Yin Dimension - Lightning Hound
Infiltration was his speciality. Years of slinking among the shadows at the Anbu Root headquarters had honed his stealth to the point where Danzo had deemed him competent enough to assign him on a mission in enemy territory. For a little over a year, Kakashi had disguised himself as an Iwa citizen and spied on them.
He was the youngest one to have been sent. Kakashi was also the only one to make it back alive.
Following the end of the Third Great Ninja War and during the time of passive aggression with Kumo, Kakashi found himself entering and exiting their village so many times that even he had lost count. Either their defenses were too easily penetrable or he was just that good.
Regardless, it didn't really matter. As long as the mission was complete, that was all that anyone cared about.
Although reviving - was that what even happened? - in this body retained his mindset for infiltration, Kakashi wasn't certain that his counterpart's body was suited to utilize his go-to tactics for sneaking around. Not to mention, being caught off guard once by the execution of a Mangekyo ability that wasn't his, was more than enough for Kakashi to dedicate three days to figuring out his counterpart's specialities and jutsus.
Kakashi really didn't fancy being surprised, especially not while neck deep in enemy territory.
Three days' worth of experimentation - most of the time had been wasted to recuperate his chakra pools, much to his dismay - Kakashi noted some clear discrepancies between their skill sets.
His Sharingan was less developed. From the clarity of the vision in his left eye, it was evident that the other Kakashi didn't use the Mangekyo Sharingan much, or even at all. Beyond that, the lag that Kakashi experienced when layering genjutsu with the Sharingan meant that his counterpart was hardly genjutsu proficient. Despite lacking in those areas, Kakashi found that execution of ninjutsu flowed with a lot more ease than in his own body. With the three natures that he hardly used, wind, fire and water, Kakashi found his proficiency to have increased with the few random jutsus he copied over the years. Even his lightning nature, which Kakashi didn't think he could get any more adept with, was better.
A ninjutsu powerhouse. The ninjutsu added to his previously acquired arsenal would make him versatile in every possible situation he could land himself in. He would definitely need everything he could get, considering it was impossible to tell what sort of trouble he was going to land himself into.
This time, Kakashi approached Konoha from the opposite side of their main gates. From his vantage point in the trees, Kakashi spotted one chunin from the tower with a set of binoculars in his hands. Sweeping the surroundings in a consistent left and right motion, Kakashi mentally calculated his sight range and the number of seconds he had to avoid the sweep. A second chunin was pacing along the walkway of the wall, throwing an occasional glance here and there. Although his lackluster attitude seemed to make Kakashi's infiltration plans a bit easier, it turned out to be harder.
The unpredictability would be a problem.
Perched on the branch of a tree, Kakashi spent the next hour mapping out his plan and factoring in the "what ifs" in case things went wrong. Two back up plans were made for if the second chunin happened to spot him, depending on where their positions were if he caught him. Three more plans were made for the chunin in the watchtower and then two more contingency plans were filed away in the back of his mind in case things went horribly wrong. One of them included an extensive retreat plan.
During the course of his entire career, never once did Kakashi have to follow through with the retreat plan, but it was there as a just-in-case. He would be foolish to not have one.
Time ticked away. The sun began to set, the sky emitting an orange, yellow hue. Hidden among the leaves, Kakashi bided his time by munching on a ration bar. Crumpling the wrapper and stuffing it in his pocket, Kakashi pulled up his mask in its rightful place right as his mental timer gave him the cue to get going. He hopped down from the trees, using a bit of chakra to mask the sound of his landing.
His eyes flickered to the two guards. Neither of them made any indication something was amiss. Good.
After weaving the signs for the camouflage jutsu, Kakashi darted across the clearing, making a break for the wall. Taking advantage of the five second window of when the chunin with binoculars would be scanning the other side, Kakashi eliminated the distance between him and the wall. Kakashi had already made it, back pressed against the wall, when the second chunin spared a glance downward.
Phase one, completed.
He inched slowly along the wall. Occasionally, his gaze flickered upward to pinpoint the first chunin's location based on the location of his shadow. Once Kakashi was standing directly underneath him, he channelled a bit of chakra to the soles of his feet.
