The Theft of Kakashi's Books!

KAKASHI'S MISTAKE

Kakashi Hatake walked casually down the familiar streets of Konaha, a familiar orange book in his hand. He seldom glanced up, but deftly sidestepped around other pedestrians. He did glance up when a familiar orange blur caught his eye and he sighed as both Naruto and Reyna slid to a stop in front of him.

"Hey, Kakashi-Sensei; Reyna and I were just heading out to do some training! Wanna come along? I still haven't been able to find a way around Reyna's defensive attacks!" Naruto was the one who spoke while Reyna merely shook her head.

"And you think that you can con Kakashi into using his Sharingan to help you out in that endeavour? Jeez, Naruto, I thought you wanted to be a real ninja; you should be able to find your own ways to break through those attacks," Reyna lightly admonished, although Kakashi knew that she was extremely fond of the knucklehead.

"If you want I could come and give you some tips, but Reyna has a point. You should be able to find your own way to defeat her. As far as your techniques, both of you could use some help," Kakashi replied lazily before his eye returned to his book.

Reyna narrowed her hazel eyes at him and bared her teeth slightly, "What's wrong with my techniques? I seem to recall putting you on your ass a couple of times with them."

Kakashi shook his head, "But you could never keep me down either could you?"

Growling under her breath, Reyna fell in step behind Kakashi and Naruto as they headed across the village towards their usual training grounds by the memorial stone. Once there, Kakashi took up a position against one of the trees while the other two faced off against one another. As always, their teacher's gaze was fixed on the book in his hand.

Without warning, Naruto launched an attack on Reyna; kunai in hand he slashed and kicked, both of which she easily deflected and drove her shoulder into his torso, knocking him back a couple of feet. Almost before Naruto had hit the ground, Reyna was in front of him again and once again he found himself reminded of just how fast the Jonin could move. He managed to block the punch directed at his head even while he kicked out at her knee. A quick side step and she evaded his attack, using her own momentum to twist around behind him and slam her right elbow in between his shoulders. Naruto sprawled in the grass and rolled onto his back before flipping himself back onto his feet.

"That was low, Reyna-Sensei!"

Reyna snickered, "What? Do you expect that your enemies are going to play nice? Come on, Naruto, you haven't even landed a single hit yet."

With a yell, Naruto launched himself forward and again Reyna easily stepped out of his reach, extending her left leg to trip up the young ninja. Up until this point, Kakashi had remained silent and as the two attacked one another, they both glanced over at the senior jonin that was supposed to be helping them train. His nose was still buried in his book and they shared a look before stopping in mid attack to watch him for a second. Still he didn't comment.

"Is he even paying attention?" Naruto asked, lowering his fist and glowering at his team captain.

Reyna shook her head, "Sure as hell doesn't look like it."

"Nice technique, Naruto. Try that again and I'm sure you'll land a hit," came Kakashi's lazy voice, even though neither combatant was moving.

Again they shared a look and Reyna shook her head again before reaching down and pulling her shoe off. Narrowing her eyes she took careful aim and launched it at Kakashi's head. He ducked and the shoe hit the tree behind him. Still he didn't look up from his reading.

"Reyna, it's not a good idea to lose one's shoes in the middle of a battle. What would happen if you were to step on a rock?" Kakashi asked.

"Oh, never mind, Kakashi. Why don't you just go home and read your damn book?" she snarled in return.

"That sounds like an excellent idea," he said before disappearing in a puff of white smoke, leaving the two ninja alone in the clearing.

Reyna calmly walked over, picked up her thrown shoe and put it back on before turning and facing Naruto again, "Ramen?"

THE PLAN

Naruto nodded eagerly and the two of them set off for Ichiraku Ramen. Once they were sitting at a table, the ramen shop was surprisingly quiet, the two ordered and Reyna leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table.

"I say we get Kakashi back for this afternoon. If he didn't want to come all he had to do was say so."

Naruto nodded enthusiastically, "Yeah, but what can we do to Kakashi? I mean he is one of the best ninjas in the village and neither one of us has actually been able to get the drop on him."

"I'm not sure, but I do know that between the two of us we can come up with something fitting."

Naruto snickered and then started to laugh as their ramen was delivered, drawing a curious look from their waitress before she headed away again, "We could fill his bathtub with chocolate pudding."

Reyna rolled her eyes and as she did so, caught sight of Jairaiya walking past the shop and an idea struck her, "No, that wouldn't really do anything. I think we need to get a damn reaction out of the man. This calm and cool thing is great in battle but it's really starting to piss me off when we aren't in a life or death situation. That and the fact that it doesn't seem to matter what we're doing, he has his nose buried in one of those bloody fucking books."

