"... I need a drink."

Hiruzen patted the ebony-haired man's shoulder empathetically.

Uchiha Mikumo pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, eyebrows furrowing so hard that he could probably hold a card in between them.

"You'll get more wrinkles than you already have if you keep doing that, Uchiha."

Mikumo shot an irritated glare at his bitch of a best friend, Umi Haibara.

The Uchiha then dropped his head on the table, colliding into the furniture with a clattering noise. The Hokage winced- though more for the table and less for the man.

"I go missing-nin for 4 years-"

"4-and-a-half," Haibara corrected. Mikumo didn't have the energy to snap at her, so he settled with a scathing glare.

"I go missing-nin for 4-and-a-half years," He sneered. "and suddenly the clan's dead."

The Hokage gestured around vaguely with his hands. "Well, things happened."

"I think you mean that shit hit the fan," Ibiki corrected from where he was standing.

Hiruzen hit him over the head with a stack of paperwork. "Language, Ibiki-kun."

"... kun?"

The Hokage raised an eyebrow. "Is there something wrong?"

Mikumo elaborated, his patience growing thinner than his weariness. "No, but it doesn't match Ibiki's" He waved his hands around. "... aesthetic."

Ibiki snorted.

"We're straying from the topic," Sarutobi interrupted, clasping his hands together in front of him on his desk. "The children and a handful of adults survived, so you can't exactly say the clan was eradicated..."

Mikumo's head hit the wooden table.

The Hokage stared at the dent it made for a while before signing for Tenzo.

Ibiki sighed.

Haibara not-very-empathetically patted Mikumo on the shoulder.

"Anyway," The Hokage continued after Umi was forced to physically lift her best friends' head off of the table so that an ANBU could fix it. "Uchiha Shisui-"

"- did something stupid and self-sacrificial again." Mikumo interrupted grumbling.

"Well, yes, but let me be more specific," Hiruzen sipped on his tea, eyebrows furrowed. "Danzo is... evasive at best. Shisui lost one of his eyes to him, and then tried to kill himself to stop Danzo from taking his other one and using his power to do something dangerous. At first, he tried to offer it to Itachi, but apparently... well..." the Hokage waved his hand vaguely, trying to find a pleasant way to word it.

Ibiki looked at the report in his hands from the night. "-apparently, Itachi cussed him out then shoved it back into his eye socket."

Mikumo looked like he was going to have a stroke. Or a heart attack. Or an aneurysm. "Kind, polite, sweet little Itachi?!" His voice cracked three times within that sentence. "he... he cussed Shisui out then shoved his mangekyou back into his empty eye-socket?"

His orange-haired best friend beside him looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh at his wide-eyed, incomprehensive face.

"And Shisui! I have no words-" Then, his face completely relaxed, a pleasant smile reminiscent of a happy child stretched across his lips, pure and untainted.

"Oh no," Haibara whispered in horror. "He's mad mad."

The Hokage whispered to her. "Where are those flowers coming from? Is it a genjutsu?"

Mikumo was still happily smiling when he said his next words. "I'm going to rip his face off."

Ibiki winced.

Mikumo got up, smiled at the Hokage, thanked him for the tea, and left.

"A moment of silence for Shisui." The Hokage said solemnly.

Everyone pretended they didn't hear the snort coming from the corner of the room.

o.o.o.o.o

Ukiyo frowned at his window. Tsubasa stood mutely to his side.

"It's not right." Ukiyo finally said after a while.

"What isn't right, Ukiyo-sama?"

The Kage frowned at the bustling city. "Our village has been reduced to this," He whispered. "what happened to being surrounded by the sea and stone buildings and seals over every inch of our ground?"

Tsubasa's voice softened. "Ukiyo-sama, it wasn't possible inside the seal. You couldn't create large bodies of water like the sea, and we weren't able to spend a lot of time building- we needed houses fast. You said it yourself, Ukiyo-sama, that structuring seals on the terrain made by your pocket dimension is dangerous."

It was silent for a moment.

The wind from the open window tousled the young leader's hair. A wind that only carried the scent of grass and rain. The salty brush of the breeze from the sea was nowhere to be found. It felt so wrong.

"... Let's leave here. Let's go back and rebuild our Land of Whirlpools from the ground. Let's bring everyone home."

"I will bring the council in immediately, Ukiyo-sama," Tsubasa hid his smile from his voice but he knew that his master could tell. "please assign the work."

Tsubasa pushed is chakra into the seal in the corner of the office, the intricate lines glowing blue. In clan estates and houses across the village (if it could really be called that), identical seals sparked with the same color.

"Call them here if you wish," Ukiyo mumbled. "But it is more efficient if I do it myself."

Gold covered the tips of the white-haired man's fingers, long and pointy accessories that gave him claws. At first glance, the swirling indented lines may be just for show, but if you look closely, impressive handiwork climbed all the way up the gold, flowery seals carved into every inch of the metal.

Ukiyo flexed his clawed fingers before tapping them against the rim of the open window that he was leaning on, and suddenly he was gone.

Tsubasa shoved the files he was holding into the nearest paper-ninja's arms and after firing quick instructions at them, made to join Ukiyo.

Ukiyo now stood in the middle of his ruined Uzushiogakure, briny, salty sea air filling his lungs. Crumbled white buildings dirtied with time and weather surrounded him on all sides. The hand-painted swirling patterns all over the floor he stood on thrummed with chakra under his feet.

The seals were getting old, he could tell, the energy in them creaked with every pulse, groaning with age.

It had been a while since they last had a seal painting ceremony- they needed to do the ritual again once all the buildings were constructed.

He took a deep breath in. Then out again, and then in again, raising his hands to form a seal.

Layers and layers of golden seals appeared in the air in front of him, and he began to drag the lines around with his fingers.

He continued his ritual, forcing out hand seals in hard, stiff, movements. A bead of sweat began to trickle down his forehead as the ground began to rumble.

Basalt pillars emerged from the ground, tremors rippling through the earth and shaking the old, crumbling, destroyed ruins of the village.

"Please, God of waves and the guardian of Whirlpool," He whispered, almost inaudible. "restore the village that you protected for all this time."

Blinding blue chakra ripples and the village moved.

Tsubasa watched in awe as walls emerged from wet soil and made themselves into buildings, the sky darkened with clouds.

Then it began to rain.

Rain turned into a downpour, and the downpour turned into a storm.

The storm fueled the whirlpools in the sea, and fed the Gods they worshipped for so long.

In a mere hour, Uzushio was rebuilt from the ground up, and all the chakra stored over many years in the seals tattoed over Ukiyo's body was spent, and he passed out.

Tsubasa caught his Kage before he landed on the ground from exhaustion, wet hair sticking to his face and warm breath visible in the air.

"You reckless idiot," He whispered to the person he had sworn his life to for so long. The soft smile on his lips betrayed his words.

Ukiyo's yukata began to slide off of their shoulder, revealing a tightly bandaged torso.

o.o.o.o.o

Mikumo beamed.

Shisui only grinned at him. "Yo." The drop of sweat rolling down his cheek and his neck betrayed his nonchalance.

"You," Mikumo stated, voice not angry, nor piercing. Just gentle and cheerful. "You self-sacrificial bastard."

Shisui dramatically placed his hand on his chest. He would never admit that he was scared of his younger cousin. Never. "Mikkun!" He wailed, almost in falsetto, and the nickname rolling off of his tongue like honey. "Your stinging words hurt me right here! I feel like I could die!"

"Well then," Mikumo grabbed his cousin's face and lifted him up by it, veins tensing enough to be visible through his skin. "perish."

Shisui crumpled into the dirt ground as Mikumo dropped him, sobbing and reaching a hand out for the figure that was leaving. "Mikkun!"

Sasuke, who had just gotten home from training and had just arrived at the front gates of the compound with Naruto and Shikamaru made the most disgusted face his pre-puberty face could make. Shisui withered further into the ground at his glare.

"Akiko-chan~" He wailed to one of the Uchiha women who was walking past. Said woman flinched, obviously loathing having been spotted before she could make her escape from the overly energetic Uchiha. "Save me, I'm being bullied by Mikkun and Sasu-chan!"

Akiko decided to scoff and continue plucking the shuriken out of the training post she was abusing before she had been called on. "I'm not the one getting run under by a twelve-year-old."

Shisui gasped in mock betrayal. "How could you turn your back on me like this?! We're family, Akiko-chan!"

"Are you sure about that, Shisui?" Sasuke asked as he stepped into the house. "You don't act like an Uchiha."

At this, Naruto squinted at Sasuke's cousin as he took off his sandals. "There is something funky about you."

Shikamaru snorted as Sasuke cackled.

"Yeah, Shisui, the only thing that's Uchiha about you are your eyes." By now, Mikumo had gone inside, changed his ninja gear into house clothes, and returned outside.

"After all my sacrifices for you guys," Shisui bemoaned as he picked himself up from the ground. "This is what I get in return."

Akiko's face softened, and she slapped the man on the back. "Yeah, we're really grateful for you Shisui," Her eyes creased into moons as she smiled. "Thank you."

"Thank you, Shisui!" Sasuke called, grinning widely.

The curly-haired boy's face flushed pink. "Wait- hold on, don't compliment me, that's so weird!"

Mikumo started laughing before he slung an arm over Shisui's shoulders. "You did some good here while I was gone, didn't you, cousin?"

Shisui continued spluttering, unable to answer.

"I think we broke him." Sasuke stated as steam came off of his older cousin's head.

o.o.o.o.o

Kakashi stared.

Gojo dropped his cup of soda.

Naruto's jaw hung open and Sasuke's face turned completely red.

Shikamaru was asleep.

Sakura who had walked into the clothes store after seeing team seven inside looked as elated as a chipmunk on steroids.

Inoichi was apologizing profusely.

"Hono-san! You look gorgeous!" Ino squealed. "Give us a twirl!"

Hono complied, brushing a stray lock of red hair behind his ear.

The light-blue dress fanned out around him as he spun, the sunhat that Sakura had placed on his head had to be held down so it wouldn't fly off.

Hono and Gojo were hanging out with Team 7- and the events that happened after weren't very clear. Yamanaka Ino was window-shopping with her father and she spotted him and abducted him.

She had grabbed Hono, said something to him- too quickly for him to hear properly, and dragged him into several clothing stores and told him to try on dresses.

Hono didn't really mind wearing dresses and such. He was often sent to seduction missions because of his body shape, after all. So he complied.

"Hono-nii!" Naruto screeched, finally snapping out of his stupor and clapping his hands to his face in horror. "are you sure you're not a woman?"

"I assure you I am a man, Naruto," Hono said. "I was born a man and it's never changed."

Naruto then looked at his teammate beside him. "... Oi, Sasuke! Your face is so red! are you alright?"

"Sh-shut up, dobe! My face is not red!"

It was silent for a moment as everyone stared at Sasuke incredulously, and then Naruto looked like a light bulb just lit in his head.

"Sasuke~" He leered. "You have a crush on Hono-nii, don't you?"

The Uchiha sputtered, and suddenly, he felt bad for teasing Shisui as much as he did that morning. "I do not!"

"Ew, Sasuke, you have a crush on my big brother!"

The black-haired genin pounced on his friend in retaliation, and they both landed in a heap of arms and legs on top of Shikamaru who was really just trying to sleep in peace.

Kakashi tossed them out of the store by the backs of their shirts before they damaged any of the merchandise.

"I'm so sorry, Uzumaki-san, My daughter is just so used to having her way," Inoichi apologized, flustered. "she inherited that from me..."

"It's okay, Yamanaka-sama," Hono reassured. "Just Hono is fine, we have two Uzumaki here."

"Then please, call me Inoichi."

The two men began light chatter about various things, politics, the weather, lives as shinobi, and the like.

Ino had stealthily slapped stacks of cash on the counter, purchasing all 5 sets of clothing that she had Hono try on in the shop, and grabbed the four bags of things before she latched onto Hono and dragged him out of the store.

"Hono-san!" She exclaimed as she pushed him into Kakashi. "You guys are on a date!"

Kakashi's face shuttered. "... Huh?"

"No, Ino-chan!" Gojo cried, "If anything, Hono-chan here should be on a date with me!"

Sakura clicked her tongue, waving her finger in front of him in a disapproving manner. "Wrong!"

"Why!?"

