[A/N: I made a cover to use for all the Cruel World stories!]

7.

Kakashi put a hand on Itachi's shoulder to guide him as they made their way out of the crowded test building; the boy moved so quietly he was worried about losing him otherwise.

He tried to remember the last time he had been alone with Itachi, and realized that it would have been months ago, when Obito dropped him off in a panic after he had done something to anger his father.

At least, that had been how Kakashi thought of it at the time. His grudge against the Uchiha and especially against their head had kept him from seeing Fugaku's attempts to be a good father to his reclaimed child. While it hadn't been Kakashi's fault that Itachi was kidnapped soon after, it had been his actions that nearly made the rescue too late.

"Want to stop by the market?" Kakashi suggested as they reached the street again. "There's plenty of time before the second stage begins. We could pick up some souvenirs for Shisui and your dad."

Itachi stared at him for a moment. Kakashi couldn't see his eyes but he could feel the weight of the Mangekyou's gaze from behind his bangs. He's trying to guess what I want him to say, Kakashi realized, and tried to hide any subconscious indications.

"Certainly," Itachi replied after a few more seconds, and Kakashi gently steered him towards the market, wondering whether this was what Itachi really wanted to do or if he was just fulfilling what he thought Kakashi's desires were.

The Chuunin exams could generally be counted on to put a village's economy on an upward trend for months afterward, and Iwa's merchants seemed determined to take as much advantage of this as possible. The market square was crammed with stalls filled to bursting with both ninja gear and civilian trinkets.

Itachi did not seem inclined to look around by himself, instead following Kakashi as he browsed, so the Jounin made sure not to miss out on anything that he felt might interest him. Besides, he wanted to pick out souvenirs as well.

Stopping in front of a stand selling hair accessories, Kakashi selected a flowered hairpin for Rin. Once he had paid for it, he turned to where he expected Itachi to be, directly behind him, only to see that the boy had paused at the last stand.

Kakashi slipped the hairpin into a pocket of his vest and ducked around a few other shoppers to reach Itachi's side. Neko-san had moved from his place in Itachi's arms and now was perched across his shoulders, leaving Itachi's hands free. To Kakashi's displeasure, the cat's new vantage point put it at perfect face-scratching height.

"Find something you like?" Kakashi asked, seeing the worked leather wristbraces Itachi was examining.

Itachi nodded slightly, taking care not to dislodge his passenger. "For Otou-sama," he explained softly. "And this for Shisui," he added, pointing to a delicately engraved knife.

"Good choice," Kakashi said as he noticed the quality of the items. "I'll take care of it; your dad gave me spending money for you." Before paying for Itachi's souvenirs, Kakashi picked out a wooden seal case for Obito and added it to the purchase. "Right, now that that's taken care of, let's find a hotel room before they're all snatched up. Naruto would flip if he ended up on TV and then found out nobody was watching him."

…

Sasuke beamed with pride as he marched triumphantly out of the testing room, Naruto and Sakura beside him. Almost half of the examinees had retired or been disqualified during the first stage, but Team 7 had come through unscathed.

From what Sasuke had noticed during the first stage, most of the teams had mainly concentrated on training for combat prior to the exams, leaving them open to failure in a situation that required pure subterfuge. While Kakashi had trained them in combat, he had also lent them to Shisui for some instruction in cheating, using an empty Academy classroom for their sessions.

"Are you sure we're really supposed to cheat?" Sakura asked after Shisui had outlined his training plan on the first day. "I mean, it seems kind of pointless, a test where everyone's cheating…"

"That's because it's going to test how good you are at cheating!" Shisui declared, bouncing off the desk where he had been sitting and pointing at the chalkboard which read 'Cheating for Cheaters' at the top. "Ninjas cheat! We cheat all the time! That's how we get stuff done without dying. I happen to be really good at it, that's why Kakashi asked me to train you."

"So...did you cheat during the Chuunin exams?" Sakura asked.

"You bet I did!" Shisui replied, springing back onto the desk. "In fact," he announced proudly, "I am only the third Chuunin in the history of the exams to be promoted almost entirely on the first-stage evaluation."

"Really?" Naruto asked eagerly, as always quick to grasp on anything that sounded like a fast track to success.

"Oh yes," Sasuke answered before Shisui could say anything. "We hear about it all the time."

Shisui glared at him but ignored the comment otherwise. "Anyway," he said, turning on a CD player and filling the room with the sound of stirring music, "let's get to work!"

"Shisui-sensei?" Naruto raised his hand.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you playing the music from the training montage in Shinobi Lawman?"

Sasuke snickered under his breath—Shisui certainly wouldn't have known about Naruto's encyclopedia-like knowledge of B-movies.

"Um. It's, um, plagiarism," Shisui replied after a second of floundering. "It's a kind of cheating, so you should know about it. But enough of that, on to the first lesson!"

