Being Hokage used to be a honor in Hiruzen's mind. These days it was a pain more than anything else.

Looking at the jonin in front of him, the aged man couldn't help but sigh. Out of all the ninjas to loose, he lost one of the very best.

At a first glance, Kakashi was the usual case of high class elites: arrogant, lazy, late for everything, and most importantly; a disgrace. He had a reputation for knowing hundreds of jutsu's, was a jonin at age 13, son of one of Konoha's gratest legends, and yet he is not only a mere jonin, but a crippled one? 'He ought to kick him down a rank or two' was the general thought concerning this man.

Of course, once you get trained by two Hokage's, you learn a thing or two about looking behind the facade of men, or 'underneath the underneath' as Kakashi would always say. The man has a mastery on all five elements, knows every ninja branch to a jonin level (even obscure arts like fuinjutsu) and had somehow managed to not become an S-rank nin.

One would think that he just doesn't have the stuff, but a man of his age and experience knows the recipe to getting to the top: an unique ability.

How is it possible that in over ten years with knowledge of every ninja art, he still hasn't gotten to the top?

How is it that he still retained his rank, despite his crappy attitude?

One of the many benefits of being Hokage, Hiruzen supposed, was knowing everything. The jonin right in front of him was incredible, almost poetic. Almost. Had he been another person he would be marveled at this man's life. A mask of incompetence and laziness carefully hid the loyal and broken man he was, but underneath that was a man of incredible skill and knowledge.

Hiruzen however was the hokage, and knowing that one of your men is hiding his abilities because he doesn't want to endanger other people's life was not only stupid, but selfish.

"Hello Kakashi, can you guessed why I summoned you here?" He said politely.

A test. It's incredible how many people confess things when they are anxious and of guard, a slight widening of the eyes, a look of fright. Anything. Kakashi unfortunately, was neither off guard, nor anxious (and if was, he was an expert at hiding it).

"Something to do with me?" The annoying man replied with one of his 'eye smiles'.

"Yes. Two things actually. The first is a mere curiosity."

"And what would that be?"

"Many things. First, I find it curious how you managed to be the only one damaged, despite the fact that you were the furthest from Itachi's sight, and yet his amaterasu manages to get you. I also find it curious that you completely ignored him, the other two memebers of the Akatsuki and attacked his partner, the furtherest of the nins, almost as if you knew that the other two nins abilities weren't a threat, thanks to the particular skill set of the anbu present, and that Kisame was the only problem there. Very suspicious if you consider the fact that Itachi just finished attacking you with an S-rank jutsu."

Hiruzen stared at him intently, Kakashi gazed back without emotion.

"Another thing that I find curious" he continued, "is that Pakun summoned you just as things got hairy. Not to mention Kisame randomly losing a head and you, the man who never abandons his comrades, running away just like that. It's as if you knew that they would win."

Still no emotion.

"I also found it very interesting that you yourself don't know why you did this, almost as if you couldn't remember the event...or if your memories where sealed."

A widening of the eyes so small, anybody but Hiruzen wouldn't have seen it, much less remember seeing it. Unfortunately for Kakashi, he was dealing with the third Hokage.

"I assure you Hokage-sama, I would recognize something like that."

"I know." Said Hiruzen intently. "That's why we are having a meeting right now."

A pause.

"You aren't the only one who has discovered the hidden arts." Said Hiruzen with a shake of his head. "I just didn't think that anybody would have a natural affinity for mind manipulation other then them."

"I don't" said Kakashi with a sigh. "I simply reversed engineered a few things with seals. It's the sharingan that does the rest."

"Explain. Now."

Kakashi hesitated. "When Obito died, I got obsessed with getting stronger: Minato-sensei managed to kill everyone in seconds and save me and Rin without trouble. 'If only I was as good as him I' thought." Hiruzen nodded, he already knew this. "But it's when Rin died that I stopped the madness. I was plenty strong, but that obviously wasn't enough. I decided to switch tactics, and since I didn't know what to learn, I decided to learn everything."

Hiruzen said nothing. Had anybody else said that, he would have rolled his eyes: even with his shadow clones, it took years before he became a master in every ninja art. For somebody else to one day 'decide' to do that was absurd, but Kakashi was actually smart enough to pull it of.

"It was when I just finished my exams and became a full-fledged medic that I started to study my right eye: what was so special about it? Why could it do the things that it could do? Eyes aren't special, it's the brain that does most of the work anyway, why were these so different?"

"And then you discovered that they weren't."

