Chapter 11 - Agent Kakashi
Kakashi carefully concealed his chakra and erased his scent, as he made his way into the ANBU building. He hadn't been inside the place for probably six months or more now, and going on the information he had just gathered from his ANBU colleagues, neither had they. This carefully-extracted piece of information meant that Kakashi just had to get in there and find out what might be hidden inside. He knew he should report this information to Jiraiya-sama and await further orders, but Kakashi was restless.
He had carried out next to no missions since he had taken Naruto in, and he was eager to do something. Being able to share a little bit of himself with Jiraiya-sama and Biwako-san had helped him more than he had realised, as he had been sleeping better the last few nights. The knock-on effect was that he felt he had more of an appetite and already he felt that he had more energy. Besides, Kakashi was a jounin of Konoha, technically equal in rank to Jiraiya-sama, and he wanted to show what he was capable of before they left, as they could spend more time actually training if Jiraiya had some prior knowledge of his skills.
But what had seemed like a good idea ten minutes ago when Kakashi had been standing in the shadows several streets away from the ANBU building did not seem so much like a walk in the park now.
Concealment and stealth had never been difficult for Kakashi in the past, but now he found he had to concentrate a little too hard on masking his chakra signature when he really needed one hundred percent of his focus to be on the task he was trying to complete.
Kakashi cleared his mind of doubts and thought over his self-appointed mission, clarifying it step by step in his head.
He thought it through in the form of a mission brief in his mind, trying to keep it professional in order to galvanise his spirit.
"1. Gain entry to ANBU building, secure exit points and carry out risk assessment.
2. Locate offices of and obtain names of leadership.
3. Procure relevant documentary evidence. Note: operative (A.K.A myself) to identify relevance at own discretion.
4. Withdraw and regroup at rendezvous point."
Kakashi had this recorded precisely in his accurate memory. It had been so long since he had done anything like this. Well it had been about four or five months, which felt like an eternity. So much had changed in that time. But now was not the time to start getting upset over the past.
Kakashi's most recent missions had been low-level VIP escort missions and Hokage guard missions and he didn't want to take any chances. Although he would have scoffed at being asked to complete such a simple mission when he was nine or ten, Kakashi had matured a lot since then and was now aware that there were things that were more important than proving oneself and completing a miesion. Things such as teammates and staying alive.
Kakashi had learned since Obito's death and the end of the war that there are times to fight and times to flee, and that to rush into a fight unprepared is little short of suicide, no matter how skilled you are.
So he had prepared himself carefully for his self-assigned infiltration mission, and had spent almost an entire five minutes sitting on the roof of his apartment block planning out his strategy. Having assessed the likely dangers Kakashi had identified the greatest risk to be Danzo's unforeseen presence in the building (Kakashi knew he was supposed to be attending a Council meeting with the Fire Daimyo, so should be occupied all morning at least), his own ability to suppress his chakra and scent fully, and the possibility that the building would be heavily occupied.
He checked that his hood fully covered his hair and his mask was over his face properly before stepping through the door he had picked open with great third threat - that the building would be heavily occupied - had not really struck Kakashi as being all that likely, as if the regular ANBU had not been going there recently, who else could it be?
So as he rounded a corner and came upon a sea of cloaks and masks, Kakashi was a bit taken aback.
There were what looked like several hundred masked and cloaked bodies all moving in the same direction down the corridor. With no time to really think Kakashi slid amongst them and allowed himself to be ushered along with their flow to wherever they were going.
Kakashi had deliberately worn a fake ANBU mask instead of his own distinctive 'Wolf' mask, and he was glad he had done so. He didn't usually wear the cloak except when on the Hokage's personal guard, but others did wear them, and he had to conceal his distinctive hair somehow.
But each and every ANBU here wore a plain mask, with simple red markings on it just like his false mask, and all wore their brown or grey cloaks with the hoods drawn up.
The situation was puzzling. At first Kakashi had wondered if a mass ANBU meeting had been called and he was unaware or uninvited, but he didn't recognise more than two or three scents among all those people, so he knew that wasn't the case.
These were ANBU he had never encountered before.
The only thing for it now was to keep with them and find out where they were heading. It didn't take long for Kakashi to realise that it wasn't only the personnel which had changed but the building itself was different too. It was a lot darker than he recalled, and after they had glided down several flights of stairs the ANBU stepped out into what looked like a large basement area whose ceiling was covered with heating and ventilation ducting and all manner of other servicing pipes. Kakashi realised just in time that if he went out there he would most likely be spottd. Danzou was a stickler for accuracy after al, and Kakashi couldn't imagine him not knowing the exact number of minions attending his meeting, if that's what it was.
And Kakashi knew Danzou was there.
He could smell him clearly over the other scents in the room and could feel his distinctive chakra. He shuddered slightly, then pulled himself together.
