In the original Naruto story, Hatake Kakashi not only lived to the very end — he even became the Sixth Hokage of the Hidden Leaf.
But the world Senju Haruto inhabited was not an anime.
It was painfully, unforgivingly real.
Here, if someone was killed, they died.
And more than that, the storyline had already veered far off the rails.
The Uchiha clan had not been massacred by Itachi.
The corpse of Hyūga Hizashi had never been handed over to the Hidden Cloud.
And the long-standing peace between Konoha and Kumogakure had shattered into full-scale war.
To believe Kakashi had some sort of "plot armor" here would be pure foolishness.
That was why Haruto spoke to Kakashi the way he did — not to comfort him, but to give him an assurance.
Kakashi blinked, caught off guard. He hadn't expected Haruto to say something like that.
"But there's something," Haruto continued before Kakashi could respond, his tone shifting as they walked toward the Anbu prison, "that I want to entrust to you."
"What is it?"
Kakashi slowed his pace, keeping one stride's distance from him.
"It's about the position of overall commander."
"Overall commander?" Kakashi's brows drew together. He thought Haruto was worried that the Third Hokage had arranged things to strip him of authority.
"You don't have to worry," Kakashi said quickly. "As long as your decisions are sound, I won't interfere."
But to Kakashi's surprise, Haruto simply shook his head. His next words were nothing short of stunning.
"Quite the opposite. I want you to make the calls. To put it plainly — I want you to be the overall commander."
"What?!"
Kakashi froze in his tracks, staring as though he couldn't believe what he'd just heard.
"Is there a problem? Personally, I think you're more suited to it than I am," Haruto said, stopping as well and glancing back at him.
The truth was, Haruto had thought this through carefully.
By this point, Kakashi was already a fully matured shinobi — sharp in both tactics and thinking.
Aside from being unable to use Kamui, he had mastered over a thousand jutsu.
His analytical and decision-making skills were on par with Nara Shikaku's.
Haruto even suspected that Sarutobi Hiruzen had placed Kakashi at his side for this very reason.
So giving Kakashi the role of overall commander felt like the natural choice.
For Haruto himself, the title would actually be a hindrance to his plans.
He had told Hiruzen that his goal on the battlefield was to "cripple" the Uchiha forces stationed there, shifting their hatred from the Leaf toward the Hidden Cloud.
In reality, he intended to collect Sharingan.
That was something he had no intention of letting Hiruzen know.
Being the official commander would only complicate matters — in fact, Haruto would have preferred to appear on the battlefield as an ordinary shinobi.
Of course, none of this was anything Kakashi needed to know. From his perspective, Haruto's decision came from pure trust.
"But…"
Kakashi struggled for words, his voice rough when he finally managed to speak.
Haruto cut him off before he could go further.
"That's settled. I'm going to meet with the Uchiha now. You don't need to follow."
His gaze flicked to Kakashi's left eye. "They don't exactly have a good impression of you."
The Sharingan was a symbol of the Uchiha clan.
An outsider like Kakashi, freely wielding it, would naturally be met with hostility.
Kakashi knew that as well, so he came to a full stop and made no move to follow.
After parting ways, Haruto lengthened his stride. In moments, he reached the Anbu prison.
Inside were not only the coup participants, but also the Two-Tails' jinchūriki, Yugito Nii.
Thanks to the beast's regenerative power, Yugito had already recovered her strength.
The moment Haruto passed by her cell, she rose sharply from the floor and stepped to the bars, her eyes filled with open hostility.
Though she'd been confined, news of the war between Konoha and Kumogakure had reached her.
"Konoha's defeat is inevitable," she said, locking eyes with him, her voice steady and full of conviction.
"I may be a perfect jinchūriki of the Cloud, but I'm not the strongest jinchūriki in the village.
"You might be able to suppress a rampaging Nine-Tails, but in the end, it's just a wild beast with an oversized chakra reserve. It's nothing compared to a true perfect jinchūriki."
Haruto glanced at her, mildly surprised she'd choose to provoke him now.
Still, he understood her reasoning.
The only reason Yugito was behaving herself here was because he was still in the village.
She knew she couldn't escape while he was around — so she didn't bother trying.
But if he left Konoha for the front lines?
There was every chance she'd unleash the Two-Tails' power inside the village.
Even with Hiruzen present, it was better to avoid such trouble entirely.
Haruto said nothing in reply to her bravado.
Instead, he closed his eyes. When they opened again, black pupils had turned a deep, bloody red.
"Sharingan?"
Yugito's eyes went wide and she instinctively backed away several steps.
Even as a Cloud kunoichi, she knew there were only two powers truly revered in the shinobi world.
One was the Wood Release of Senju Hashirama — a power everyone who had seen it agreed was the closest to the Sage of Six Paths.
The other was the Sharingan.
But never in her wildest dreams had she imagined Senju Haruto would possess both.
"How…?"
"Lose yourself in the Sharingan's illusion forever," Haruto said, his voice low.
Because she knew him as a Senju, Yugito had no guard against the sudden appearance of a Sharingan.
Not that it should have mattered — perfect jinchūriki had a natural resistance to genjutsu.
Her shock was purely at the fact he even had such eyes.
But Haruto's Sharingan wasn't aimed solely at her.
The moment he activated the genjutsu, he also entered Sage Mode, amplifying its power.
While his left eye locked Yugito in place, the strength of his right eye plunged directly into her body, casting the illusion over both her and the Two-Tails, Matatabi.
"How do you have—"
Matatabi didn't even get to finish the thought before it, too, sank into Haruto's Sage Art genjutsu and fell into a deep slumber.