Hello! For those of you who have not noticed, the last chapter (formerly an author's note) has been properly replaced with the actual chapter. I suggest that you read it before trying this one—things will make a good deal more sense. I warn you that this chapter is not very… active, but there is a bit of information that will be referred to later on. Bear with me.

A Word too Many

Three heads simultaneously came up and turned south, one still blindfolded by light purple chakra. The other three occupants of the clearing—Kankuro, Temari, and Sakura—froze and twisted around to see what had caught the attention of their more paranoid teammates.

A yelped curse from the direction they were all facing resolved into a one-eyed, silver-haired Konoha Jounin's head. Everything below the head was encased in sand.

The sand suddenly whirled outward into a ring, dropping a very startled Jounin at an angle less than six inches from the ground. He had no time to even attempt a recovery and ended up landing rather ungracefully on his rear.

Gaara smirked.

Naruto laughed outright, and Sasuke scowled, sending an irritated thought at his still-hyper Hokage before his lips quirked upwards at the projected memory.

"Very graceful, Kakashi," he complimented, sounding perfectly sincere.

Sakura burst into giggles at the half angry, half embarrassed glare Kakashi sent at her former crush—before the glare melted into confusion at being faced by a boy whose face was half-covered in a glowing mask of chakra.

"Sasuke?" Kakashi asked cautiously, "What on earth…?"

Sasuke growled—growled!—at him, making no indication that he intended to respond.

Baffled and more than a little edgy, the Copycat Ninja glanced around at the other faces in the clearing, hoping for some sort of explanation. Most eyes flickered in the direction of an all-too-innocent blond, while a certain pink-haired kunoichi smothered an amused smile.

Dark green eyes narrowed slightly beneath a soft fall of short red spikes, the expression daring Kakashi to try and ask their owner. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Kakashi scrambled to his feet, suddenly uncomfortable with being in such a vulnerable position in the presence of the Sand—whatever he was. Gennin-Kazekage-Jinchuuri.

Naruto took pity on him, laughing. "It's a blindfold, Kakashi. For training." Blue eyes swept the clearing, "Sasuke, Gaara—get on with it. Kankuro, join Sakura and your sister. Kakashi and I need to have a little talk."

Kakashi cringed.

xxxx

"Kakashi-sensei…" Naruto purred, a distinct tinge of threat to that feral sound, "You've been talking."

Kakashi eyed the blond currently circling him lazily, like a shark that knew its prey had no chance of escape. Blue eyes had turned crimson-flecked lavender, pupils stretching into calculating slits.

Kakashi gulped, extremely tempted to turn tail and run back to Kurenai, knowing that Naruto—no matter how irritated he was—would not risk what was left of his cover just to berate him. On the other hand, that would mean he'd be even more irritated later, and Kakashi couldn't avoid him (or Sasuke) forever.

"I haven't!" he protested, perhaps a might too vehemently.

"Oh? Then why is it that most of the Konoha Jounin-sensei have told their teams to keep away from mine?"

Kakashi desperately tried to think of a reason for his fellow Jounin to pass along such warnings—then he remembered. "Oh, no. No, no, no…."

Naruto's lips curled into a smirk that he had to have learned from Sasuke. "So. It was you."

Kakashi was beginning to feel something that could only be described as 'panic'. He hadn't panicked in so long that he'd forgotten what it felt like. "Naruto, I swear I didn't mean to—"

"Didn't mean to what? What the hell did you tell them?"

Kakashi winced a bit, "That you beat Zabuza."

Silence stretched between them for several moments and Kakashi shifted uneasily. Naruto's face was shuttered, his expression and stance completely impossible to read. Which, at this point, could mean almost anything.

Quite deliberately, Naruto closed his eyes, forcing back anger that he knew would not help this situation in the slightest. When he opened them again, they had returned to blue, though the pupils were still stretched into slits. They focused in on a suddenly very nervous Jounin.

"I'll deal with you later," Naruto stated calmly, a forced calm he had learned during years of war and dealing with accidental slips of the tongue that could endanger far too much. "Right now, I need to go speak with Sasuke and Gaara. You will think of anything—anything!—else you may have said. To anyone. Is that understood?"

Kakashi nodded mutely and Naruto left without a backward glance.

xxxx

Naruto? Naruto, what's wrong? Sasuke's mental voice had been battering around the edges of his mind for several minutes, now, trying to break through unreasoning anger and whirlwind thoughts.

The blond in question shook himself and focused in on the near-frantic voice. Sasuke.

Finally! What the hell is bothering you so much that you ignore me for four minutes?

Kakashi messed up. All right, so we knew Kakashi slipped somewhere, but all the Jounin know I beat Zabuza—and I'm pretty sure that's not the end of it. Once the Council gets wind of this…

Oh. Sasuke winced enough that Gaara tilted his head, frowning as Naruto returned to the clearing and removed the 'blindfold' with an absent wave of his hand. "Gaara," he paused, considering. Sent a thought to Sasuke and gave a slight nod at the answer. "Sakura. We need to talk—and Gaara?"

Green eyes met blue questioningly.

"Your siblings?"

Gaara considered briefly, then nodded.

"All right, then," Naruto straightened up and flashed through several handseals, setting up a privacy ward around the clearing. "Everyone—I think it's about time we told you what's going on."

xxxx

"Well, that… clears a few things up," Sakura said slowly, going over all the information she'd just received.

Kankuro and Temari exchanged glances and agreed—now they knew why Gaara's homicidal tendencies had died down.

