I'm disappointed in you readers. The number of those who fav'ed my fic are 2.5 times the number of reviews. D:

I don't mind people not reviewing... after all, that's what you get when you write such a rare pairing... which, obviously, few people would be compelled to read... but that's just downright crazy.

(Starts to mutter statistics over and over under breath, looking forlorn)

Chapter IV

Beagle. The picture was that of a brunet with a smile-smirk on his face, with his hitai-ate turned backwards. He recognized him, and his heart gave a small clunk.

Beagle was Genma. Beagle was Genma. Naruto tried to equate the image of cheerful, senbon-biting Shiranui Genma with the picture of the grim dog mask he had before him.

He remembered Genma. He hung around with Raidou sometimes. At least, he used to. Naruto hadn't seen him lately...

Naruto skimmed through his file with ease, seeing as he knew Genma pretty well. Age, fighting style... all familiar, Genma used genjutsu with taijutsu in very inventive ways, sometimes with weapons. Natural element was earth- Naruto had always assumed that it was water, Genma used it very deftly... Genma liked little jutsu, little subtle techniques that pushed his opponent little by little towards losing. He knew several one-hit assassination techniques, but they weren't really his style.

The personality section surprised him a bit. Naruto remembered Genma as easygoing and cheerful. Now, it described him as 'sullen'. That didn't fit. So, why?... What had changed him?

Yes- it said that he was the previous 'buffer' for Squad 15. He had failed spectacularly when he fell in love with one of the team, a girl called 'Cricket'. There was a separate page on her- Naruto skipped it.

Team history was longer than he'd expected, seeing as Genma had been on the team for only a few months. Antagonistic relationship with Wolf and Red Owl, who voted to leave Cricket behind when she was captured by some nukenin who had murdered several Fire Country civilians.

Oh... Genma...

With a slightly heavier heart, he skipped the relationships part and stopped briefly at the medical history section- he'd never known that Genma had tinnitus- and sped through to the end, and only then did Naruto realize that he hadn't taken anything in at all.

Well, too bad. He made an inaudible promise in some obscure corner of his mind to return to Beagle's file to read it more closely. Later. He went onto Wolf's, sighing as he felt the thickness of it. He sped through it, much like he had through the latter part of Beagle's file, although not quite as fast.

Genin at six, chuunin a few months later. Jounin at thirteen, joins ANBU in fourteen. Has been there ever since. Brief experience as a hunter-nin.

Student of the Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato. Sole member and heir to the Hatake clan after Hatake Sakumo's suicide.

Near-mastery of all five elements, but naturally lightning-inclined. Very good control, despite high-jounin level reserves. Around nine hundred fifty jutsu mastered, thanks to his transplanted doujutsu, the Sharingan in his left eye from his deceased comrade, Uchiha Obito. Listed; see page...

There was a section on Uchiha Obito. He and Kakashi had been on the same chuunin team under Naruto's father. They hadn't gotten along well, right until the moment when Obito died.

Well, that was stupid.

He started from the beginning and read the paragraph again, a bit slowly. So, Obito had gone for their other captured teammate, some girl named Rin, Kakashi had went on to complete the mission, but had returned at the last moment to rescue Rin together with Obito. Rin had survived- well, she'd died in the Kyuubi attack, but then she'd survived- but Obito had died, and had given... Kakashi his newly awoken Sharingan? Saying that it was his birthday present?

Naruto stared in disbelief. That was... wow. That was... so symbolic and meaningful and touching and so stupid. It sounded like something out of a bad novel.

But things that sounded like they came out of a bad novel in reality... Was a different matter.

Naruto frowned. Wait. Back to Beagle and Cricket. This scenario... sounded familiar. This was weird. When the cold, apathetic genius who had once been a nice person but had been turned heartless due to some traumatic event turned nice again, they didn't just go back to being cold. It went against everything in the book. Er.

He was reading too much of Jiraiya's books.

It made sense. Ideals like that- caring for the team and all- didn't survive the real world. The real world was different. Personal was not the same as important. People briefly went through fits of madness when they thought it was, but it wasn't. When Hatake entered ANBU, that new... 'warmth'... must have been shattered almost instantly. Choices didn't come easy in the Black Ops.