Ino took a deep breath, holding it dramatically. "Because this is an official mission assigned to Hatake Kakashi by the Jounin commander, Nara Shikaku-sama!"

It was quiet.

"Ino," Her father began. "didn't you tell me to come out here with you so I could hold the things you wanted to buy?"

"I never said that. I just asked you to come out to town with me. You just assumed those were my intentions."

"But-"

"-Anyway," Ino interrupted her father. "Shikaku-oji sent a letter to Uzukage-sama asking to borrow you, and he got permission. He told me to dress Hono-san up because I'm good at those kinds of things."

Kakashi did a 180 and went into work mode. "Do you have the mission scroll?"

The Yamanaka heiress tossed it to him wordlessly.

Hono and Gojo peeked over Kakashi's shoulder to see.

"A-rank mission to infiltrate a village at the border..."

Hono hummed. "Basically, pretend to be a couple and weed out a serial killer there that's been terrorizing... heterosexual couples?"

Ino shoved a baby blue parasol and the bags of clothing into Hono's hands. "Here are the clothes I bought with the disguise budget."

"Hold on," Shikamaru said. "why isn't one of our female infiltration ninja going with Kakashi-sensei?"

"Because most of them are out on missions and the ones we have left are newbies that are very likely to get attached to Kakashi."

Shikamaru turned towards the voice. "Ah, pops."

"Hey," The jonin commander greeted, ruffling his son's head.

"Uh, excuse me?" Sakura began politely. "What do you mean by 'get attached'?"

Kakashi groaned, burying his face into the palms of his hands. "I was hoping you wouldn't ask...!"

Shikaku grinned, eyes lit up with mirth. "Jounin Hatake Kakashi takes his mask off for infiltration and seduction missions. I'd say his face is more of a hidden trump card than anything else he has in his arsenal. Anyway, we need the flashiest people possible, so who'd be better than the prettiest shinobi in Konoha at the moment and Kakashi?"

Gojo cackled before patting Kakashi on the back in an attempt to be sympathetic.

"Wait!" Naruto cried. "I thought Kaka-sensei wore the mask to hide his ugly face!"

Shikamaru made of show of nodding solemnly. "Yes, like his buck teeth or blimp lips."

Inoichi chuckled. "That's what he told you?"

"That doesn't explain why it has to be Hono-san that has to take on this mission," Sasuke interrupted to teasing of Kakashi, much to the Jounin teacher's relief. "we have a lot of men in the ranks that are suited for this job. I know because Itachi was one of them."

"First off," Shikaku began. "Hono is the most feminine-looking one in the village at the moment. The male shinobi would require a lot of makeup caked on their faces to pass off as women. Secondly, we're trading some shinobi between the two villages, so we're seeing what Hono's got."

Sasuke and Shikamaru accepted the reasons without a word.

"Kaka-sensei..." Naruto began, voice so unusually steady that Kakashi felt a bone-chilling sense of foreboding. "Sasuke, Shika, get him."

"With pleasure." The two boys said in unison.

All three of the genin pounced on him at once, and not long after, Sakura and Ino joined in.

"Why does a jerk like this guy get a nice face?!" Naruto screamed in fury. "Unmask him!"

"Yes, sir!"

Kakashi, low-key terrified, made a run for it.

Hono snorted as he rolled up the mission scroll.

Shikaku sighed. "Shikamaru before would have said that it would have been too troublesome a few months ago... Naruto's been a good influence on him."

Hono assumed the man was talking to himself and then found that, to his dismay, female clothing never had enough pockets. He could tie a kunai holster onto his thigh under the skirt, and that was about it.

Gojo hummed as he watched Hono fret over the lack of weapons he was able to carry on him. "You could hide some senbon in your hair, Hono."

"We both know that my senbon-wielding level barely passes Jounin rank, Gojo."

"But better than nothing, right?"

The redhead sighed. "I guess."

"... Do you think those kids are going to succeed?"

"Hell no."

o.o.o.o.o

All of the Konoha genin took their positions in front of the gate. Jounin always dressed up in their disguises before they left for their missions, and in hopes of witnessing Kakashi's bare face, the genin gathered, planning through the night and the morning to devise a plan to capture the Jounin and get a good look at his face before he ran for it.

