Happy New Year's to my BFF Pumpernickel Surprise, known better as alifestylechoice! HOORAY! This was written for the KakaSaku LJ Comm's Holiday Anonymous Exchange. WHY do all of these things have such long names? Please welcome...

Part One: Supplication

Kakashi tugged uncomfortably on the strings of his temporary new mask. Sneezing into a clinging piece of thick fabric was very unpleasant, as the snot had nowhere to go but right back to his face, where it congealed very disgustingly. Instead, Kakashi currently sported a flimsier, disposable mask, lent to him by his very nice girlfriend with her hospital connections.

Speaking of which, he hadn't seen Sakura around yet today. Well, he couldn't blame her; he'd like nothing better himself than to curl up in bed with his ninken.

Kakashi was sick, and he didn't like it one bit. He never got sick— yes, he considered himself to be one of those people. Sickness was weakness that shinobi were not meant to allow to bother them.

Which was why, no matter how much his irritated nose stung, or how no amount of chapstick slathered onto his lips seemed to be enough to stop them from flaking off into painful shards of skin, he was not going to let this get to him.

These days when he was not needed for anything but still expected to be seen around the office, he liked to lurk in unassuming corners and pull out his comfortingly neon orange book. This tactic often worked well for him (naturally, since he adapted it from one of the pointers in Icha Icha Tactics).

However, a certain do-gooder had other ideas. Moegi was a teenager on a mission: Get the Council of Elders to recognize her new holiday, Puppy Day. She had been met with a lot of bureaucratic red tape so far (really, how did anyone deny a girl whose ponytails had such magnificent gravity— or rather, lack thereof?) and was hoping to bypass many of the tedious steps by appealing directly to an individual member of the Council.

She brushed through the doors of Hokage Tower. Powdered snow fell off her gracefully like a divine announcement of her presence. When no one seemed to notice her entrance, however, she slouched in disappointment. All of the time she had spent in front of the mirror practicing for this very moment… But no matter— she had a mission to complete!

Moegi gathered up her slightly punctured confidence and strode forward. The lobby was scarcely populated today, with only a few stragglers dotting the wooden and plush landscape. Hope sparkled in her eyes as Moegi scanned the room for any sign of a senior citizen, but alas, none popped out at her.

Moegi's lip quivered as her resolve threatened to fail her. She had been hoping that, being elderly, one of the Council members would have sought refuge in the comfortable seats of the lobby, requiring a minimal effort on her part…

A miserable sneeze distracted her. She looked around for the source of the noise to find that it had come from a corner she had previously overlooked. Crouched in said corner was what appeared to be a human being, rubbing a gloved finger ruefully at the periwinkle surgical mask covering the lower half of his face.

But all of those details were unimportant as soon as she noticed the color of his hair: Gray! Excitement bubbled in her chest. She managed to find a member of the Council of Elders after all!

Practically skipping, she made her way over to the elderly man in the corner. She stopped short of him several feet, wanting to keep a respectful distance.

"Sir?" she said, employing her most innocent tone. He looked up blearily through the one eye that wasn't hidden by his slanted forehead protector. He didn't seem particularly inclined to get up; she wondered why he was here instead of resting in one of the plump armchairs in the middle of the room.

Ah, perhaps he couldn't get up! Moegi scolded herself for not immediately offering to help him. "Oh, I'm sorry, do you need any assistance getting up, sir?"

The glare she received was chilling.

The man stood up without any apparent difficulty. His hands slipped into his pockets and he looked down at her; somehow he managed to appear intimidating despite the cute mask strapped to his face.

"Um, hello sir," stammered Moegi. "Do you have a moment? I hate to bother you."

For a moment he looked like he was going to brush her off; he held her in his one-eyed stare for a few long moments. Then he sighed, letting his eye fall shut.

"What do you want?" His voice was muffled and a little nasally. She suspected he had a cold.

Quivering with anticipation, Moegi held out the manila envelope she had been clutching in her pink-gloved fingers. "I'd like to ask you to bring something important before the Council—"

"Of Elders?"

"Er… yes. It's actually very important—"

The man shook his head, and her heart took a frowning dip down her chest. "No," he said. "I don't think you understand… I'm not part of the Council."