Naruto sighed, and returned to the file. Odd. The Sandaime always told him that he was too idealistic, but Naruto thought that he was one of the least idealistic people he knew...

Excellent genjutsu skills- not specialist level, but near enough. Particularly skilled at the pain illusions so often used for interrogation.

Superb taijutsu- no particular style favored, but over twenty five various styles from different origins copied and used. Favored moves, see page...

Weapons; standard. Chakra tanto, Hatake clan inheritance. Sharingan, three-tomoe level. Unable to be deactivated, constant chakra drain.

Medical history... diagnosed with PTSD on seven different occasions, see list on...

(Year 60, December 15th; see 'Hatake Sakumo'. Year 62, June 5th, see 'Chuunin records', Year 67, June 21st, see 'Uchiha Obito/Sharingan'. Year 68, October 10th, see 'Kyuubi attack'. Year...)

In occasions 2, 3, 4, subject was not given treatment or resting time due to the demand of shinobi at the time (War, war, repairing damage wrought by the Kyuubi no Kitsune respectively). Subject completed obligatory number of counseling sessions and returned promptly to ninja duties, against disapproval of most of the medic-nin who treated him on all other occasions.

The last half decade have been without notable signs of mental deterioration, except for the recent episodes in the last two, three months- four brief lapses in concentration and lucidity... flashbacks to the Iwa war, Kyuubi attack, etc- see medic's note for theories for the cause...

Predominant theory in medic circles is that forcibly repressed emotions and continuous exposure to various, high-level traumatic situations have taken their toll of the patient's mental health. (For more information, see Yamanaka Fujita's treatise on the treatment of...) By no means an unusual state in shinobi, particularly those stubborn ones who insisted on destroying their psychological equilibrium by refusing treatment and insisting on continuing their duties without fully healing.

Diagnosed with melancholic depression, year 79, although medics presume that actual depression started long before that. Taking antidepressants with no visible effect. No eating disorders.

Despite all records, zero suicide attempts.

It was a medical record that would have baffled many civilian-trained doctors.

To shinobi, it was a whole different matter.

Since Yamanaka Fujita, the effects of being trained as shinobi from a young age had practically become a separate area of study in medic circles. When her treatise was published, Academy graduation age rose from eight or nine to twelve, and the Academy curriculum was adjusted so to make sure that the students weren't exposed to overly traumatic ideas or images.

However, Hatake Kakashi's youth was before that... and in a situation of war. In such tension, such a prodigy's innocence was bound to have been destroyed for the good of Konoha. Chuunin at six- the idea was ridiculous to Naruto. At that age he'd been... well, hard at his studies, actually, but he'd been genuinely interested in what he was learning, even the messier parts of the anatomy had just been technical details to him.

He'd been orphaned since six, besides, after his father's suicide. His mother had died in childbirth. As a ninja, he was acknowledged as a full-fledged adult, and had no guardian- not that it mattered, he had been constantly sent out to battle. That was bound to be unhealthy. Naruto stewed in sympathy as he flipped through the pages. He'd seen messed up ninja, and Hatake Kakashi took the prize. It was a wonder he was still sane, but...

Oh, clans. Damn them, he could almost understand Chizu's hatred for them. At least his training had been necessity, and he'd been allowed time to be human. Someday he was going to write a book on this, 'How To Raise a Well-Adjusted and Mentally Healthy Shinobi'. Or something. Clans were just a bunch of ninja who'd been in the business for so long that when they tried to raise a child, all they taught them was killing. And then there were other clans. Rivalry. 'My kid is going to be better than yours'. And then started the early training. Children forged into weapons. Hindered brain development in certain areas, mostly concerned with emotion. Some of them made it into adulthood, and when they retired, most committed suicide, because they couldn't cope with normal life...

