Nine: Exploration
Modest was not a word that was commonly used to describe Sasuke Uchiha, but Shikamaru was beginning to think that it might actually be valid in this case. Ino had always said that Sakura could have had a singing career if she'd wanted to, but even her voice was nothing compared to the black-haired Sharingan user currently on the stage.
If he were that good at something, even if it was achieved partially through using the Sharingan, he wasn't so sure that he'd have kept it a secret for so long…if it wasn't for the fact that it would attract attention. And attention really was a drag.
"So does the Hidden Leaf teach all its shinobi to sing like that?" Temari whispered in his ear, and Shikamaru realized he was going to regret letting his girlfriend talk him into stopping by for drinks to check in on their friends in Team Seven.
"No," he said quickly, hoping the sandy-haired kunoichi would let it drop.
"Hm," she said, clearly pondering letting it go.
Please let it go. This is such a drag…
"I think you'll have to prove it to me later," she whispered in his ear, much to Shikamaru's chagrin.
"I can't sing," he complained. "And I don't have a Sharingan either! Just believe me!"
Temari sighed and went back to watching Sasuke Uchiha. "Alright, Shikamaru. I believe you. I guess we'll have to do something else instead to keep ourselves busy."
The tactical genius sighed. Of all the girls he could've fallen for, why did he have to pick the one that took the most work?
"You must be Tanosuke Sasaki," Sasuke said after his turn to perform was up. He realized he should probably have called him Lord Sasaki, but he was too annoyed with his situation to care about politeness. That was Kakashi's thing, not his.
He couldn't believe that he'd had to sing in front of people not just once, but twice. Their first mission to the Land of Silver hadn't been successful, but his performance was enough of a hit that Lord Sasaki had suggested they come back to the next dinner.
So that was why Sasuke Uchiha, an elite jonin from the Village Hidden in the Leaves, was performing for the second time, one month later, in front of the same group of stuffy nobles he was trying to get dirt on.
It really was bad luck that Sakura's first ANBU mission had to have fallen on this week of all weeks. He wouldn't have minded handing the performance reigns over to her and doing a little of the investigating himself. He knew Sai and Naruto were fine shinobi, but he couldn't help but worry that they were going to miss something. Subtlety, after all, was not Naruto's strong point.
"And you must be the ninja Konoha sent." Sasaki spoke with a tone of contempt in his voice, and Sasuke decided that he didn't like the man.
"Yes."
"I trust your friend isn't having any trouble gathering information?"
He meant Kakashi. The Land of Silver lord hadn't made it a secret to Tsunade that he was displeased with the lack of progress.
"Things like this take time, especially if whoever he's tracking is good and doesn't want to be found. But I wouldn't expect a civilian like you to understand all the details of a shinobi's mission."
Sasuke knew he should've left out that last jab, but he couldn't help it. And besides, he was in a really bad mood and he didn't feel like dealing with this shit.
And if he didn't control his temper, he was going to tell Sasaki just that.
"Perhaps you should introduce me to your family," Sasuke said, before the nobleman had a chance to respond to his earlier insult. "It would be best if I know who I need to protect if there is an attack."
Sasaki nodded curtly, motioning for Sasuke to follow him. The tall, dark-haired man led him over to where a pretty, somewhat younger blonde woman was sitting.
"This is my wife, Saya. Next to her in Teiji, my oldest."
The dark-haired boy looked to be about twenty, and he was the spitting image of his father, down to the hostile glare he sent Sasuke's way, which the Uchiha gladly returned. He would be leaving soon, so there was no point in trying to make friends or a good impression. Sasuke didn't care about either of those.
Next to Teiji were two other kids—a boy and a girl, both with brown hair—who looked like they were in their late teens.
"These are the twins, Benni and Toshizo. I have two younger children at home as well, a thirteen-year-old daughter, Yumi, and an eight-year-old son, Takeshi."
Sasuke nodded. "Alright. I'll make sure my teammates know who to keep an eye on."
Sasaki's eyes narrowed. "How many of you are there? I was under the impression you were alone, seeing as no one performed with you."
"I was merely a distraction. My teammates were combing the area the entire time. I assure you that if something suspicious is going on, they will have found it."
Sasaki nodded, and Sasuke knew a dismissal when he saw one. It was the same way his father had always nodded to him, and he couldn't help but glance over at Teiji, the bratty one, and wonder if he felt like Sasuke used to when he was a kid.
"I'll let you get back to it, then," Sasaki said. "Best of luck."
"Thanks," Sasuke said with a nod, then he was back to find Naruto and Sai. He couldn't get out of there fast enough.
Why the hell did Kakashi have to be on that stupid ANBU mission? And why is Sakura gone now of all times?
He sighed. He really hated being the team leader sometimes. He didn't mind the responsibility or the planning, he just hated having to talk to the client. He didn't know how Kakashi was able to bear it. After all, the two men were a lot alike.
Hurry up and get that information so we can all go home.
Sasuke was beginning to get a bad feeling about this mission.
Kakashi made his way into the tent that served as a cafeteria for the new recruits, cursing himself for not seeing through the genjutsu the rebel army was using earlier. If he had, he could've infiltrated their ranks long ago and gotten this stupid mission over with already. After all, it wasn't like he had to take out the leaders. He simply had to get enough information on them and their location that Sasaki could handle the rest.
The fact that his infiltration had been so easy was all luck, really. As soon as he'd discovered the genjutsu, he'd snuck into their camp and tried to find out what exactly he'd stumbled upon. Considering the high caliber jutsu that had been used to hide such a large camp, he guessed that he'd found something good at last.
And how right he'd been. He'd had to kill the first man who came upon him—a shame really, he'd gone a long time without killing someone—but it couldn't be helped. The man was a much better fighter than anyone Kakashi had come across so far, and that was proof enough that he was getting closer to some real intel.
After he'd disposed of the body using Kamui—a new use of the jutsu for him—Kakashi had donned the dead man's clothes and resumed his snooping. It was blind luck again that he ran into a man who clearly seemed to know what he was doing. When he'd asked Kakashi if he was here with the rest of the new recruits, Kakashi had simply nodded.
It was the easiest infiltration of his life.
So there he was, one month later, living among the very men that he had been searching a month for with no luck. He felt only a vague regret that he was going to betray them. After all, he held no real love for the Land of Silver, but these men had no real reason to be leading a rebellion and causing bloodshed either, so he didn't concern himself. It was not a ninja's job to question a mission, and he'd always said that personal attachments never got a good shinobi anywhere.
"Hey, Hiro! Over here!"
Kakashi looked over at the sound of his pseudonym. He sometimes forgot that when the members of the rebellion looked at him they saw Hiro Matsumoto, a brown-haired shinobi with a ponytail and not the great Copy Ninja Kakashi Hatake.
Unfortunately, because whoever had created the genjutsu to hide the base had to be rather skilled, Kakashi had had to settle for disguising himself the old fashioned way. Any sort of henge would have been seen through.
He really hoped brown hair dye came out.
"So are you ready to finally meet the boss today?" a young blonde man—Kakashi forgot his name—asked.
"I guess," Kakashi lied. Actually he was beyond ready to meet the man. One month of living in the same camp as him and he hadn't seen or even heard a whisper of him. He was beginning to lose hope that he'd ever get to meet him in this situation, and was about to risk spying at night or even leaving, when the recruits had been told at training one day that they would get to meet the boss in exactly one week.
"I'm ready to finally get some action!" another recruit said. Kakashi was fairly sure his name was Hideki. "We've been training for weeks now. We've got to be ready to mount an attack soon."
"It takes far more training and planning than that to launch any sort of attack," Kakashi said without really giving thought to his words.
"Huh? And what do you know about that?"
"Nothing," he quickly lied. "I just assumed that based on everything I've heard. I mean, it seemed like that's what Five Great Nations did in the last war."
Having been there, he knew for a fact that a lot of planning had gone into that battle—he was one of the generals after all—and he was hoping that even the men all the way out in the Land of Silver had heard about the war. He couldn't afford to blow his cover by seeming out of place.
"Yeah I guess," Kaoru—Kakashi remembered his name now—said. "I always wonder what it would have been like to fight in that war."
"Yeah," Hideki said, almost dreamily. "I bet it would have been amazing. Don't you think, Hiro?"
"Um, sure." Kakashi almost laughed. That was the biggest lie he'd ever told. He had no desire to fight in a war like that again. Seeing Obito die once had been bad enough, thank you. "It was probably great."
"Eh, they probably wouldn't have let you fight since you've only got one eye," Hideki teased.
"Nah, I think I remember hearing that one of the five generals only had one eye, or something like that," Kaoru said thoughtfully. "Or maybe it was one arm? I can't remember."
"I think it was an arm," Kakashi said, a little too quickly, but he didn't like the direction this was going. He was such an idiot for bringing up the war. He was the famous Copy Ninja, of course it would stand to reason that even people from the peaceful Land of Silver might have heard of him.
"Yeah, maybe you're right," Kaoru said, but he didn't sound convinced. "One arm's more dramatic anyway."
Kakashi knew he shouldn't, but he still felt offended. Was having one eye not good enough for them?
"That was that guy from the Leaf, right? Wasn't he pretty famous?"
Hideki that time. Kakashi was regretting bringing up the war more and more with every minute, but he couldn't think of a way to steer the conversation away from it without being obvious. He supposed he could pretend he didn't want to talk about it because a family member had died, but he wasn't sure he could come up with a solid backstory that quickly.
Kakashi shrugged. "I don't know. I've never heard of him. Are you sure he wasn't from Suna? They're supposed to have some pretty strong ninja."
Hideki shook his head. "Nah, I'm almost positive he's from the Leaf. Or at least he was. He's probably dead now if you haven't heard of him."
Kaoru nodded. "Yeah, I know who you're talking about. That white-haired guy. I think he's the one-eyed guy I was talking about earlier. Except he had some sort of special jutsu in the dead eye, or something like that."
Hideki turned to Kakashi. "I thought you said the guy had one arm."
Kakashi shrugged. "I thought he did." He needed to end this conversation. Fast.
"Oh, now I remember who you're talking about!" he said, faking an epiphany because really, he knew exactly who the one-eyed white-haired man was, but he wasn't about to explain that. "His name was Kakashi Hatake."
Recognition flickered across Kaoru's face. "Yeah, that was it. Kakashi Hatake. Whatever happened to him?"
"He's dead," Kakashi said, praying that they would believe him. "I heard he died on a mission a year or so after the war. Something unceremonial. I think he fell and hit his head on a rock, or something anticlimactic and un-ninja-like like that." He didn't want to seem like he knew too much, but he wanted to make sure all talk of Kakashi Hatake was stopped.
Hideki laughed. "What an idiot. That's a lame way to die. Especially for an elite shinobi. Let's hope we don't end up like that, eh?"
"No kidding," Kaoru snorted, and started talking about how he thought some of their fellow recruits were totally incompetent. Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief. His secret was safe—at least for now.
He just had to hold on for a few more days. Then, when he had the information he needed, he could start to plan his escape.
"Found anything useful?" Sasuke asked, after he managed to escape from Sasaki.
He'd wandered over to where Sai and Naruto were lounging about by the bar. Much to his annoyance, Sasuke had found that the girls in attendance were hanging on him just like his pre-genin days.
This was exactly why he didn't sing in public. Or at all.
"Please say you have. I'm getting real tired of this mission already."
Naruto and Sai shook their heads.
"Nothing," the blonde said glumly. "There's no one here that seems like they could even use a substitution jutsu, let alone land a successful attack on the royal family."
Sasuke sighed. "That's what I was afraid of. Looks like we'll be coming back soon."
Damn Kakashi for not finding anything yet. Sasuke did not want to have to perform again for these idiots. Maybe Sakura would be back by then. But he wasn't going to count on it. After all, it would seem suspicious now if he were to suddenly start slinking around the party while someone else performed in his stead.
"Damn."
"Ah, cheer up, Sasuke! It's not that bad. It beats sitting around the village with nothing to, right?"
"You say that when you're the one up there performing," Sasuke snapped.
"Well you're the one who said I'd make everyone go deaf if I sang."
"That's because you would," Sai pointed out unhelpfully. Sasuke could tell his blonde best friend was starting to get riled up. They were all beginning to feel the frustration of another unsuccessful mission.
Sasuke was about to tell them both to calm down, they were giving him a headache, but he never had to.
Because that was when the first explosion went off.
~A/N: hahaha poor Sasuke. I love messing with him. The idea for this little bit came from a conversation I had with a friend once about the top (mis)uses of the Sharingan (It stemmed from a discussion about what would happen if Sasuke gave Naruto one of his eyes, and she said he would misuse it), and I said you could use it to mimic what someone was saying and drive them crazy, which led to a discussion of whether it could be used to mimic their exact voice...and this is what popped into my head. Not really sure why, but it amuses me :)
Thanks to everyone who's reviewed/followed/favorited either me or the story! It means a lot! I also always enjoy talking with you guys, so feel free to ask me questions, make comments, discuss theories, or whatever :D