"We have already drawn unwanted attention to ourselves," Gaara stated, not pointing out that most of that was the fault of Naruto and Sasuke.

"Yeah," Naruto grimaced. "Mostly my fault. I've never been very good at hiding my abilities."

"I didn't help, much," Sasuke offered, wanting to take some of the blame.

"Yeah, but the Council's not gonna pay much attention to that, except maybe to give you a pat on the head. They'll be screaming for my blood—especially the Hyuuga and that idiot Danzo."

"Unfortunately for all of us, Danzo's not an idiot," Sasuke said dryly. "Aggressive to the point of sedition, but not an idiot."

"Mm," Naruto murmured, disagreement thrumming along the bond.

Sasuke ignored him for the moment, choosing instead to focus on the task at hand. "We need some ideas for damage control—ideas that don't include a lot of sand and death."

"I'm not that bad," Gaara protested.

"No," Sasuke agreed blandly, the faint smirk on his face belying his tone. "You're worse."

Gaara gave a mock glare, actually glad for the teasing banter as it took the overstressed edge out of Naruto's eyes.

"All right, that's enough," Naruto informed them. "First, we need to come up with a plan—and there's got to be a way to bring at least one of you into the mind-loop. That would help with the secrecy—but right now, we need to work out a few things with our allies." Sasuke, think you can get Kakashi here?

Sasuke gave a short nod and headed out, earning several odd looks.

Sakura decided that was another of the silent-talk things and turned her attention to the final part of that statement. "I'm guessing we can't just tell the Hokage and be done with it."

Naruto shook his head, "No. He'd ask questions that we're not prepared to answer."

Gaara leaned back against a curtain of sand that appeared specifically for that use, "If your Council truly does call for your blood, perhaps you should give them a taste of your demon's power. It would teach them to remember what a true demon is… and that you are capable of harnessing that power if need be."

Naruto made a noncommittal sound, "If I tip my hand too soon… Orochimaru knows I can harness one tail. He does not know I can handle more than that—I'm hoping I won't have to show more than one tail until he actually calls on the invasion, assuming he still believes you are on his side."

Gaara nodded slightly. "As soon as Sand sees that I am against them—and I will be restraining any Sand-nin I can catch when the invasion is called—I'm relatively certain Kankuro and Temari can convince them to attack Sound with Leaf. Either they agree, or I kill them. And you and Sasuke will have to handle Orochimaru yourselves."

"Orochimaru's not the main problem at the moment. I'd rather not make myself an enemy of Konoha—I'm still Hokage, whether or not they know it. I have a responsibility to my people. As soon as Sasuke gets Kakashi back here, we can start trying to work things out."

xxxx

Kakashi made his way back to where Kurenai and her group were waiting, greeting them with a slight nod.

"So, how'd it go?"

"Fine," Kakashi said distractedly, fishing through his pouch for Naruto's book as he mentally listed off all the various things that could possibly be considered 'too much information' that he'd passed on to the other Jounin. He wasn't used to having to keep secrets from his own village, less so his peers.

He also wasn't sure if he should point out to Naruto the number of things he'd done that could give hints that he wasn't the same. After ten or fifteen years of difference, it wasn't surprising that the boy's memory of what he could and couldn't do as a twelve-year-old was a bit fuzzy.

Of course, finding a way to tactfully tell him that was another thing entirely.

Kakashi was so distracted by his thoughts that he nearly started when Kurenai tapped his shoulder, demanding attention. "Kakashi."

He turned one not-quite-disinterested brown eye on her. "Kurenai."

"What's got you so worked up, Copycat?" The hard-earned nickname was put forth in an attempt to relax the man.

"Hmmm… just something one of my Gennin said. He's having some persecution issues that I don't know how to help him with." That gave away Naruto, but took attention off of his 'newfound' abilities. It could also be used as an excuse for his previous and current behavior—if Naruto passed off his former lack of skill as attempting to stay under the radar enough that the teachers would allow him to graduate in hopes of him getting himself killed… then, when put in dangerous situations, he'd have to drop the 'idiot' front just to stay alive.

Kakashi turned the idea over in his mind—it had merit, but would need a lot of fine-tuning and the collaboration of at least Iruka to pull it off, if not the Hokage as well. The only problem with that was that the Hokage didn't have any idea what was really going on… but they had to get up some kind of excuse, because by the next council meeting, Naruto's abilities would have reached the Clan heads.

"What did he say?"

Kakashi let his half-lidded eye open the rest of the way and favored Kurenai with a slightly affronted glare. "Kurenai, I wouldn't ask you to tell me anything one of your Gennin told you in confidence, and I would ask that you show me the same courtesy." Had he really just said that?

Kurenai blinked, astonished. "R-right. Of course. I'm sorry, Kakashi."

Kakashi gave the red-eyed woman a short nod before letting his attention drift to her Gennin, who were watching with ill-concealed interest. Before he could comment, though, Sasuke—sans glowing purple blindfold—dropped down beside him with only the barest whisper of sound.

Kakashi wasn't the only one to jump.

"I hate to break this up," Sasuke savored the shock in the expressions of both Jounin and Team Eight, "but Kakashi, we've called a team meeting and you should probably be there if you don't want Naruto to turn your hair green."

xxxx

Bit of a filler-chapter, granted… does anyone volunteer to read partially finished chapters of mine so I can bounce ideas… and possibly write a bit faster? Because I could really use someone to bounce ideas off of.