And of course, Kakashi would have been taught techniques for controlling emotions and stress early on. Things that were fine for children for whom the techniques were just ways to deal with things when they were really bad. Children whose first reaction when facing a traumatic situation was to 'calm down, relax, try to make sense of it, deal with it...'. But if you learned shinobi mental control techniques from childhood, you'd become so inured to them so that when you faced even ordinary situations like a fussy cashier or a frustrating crossword puzzle, your first reaction would be to 'shut down' all those parts of your brain that was giving you trouble forcibly... and those things were bound to come tumbling out like too many blankets from an overstuffed closet... eventually...

Naruto was just surprised it had happened so late. Hatake was probably in his early thirties...

The file returned to the aforementioned 'lapses in concentration and lucidity'. It was probably what the Sandaime was worried about.

All four of them had been in presence of his ANBU team or medics. Naruto had to wonder if that was all- if he had any episodes in private, he didn't seem like the sort to report them.

The first had lasted for around twenty seconds, the last seven minutes. In between, they steadily got longer. Naruto felt a pit open in his gut, this was not good...

The first time, he'd been in the middle of a mission- assassination. Right after giving the signal to switch positions, he had suddenly broken formation and brutally torn into the two targets without his usual finesse or stealth. The targets, far from helpless, had fought back. None of the squad except for the second in command, Leopard, had seen- Leopard hadn't interfered for a few seconds, from pure curiosity. He had reported that his captain had reached for weapons that weren't there, and had seemed confused. He had moved slower than usual, and didn't use his Sharingan at all, even when he was losing. Instead, he had made the seals for a Chidori- that was when Leopard had taken out both targets and knocked out his captain.

He'd been normal when he woke up in the Konoha Hospital. A bit disoriented, though. He'd remembered his moment of madness, and had waved it away. No one else had been very convinced though. He'd been sent for checkups, which had revealed nothing too different from last time...

The man had been fine for two months- and then he'd suffered from two consecutive flashbacks, which took place in the office before Leopard had taken him to the hospital again- this time, the squad was alerted to their captain's condition...

The fourth had been the most serious, and had taken place only two weeks back, in the hospital. Thankfully the attending medic was also a highly trained fighter, and had managed to take Kakashi down before he did anything really serious. He had demolished the entire room and various medical equipments... which he'd paid for, later... but at least no one had been killed.

But the file offered no excuse for keeping Hatake on as a shinobi.

Naruto put it down and thought. The tense situation with Ame- even with Pein gone (At least, Naruto thought he was gone- and was almost certain he had gone- with the amount of destructive chakra he had released at their hideout... no mortal could have survived that...) for one, but there was very little chance of war, wasn't there?

And there could be personal affection... after all; he was the Yondaime's student...

Naruto thought for a while, and came up with six hypotheses, all of which relied on situations he was pretty sure didn't happen.

He went to see the Hokage.

"Naruto-sama."

He never got used to hearing that- nor seeing the Hokage's secretary bow respectfully to him as he padded up the stairs. One shouldn't be respected for being powerful- one should be respected for the things one had done with that power- or not. The Sandaime Hokage was wise and good and all that, but Naruto didn't quite think he could be the same. He wasn't the most powerful ninja in Konoha- except when he used Kyuubi, of course, then he was the most powerful mortal in the entire Shinobi Continent. But that didn't count, did it? His judgment clouded when he used it.

Of course, it was just useless worrying- when the Hokage had noticed his uncertainty he and Jiraiya had sat him down and paralyzed him and read out a list of good reasons why he'd make a good Hokage... Naruto thought it was absurd; really, the only reason that had made sense to him was that he was the Yondaime's son, his prodigy child- a symbol to the people.

Jiraiya would make a better Hokage, he was certain. Except for the porn, of course.

"Sandaime-sama." Naruto said, entering the Hokage's office. His surrogate grandfather raised his aged face and sent a smile at him. "Feel like some paperwork, Naruto?" he said, motioning to a formidable stack of paper.

Naruto blinked upon seeing it, and formed three shadow clones- one would do the paperwork, the other two would check it to look for mistakes.

"Cheater." the Hokage sighed, but kept smiling anyway. He discreetly added half of his own pile to the clones', and pushed the rest to the original Naruto- who promptly pushed it to his clones again. One of them sent a death glare at him, and resumed work.

