Disclaimer: I own nothing, so I really can't make any money off of it, can I?

Also, A/N: This chapter is unbetaed. The betaed version will be put up later. As I said before, my beta has a life and I'm afraid that my rather restrictive schedule made us repeatedly miss each other. I hope this is up to snuff (and if it's not, tell me!).

The first time Kakashi opened Icha Icha, it quite possibly saved his life.

He had been assigned a solo A-rank assassination. The target was over seventy with an untreated hip problem which rendered him incapable of moving quickly. His miserly tendencies apparently extended from his medical expenses to his security detail: a large number of the most unskilled (and therefore cheapest) mercenaries, all far below genin level. If necessary, Kakashi could go through them like a kunai through rice paper. It wasn't even an ANBU level mission, but the client had specifically requested one, and had even paid extra. "Just in case," the man said.

He arrived at the mansion where his target was staying and spent the requisite twenty-four hours on recon. The next evening Kakashi donned his ANBU gear and watched from a nearby tree as the target sank into bed and turned off the lights. He waited a couple hours for the cover of nightfall before infiltrating. After reaching the bedroom with minimal fuss, he dispatched the guards outside it, and slipped in, a kunai in each hand.

The bed had been slept in, but was empty. Before he could do much more than process the scene, Kakashi heard a rustle to his left. He ducked and somersaulted towards the sound as a blade sliced through the air where his head was a second ago. Coming out of the roll, he used the momentum to propel himself towards a figure half-hidden in the shadows. Kakashi saw the man's eyes widened in fear as he snapped his right arm out, using the kunai in his hand to stab him in the neck. Pivoting behind his victim to avoid blood spatter, he quickly cut across the throat (through the Adam's apple and windpipe) to ensure that the guard wouldn't make any noise as he died. He then caught the gurgling man from as he fell and lowered him quietly onto the floor. Threat eliminated, he wiped his kunai clean on his glove and walked over to the bed, making sure to step over the quickly-forming pool of blood. Peeling one of his gloves off, he placed the back of his hand on the slight, body-shaped indent in the middle. It was cold, meaning the target had been moved a while ago. They had known he was coming.

He had been either set up or sold out, probably by the client (who was the only one beside the Hokage who knew of his mission), but it didn't matter. Konoha had been paid upfront and he was risking his life every second he was in the house. Of course, now he couldn't trust the information in the mission scroll. For all he knew, there could be a large number of S-class missing nin in the compound. That made things rather more difficult.

Kakashi opened the bedroom window and swung himself out. He was confident that he could move faster than most chuunin and probably a good proportion of jounin, but to utilize that, he had to be outside where he could maneuver freely. He ran up the wall and hauled himself onto the tiled roof. If, by any chance the rest of the guards were as unskilled as the ones he had encountered so far, they would be less comfortable up here. And if not, he would have a better idea of their level.

Hoping for the former, he sprinted across the rooftop towards the safety of the forest surrounding the mansion. Once among the trees, it would be a lot easier to shake off pursuit. Suddenly, he felt a flare of chakra and sprung backwards, arms shielding his face, just as the portion of roof immediately in front of him exploded. He flew through the air a good fifteen feet above the roof, senses searching for killing intent. There. From above.

His body twisted as a kunai sliced through the air in front of him and embedded itself between the tiles. Too slow, Kakashi thought as he continued the motion, flipping so that he would land on his feet. Low level throw. He alighted and looked up to see the owner of the weapon standing on the roof several yards away, next to the kunai. So he isn't been able to change his trajectory in air or he's trying to get me to underestimate him.

The man in front of him yanked the kunai out of the roof and charged. His form was poor (arms back, head thrust forward, weight unbalanced), but Kakashi suddenly sensed a presence behind him and one more behind the smoke that the explosion had produced. Two others were quickly clambering up the walls. He was surrounded.

The group attack and the bad form pointed to a high genin or low chuunin skill level. And since they were the first real enemies Kakashi encountered after the guard in the bedroom, he could assume that they were the strongest fighters. There was no point in sending the weakest only to have them slaughtered. Nothing he couldn't handle, but if he assumed the worst (that the mission scroll had been right about the amount of them), he was in for a long night.

* * *

Kakashi was exhausted. He had clawed his way out of the compound and disappeared into the trees, leaving a fairly large body count behind him. After making sure that he wasn't followed, and laying some false tracks just in case, he headed for camp. With the swiftness of long practice, he packed up and changed into his normal jounin clothes. Although he only had some minor scratches and bruises, the effort it had taken not to get a lot worse had drained him. Unfortunately, the mission scroll had been fairly accurate in terms of quantity of personnel, and although they were all below chuunin, they were significantly more skilled than he'd been expecting.