There were two options, well, three if he was feeling suicidal.
1. Exit the way he had come in and remain undetected (sensible option)
2. Try to blend in with the crowd to listen in to whatever was about to take place in that room (suicidal option)
3. Take the place of one of the unknown ANBU operatives (risky given unknown strength of the target).
The third option would have been as suicidal as the second for most people, but Kakashi was confident in his abilities. He had been sneaking up on unsuspecting people and jumping out of the shadows since he was six years old. But even so, he was concerned that whoever these people were they must be strong or Danzou would not keep them around him and the unknown element disturbed him as well. He had no idea who his target might be, and could not even see his face to make any sort of character judgement before making a move.
Still, now that he was here, Kakashi could not pass up this opportunity and simply leave, and there was really no point in trying to gather information if he was killed before he could get it out of the building, so the first and second options were simply not in the running.
So, preparing himself, Kakashi shrunk into the shadows just outside the entrance to the great underground chamber and waited.
Finally, the second-to-last ANBU passed through the door, and Kakashi pounced. Within a fraction of a second a body was lying in a heap in the shadows beneath the stairs and a second after that the last ANBU followed his many comrades into the enormous space.
The basement area beneath the ANBU building was truly cavernous. Had it always been there or had Danzou constructed it, Kakashi wondered, lookin around as discreetly as he could.
He had never worn someone else's ANBU mask before, and it was decidedly unpleasant to his mind. He was certainly glad of his black cloth mask as it at least kept his lips from mistakenly touching the area of the mask where the other ANBU's mouth had been. The mask smelled strongly of saliva and Kakashi had to fight his urge to run and throw up somewhere.
He had that problem a lot, but had been working on it with a couple of his ANBU tracking teammates from the Inuzuka clan on techniques to stop himself from gagging or vomiting at particularly strong odours. For as long as he could remember, Kakashi had found it difficult to cope when bombarded with scents, and strong smells had almost knocked him out cold more than once when he had first graduated as a shinobi. The Inuzuka clansmen in ANBU had helped him enormously with not only coping with a scent overload but also with techniques for scent-identification and advanced strategies for tracking by scent. Kakashi's nose wasn't quite as sensitive as their's were, but after almost a year of training together on and off he could now pick up and follow scent trails that he would never have even noticed on his own.
That was why he had changed into the unknown ANBU's mask and cloak, and had continued to mask his own scent. He didn't dare mask his chakra signature any longer for the same reason he could not just slip in amongst the other bodies - someone was bound to spot the difference in numbers - so he had to alter his chakra signature slightly so it wouldn't be picked up as his own should anyone in the room be familiar with him. He felt bad for the guy he had knocked out, as these guys probably had little choice in being there, but this way he might be able to help stop this, whatever it was. Then these shinobi, who were obviously kids, most being no taller than he was, would be free of this kind of control. Kakashi thought of his own life, and how he was supposedly 'free'. While he knew that he was free when compared to these guys, he also felt that to an extent there was no freedom for any shinobi and once they had sworn their life in service to their village, that was pretty much the end of freedom. But Kakashi also felt that perhaps he had wasted what little freedom he had been offered in the past, and he decided to take Jiraiya-sama's offer in both hands and try his utmost to enjoy it. After all, he knew he could easily have ended up as one of these faceless ANBU had he not worked as hard as he had done, for had he not attracted the attention of the village by both rising through the ranks so quickly and being the student of the Yellow Flash he would likely have been singled out by Danzo to join this organisation.
Kakashi turned his attention to the meeting taking place, and employed one of the Inuzuka techniques, focussing his mind away from the scent on the porcelain mask and imagining a different, more neutral scent.
At the far side of the chamber was a platform on which were seated four robed figures. Opening Obito's eye just a crack, Kakashi tried to see who they were but they wore hoods and were cloaked in shadow, so he could not see their faces. He didn't recognise their scents as belonging to the two Elders who were the Hokage-sama's teammates, which was a relief, but he did recognise two scents from the three or four times he had been summoned to the Council Chamber. Between the four was a space, and it didn't take much to guess that the space was reserved for Danzou.
The man liked to make an entrance, so he had waited for the room to be filled before walking onto the platform.
And sure enough, the eerie clatter of wood on metal reverberated from the dark corridor behind the platform, and a shadowy figure began to emerge onto the stage.
The sound of Danzou's cane tapping on the cold metal flooring grew ever louder as the man approached, each step echoing. It was as though he had planned it all out and Kakashi had an image of the sinister middle-aged man practicing his entrance to achieve just the right effect.