"Why are you here?"

Naruto thought for a moment, and took out one of his C-space scrolls, unrolled it, and took out two styrofoam cups of lukewarm coffee and warmed them with a deft jolt of chakra. The Hokage took one with obvious pleasure. "Thank you, Naruto. Your bribe has been received. Now, tell me."

"Hatake Kakashi." Naruto said. "He has remarkable skills as a shinobi, but his mental condition- whatever it is- renders it useless. He's a danger to the squad and Konoha. Why didn't you put him in retirement?"

The Third frowned, lacing his fingers absently. "I see you are concerned, Naruto... And rightly so, of course. Kakashi-kun is highly unstable at the moment. However, I believe he can recover."

Naruto frowned, doubtfully. "He'll need to recover from over twenty years of suppressing his emotions. To be honest, I don't know how he survived this long."

"The medics are of the same opinion." the Sandaime said coolly. "But you do not know Kakashi like I do, Naruto. I believe I made the best choice by sending you in."

"Yes, but I have doubts about that, Hokage-sama. I might just make the whole situation worse-"

The Hokage's eyes narrowed a fraction. It was minute. A jounin might have missed it, but Naruto's senses were well above the average jounin's. He was hiding something.

That's it, Naruto thought. His primary motive. He's hiding it. Something about Hatake Kakashi. But my ignorance might hinder me from stabilizing him, wouldn't it? Should I push him? Or shouldn't I? Is this a test? If it is, what for? And why now?

"I know Kakashi, Naruto." the Hokage repeated solemnly. "Just stick with him. I believe that you yourself will realize how to heal him, in time."

(In time? Naruto thought sourly. In time?)

"I hope so." Naruto found himself saying, almost casually. "And, by the way, do you have any specific instructions for if he loses control again in a mission?"

"Knock him out." Sandaime answered instantly. "If you can't do that, resort to Kyuubi. But he must not die."

Naruto paused. There was something he hadn't asked yet.

"How goes the situation with Ame?" he inquired.

The aged leader's expression darkened. "It's too early to be sure yet, Naruto." he said. "But... I'm afraid, not well. The nobles are warring, and many people know Konoha to be responsible for Pein's death."

"I thought..." Naruto said, frowning.

"Some of the Amegakure ninja recognized the Kyuubi's chakra. I hope to resolve this situation before you step into my place- if you do, things will worsen rapidly."

That reminded Naruto. Something he'd been thinking about lately. Usually in the middle of the night, when he awoke from dreams of a town full of corpses. "Has it been confirmed that it was Uchiha Sasuke who killed Orochimaru?"

"I'm almost certain, yes. Orochimaru is most assuredly dead; Uchiha Sasuke claimed to have killed him before he suddenly disappeared quite recently. I do not believe he is dead, though, nor his team."

"Hebi." Naruto muttered sourly. "He's like one of those cartoon villains who never die no matter what you do."

"Now now." the Hokage reprimanded. "Sasuke was a very sweet child when he was younger."

Naruto raised a brow skeptically. "A sweet Uchiha child? That's new."

Sandaime smiled sheepishly. "Well, he was nice enough. Very devoted to Itachi..."

Naruto's expression went frosty before he remembered that he should have kept his face neutral.

"We are not going over this again." the Sandaime said in a low, threatening voice.

"I don't want to, either." Naruto said. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he dared to ask this. But surely the Sandaime wouldn't have any objections? Moral ones, at least? "Sir, I have a request."

The Hokage's face went wooden. "I dread those words, Naruto." he said, trying to joke. "The first time you said that you were five and asking for a kusari-gama."

"It saved my life, didn't it?" Naruto said, playing along.

"Indeed, you used it quite... effectively."

Naruto remembered the bloodied assassin from Kumogakure. A smile came to his face, unbidden. "Yes sir. I did."

"So. What is it?" the Hokage asked, visibly steeling his spine for it.

"I want Uchiha Itachi to return to Konohagakure."

"Absolutely not." the words laced with killing intent. It barely shook Naruto.

"Under disguise, of course." he completed.