Naruto looked up from his ramen and lifted a brow, "What did you have in mind?" he mumbled around a mouthful of noodles.

Reyna grinned evilly and Naruto suddenly felt a little sorry for his teacher, "I say we steal those damn books of his. I'm sure the bookstore owners would pull all their copies off the shelves for a couple of days for us, and a nice piece of coin."

"But how are we going to get his books away from him? He always has one on him, lately it's been the new special edition one of Make Out Tactics that Jairaiya released, but the rest are in his apartment."

Reyna leaned back, "The one that's on him is going to be the trickiest. I know where his apartment is and I'm pretty sure I can get in there when he's gone sometime. To get the one that he carries with him though we're going to need one hell of a distraction. And I think I know what that'll be."

"What?"

"You. Fight him with the stipulation that he can't use his Sharingan. I can use my shadows to move in undetected behind him and snatch that little orange book right out from under his nose. He won't notice right away that it's missing, because you're going to keep him fighting while I run back to his apartment and snatch his other copies."

"But doesn't he have genjutsu traps all over his apartment?"

"Leave that to me. It won't be a problem. There's a reason why I was always the first choice for missions that involved getting into enemy ninja territory."

Naruto grinned as they finished eating and Reyna paid their bill. While she sent Naruto home to get some rest, she headed around the village to every bookstore and stand that carried the Make Out Series. By the time she headed back to her own crappy apartment, every place that carried the books had pulled their copies off the shelves and agreed not to sell one to Kakashi until they saw him carrying the little orange book again or she had returned to let them know it was clear to restock.

THEFT

The next morning, Naruto found Kakashi settled on a rooftop, the special edition book in his hand, "Hey, Kakashi-Sensei, I was wondering if you'd have time to train with me today, but with a few parameters. I thought over what you said yesterday and I would really appreciate your advice on my taijutsu technique."

Kakashi looked up at the blonde ninja and lifted a brow at the somber tone, "I suppose I could do that, but what parameters are you talking about?"

"Well, you can't use your sharingan. I mean, it's virtually impossible for me to fight against and that just makes it even more frustrating when you're telling me what I'm doing wrong. I even thought of one for myself. I won't use the fox chakra."

"So you want to train like we did when you were first assigned to my team, before any of us had any idea what the others could do?"

Naruto nodded, managing to maintain his somber tone and expression; he needed Kakashi to buy that this was nothing more than him asking for help, "Right."

"Then I have one other parameter for you before I agree."

"What? Anything?" he asked a little too excitedly.

Thankfully Kakashi assumed that his quick answer meant that he simply really wanted the help and was willing to agree to anything to get it, "No shadow clones either. Strictly taijutsu."

Naruto nodded, "Sure, no problem. That's what I wanted to work on anyway. It's like you said in the Land of Snow, you can't always rely on chakra to save you, there's always taijutsu."

Kakashi smiled under his mask, though the only reason Naruto knew he was smiling was because his eye crinkled, "You really are starting to learn."

Reyna settled low in the brush surrounding the clearing around the memorial stone, shadows clinging around her so deep and set that even her scent didn't escape. She was used to the feeling, having used this particular jutsu on several occasions to keep her well hidden. She was a bit worried that the shadows would give her away when she moved in to snatch the book; it was a bright and sunny day after all. She shrugged it off. As long as everything went the way it was supposed to, it wouldn't be an issue.

She perked up when she caught Naruto's voice on the wind, talking to Kakashi as they approached and she tensed, ready to spring the instant she had the opportunity. She watched as the two squared off, Kakashi's stance lazy and almost too relaxed, but she knew better. She grit her teeth when she realized he was still reading that damn book though, even as Naruto launched at him. She ignored the fight for the most part, until Naruto finally managed to make Kakashi put his book away. She watched it disappear into the pouch on his hip and when his back was turned to her, she sprang from her place silently.

She was just reaching for the pouch when Kakashi spun, his fist connecting with the side of Reyna's head. He stopped mid attack and looked around behind him, shaking his hand while Reyna and her shadows managed to slither back to the trees unnoticed.

"What the hell?" Kakashi muttered before knocking Naruto's attack away from himself.

"Come on, Kakashi-Sensei. You're not even paying attention to our fight anymore," Naruto whined, having seen Kakashi's hand slam into the shadows.

"I hit something behind me," Kakashi replied, his gaze searching the clearing around them for any sign of what he may have hit. "I know you didn't create any clones, I would have seen the hand signs, but then what the hell else could it have been?"

