Two weeks later, here it is the new chapter. You have been asking how a certain character is doing for ages, so here it is, finally. You can see for yourselves XD

More important yet, I want to give credit to the wonderful people who put time and effort to improve the quality this chapter. Ashe Dragon, like always, you were so incredible quick with your edits. It means a lot. You pointed out my most frequent mistakes and I feel I know where to look for next time. Thank you for your help, my friend! And Jjpdn, who is super patient and had fantastic ideas to improve/clarify many messy scenes, plus a wicked sense of humor. I had a lot of fun reading your comments and suggestions. You are awesome! Thank you so much for your help :D


Chapter 27

The sixth month anniversary of the appointment of Himura Danzo as The Fifth Hokage of Konoha came and went without fanfare for Kakashi, who was still far away from home. Nevertheless, it was an unwelcome reminder that six months of fruitless pursuit had already gone by.

Six long, tortuous months ago, Kakashi had buried a man he deeply admired and respected, another man he had failed to protect, and Danzo had stepped up to replaced him with the approval of most of the clans, Kakashi included — for, even though he did not like Danzo personally, his devotion to Konoha was well known, and Kakashi had been afraid someone would appoint him as candidate if the election process failed to come to a quick conclusion.

Kakashi had trouble imagining a more terrible fate for himself that to be forced to assume a position of such responsibility. Plus, he would make terrible Hokage. His personality was ill-suited to the role. He was an unapologetic, arrogant, antisocial bastard — shaped so by time and circumstances — and had no desire to change. Spending his days buried under piles of paperwork while forced to present a kind, patient and responsible front to the world sounded like his worst nightmare.

On top of that, Kakahi had an important mission of his own. Retrieving his wayward students had become his number one priority as soon as he had been made aware of their disappearances — to his shame, it had taken him far too long to discover their absence, even though he mostly blamed Hiruzen's and Jiraya's deception for this failure.

The problem was, however, that Kakashi had spent the last seven months of his life searching for his students, and his pursuit had yet to yield any tangible results. He was at his wit's end.

His only major discovery to this date had occurred about five months ago, when he had discovered a chakra seal engraved in the branches of a tree near a small merchant village in Earth Country. The detail that had captured Kakashi's attention was the fact that he recognized the shape of it, for it belonged to a secret technique developed by his late sensei. To Kakashi's knowledge, although many had tried in the years since his passing, no one had ever been able to replicate it.

As if this discovery alone weren't baffling enough, the chakra surrounding the seal was unmistakable, for the stench of the Nine-Tails fox - a combination of hot, storming rage and unwavering hatred - lingered all over it. It was a unique signature in the world.

From those clues, Kakashi surmised that his runaway students had been here, and somehow, somehow - Kakashi had given up long ago trying to figure out exactly how -, Naruto had developed a similar technique to his father's. He also deduced that his students had trained in taijutsu and maybe genjutsu as well in these woods for weeks, maybe months, after examining the broken tree branches and others traces they'd left behind. They had refrained from using ninjutsu attacks.

The finding had made him confident back then. To follow up on the clues, he had made his way to the nearest village. A stay of several weeks in the woods - perhaps even a few months, if he was lucky -, was not an easy thing to hide, especially for a pair of arrogant teenagers whose stomachs were two bottomless pits. Sure, Naruto and Sasuke were both skilled enough to survive in the woods by hunting their own food, but Kakashi doubted either of them would be willing to skin off and butcher a rabbit when there was a fair a selection of restaurants and grocery stores not even hundred miles away from their location.

In a stroke of genius, Kakashi bypassed the grocery stores and markets and asked a few locals to point him towards the best ramen place in town. Naruto's obsession with ramen was legendary, and no one knew better about it than his team members. Kakashi was confident that, precaution aside, his student would not have been able to resist the siren call of a home-made ramen for very long.

Consequently, Kakashi was greatly disappointed when, after showing a picture of the two boys to the staff working in the restaurant, none of them showed a hint of recognition. Nor did any of the other villagers. Of course, having being so closed to solve the mystery, Kakashi refused give up and remained in town for another two weeks, trying to find any hints that would allow him to retrace his students' whereabouts, or perhaps hoping that whatever attracted them to the area in the first place would compel them to come back.

Unfortunately, this was not to be. Two more weeks went by without results before Kakashi could not justify his stay in longer. With no clues to follow, he set out to explore the neighbouring villages and towns.

