My SI Stash #87 - I'm Defying Gravity by ShadowedNara (Naruto)

-I'm surprised at how the fic is quite tamed and chilled. I was expecting a sub 15 chapters speedrunning child Six Paths sage master god for SI!Kakashi'sSon but this is refreshing too~

Synopsis: Gravity defying silver hair. Mask. Aloof. Some call him Kakashi, some call him Dog, while others call him the Copy Ninja. To me, he was simply dad. OC Self-insert

Rated: M

Words: 72K

Posted on: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11873195/1/I-m-Defying-Gravity (ShadowedNara)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics/originals mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 0+1

I'm What?

I guess I should start off by saying that I died. The specifics behind it are all really fuzzy, a massive blur that's gradually fading from my memory. But there's a definite recollection of a body of water, and the sensation of not being able to breathe. It's something that never fails to raise the hairs on the back of my neck and instigate this sinking, sickly feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's definitely the most probable reason behind my irrational fear of large bodies of water.

I wasn't entirely sure how I ended up where I am, but the how wasn't important. The why was even less so. I didn't even want to attempt to comprehend why such a thing like this—reincarnation—had happened to me. Whatever higher being or deity pulled this off, there must have been some kind of reasoning behind it, though for the life of me I couldn't—and moreover didn't—want to know. It just hurt my brain trying to think about it.

But back to the important things. My name from before, not so important. Now however . . . they call me Shiro. The name itself seems pretty reasonable and understandable: my hair borders the line between white and silver, so many interpret my name to have taken after that.

But in reality, the name was originally given to me under the meaning of 'fourth born son.' Now, that's not to say I have any brothers. No sisters either. To put it bluntly, my mother got around. Or so I've heard. We don't talk about it, period. I've been told she'd had three sons prior to me, though their fates are largely unknown, and I wasn't entirely sure if it was true or not.

She'd died giving birth to me and had had enough strength before she passed on to name me, and then send me on over to my father who'd knocked her up this time. I was surprised she'd done even that much. What was even more surprising though was who my father ended up being.

It took me a while before I eventually recognised it. As a baby, your senses are highly underdeveloped, and your ability to retain large sums of information was minimal. Despite having the memories of my previous life locked away somewhere in my subconscious, I didn't really become self-aware of everything around me until I was just a little over nine months old and words began spilling out of my mouth (not sentences mind you, just words).

But that's when it finally hit me. And let me tell you, it hit me, and it hit me hard. Like a tonne of bricks. I'll admit to curling into a ball and crying and wailing like a real baby for a little while after I'd found out. As a baby there wasn't much else I could do.

Gravity defying silver hair. Mask. Aloof. Some call him Kakashi, some call him Dog, while others call him the Copy Ninja. To me, he was simply dad.

And by association, that meant that I was somehow in the Naruto-universe. Well wasn't that just fantastic . . .

Chapter 1

Growing pains

After I had eventually become self-aware of my previous memories and realised where it was I found myself exactly, it took a little while for me to come to grips with it. I'd watched the anime show Naruto in my previous life, back when I'd been a teenager. I was no hardcore follower of the fandom however, sticking strictly to the anime, and the English dub at that.

Trying to watch in Japanese was just too confusing for me, but it seemed that here I had no choice. Japanese was the presiding language, and learning it would certainly be difficult. Once I'd started making the effort however, it turned out not to be as difficult as I'd originally thought.

Despite mentally being in my mid-twenties, I had the mind and body of a child, and at around eight or so months, my brain began entering that stage in which I was able to start learning things. And my brain desperately wanted to start learning things. It wanted to be stimulated once again like the adult part of me craved. More specifically though, my brain wanted to start learning words.

It was difficult in the beginning, mainly because Kakashi really was a man of few words. Or rather, I just wasn't intellectually stimulating enough to garner many words from him. It wasn't that he never spoke to me, but he wasn't as doting as a mother would have been at the sight of a gurgling child.

The fact that I was only eight months and fully English in my previous life meant that I had no base for speaking Japanese to go off whatsoever. With no base and not much being spoken around the house, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, stuck in a cycle that would lead me to being somewhat of a mute if things didn't change soon . . . and that's when things did change.

I'd noticed that Kakashi had never left much during my first eight months. I wondered about missions and such, wondering if I was really in the Naruto-universe, or if this was just some perverted reality that I'd cooked up in my mind as a result of a severely traumatic event. That was not the case unfortunately.

It was around this time that Kakashi began taking missions again. They weren't terribly long ones, taking up only fractions of a day as opposed to missions that extended past that.

But they were missions nonetheless, and I was still only eight months old. Home alone was not an option, even for someone like Kakashi, who just seemed to have irresponsible written all over him with regards to caring for a child. In order to combat this situation of needing to complete missions but being unable to care for me simultaneously, I was introduced to Iruka Umino.

