Notes:

For the time being, I'll be posting two chapters per day. So please make sure you've read chapter 3 as well!

Enjoy!

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Chapter 4: Meeting Magic

Kakashi stretched as he woke up. Slowly blinking the sleep from his eyes. He was glad he was able to get a few hours of sleep. He had definitely needed it, especially after taking that soldier pill. It was great for getting a boost, but after a few hours he got extremely fatigued, which forced him to rest. He glanced to the other side of the room, watching Tenzou as he still slept.

Due to the fast pace he had set, they had made it to the palace around two in the morning. Soaking wet and out of breath, the team had arrived at the palace. They then reported to the head guard to gain entry. Seeing the state they were in, the head guard had offered them the guestrooms, where they could take a shower and rest. It wouldn't be possible to deliver the scroll to the daimyo until morning anyway, and his team looked like they were about to fall over, so Kakashi had taken the offer.

They had been given two rooms, so they split up in pairs and each took a room. As per usual, Rabbit and Crow were quick to pair up. He wasn't surprised, really. He didn't know if they thought no one had noticed, but to him it was quite obvious how their scents had intermingled. Not to mention the lingering scent of sex that he smelled, whenever they shared a room together. But what they did in their own time was their business. As long as it didn't compromise the mission, he really didn't care what they were up to.

The need to pee brought him out of his stupor. He didn't want to get up, though. The bed was quite comfortable, especially since he's been camping out on the floor for the past week. It was still quite early, so he closed his eyes and allowed himself to snooze. When the feeling of needing to pee got almost unbearable after about ten minutes, he reluctantly sat up. He silently got up and padded to the bathroom. He wasn't sure if Tenzou was still sleeping but if he was, he didn't want to wake him just yet. They still had about fifteen minutes before the meeting, so he'd give him another five before he had to get up.

After emptying his bladder, he looked at his reflection in the mirror and grimaced. There were actually bags forming under his eyes, damn. Lowering his mask, he opened the tap and held out his hands to form a bowl. He threw the cold water in his face, effectively waking himself up. He grabbed one of the towels and dried his face, lifting his mask back up and went back into the room. Tenzou was sitting up in his own bed, staring into space, still half asleep it seemed.

As he entered the room, Tenzou looked up at him. "Morning, senpai," he greeted softly, his brown hair sticking out in all nodded at him, grabbing the items he had taken off before going to sleep. "I'm going to wake the others, be in the foyer in ten."

"Alright." Tenzou responded, also getting up.

Kakashi walked out of the room and softly closed the door before venturing to the left. He knocked on the door that was on his right. A few seconds later, the door was opened by Rabbit.

"Captain," she greeted, her shoulder length purple hair looking quite tousled.

"Grab your gear, I'm meeting the daimyo in ten minutes, so be in the foyer in by then so we can leave straight away. Don't be late, either of you."

She nodded her head, before closing the door again. He heard a muted "Get up, Shi" followed by a thud and a "DAMN IT, YU", before he turned, shaking his head and made his own way downstairs. Honestly, it was like working with children sometimes. Well, technically there were.

As he entered the foyer, he was greeted by one of the advisors. "Good morning Anbu-san. Thank you for meeting the daimyo this early, I was informed that you arrived quite late last night."

Kakashi nodded. "It's no problem," he said.

"If you're ready, I'll go inform the daimyo of your presence. Please wait here," the advisor told him, as he walked into the great hall where the daimyo received his guests.

A few minutes later the door to the great hall opened as the advisor stepped out. "The daimyo will see you now," he stated signalling for Kakashi to follow him.

He followed the man inside the great hall. He never really understood why they needed a room this big. Unfortunately it'd be rude Body-Flicker to the other end of the room, so he had to walk the whole way. A waste of time, if you asked him. But it's probably best to not piss of the daimyo by showing disrespect, especially since he needed something from him.

Stopping in front of the daimyo, he bowed to show his respect. "Daimyo-sama."

"I wasn't informed that Anbu were coming here. State your business." Ah, straight to the point. Good. He wasn't in the mood for chitchat.

He reached into his pouch and pulled the scroll out. "Hokage-sama offered his apologies that he wasn't able to inform you beforehand. The moment this information became available, we were immediately sent here." Kakashi explained as he handed one of the advisors the scroll, who then handed it to the daimyo.

He waited patiently for the daimyo to read the scroll. He definitely did not roll his eyes when the daimyo went over it a second and even a third time. He knew that they were testing his patience and if he were to try and rush things, they would make it a point to drag it out as long as they could. Simple power play. It was a good thing he was a shinobi, because politics really wasn't for him. It's much easier to track someone down and assassinate them.