"Come on. I know I may not be as good as you are, but this is the worst excuse you've ever come up with. Let's go!" Naruto once again launched at his teacher and this time Kakashi turned to face him, putting himself back into training mode with his student, giving Naruto advice on his form or why his attack didn't succeed each time.

In the trees and shadows Reyna shook her head. The man could definitely do some damage and she was learning just how hard he could hit when he didn't pull his punch. She was suddenly very glad any time she fought him, he had been doing just that. Sure she usually walked away a little battered, bruised and worse for the wear, but never too badly injured. Carefully she took her position again and waited for her opportunity, though now she did so with a ringing in her ears and the start of a very bad headache.

She didn't wait long, but this time she was more careful as she approached the silver haired ninja. With quick hands and deft fingers, she snagged the book from the pouch and withdrew with her shadows just as he turned and this time she caught the start of a spinning kick to her left shoulder. She barely managed to contain a grunt of pain as she stumbled back away from him and once again into the trees.

Again, Kakashi paused; this time after completing his attack. He could have sworn his kick, just as he was starting to spin, had glanced off someone's body but he would have seen someone standing behind him. Hell, he would have smelled them or sensed them or something. He was an experienced jonin! Shaking it off, he continued his match against Naruto for the next forty-five minutes. Every time he thought his student was ready to concede defeat, the blonde would come at him again. If Kakashi didn't know any better, he would have sworn that Naruto was trying to delay him for some reason.

Across the village Reyna slipped up the stairs of the apartment building Kakashi lived in. She had been to his apartment a couple of times when he was so late meeting with the Hokage that she was sent to find him or when they were discussing missions that the team was going to be sent out on, on the rare occasions when she had been assigned as the fourth team member. She knew even the door would most likely have genjutsu traps, so she had to be extremely careful. With a few quick hand signs, she called her shadows to her and very carefully used her chakra to manipulate a small portion of them into the key hole where she solidified them. A twist of the solid shadows and the lock opened with a slight click. Grinning to herself, she pushed the door open and entered the apartment unhampered.

A quick scan of the living room produced the best results and within a matter of a couple of minutes she had every copy of the Make Out series in her pack and she was heading into his bedroom. She didn't put it past him to have copies of the books stashed all over his house, just in case. She was rewarded by a couple more copies on the desk and table and she once again moved on. She moved as quickly as she could, the pain in her head and shoulder were starting to intensify but she didn't want to miss even a single copy. She swept the apartment twice before slipping back out the front door and relocking it.

She slipped back onto the street and headed to her own apartment before thinking better of that idea. It would take a bit longer, but he would be less likely to check out at the old pack den for his books. After all, no one went there; ever. Even she very seldom visited her old home, reminded too clearly of her failure to protect her family any time she neared it. She was willing to take the memories, however and another twenty minutes later found her heading towards the training grounds where she knew Naruto would still be distracting Kakashi; the books safely stowed away in the den, protected by her own genjutsu traps and shadows.

She grinned as she approached to find both teacher and student breathing hard and sweaty, "Hey, Naruto! That's where you are. I've been looking all over for you."

"Reyna-Sensei! Yeah, I decided to train with Kakashi for a while today, maybe see if I can't find a way to get at least one hit in with you."

Kakashi smiled at her and shook his head, "And he's all yours now. I think I'm going to head home and grab a shower."

Reyna grinned in return and nodded, "Looks like you two have been training for a while."

Kakashi nodded, automatically reaching for his book as he replied, "Yeah, for about the past hour…" he trailed off as he failed to find his book in his hip pouch.

REALIZATION

Frantically Kakashi dug through his hip pouch and every pocket in his vest, his eye widening slightly as he still couldn't find the little orange book. Reyna and Naruto watched, both managing to hide their amusement at the slight panic in his eye. Reyna narrowed her eyes in concern and approached the senior jonin.

"Something wrong, Kakashi?" she asked lightly, managing to inflect concern into her tone.

"I swore I put it in my hip pouch," Kakashi muttered before answering, "I can't find my book."

"Oh, I'm sure it's around here somewhere. If you want, I can look for it while you shower. If I find it, I'll bring it by your place."

Kakashi nodded, carefully schooling his features back into their neutral expression, "Thank you, Reyna. I would appreciate that."

He glanced at Naruto who was grinning slightly and shook his head before disappearing in a puff of white smoke. On the off chance that he was going to make sure they had nothing to do with his missing book, Reyna sent Naruto home to shower as well before he lost control and spent the next couple of days laughing while she went through the production of looking for his book.