And then he climbed.
Kakashi paused when his fingertips fell short of touching the ledge. Turning his head, Kakashi eyed the second chunin, who had just walked back to the point closest to the tower. He turned, heading back in the other direction. Kakashi waited, wanting him to be as far away as possible when Kakashi attacked.
Once Kakashi was satisfied with his distance, he swung himself over the ledge. The startled chunin barely had gotten an oumph out of his voice before Kakashi knocked him unconscious. Undoing his camouflage technique, Kakashi quickly performed a transformation jutsu, layered with a bit of genjutsu to mirror the first chunin's appearance. Snatching the binoculars from his loose grip, Kakashi settled into position just as the other chunin turned to make his way back.
"Oi, everything good over there? I thought I heard a noise."
Kakashi made a show of sweeping the surroundings. "Everything's good." The second chunin took his word for it. Once he turned the other way, Kakashi abandoned the binoculars and darted into the watchtower. Clambering up the stairs two steps at a time, Kakashi rounded the winding, spiral stairs until he reached the very top where the control room was located.
The control room.
His Konoha had four watchtowers on each side of the village. Naturally, the main gates were more heavily guarded than the other three, but the defenses were hardly lacking. A sensory barrier had been erected all around the village, designed to detect foreign presences. In each watchtower was a control room, where the barrier could be deactivated with a passcode. Kakashi never understood the point of that, but now the knowledge was finally coming in handy.
Good to know that this Konoha had been designed the same exact way.
The door was locked with fingerprint recognition or a passcode. Smart, since no matter how good his transformation jutsu was, Kakashi could never mimic a person's fingerprint. His only options were to go back down and drag the unconscious chunin's body up here to use his fingerprint or try to crack the passcode. The former was much too risky, so Kakashi didn't even consider it.
Cracking the passcode then.
Kakashi squatted down, examining the keypad from every single angle. The passcode was a series of numbers containing the numbers 2, 4, 5, and 6 but there were a multitude of possible combinations from just this string of numbers alone. That didn't factor in the potential of one of the numbers being repeated, which Kakashi highly suspected was the case judging from how worn out the number 6 looked compared to the others.
Six digit number codes were part of Konoha's protocol, at least in his world. Running on the assumption that the protocol was the same here too, then the 6 had to be the repeated number. There could be two sixes or three of them and if there were two, Kakashi couldn't tell what the other repeated number was. Too many possibilities and not enough time.
There were only five minutes left until the next guard shift came. Either he made it into Konoha in those five minutes or he retreated. If he stayed, Kakashi would most certainly pay another visit to prison and he was not looking forward to trying to break himself out again, especially since Konoha would add extra precautions this time.
Kakashi wasn't a quitter. Five minutes was more than plenty; he had been in plenty of dire circumstances before and still made it out alright. Forming his pointer fingers into a cross, with a poof of air, a clone emerged next to him. After explaining the plan to his clone, Kakashi peered below to see where the second chunin was located.
His back was facing him, just as Kakashi needed it. Swinging himself over the ledge, Kakashi allowed gravity to take over, hurtling him back down to the first level. Chakra masked the noise of his fall. Grabbing the binoculars once more, Kakashi acted the part of the chunin once more.
Right as the other chunin was heading back towards him, a tapping noise sounded from above. Kakashi craned his neck above, pointing the binoculars in the direction of the control room. His clone, having transformed into a nondescript henge, was laying flat on his stomach on the rooftop. In another minute, another noise would sound, just like they planned.
"Oi, did you hear that?" the other chunin yelled. At that moment, Kakashi highly questioned how that guy even made it to chunin level. Even if there was anyone up there, his shouting would have alerted the intruder. Anyone with half a brain would be long gone by the time they went up to investigate.
"I don't see anyone," Kakashi called back, equally as loud. "Should we go up and take a look?" That was all it took for him to agree. He was the first to go up the stairs; Kakashi followed three steps behind him. Before reaching the very top, the other chunin had enough sense to pull out a kunai in case of confrontation.
