"Kakashi-sensei! Behind you!"
Shit! I dismissed my previous thought and bolted to catch up with the team. Sure, I knew my father was more than capable of holding his own ground, but I wasn't about to be ignorant of my surroundings. I reached them just as Kakashi dispelled the clone of a Stone nin with a kunai to the gut. Almost as soon as that one was gone, another appeared ready to do its damage. Kakashi signaled to his team that this was his fight and they were to stand down. The pale boy I didn't recognize teamed up with Sakura to hold Naruto back.
The second clone was dispelled just as quickly, but the third seemed to be giving my father some trouble. I felt, more than saw or heard, the real Stone nin jump down from the trees, prepared to take Kakashi out with a single swoop of his katana. I flew out of my hiding place, formed my hand seals, and shot one of my special compressed lightening balls directly at him.
Then both men and the clone disappeared. A voice materialized far too close to my shoulder.
"You lose," murmured Ro's rumble. I let my fist sink into his stomach before I even registered what he'd said or who he was.
"What are you doing here?" I growled as the Stone nin henge dropped from Ro's appearance. He only laughed and a minute later Kakashi had reappeared on the tree branch, chortling under his mask as well. His three team members looked about as confused as I felt. But, then something clicked for me. "You two played me! Assholes!"
"Sorry, kiddo, it was far too tempting an opportunity," Ro jokingly apologized. Kakashi shrugged half-heartedly and turned his attention to his team.
"These are the two we will be escorting back to Konoha. Hatake Jaada and Ushuzi Talmyro," he motioned to each of us as he said our names. "Jaada, Ro, these are my students and teammates. Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Sai."
"I'm going to Konoha?" That was the only part of his introductions I heard.
"Hatake!?" Naruto and Sakura shouted in unison at the same time as I asked my question. Kakashi just sighed, as if this were the most troublesome thing in the universe, and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Jaada is my daughter, it's a long story," he addressed his students first. "And yes, Jaada," he turned to me, "you are coming to Konoha with us. You will adjust to the village life and join my team in training for a couple months, then you will take your jounin exam to be officially part of Konoha's shinobi team." I let that sink in for about a minute as I turned to look at Ro.
"I'm really going to Konoha?" I asked of him. He smiled at me fondly and nodded. My face broke out into the biggest grin I'd ever given in my life and I jumped to fasten my arms around his neck in a delighted hug. "Thanks!"
"A long. Story." Naruto repeated, unamused, to his sensei.
"That sounds like an avoidance of a difficult topic," the pale boy, apparently named Sai, commented.
"I'll ask Tsunade-sama when we get back," Sakura sighed heavily, looking disappointed in how well she knew her sensei's secret keeping. I wasn't entirely shocked that they didn't know who I was, I knew Kakashi too. He doesn't talk unless he's forced into it.
I let go of Ro's neck and bounced back onto my tree branch.
"You ready to go?" Kakashi questioned at me and Ro, completely ignoring Naruto screaming questions, Sakura forcibly holding him down, and Sai watching in obvious amusement.
"Ah," I hesitated, I'd left this morning thinking I was only training. Granted, I didn't exactly have personal items, but I hadn't been packed either.
"Hai," Ro answered for me, tossing my bag and my long travelling cloak at me. "I packed as soon as you left, that's everything."
"Thanks," I muttered. "I think…" I added as an afterthought. I'm not quite sure how I feel about Ro going through my things now that I'm actually an adult. All the same, I slid into my black hooded cloak and threw my backpack onto my shoulders.
"Good," said Kakashi as Ro finished putting on his own cloak. He turned back to his team and shot them a cheerful eye-smile. "Let's go!"
We all jumped off and started the journey to Konoha. After a few miles of running across branches, I increased my speed to catch up with Kakashi. As I did, I noticed the rest of the team also inch within hearing distance of us. I snorted under my breath a bit, but otherwise really couldn't have cared.
"Ah, Kakashi?" I asked, coming up to his side.
"Hm?" He responded in his usual bored tone.
"Is Konoha really just going to accept Ro and I back? Ro has lived as a rogue Konoha traitor for almost 16 years."
For a while Kakashi said nothing, we just kept running in silence.
"Well," he finally started. "Ro will be returning as a civilian, he will not be allowed to resume his career as a shinobi."
"What?!" I tripped over the next branch and would have fallen if Kakashi didn't grab my arm. I turned around to glare at Ro. "You agreed to that?!"