Bowing to the need to conserve his energy in case of another fight, he walked through the woods instead of taking to the trees. The sun was just rising when he hit the main road an hour and four minutes later, at 0516. Here, he paused, thinking. If he wanted to travel through the trees, he needed at least half a day's rest to have enough energy left over to defend himself. Unfortunately, he simply didn't have that much time. They would find him first, and he wasn't sure if he could cut his way out again. Of course, there were soldier pills, but he'd already taken as many as he could without making himself seriously ill. That left disguise. He was too low on chakra to henge or cast a genjutsu. However…

He pulled off his gloves and jounin vest and stuffed them into his pack. Then he bent down and took the tape off his pants, letting them hang loose around his ankles and partially cover his standard-issue ninja sandals. His kunai holster and back pouch were removed and put away, leaving him armed only with the weapons hidden up his sleeves. The hitae-ate came off too, was carefully folded and placed at the bottom of the pack. Then he took out a roll of bandages and used them covered his sharingan eye before continuing to wrap them down over his tell-tale mask until they vanished into his shirt. A man with a nearly completely bandaged face would still be suspicious, but his mask was as infamous as he was, so he couldn't take the risk of not hiding it. Besides, in a pinch, he could come up with a plausible excuse for the wrappings, while a simple mask was harder to explain away. Finally, he took out the non-descript ANBU cloak and clasped it at his throat, using the hood to hide his distinctive silver hair (along with any incriminating blood that might have dried in it) and his bandaged face. Hopefully, he now looked like a well-worn traveler, or perhaps a mercenary. Then he shouldered his pack, arranged his cloak over it, and set out.

In an attempt to appear nonchalant, he shoved his hands in his pockets, and his fingers brushed the Icha Icha book. He had been carrying it around for about a week before the mission. When it had fit perfectly into his pocket, he had been completely unsurprised, and its weight soon became a familiar presence. This, he reflected, was probably why it had lain there forgotten.

Reasoning that it would be plausible for his head to be bowed if reading, he pulled out the book and opened it. At the angle he was holding his head, his hair and face were completely obscured from the sides by the hood and hidden from the front by the open book. He began to read.

About a paragraph in, Kakashi suddenly went very still. Although it wasn't visible, his neck and face were heating in a spectacular blush. He coughed in embarrassment and glanced around guiltily before looking back at the page. Technically, it was illegal for him to even own the book, and would be until his eighteenth birthday next year. It was possible that his chuunin vest, height, and grey hair had misled the shopkeeper. The man certainly wouldn't be the first to simply assume that Kakashi was in his twenties. He did think it odd that he hadn't been asked for proof of age, until he remembered how the storeowner had all but snatched the money out of his hands. He frowned to himself in disapproval. Greed should never supersede the law.

However, it wasn't as if Kakashi had much of a choice. It was already fairly warm, so his cloak seemed out of place. If he looked like he was trying to hide his face, he was just asking for trouble. Besides, he might be jumping to conclusions. It was entirely possible that just the first few paragraphs were racy, and the rest would be age-appropriate material. After a pause, he continued to read. Two pages, one paragraph, and four sentences later, when (in spite the control years of training had given him over his body and mind) he felt his blood rush somewhere besides his face, he snapped the book shut and blanked his mind until his body returned to normal. Then he slowly opened it to a random page and gave every appearance of reading.

In reality, he was staring into space. Oddly enough, he felt betrayed. After the light-hearted, innocent picture on the cover, he had been expecting…well, honestly, he didn't know what he had been expecting. But it certainly hadn't been that.

To go to a brothel after a mission was one thing. It was paying for a service to satisfy a basic instinct (Kakashi firmly believed that it wasn't a need), so that he could perform his job to the fullest extent. He'd seen shinobi who'd sworn off such activities as a distraction. Eventually, they channeled their latent energy it into other, often destructive paths. Some even became unbalanced or needlessly tense, which in turn took a toll on their performance. However, to write about it, to read about it, was…well, it was disgusting. There was no purpose to it other than the basest sort of pleasure, and Spartan that he was, Kakashi found this idea appalling. He'd expected more.

But as much as it irked him, he needed to appear as though he was thoroughly engrossed in the story. So he continued to stare blankly at the book, letting the words blur slightly out of focus while his other senses strained for sign of pursuit. Every so often he would turn the page.

They found him two hours and twenty six minutes later at 0742. He felt the presences in the woods on either side of the main road. Six altogether, poorly concealed, traveling on the ground instead of through the trees, and next to no chakra. They were probably scouts who would report their findings to some higher level hard-hitters. So all he had to do was convince them that he was just another traveler…

They came out of the woods and surrounded him. Kakashi pretended to be startled even as he tested his chakra. Nope, it was still too low for genjutsu, and an out-and-out fight would alert other enemies to his presence as well as drain them further. Unfortunately, the young men barring his path seemed to be spoiling for a battle, and would probably not leave him alone until they had one. His best hope was to find an excuse for them to start a fight with him. That way, he could dictate the situation and hopefully ensure that his hair and face stayed covered. Then, if he didn't fight back, there was a good chance that they would get bored and leave.

He hunched as if in fear, letting the hood of his cloak fall forward and cast his face in shadow while making to hide his book. He purposely moved too slowly, angling the cover so that the sun glanced off the gloss and the vehemently orange expanse on the back was very visible. Naturally, the gesture caught the attention of one of his assailants.

"What you got there?" the man asked with a nasty grin as he snatched the book out of Kakashi's hand.