Shisui's eclectic lesson plan, ranging from "Methods of Distraction" to "99 Helpful Uses of Mirrors" to "How to Peek at Someone Else's Paper (Without Getting Caught Like an Idiot)," had resulted in Team 7 being well-prepared for the first stage of the Chuunin exams. Making it through the first stage with relative ease meant they had more preparation time for the second, which would be much more dangerous.

Still, with a team like this Sasuke felt they had a pretty good shot, and even if they didn't make it all the way through the final stage there was always the next exam to look forward to.

"The next stage is all the way on the other side of Iwa village," Naruto said, looking at the map from yesterday's orientation. "Let's go!" He pulled insistently on Sasuke's arm. "I don't want to get disqualified for being late!"

…

After their purchases in the market, Kakashi made his way with Itachi to an area where he knew he could find low-priced lodgings. If Team 7 made it through the second stage they would be in Iwa for the entire rest of the exams, which could be up to a month, so he couldn't afford to get too high quality of a room and risk running out of funds later on.

On the way, he paused a few times to buy food, since he didn't want to have to pay for delivery either. Every time he did so, Itachi insistently tried to carry Kakashi's purchases for him but Kakashi was determined not to let him. This seemed to confuse the boy, which only made Kakashi more firm in his position.

"Kakashi-san, I should take that…" Itachi said as Kakashi paid for a bag of persimmons.

"No, I'm fine," Kakashi countered, switching the hand that held the bag so Itachi couldn't make a grab for it. "Now, let's...Hello, what's up?" he finished, gracefully changing his tone to innocent amiability as a trio of Iwa Jounin approached to surround the pair. Itachi tensed slightly, and Kakashi moved so he was in front. "Here, take it," he muttered, handing Itachi the bag of persimmons. He wouldn't have conceded under other circumstances, but he thought it would be wise to have his hands free and it might serve to calm Itachi down a bit.

One of the Iwa Jounin stood forward, holding up an identification badge. "Kaga Yukihana," she introduced herself curtly. "You are Hatake Kakashi of Konoha?"

Kakashi nodded, and the woman's stiff expression softened slightly. "I'm sorry to bother you," she said with an apologetic smile as she looked at the shopping bag Itachi was holding. "We're running security check-ups to make sure there are no disturbances during the exam. Can you two come with us for a bit?"

After a few seconds spent observing the situation, Kakashi shrugged and nodded. There was no reason for anyone in Iwa to take issue with him so long after the way, and if he made a fuss news of it could make its way into the judges' ears and hurt Team 7's chances of making Chuunin. "Lead the way," he said, motioning for Itachi to follow him.

Itachi moved to do so, but as he turned Neko-san suddenly sprang off his shoulders and darted across the street after a cluster of small birds which immediately fluttered out of reach. Before Itachi could run after the cat, Kakashi grabbed his arm. "We'll find him later," he whispered in Itachi's ear. "Can't make any trouble for the Iwa people right now."

While Itachi looked unhappily behind them to where Neko-san had disappeared, he did not resist Kakashi's grip and followed obligingly after the Iwa ninjas.

Yukihana and her subordinates led Kakashi and Itachi to a large building near the gate. "We're going to ask you a few questions and then you can go back to what you were doing," Yukihana said as she swiped a card through the lock and motioned them through the heavy stone door.

Her words were nice and gently spoken, but as they were escorted down two flights of stairs and through three more doors, Kakashi began to doubt their sincerity. "Has something happened?" he asked as the last door slammed heavily shut behind them. "You're being awfully secure for just asking questions—you know, Iwa and Konoha aren't—"

Yukihana turned on him then, and from the fury in her eyes Kakashi knew nothing had been routine from the start. "Aren't what?" she snapped. "Aren't at war?"

At her threatening stance, Itachi dropped the persimmons and began to make the seal that would summon his swords, but Kakashi quickly motioned for him to stop. I might still be able to talk our way out of this, he thought as he observed the location of the door and the three Iwa ninjas. Yukihana was standing in front of him, one of the others was barring the door, and the last was positioned behind Kakashi, blocking where Itachi stood. Right now, Itachi looks enough like a civilian that he should stay that way. "Yeah, we're not," Kakashi replied, sounding as confused as he genuinely felt at the way the conversation was going. "Unless something happened, like, yesterday?"

"Perhaps you can tell me that," Yukihana growled, pacing in front of him. She was petite but there was no weakness in her physique that Kakashi could see. "Konoha certainly talks peaceably enough, but then they send a party to the Chuunin exams with a demon in the midst! Have we done something to deserve such treachery?"

Finally Kakashi had caught onto some information he could use. "I understand why you're upset," he said, remembering the havoc Kushina had caused during the war when she believed her lover had been captured by the enemy, "but all precedent in the Chuunin exams has been that as long as they fulfill all other requirements, Jinchuuriki are allowed to—"

"What Jinchuuriki?" Yukihana demanded. "I'm talking about that!"

She was pointing at Itachi.

Damn, Kakashi thought. Should have let him chase the cat.