Hey, I really tried to drop the new plots from taking over, but they simply clogged me and made me slow down everything else until I finally gave in and wrote them. So as a rule, I'm forcing myself to write a chapter for one of my main stories before publishing the beginning of a new one.

By the way, I'm publishing 'A Kage among Wizards' which is a crossover between Naruto and Harry Potter, as you've likely imagined from the title. Give it a try and let me know your opinions, please!

Hidden and Revealed

13th May, year 14 AK

Shikamaru sighed as he followed Kakashi's instructions and dropped down from the thick branches where he had set up his sleeping position: "What's up, Hatake-san?"

The shinobi with hair that defied gravity had in fact stilled unexpectantly, his head whipping towards the direction from which the breeze was blowing. Without uttering a single word, his hands moved blindingly fast through seals, only to be slammed into the ground, summoning into the Elemental Plane a dog: "Bisuke, what do you smell from south-west? Two people, active chakra."

The summoned animal woofed lowly as a greeting, immediately turning his attention where his master had directed it, using his far more refined sense of smell to immediately pick up on the faint familiarity that had brought Kakashi up short. After a few slow sniffs of the cooling air, he woofed as an answer, turning his head towards Kakashi, who immediately nodded, smothering the small campfire that he had set up in order to cook the fishes that were meant to be their dinner, uncaring of the small gust of smoke that left the dying embers.

"Follow." the ex-ANBU captain ordered to his charge for the duration of the mission: "There are only so many Uzumaki around, and last we heard of, Kusa had a female of their line, we cannot allow her to roam unguarded, and Konoha would benefit if she was to seek refuge behind her walls."

"Didn't Kusa fall a few months ago?" Shikamaru asked as he took once more to the branches, which allowed him to follow his superior much more easily thanks to his sensibility to the shadows that stubbornly clung to the underside of the trees' limbs.

"Yes, but some captured allies were freed from an Iwa prisoner camp, where Daiki has been seen the last time." Kakashi quickly rattled off, his thoughts already whirling around the possible implications of the nuke-nin's presence within the Land of Fire' borders, not least the fact that if he were to draw a straight line between the Iwa Camp and the general position of the Uzumaki, it would point in the general direction of Konoha.

Shikamaru's exceptional brain immediately picked up on what Copy-nin wasn't saying: "We're engaging?" he simply asked, feeling strangely conflicted at the idea, even as he imagined that actually fighting his old sensei would come with its own brand of difficulties, he recognized that it was a pretty heavy deviation to take from their intended destination. Wait, Hatake didn't say that it's Daiki the one with the Uzumaki, did he?

"We're only investigating, I don't think Daiki is so casually walking into the Land of Fire, I would have recognized his scent in any case, but an Uzumaki should not be let roam around freely, or we risk Konoha's enemies gain such a bloodline." Kakashi quipped as they followed the lead of Bisuke.

The Nara frowned at the succinct explanation, finding it extremely unlikely that such an unimportant thing would spur the jonin into slowing down the completion of their mission. What did it matter if Konoha's enemies gained the apparently unguarded Uzumaki? In the worst-case scenario, the clan would take generations in order to be rebuilt, and the first Uzumaki that Konoha would see rallied against her wouldn't come to be before at least 12 years, necessary both for the breeding and the training. Shikamaru still thought that their current mission, namely investigating whatever Daiki may or may not have left behind in the centre of his economical enterprise, represented a somewhat urgent mission, at least because of the potential implications upon the sage's loyalty to Konohagakure no Sato.

Still, discussing his direct superior's decision was less than wise, especially since the Nara didn't wish to hint at his own troubled opinions about his wayward sensei.

Several kilometres South-East from their position, the sun wasn't quite done yet with surrendering the sky to the nigh, and so the treetops of the Land of fire went from deep green to burnt gold as one of the most impressive sunsets to ever grace the Elemental Nations fought to last as long as possible. The wind that rustled the leaves made each branch shiver lightly, and from her advantageous position nestled between two branches of an impressively tall redwood tree, Karin almost felt like drowning in a sea of green and gold.