Perhaps Kakashi wasn't giving the two kids enough credit, he reflected one evening, as he ate some cold dinner on a top branch of a tree. After all, they had managed to sneak out of Konoha and evaded capture by enemy forces for more than a year now. Granted, none of their enemies knew that Konoha's jinjuriki was on the move, which gave Naruto a great advantage, but still.

If Kakashi put himself in their shoes, if he had been training in a dark corner of the woods for weeks and wanted to remain unnoticed, he would avoid frequent visits to any civilian population. He would purchase enough supplies to last him for a month or two each time, and would pick a different location for each of these trips. He would also use a jutsu to disguise his appearance, of course, but it required a tremendous amount of chakra to keep the henge twenty four hours. Only the most powerful ninjas had managed such feat and Kakashi had trouble believing the two kids would be able to do it - especially Sasuke. Naruto's chakra levels were always out of this world, but of course he lacked proper control...

Unrelented on his pursuit and determined to not underestimate Naruto and Sasuke again, Kakashi spent the next eleven weeks investigating every inch of the surrounding area. He traced a three-hundred-miles' perimeter around the training ground, and visited each town, explored every corner of the woods and walked every major road, seeking out traces left behind by his students.

He failed. He found nothing.

The bitter taste of defeat was fresh in his mouth when, several weeks later, Kakashi was forced to retraced his steps, back to the familiar woods where the trace had grown cold, and then back to the merchant village he had investigated first.

His instinct told him he was in the right place and that he had to be missing something, but after swapping the place up and down a second time, he still had nothing to go on. He was exhausted. He had been away from home for almost a year and he was not a step closer to finding Naruto and Sasuke that he had been at the beginning of his journey. He kept screwing up his mission, somehow. And he was alone.

So who was there to blame him for walking into a bar intending to bury his sorrows in alcohol for one day?

Absolute-fucking-no-one, that's who.

As soon as Kakashi let the door close behind him, the old pub plunged into darkness, never matter than it was still midday. The place was mostly empty too, with only a few regulars sitting in the tables close to the back. Kakasha had taken off his forehead protector before entering the village and he was wearing civilian clothes, so he ignored their prying stares, too busy wallowing in his own misery to care about their harmless curiosity, and walked up to the bar.

He picked a stool in the far end corner, which allowed him to keep his back to the wall - just in case -, and signaled to the bartender. "A shot of whisky," he ordered harshly, neglecting his good manners. Without missing a beat, the bartender nodded his head in acknowledgment and grabbed a glass from under the counter. The glass was fucking damned small, Kakashi observed. "Wait. Make that two," he rectified.

The bartender nodded again. "Sure." He probably got requests like that all the time.

Kakashi watched as the man opened a medium-sized crystal bottle and poured scotch until the two glasses in the table were full. Without uttering a simple thanks, he gulped down the two shots, and quickly ordered two more.

"Actually, leave the bottle." It would save them time in the long run.

For the first time, the bartender ignored Kakashi's request and instead looked at him dubiously as a response, reticent to do as he had been told. Kakashi didn't bother asking a second time. Intead, he took out his purse and laid several bills on the table. The bartender grabbed the bills silently, counted them very carefully and finally nodded again. "As you say."

Kakashi ignored him. He'd already gotten what he wanted and was definitely not in the mood for politeness. He clutch the bottle, refilled his glass and gulped it all down, ignoring the burning sensation in his throat. After the sixth glass, he felt marginally better - enough that he could make fun of his own situation, at least, if only in his mind.

He imagined the headlines, if his situation ever became public knowledge. The infamous Copy Cat Ninja of Konoha - the youngest jounin of his generation -, outsmarted at every turn by a knucklehead and a prideful ass. Kakashi would dare anyone who mocked him to do better, but maybe poetic justice was at play. Kakashi had been a prideful ass too, at Sasuke's age, and for reasons that were more similar that he'd like to admit. Maybe this was the universe's way to pay him back for his arrogance. And maybe he deserved it.

Who the fuck was he trying to trick?

Kakashi deserved far worse.

He was not arrogant enough to attribute all of his teammates' deaths to himself, but he had been directly involved in two of them. He had caused one of them. And he still could not think of her name. Just the ghost of it awoke in him a whirlwind of guilt and sorrow, which in turn threatened to reopen the old, gory wounds in his heart — wounds he had forcefully cauterized years ago, but which had never healed properly. Her name was forbidden. He could not stand to think of it, and like the coward he was, he had exorcised it from his mind.

Instead of thinking about it, Kakashi took another shot of whiskey.

It made his thoughts blurry.

It made breathing easier.

Rin.

Her name had been Rin.