A couple of hours later, Reyna once again made her way up the staircase of Kakashi's apartment building. She was actually concerned for a few minutes when she heard the clatter of something heavy hitting the floor followed by Kakashi's swearing coming from his apartment. She knocked his door open, actually half expecting to walk into the middle of a fight, kunai in hand only to realize that the noise was Kakashi tearing his apartment apart. She stopped dead in the middle of the destruction and looked around her. She had never expected this reaction from the stoic ninja. Every book he owned, minus the Make Out series were scattered across the living room, drawers stood open with papers and scrolls laying everywhere. Kakashi stuck his head around the corner that lead into his kitchen and shook his head.

"Who breaks into someone's house and steals the Make Out series? They don't take anything else, just the books. I could see the autographed copies, but some of the others were beat to hell from being taken on missions. Damn it!"

Reyna didn't actually know what to say as she replaced her kunai and shrugged, "Apparently you aren't the only one who adores those books?"

Kakashi sighed and moved to drop onto his sofa, "I guess I'll just have to go and buy some more. Unless you found at least the one copy that couldn't possibly have been stolen?"

He sounded so hopeful that she almost felt bad for him, but then again no one should be that attached to a book, "No, I didn't sorry. And you may be in for a bit of a wait to buy them again. I passed that book stand on the corner on my way here and they were completely sold out. There wasn't a single copy of any of the series."

Kakashi looked horrified and defeated all at the same time, "There are other bookstores in the village though. They can't all be sold out."

Reyna shrugged, "Not according to the guy that was asking about them. The owner said that no place in town has a single copy. No one really knows what happened to them all, but there isn't a single one."

She knew the village would back her on that story. In the time it had taken her to get from one side of the village to the other, talking to bookstores the far side had already gotten wind of her plan and already pulled their copies. It seemed that everyone in the village was going to get in on this prank with them. She supposed that's what happened when nothing ever seemed to rattle you.

"Damn it!"

"Sorry, but I really have to head out. I told Iruka I'd give him a hand at the academy this afternoon."

Kakashi nodded and collapsed back in the sofa as she left, pulling the door closed behind her. She couldn't help the small grin that crossed her lips as she headed towards the academy. Iruka was going to laugh his ass off at this one.

IRUKA

"You WHAT?" Iruka exclaimed after Reyna told him what she and Naruto had done to Kakashi.

"Oh, come on. It annoyed you too, admit it. It's not like we're not going to give them back. They are completely safe and secure and if anything happens to a single copy I will personally replace it. I thought you'd get a kick out of this one, Ru."

Iruka shook his head and leaned back in his chair in the classroom, "You realize how bad of a mood he's going to be in until he gets those back right? And you realize that he's going to get you two back for this?"

Reyna nodded, "We both realize that, but overall, he actually has a fairly decent sense of humour even if he doesn't always show it."

Reyna was sitting on the top of the front row of desks, leaning back on her hands with her head tilted to the side slightly as she spoke with her oldest friend. In fact throughout her time in the academy, Iruka had been her only friend.

"I don't know who's worse; you or Naruto," Iruka finally sighed but he had a smile on his face as he said it, "but you are right; Kakashi needed to be shook up a little."

FESS UP AND THE NEW TEAM KAKASHI

Reyna and Naruto let Kakashi sweat for a couple of days without his books, during which time he had even raided the hospital on the off chance that there might be an old copy laying around somewhere. That had only lasted until Sakura had chased him out and halfway through the village, screaming at him about disturbing her patients. Reyna had sat on a rooftop and laughed long and hard over that one. When that failed, he had searched out Jairaiya to ask if he had a copy that Kakashi could borrow off him. Again, he came up short since the Toad Sage had left the village the day that the books had disappeared. Reyna and Naruto both agreed that they had tormented the man long enough when he had shown up to their scheduled training time, not only on time but looking so pathetic that they were starting to regret their chosen prank.

So two days after taking the books out to the pack den, Reyna returned to the spot and pulled her pack from its hiding place. She knew Kakashi was at the memorial stone, and she knew he would be there for some time yet. She copied her earlier way of getting into his apartment and left his books all neatly stacked in his living room before heading to the memorial stone herself. She had kept his special edition copy in her pack and when she reached the area she dropped down to sit under a tree, book in hand to wait for Kakashi to walk past.

She didn't have to wait long before he did so and she opened the book, pretending to be reading it. Kakashi did a double take when he realized what she was reading and was immediately crouched in front of her.

"That's the Special Edition Release of Make Out Tactics, isn't it?" he asked, excitement in his grey eye as he looked from the book to her face, "The one with the additional two chapters that had originally been cut by Jairaiya?"

