In the village of the hidden leaf it was a rare rainy day. The sun had risen an hour ago, but the clouds and mist still hid most of its light. The best it could do was warm the sky to a dull grey colour. A lone ninja stood in front of the black monument in the training ground outside the village. It was a part of his morning ritual. Right after getting up and getting dressed and right before having breakfast he'd spend time in front of the memorial. It was the least he could do for his fallen comrade. Sometimes he'd just stand there, other times he'd talk to his friend as if he were really there. This was a quiet morning. The rain did all the talking, and he didn't seem to mind getting soaked. He sighed and smiled a smile that showed only in the glow of his eyes then turned to leave, satisfied that he had paid his respects for the day. Behind him, the sky ripped open and the rain stopped over the monument. There was the brief sound of children giggling, then several dozen pairs of tiny black hands dropped a blond man onto the monument.

Kakashi turned back around and faced the man that now lay slumped over the black stone. He was slowly getting soaked. The fact that he had been dry at any point before this considering the weather was immediately suspicious. Kakashi walked over and stared down at Havoc. He continued to lie on the monument, and only the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest gave a clue that he was still living.

"Yo," Kakashi prodded Havoc in the side. "What are you doing here? Who are you?"

Havoc turned and rolled off the monument like he was rolling out of bed. He hit the ground with an awkward thud and pushed himself to his feet.

"Wha… wait? What?" Havoc looked vaguely sleepy, and shook his head like he was trying to sort out several dozen things at once. He started again. "Why, why are you…?" He stopped again, and nodded his head like he finally understood something. Then, clearing his throat, he started a third time a bit more confidently. "Where am I?"

"Don't tell me you're another one." Kakashi tilted his head and looked Havoc up and down. The clothes weren't exactly the same, but they were similar enough to those the last strange arrival to the village had worn, and the accent matched as well. It was the final clue he needed. Certainly these people weren't from any hidden village or city in this world. They were dropping in from some other place entirely, and he'd have to confront them about it. He nodded at Havoc's confused and slightly offended expression. "Never mind. Follow me."

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Hughes and Roy stood in front of Tsunade's desk. It was time for them to receive a third member to their squad. Because of their unusual closeness, Tsunade had decided that it was best for them to work together. Neither of them, and Roy in particular, worked as well without the other. The way they complimented each other was hard to miss. A third, however, was missing. She'd given it a lot of thought since Roy's examination to become a special Jounin. Both of them were skilled fighters, Hughes in weapons and hand-to-hand combat, and Roy in ninjutsu. Neither of them was especially good in healing or genjutsu, though. If they were to be truly useful, they needed a third to their group. Considering the amount of damage they were capable of by themselves, a healing expert would probably be best. She had explained this to them earlier, and they'd been vaguely accepting of the idea at the time, though she was a bit apprehensive. The village was short on people as it was, and very few of the children were moving up through the ranks as quickly as they should have. Shizune would have been an excellent choice, but unfortunately Tsunade needed her for other things. That left only one other choice and Tsunade had spent weeks pondering over the idea. She was a bit too young and far too inexperienced, but working with the two men might do her some good. Seeing them standing in front of her now though, she was sure that she'd end up as the object of some very intense hatred very soon. It was a shame, but sometimes the Hokage had to make sacrifices.

"Tsunada-sama, do you have our third for us? We're eager to start some actual missions." Hughes started; knowing that all Roy was going to do was sulk. Since he'd passed the exam to become a special Jounin, he'd been asking constantly for time off of his training to research things. The distance from Central seemed to have let him slip out of his State Alchemist mindset and back into the habits he'd had as a pure researcher earlier on. He'd missed studying simply for the sake of learning, and now that he'd had a taste of it the training was becoming tedious. He didn't care so much about mastering ninjutsu as he did about finding a way for them to return home.

"Yes. And I don't want to hear a word from either of you complaining about it. I decided that it's best that I give you two a healing specialist."

Hughes bit his tongue, but both he and Roy were thinking only two words: "Oh no." Not only had they wanted someone skilled in genjutsu, they both knew that the village was short on healers. There weren't many people they could end up with, and none of them seemed appealing, especially knowing that Tsunade wouldn't give up the only healer worth anything to them. The realization of who it would be dawned on them both at the same time. Until this point Roy had been pretending to not pay attention, but he couldn't stop the involuntary look of dread that crossed his face.

"Not a word. You're going to be working with Sakura. She's waiting for you outside."

"Tsunade-sensei," Roy spoke up, giving up his apathetic guise for now in a desperate attempt to salvage the situation. "Isn't this unfair? She's only thirteen! I don't see how pairing her with us is going to do anyone any good. Isn't there anyone else in this village, healer or not, that you could put with us?"

Tsunade glared. "Yes, as a matter of fact there is. But this will be good for all of you. You're just going to have to trust my judgement. I recommend you do some training runs with her today, because I'm starting you on missions tomorrow.

The two turned and left without another word. There was nothing else they could say, they knew. She was ruthless. This was probably punishment for begging her to let Roy train, then having him constantly ask to be allowed to train himself. "You're lazy," she'd say. The assumption always annoyed Roy at least a little when people made it. "You wouldn't do any training if I let you try to train on your own." And now they'd have a little girl tagging along. Didn't she realize that Hughes especially would spend more time worrying about her than he would on the missions? She'd be a dangerous liability. Roy shook his head as Hughes pushed the door open. Sakura stood in front of them. She was no taller than Ed, and she looked twice as innocent. Her arms were crossed across her chest and she appeared to be trying to stare them down.