Not that there would be any because his clone had long poofed out of existence. Kakashi mimicked his action. The chunin rushed forward to the top step, his eyes sweeping the area wildly. Kakashi played his part in covering the other chunin's back, morphing his chakra to match the intensity of his.
His arm dropped to his side. "There's no one here."
Kakashi pointed to the door. "Maybe in there?"
"That's impossible." The chunin shook his head. "You can only get in with a passcode or fingerprint recognition. No one knows the passcode except for the Hokage and a few trusted aides." Now was not the time for the guy to suddenly become smart. Kakashi somehow needed to convince him to open the door but it seemed like his chances were diminishing by the second.
Hopefully, one last push would convince him. "It wouldn't hurt to check. There might be some teleportation jutsu that can bypass the locked door. Something like the Fourth Hokage's jutsu." When Kakashi saw the chunin mulling over his words, Kakashi knew he had him.
"You have a point," the chunin said. "I'll go open the door. You can stay out here and watch my back."
Everything was going according to plan. The chunin inched towards the locked door. Kakashi scooted closer too, playing his part of guarding the chunin. Holding out a kunai in front of him, Kakashi turned his head every few seconds in case of an impending threat. All the while, his peripheral vision watched as the chunin leaned forward to press his thumb against the fingerprint pad. His thumb remained in place for a few seconds as the reader matched his fingerprint to the database.
When time began to drag, Kakashi wondered if the chunin even had access at all. His worries turned out to be unfounded when he heard the telltale noise of a beep and a soft click. The chunin's hand wrapped around the handle of the door, pressing it downwards, before he pushed the door open.
The door had already been opened when Kakashi knocked him out with a clean strike to a pressure point on his neck. The chunin crumpled, lying unconscious at his feet. Stepping over him, Kakashi entered the unlocked room.
His plan had been a success.
It wasn't over yet. In two minutes, the next round of guards would show up for their shift. At that point, seeing the unconscious guards would blow his cover. Kakashi intended to be out of here by the time that happened, but there was one more passcode that he needed to crack. The passcode that would allow him to shut down the sensory barrier, and one that only selected people knew.
In his world, Kakashi had been one of those selected people. In fact, as a show of faith, Danzo had allowed him to pick the latest password. The protocol usually called for the leader of the village to pick the code, so Kakashi's best chance at cracking it was to think like Minato. Unfortunately he never had much interaction with Minato in his world even prior to his defection so he only knew the surface level details. The same sort of information that everyone else knew.
When Kakashi approached the machine, the screen automatically lit up. Text flashed across the screen.
To activate or deactivate any features, please input the password.
Beneath it was the starter sentence was a series of blanks, indicating that the answer was a phrase or a short sentence.
His was "Self-sacrifice is a ninja's duty." What would Minato's be? Even thinking back to his childhood when Minato was still loyal to the village, Kakashi couldn't recall any particular phrase that stood out. The name of his Hiraishin jutsu was the most obvious choice but when Kakashi input that as the code, an error message flashed across the screen.
The fire's shadow illuminates the village.
A soft voice popped into his mind. Just as quickly as it came, the voice went silent. While Kakashi was curious to know why that sentence had popped inside his mind, he was mentally counting down to less than thirty seconds. Thirty seconds before he needed to leave. His last chance before his retreat plan would go into effect. Hurriedly entering the words into the system, Kakashi held his breath as he pressed enter.
The system stalled and Kakashi wondered if he was going to receive another error message. Feet already turned, Kakashi was ready to bolt when the system light flashed green. All of the control options populated on the screen of the dashboard. A sigh of relief escaped from his lips.
From the sound of the footsteps, they were headed his way, rapidly. Kakashi hastily selected the option to deactivate the barrier. The screen showed a ten second countdown for when the sensory barrier would be taken down. Five seconds in, the next guards on shift had already reached the top level. Their unconscious comrade distracted their attention for two more seconds. Another second for them to notice the ajar door. One more for them to rush over and push the door open.
When the tenth second hit, the guards were greeted with the sight of an empty room, filled with the light beeping from the activated system. When their eyes spotted the open window, they knew something had gone wrong.
Meanwhile, Kakashi had made his way into Konoha, completely undetected and blending right into the crowd like he belonged all along.
