Prologue

In the village of Konoha on a beautiful Tuesday morning, the sun was rising and the birds were singing. It looked like another peaceful day was beginning. Though the people standing in the Hokage's office would tell you this day had started off as any thing but peaceful, and Kakashi has not returned from his mission and he was due back two weeks ago. The search teams had just returned after almost a week of searching, and were reporting to the Hokage.

The search team knocked on the door and waited until the Hokage called them in. The heard a lot of arguing and the voice of an angry Hokage. They were almost afraid to tell him they had not found Kakashi. Finally the arguing ceased and they were allowed to enter. As they walked in the three counsel members rushed past them each with scowls on their faces. The Hokage let out a sigh and started rubbing his temples to try to rid himself of the headache he had, when he didn't see Kakashi with them.

"Report about the mission," said the old man finally when he realized his headache wasn't going to go away. The search team looked at one another and silently picked the one that was going to speak. Might Gai stepped forward to tell what happened on the search and for the first time he didn't say "youth" or any other loud proclamations while he talked. He even talked at a normal volume, which had many jaws dropping because of it.

The Hokage sat at his desk smoking his pipe while he looked at the four men in front of him. Gai, Asuma, Karasu*, and Genma stood there patiently waiting for their orders. The Hokage sat down his pipe, "Kakashi has not reported back yet and he's a week late. I'm sending you four out to search the last place his message came from. Find out what happened and report back here as soon as you can. Dismissed." They bowed and left the office to get ready to go. In 15 minutes they meet up at the front gate and took off into the trees, jumping from branch to branch. At nightfall they stopped to set up camp and get some rest. The next morning they ate a fast breakfast, and took off again. After two more days of running they finally came upon the last place Kakashi was. The land looked like a huge battle was fought here. Kunai, shuriken, and a few bodies littered the battle field. They went to each body first and made sure none of them were Kakashi. When none were, they started looking around the battle field to see if they could find any clue to where Kakashi was. Karasu's wolves were sniffing around try to find something, anything, that would tell them where Kakashi was. A wolf on the other side of the battle field let out a howl to tell them he found something. They all rushed over to see what the wolf found. When they arrived the wolf dropped what was in his mouth into his master's hand. Karasu lifted it up with his other hand and the others just stared. It was a silver chain with Kakashi's dog tags on it like any other ninja would have, but what had them staring was a wedding ring hanging beside the tags. "Are you sure this is Kakashi's tags, Karasu?" asked Asuma. "Yeah, I'm absolutely positive this is his," said Karasu. Fang, Karasu's lead wolf and the only one that could talk, came up to the group and sat in front of them. "We lost the trail Master, but whoever we are dealing with is great at hiding their tracks, especially since as far as we can tell there was close to 75 people fighting Kakashi. Hiding the trail of that many people is normally impossible even for a ninja. Kakashi was captured of that much we can tell but by whom we can't. I wish we could be of more help," said Fang as he lowered his head in sadness. Since there was nothing left to find they made their way back to the village and hoped Kakashi was alright.

When Gai finished he stepped back to stand with the rest of the search team. Karasu stepped forward and pulled out the chain with the dog tags and the ring and gave it to the Hokage. "Thank you for your hard work. Take the next week off, I'm sure you could use it," said the Hokage. They all bowed and left their separate ways except for Karasu who remained.

"Hokage-sama do you think my little brother is still alive?" said Karasu.

"By the way you described the battle field and how many different scents your wolves picked up I don't think they were out to kill him. I think they wanted to capture him, otherwise why go through the trouble of hiding that many scents. The probably want some sort of information from him and in order to get that they will keep him alive if only barely. We'll keep searching, but if a few months pass and we still don't hear word from him or find even one clue by that time we'll have to pronounce him dead. I'm sorry Karasu," said the Hokage.

Karasu just nodded his head, bowed and then left to go home.

End of Prologue

* Hatake Karasu is Kakashi's older twin brother. They look identical except for their hair. Karasu has short black hair with silver at the tips.