Warning: Spoilers from the Kakashi Gaiden arc nn;

Everybody fails at least once

There's no shame in that

Kakashi was brooding.

Which seemed rather odd of him. Kakashi wasn't loud, obnoxious, noisy. That was Naruto. Nor was he silent, really. That was Shino. But he certainly didn't brood. That was Sasuke.

He wasn't sulking, just pondering so deeply that it looked like he was sulking. Naruto's story brought back memories of a friend made far too late, of a grave underneath layers of earth and stone and rock, of a pair of goggles.

Did he want to go search out for this ghost himself? Maybe…It was possible that Naruto was making it all up, but due to Naruto's personality, if he was playing a prank, Kakashi would've known by now. He either would've figured it out himself or Naruto would've burst out laughing and said so.

He'd tried to distract himself already, but nothing had helped. Even Icha Icha Paradise hadn't worked.

Why?

Because…

…That was why. Because.

It'd been summer, and Yondaime had given the team a day off. Kakashi had never found out what Rin had done, but she'd been absent the whole day.

He would've taken the time to practice more – he'd wanted to work on the new jutsu he'd created, Chidori – but his practice grounds had been taken by the team that consisted of Hayate, Genma, and Raidou.xHe hadn't felt like finding another place to train, and, for lack of anything better to do, he'd wandered off and found his way to the bookstore.

Kakashi didn't even go to the section of books for those of his age – he'd tired of those books already. In fact, he'd tired of every book except for the ones located in the adult section, and the only reason he hadn't tired of those was because he wasn't allowed to read them. Not like he wanted to, anyway, he thought as he walked by the aisle and quickly looked towards the books.

He stopped suddenly when he spotted Obito at the opposite end, not quite in the aisle but staring at something from where he stood. Obito? What was he staring at? As far as he knew, Obito wasn't a sex-fiend and he wasn't a pervert…Still, Kakashi didn't know much when it concerned his teammates, other than the fact that they usually slowed him down.

Still, he was curious, and it wasn't like there was anything else to do. He walked up further, then turned and made his way to the other end of the store. As soon as he emerged from the shelves of children's books, he saw Obito again, who hadn't moved at all. Neither did Obito seem to notice Kakashi. Odd. He usually did.

So, walking up behind the Uchiha, Kakashi asked, "What're you staring at?"

Startling the other boy, Kakashi was amused to see Obito nearly jump a foot into the air. "Nothing!" he answered quickly, too quickly for Kakashi to leave it at that. However, before Kakashi could probe further Obito had already walked off, also walking a bit too quickly to quell Kakashi's suspicions.

He didn't follow Obito. Instead, he looked over at what Obito had been looking at. It looked like a series of books, and he read the title almost without thought – Icha Icha Paradise.

"FOUND YOU!"

Naruto's loud voice interrupted Kakashi's thoughts. He wasn't annoyed. In fact, he was glad for the disruption and distraction.

Of course, Naruto was probably only looking for him to ask about Obito.

"Yes, you did." Kakashi cast a bland gaze down at Naruto from his perch on the rooftop.

"Yeah, couldn't get away from me!" Naruto stated, grinning.

"Feh!"

Kakashi looked over to Naruto's right and saw Sakura standing there, hands on hips, glaring at Naruto. "You wouldn't have found him if I hadn't told you!" she pointed out, which caused Naruto to deflate.

"Ehhh…" He scratched his head, then mumbled a quick thanks, which was enough for Sakura.

As if Naruto's thanks meant anything to Sakura. It was obvious, especially to Kakashi, that the only praise Sakura wanted was from Sasuke.

Kakashi wondered whether he should run now before Sasuke showed up. Though, with Sasuke's personality, he couldn't help but doubt that Sasuke would care about a Uchiha ghost. Unless it was direct family.

By this time, Naruto and Sakura had both made their way up to the roof where Kakashi sat. "I've already told Sakura about the ghost too," Naruto informed his teacher.

"Kya, ghosts don't exist." Not only from her statement, but the expression on her face told Kakashi that she was quite sure that Naruto had made every detail up.

"Wait till you see him!"

"Even if he did exist, he'd probably already have run away by now because of you!"

The squabble didn't last long, since Naruto had a crush on Sakura, he wouldn't argue with her. If it'd been Sasuke, it would've lasted for hours – wait, no, Naruto would've gone on for hours, Sasuke probably would've interjected once or twice and leave it at that.

One of the things Kakashi liked about Naruto was that he was always straightforward. What he thought, he said. A lot like Kiba. Somehow, Kakashi believed that if the two saw each other more often, they could be good friends. Or enemies. Their personalities might cause them to bicker constantly, even though they were so alike.

So, straightforward… "Kakashi-sensei, who was it?"

From the look Sakura was giving him, Kakashi suspected that although she didn't believe Naruto's story, she was extremely interested as to why he'd ran at record speed to get to the memorial stone. Obviously Naruto had told her everything.

"I don't know," Kakashi stated again, expression blank as usual. This time, both Naruto and Sakura stared hard at him, but in his whole lifetime, there'd only been a few people whom could ever read his expressions, and none of them were alive anymore.

"LIAR!" both students shouted, both out of habit and because they knew he was one.

"Why won't you tell us?" Naruto demanded, glowering at his teacher.

"We all have our own secrets," Kakashi responded in an innocent voice. Naruto's glower grew more fierce – it was obvious, to Naruto, that Kakashi was talking about the kyuubi sealed within him. xx

Being the sharp, intelligent girl she was, Sakura noticed the knowing look exchanged between her teacher and teammate. Still, when it came to Naruto she didn't really care much about any secrets he might've had – if it'd been Sasuke, now that would've been different.

And, being the sharp, intelligent girl she was, Sakura also noticed something else. Triumphantly, she exclaimed, "So, you do know someone who looks like Naruto's 'ghost'!"

"Huh?" Both Naruto and Kakashi stared at her.

"You said, 'We all have our own secrets', which makes it sound like there is some connection between you and this person, but you just won't tell because it's your secret! Kakashi-sensei, really, if you tell us, we won't tell anyone else! Not even Sasuke, if you don't want him to know."

Turning his empty gaze to her, he only responded, "Like I said. I don't know anyone who looks like Naruto's ghost."

"Aw, why won't you tell us, Kakashi-sensei?" The glower returned to Naruto's face. "I was right, wasn't I? He was some Uchiha that you murdered!"

"Why would I murder someone who came from Konoha?"

"Maybe he's a missing-nin like Itachi!" Naruto answered.

Right before he was about to answer 'His name's on the memorial stone' Kakashi realized that he was supposed to keep up the lie that he didn't know this ghost, and that he didn't exist, so instead, he said, "If there was another missing-nin with the name of Uchiha, I've never met them."

Sakura was getting impatient. Obviously, she had other plans aside from standing on a rooftop attempting to pry secrets from her teacher all day. "Well, we'll eventually find out some day about this person, Kakashi-sensei. I'm leaving."

"Ah, wait, Sakura-chan!" Naruto ran after her, and the two of them both disappeared off the roof.

Letting out a small sigh of relief, Kakashi pulled out Icha Icha Paradise. The lie he'd just told was one of the only true lies – not like the ones he made up to explain why he was constantly late. Not like the ones Obito made. He needed a break from this.

This time, he was able to read without any other thoughts entering his mind.

"So troublesome," Shikamaru muttered to himself.

So many things were troublesome. He was currently avoiding Asuma, who wanted him to train. