To Fell the Fel [Great]

[Kakashi Hatake]

“Kakashi, where are we? I can’t sense Konoha at all,” the miniature pug inquired, easily keeping pace with the sprinting shinobi at his side.

“A long way from home,” Kakashi replied, donning his Anbu mask. “I’m told it’s called the ‘Omniverse’. Specifically we seem to be in a province called the ‘Tangled Green’. One of Lord Third’s former pupils also wound up here somehow and has founded a village.”

“So we’re not in the Land of Fire…” the canine muttered, a puzzled look on his face.

“No. An entirely different dimension, if you can believe it,” the scarecrow responded, vaulting over a downed log. His companions followed suit, breathing heavily as they struggled to keep up with their captain and his ninken.

“That’s a lot to swallow all at once,” Pakkun said, glancing at the silver-haired ninja. “What did you do to wind up here?”

Hatake thought for a moment back to what the God of this land had said on his arrival. “Apparently what I did was ‘be interesting’. I was more or less teleported here. And because of our contract, so were you and the rest of the pack. Sorry about that.”

The tiny ninken nodded. “That makes sense. The guys and I were wondering why we were summoned to the middle of nowhere without a summoner in sight.” He smirked, looking up at the scarecrow, “We were going to reverse-summon you, but ya’ know...we don’t get out much.”

Kakashi chuckled, picturing his motley crew of canines chasing goblins through the woods.

“Uh, Captain?” Dack appear beside the shinobi, holding out a bunched-up map for his superior. “We should stop for a second. We’re headed for trouble.”

“He’s right,” Sofia affirmed. “We need to divert course.”

Kakashi slowed to a stop, eyeing his comrades with curiosity. “Why? We should be hurrying toward the orcs.”

“Well, that’s...the thing,” Dack responded between shallow breaths. He was bent double, gasping as he tried to catch his breath. “We’re...headed toward...a camp.”

“A hill-giant camp to be precise,” Sofia offered, unfurling the map and placing on a nearby tree stump. “Just over this ridge there’s a massive encampment of giants. At least two dozen that we know of. At the rate we’re going, we’ll run right through it.”

“Hill-giants?” Pakkun asked, sniffing the air quizzically.

“Ten feet tall, dumber than a box of rocks. Normally they don’t cause us any problems if we just avoid them but if we run right into their home we’re in for some trouble,” Dack finished, having finally caught his breath.

“The smell I caught isn’t coming from that camp,” the ninken replied, looking at Kakashi. “But they’re right. I can definitely smell a pungent aroma nearby. And there are a lot of them.”

“If we veer east a bit and come back around we should avoid them,” Sofia stated, dragging her finger along the topography. “Might cost us a few minutes, but I don’t want to piss off 24 2-ton simpletons.”

“Got it,” Kakashi answered, glancing over his shoulder to the east. “You two lead, Pakkun and I will follow you.”

The quartet continued through the forest, taking to the canopy as the trees began to grow closer together, making passage on foot nearly impossible at any decent pace. The silver-haired shinobi was used to this method of movement, his sandaled feet finding footholds on the rough bark of the strange trees with ease. For their somewhat lackluster appearances, Dack and Sofia made no complaint of diving from bough to bough before their captain. Kakashi supposed it ought not to have come as a surprise that warriors that dwelled in the forest might be at home among the trees.

“We should be fine to return to our normal course, now,” Sofia called over her shoulder, slowing her pace somewhat.

“Sounds good,” the copy-ninja retorted, “Return to normal formation. Pakkun will take the lead now.”

Though this forest was not the glade that he called home and his teammates were not the children he grew up with, he felt oddly comfortable. Perhaps it was the familiarity of an assignment, the feeling of the wind whipping past as he dove headlong into the lion’s den the calmed his shinobi heart. He couldn’t explain it, but he did feel somewhat more relaxed than he’d have expected in this strange new world. Where others might be gripped with xenophobia and homesickness upon being dumped into an entirely new dimension, Kakashi did not feel this. The only negative emotion he had felt since his arrival (other than confusion which, frankly, was to be expected) was the apprehension and shame under the judgemental glares in Mokugakure. Ironically enough, the only fault that he could find with this land was that some of the people already knew him for what he was.

In the years following the death of his two closest friends, Konoha had felt less and less like home to Kakashi. His old sensei, Minato, had chalked up these notions to worrying too much, to him over-analyzing. The copy ninja was not so sure. He certainly wished it were this simple, but the simple fact remained that his peers knew what he had done and it repulsed them. In an attempt to distance himself from the hateful glares of the people for whom he routinely put his life on the line, Kakashi readily took any assignment from the Kage that meant leaving the village. He took on missions far below his pay grade if it meant putting miles between him and Konoha. Though definitionally the Hidden Leaf village was his home, he truly resented it. The fact that he now found himself as far from there as possible made him strangely happy. Asuma’s words came back to him: “A second chance,”.

“I smell someone ahead,” Pakkun shouted abruptly, stopping in his tracks.

Kakashi and his escorts followed suit, the quartet perching on a single large limb, gazing down at the ground below.

“Not down there,” the ninja hound replied, glancing toward the bows above. “Up there.”

Before the group could turn their attention skyward, an unfamiliar voice called out. “Halt! You must turn back!”

Sofia brought a hand to her eyes, squinting through the bright sunlight at the source of the call. The silver-haired shinobi followed her line of sight, spotting the source of the command some 20 yards ahead. The figure stood skillfully on a thin limb, gripping a shortbow. Tall and lean, she was dressed in light-colored scale armor over a navy blue tunic. Thin, pointy ears poked through long dark purple hair that fell over lighter fuschia skin.

“Night elf,” Dack muttered, eyeing the newcomer suspiciously.

“Turn back!” she repeated. “A Fel Orc encampment lies ahead!”

Kakashi glanced quickly back at his comrades for confirmation.

Dack and Sofia nodded without meeting his gaze. “Bonechewers. We've arrived.”