Kakashi had cared for her. Perhaps not in the way she had hoped for, but he had cared for her… He killed her all the same. He killed her and by killing her, he discarded the promise he had made to-.

To Him. Another name he could not bear to think about.

The boy Kakashi failed to save first, the knucklehead of his team. Another bleeding wound in his chest. Thinking about his name was far worse torture because Kakashi had not only failed to save him, but he also failed him . Kakashi had failed to save Rin and by doing so, he broke the promise he had made to his dying teammate.

Then, as if those failures weren't bad enough, Kakashi also failed to save his sensei - his sensei and sensei's temperamental wife. Kushina. Oh, how he missed her. Strong, bright, kind, generous Kushina, who had accepted Kakashi into his home and welcomed him into his family, despite the ungrateful little shit that he was.

She had showed Kakashi what a mother's love was like.

Nowadays, Kakashi almost wished that she hadn't, because he had failed her and sensei, and now, he was failing their son as well. The circle was complete. Kakashi, the failure of Konoha. The nickname had a nice ring to it. Or perhaps it was the alcohol talking at this point - Kakashi eyed the bottle distractedly and noticed that half of it was gone. Whatever. He poured himself another glass.

He would give a shit again tomorrow, but for today, he just didn't care..

Kakashi, the failure.

He had been raised a murderer, a fact which had never bothered him much - and wasn't that fucked up in its own way? -, but he had fooled himself into believing he could be something more. However, he saw it clearly now. He had been a failure as a son and as a team member, and now he was a failure as a teacher as well, because if Kakashi had done his job properly instead of a being lazy fuck, if he had chosen to give a shit about his students, then they would have come to him with their problems, they would have shared their plans with him and he would've had the chance to dissuade them, or even to follow them, if dissuading them turned out to be impossible.

But of course Kakashi hadn't put in the effort to do just that because he was a selfish git - too busy mourning his losses, the life he should've had, the people he shouldn't have lost -, to give a damn about the living; about the two orphans and the girl he had abandoned for their sake. Oh, he had been so damn selfish. He had refused to care for them, his sensei's son, the last link to a family he had been part of, and the little brother of another boy who had also been under his care, once upon a time. A boy who had grown into a monster under Kakashi's very own eyes, and whose struggles he had also failed to notice.

Another failure.

What is one more, in a life full of them? He reasoned bitterly, the dry taste of whisky burning in his tongue. More importantly, what on Earth had led him to believe that it would be different, this time? That he could do better. That he would find Naruto and Sasuke when the most skilled of the Sanin had failed, that he would be given the chance to right his wrongs, and bring them back, and maybe even beat both of them bloody for his troubles as well?

Kakashi, the failure of Konoha, indeed.

Kakashi poured himself another glass of whiskey and realised that he would soon have to order another bottle, busy as he was indulging in self-pitying thoughts, when by chance, he happened to overhear a few familiar words.

…'blonde'...

… 'merry lad'..

'… boy… left..'

Immediately, his mind cleared and Kakashi stood up - or tried to. His balance was off and he tripped off the bar stool; he would have fallen to the ground, had his hands not clutch the table in time. He steadied himself breathing deeply through his nose, trying to regain some resemblance of balance. Meanwhile, his ears picked the incriminatory words again, along with a few others: 'hold 'er drink' and 'such a funny loser' . They were coming from two men at the far end of the counter.

Kakashi blinked a couple of times. The pub was significantly more crowded than it had been when he walked in. The two men in particular had not been there when he entered the local area and he had failed to notice their arrival. Perhaps he had been drinking for longer that he'd originally intended.

It didn't matter now.

Kakashi approached the two men, keeping a carefree nonchalant attitude while using all his ninja's ability not to lose his footing and trip over his own feet - which was a lot harder than it should be.

How much shit had he drank, anyway?

He was a fucking professional!

The two men stopped talking once they noticed him drawing closer, both turning their heads to better look at him. Their faces were more curious than angry, though - curiosity was an angle he could work with -, and judging by the sunken posture of the first man's shoulders and the scent of both their breaths, the two men were well into his cups. Even better.

"I was wondering if you'd mind to share what is left of my bottle with me " Kakashi pointing out to his bottle, which was still about one third full. "Stuff's good, but it's always better with company."

The two men looked at each other for a moment, contemplative, then shugered. "Sure," one of them said.

"Bring it over here," the other pointed out to a nearby stool.

Not wasting time, Kakashi grabbed the bottle and dropped his ass into the wooden stool, filling both the men's glasses. He poured himself another shot and brought his glass forward. The other two immediately followed suit. "Cheers!", they cried in unison, swallowing down their drinks.