"I'm assuming you need to take the scroll back immediately?" The daimyo asked, the annoyance clear in his voice.

"Yes sir. Hokage-sama requested that if you were to agree to the content, that you would sign it. He expressed that it's of the upmost importance that the scroll is delivered back as soon as possible."

"Hmm, very well then." The daimyo scribbled something on the scroll, before rolling it back and handing it to the advisor to give it back to Kakashi. "If that's all, you're dismissed." He said, annoyance clear in his voice and waved his hand.

Kakashi did roll his eyes then, grateful for the mask. He bowed once more before turning on his heel to walk back to the foyer. Upon reaching it, he saw his team waiting for him.

"We're done here. Let's go. Same formation as before," he ordered.

They simultaneously replied with an "yessir" as they followed his lead. Once outside, he looked up. He was glad to see the sky was clear. Not a single cloud in the sky, which surprised him after the heavy rainfall they had to deal with the night before. The sun had barely risen, indicating it was still quite early. While it was important that the scroll was delivered back to the Hokage it wasn't crucial that it had to happen as soon as possible. He only told the daimyo that, because he didn't want to stay there, a little white lie couldn't hurt in this case. So he figured they could do with a bit of a slower pace than yesterday. He didn't want to run his team ragged. Again.

After running for about two hours, Kakashi found a clearing, signing to his team to stop. Neither of them had eaten anything and he figured a small break to eat something couldn't hurt. All four of them removed their masks and placed them beside them. Kakashi dug around in his pouch and took out a ration bar.

"Honestly, captain, I don't get how you eat those things voluntarily. They're disgusting." Shisui said, wrinkling his nose. He also dug through his pouch, and pulled out a small package containing… of course. He should've known.

"Really? You brough dango with you?" Kakashi asked, raising his eyebrow

"What? It's only a short mission." He shrugs, "besides, I was going to eat them yesterday but then we had to leave, so I had no time." He explained.

"You're an idiot, Shi" Yugao said, as she gave him a shove. "But since you've brought them, surely you don't mind sharing them." She said as she snatched a piece and put it in her mouth.

"Damn it, Yu! Stop stealing my food!"

"Stop being a baby about it!"

Kakashi shook his head, as he tuned out the bickering pair. Looking at Tenzou, he saw his shoulders moving up and down, indicating that he was trying to hold in his laughter. Really, Tenzou too? He almost missed Genma. Although, scratch that, it was probably best Genma wasn't here as well. He'd join in just for the hell of it.

They stayed in the clearing for another fifteen minutes, before he called them together.

"Alright, let's start moving again. We've got another two hours to go."

They all nodded, placing their masks back on. "Good, I can't wait to eat some more when we're back. The dango was far from enough, since someone decided to steal some." Shisui said, while looking at Yugao.

"If it weren't for your obvious clan-traits, I'd definitely think you would be an Akimichi." Yugao joked. "All you think about is food."

"Oi, oi, I'm nothing like the Akamichi! I'm a proud Uchiha, thank you very much!"

"In all honesty, you're nothing like an Uchiha, save for your looks. Your black eyes and dark hair are a dead giveaway." Kakashi supplied.

"Now, hold on- wait, you're right about that, actually, captain. There's no way I could be that grim all the time. Just imagine the headache that you would have from frowning all the time, not to mention the wrinkles it causes!"

"Oh, the horror, Shi!" Yugao replied.

They all laughed at that. Kakashi was glad Shisui wasn't anything like his clansmen. He could still feel the displeased looks from them when I got the Sharingan. It's not like he asked Obito for his eye. Frankly, he'd rather have Obito than the eye. At the thought of Obito, his heart ached. It's been six years and he still felt hollow. That was the one of the reasons he kept on doing back-to-back missions, even at the cost of his own health. If he was too busy focussing on the mission, he couldn't focus on the ache he felt.

"-ptain?"

Kakashi looked up at that, "hm?"

"Are you, you know, okay?" Shisui hesitantly asked. It was an unwritten rule that no one asked Kakashi about how he was feeling. No one. Well, the Hokage did, but that's only because he couldn't exactly maim the Hokage for butting in his life, now could he? While Shisui was an accomplished shinobi and could definitely hold his own against Kakashi, at least longer than most, it still was a risk to bring up the subject.

"Yes," he said harshly. "Let's get going." His tone left no room for objection and the carefree atmosphere that was there a few moments ago had disappeared. All the members of Team Ro knew not to do or say anything to him when he was in this mood, other than following his orders. You did not want to cross a pissed of Kakashi. You wouldn't live to tell the tale.