"Exactly. I realised that they were the same thing. Therefore the question came: why could they do, what they do? I realised easily enough that it wasn't the eye, it's the uchiha: no wonder why deactivating the eye is a permanent thing for me, but it's no big deal if you're one of them. The realization lead me to the discovery of dark chakra: the mysterious chakra that activates the sharingan. I studied a lot more, and only by chance did I encounter an old friend of my father, a man who actually had a natural affinity for dark chakra. He explained how awakening the chakra lead him to his mind reading abilities, and via him joining my investigation, I discovered the uchiha secret to the mangekyou, a secret that was incomplete: killing your closest friend has an emotional trigger that releases dark chakra, the chakra then gets channeled in your entire body; your brain and chakra pathways are the most visible changes."

"So you unlocked the mangekyou sharingan."

"Not really, I activated it when Rin died, but didn't reactivate it because I didn't know I could. Once I discovered the secret I realised that I had no reason to not be able to."

"You talked about reverse engineering Baku's mind reading abilities. Explain."

"It's not really reverse engineering, and more like making a cheap copy. Baku-sensei did most of the work anyway: it's a more complex form of the alarm seal, and instead of lighting up, it conveys memories. It only works if you're close, and is very inflexible: having more than one pair at a time ruins it, so you can only have one seal per person, I only have three: one for Gai, one for Pakun and one for Tenzo. There is also the fact that you can't reliably control what information you give out, and what comes in, so it's for trust worthy people only."

Annoying and yet Hiruzen could see the uses. It's a shame that he couldn't trust Danzo at that level anymore.

"So that explains knowing what your Anbu teammates could do. What about knowing what the Akatsuki members?"

"Deidara is well known in the bingo book. I have no idea what that black and white plant man could do, but judging how he was right next to Kisame, I was guessing that he wasn't the combat type."

"The reason why Inoichi couldn't read this from your mind?"

"So you did order him to read me" said Kakashi with a grin "thought so, anyway I learnt Minato-sensei's method of shaping your own mindscape, and with that comes the ability to organize your memories better. Sealing away your memories is no big deal from there, as you know well, but making them undetectable is way harder."

"Very well, last two questions: how did Kisame randomly get decapitated and loose his sword?"

"My mangekyou sharingan can teleport things to another dimension. I teleported his sword and neck, although I was actually aiming for the heart."

Had Hiruzen been your average person, and the revelations would have blown him away. Instead, he just nodded and went on, as if this was an everyday occurrence. "That concludes part one. Can you guess what part two entails?"

"My team?"

"Precisely. As you are well aware you have talented students. Leaving them in reserve is a waste, especially with the invasion coming up- ah as I thought, you don't know everything that Tenzo does. Yes, there is an invasion coming up soon, I advice you to keep this to yourself. Everyone who needs to know already does and plans have already been made. As I was saying, your ex-students cannot be abandoned to the wolves and they won't be, as as soon as I put them up for anyone available, they were expected by someone... someone that I usually wouldn't allow to go out from his important duties, but I have made an exception. Someone that used to be my teammate. Yes, your fears aren't baseless, your ex-students new teacher is Danzo."

Sakura sighed to herself. Damn was her lessons getting harder. Thankfully they only lasted five hours, so she was done for the day. She walked home at a relaxed pace with her mind in half a dozen directions at the same time.

The most important issue on her mind right now was getting stronger, followed by paying back the others.

Just a few days ago, and these objectives would be too much pressure to think straight, now she was just grinning at the challenge. Ah the beauty that is reading.

She went home, washed and ate a quick snack (her parents would be home soon to cook) and went to her room to start reading. She had recently gotten access to the older parts of the library (only accessible to those who demonstrated themselves responsible enough) and had found a shit ton of fantasy books (who knew that science and magic could go so well together?)

Next to her book was a list of rules that she would never repeat, so far she has two:

1) Any technique which is good enough to defeat me once is good enough to learn myself.

2) I will not leave my power around for somebody else to copy/learn.

And boy did those rules change her! Just yesterday she met a girl a year older than her and challenged her to a fight. The girl had won easily enough and now she had an objective: have a 100% hitting probability with long ranged weapons.

It was a nice change of pace from the impossible tasks that she had set for herself like 'become a professional medic nin' or 'learn all there is to know about fuinjutsu', for she could actually see progress now, and was slowly and steadily getting better. She had recently managed to use the 'stunning jutsu', one of the jutsu's that Sasuke had given her: it was a lightning technique that was capable, as the name suggested, of stunning people. She had decided to learn that first because it was the one that required less chakra, and was also the fastest jutsu out of the three that Sasuke had given her. It sounded like the most useful.