The air still retained the crisp feeling of the newly born spring, even as it already heralded the incoming summer, with just a hint of the sharp boreal winds that ran southwards from the mountaintops of Kiminari no Kuni, whirlwinds randomly forming over the sea and around the ruins of Uzushiogakure, that her sensei promised they would visit one day.

Karin still didn't understand why he would care that much. She knew that she could bolt at any time, Daiki didn't lie when he told her that she was free to go, but where would she run to? Apparently, her hair was enough to make her an attractive target, and her chakra, when analyzed close enough, would readily explain the bite marks that covered her. Another thing that had sung true in the confusing, far too fast to be natural, ever-churning chakra of her sensei was his rage when his eyes landed on her scars.

Daiki wasn't one to let himself be led anyway by his emotions, he was a man of deep currents and quiet decisions, looking at him, one would never suspect the veritable maelstrom of quickly changing emotions that run beneath. Not from his actions, not from his words, and that was only another reason why she had reluctantly remained at his side. In the deep royal blue of his determination, which coloured his well-honed water affinity, there were flashes of pristine white outrage that disappeared as fast as they came.

Especially when talking about war, my scars, or his past days as a genin. Karin frowned as the wind subtly changed direction, warming up marginally even as her head whipped South and she tried to translate her natural sensing ability into something capable of reading the world around her. And this exercise isn't bringing me anywhere.

Karin eyed one last time the admittedly breathtaking colours, that she didn't need her glasses to actually enjoy, and headed back down, her legs swinging this and that way as she corrected her balance with precise twirls, chakra cracking the bark under her feet from time to time as her mind wavered.

With the last step forward, she dropped off from one of the lowest hanging branches, right on the side of her sensei, which was bringing to his mouth a... "Is that raw garlic?" Karin asked with disgust clearly written on her face.

Daiki laughed softly: "I'm trying to stop smoking," he revealed as he rose to his feet, "and if I need to pick up a fake identity it would be better to assume a quirky vice of some sort to give it depth. Did you manage to hear the wind?"

Karin grimaced a bit, squinting her eyes in his direction: "More or less," she gestured with her palm outstretched, "I felt the change when the wind turned colder despite the sunset, and then warmer again when the sun was completely down, so maybe that one came all the way from Suna, I don't know."

"Have you smelled it?"

"I... have not." Karin's shoulders slumped in defeat. I knew I forgot something.

"There was a faint smell of ashes in the air, what do you make of it?"

The Uzumaki felt her brain still for a brief moment: "You... you were up there!?"

Her sensei snorted as he hauled his bag over his shoulder, but didn't respond, choosing instead to keep following the trail they had been walking on for the past two days. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked as he hastened to follow him. He still refused to answer, making her huff in annoyance: "Maybe there was a camp or a battlefield not too far, I don't know, fire is pretty much everywhere, don't you know?"

"Ah, but a shinobi camp would not allow tracks so strong to be so easily picked up by the wind, so what does this tell you, my confused padawan?"

Karin gritted her teeth at the annoying title she had been saddled with: "Either they don't fear to be attacked, it's a trap, or they're civilians, but I've no idea about the distances involved, and even the direction now that I think about it, since I didn't pick up on the scent in any case."

Daiki turned sideways towards her without stopping his ineluctable march across the neverending forest of the Land of Fire, and while Karin couldn't make out his smile, the spike of deep brown... affection? or is it... wistfulness? What the hell? ... clearly conveyed that he agreed, and immediately he launched himself in a brief lesson about scent, winds, and tracking tips that accompanied them in the incoming darkness of the night.

"We aren't stopping tonight?" she asked when it appeared clear that her sensei wasn't looking around for a suitable place where they could set up camp, but as she asked, she already knew the answer.

"Breaking the sleep pattern is a bitch and half until you're trained for it, sadly there isn't a nice way to do so." he laughed carelessly as they kept their walking in the dark, "Besides, it will do wonders for your Doton, padawan."

"Stop calling me that." she grumbled, but even as the words left her mouth, she slowly allowed her consciousness to fall into herself, cutting off her sensitivity for the outer world until only her chakra remained. First step, feel your chakra, easy enough. she recalled Daiki's instructions while her mind went over her memories of the examples he had provided.