Confusion knitted Moegi's brow. "But… Don't you advise Naruto-sama?"

"Yes," the man said impatiently, "but that doesn't mean I'm on the Council of Elders. You do know that there is a difference between advisor to the Hokage and the Hokage's council of elderly advisors, don't you?"

Something clicked in Moegi's head, a scrap of knowledge having finally emerged from beneath layers of make-up and cover-up and that impressive up-do. His tone… Like he was teaching her something…

"Oh, Kakashi-sensei!" A false laugh trilled from between her glossed lips. "I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you…"

Kakashi, who as always was wearing his headband tied at an angle, a jounin vest, standard-issue navy blue pants and turtleneck, and who had the same distinguishable hair he'd always had, frowned.

"It's your mask," she explained. "I always recognized you by the color of your mask… Anyway, well, as advisor to the Hokage, do you think that you could—"

"No," he snapped. "I'm quite busy." He moved deftly past her.

Sadness curling her heart into a wrinkled ball, Moegi watched glumly as he walked away, carrying the death of Puppy Day's last chance on his shoulders.

Kakashi sniffled angrily, not relishing the feeling of his mucous getting sucked backwards through his nasal passages only to congeal somewhere between his eyes. That sneeze in the lobby had cost him; this disposable mask was officially soiled, and he needed to replace it— fast. Better yet, he needed a nice soft tissue to alleviate his stinging, sticky nose.

Pushing aside more graphic descriptions of his snot situation, Kakashi made his way up the carpeted steps to the Hokage's office. The temperature climbed with him. While the lobby had been pleasantly lukewarm, now he could feel the stuffiness swelling on all sides. Not that he minded the warmth — certainly not, when Konoha was having its coldest and snowiest winter on record — but stuffiness led him on a dangerous waltz to sleepiness, which lowered his guard…

And when a caroling Gai was known to be on the loose, one could not afford to lower his guard.

The majestic oak doors of the Hokage's office crept up on the horizon as Kakashi ascended one final staircase. The wood of the banister passed beneath his fingertips and he stepped up into the long, curved hallway.

He made his way to the office, the carpet padding his footsteps. Despite his sour mood and dire situation he mustered the courtesy to rap his knuckles politely against the swirling wooden patterns.

"Come in!" Naruto called, and Kakashi swept into the room.

His hawk-like eye swiveled towards the spot on the desk where the tissues usually sat: Right between the ink pot and the empty instant ramen cup which housed a mysterious tropical plant… a little to the left, and—

Nothing.

The distressed shinobi could not manage to hold back his angry puff of breath.

"Naruto…" he began dangerously.

The aforementioned (and soon to be threatened, if no tissues were procured) whiskered Hokage looked up innocently at his visitor. "What's up, Kaka-sensei?"

A vein pulsed in Kakashi's temple. "You do know that my name is Kakashi, right? Not… Kaka."

"Yeah, isn't that what I said? Kaka-sensei?"

"No, you actually just said—"

"Well, when you say it really fast, it just sounds like…"

"Anyway," Kakashi cut in darkly. "Why don't you have tissues? Don't you know that some of us are—"

"Sick?"

"Ye— No, not sick. Just… Well, have allergies. Some of us have allergies."

Naruto squinted at him with suspicious scrutiny. "Riiiiiight," he drawled, clearly unconvinced. "I suppose you're allergic to snow?"

"Sensitive subject," Kakashi said with an air of finality. Naruto clamped his lips shut, but his blonde eyebrows still hovered incredulously near his hairline. A tense silence stretched between them, which caused even more tension because silences are usually not very elastic and therefore cause general discomfort when stretched. Naruto, recognizing this awkwardness, cleared his throat and spoke up.

"Yeah, about the tissues…" He sighed and scratched his nose.

"Didn't I just buy you some?"

"You're full of rhetorical questions today," Naruto said peevishly. "For your information, I had to give those tissues away."

"You had to— Wait a minute, you gave them away?" Disbelief rounded Kakashi's bleary eye. "Come on, Naruto, I bought those tissues with my own money…"

Naruto's palm came swinging down onto his desk with an attention-grabbing fwump. "Sensei, let me explain," he beseeched. Kakashi silenced himself but made it known with subtle signs in his posture that he was still very passive-aggressively annoyed.