Kakashi had to suppress a shudder, but he noticed that several of those around him seemed to be doing the same. When that disconcerting sound finally stopped, Danzou stood on the platform dressed in a long brown ANBU cloak, surveying the cloaked figures of the mysterious ANBU shinobi like a rich man surveying his compliment of slaves. Kakashi fought against holding his breath and kept his breathing and heartrate steady - but not too steady. He matched rhythm and speed with those surrounding him, and he could smell the apprehension of most and the fear of a few.
To his relief, Danzou seemed satisfied with what he saw, and stepped to the front of the platform and began to speak, thrusting back his brown hood as he did so.
"Shinobi of Ne. You have been selected for your unique skills and your unwavering loyalty to Konoha. I will get straight to the point. The current Hokage does not have the best interests of the Village at heart. I have tried using my lace on the Council of Elders to convince him to do what is right for Konoha, but he does not heed my words. He is too soft-hearted to do what needs to be done. That is why I have created Ne. You are al loyal to Konoha, and therefore loyal to me, Danzou-sama. I will command you to act in Konoha's best interests and you will never question your orders.
As Shinobi of Ne you do not report to the Hokage. You do not serve the Hokage. You are direct servants of the Village alone. With my guidance you will become the very foundations, the very roots from which the Tree that is Konoha will grow and become proud and strong once again. As Ne, you will work in the shadows to restore the glory of our once-great Village. You will not receive acolaids for your deeds, nor will you be recognised should you happen to perish in the service of Ne. If you fail, you will not return to the Village. If you are captured n the line of duty you will not speak of Ne or of your mission.
Today you will all receive several gifts to help you better serve Konoha. Your tongues will be sealed to prevent you from speaking of that which you should not. Even under duress you will not be able to reveal any secrets, for the seal will render you dumb should you try to speak of your mission. You will each be implanted with a lethal capsule which can be activated by your own or a senior Ne Operative's chakra to prevent your bodies revealing the secrets of the Village. You will also receive your Ne identity. From this day forward you must forget all that you have learned outside of Ne once and for all.
Ne is Konoha, You are Ne. Serve me well."
Danzou stopped speaking and threw off his cloak completely to reveal his bandaged right arm and chest. With his left hand he began to unwrap the bandages around his head and right eye.
Kakashi could feel the fear in the room now. The speech had shaken up a lot of the young shinobi and he knew that if he were a member of this Ne he would feel the same way.
He had to get out before the sealing rituals were carried out or he would become useless as a spy, even if he managed to make it back out again alive, for his tongue would be sealed. And he didn't fancy having what sounded like a suicide pill implanted inside of him that was under the control of others. Of course as ANBU Kakashi was sworn not to reveal Village secrets or to leave behind a body should he die on a mission, so he carried such supplies and knew several jutsu that would destroy his body on death, but having his life placed in the hands of Danzou did not appeal in the slightest.
But what was the old man doing now?
Just in time Kakashi spotted a flash of red as Danzou uncovered his right eye, and opened Obito's sharingan purely on instinct.
"A sharingan? How did he come to have that?" thought Kakashi, shocked.
He easily countered the low-level genjutsu the Elder cast on the room, but it seemed the rest of the Ne shinobi were caught in it. Again Kakashi matched his vital signs to those around him and disrupted his own chakra flow to fake being caught in the technique. He knew only too well that the sharingan, even at the first stage of its development as Danzou's clearly was, could discern the difference in chakra flow in a person caught in a genjutsu. After all, spotting the disturbance in Rin's chakra had been one of the first things Obito had done with his sharingan. Kakashi forced himself to focus. This was not the time for memories. He really must ave been out of the field for too long if he couldn't even follow the shinobi code any more.
Danzou's eye only had two tomoe, as Obito's had when Kakashi had received it. In only a year Kakashi had managed to activate the next level. That had come from his absolute fear for the lives of his ANBU cell during the Kyuubi attac, and while he had by no means mastered the new version of the eye, Kakashi knew that even an untrained three-tomoe sharingan was many times more powerful than the most refined two-tomoe version.
But where - or who - had Danzou got that eye from, Kakashi wondered.
From the way the old man closed the eye fairly quickly, Kakashi guessed, based on his own experiences, that the eye was pretty new and Danzou had not yet overcome the drain on his chakra caused by the eye. Kakashi still had that problem. He had been doing much better until the eye decided to change to its more advanced state, at which point it had begun to suck his chakra relentlessly again.
Jiraiya-sama most definitely needed to know about this.
The genjutsu was released, and Kakashi felt a strange sense of calm descend upon the underground room. There was no longer any fear coming from the Ne operatives and their heart rates were steady. that level of genjutsu using that eye would no doubt take a lot of chakra. When combined with the drain from simply keeping the foreign eye open, Kakashi calculated that Danzou, unless he had a ridiculously huge chakra reserve, would be running low now and would probably be feeling rather faint, so should be likely to withdraw.
