He groaned lightly as he emerged out of his tent. It was little different than any of the other tents scattered around the fortified encampment... The only real difference was that it was larger than most. The benefits of rank eh? He chuckled to himself lightly.

"C'mon Shingen... It's too damn early for yer creepy laughin..." The voice came off from his left. Indeed it was early. It was light out, but the sun had yet to peek over the horizon. The mist of night still clung to the forest floor.

"Perhaps... But not for your complaining, yes? Yamano-san?" Shingen put on his best smirk before facing the older man. It was a habit he had developed when he was younger. The shinobi world was filled to overflow with seriousness. It was cold. It was hard.

Kind of like the bed I sleep in... He grouched privately. Back on topic...Shingen's laid back and sometimes sarcastic nature as a child had eventually turned him into what he was now. A laid back, sometimes sarcastic man who took pleasure out of riling people. After all... if they got annoyed... it meant they were still alive.

He knew the weak points of all his friends... with the sole exception of the one he'd known longer than any. Whereas Morio, who was naturally rough around the edges, was easily annoyed at politeness, The more suave and introversive Eo was easily annoyed when ignored.

However, there was one person whose weakness he had yet to uncover. They'd been in the same academy class, the same Genin team, the same Chuunin team, and they were even on the same Jounin unit, even if she was his superior. That's right. He'd known Mitsuki ever since he started toward his career as a shinobi.

Maybe it was because she'd been around him for so long or, more likely, she was simply a natural Buddha, but he'd never once been able to crack those serene features of hers. It had frustrated him to no end as Genin. He idly chuckled, thinking that he'd only gotten worse with age, and it was probably Mitsuki's fault.

Morio harumphed. Of all the shinobi he'd ever served with... Shingen was one of the most difficult to understand. He raised his metallic cup up, waving towards the fox-faced shinobi. "Call me Yamano-san again an' I'll empty this mug o' coffee all over that pretty lil kimono of yours."

"It'd be a waste of good coffee..." Shingen yawned off-handedly as he sat down on a log next to the fire.

Morio simply harumphed again... not liking the fact that his threat was so easily brushed off. He sighed to himself, giving up. "It takes too much damn energy to argue with you in the mornin..." He reached down and picked up a thermos that had been kept near the fire, and tossed it toward Shingen.

Although many people often doubted it, saying he looked entirely unreliable, Shingen was very adept in the way of the shinobi. He didn't even pause in rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he caught the thermos. "What's for breakfast?"

"Same thing that was for dinner last night..." Morio grumbled off handedly, bringing the mug of coffee to his lips. "In other words... Hell if I know..."

Shingen chuckled lightly, pouring some of thick soup-like substance into a cup. He'd just finished his first sip when a tan and black mass decided to collapse on the ground next to his log. He eyed the dog oddly for a moment... before realizing it had gone to sleep. "Guess Sui-min isn't the morning type either..."

Morio snorted. "That mutt doesn't care what time it is... It just sleeps when ever and where ever the hell it pleases..." He paused a moment, looking over Shingens shoulder. "In contrast..." He half-heartedly pointed his mug toward the figure emerging from behind a couple tents over.

Wide awake and looking as if he was cooling down after a workout, Eo stepped lightly over toward the two other shinobi.

"...this guy doesn't know the meaning of the word rest." Morio commented off-handedly.

Eo, for once, wasn't baited by Morio's words... Shingen was impressed... if only for a single second. "Say what you want old man...I prefer the mornings. All that extra sleep and you'll just melt away..."

Morio's smirk said it well enough, the older man didn't believe the dog user for a second.

"Anyway... have either of you seen the captain?" He barely paused to see if the two men reacted. "I heard she had the ANBU interrogate that Ookami guy we captured a couple days ago." He stretched out with a light groan... "I was wondering if she found anything worth while." He paused a moment more, seeing that neither Shingen nor Morio had even moved. "Guess not... Oh well... I'll go find her myself." He moved off before either of his compatriots could respond. "Don't sleep too much!" He called back over his shoulder, chuckling at the two men sitting by the fire.

Shingen finally turned his gaze from Eo's back, and faced Morio. The older man only blinked... "He... doesn't know... does he?" Morio said carefully, keeping his gaze locked on Shingen.

Shingen kept his own gaze locked on Morio, if only for a few seconds, before breaking into his trademark fox-like grin. "Well... everyone has to learn sooner or later. You did. Hell, even I did..."

Morio couldn't help but let out a chuckle. "You... are a cold and cruel man Shingen."

Shingen simply lifted the cup of soup to his lips and drank.

--

Eo hummed to himself. It was true, he loved the mornings. Back in Konoha, none of his packmates were ever up as early as he was. No one bothered him in the mornings, so he eventually got used to liking them.

Unlike his teammates, he tended to be proactive. Instead of waiting for something, why not just go and get it?

He sighed... He didn't think his way of thinking was wrong, but it was hard, at times, because he felt like the only one who thought that way. He closed his eyes and smirked as he walked. No... It wouldn't do to get tired now. And Shingen would never let him hear the end of it, if he showed the cynical stratagist such a tired face.