He inclined his head lightly.
"Hai, Jaada, it is what's best for you," he replied.
"But… You can't just…. Not be a ninja," I muttered, my voice fading, my eyebrows furrowing.
"You're still welcome to live with me," Ro offered as though that would make me feel better about it.
"Thanks, but that's not the point," I shot slightly angrily back at him. I didn't even think that our living situation would change. After a moment that occurred to me. "Who else would I live with?"
"I assumed you'd want to spend some time getting to know your father," Ro suggested, quite matter of factly.
This time I wasn't the only one who tripped on the next tree branch. Both Kakashi and I ended up sticking to the side of the tree we just happened to fall from using chakra in our feet. I looked astonished at him as his eye held the same expression looking at me. He obviously hadn't considered my living with him either. The others jumped to the ground to stare up at us.
"Apparently, I was the only one with that line of thought," Ro revised his previous suggestion.
"My apartment is too small," Kakashi said, recovering from his shock and righting himself back onto the tree branch.
"Right," I muttered, also recovering my stance and rolling my eyes dramatically. "Good to know I was correct not to think that was an option," I added in an undertone.
Ro smacked Kakashi upside the head, which, of course, Kakashi responded to by glaring wordlessly harshly at him. Sakura, Naruto, and Sai seemed to get the subliminal message that this conversation was being held between me, Ro, and Kakashi, and were very nicely not getting involved. I'm sure they were trying their best to memorize everything being said so that they could gossip about it later. Not that I blame them, I'd try my best to garner any possible information about Kakashi from them later, once I was comfortable in Konoha.
"This is your daughter," Ro hissed sternly at Kakashi, who then sighed in an aggravated manner in return.
"I didn't mean it like that, just that she wouldn't be comfortable with me." Kakashi attempted to justify his brash rejection of the idea of my living with him.
"Yeah," I interjected. "I would most certainly not be comfortable living with him. Especially since he doesn't want me to."
"That's not what I—" Kakashi started.
"What else could you have meant?!" I interrupted.
"It'd be very close quarters…"
"And you smell bad?"
"No! You're just—"
"Not good enough for you?"
"ENOUGH!" Ro grabbed both of us by the junction between our neck and shoulder blades, fed up with our bickering. I was used to Ro doing this by now, so I just crossed my arms and pouted. Kakashi was a full grown man unaccustomed to being treated like a rebellious child, so his eye just opened wide in shock as his own hand was tightly grasping Ro's wrist in an attempt to free himself. If I weren't ticked off, his full expression would be quite comical. His team, on the other hand, were frozen in shock, which made me lose my pout and laugh out loud. Naruto looked like a fish out of water.
My laughter roused Ro from his angry face and he released his grip on us.
"Stop being so immature," he managed to get through gritted teeth. "I rescind my offer of you living with me, Jaada, you WILL be moving in with Kakashi once we reach Konoha."
That stopped my laughter and I could see Kakashi sulking under his mask as well. Neither of us argued though, instead our group just bounded back into the trees, back on our journey to Konoha. This was going to be interesting.
Nothing of note really happened to us on our travels to the village. When we rested, I stayed near Ro, Kakashi either acted as lookout or went off on his own, and his three teammates grouped together to talk in whispers. Sakura attempted to come over and talk to me once when Ro joined Kakashi on his lookout. She seems nice, but I really had no idea how to respond to her questions. She asked me things about flowers, cute boys, fictional books, and medical procedures. I don't know anything about flowers, except the ones that have healing powers. I've never really been in a place to think about boys or love or whatever it was that she was trying to get at with that boyfriend question. I don't read many fictional books, except stealing Kakashi's Icha Icha books at one point and being rather disgusted by his reading choice. I'm not a medic nin either, so all of her medical talk about anything other than common practice was beyond me as well. Eventually, I just shook my head at her and pretended to fall asleep against the tree I had been leaning on. She got the message and returned to her group with nothing new to share with them.
After she left, I felt somehow inadequate, as if I were missing so many things. I'm an advanced ninja, elite level, but her conversation made me feel like I was missing something, as if there were something more to life. Ro has been practically my whole world for my entire life, yet she was talking about hundreds of different people who have impacted hers. I sighed heavily and hid myself further into my travelling cloak. It's easier to ignore these thought than to face them head on, so I decided to force myself to get some sleep before we reached the chaos I was sure awaited us.