Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Naruto, I'm just playing with them.
A bird clawing at his window was what woke him.
Kakashi glared at it, immediately alert. It was only just past dawn and a faint pink light was just starting to clarify the rather spartan set-up of his apartment. He pushed himself out of bed and on to his feet then with practised silence, walked the four paces to his window. He snatched the small scroll from the bird and carelessly waved his hand in a shooing gesture. The bird flew away.
Summons 020119 at loc T 0500
Oh great, he furrowed his brow at the official message. It had been a while since he'd been summoned. He almost didn't recognize his operation number. The location he knew well though. He'd had rounds and rounds of ANBU guard duty for location T in the past month. That was the Hokage tower.
Well that was an offensively early start to his morning, but in truth he was glad for it. He walked over to his bathroom, the only separate room in his apartment. He ran some water and splashed it on his face, turned off the tap and scrubbed the sleep away a bit.
He looked in the mirror and frowned.
He'd been having the same awful dream he had off and on for the past year.
And it showed in his face. His eyes both had dark hollows underneath them, and when he looked into his own eye the blood vessels around the outsides had become very visible giving his eye an unhealthy pinkish tinge.
It was always the same. It was sixty seconds of his life burned into his mind on repeat. Like there was something he missed, some way that it could have been different, or some way that he could have saved her.
And it always ended the same way, with the feeling of her heart stopping against the back of his wrist as she smiled at him.
Kakashi began to strap various basic weapons to himself to block out the rest of the specters in his mind.
It didn't last long.
While boiling water for tea, Kakashi let his mind wander. He was making guesses as to what he was being called in for.
Probably a mission.
More than likely it would be a mission involving some extensive stealth. Recently he'd been doing a lot of high profile assassinations. Those were, surprisingly, some of the easier missions. Be silent, be invisible, and leave no trace. Toxins in a hypodermic then a prominent political opponent or dissident expires in their sleep. No longer a problem for the one who hired him.
He liked them because they were clean.
Kakashi did not consider himself to be fastidious by any means, but he was clean. Dirt was uncomfortable. Blood was, too… even more so. If a mission could be accomplished by means of poison and espionage then it was much simpler to deal with after.
It was, after all, much easier to slip away when he wasn't covered in gore.
Kakashi decided it was a mission like this one. Infiltrate, gather intelligence, and then terminate. Simple.
Though to be summoned so early, it could really be anything.
He fixed the forehead protector over Obito's eye and took a moment to stare at his right hand.
Then another moment to wonder if it would ever be free from Rin's blood.
It was getting close to his 5 a.m. summons time, so he left his apartment and started heading out the slow way.
Hoping, even though he didn't hope, that a walk in the brisk air would clear his mind.
….
The Hokage had been busier than usual in the past few weeks since the destruction of Kyuubi. This morning he had started at the crack of dawn, having woken stiff and sore in his chair. The first item he'd seen had been a note from Kiri.
He'd been corresponding fervently with the young Mizukage, only recently elected to her position after the fall of her predecessor mere months ago. There were undue stirrings in her village, and she felt it time to act upon their shared suspicions.
It was nearing 5 when a gentle breeze swirled through his office and a figure appeared in the centre of the room, tightly crouched. The figure stood up and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
"Maa… Hokage-sama, you summoned me?"
Hiruzen raised his eyebrow; really, this particularly well accomplished shinobi did not need to use his title in privacy. Then again, this was Kakashi. It was to be expected that he'd follow orders like his title, silly though they may be. Even if his late teammates and sensei had melted off some of his steely and programmed behaviour, he'd always be a stickler for rules.
"How many times have I told you to knock?"
The young man's eye curved into a false smile. He noted that Kakashi still looked exhausted, even though he'd returned from his last mission more than four days ago. Some things, no matter how they must, never did change.
The reinstated third Hokage pulled and shuffled some papers on his haphazardly organized desk. The paperwork mantra he followed was simple: if it's done, it's filed away. If it's not done, it's on the desk.
The mountains of papers indicated the Hokage offices current state of affairs.
He eventually found the one he was looking for, in a file with many papers spilling out the sides and sticky-notes. There was a prominent stain on the front of the folder, probably from tea, but one could never be certain. Late nights needed to be spiced up somehow and even the best Hokages were not immune to the temptress of booze.
Sarutobi felt, on many occasions, that this particular mission had called for booze. Lots of it.
Kakashi was standing in the centre of his office, patiently, ever obeisant and waiting.
He flipped open the beat up file. In it was a collection of notes started years ago, from before the time of the 3rd shinobi wars. He pulled out a worn section with a picture and some notes.
"This is your target, Miyagi Hiroto" he said, passing the papers to Kakashi.
He always hated this part.
Kakashi was a fast reader; he found the relevant information quickly. This guy seemed to be the head of something. He was connected to many crimes, yet remained untarnished by a criminal record of his own. He wasn't seen outside of his home, except for in bars. The man was in his mid-thirties and had an unhealthy habit for partying…with younger men. Oh. So that's how he was to pin him. There was no noticeable change in Kakashi's demeanor, but Sarutobi had watched him long enough to catch the slight stiffening in is posture.