He was the Line Commander. In non-Shinobi language, that meant he was the newbie on Ieyaru Mitsuki's northeastern boarder defense line command team. Still, out here on boarder, he held considerable power and responsibility... something his enigmatic commander never let him forget.

His captain was most definitely an enigma to the young Inuzuka. She didn't come from any noteable shinobi lineage... this he knew to be fact. He'd actually heard that her parents were priests. But either way, she had become a fairly infamous shinobi, along with the likes of the Copy Ninja Hatake Kakashi.

For that, he respected her. She made her way out of nothing. So he was actually fairly honored when he recieved his assignment to report to her for duty. But when he had actually met her, he had been surprised to say the least. She seemed to follow no pattern that he could read. Sometimes she was late, other times she wasn't. She always used the exact same lame excuse every time even though everyone knew she was lying, she loved to tease people around her, and never seemed to take anything seriously.

Of course, he'd been on far too many missions with her to doubt her skill. Somehow she managed to be both that enigmatic woman he couldn't understand, and a deadly efficient kunoichi.

He'd heard rumors that the Copy Ninja was also something of an odd ball. Eo was beginning to develope a theory where the more skill a shinobi has, the more odd their character becomes. He feared for his future...

"Well... whatever..." She was, at the very least, an effective captain. The very fact that she was put in charge of a highly sensitive and voltile area like the northeastern board of Fire Country proved that Sandaime-sama had faith in her.

"Ahh there it is..." He spotted her tent, which lay near the center of the encampment. It was rather hard to miss, truth be told, as it was one of the largest tents in the encampment. He came to the heavy flap that was the door to the large tent. "Captain? Are you in there?" He reached for the tent flap and pulled it back...

He blinked once... twice... a third time... before slowly, carefully, lowering the flap back down. She was most definitely in there... otherwise his traitorous cheeks wouldn't be flareing red at the moment.

"Araa?" The voice was sleepy, as if the person had barely crawled out of bed. Eo heard a yawn, and it was closer than it had been before...

Aww dammit... move! Move! Move damn you! That sight would not leave his eyes. Yes, that heavenly, yet forbidden sight. His captain, in her sleep induced fog, had only been partially dressed.

Her keikogi hadn't been bound, so it had hung open, barely convering the curves of her chest. Needless to say, her fishnet shirt hadn't done much to stop the image in his head. Long white legs that came out from under the crimson cloth of her keikogi...her slightly disheaveled black hair, reaching down to her waist... and... and...

Dear gods... why must you do this to me? Sure... he'd realized his captain was a beautiful woman...but Kunoichi, particularly those of his captains level, were known to prize themselves as kunoichi first, and women second. That didn't stop his imagination from running rampant and causing his legs to freeze up. And he realized why too. If his captain opened up the flap, which by the looks of those white fingers he could see grasping the flap would happen any second now, he'd get another glimpse...

After all... he reasoned, having given up the struggle to move... I am a guy too. He caught his breath as the flap moved ever upwards... Up... Up...

"Huh?" Eo's shoulders drooped, as standing before him was his fully dressed captain. After a moment, a sudden shiver ran down his spine...

"Araa...So it's Eo..."

She was smiling at him like usual... So why?

"You look disappointed... crushed even... What happened?"

Her voice was the same as always... So why?

"Did you want to see me for something?"

So why... did he have this faint sense of impending doom...

--

Neither Shingen, nor Morio so much as flinched during their breakfast. Even when a bloodcurtling scream woke the rest of the encampment, they simply continued their breakfast.

Shingen finished the last of the rather tasteless soup and sighed. Tasteless though it was, as long as it sat well in his stomach, he wouldn't complain. "Thank you for the meal..." he annouced... to no one in particular.

He sat back and thought for a moment. Yes, he'd like to amend what he'd thought earlier. Mitsuki did indeed have a weakness. She wasn't a morning person. Unlike himself, or Morio, who only took a few minutes to truly wake up in the morning, Mitsuki had been known to walk around in a sleep induced daze for an hour before returning fully to the land of the living.

That, combined with a fact he'd known since his very first mission outside of Konoha's walls with her, made for a major weakness. She...Mitsuki is... very picky about -how- she sleeps. And he, as a male, even as a genin, had been infinitely tortured by this quirk in her nature. From the sound of it, Shingen thought with a sigh, Eo found that out first hand.

Yes Mitsuki had a weakness... But it wasn't a weakness that he, or any man for the matter, could act upon.

So in the end, Shingen simply resigned himself to the fact that Ieyaru Mitsuki had no weaknesses... "Morio... Is there any more coffee left?"

--

Haha! A break from all the action finally! This is actually part one of chapter 5, I decided to split them up because the tone of the sections changes radically... thats why this is Chapter 5-1 and Chapter 5-2 follows it Confusing? Mebbe. Do I care? YES... I LOVE IT!! erm...

Ahh yes... I haven't mentioned it until now but I do have a running gag with Eo's dog, Sui-min. The word 'Suimin' is actually japanese for sleep.

Also, since I wanted to keep the interlude chapter free of A/N's I'll just throw this in here

Jikoku Gyakuten No Jutsu: Time Reversal Technique

There is actually a Naruto filler episode where ANBU use a hypnosis technique on Naruto in order to get info outta him. I don't remember it's name, but that was the basis for the idea of this technique.