The second step, change. Karin's chakra churned a bit faster than she would have liked, likely as an answer to her slight discomfort born from the daunting task of walking through the night without light. The warm feeling of life brightened for an instant her whole being before she was able to regulate it both through breathing and by placing her hands in the boar sign: her chakra fought her every step of the way as she pushed. She was the unmovable mountain, the landslide and the harsh tip of unforgiving rocks, she thought of the neverending depths under her, of the solid tunnels of the Iwa prisoner camp, remembering the overwhelming feeling of Daiki's Doton manipulation forcing the world to obey his will.

Now the last step: manipulation. Keeping in mind that she was an unbreakable rock in the ground, she forced her Earth-natured chakra into the ground from her feet, and only then she breathed in, associating the action with a heightened focus on her feet. And with her closed eyes, she could perceive the immediate surroundings. She could feel only in a small area around herself, but it was enough: the steps of her sensei rippled over her awareness like delicate pinches over her skin, briefly illuminating his position and leaving behind a faint trace for her to follow.

With a focused frown, and forcing her mind and chakra to maintain the apparently contradictory feeling of pushing the earth around her while letting it push against her, she followed her sensei into the night.

26th May, year 14 AK

The border between Hi no Kuni ad Kaminari no Kuni was an irregular stretch of territory in which the deep forest slowly gave ground to higher territories where snow fell hard and unforgiving during the winters, only to turn into fierce torrents during spring, and a barren, rocky ground in summer, mostly because the raging mass of seasonal rivers ripped the dirt upon which greenery could grow upon from the bottom of bare limestone.

The constant attrition between the forces of the triad Suna-Kiri-Konoha and Iwa-Kumo surely didn't help, mostly because Iwa sent to support the greater numbers of Kumo shinobi a selected bunch of jonin capable of large scale doton techniques, which were coupled effectively with the odd bloodline capable of taking advantage of the irregular territory, turning against their opponents the open ground that was the battlefield.

No longer able to use the ever-shifting dunes to enhance their genjutsu, the Suna supporting forces found themselves falling behind the neverending requests for hiding this or that outpost, while the people from Kirigakure couldn't make effective use of the few and irregular torrents that so readily were poisoned by the Kumo shinobi, eager to make use of every tool in their arsenal to bleed Hi no Kuni dry before attempting the inevitable invasion.

More than them however, it was the Konoha shinobi that encountered the most difficulties, forced as they were to fight in a territory with little to no cover, where the ground was unwilling to be shaped in order to give ambush sites like it did when it was softened by the endless amount of roots that softened it in Hi no Kuni. There were no branches that could be used as advantage points, no trunks among which one could lose his tail when pursued while setting up traps.

Even so, Yamanaka Ino was far from being useless, capable as she was, and having proved the general success of her fighting style coupled with the one of Uchiha Sasuke, she was relatively happy of the regular companionship of the often laconic teen. Senbon and small genjutsu went a long way in order to make her a nuisance for whoever attempted to cross the Nobody's Ground that was the North Front of the Fourth Great Ninja War, and the ready unforgiving presence of fire that Sasuke easily rained upon their opponents, capable as he was of foreseeing their escape routes, made them a deadly duo.

In fact, despite being listed only as chunin, which was an important result, given that they were just shy of 15 years of age, they managed more often than not to drive back small teams of chunin led by a jonin, and when they were forced to fall back, least they were bottled away from the main forces of the Konoha-Suna-Kiri Triad, they did so with sharp and unforgiving cunning, which almost always cost to the invaders half of their numbers.

Since that first pivotal moment in which Sasuke had shared with her his improvised tomato soup, Ino had come to adapt and accept her role in the war, falling into a rhythm that allowed her to keep up with the constant grinding of their forces against Kumo, whose forces had, in more than an occasion, caused landslides of staggering dimensions in order to force the North Front back into Hi no Kuni. There the Triad's forces would have an easier time dealing with their opponents, pushing back once more only to return to the initial position, since fighting uphill in unfamiliar territory that was littered with traps slowed down their forces just enough for the powerhouses in Kumo and Iwa' roosters to intervene where they were needed the most.

Still, safely seated inside of Hi no Kuni's border for her days away from active duty, Ino had never felt so close to defeat: in her hands, she held a bingo book, opened upon the page of a familiar face, where her tears had smudged the ink just enough to make it difficult to read.