"So, what brings a young lad like you to town?" one of the asked him, as Kakashi poured them a second shot.

"This and that," he responded elusively, while making a show of emptying his glass..

"Ah, don't be like that," the other man pouted. "Misery loves company, after all."

Kakashi refilled his glass once again, waiting pointedly until the men drank theirs as well, to do the same with their glasses. The bottle was almost completely empty. He would have to purchase another soon.

"Family died. I got nothing left, back home" he spoke in small pauses, allowing his words to be slurred by the alcohol he had consumed. "Nothing to lose. So. I sold the house. Walked away."

The men nodded, understanding. One of them patted him in the back. "That sucks, man." Kakashi shrugged. His face twisted into a 'what can you do?', 'life is shit' kind of expression, and didn't answer.

"Hector here is an orphan too. Lost his whole fucking family during the last Great War." The man, Hector, nodded solemnly. "They killed my mom's sister too, though I guess my family was lucky. Fucking ninjas!"

For a moment, Kakashi's easy smile froze in his face and his acting floundered. He was not a stranger to the mistrust most civilian groups felt towards ninja; however, he had thought that the anti-ninja sentiment had diminished drastically in the last thirteen years of peace. Maybe not so.

"Here," the other man called for the waiter, ordering her to refill their shots, perhaps mistaking his silence for grieve. "My treat, this time."

"Thanks," Kakashi nodded at him, showing him his appreciation, and let go of his previous train of thought. It was a worry for another day. "I guess you get lots of visitors with sad histories around here?"

"No, man. Most of them are proper business men, too busy to drown their sorrows with this," he pointedly stared at his glass, taking a small sip.

Kakashi nodded in understanding. "Must be nice."

"Sure. Lucky bastards," the other man cursed, but his voice lacked bite. "I guess we meet some interesting people. There was this one lad, a couple months ago. Now, she knew how to hold her liquor."

Kakashi's heart rate increased momentarily - this was what he had wanted to hear about since he approached -; and yet, something was not right. "She?"

"She had a mean punch to, for a lady. Johny here almost got his nose broken when he came on to her." The man laughed, slapping the other on the back. His friend did not take offense at the teasing and went along with it, shrugging his shoulders. "No one can blame a man for trying. Beautiful thing like her."

Disappointment flooded him. Kakashi had been so sure that these men had been talking about Naruto. Call it a hunch, gut instinct or whatever, but in his drunken state, the moment he had overheard the men's conversation he became convinced that they were referring to his missing student. A woman, however… Didn't Naruto have that technique… called... Kakashi's mind was running at a hundred miles per hour, trying to make sense of it all, but was about as effective as a fish swimming in mud.

It just couldn't be.

It did not fit Naruto's profile at all. Least at all Sasuke's.

He'd been wrong, again.

And yet.

And yet, maybe by sheer desperation, he refused to let go of the idea.

Kakashi needed to keep the men talking. If his intuition was correct and the woman turned out to be Naruto in disguise, he would burn in Hell for this. "She hot then?"

The man who had almost gotten his nose broken, Johny, answered. "She was a goddess." His friend snorted. "Shut up, man. I'm telling you," he leaned towards Kakashi. "Long legs, shapely body, blond hair and she had the cutest face."

"Yeah, her tips were definitely something else," the other man, Hector, cue in, looking extremely amused. "She was freakishly strong, though." He shook his head, as if he himself had trouble believing it. "But good fun to be around."

"Did she have blue eyes?" The words were out of his mouth before Kakashi could reigned them in. Both men raised their eyebrows at him, both looking similarly perplexed by the question. A theory had begun to form in Kakashi's mind, a bit far fetched, perhaps, but… He couldn't fuck it up now, not while he still needed answers. "My girlfriend had blue eyes."

The lie came easy to his lips; he was used to making up more ridiciously stories on a daily basis. The men seemed to buy it too. Suspicion eased from their gazes and they stared at him with pity instead.

"Sorry, man. It was too dark in here to notice that," Johnny told him, apologetic. "I don't know… Maybe."

Kakashi cursed silently, but did not let himself be abated by this. Naruto had blond hair. He was freakishly strong. Of course Naruto was also a boy, but Kakashi had witnessed his infamous pervert jutsu on more than one occasion. What had the silly kid named it again? The ridiculous name was on tip of his tongue .

Regardless, Naruto loved making people uncomfortable by turning into a naked, busty girl. He had tried to use it against Kakashi himself early on in their training, only to become bitterly disappointed when it failed to faze him at all - Kakashi would never forget that day. His low opinion of his student had sunk even further.