"You know what you have to do, Kakashi."
He nodded.
"This is different from the other missions like this you've done. It will take longer," he noted, "Miyagi is a known weapons dealer in the Mist. There have been stirrings there of late. Myself and your late sensei had kept an eye on them for the better part of the last decade, and now it's coming to a head. They are building up for something and we need to know what. If you can peg Miyagi for breaking with our alliance agreements with Kirigakure, you are to terminate him."
"I understand," he inclined his head and reached for the mission directives on the desk.
"I'm sending you with back up."
Kakashi stilled mid-reach and fell silent, but the look in his visible eye was calculating.
"It's no comment on your success rate, Kakashi."
"Can you spare me a team with the rebuilding in progress?" Kakashi asked pointedly.
"Frankly, no," the Third gave him a hard look, "But then I feel that I must."
Confused, Kakashi said, "I apologize if this is out of order, but why?"
The Hokage pinched the bridge of his nose as if to ward off an oncoming headache. He looked grim, and damn near shouted:
"Because of that damned eye!"
That shut up any protest the younger nin may have had.
Sarutobi sighed and walked towards Kakashi. He looked him in the eye, "Kakashi, I know that when Rin passed most unfortunately," the young shinobi winced, even a year later that was still a raw spot, "you unlocked the Mangekyou Sharingan."
Kakashi gave his best impression of calm. He knew what was coming, but he tried to defend himself anyways. "I have it under control," he said steadily.
"Bullshit—and you know it," the Hokage admonished, then turned away to look out the great window over the slowly rebuilding city.
Kakashi frowned.
"I know this is hard for you to admit, but I've seen your name on the hospital boards too many times as of late. And every time it's for the same damn thing! You'll run yourself dead if you don't get that eye under your control."
Kakashi had no response to that. It was true. Ever since Rin had… well, he'd had it stuck in what he'd come to call Mangekyou mode. It seemed to be overwhelmingly useless. The drain on his chakra was like a molten flow of lava through his optic nerve. It hurt like a bitch, left him spent for days when he tried to use it, and had no variation from the original sharingan he'd mastered.
So he could see where the Third was going with this.
That didn't stop him from feeling slighted.
But Kakashi would not raise such complaints. He was a soldier first and an individual second.
Having left enough of a gap for Kakashi to respond if he'd seen fit, the Third was unsurprised to find no objections from the shinobi. The aging man turned back to his desk and sat down.
"I'm sending you with Gai,"
The third almost smiled at the expression in that lone, dark eye. This was the look that sent the biggest and strongest ninja running. It frequently astonished the man how much could be conveyed through one eye.
"I know you don't like it, but Gai has been doing well on missions like this. If you'd take a break in a while you'd have seen it."
The gentle berating comment was enough to get Kakashi to school his eye back into carefully constructed neutrality.
Judging that his silence would continue, the Third went on, "it will be beneficial to us as well to have the perspective of the working men in Kiri. We do not have conclusive evidence of the extent to which Miyagi has poisoned their populace."
Kakashi nodded.
The Third sighed tiredly then said, "it will be fine. He's been doing well with missions requiring more finesse recently. This will be a logical next step for him and you'll be better for having someone there you can agree with."
Kakashi relented with his glare. He could tolerate Maito Gai better than he could tolerate most others. Gai was predictable. He was the closest he had to a comrade now…
But the spandex.
"And it wouldn't hurt to have someone who can screw your head on right!" the aging Hokage added with a wry smile.
"I'll run through the mission information with him, I'm assuming any additional instructions are in that folder?"
The old Hokage smiled, "indeed. Subtlety is key and the time allotted is flexible. Leave Gai responsible for making contact with me to avoid being connected with any plots"
"Yes Hokage-sama,"
The went back to the disarray of his desk, "best of luck Kakashi, be care—" the small breeze that carried through his office alerted him to the fact that Kakashi was gone, "—ful."
The Hokage looked up and glared at the place Kakashi had stood.
"Punk kids don't let me finish my—"
"Hokage-sama!"
The man sighed as his young assistant Teuchi burst through the door.
Oh the business of running a village never did stop. He supposed he could get back to his papers later.
"Yes, Teuchi?"
…..
Before actually finding Gai and starting this damn mission Kakashi took the liberty of familiarizing himself with the mission specifications. The folder was immense, clearly intelligence gathered over many years from many nin, both in Konoha and Kiri. It had the 5th Mizukage's seal of approval on it as well. They were trying, at least, to uphold the truce between the nations.
The peace achieved by the third war had been tenuous at best. Konoha had lost much, not so much as the other nations had and not nearly so much as Kiri had, but much. The devastation that city had experienced was even greater than what Konoha was going through post-Kyuubi attack. It was certainly in their best interests to remain on fair ground with Konoha.
And that was being threatened by one Miyagi Hiroto.
The folder contained dozens of 'solved' murder cases and suspicious accidental death reports for civillians, shinobi, and even a few lords. Separately they would have seemed innocuous, but al together they were very disturbing.
