
Only they spent a few solid years with Danzo so they are for sure irreversibly fucked now. There is no true recovery because they have been changed as people at their core, and even free they've been permanently separated from the time, clans, and people that they once knew. They lost their childhoods and are now being forced to start from scratch in a world they can't fully recognize.
Eventually the time travel thing will probably be found out, but by that point shit already hit the fan and the walls were repainted anyways, so no one. Really cares. All's well that ends well...?
Then ofc, obligatory bad ending where they dont escape, Kagami kills Kurumi as part of his ROOT trials and becomes a full-fledged ROOT shinobi fully loyal to Danzo (and also gains his mangekyou)
The uchiha massacre happens and things happen as they do in canon— and when ROOT is finally "officially" disbanded, a curly haired Uchiha shows up among the ex agents struggling to relearn how to be human
Yayyyy <33 the end
Anyways the entire time I was typing this I was listening to Sub Urban - DIAMOND on loop, which is a really good song so Im gonna go ahead and plug it here bc like. It's really good. Highly reccomend.