Recalling the event, Kakashi was hit by a clear memory. Oiroke no Jutsu! That's what the kid had called it, or rather, had shouted it to his face. Kakashi blinked, dispelling the image o the knucklehead boy.

Objectively, Naruto's face as a girl could be described as "cute" and he definitely also had the mentioned long legs and shapely body. It was also the perfect disguise. Anyone looking for them would be asking around for two boys. A boy and a girl, however? It was truly a stroke of genius and Kakashi wanted to smack himself for not having figured it out earlier. After all, it was just a few weeks ago when he had sworn to himself not to underestimate the kids again.

Kakashi forced his features to relax, adopting once again a placid, drunker expression. "Pity I missed her, then," he said, sighing loudly, "Girls like that are hard to find."

He sipp on his drink, rubbing his chin with his thumb, and waited.

"Yeah. The place hasn't been the same since she left."

Clearly, the man still carried a torch for the lady, and Kakashi had to use all his willpower to avoid thinking about the fact that, if his deductions were correct, this man was talking about his very underage student. Kakashi would kill him if he allowed his thoughts to go there, and the poor guy didn't deserve it. No one could blame him for not knowing.

"How long since she left?" He modulated the tone of his voice carefully, trying to seem empathetic to the man's situation.

"Couple of months?" Johnny looked at his friend for confirmation, and the other man nodded, but Kakashi noticed that he was now staring at him with a slight frown. Kakashi did not want him to become suspicious, so he would have to end the conversation soon.

"Hope she's alright, then," he said, easily. "The road is not safe for a woman alone, no matter how strong."

"She had a kid with her," Johnny recalled; then he laughed, apartenly amused by whatever memory he was remembering. "Not her son, I asked," he clarified, anticipating Kakashi's next questions. "Don't think she liked him very much, to be honest, the way she cursed about him after a few drinks. What is it that she used to call him?" He looked at his friend, who did not answer. Undiscouraged, he continued, "Ah, yes. That moody bastard," the man laughed again. "She complained that he drove her crazy, but when I told her to leave him behind, she almost broke my nose again."

Kakashi had heard enough. Sure, his sources were far from trustworthy - both men were intoxicated and it was clear that, unlike Kakashi, they made a habit of it. And in some ways, the information opened more questions than it solved, but it all fit together. The numbers fit. The dates fit. Too many details fit for it to be a coincidence. Finally, after months of hopeless searching, he was back on track.

"I don't imagine you still remember her name?"

Johny stared at him in confusion, his eyes blinking a couple of times, probably trying to and failing to remember. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. His friend was quicker. "We don't. It's been a bloody long time."

Kakashi accepted this and didn't insist; Naruto wouldn't have given these men his real name, anyway.

It was obvious that Kakashi would not get any more useful information from either of them, so he reluctantly let go of his curiosity and excitement and, slowly, stirred the conversation towards a different subject. Soon, the second man seemed to forget whatever had made him suspicious and relaxed once again. Kakashi promptly excused himself when this happened.

From that moment on, everything progressed smoothly.

Kakashi only had to ask a few questions here and there in the village, about a blonde woman and a boy staying together, to become even more certain that his theory was correct. He was at a huge disadvantage, because an eight-weeks head-start meant that the trail went cold in some places, but he was perseverant. In a matter of just a few weeks, he managed to retrace their steps as far as the border between the Land of Earth and the Land of Rain.

Here, it became clear that Kakashi had a decision to make.

Everybody in the Five Nations knew that Amekagure had gone into locked down after the conclusion of the last Great War. People suspected Hanzo's paranoia had greatly influenced this decision, although, since the borders were tightly sealed, no one knew this for certain. What was very well known, however, was that no Amegakure citizen had ever stepped out of their country since the lockdown took place, thirteen years ago. And no outsider foolish enough to step in through the border had ever returned.

There were strange rumors about the country circulating in some shady circles, rumors and, absurd tales of scholars and men of letters who willingly rejected their countries to join Amekagure, but Kakashi had dismissed them as soon as he became aware of them. He fortunately lacked the pleasure of meeting Hanzo in person, but knew for a fact that the man would feel nothing but contempt for those types of people.

More importantly, if Kakashi's students had crossed the border, it meant that Hanzo had now direct access to the Sharingan and Nine-Tail-Jinjuriki. And no matter how skilled Naruto had become in the year since he ran away, neither he nor Sasuke would stand a chance against a ninja of his caliber. Kakashi himself would not stand a chance, either. Not if the tales about Hanzo's victory over the three Sanin were true.