Reyna nodded, barely glancing up at him, "Yes, and?"

"Where did you get it? Could I borrow it?" he asked and she had never thought that Kakashi of all people would know how to use puppy dog eyes.

She couldn't help but melt just a little at that look and found herself smiling slightly, "I suppose that could be arranged, but I haven't finished it yet."

"Any chance you'll be done soon?" he never lost that look and she found she couldn't keep up her charade any longer.

"I'm not actually reading it, Kakashi and I got this out of your hip pouch," she was already on her feet by the time she finished speaking, the book gripped in her hand. "We decided to shake you up a little and this was the best way we thought we'd be able to get a reaction."

Kakashi's eye hardened as he listened to her, "You took my book?"

"All your books actually, that day that Naruto trained with you. That was the only part he played in it."

Kakashi stepped closer to her and she found herself backed up against the tree, his arms pinning her in between his body and the tree, "And you thought this was a good idea, how?"

There was a menacing tone to his voice and she flinched a little, worried that she had destroyed their friendship in her little prank, "Hey, I'm sorry alright. The rest of your books are back in your apartment in the exact condition that they left in."

In a blink his demeanor changed again and he was smiling under his mask, making her feel like she had was going to end up with whiplash from his mood swings, "That's actually fairly impressive. You not only managed to get a book off my person during a fight without me noticing, but you also found a way to break into my apartment. Of course if you do it again, I will have to seriously maim you, but this time, I'm just impressed. Now…Give. Me. Back. My. Book."

Reyna handed it over and breathed a sigh of relief, "Here and it wasn't as easy as you seem to think it was. You pull your punches when you train don't you?"

Kakashi took the book, but instead of immediately opening it and starting to read, he held her gaze, "Yes, I do. How do you know?"

"For one thing we don't fly nearly as far as your real opponents and…" she had used a henge to hide the bruise on the side of her face from when he had unintentionally hit her, "I found out first hand."

"So I was actually hitting someone. How the hell did you manage to remain unseen?"

"Shadows, although why they never drew your attention I have no idea."

"I never even paid attention to shadows…" he muttered in return even as he reached out and ran a finger over the deepest bruise. "I am sorry about that."

Reyna shrugged, "My own fault really. I should have been paying more attention to what you were doing than focusing solely on getting that damn book. Lessons learned."

"Alright, that explains how you got my copies, but what about all the copies in the bookstores?"

Reyna grinned, "That took a little bit of talking for the first couple but by the time I reached the other side of the village, they were already pulled off the shelves. I guess word spread through the village faster than I could."

"So the whole village knew?"

"I don't know about the whole village, but a good chunk of it. Everyone wanted to see if we could actually get a reaction out of you other than your usual cool indifference. As frustrated as you felt trying to track down a book is about as frustrated as we feel when it seems as though you aren't even paying attention to our training. That was what set us off. I mean, that day that Naruto and I asked you to watch us train and help us out on our techniques we had stopped for probably five seconds when you finally did say something, and then it was clear that you hadn't been paying attention."

"I had been paying attention, but when the two of you fight it's hard to critique either of you. Naruto can't get a shot in because he doesn't really try to. He can take me on even with my Sharingan and give me a run for my money, but with you it's like he's a genin all over again."

Reyna thought that over and it did make sense. She had seen him take on real opponents that had some of the same attacks that she herself used and he didn't have any difficulty against them. While she may have more speed and agility than most, he should have at least been able to block her attacks and get in a few of his own as well.

"I guess I just never really saw that but you're right."

"As for you, I was only trying to get a reaction when I said you both needed some help on your technique. Although when you train, you change your technique and your form from when you're in a real battle as well. In a real fight, you adapt to your opponent and avoid their attacks more than you actually block them. When you train, you do the exact opposite, you let us attack you. In reality, you don't need the help for real battles and training is just that training. You try to get your teammates to find a weakness while giving them every opportunity you can to attack."

Reyna relaxed against the tree, still half pinned in by Kakashi and thought that over, "Is that a bad thing?"

Kakashi quirked his brow at that question before remembering that she had never really had to train other ninja for a prolonged period; she had never had a team of genin, "Not necessarily as long as it doesn't affect the way you attack and defend on a mission."

Reyna nodded and met his gaze again, "So you're not really pissed at us about this?"

"Oh, I'll get my revenge, don't worry about that. I'm just going to bide my time and get you back when you least expect it. Especially since you are now officially and permenantly a member of Team Kakashi."

Reyna looked surprised, "But I don't do set teams…"

"You do now. Tsunade should be letting you know about that tomorrow, she just told me today."

"Oh goody…this could be interesting…"