Kakashi jumped up, landing on a branch before leaping to another, not looking behind him. The three remaining looked at each other, before following suit. It'd be an uncomfortable and quiet journey back, that's for sure.

Two hours later, team Ro was a little over five miles removed from the village when there was an energy spike in the air. Kakashi stopped on a branch, signalling his team to do the same.

"It came from the west," Tenzou supplied, "maybe about two miles away from here?"

"It's too close to the village. Let's go check it out." Kakashi ordered.

Within two minutes they arrived at the site where the energy spike had originated. Landing in separate trees, they all couldn't believe what they were seeing. Six people were standing between the trees in, what seemed to be a standoff. What were they-, are they really pointing sticks at each other? Really? Kakashi narrowed his eyes as he saw the two people not wearing cloaks reach for each other, as they disappeared with a 'pop', only to appear right beneath him, stumbling.

He couldn't understand what they were saying, that didn't sound anything like his language. Listening closer, he concluded they were definitely speaking another language. Kakashi silently dropped to a lower branch, to take a closer look. They weren't shinobi, that was clear. As he dropped down, the leaves on the branch he landed on softly rustled, which caused the woman to look up. She has good instincts though, he conceded.

She looked no older than him, although her facial features were definitely foreign, with bushy brown hair framing her face, suspicious brown eyes tried to look through the leaves. A second later, a loud cry came from the man next to her, making him wince. His hearing was too sensitive sometimes. So, not six then. Seven, if you counted the small child. The noise spurred the other cloaked figures into action as they shouted something. The pair beneath him jumped up and darted away.

Kakashi gave his team the signal to follow, but not engage as of yet, narrowly dodging the explosion the woman caused with her stick. Interesting. He watched the rest of his team also avoid the explosions the duo caused. Keeping a safe distance, they swiftly followed the pair, until they had reached a clearing.

The team stopped at the edge of the forest, watching the scene enfold. The other four cloaked figures appeared below them, firing two beams of light out of their own sticks, resulting in a loud scream from the woman. Switching his gaze from her to the man she was with, he saw the man drop to the floor, unmoving. The woman then yelled out a string of words in a language that sounded different, even from the language she had spoken before, while running towards the man.

It definitely bought her enough time to pick the child up, who was once again cryin- how did they do that? There's no way the child stopped crying that abruptly on his own. As she stands up and points her stick to her attackers, Kakashi decided they were done staying on the side lines. Neither the young woman, nor the child would survive this otherwise. He signalled to Yugao and Tenzou to stay back for now and gave Shisui the signal to knock them out. They needed them alive.

Less than a second later, one of the cloaked men fell down with a shout. The brown-haired woman responded immediately by taking out another one, who suddenly seemed frozen. As he dropped down and took out another one, she took on the last one, as that one fell to the ground as well.

Having dealt with the attackers, Tenzou and Yugao also dropped down from the trees. The woman then pointed her sti- well, weapon at them, looking frightened. Right. They probably looked equally as scary to her, as the men they took down.

"Tie them up, we're taking them to T&I," Kakashi ordered. His team went to tie up the fallen men. He stepped around them towards the brown-haired woman, eying her shaking hand as she now pointed the weapon strictly at him. Hm, how to approach this. Well, first things first. He took out a kunai and made a small cut on his arm under his cloak. He then made the appropriate signs with his hands and bend down to the ground to put his hand on the ground, and whispered a soft "kuchiyose no jutsu."

A puff of smoke appeared, revealing a pug wearing a jacket. "Yo," the pug said in a gruff voice, holding up one of his paws.

"Pakkun," Kakashi nodded. "I need you to deliver a note to the Hokage," he said, while he produced a small scroll from his pouch. He quickly scribbled a message in it and rolled it up, giving it to the pug. "You know the drill. Only the Hokage can read this note."

"You got it, boss." Pakkun said, as he sprinted off. Good, that was one thing taken care of. He then turned towards the woman, who was still standing there, a confused expression on her face. He supposed she hadn't seen a ninken before, if that look was anything to go by.

He cocked his head a little as he looked at her, he'd be lying if he wasn't at least a little curious. He then shifted his gaze to the child, that apparently was still crying by the looks of it, even though there wasn't a single sound coming from him. Kakashi slowly raised his hands, palm out towards her, showing her that he wasn't holding a weapon, not anymore at least. Not like he needed a weapon to kill her, but it's the thought that counts, right? The next issue was how to go about communicating with her. If what he had heard earlier was any indication, she didn't speak their language.

This day just kept getting better and better, didn't it?