When Minato saw Urashi barge into the Hokage's office, forgoing his usual polite knock, and looking completely out of breath, a sinking feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. "Hokage sama, the southern tower…"
That was all Minato needed to hear before he teleported to the control room located in the southern watchtower. Having previously left a teleportation marking there, Minato arrived in a split second, but even so, judging from the aftermath, he had been much too late. The system had already been activated. Two chunins were just coming too, rubbing their eyes as they gathered their bearings.
Minato walked briskly over to the control pad. Inputting his password once more - Minato couldn't believe someone had managed to crack his password - he selected the option to change the password. On the spot, he changed it to something completely random and arbitrary, a series of random words strung together. He made a mental note to relay that to the rest of his personnel, but not before he did a thorough check through for any moles.
After changing the passcode and activating the sensory barrier once more, Minato shut off the system. Heading back over to the two chunins, Minato squatted down so that he was eye level with them.
"Could you tell me what happened?" Firm, yet still understanding.
Riku was the one to start, describing how he heard a noise from the watchtower. Apparently, he had gone up to investigate with Kota, to which Kota interjected and vehemently denied. Minato requested Kota to allow Riku to finish speaking before explaining his side of the story.
Riku continued. "When I came up, there was no one here. I was going to head back down but Kota insisted that I should check the control room. The last thing I remembered was opening the door and then I was knocked out."
Right after Riku finished, Kota immediately launched into his explanation of how one moment he was on watch and the next a figure had appeared and knocked him out cold. "Anything that Riku said that I did, I didn't do. I wasn't even awake to do any of those things."
"I swear it was you," Riku insisted. "The person looked just like you."
Before this could spiral into an argument of who was right and who was wrong, Minato interjected. "Riku, could you think for a moment and tell me if the person who you spoke with sounded like Kota?"
Riku's eyebrows knit together. "Hmm, now that I think about it, his voice sounded a bit deeper?" A delayed pause, followed by a gasp. "Are you saying that the person I met wasn't Kota?"
Minato nodded. "The intruder knocked out Kota and then transformed into him before you noticed. The entire time, you were interacting with the intruder. His fingerprint wouldn't have worked on the keypad, so he devised a way to trick you into opening the door for him. When you did, he knocked you out."
Riku's mouth parted. "Gomen! I should have been more vigilant. I can't believe I helped the intruder get in…" From his reaction, Minato concluded that it was an innocent mistake. Not that Minato really suspected him to be the mole; Riku didn't know the passcode to the barrier.
Two pressing matters: find the mole and the intruder. However, without even a chakra imprint stored in their system since their barrier was down when the intruder entered, looking for him was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Now that he was in Konoha, he could be anyone. The intruder had already been successful in impersonating someone, which spoke highly of his infiltration capabilities.
In short, Minato could trust no one.
Teleporting back to his office, Minato called for a group of Anbu to meet at the rooftops. In a matter of five minutes, the team assembled. Minato rattled off instructions for them to search for a foreign presence in the village, keeping in mind to not let the rest of the village notice that something was amiss. His next step was to close off entry in and out of the village for the next three days.
Three days. Hopefully, if things went his way, they would only need hours. Except the administrative process of denying entry into the village was cumbersome so Minato played it safe by ordering a longer time frame.
Now, it was a waiting game. Aimlessly scouring the streets was probably a fruitless act, but Minato had to do something. His best bet was to catch him when the intruder emerged to accomplish whatever he had come for. In the meantime, Minato would have to stay one step ahead of his clever opponent.
Cleverness, a good trait for a shinobi to possess, yet that made an enemy all the more dangerous.
A/N: Hi again!
Hope you enjoyed the first bit of the infiltration arc. It'll mostly be Kakashi POV but I like to sneak some Minato POV in there since he's seeing the other side of the situation haha. These two are at odds in both worlds, sadly.
Ari: Yup, the Hidden Rain was one of the later additions but I thought it was fitting and an interesting layer. :) Kakashi did know Rin - which you will find out later! haha yeah I figured everyone like Blood Hound (me too but he's a hard character to write lol). As always, thanks so much for your thoughts and rec's! :)
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy!
-MM