Miyagi was taking out the Mizukage's prominent supporters.
This lead to the assumption, listed in the mission directives, that he was amassing his own force under the Mizukage's nose.
It made sense why they'd outsourced his assassination. To have an internal operative murder someone who was so apparently innocent would have left the Mizukage clawing desperately to her supporting parties. With so many of them already missing it could have led to a fatal imbalance of power in Kiri.
Miyagi seemed to be the root of an underground arms market that was amassing it's employ out of dissatisfied mist shinobi. Recently there had been a string of high profile murders beginning to take out the established hierarchy of Kirigakure. This was beyond the past decade of small support disappearances and crimes in areas of high support. It was beginning to look like a coup, and if anything, this Miyagi guy was aiming to overthrow the Mizukage and start an insurrection against the treaty of the villages.
The fact that shinobi were vanishing within the mist and not turning up as missing nin was very disturbing. In the past four month the number of shinobi lost had bled into dozens.
Any disturbance to the peace would be detrimental. Kiri and Suna had been Konoha's closest allies after the war, providing prosperous trade routes and a regular influx of missions. Konoha could not stand to lose those ties now. Not so recently after the destruction of Konoha at the flaming jaws of Kyuubi.
So the outlined mission was paramount to Konoha's future prosperity.
He understood his role. He was to infiltrate Miyagi's group and pin him for crimes of conspiracy against the treaty of the villages. Then kill him.
In the past years Miyagi had become increasingly difficult to spy on. Agents were found slain and information was lost in the chain to the Mizukage. Last month, however, a crucial piece of information was gained by Kirin in spies—Miyagi had a shameful secret indulgence.
He would send his closest out to pick up young men in bars and then bring them back to him.
For exactly what, the spies didn't know, but they could guess.
Kakashi frowned as he put the last papers he was reading down. He knew what his expectations were. He'd done this before.
It was just very dangerous, and no matter how much Kakashi wanted to admit that he didn't need the help, Gai would be essential to the success of the mission. It was too much sneaking around to risk long range communication, and too long time-wise to forego communication.
It was hard to imagine Gai keeping a character up for that long, though. That could be more dangerous than anything else. Kakashi didn't want to be neck deep in a hornets nest when Gai kicked it.
Frankly he didn't want to be neck deep in a hornets nest at all.
And, if he dared imagine Gai to keep his tongue in check, it could be pleasant to have someone whom he worked well with along for the ride. He'd never imagine it, though. Gai was a great battle partner, but Kakashi shuddered to think of how he'd perform on a mission like this.
Not to mention it was a bit humiliating for him.
The role which he was expected to play would be so awkward to have Gai watch. Gai didn't always understand subtlety or the actions that could be necessitated by missions. Gai would make it weird.
Or maybe he would be the one making it weird.
Why was it so weird?
Kakashi's frown deepened. He stood from where he'd been sitting surrounded by papers and began to organize them back into their file. He tucked it neatly away into his vest and looked at the beaten alarm clock by his bed.
It was only 7 a.m., he saw.
High time to meditate on his biggest handicap in this.
He pushed up his forehead protector and opened his other eye. There was always a strange duality about looking through both his normal and sharingan eye at the same time. It made his head hurt, so he avoided it.
Closing his normal eye he took stock of his apartment.
The sharingan spun lazily, burning chakra siphoning through the veins in his eye. This new eye manifestation allowed him all the same priveleges of his old sharingan, but there was this thing about it. Like if he focussed hard enough he could do something, but the what had been evading him. Every time he tried to do whatever-it-was he would end up passed out in a ditch. Or his bed. Or at the bar with old Inoichi dragging his ass home mumbling about drunken young dolts.
With the time constraint of a mission now, Kakashi did not risk pushing this thing.
He looked at the fine wisps of chakra threading through his apartment. He was very skilled at keeping others out. The wisps that threaded along the creases of his walls and ceiling and floor knotted into webby nets around his door and window. Traps that would permit entry only to him. And previously Minato.
He followed the threads with his eye lazily, noting where they were fading out of existence so that he could bolster them later.
Then he stared at his plant.
Plants had chakra. It was a strange thought, but they did. The small plant didn't have much, but he could see it flowing slowly through its little planty veins.
Ok, that was enough. He yanked down his forehead protector and glanced at the sad alarm clock again.
It was almost noon, after all, and high time to find Gai.
If Kakashi remembered correctly, Gai had returned from a C rank mission last night. That meant that by now, Gai was probably doing some ridiculous training exercise to build up more youthful exuberance or whatever. Kakashi rolled his eye. Even in his mind Gai was larger than life.
But he felt a bit off about going up to Gai. He hadn't seen him much around the village since Rin and the Kumo nin. He knew enough that Gai hadn't been gravely injured against the Kyuubi and that he'd been promoted to jounin over six months ago. Had he congratulated the man? Probably not.
Better late than never though, so Kakashi set out.
But first he would go get one important item. If they were going to head out tomorrow he needed to find an appropriate replacement for his mask. There was no way Kakashi could deal with the Kiri wharf smell without covering his nose.
AN: Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!