After months of uncertainty, Kakashi's duty as a jounin of Konoha finally became crystal clear: he should return to the village immediately and report about this development, after which, measures would be put in place to retrieve the Jinjuriki by any means necessary. Failing to do so was not only a betrayal of his vow to protect Konoha and serve its Hokage, it was also treason.

The decision wasn't an easy one – after all, Kakashi's biggest fear had once been being looked down as a traitor. He pondered his choices carefully, and was honestly surprised when it took him less than a minute to decide that he would press ahead anyway, duty be damned.


The first chakra barriers were easy to bypass, although Kakashi suspected this had been done so intentionally. More likely than not, whoever had put the barriers in place had other avenues to detect intruders, and Kakashi would bet his left eye that that person was already aware of his presence.

Nevertheless, Kakashi was allowed to continue his journey towards Amekagure's Hidden Village uninterrupted, which most likely meant that the enemy wanted him to come to them. It put Kakashi on high alert; he felt like a prey running willingly towards its predator, but he had faith in his own abilities. It wouldn't be the first time that an enemy underestimated him. Usually, it worked in his favor.

Kakashi adopted a comfortable pace, since there was little reason to waste his chakra on speed when he was waiting for a confrontation, and took the chance to scrutinize his surroundings. The scenery was nothing like he was expecting.

For hours he walked through the deserted countryside without crossing paths with another human being. Early on, he had expanded his senses and noticed an enormous conglomeration of chakras far ahead of him, all located in the same point. Nearly a million people together, right where the old maps placed the location of the Hidden Village. It was ludicrous, and he was sure he had made a mistake. Sunagakure was the biggest ninja village in the continent and it did not have more than a hundred thousand inhabitants. A million people coexisting in just one city was hard enough to imagine, but taking into consideration that at least a few thousand of them had to be ninjas. It was impossible. And yet.

And yet, where was everyone else?

He had walked for hours through the countryside. He had come across wild animals and traveled past thousands of trees and fields - vast extensions of cultivated land. Wheat, cereal, lentils, grapes… Someone had to be responsible for working on those fields -. However, he had yet to encounter a single living soul. How was it possible?

As if the mystery weren't bad enough, soon after Kakashi began to feel like he was being watched. His body automatically tensed as a reaction, but he forced his muscles to relax. Whoever was following him - if someone was following him at all, at this point even he had begun to doubt his intuition - would show themselves in due time, and when they did, Kakashi would be ready.

The feeling of being watched persisted, but another hour went by without a hitch. Kakashi didn't relax, exactly, but grew ever confident in the idea that whoever was following him, was waiting for something to happen. Could be a big reveal; perhaps reinforcements. It was because of this belief that he almost missed the tall figure discreetly waiting under a fig tree, back against the trunk.

In Kakashi's defense, the guilty tree looked exactly like the hundreds he had walked past by since entering the country - nothing remarkable about it -, and the man's nondescript appearance was concealed in great measure by the branches which hung low from the tree. In fact, Kakashi would have missed him altogether if the man hadn't moved.

But the man took a step forward, straightening his back. Kakashi caught sign of the movement and stopped, eyes landing on the stranger. A second later, recognition hit him, and he came to the realization that the situation was far worse that he'd imagined. Far, far worse. Because the stranger was not a stranger at all. Kakashi would have recognized his face anywhere, even though it had been years since their last encounter.

Itachi Uchiha.

A name most people dared not to speak of.

A name straight out of nightmares.

Inmediteadly, Kakashi closed his right eye to avoid genjutsu. The man's eyes hadn't changed at all. They were still two black, dreary orbs which revealed nothing of the thoughts and machinations going on inside his mind.

In contrast, the man's body had developed well - he was significantly taller, with a much broader back and shoulders -, but his eyes looked exactly the same as Kakashi remembered from all those years ago. Which could only mean two things, at this point: either he had been a twisted monster from the very beginning and Kakashi failed to see the warning signs, or he had slowly turned into a monster while Kakashi remained entirely too blind to notice the change. Neither option bode well for him.

The two men stared at each other, their gazes caught in a moment that seemed to stretch on forever. Kakashi stuck his chin out and refused to be the one who looked away. If he was to die here today, he would try to preserve as much of his dignity as possible. He would not give him the satisfaction of causing him fear.

The Uchiha didn't seem to share his objection because, after a long, tense moment, he bowed his head - not unlike he used to do, back then - and addressed him. "Kakashi-san." The bastard was polite about it, too. Kakashi suppressed the urge to spit at his face. "I would ask you why you are here, but I know you are looking for my wayward brother and his friend."