She lay on her bed and started reading. Tomorrow morning she would get up and train, brainstorm a bit, study, go to the hospital, practise her precision and so on. She had a comfortable routine, and was feeling useful, even if she hadn't really done anything till now.

She just lay her eyes on the first sentence of the now opened book, when a knock on her window alerted her to the presence of someone right outside her window. She looked to her left and saw her ex-sensei. Huh? What did he want?

She opened her window, and greeted him formally. No need to be disrespectful.

"Hello sensei, what's the matter?"

The man looked troubled. "I need you to write a note explaining how you are doing some late night training, and expect to be back home by tomorrow morning. Leave it where they can find it please."

She did as she was told, as Kakashi had thought her to not mindlessly follow rules, but he had also taught her the importance of having them. Sometimes obeying without question saves lives. Plus she could just ask what's going on later.

Kakashi nodded when she was done, and in a puff of smoke, they were no longer in her house, but in a corridor.

"Kakashi-sensei, what's-"

"I'm taking a gamble." Was all he said.

They walked up to a door, and without knocking, Kakashi walked in. The room was very tidy and had a clean smell to it.

Near a desk was a man sitting at a chair. The man was obviously old, judging by his wrinkles and grey hair, but Sakura noticed how he was ripped underneath his thin white long sleeve shirt.

"This is Baku, one of my few but reliable teachers. Baku-sensei, this is Sakura, the girl that I was talking about."

"Hello Baku-san." She said nervously, receiving a small nod in response. "Can someone please tell me what's going on-"

"Later." Said Baku sternly, "we don't have time to waste."

She was told to stand still while Baku pressed his palm to her forehead. A feeling of coldness was came along her entire body, and a sudden rush of something filled her senses. What was going on?

She opened her eyes and noticed that a strange magenta collored chakra was coming from Baku's hand, and that her body was surrounded in it. She was about to ask what was going on again but she stopped when an enormous pain filled her head. A voice tried to talk to her in the back of her mind, but Sakura couldn't answer. She fainted.

Opening her eyes once again, Sakura was greeted to the sight of a anxious Kakashi, and a smiling Baku.

"What was that?" She asked with a groan, making Kakashi turn to her with wide eyes.

"A gamble gone right." Replied Baku.

"That's a gamble gone right? I'm afraid of what a gamble gone wrong is like."

"It usually includes comas and other head traumas, sometimes even death."

"Ah. Mind explaining what was that now?"

"Not at all, that was me unlocking your hidden affinity activated with dark chakra, I call it a 'psychic affinity'."

"A what activated with what now?"

"Dark chakra. A mysterious chakra that all and only humans seem to have. It is a big unknown. Sometimes it activates abilities you call bloodlines, while other times it does nothing. Why? Nobody has a clue. Anyway, one of the rules that we have guessed with this chakra, is that it activates similar affinities. Since we both have the same affinities, I was able to jump boost your nature."

"What do you mean? You get affinities at birth! The rest comes with training!"

"That's how normal chakra works, yes. This one is learnt was faster, provided you have a lot more control. But unlike the normal chakra it has weird activation rules: be thankful that it was this easy for you, normal people have to have an enormous emotional trigger like a death of someone important to them, or something, thankfully for you, I learnt how to access my hidden chakra ages ago, and so we skipped the drama."

"So what can I do?" She asked excitedly.

"What do you mean 'what can I do'? Haven't you seen that the entire conversation happened without either of us opening our mouths?"

It was at this point that she realised that A) Kakashi hadn't talked at all during the conversation, B) she hasn't either, and C) Baku had also remained silent.

"I am telepathic?" She started out loud, and finished in her mind.

"And more, much more. But we don't have time for the introductions, you must learn how to protect yourself."

"Against what?"

"As you know Kakashi is no longer your teacher. Problem is, your knew one has unknown telepathic powers, and evidence suggests that he can control peoples mind. We don't know the extent of his powers, just that, he stays away from me at all times. We think he has a byakugan, but we have no proof."

"And how do I fit in this?"

"Evidence suggests that I am immune to his powers and may even be able to read his mind, something that the Yamanaka clan cannot do for some reason. The idea is to make you imune first, and then if everything goes to plan, you will read his mind, and find out information that we desperately need."

Sakura blinked, not expecting any of this. Still, it was power offered on a silver platter. "I'm in." She said with conviction.

Another chapter with a few hidden easter eggs. I don't know what prize I'll give to who gets all of them, but there is a prize.I want to give thanks to those who reviewed my story, you guys have no idea how much that motivates me to write (or maybe you guys do?), anyway, does anyone have a good website for spell checking errors? The one that I use (google) is crap. I hate it (and haven't used it since the first chapter).