Robin had not garnered permission to leave the village, nor had she expected to, for a short time the next day no matter how much the Hokage wanted her out of there, which was less than she actually thought. She was so used to people she'd only just met distrusting her and wanting her gone or captured, that the idea that someone outside the crew and their allies actually not minding her presence was somewhat foreign to her. He disapproved a bit because of the threats she'd made to both him and Uchiha Sasuke, but wanting her gone simply for being who she was? That was another matter entirely, and not one that he subscribed to.

Robin had, despite these misunderstandings and the Hokage's vaguely neutral, vaguely approving—in concerns to her kind treatment of Naruto—feelings, managed to get permission to leave for several hours on that Saturday. Considering that the day she'd even realized the dimensional access of her powers was a Tuesday, and the day she'd requested access to the forest for was a Wednesday, it would be a few days before she could go. Just a few days, however, wasn't too much for her to deal with if it meant she had a chance to find a way back at all. She'd have to have a shinobi escort, of course, but she had permission to temporarily leave all the same.

She'd made sure that whoever was coming with her was someone the Hokage trusted implicitly, that they wouldn't spill any secrets if told not to; the Hokage had understood, and offered a Jounin, as he didn't quite think an escort would be of any effect if they were of a lower ranking than such, that he knew was loyal to him, to Konoha, and would be able to keep any secret he was told to.

Sarutobi also saw fit to mention that Robin was, under no circumstances, to threaten the shinobi in any way, even if he took out literature that she didn't approve of. Robin's response?

She didn't care what he read or said so long as he kept his hands off and, though the second part had nothing to do with perversity, made no move to kill her. Unless he disturbed her in her investigation of the odd, trans-dimensional phenomenon and search for information on her crewmates, she would ignore him and do as she pleased within the bounds of what she was allowed to do. The Hokage just felt a strange sense of relief and peculiarity; most kunoichi hated perverts, yet this woman, a pirate and assassin, had absolutely no qualms so long as they kept their hands off, and, he was guessing, didn't peep on her while she was naked. He was sure that many of the village's male shinobi would be thankful to hear that, if word of her—slightly ridiculous, and ridiculously potent, in his opinion—power ever got out.

Really, far too many of his subordinates were perverts. Not exactly "super" perverts like Jiraiya, but somewhat perverted all the same. Of course, a large part of the reason for them being perverts in the first place was Icha Icha, which sort of made the perversity Jiraiya's fault…

In any case, Robin had permission, she had someone that would watch her to make sure she didn't disappear or do anything that would hurt Konoha, and she had a goal. She was good to go that Saturday.

o.o.o.o.o

Hatake Kakashi was intrigued by the assignment that the Hokage had given him. Just to watch a single woman in the forest outside Konoha for a few hours didn't seem all that important, but it was classed as a B-class mission, so there was probably something he was missing. Considering he usually took S-class or A-class missions, he viewed this as a small holiday of sorts. He was also going to be taking on a genin team in a few months' time, so… yeah.

He showed up at the door to the woman's apartment at eight o'clock sharp—like he was going to be late for a genuine (in other words, not a D-class) mission from the Hokage. He's lazy with punctuality, but not that lazy—and knocked politely. The Hokage may have said that the woman was more neutral towards perverts than most kunoichi, but he wasn't taking any chances.

The door opened and there stood a good-looking woman about his age, wearing a cowboy hat—though he didn't actually know that that's what it was called; he just assumed that the hat was there to shade her eyes, which was definitely part of it—and with a small backpack over her shoulder. She was athletic, Kakashi saw, but not exactly in the way ninja were. There was also an odd tint to her chakra, not exactly human, that he couldn't quite understand the presence of.

"Hatake-san, I presume?" Her voice seemed a bit amused, but Kakashi wrote it off as nothing important. All shinobi and, he assumed, pirates like this woman, were bound to have some quirk. Her amusement probably just had something to do with that.

"Hai. Would that mean that you are Nico Robin?" He already figured that she was, but it was polite to ask and it would be nice to have confirmation.

"Mm." Robin gave a small, slow nod to the Copy-Nin, amused smile still playing on her lips, and took a small step forward, just enough for Kakashi to take the hint and step back far enough for her to come into the hallway without either of them compromising their personal space. "Shall we head out?"

Kakashi nodded in the affirmative. Robin came out of the apartment, and pulled the door closed behind her, locking it up. She walked off down the hallway, making no move to signal Kakashi to come after her. Nevertheless, it was clear that she expected him to follow regardless.

As Robin walked down the street, heading towards the southern part of the outer wall, Kakashi followed behind along rooftops from a respectful distance. As he passed them through the guards at the gate, proving that they had permission to leave and enter the village as they pleased for that day, he noticed that Robin had tensed slightly at the sight of the guards. A civilian wouldn't have been able to notice her reaction, but Kakashi had been a Jounin for almost fifteen years, now, and an ANBU for a large portion of that time; he knew what to look for, and how to see.

They were in the forest when Robin finally stopped and sat down on a rock, rifling through her backpack. She pulled out a pad and pencil, laid them on her lap, and set her backpack to the side. Kakashi watched her from the tree he was standing in as she brought her hands up to her shoulders and closed her eyes, going very still. Kakashi kept watching, but for several more hours, he would see nothing, only moving when Robin got up every half hour or so and walked a few hundred meters in any given direction, finding somewhere new to sit each time with eyes that were barely open to make sure she didn't run into or trip over something.