Sakura was doing her best to size the two of them up. They were somewhat infamous in the village, but this was the first time she'd actually seen them in person. Everyone knew of them, but few actually knew them. They were Konoha's smallest clique, and it was no wonder. Both of them had just appeared in the village, and somehow found an in with the Hokage and ended up as ninjas. Everyone knew that Hughes was one of the best intelligence-Anbu the village had, though he'd only been working as one for a few months. Now that Mustang had been promoted to Jounin though, the two of them had been paired together. When she'd watched his examination she'd been rather impressed. Though Sakura had matured over the past few months of training as a specialist, she still had a weak spot for the dark brooding boys. But here in person, Mustang was a little too imposing. The way he looked at her made her think that he could decide to burn her to a crisp if she did anything he didn't like. He was also a bit shorter than he'd appeared from a distance… definitely not her type, since she planned to be at least as tall as he was, and he wouldn't be getting any taller. She chided herself for even thinking about it; her mission no matter what was still to get Sauske back. If working with these two would get her closer to being able to protect him when the time came, she'd deal with it. She'd have to find a way to get revenge on Mustang too, because she knew that her mother had been sending him letters secretly ever since the exams. Disgusting… these two were probably as old as her parents. And now Hughes appeared to be leering at her. His smirk was starting to become unnerving.

"What do you want?" She attempted to glare at Hughes, but he just kept on smiling and looking at her with some emotion that was almost longing. Creepy. Almost creepier than thinking of her mom with Mustang. She shivered, and Hughes just kept on smiling at her.

"ARGH! Will you stop that?"

"Sorry," Hughes' smile changed to one that almost looked apologetic. "Your eyes remind me of my daughter's. Oh, I wish I had some pictures to show you. She's absolutely adorable, you'd love her"

Roy rolled his eyes and grabbed Hughes' shoulder, pushing him towards the exit.

"Let's go. You're scaring her."

It was settled. The two of them were insane. No wonder no one else hung around them… well, except Genma occasionally, though Sakura suspected it was out of pity for Hughes. He wasn't even married, where did he think he had a daughter? Sakura hoped he didn't have some poor illegitimate child somewhere in the village. Probably some poor woman who was trying to get closer to Mustang… Wait? Had Hughes even been here for 9 months? So this poor woman must be in a different village. They continued walking down the street, Hughes and Roy a good ten feet ahead of her. She sped up to hear what they were talking about, but it was no use. They were speaking in some other language that only they knew - probably some sort of code. It was, well, just like they usually were she decided: creepy. They walked on like she wasn't even there.

Sakura turned as her former teacher walked by escorting a tall blond man she'd never seen before into the centre of the village. Hughes and Roy stopped as well, turning to watch the scene. Kakashi was doing his best to explain the village to the newcomer, though he kept insisting that he didn't know of any place where the man could buy a pack of cigarettes.

"You don't understand! I'm down to one pack! That isn't going to last me until Al gets me back! That's only half a day's worth, at best!"

Kakashi looked stunned and stopped in the middle of the street to face the man that was following him.

"Two packs a day? You're going to die, you know? Geez, even Asuma only goes through a pack a day."

"So there are cigarettes here?"

Kakashi sighed and nodded. At first the questions had all been about gates, and when the man had realized those were getting him nowhere he'd immediately gone on to ask about tobacco. He needed to find Hughes and Roy. Forget this man's questions; he had about fifty of his own.

Hughes and Roy, incidentally, continued standing on the corner of the street staring back at the scene, too much in shock to do anything else. Of all the weird things, now someone who looked, acted, and probably smelled just like Havoc had wandered into the village. Roy looked over at Hughes thinking maybe he somehow understood the situation any better. Hughes simply shrugged, and walked over to where the two were still standing, Kakashi looking slightly exasperated and Havoc looking unusually comfortable for someone who had in all likelihood just been dropped from the sky. Roy wandered up next to him and, doing his best to ignore the absurdity of the situation, tapped him on the shoulder.

"Havoc. Leave now, there are no straight people here. At all." So much for lack of absurdity. Havoc turned around to face Roy and Hughes, and looked vaguely relieved.

"Oh, good to see you, Brigadiers." Havoc was winning the "act cool and pretend you know everything" game by a landslide. His surprise at seeing Hughes here as well only betrayed him for a second. A sly grin crossed Hughes' face at the sign of weakness and jumped into the fray, not willing to let Havoc slip by with that cool smile of his. They'd started this war years ago in the office. He would see who broke first under the insanity, and decided to take the game up a level.

"Now Roy," he practically purred, "you know that's a lie. I've seen all those letters you've been getting since the exams. But the real draw of Konoha is the men, after all." He grabbed Roy around the shoulders and kissed him. Havoc stifled a snicker and bit his tongue to avoid laughing. Hughes knew just a bit more would push Havoc into that entertaining shocked state he had. Roy turned a very interesting shade of bright red.

"Hughes," Roy said through gritted teeth, arms straight down at his sides, "you are well over the unnecessary molestation quota for the month. You will pay for that." He paused for a second. Kakashi stared. It was the only thing he could do. Sakura slowly backed away until she was far enough from the scene to turn and run without being noticed. Creepy! Roy took a breath and continued, choosing to ignore Hughes' comment about the letters. He certainly hadn't seen any. "Havoc, how did you get here?"

"Ah," Kakashi interrupted. "I was just about to ask the two of you the same question. Maybe you'd like to talk about this elsewhere?"

"You know how we got here, Kakashi. Everyone does."

"Oh no." Kakashi shook his head at the two of them. "I saw him get thrown out of some sort of opening in the sky this morning. I want you to tell me why."

"Oh…" Hughes trailed off. It could always be worse, he supposed. At least Kakashi wasn't a bad person to have know the truth. There probably wasn't anyone he would tell, after all, and maybe he'd be able to help them out somehow. "I guess we should take this back to my apartment then."