Kakashi clenched his fists in anger so hard the nails were biting into his skin. How dare he? "If you've hurt them-"

The threat hung unfinished on the air, dangerous, but it didn't seem to faze the Uchiha in the slightest. He even had the nerve to smile, as if he were pleased by his words — the corners of his lips curling up in a soft expression that had no place in the face of such a monster. "You'll do what?"

"I'll kill you."

"I am sure that you'd try," he replied as a matter of fact. "But you would fail. And you'd die."

Kakashi was not a fool. He had graduated from the academy at age five and been promoted to jounin a few months short of his eleventh birthday. He was a certified genius with an intellect who had repeatedly been praised by the smartest man he had ever known, his sensei Minato, so of course he knew Itachi's assessment of the situation was correct. The chances of him surviving the upcoming fight were slim, close to none, but Kakashi was also a skilled ninja in his own right. He'd do his damn best to take this monster to his grave before dying.

As if reading his thoughts, the Uchiha went on to test his resolve, voice steady and almost bored. Like two strangers discussing the weather. "You can walk away, you know?"

Kakashi didn't ever consider it. "That is not an option."

"You would die for them?" The man questioned him, eyebrows arched pointedly, as if he could not yet believe it.

"If I have to. You've hurt your brother enough, I will not let you harm either of them ever again."

Kakashi was determined to make this true, even if he had to die to keep his word. He was not afraid of death, anyway. Enough people who loved him had died through the years that joining them now would not be a terrible fate. Especially if it kept Sasuke and Naruto away from this monster. Kakashi would fail in his quest to bring them home, but he had to believe that wherever this man was keeping them, with him dead they'd be able to escape on their own.

Nevertheless, the Uchiha's reactions kept puzzling him. His eyes, which previously revealed nothing of his inner thoughts, were now shining with approval and… was that respect? How twisted could this man be?

Kakashi had never enjoyed killing, viewing simply as another part of his job —not unlike sharpening his blades or filling his mission reports —, but right now, right now he was thirsty for blood. He would relish making this monster in front of him cry out in agony - and the feeling was a dangerous one, for it would decrease his objectivity in the batter to come.

"Very well," the Uchiha nodded. "I agree to your terms," his voice was as calm as before, his words and tone carefully measured, but somehow he still managed to sound pleased; as if they had reached to the conclusion he had been hoping for all along.

Kakashi wasn't fooled by this act. He noticed the man's fingers swiftly moving for his shurikens — Itachi's favourite weapon after his illusions. But genjutsu wouldn't work on Kakashi as long as he kept his eye closed and used only Obito's sharingan. Itachi surely knew this.

Kakashi reached for his kunai, ready to deflect the incoming attack. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, a series of actions took place. They all happened so fast, so quickly, one after the other, that they might very well have happened all at the same time.

The monster before him uttered two words, just two, "Your move," but he did not look at Kakashi as he spoke; his gaze was fixed on some point beyond his shoulders. The man's body burst into black crows, revealing himself to be an illusion. The crows cawed loudly and flapped their jet black wings towards the sky.

Kakashi heard someone cry out in pain at his back.

He turned around instinctively, searching for the source of such sound. Two blades clashed in the air. A man wearing a Konoha ANBU mask fell back after the Uchiha intercepted his blade.

Who had the ANBU been aiming for, exactly?

Another figure similarly dressed lay already on the ground, dead. Kakashi blinked. More crows cawed . A man screamed.

The ANBU fell to his knees.

The Uchiha's eyes were bleeding. Kakashi took notice of this, but chose not to press to his advantage yet. Because none of this made sense. Konoha's special forces had no business in Amegakure - in fact, their very presence here could be and would likely be considered as an act of war.

Kakashi's mind worked fast to find a satisfactory explanation. It was possible that the two individuals had been acting independently; perhaps they had a grudge against this particular Uchiha or perhaps they were after the man's bounty. The fact remained, however, that ANBU masks were not easy to come by, and not ANBU operative would be so foolish as to think they could take this Uchiha alone, without huge reinforcements.

Furthermore, it could not be a coincidence that they were in this exact location, at this exact time. How long had they been following? Why had they chosen to conceal their chakra from him, when an alliance would have been far more beneficial for both parties? Who, exactly, was their target?

Kakashi had a bad feeling about this. His intuition told him he was about to find out, one way or the other, and that he wouldn't like the answers. And yet, he stood aside when the Uchiha grabbed the ANBU by his neck, lifting him roughly from the ground.