He didn't know what it was that had this labeled as a B-class: Hokage-sama probably could have made it a C-class, given it to a team of genin, and been done with it. He stuck with it anyway: a vacation of sorts for him.

o.o.o.o.o

Robin's day, in contrast, was as interesting as Kakashi's was boring and confusing—to a certain point. As soon as she'd reached what she deemed an appropriate distance, she'd allowed herself to sink into something close to a trance, and sought out a feeling that would lead to her growing an eye on Sabaody. Several minutes into her self-imposed mission, her powers randomly latched onto the wall of a fishing hut, and she found herself staring at the wall of an alley. She looked to the sides, judged which side had more light, and grew a new eye out of the wall there, making sure to have a good hold on that wall before she allowed her first one to disperse. Thus did she repeat the patter until she saw a wooden box several hops in, which she latched onto the side of, and looked all the way down the alley.

So did the first part of Robin's day go: she grew eyes here and there, taking in the damage—there must have been a battle with the marines and one of the other pirate crews on the archipelago—and trying to catch gossip with well-placed ears. As it turned out, there had been a fight here, between Admiral Kizaru and several of the other Supernovas, and then he'd left to deal with her own crew after it was over. Robin couldn't exactly see as much as she'd hoped to, but she had an idea of what Sabaody had been like since she'd left several days earlier.

She dearly wanted to find the Sunny, but it had probably been hidden by Shakky and Rayleigh after the crew had left Sabaody, unwilling as their departure had been. She hoped that she was the only one that had actually crossed worlds when evicted from the area; she didn't think anyone else was capable of coming back.

She'd spent three hours just looking around and eavesdropping, writing down anything interesting in the notebook she'd brought; considering she was starting with the outer groves, specifically near the fishing oriented ones, there wasn't much else to do, nor did the information vary much outside the specific fights that had occurred on the groves and how the fish were biting. Three and a half hours in, she'd worked her way closer to the more populated and lawless areas, walking several hundred meters through the forest surrounding Konoha every half hour or so when her own powers reached their limit in distance.

Robin watched as a Tenryuubito passed, a somewhat disgusted expression crossing her face back in the forest—Kakashi saw, but didn't know what to make of it, just like everything else that she'd done thus far, and so ignored it—and made sure that her eyes just then were well hidden, since there wasn't as much hustle and bustle to hide them as there had been earlier. After the noble and her entourage passed by, Robin returned her eyes to a higher vantage point, and picked out a newspaper stand a few dozen meters away. Finally.

It was tricky, but she'd managed to steal away a copy of the paper without alerting anyone as the stand's young owner was flirting with a pretty Marine girl who couldn't have been more than a few years older than the youngest of the Straw Hats. Focused as she was on simply getting ahold of the newspaper and getting up onto higher roots where no one would be able to see a pair of arms with eyes on the hands reading a newspaper, she hadn't thought to glance at what was written on any of the newspapers she'd grabbed.

Good thing, too, considering her reaction when she had finally looked. She doubted she would have been able to steal the papers without being caught if she'd thought to look beforehand.

o.o.o.o.o

Kakashi was confused. First the woman had had that look of disgust on her face, then she'd smiled triumphantly, looked blank a bit more…

And now she was freaking out (sort of).

"No, no, no!" She whispered, eyes darting everywhere. Was she going to hyperventilate? Kakashi didn't think she was quite there yet, but Robin was definitely getting closer to that level of panic, even if she didn't really show it. That woman seemed far too good at hiding her emotions for a non-ninja. Maybe it was due to her job as an assassin from wherever she'd come from. The muttering, on the other hand…

"Nico-san?" Kakashi dropped out of the tree and landed in front of the woman who had, by now, calmed herself enough to bring out her notebook and pencil again.

"I'm alright. I just found out some rather troubling information. I need to focus now, so please don't disturb me."

"Is there anything you may need my aid for?"

"No, thank you." She closed her eyes again, but didn't bring her arms back to shoulders as she had each time earlier, choosing instead to keep ahold on the pencil in her hand, the other keeping a firm grip on the notepad; her knuckles were white with how tightly she was gripping it.

Her dismissal was enough to send him back into the trees, though he definitely made sure to keep a far more careful eye on her than he had earlier. It was barely noon, so there were still several hours left until they had to go back to the gates. He watched as she slowly alternated between focusing her attention somewhere unknown with her eyes closed, and carefully writing something down in her notebook with a rather perturbed expression on her face.

Eventually, Robin stood up again and, more slowly than before, headed off in yet another random direction. Kakashi, after what he'd just seen, grew slightly more interested in what she was doing. Until then, she'd done nothing that was really of interest, but now he'd seen her do something that he couldn't explain, and felt like he needed some more information on this woman. After all, the Hokage hadn't really told him much outside of her history as a pirate, archeologist, and assassin. He couldn't even see anything about what she was doing when he uncovered his Sharingan, only a tainted chakra that he couldn't make heads or tails of.

Looks like the famous copy-nin just found something interesting to study.

o.o.o.o.o

Robin kept on looking at the papers she'd stolen, only capable of thinking, for the first few minutes, at least, thoughts along the lines of This is bad, How will Luffy react, and I have to contact Shakky.

This last thought was what she finally acted upon. Shakky knew everything that was happening, or at least a good portion of this, and would be able to tell her if there were already plans in motion for what was occurring. After all…

There were less than twenty-four hours left until the execution of Portgas D. Ace.

o.o.o.o.o

A/N: This is currently my only story that actually has, you know, a plot. Impossible is, well, crack with no real plot, or even a fixed timeline, considering I jump all over the place (EDIT 2/2/2013: it also hasn't been updated in nearly a year); AK: PCO (the kitten story) is a parody that's going to be all over the place. Fly Free is pretty much the only story I have that I've planned for liberally.

In other regards to this chapter, this will not be Kakashi/Robin. They'll know each other, maybe even be friends, but no romance.