The shinobi hunched further, making sure that his face was completely invisible. "Nothing," he muttered.

The man glanced at the cover. "Icha? And you're reading it in public? You sick pervert! Is this what gets you off? Is it?" He brandished the book at Kakashi while the other man hung his head, practically touching his chin to his chest as he rapidly processing the information. Of course, he had heard the word before, but he hadn't been aware that it had a specifically sexual connotation. He had planned to distract them with the book and then pretend to go for one of them while they were examining it. It seemed like a reasonable thing for a lone traveler to do if surrounded by possible-bandits. They would defeat him soundly, congratulate themselves, and leave, allowing Kakashi to continue to Konoha without fear of pursuit.

However, it seemed that Icha Icha had already given at least one of them an excellent reason to fight him, saving him a couple precious moments. Even better, the man holding the book had some sort of morality complex. All Kakashi had to do was rile him up. It was absurdly simple.

He made a grab for the book, as if to snatch it back. The man who was holding it stepped out of reach and glared at him suspiciously. He turned the book upside down and shook it. When nothing fell out, he began leafing through it, turning redder with each passing second from embarrassment or rage. Kakashi suspected some of each.

Finally finished with the book, the man looked up, his mocking grin now a scowl. Rather quickly for someone untrained, he pulled his arm back and swung it forward, punching Kakashi in the jaw. Since there was no chakra behind it, it normally wouldn't have made him so much as wince, but Kakashi twisted with it and threw himself on the ground. Hopefully playing weak would make them less likely to associate him with the one-man army from the mansion as well as satisfy their egos, causing them to leave sooner. Worst-case senerio, it would mean that they would greatly underestimate him if it became necessary to fight back.

Kakashi pushed himself off the ground until he was on all fours and clutched the side of his face, as though in pain (not-so-accidently obscuring it). The man took the opportunity to kick Kakashi in the stomach. This time he had to put a little less effort into overacting as he collapsed face-down on the ground, still clutching his face. Kakashi was sure that there was more coming when a voice rang out to his left.

"Kato! Enough. We're wasting time."

Kato stopped and presumably turned his attention to the speaker. "How do you know Inoue-san?" he asked acidly, packing sarcasm into the honorific.

There was a pause before Inoue replied. "First off, he doesn't have any blood on his clothes. We were told that he had multiple wounds." Kakashi thanked his stars that someone had exaggerated the report. If he had been dealing with true professionals, he would probably be dead several times over by now.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard the intake of breath as Kato opened his mouth to argue. Inoue cut him off by continuing the explanation. "However, that alone would not suffice. He could have healed himself for all we know." Kakashi risked a glance upwards through his fingers. Kato had opened his mouth again, but Inoue held up a finger, silencing him. "The intruder was one of Konoha's ANBU, elite assassins. None of them would go on a mission with such a…distraction. It would be extremely unprofessional."

Kakashi blinked. Well, that was unexpected. He had been saved quite a beating and possible discovery by illegally owned porn. If Kato accepted the explanation, that is. Kakashi held his breath following Inoue's speech, and from the feel of it, he wasn't the only one. The two probably butted heads a lot, and the silence of the rest of the group indicated that neither were victorious often enough to be the undisputed leader. His nin-dogs had taught him a lot about human nature, an irony that wasn't lost to him even as he lay there waiting for the reaction of his would-be tormentor.

Finally Inoue gently prompted the other man. "They said that he'd probably be walking, but if we don't move out now we'll never catch him."

Kakashi could feel the reluctance and anger radiating from Kato, but the man finally threw the book on the ground in front of him. "Keep your filth," he sneered at Kakashi, before turning on his heel and disappearing into the woods. The others soon followed suit.

As Kakashi felt their presences move further away, he let out the breath that he didn't know he'd been holding. His shoulders and arms (which had been ready to push him up in an attack the second things went out of control) relaxed. He made a show of getting up slowly and painfully, in case someone was still watching him. Then he dusted himself off, picked up the book, and resumed the journey home.

Fun fact: Kakashi was originally doing laundry in this scene, but when I fell asleep rereading my own fic I decided to change things around. I've never written an action scene before, so I would love concrit (of course, I've never really written before, so I would love concrit anyway). Cue extended metaphor!

Say you and a friend were hauled into the police station. Your friend was questioned while you watched from behind a one-way mirror. Having never been questioned by the police before, she started making an ass of herself. Now, she doesn't know you're there, so she doesn't even have your moral support to bouy her up. Unless you charge into the room and tell her how to handle herself, she's probably not going to get any better. So what are you waiting for? Get in there and slap some sense into her!

I have plenty more where that came from (i.e. out of my arse), and I have a feeling that they're going to get more ridiculous. My point is, I don't know that you're out there unless you drop me a line, and that can be slightly disheartening. And I'm pretty damn sure that there's something I could improve on. So go on. Let's have a dialogue.

One final piece of business: for reasons out of my control, I will not be updating until April 20th earliest. I have not abandoned the fic (the next chapter and a half are already written), and do not intend to do so any time soon.