For Hatake Kakashi death did not come with the quiet dignity of an old soldier in bed. It was a cacophony of shattering reality and a gradual numbness that spread over his body. He felt his consciousness fraying, his body a map of ruin. Through the white noise of his fading spirit, a single sound tore through the vacuum, a visceral, animalistic roar of grief and unmitigated fury.
"MOMOSHIKI!"
Naruto's voice, the boy who he had seen grow from a boy, to become a man, and now a leader, was raw and laden with power that threatened to unmake the world, was the last tether Kakashi held.
And then there was nothing.
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The ether was a churning river of potentiality. Souls drifted here like embers from a dying fire, most dimming into the gray nothingness of the Great Cycle. Yet, one spark refused to fade. It flickered with a stubborn, rhythmic intensity, its light modifying the way the void passed through it as if instinctively practicing the Meisaigakure no Jutsueven in death. It possessed a distinct, tempered signature, a residual hum of a chakra network that refused to completely dissipate.
Hermes, the Messenger of the Gods, the Psychopompos who guides the dead, the Prince of Thieves, and the God of Travelers, stood upon the invisible threshold between the worlds. His caduceus hummed, sensitive to the shifting tides of the metaphysical. He noticed the anomaly. It was a silver-white needle in a haystack of gray, a spark that possessed an internal rhythm far more complex than the usual mortal dross.
Curiosity piqued, the god reached out. He intended only to grasp the spark, to see what manner of traveler possessed such a clinical, refined signature.
But the soul of the Copy Ninja was not a passive thing. Conditioned by decades of war, the spark sensed the divine reach and exploded into motion. Before the god's fingers could close, the spark moved with unexpected velocity. It was a reflexive movement of the spirit; the distance between the god and the soul disappeared in a blink. It was a desperate, instinctive dart for cover that sent the soul arching like a falling star toward the mortal realm.
Hermes watched, startled, as the silver light plunged into the first warmth it found: the nascent life within the womb of May Castellan.
The God of Travelers stood still, his hand outstretched in the empty ether. He frowned, his eyes scanning the mortal woman from across the divine veil. He checked for corruption, for the taint of the Pit, or for any sign that a monster had high-jacked the life of his unborn son. But as he probed, he saw nothing awry, only a child whose soul shone a little brighter than any demigod he had sired before.
He let out a short breath, a small smile playing on his lips, such things were not unheard of. Perhaps this one would simply be a traveler of a different caliber.
Grow well, little traveler," the god murmured. "You shine like a star in the dark."
September 24, 1986, Connecticut
The storm over Connecticut was a visceral, unguided upheaval of the elements. Lightning fractured the charcoal sky in jagged, rhythmic pulses, illuminating the sterile corridors of the hospital with a cold, flickering strobe. Outside, the wind howled, battering the glass until it groaned.
Inside the birthing room, the air was thick with the scent of antiseptic.
Hermes stood in the corner of the room. To the mortal doctors, he was nothing more than a shadow cast by the swinging medical lights. He was a silent witness, his caduceus tucked into the folds of a heavy traveler's coat that shimmered with the dust of a dozen dimensions.
He had come to see if that flickering, defiant spark he had brushed in the ether had survived the crushing weight of mortality.
May Castellan let out a final, ragged cry that was drowned out by a deafening peal of thunder. Then, the silence of the room was broken by a sharp, thin wail.
The nurse moved quickly, cleaning the newborn. Hermes stepped forward, his divine presence veiled, his eyes narrowing with a sudden fascination as he looked upon his son.
The child was beautiful, he thought. He was born with a shock of fine, silver-white hair, not the dull gray of age, but a vibrant, metallic platinum that seemed to catch the lightning's glow. When the boy's eyes finally fluttered open, they were not the murky blue of most infants, but a piercing, electric cobalt.