"He won't do it."

"Perhaps he will." Naruto returned. "A wanderer's life is one that he does not deserve, a shinobi of his caliber."

"He won't accept." the Hokage repeated confidently. "I know you feel bad about the massacre, Naruto, but this is no way to make amends. I agree that a nukenin is a status he does not deserve, but nonetheless!- Itachi-kun has many painful memories attached to this village. And what if someone finds out? There will be an uproar. If we reveal to the public that he was innocent, there will be dire consequences for the Council- and for the Hokage. I may not be talking about myself."

Naruto blinked, slowly. "He has the Sharingan. He is a genjutsu master." he pointed out. "I'd say that there's very little chance of him being found out."

"That's not the point." the Hokage said, a bit more slowly. Naruto knew he was thinking about it. "And besides, his position is beneficial to us. He makes a very good spy."

He couldn't keep the derision out of his voice. "He deserves more than that."

He realized to late that he was radiating killing intent. He stopped. "I apologize, Hokage-sama. I lost control."

The Hokage was silent for a few seconds. "Naruto-kun," he started, sounding weary and peevish. "Explain our argument to me now. Our positions in it. Our strengths and weaknesses."

It was a diplomatic exercise that the Hokage, when he had been Naruto's mentor, had made him do many time. Naruto barely had to think to reply. "You are worried that, should Uchiha Itachi return, he would reveal the secret of the Uchiha massacre to the public, resulting in extreme chaos. But you also know that there is very little chance he will do that. I don't think you have any really good reasons for preventing him from returning here, but you don't want him to, for obvious reasons. You will rely heavily on the fact that he will refuse to return if asked to do so. And I suspect that you are also worried about his mental stability- after all, one does not go through what he did without any damage to his psyche."

"Close, Naruto, close." the Hokage said, almost smiling. "You read my mind. Don't bother to continue your analysis. What do you think I'll tell you to now?"

"Er." Naruto said eloquently. "Send a messenger hawk to Uchiha Itachi, asking him to come back to Konoha, listing the conditions of his return. Because you know he'll say no."

The Hokage's eyebrows rose under his massive hat. "Astute of you. You'll make a fine Hokage. Go on."

Naruto shrugged as he stood up. He knew he'd lost. "It was worth a try."

The Hokage smiled in weary amusement. "I admire the sympathy you harbor for him, Naruto. But there will be times when you'll have to harden your heart."

Naruto didn't think much of his heart.

Leopard looked into the mirror every day when he looked up. It was a ritual. Predictability got shinobi killed, he knew, but it was still something he couldn't give up. It wasn't vanity- he had never had much of that. When he woke up, he felt too much like what he had been before he had begun the second phase of his life. He woke up with memories, too many of them. He hated that.

Looking in the mirror dispelled that sharply. He'd been looking himself in the face for almost seventeen years, but always his own eyes jolted him back into the present. They were like coals, burning in his face with too much intensity. They told him things.

A man knew he was going wrong when things like that happened.

Leopard woke up at two in the morning. This wasn't habit; his sleeping times were always irregular. He liked Konoha at night. It was quiet and peaceful and he could see the stars...

And there were always a few strays around. He always took food outside with him to feed them.

Man, Leopard thought as he walked outside. It was the hottest part of summer, and even in the night the village seethed with vaguely uncomfortable warmth. They are... with some distaste, Leopard summoned up an image of a human body in his mind, dissecting into nothing but blood and bones and flesh. All put together, he thought, they make something so foul and loathsome that it is disgusting even to kill them.

And, with a rare flash of spirit, I wish they were gone.

Leopard read books, sometimes. The villains and bitter people had always been made that way by some horrible life-changing event. It was apparently a way to give them depth, an excuse to just not make them evil from the beginning. No one wrote a story where a man, untouched by some awful tragedy or meeting with a villain who would gradually corrupt him, just simply sat down and thought about the world, its inhabitants, the way it ran and decided to hate it. Because it was rotten.