He was still just a genin these days. I didn't know the specifics behind everything, and it seemed that he had graduated some two years ago, but he wasn't on a genin team for some or other reason. I couldn't care too much about that though, I was just glad that there was finally someone around who wanted to talk to me.

I didn't talk back at first, mainly because I really couldn't. But as the days of being baby sat by Iruka spilled into weeks, so too did the words begin spilling from my mouth. It was simple things at first, words that Iruka would use a lot.

"Shiro!"

Iruka beamed down from above, his excitement at my first word spurring me on further. "Shiro! Shiro!"

It was odd, being as old as I was mentally and acting like the baby that I was supposed to be. But damn if it wasn't a major accomplishment for me, getting these eight-month-old organs and this child's body to be able to form words. And in Japanese no less.

Nothing could get me down now that I was able to start speaking, and I started to pay more attention to the words that would come out of Iruka's mouth. Trying to associate those words with objects. It was very difficult at first, because it seemed that there were more than a few words that could be tied to any single thing. But I didn't let that discourage me, and I took in as much as I could, always keeping an ear to the ground and always listening.

It was a little after this time that my body began developing further. If I wanted to move or get around at all, it had only been by crawling. I had been so focused on the learning how to speak part; I had completely neglected my basic motor skills. It just hadn't occurred to me to put much effort into trying to walk yet. Crawling did the job just fine for the moment.

Admittedly it had started to worry Kakashi a little. Usually babies are up and starting to move about by as early as eleven months. I was only beginning to get into this at the tender age of sixteen months. I was almost two years old and I had yet to get up on my feet. Kakashi was almost ready to hand me off to the doctors and let them examine me for any defects.

Thankfully my progress with learning words was doing quite well (at least in my own humble opinion) so I could focus my attention elsewhere for a bit to make sure Kakashi didn't freak out more than necessary.

Days with Iruka continued much the same as this one, and Kakashi had adopted a sort of pattern to his missions. He'd be there in the mornings when I woke up, his crinkling eye smile the first thing to greet my sleep addled gaze. And he'd be there just before the sun dipped past the horizon, making sure to be the last thing I saw as well. It was a comforting gesture, and I found it oddly soothing. It made me feel safe.

It was quite strange seeing Kakashi acting like the father he was. Or at least, the fact that he was trying to. It spoke volumes, more than words ever could. Actions did speak louder than words after all. For all his trying though, there were still definitely some things that would quite thoroughly freak him out. Changing my nappies was definitely one of those things.

There had also been a time when I'd gotten quite sick, coughing my lungs out something fierce. I could see the worry and concern in his eye, and never had I thought someone could convey so much emotion through just a single eye. But it was endearing, and even though I could still vaguely remember my father from a life past, I was starting to think of Kakashi as mine more and more, as much as I told myself that I wouldn't.

The thing that really got me to start thinking of Kakashi as my father however was seeing him take off his mask. I'd looked at him with a strange expression that day and he'd managed to pick up on it (being the observant person that he was).

He smiled down at me though, and it was weird seeing his mouth included in the smile rather than just an eye. He kept his left eye holding the sharingan closed likely out of habit, as well as other obvious reasons (chakra drain being high up on that list). He probably also felt that the glowing red eye might scare me a little.

"Only in the presence of family Shiro, are we truly allowed to let our guards down."

There was an odd emotion sparkling around in his eye that day, and if I didn't know any better, I think he was just hoping that I'd accept him as he was. He looked so vulnerable. It made me realise that even Kakashi had to take off his mask sometimes . . . he couldn't hide behind it indefinitely.

Let it be known that Kakashi was a broken man, as broken as they came. But if there was anything that I could do to help him, if there was anything that I could do to help my father, then I would. I still couldn't bring myself to give him a name that belonged to someone else for the moment, but maybe in time I could bring myself to call him dad.

In that vein, I just smiled up at him and stretched my arms out towards him, gurgling playfully. "Kashi! Kashi!"

I was almost sure I saw an unshed tear hanging in the corner of his eye, but it was gone before I could confirm, and I settled for just riding on Kakashi's shoulders, playing softly with his silver hair. My hair was going to look similar one day, and that thought alone brought a grin to my face. His hair was so cool!

He reached down and put his mask back on before glancing back at me with that all too familiar eye smile. I couldn't help the giggle that past through my lips. "How's about we go for a little walk? I'll even get you something sweet while we're out. How does that sound?"

My lips stretched into a wide smile, and I gently tugged at his hair, urging him forward. "Sweet! Sweet!"

