Does Kakashi Die in Naruto? (How & When)

Kakashi Hatake is a central character in the fictional manga and anime series Naruto. Also known as Kakashi of the Sharingan, he is a well-known ninja from the village of Konoha and his reputation as an intelligent, perceptive and ruthless fighter precedes him. Therefore, is it conceivable to imagine that such a prominent character dies, and if he does indeed die, how and when?

Kakashi Hatake does indeed die in the series during the Pain’s Assault Arc when the major antagonist of the story, Pain, attacks Konoha village with the intent to lure Naruto and extract the nine tails from his body.

Kakashi’s death occurs when he encounters one of the six paths of Pain, and although he is incredibly experienced at one-on-one combat, Pain proves to be a challenge too difficult for him. His death however changes the course of battle and inevitably proves to be a worthy death as he dies fighting for his beliefs.

When Does Kakashi Die?

Kakashi dies during the Pain’s Assault arc while fighting Pain, the main antagonist of the arc. Pain is a villain who has been through a lot of childhood trauma and desires to bring peace to the world by creating a perfect world where no more pain exists. He intends to accomplish this by collecting powerful living beasts named tailed beats that have incredible chakra, which exists sealed in various individuals from different villages.

Pain attacks Konoha to lure Naruto Uzumaki, the protagonist of the story and one of the three students of Kakashi Hatake. Naruto is the vessel of the nine-tails, the most powerful of all tailed beasts. However, extracting a tailed beast from its vessel results in the death of the person who carries it.

Kakashi and everyone in the village come to Naruto’s aid as Pain destroys the village in search of Naruto. Using his vast abilities, Pain interrogates any villager he encounters by employing torture to coerce them to reveal the location of Naruto. During one of these encounters, Kakashi and Pain meet and a fight inevitably ensues, which leads to Kakashi’s death.

How Does Kakashi Die?

One of Pain’s abilities is distributing his unique abilities into six different bodies that all share the same chakra and vision through a visual ability named Rinnegan. Through this, he assigns the different bodies to different tasks, with some drawing attention to themselves by engaging in combat while others secretly gather intelligence on the whereabouts of Naruto. Kakashi’s perceptive nature enables him to pick up on this, and he decides to track the bodies gathering intelligence.

Kakashi eventually tracks one of these bodies named Deva Path and corners him with the intent to incapacitate him, but Pain realizes he is a dangerous opponent and redirects another one of his bodies to back up Deva Path. This changes the tide of the fight and Kakashi begins to struggle, but their clash attracts attention and Kakashi receives reinforcements from Choji and Choza, his fellow ninjas.

Choji and Choza subdue the Deva Path’s reinforcement, leaving him alone to fight the three, but Deva Path turns the tables on them, effectively defeating Kakashi’s reinforcement and trapping Kakashi in a pile of rubble. Perceiving that Kakashi is too dangerous to be left alive, he uses a nail as a projectile to kill Kakashi and leaves. However, Kakashi deceives him by playing dead, as he is able to use his visual ability of Rasengan to warp the nail away just before it reaches him.

When Choji regains consciousness, Kakashi sends him to deliver an urgent message to the village leader after having deciphered Pain’s intricate abilities. One of Pain’s bodies notices this and fires a missile towards a fleeing Choji in an attempt to stop him, forcing Kakashi to use his Rasengan again to warp the missile away from intercepting Choji. He successfully warps it away, giving Choji enough time to escape, but this exhausts his chakra energy and results in his death.

Does Kakashi Revive?

Although Kakashi dies from chakra overuse, he is revived. After Kakashi dies, he goes into limbo, a plane between the living and the dead, where he finds his father Sakumo Hatake waiting for him. Curious to know more about his son, Sakumo requests Kakashi to tell him about his life.

Sakumo was an exceptional ninja, but his life choices caused him to die as a disgraced ninja. As Kakashi concludes narrating his life story to his father, he tells him that he understands the choices he made when he was alive and declares he is proud to be his son. Their reunion is however cut short by a light enveloping Kakashi that signifies his revival.

After Naruto returns to the village, fights Pain, and defeats him, he holds a conversation with him in a bid to understand him better. Naruto rejects Pain’s ideology toward peace and poses a better way for him to create a peaceful world. Pain decides to put his faith in Naruto’s solution of peace and ceases his attack on the village.

Entrusting Naruto to actualize his dream, Pain uses his chakra at the cost of his own life to cast an ability that brings back to life everyone that had died during his invasion. Consequently, Kakashi being one of the victims of his attack on Konoha is brought back to life. As Kakashi returns to the plane of the living, Sakumo thanks him for providing him with the peace he needed to move on to the afterlife, and they part ways.

Kakashi’s revival from the dead surprises many who were aware of his death. He receives a detailed account of Naruto’s return after his death, his fight with Pain, and his subsequent victory. Kakashi afterward goes to meet Naruto and carries him back to the village, where Naruto is embraced as the hero of the village.

Kakashi’s Life Before His Death

Kakashi is designed by Masashi Kishimoto as an easygoing, independent, and confident ninja who relies on his personal skill more than the skills of his teammates. This unfortunately causes him to often get into conflict with his former teammate, Obito Uzumaki, a jovial, energetic ninja who thrives by working with others. After the death of his teammates, Kakashi becomes more committed to teamwork, believing that if he valued this before their deaths, they would still be alive.

Kakashi’s Life After His Death

Kakashi’s death is important to the story because it provides readers and viewers of the series with more clarity about his father’s death and why Kakashi makes the decisions he does. Seeing how Sakumo Hatake is vilified for abandoning a mission to save the lives of his teammates, Kakashi places more value in the completion of a mission than he does in the lives of his teammates. By being able to talk to his father and reconcile with him, Kakashi is able to understand his father’s decisions.

Naruto’s victory over Pain despite Kakashi’s death marks a significant turning point in the relationship between the student and the teacher. Being the team leader of Team 7, Kakashi often emphasizes the importance of teamwork, and seeing Naruto succeed in his fight against Pain through working with others, he is proud that the student has finally surpassed the teacher.