Hermes reached out, his hand hovering inches above the boy. He checked the child's essence. There was no foreign energy system, no taint of corruption beneath the skin, physiologically, he was a normal, healthy demigod. His heart beat with a steady, human rhythm. But the soul within... it shone with a crystalline clarity, a tempered brightness that was rare.
But as the God of Travelers, Hermes looked deeper. He reached out with his domain, the power to see the roads a soul might walk, the paths that stretched out from the moment of birth toward the horizon of Fate.
Usually, a demigod's life appeared to him as a clear, albeit bumpy, highway. He could see the junctions of tragedy and the crossroads of heroism.
But as Hermes looked at the boy, the vision fractured.
He didn't see a single road. The paths around the child vibrated and rearranged themselves. They were a labyrinthine mess of possibilities that defied the static script of the Moirai. One moment, the path led to a golden throne; the next, to a grave; and in the blink of an eye, it vanished into a forest of shadows Hermes did not recognize.
The spark had changed everything. By reflexively dodging the touch of a god in the afterlife, the soul had retained a kernel of its own agency, a defiance that made its future untraceable.
May shifted, her breath hitching as she reached out with trembling arms. The nurse placed the silver-haired boy in her arms. May looked down, her face a map of fragile, soaring joy.
Hermes leaned over them both, his hand finally brushing the boy's silver tufts. For a fleeting second, the infant's cobalt eyes seemed to track his movement, not with the aimless gaze of a newborn, but with a sharp, clinical focus that sent a shiver down the god's spine. It was a look of recognition, or perhaps a habit of observation that had survived the transition of death itself.
But instead of fear, Hermes felt a profound, surging warmth. A father's love, sharp and protective, tangled with the fascination of a seeing something new. A lock, who's key had yet to be devised.
"A traveler who carves his own way," Hermes murmured, his voice a deep, resonant hum that vibrated in the baby's chest. "A bringer of light to the dark roads."
"Loukas," Hermes whispered, choosing the Greek name for its weight, its origin, and its promise. "His name is Loukas."
The name seemed to anchor the shifting paths for a single heartbeat.
May shifted, her breath hitching as she looked down at her son. "Luke," she whispered, her voice fragile and full of an agonizing love. "My little Luke."
The storm reached its crescendo, a final bolt of lightning turning the world white. The pull of Olympus was becoming absolute, the necessity of his duties calling him back to the divine court. Hermes stepped back into the shadows, his mind churning with the potential of the child he had sired.
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To the soul once known as the Copy Ninja, the rebirth was an agonizing loss of clarity. His senses were blunt, his once-sharp perception reduced to the muffled thumping of a heartbeat and the heavy, rhythmic breathing of another.
He was small. Infuriatingly small.
He felt the sudden, shocking transition from the fluid safety of the dark into a world of cold air and blinding, white light. Voices boomed like thunder. He drew a gasp of breath and wailed, his lungs frantically acclimatising to his first breaths of the outside world. He tried to mold his energy, to form a seal, to reach for a kunai that wasn't there, but his limbs were leaden and unresponsive.
A pair of arms, soft and trembling with a fierce love, wrapped around him. The scent of rain and summer grass, filled his nostrils, acting as a balm to his fractured mind.
Then, a second presence arrived. It was a man, radiating a warmth that felt like the sun itself. A large, gentle hand brushed against his forehead.
"Loukas," the man said. The voice was a deep, resonant hum that seemed to vibrate in the baby's chest. "His name is Loukas."
Loukas, the soul thought, the name tasting strange and alien.
The exhaustion was absolute. It was the bone-deep weariness of a man who had lived a lifetime of war, now trapped in the fragile shell of a newborn. As his heavy eyelids began to close, a single, flickering image surfaced from the depths of his past: a man with silver hair and a kind, sorrowful smile, standing over a set of ritual daggers.
Father... Sakumo..
With the memory of the White Fang as his final anchor, Kakashi Hatake, surrendered to the darkness of an infant's sleep.
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Kakashiiiiiiiiiiii, PJO is about to be shaken up y'all. Hope you enjoy the story!!!