That seemed to be all the confirmation Kakashi needed. With lollipop clutched between my fingers and resting in my mouth, I soon found myself staring at the streets of the Konahagakure no Sato, a place that was familiar and completely unfamiliar all at the same time.

Buildings, people, shops, landmarks: all things I'd seen before in the anime, though the same things I was only seeing for the first time after being born into this world. It was odd seeing those same things from this perspective, walking through the streets that I'd seen Naruto walk through countless times, but I quickly got used to it.

It all became quite boring and generic pretty quickly. Though one thing that did catch my attention was the Hokage monument. It served as a stark reminder of just where exactly I was, reaffirming the idea that I'd somehow been reincarnated into this world.

I removed the lollipop from my mouth and patted the top of Kakashi's head softly, my legs shaking with excitement from within his grip. It didn't take him long to follow my gaze to the stone faces, and I soon found myself looking down at the rest of the village from atop the mountain that overshadowed it.

We were standing on the Yondaime Hokage's head, and there was a brilliant red and orange sunset sitting just above the horizon. It coloured the entire village in its fiery hue, the warmth of its rays slowly receding and leaving behind a gentle coolness. I found myself relaxing on Kakashi's shoulders, completely content in this moment. It was so beautiful . . . so peaceful.

We stayed there for a while, watching as the sun continued its course towards the horizon. It was about halfway into being completely set when we started moving again. I had long since finished my lollipop, and I'd been careful not to get any of it stuck in Kakashi's hair. I'd hate for him to have to cut it because of me.

I could feel my eyes were starting to get a little heavy, and a small yawn slipped past my lips before I could stop it. Kakashi glanced back at me with a soft expression, his lone eye closing fractionally as he stared at me. "We're almost home Shiro. Just one more stop. There's someone I'd like you to meet."

The world around me blurred as Kakashi sprinted to wherever we were going, and as he slowed to a walk, I found myself recognising our surroundings. Headstones. A large flame like cenotaph of some kind. It seemed that we were at the graveyard, and knowing Kakashi, we were probably here to visit either Rin or Obito's graves. My assumption was confirmed as soon as we stopped before a small headstone. I couldn't read whose name was engraved on the plaque, but Kakashi soon filled the silence, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

"Hey Rin. I haven't been by in a while, but I've got a perfectly good excuse. I'm a father. No, this isn't one of those lame excuses Obito usually had for us. I really am a father. My son's name is Shiro."

I was largely falling asleep to the soothing sound of Kakashi's voice. It was amazing how at ease I felt just listening to him speak. I couldn't even understand what he was saying. Words here and there would sound familiar, but I hadn't attached meaning to most of them yet, and the rest just sounded like gibberish. He could be speaking Latin for all I cared at that moment. Despite this however, I found myself falling asleep all the same.

My ears perked up at the sound of my name though, something I could easily distinguish from the rest of his words, and my grip tightened a little on Kakashi, another yawn slipping through my lips.

"He's growing up so fast, I can't even believe it. I wish you could've met him. He would've loved you. You were so good with kids . . . Obito too. He's already starting to say words. And he called me dad the other day. Well, he called me Kashi, but that's close enough, wouldn't you say?"

Kakashi's voice wavered as he spoke his last sentence, and my eyes opened a little further at the change in tone. I gripped a little tighter around Kakashi, my voice questioning and sounding a little worried. "Kashi?"

Kakashi either didn't hear me or wasn't too aware of his surroundings at the moment, but he carried on. "Me, a dad. Can you believe it? I didn't plan for it of course, but it happened anyway, and I'm adjusting. I just—I had a pretty rough life as a kid, and I don't want the same thing for him you know. I mean, look how I turned out. I'm not much of a role model, especially considering the fact and circumstances that he wasn't planned in the first place . . ."

Kakashi was quiet after that, and I gave him another squeeze, trying to put as much emotion into one of the few words I could say to try and make him feel better. "Kashi . . ."

I slowly brought my small hands around the front of his face, dragging my little fingers across his skin and a little surprised to find it wet with what I assumed to be his tears.

Kakashi seemed to snap back into reality after that, and he wiped at his eye again before looking back at me with a genuine eye smile, bringing me around to his front and clutching me to his chest like a lifeline. It wasn't too tight or uncomfortable, and I squeezed back as much as I could to let him know that I was still here.

"I think it's time to go home now Shiro. What do you say?" Another yawn slipped past my lips, this one significantly longer than the ones before, and Kakashi let out a soft chuckle. "Well if that's not a yes then I don't know what is."

It brought a small smile to my own lips hearing him laugh, and I gently touched at his mask from my cradled spot in his arms. I soon lost the strength to keep my arm up though, and I just allowed myself to be carried home, my eyes drooping further. "Good night Shiro. Kashi loves you."

I love you too . . . daddy.