"He's here!" Naruto whisper shouted into the earpiece.

"Got it," Sasuke said. "everyone, hide your chakra!"

All of the chakra signals diminished, and only Naruto's remained.

Kakashi would only assume that Naruto was here now, which was laughably predictable. They had ventured to Ino's clan compound last night to learn how to hide their chakra for the sake of their mission, after all.

Seconds later, Kakashi and Hono appeared, walking side by side. Kakashi, the bastard, and placed a genjutsu over his face so his features wouldn't be distinguishable.

"Kakashi," Kotetsu began, breathless. "Who's that redheaded beauty beside you?"

"Yeah," Izumo agreed. "we don't have anyone in our seduction unit with that face. Miss, what's your name? Are you free this Saturday?"

Kakashi coughed into his hand to hide his laugh.

Hono just smiled amicably. "I'm Uzumaki Hono. I happen to be a man, and I'm very asexual, so if you are asking me out on a date, please refrain from doing so."

Izumo was so shocked he stopped functioning. Kotetsu looked like he was asking himself what life was.

The genin tried very hard not to wheeze out loud.

Quickly recovering, they jumped into action.

Naruto jumped in as a distraction, Hinata, Neji, and Kiba blocked all the exits, and Shikamaru stood in front of the gate like some sort of last boss.

Sakura and Ino hid in the rooftops, Lee was in his battle stance and Tenten had her scroll ready behind Kakashi, ready to fight him as another distraction.

Just behind the gate, behind Izumo who was desperately trying to suppress his laughter, was Sasuke, Sharingan activated so that he could capture Kakashi's face and embed it into his memory so that he could draw it out for the other genin.

Chouji hid in an alleyway, ready to bulldoze over the Jounin if need be. Shino was readying his bugs to swarm the Jounin.

"Shintenshin no jutsu!" Ino yelled outbefore collapsing into the ground.

Sakura, in a flash, shunshinned behind Kakashi and held his arms back.

Ino, now in the ninja's body, stood very still and used all of her concentration to fight off Kakashi in his mind. Naruto was only milliseconds from unravelling the genjutsu, was flung back by a wave of chakra, Sakura was thrown into a wall, and Ino reinhabited her body.

Just as Kakashi regained control, Shino used his bugs to swarm him, and that 3-second distraction gave Shikamaru enough time.

"Kagemane no jutsu!" The Nara heir's shadow darted out to meet with Kakashi's and sweat dripping down his forehead (because holy shit Kakashi was pulsing a lot of chakra to break the jutsu), he put his hands together in the release seal.

While the genin watched in anticipation, Kakashi was thinking. If he didn't let the kids see his face, he would really piss them off, which already sounded like the most amazing option in his head because he was an asshole. However, he could show them hi face as a reward because this was incredibly well-coordinated for a bunch of 13-year-olds, and they wouldn't bother him about his face again. Cons of this option was that this life-long gag of his would fall into ruin.

Kakashi let his student undo the genjutsu.

Sasuke burned his teacher's face into his mind.

Naruto screamed in agony. "My eyes...!" He cried. "I've been blinded!"

Ino looked like she was reevaluating her life decisions.

Lee fainted, and Tenten had steam coming off of her head.

"Why is life so unfair?!" Kiba yelled out nobody in particular.

Sakura was banging her head into a wall. "Stop thinking Sakura, he's like, thirty, stop thinking... stop thinking..."

Neji and Hinata promptly became catatonic, unable to express the complicated thoughts running through their minds.

Shino stopped responding, Chouji dropped his bag of chips, and Shikamara's face was completely blank as he released the jutsu.

Sasuke, now unable to remove the image from his mind, looked haunted as he replaced the genjutsu over his teacher's face. "Please hide that until you leave the village, sensei. Just... oh my God."

"What the fuck is that face?!" Kotetsu whisper screamed at his friend. "Is he even real?!"

Izumo didn't respond.

Even Hono was staring. "Yeah," He began after a moment to sort out his thoughts. "I can see why you need to cover three-quarters of your face."

The two left, dragging their luggage with them as the children behind them stood still as statues.

"Oh no," Tenten spoke up as the two left. "he's hot."

There were no objections to her words.