Having secured the floor, Naruto relaxed back into his chair, staring guiltily up at the ceiling. "It happened when Kiba came in yesterday," he explained to his hostile audience. "He just came back from a mission in Snow Country, and when he came in, Akamaru was sneezing so much, getting his snot all over the freshly polished floor, which by the way I had to polish again this morning…"

Kakashi nodded; the strong scent of polish breaking through the wall of mucous in his nose verified this statement. It was also interesting to know what Naruto would bring himself to do to avoid paperwork.

"… And Kiba mentioned how all the dogs at home would probably get sniffles too if they didn't already have them. The thought of all those puppies with boogers dripping down their wet little noses and with no tissues—"

Kakashi held up a hand, and Naruto sheepishly stopped talking. There was no need to continue; Kakashi already knew the rest of the story. Greater men and women than the Hokage of Konoha had been known to fall victim to the thought of a puppy in peril… He himself might have had a slip-up or two when it came to getting Pakkun his very special sausage…

"Ahem," Kakashi said aloud, but whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a knock on the door.

Dubious vibes emanated towards him from the source of the sound, but Naruto seemed oblivious.

"Come in!" he shouted in the intimidating-leader voice he had been practicing.

Kakashi immediately realized this was a mistake because Gai bounded in. The nefarious caroler was dressed in a linty red-and-green-striped sweater over his usual skintight green Spandex, although Kakashi suspected that this was his sentimental holiday pair… which had fit him well when he was about fourteen years old.

As Gai moved his body in a poetic wave in preparation for his performance, bells tinkled from an indeterminate place. A red jester hat sat lopsided on his head as if it was slowly inching off in anticipation of running far away.

Gai wrapped up his bodily undulations and gave an introductory cough. Before anyone could react quickly enough to stop him, he inflated his chest and belted, "Goooood rest ye merry kunoichi, let nothing you disMAAAAAY—"

Kakashi's imagination conjured up a frightening image of another headache with a crooked, evil grin shaking hands with his sinus headache before squeezing in right next to it. Hoping to avoid what was foretold by this premonition, he tried to interject. "Gai—"

"Remember Hashirama had his hair cut on this DAY—"

"Please—"

"Perhaps now it won't touch the floor and trip him on his WAY to give you a great big bear hug on this DAY!"

His chest heaved, and he fell silent in order to gauge the reaction. Kakashi frowned, crossing his arms judgmentally.

"First of all, you rhymed day 'twice'," he pointed out. "Second, why would a kunoichi want a bear hug from Hashirama? And third—" Well, he was going to designated the third problem 'Where are the bells that I hear you jingling?' but decided against it.

Gai stared with unfocused eyes at Kakashi's left ear for several seconds before striking a pose and answering loudly, "In reverse: Incomplete; because it is a platonic display of great affection from our nation's greatest hero; acceptable under the terms of free verse."

In the face of Gai's triumphant grin, Kakashi could only mutter, "Damned free verse."

Naruto scratched his head. He was still a green Hokage and as such had not yet invented protocol for dealing with Gai.*

* Protocol for Third Hokage: Pat the Subject on the head, give him candy, and escort him out the door. Then change the locks.

* Protocol for Fourth Hokage: Feign deafness. If this does not work, laugh nervously at everything until the Subject leaves.

* Protocol for Fifth Hokage: See: Protocol for Every Annoying Situation**

** Swear, drink, and turn everyday objects into deadly projectiles.

"Was there anything I could help you with?" he asked tentatively.

"Of course!" Gai responded, and he flitted out the door.

"Huh?" Naruto glanced at Kakashi in confusion, but Kakashi preferred to avoid eye contact. He was still sore about the tissues.

It was silent for a few moments before they heard a great scraping noise. It sounded like something was being dragged across the (freshly re-polished) wooden floor. Ignoring Naruto's small moan of sorrow, Kakashi watched the doorway apprehensively.

Gai's mean, green, and clearly defined posterior wiggled its way into the room, followed by his body in general and what appeared to be a large wrapped present. It was pink with a shimmering red ribbon. Upon closer inspection, Kakashi noticed that decorating the pink paper were winking elves in impossible gymnastic contortions.