The ANBU mask fell to the floor, revealing the man's face – old for an ANBU operative, maybe fifteen or twenty years older than Kakashi himself.

"Traitor!" the man spat out, failing to successfully conceal his fear of the monster who currently held his life on his hands, quite literally too. Not that Kakashi blamed him for this.

The Uchiha didn't react at all. It was like he hadn't heard him. "You will tell your employer that he should have never gone back in his word," he commanded in an extremely controlled tone of voice.

His employer?

That didn't make sense. There were no superior officers in the ANBU ranks. The troops answered directly for the Hokage.

The man did not react well to such a command. His face twisted in anger, previous fear forgotten, and spat, "Fuck you and all the Uchiha left!"

It wasn't a smart move.

For the first time since they had come across, Itachi's controlled facade broke down and Kakashi was shocked at the depth of emotion it revealed. The two dark circles under his eyes deepened, his black eyes became ablaze with fury and his lips twisted into a leer of the purest loathing. He made out a truly frightening image, and for just a moment, Kakashi felt relieved that he wasn't the one on the receiving end of that gaze.

"I am no longer the boy I was," the Uchiha warned the other man, voice hot with swirling anger. "I will not be made into his puppet a second time. And I will burn his whole world to ashes if he dares to threaten my brother again," he remarked these last words by tightening the grip on the man's neck, until his face turned blue.

Then, just as Kakashi began to ponder whether to intervene or not, he released him. The man's body fell to the ground. The Uchiha glared at him from above, eyes almost pitying. "Be sure to tell him that," he commanded one more time.

Then he turned around and walked away.

Or he might have, had the ANBU not taken advantage of that moment to stand up and throw himself against Kakashi, making his intentions clear by trying to slash him down with a kunai. Too stunned to do anything other than protect himself, Kakashi lifted his hands in defense, using the metal protector of his gloves to deflect the attacking weapon.

However, the kunai and his glove never collided because a thin ninja wire, one which had been invisible to the eye until moments ago, materialized itself around the man's neck. The man's eyes opened wide, realization hitting him just a second too late. It was too late because the man had already initiated the jump and inertia kept pushing his body forward even though he needed to stop. The ninja wire tightened around his neck, and the man let out a series of terrified noises through his nose.

It was a hard thing to watch, despite the fact that this man had tried to kill him just seconds before, but Kakashi found that he couldn't look away either. Thankfully, the Uchiha picked up the man's fallen weapon and used it to slash the man's throat in a clean move, ending his struggle.

Then he spoke, "Some people become so attached to their view of the world, that they are unable to see anything beyond the facts upon which they had constructed their reality. Not even when their lives depend on it." He said this looking pointedly at Kakashi, and Kakashi couldn't think of anything to say in response.

Kakashi observed his opponent, who was once again concealing his emotions under a familiar mask of cold serenity and supreme indifference, all remains of fury gone from his voice. If Kakashi hadn't been there to witness the chink in his armor, he would have sworn the man couldn't access any human emotion at all.

As it was, Kakashi hadn't made up his mind yet. He still had questions, and although he could not deny that the man's actions had so far been on his behalf, it didn't change who this Uchiha was or what he had done.

"Where are Naruto and Sasuke?"

He was only asking this once.

Startlingly, once turned out to be enough.

"I will take you to them."


Question for you, guys. To see if you have been really paying attention (since my updating schedule is so irregular, I won't blame you if you haven't). The blond lady the two guys in the bar were talking about was:

- Naruto using his infamous jutsu
- someone close to Naruto (identity here, please!)
- a random lady with a kid

I can't wait to see your answer. I will reveal the truth in next chapter!

For those who are wondering, Pain detected a intruder and told Itachi to handle it... Why Itachi and not Naruto or Sasuke? Well, Itachi used to work for Pain, Pain trusts his judgment. Plus Nagato wants to protect Naruto, both physically and emotionally because he cares about him. Plus, Naruto and Sasuke and super skilled but as far as anyone knows, they are also kids, so it makes sense to ask Itachi.

Itachi knew from the beginning about the ANBUS shadowing Kakashi. He was making sure that Kakashi didn't know about them. He also wanted to see what was their mission and how Kakashi would react. So everything Itachi did was to that end. He needed to make sure Kakashi hadnt become Danzo's marionette before taking him to the capital to see Naruto and his brother.

It's been ages since I've written Kakashi properly, so I'm quite anxious about it. I hope I kept him IC. Well, I am anxiously awaiting your feedback. See you in two or three weeks for the second part of this chapter, also Kakashi's POV. My beta is already working on it!