Leopard like to think that it was him. He wished that he had been like that, just carefully thinking the world over and deciding that it was a hopeless cause. In fact, Leopard had started loathing the world far before coming up with reasonable excuses for doing so, and it had all started seventeen years ago, when an awful tragedy, a horrible-life changing event had touched him forever.

It disgusted him. Leopard disliked the thought that he was a living cliché.

His aimless trudge through the village had led him towards the section of the town that was nicknamed the Small Clans street. Very very small mansions where the wannabe clans resided. The nearly extinct clans, the newbie clans. Just... small clans.

He knew his ANBU captain Wolf's house was here, somewhere. He never bothered to look for it.

Drearily, Leopard stared up at his favorite. Namikaze. He liked it because the walls were covered by extremely thick ivy. The house, too, except for the windows and the door. Leopard rather liked the color in the night, a kind of very deep viridian.

A chakra signature flared to his right, before the presence clamped down on it again. Leopard turned his masked head, left hand plucking out a stiletto knife. The figure raised his hands- it was a fellow ANBU, red stripes painted on the sides of his mask, fresh and new. The streetlights illuminated little- Leopard couldn't see the color of his eyes, although his bright yellow hair was clear enough.

Leopard frowned. There weren't too many blonde males with that hairstyle in the ANBU, but he rarely socialized, anyway. But that boy was a rookie, if his mask was any indication, so of course he wouldn't know him.

"Kitsune of Squad 15," the boy was saying. "You're Leopard, aren't you?"

"That I would be." Leopard answered coolly. "You are Koorogi's replacement."

"Cricket-san, yes." 'Fox' agreed. "I hope we can get along."

The boy took off his mask. He had the most brilliant blue eyes Leopard had ever seen. (He was frozen into place for a few seconds, remembering the same shade in the eyes of the Yondaime Hokage before he had gone off the war. His eyes had been intense, but this boy- what he held... If the Yondaime's aura had been that of electricity, of lightning authority and speed and energy, his son's was that of rock, solid, immovable, so gigantic in their implacable determination that one felt shocked when they took a closer look at his face and eyes.)

Leopard did not return the courtesy. His voice was frosty when he spoke to his now-teammate. "I never take off my mask."

"I did hear that about you." the boy said pleasantly, running a hand through his hair and hooking his mask onto his belt. "I can't imagine how you do it- it starts to feel uncomfortable after an hour or so, for me. I suppose I'll get used to it, eh?"

The boy gave Leopard a friendly smile.

"You'd better hope you will." Leopard said, unyielding. He turned around, and walked away with a goodbye.

To his astonishment, he found that the Yondaime's son was walking right beside him. Leopard wasn't as good at stealth as some, but he was still very good. Namikaze's chakra was muffled perfectly. Leopard could have sworn that he was walking alone, except for the very prominent mane of gold bobbing up and down as they walked. He couldn't smell, hear or feel him with his chakra.

"I commend you on your stealth." he ventured, feeling surprised with himself.

"Thank you." the boy said, not quite managing to hide his surprise. Or was that too an act? "Er. It's a nice night..."

The sky, at least, was clear. The stars shone down by thousands, Leopard looked up, and didn't say anything. "Why did you come?" he asked abruptly. "This isn't coincidence."

"It could be." At Leopard's cold stare, the boy smiled. "To tell the truth... I wanted to ask you about the rest of my team, so I can avoid making blunders when I really start working with them..."

One part of Leopard's brain warned him that this was his future Hokage he was talking to...

To hell with it, Leopard thought. He's not the Hokage yet, he's just a little brat who hasn't even proven himself to me yet.

"Learning by trial and error is just part of the whole ordeal." he said crisply. He looked straight ahead, avoiding Fox's crystalline gaze. "And really, there's nothing you can do that can make things worse. Good night, Kitsune, I am retiring for the night."

To his surprise, the brat didn't protest. Instead, he quietly laughed, and bid him a good night.

Preview:

He walked into the tent, almost dreamily. There was a dark haired woman sitting inside, staring at something under the table. There was a sound of a page being flipped over. "I sense a great romance coming up." she said without looking up. "You will meet a dark, mysterious stranger."

"Will I." Itachi said dourly.