Gai finished maneuvering the box to the middle of the room. Heaving, he stood up straight as a wooden soldier adjacent to the gift. The side of the garish red ribbon brushed his hip.

He coughed. At once he assumed the Tree position.

"To, Kakashi," he announced.

A quick prayer raced through Kakashi's head.

While rearranging his limbs so that his arms were raised above his head in a casually ferocious manner and one of his legs stuck out behind him parallel to the ground, Gai continued. "From" — he took a breath "Maito Gai, who constructed this gift to you as part of a challenge issued nineteen days ago of which the terms were AS FOLLOWS!"

Suddenly he broke into a series of jumping jacks, his feet landing with thuds on the polished wood floor after every jack was jumped. Breathlessly he resumed his proclamation.

"Quote from Hatake Kakashi!" he bellowed. "'Oh, excuse me ma'am— oh, it's you, oh, I thought you were out of town… Okay, I take it by that… um, face you're making that you have been in town, and trying to find me for the past seventy-four hours without food or sleep. Okay, well, I know what you want— oh, seventy-four and three-quarters hours? Pardon. Anyway, the, uh, c-word— No! You don't have to say it. Okay, well… Ah. Pause Quote: Insert snap here. Resume Quote: Right. How about you find me my favorite thing in the world and deliver it as a wrapped gift. What's my favorite thing in the world? Why, I thought you were a ninja, Gai. END QUOTE!"

Mercifully, Gai halted his manic movements.

Kakashi took a moment to compose himself before saying weakly, "That challenge was not nineteen days ago… It was nineteen weeks ago, Gai."

"Did I say that?" Gai asked innocently. "I merely thought… That I did in fact receive the terms of the challenge through coded private message nineteen days ago…"

Kakashi shook his head. "I have no idea what you're talking about…"

Gai's mouth rounded into an "oh" of comprehension and he laughed nervously to cover up this mysterious revelation. "Never mind, that had nothing to do with you— it was something else!" he said hastily. "But no matter. You see, this challenge was not simple!" He waggled his finger at Kakashi. "You certainly put my devotion to you to the test with this one, dear rival! But you see, I wouldn't be able to call you my Eternal Rival if I wasn't capable of conducting accurate research on you."

Shoulders slumping, Kakashi sighed, "I suppose I was asking for a breach of privacy…" That part hadn't occurred to him when he issued that challenge. Honestly, he hadn't been thinking about much except for trying to come up with something that would prolong the next challenge (Gai's choice) indefinitely.

Gai nodded sympathetically. "Indeed you were, and although it violated some of my youthful codes of personal conduct, I had no choice but to adhere stringently to the terms of the challenge. I first ruled out objects that you didn't own because you would surely have bought them already, and in any case it seemed unlikely that your favorite thing in the world would be something you had not yet acquired."

Naruto watched on with concern, and Kakashi with burgeoning fear.

"Next I eliminated the possibility of it being an object you already owned. It would be ludicrous for me to steal one of your possessions only to return it to you in recyclable wrapping paper."

Gai always had a certain ecological attention to detail.

"This led me to a puzzling conundrum. There are only two classes of objects: that which you own and that which you do not own. Having realized this, it dawned on me that perhaps I would need to look for something that was not an object at all. I realize that I took a liberty here by interpreting the word 'thing' in a more general sense— that is, as an informal way of referring to any noun."

He took in a great gulp of breath and gestured proudly at the wrapped box. "And now, without further ado, please open your gift!"

It turned out that Kakashi had a bit more ado planned. If he had followed Gai's rambling well enough, he deduced that the box contained a living creature, and he was not looking forward to unearthing it from beneath layers of menacing elves and carnation-colored paper.

Gai's glowing smile faltered, slipping into a grimace. "Please my Rival, won't you please come and open your gift? Please."

Kakashi shook his head stubbornly.

"Aw, Sensei, come on!" Naruto jeered. "Just open it already, you scaredy-cat!"

"Naruto, don't talk to me like— Good God, get your hands off me!"

He swatted at Gai's dithering hands, which had somehow found their way to his lower back in an attempt to usher him forward. Scowling, Kakashi scooted forward and addressed the imposing gift.

He pulled experimentally on one of the ribbon's tails. The bow began to give a little, but he hit a snag when it seemed to be double-knotted.