"Don't dwell upon it." Sasuke spoke softly from her left, his shoulder faintly touching with hers while he maniacally controlled his equipment.

Ino's cyan blue eyes landed harshly upon the profile of her comrade, unwilling to believe his words or actually recognize that he had suggested so: "What's the point of caring about people if I could simply decide to not be upset about what happens to them?"

Onyx black eyes rose to meet hers, accompanied by a single arching eyebrow: "Does it matter what he's doing now?" he asked, his mind going back to his several encounters, remembering clearly what he had ultimately gained versus the doubt he had now that he knew Daiki to be a nuke-nin. Like Itachi. A whisper sounded in the back of his head, only to by squashed by Sasuke's singular disposition towards tunnel vision.

A choking laugh left Ino's throat without her consent as she hopped to her fee, the bingo book flung from her hands with an enraged twitch of her wrist: "Does it matter?" she asked sarcastically, "Of course it does!"

"Why?" Sasuke cut back, "What you learned from him is no less true now that he's been declared nuke-nin. Your way of fighting, your way of thinking, they're just as sharp now as they were yesterday, the same goes for me. You want answers? Become strong enough to demand them." his eyes shot away towards the fallen Bingo Book while he took a deep, grounding breath, forcing himself to take a hold of his almost uncontrollable temper.

A few seconds of silence stretched between them while Ino took stock of her comrade, looking over the gangly appearance of the Uchiha which had recently started the growth spurt that would finally bring him into adulthood. It was in the way his muscles capacity changed despite the reduced time they had available for personal training, in the way his reach was sometimes miscalculated, and right then, it was in the heated voice that would have once foretold a tantrum capable of cowing any of his peers, but that had simply pushed Sasuke into taking an instant to regain control of himself.

"Is this how you deal with Itachi?" the blond kunoichi asked with a mixture of despair for how she was feeling and concern for her comrade, with a hand landing upon Sasuke's, stopping him from sharpening more an already perfect blade.

At his stiff nod, during which he didn't meet her eyes, Ino swallowed the outrage she felt every time she thought about her sensei, consciously choosing to take Sasuke's experience over her own instinctual reaction, and she seated once more at his side.

If she was a bit closer, and her proximity caused some difficulty to Sasuke, whose shoulder's movements were somewhat reduced, making him put more effort than necessary in the maintenance of his equipment, neither of them voiced it out loud.

AN

Just a build-up in this chapter I fear, but one with a couple of hidden setups if you manage to spot them, along with another window on Sasuke and Ino's development. How do you feel about that? I remind you that only Shikamaru is somewhat 'in the know' about Daiki's aims, while Ino believed him dead up until now, when she managed to get her hands upon a bingo book (the bingo books are not exactly necessary for soldiers being deployed, the missions she completes beyond skirmishes come in with their own dossier listing possible opponents of some renown, and Daiki is keeping away from Kaminari no Kuni's border).

Kakashi is contracted with a clan of dogs, I'm running with the option that he and his dogs never forget a smell, and given the random bullshit of Uzumaki's chakra, I'm running with the assumption that bloodlines are somewhat recognizable if one knows what to look for. So, Kakashi smelled something interesting, Bisuke confirmed it's an Uzumaki accompanied by a male, and in time of war, it's enough to warrant an investigation.

In this chapter, we see both his and Shikamaru's brains connect improbable dots in order to picture the 'worst case scenario': namely, Daiki the nuke-nin gallivanting towards Konoha while picking up strays. They are relieved by having only a free Uzumaki walking around, even if accompanied by a suspicious male, which they need to chek upon.

As to why neither recognized Daiki: he's not your everyday idiot, and has been preparing in order to enter the capital of the land of fire without being spotted, he can hardly do so without preparation (eating garlic is a quote of another fantasy book of which I suggest you try the first instalment), and yes, obviously he has diversions ready for people snooping in. I remember you that besides having his modified henge (exposed firstly in the chapter: Meetings II), upon which he has kept working, he's also contracted with the Snake Summons, and Orochimaru was capable of infiltrating pretty much everywhere with no issue, and you can bet that someone in Konoha knew his scent, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that he has picked up something in the meantime.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Hopes?