Opening Obit'o's eye a fraction again, Kakashi noted that he was correct. Danzou's chakra levels did look low compared to the way they had looked before the jutsu had been used. And as if on cue, the Elder turned and walked back into the shadows, cane tapping menacingly as he went. Although this time, no one shuddered.
Now was Kakashi's moment.
He executed the kawarimi no jutsu and replaced himself with the Ne operative he had knocked out earlier using a version of the technique which swapped the body of the user with that of the target but left any clothing in place.
Kakashi's technique worked perfectly and he didn't stop to witness the effects of the sudden apparent collapse of a shinobi at the back of the meeting space, whatever those might be. He hoped the hapless shinobi he had picked on would not be punished for it, and felt guilty again, but he had no choice, he had to get out of there with the information he had gathered. These kids were being brainwashed and used by Danzou and the faceless Others on the platform in the name of Konoha no less. To question the Hokage-sama like that as wel... It made Kakashi's normally tepid blood boil, and he had to work to reign in the intent to kill that he felt as he backtracked silently up the stairs and out of the door he had entered by.
Outside in the shadows of the doorway, Kakashi carefully re-locked the door with his picks and leapt away from the ANBU building onto the roofstops, breathing a sigh of relief.
He did not know he was safe however, so did not go home, but went to one of the training grounds on top of the Hokage Mountain to work out his frustration and anger.
The grounds were quiet at this time of the evening, so it was easy to tell if anyone had followed him there from the ANBU building.
To Kakashi's relief, he felt no one for several minutes, and then Jiraiya-sama's familiar chakra and scent appeared and he relaxed, but continued to kick at the training post and did not remove the ANBU mask or cloak.
The worst thing about the clothing switch kawarimi was that it was not possible to choose which items of clothing you wanted to leave behind. It was all or nothing.
This weakness meant that Kakashi was now wearing the other shinobi's entire outfit, from his sandals to his underwear, and he did not have his cloth mask on either, thought he noted that the other shinobi also wore a mask beneath his ANBU one, and that saliva-encrusted thing was now pressing against Kakashi's face. In his agitation over making good his escape, it hadn't bothered him, but as he started to calm down it felt disgusting and he wanted to be sick once again.
He couldn't face it any longer and, keeping his back to Jiraiya-sama, Kakashi lifted the porcelain mask and whipped the cloth mask down to hang around his neck before replacing the ANBU mask in a flash.
Behind him he heard Jiraiya-sama laugh.
"Kakashi-kun. Take that ridiculous mask off and I'll give you sparring match. Then I'll treat you to dinner and you can tell me what you've found out today". He chuckled again. "I know you did more than just ask around and I'm dying to know what's got you so worked up. Not to mention why you're wearing someone else's clothes under that cloak".
Kakashi blushed. How did he know that? He hadn't thought Jiraiya-sama to be a scent-sensitive ninja but perhaps he was wrong there.
"How did you know that, Jiraiya-sama?" he asked quietly.
"Those sandals are far too big for you, and they're a different colour to the pair you had on earlier. And I can see the bottom of your trousers underneath the cloak where before your ankles were bound and you had short trousers on. Just how did you do that anyway?" Jiraiya-sama looked as though he was close to cracking up with laughter, and Kakashi guessed his outfit must look quite strange.
"Kawarimi no jutsu, clothing switch style" Kakashi replied simply. "I needed to make a quick escape. Will you really spr with me?"
In spite of himself Kakashi felt excited. The spying mission had put him on edge, and had returned his part-forgotten shinobi senses to near what they used to be. Now he was itching to test himself. Jiraiya-sama was so strong Kakashi knew that he couldn't beat him, which made for a better practice as he could go all-out without worrying about hurting his opponent.
Jiraiya-sama was laughing again, and Kakashi realised that he was squirming a little. This shirt was itchy.
"If you want to go and change first I'll wait for you here. You'll never be able to land a hit on me if you're squirming ike that, ha ha ha...!"
Kakashi just nodded and bowed slightly, then teleported away to his apartment to change. He was more excited about this sparring match than he ever remembered being in the past. Perhaps there as that one time his father had promised to teach him the kuchiyose no jutsu... But that had never happened. No. Instead of coming home from a mission to be taught the jutsu, Kakashi had come home to his father's cold, dead body lying curled up on the floor...
He felt that pain in his chest again at the memory, but he tried to ignore it. He tried not to let it overwhelm him and it nearly did anyway, but he focussed on changing as quickly as he could, incinerating the borrowed clothes.
He had to think of the future. Sparing with Jiraiya-sama would surely create a happy memory that he could look back on in the future, so if he let himself dwell on the past it would ruin the present, and spoil that yet-to-be-created memory. Smiling softly, Kakashi pulled on a fresh black face mask and leaped out of his window, looking forward to testing his skills against one of the Legendary Sannin.