Not only was it double-knotted, but as he continued whittling away at it, he discovered it to be triple-knotted, and then quadruple-knotted.

"Oh, don't tell me it's quin… quinti… agh, Gai, why so many?" he seethed, exasperated. "Was it really necessary to tie me a Gordian bow?"

"Yes, for security reasons," Gai supplied gravely.

Finally, the monstrous knot had been conquered. The ribbons, relieved at finally being allowed to breathe, fell gratefully to the sides and curled over backwards until their ends pooled on the floor.

Kakashi secured his fingertips under the cover of the box. Inside he could hear some rumbling vibrations, and as the cover shifted beneath his fingers it came shooting up without his volition.

A bloodthirsty roar ripped across the room as the pink cover fell discarded on the floor. Kakashi staggered backwards to make room for the kunoichi who exploded unceremoniously from her elf-covered prison.

With red tissue paper falling from her like a shed snakeskin, Sakura stood up inside the box. She was rubbing her wrists: Kakashi recognized the welts there as coming from chakra seals.

She looked downright murderous.

"Maito Gai," she growled, her eyes narrowed into jasmine slits that promised pain. The marked man's lip quibbled as his victim-turned-victimizer rounded on him.

"S-surprise!" he squeaked.

"You bet it was a surprise!" Sakura screeched. "You bet your ugly green ASS it was a surprise! There I was, eating my pumpernickel sandwich with smoked ham, and then you barged into my kitchen and kidnapped me!"

Her voice had practically transcended the range of human hearing. Her nearly supersonic tone whistled, "I'll get you back for this!"

And then, she turned back to Kakashi.

"You," she said. Rage erupted from every orifice of her body in viscous waves of damning black. She regarded him with haughty nostrils and glinting eyes.

All he could offer was a pathetic sniffle.

A flash of red seemed to pass across her eyes. "This is all your damn fault! You two and your stupid, effing, CHALLENGES!"

Chakra crackled at her feet in an almighty surge and she pushed up off the floor, breaking straight through the roof with a deafening bang.

Kakashi ducked out of the way as a torrent of wood and plaster rained down on them. Over the crashing ruckus, Naruto could be heard wailing, "Whaaaaaaaaat?" while Kakashi hastily straightened up. Without even taking the time to brushing himself off, he clambered over the newly made pile of snow and rubble. His feet tingled with chakra and he hopped up through the hole.

On cue, Yamato traipsed into the room. "I heard wood cracking?" he offered wearily.

Naruto was still dumbstruck by the rapid destruction, gaping open-mouthed at the place where Sakura had appeared and then just as quickly vanished.

Gai, for his part, was already standing up poker-straight again, dusting himself off delicately. "Well, that was weird," he said.

Naruto looked faint. Sighing, Yamato walked over to the center of the room. He looked dully down at the pile before him, and then dully up at the hole above.

"I suppose I should fix the roof," he said.

"Indeed, we would not want a draft moaning ghoulishly through the Hokage's esteemed office," Gai said severely. "Yamato, will you be able to make it to my bonfire?"

"Yes, I should be able to…"

Naruto seemed to snap out of his horrified reverie. "Hey, Yamato-taichou! Mind cleaning this up for me?" He looked immensely relieved. Vacating his chair with a cheeriness that contrasted sharply with Yamato's weary resignation, he made his way hurriedly for the door, adding, "Oh, and could you re-polish the floor? And just fix all the scuffed-up places? That'd be great, thanks bye!"

The oak doors swung shut behind him with deafening finality.

Yamato blinked glumly.

"On second thought, Gai, I won't be able to make it."

Gai gave a dramatic sob. "Very well, I understand!" he warbled. "I suppose it'll just be the three of us, then: Kakashi, Sakura, and Youth! Youth meaning me."

He offered Yamato a rigid salute and then bashfully retreated through the hole in the floor. A few pieces of rubble he accidentally kicked down pitter pattered down onto Yamato's upturned face.

He didn't even blink this time.

Yamato had been hoping for a quiet night, but he should have seen it in the cards. This was to be an ordeal of mythically tragic proportions. His horrible evening started with a bang, but after he had endured heavy splintering on his frostbitten hands, at least it ended with a cigarette.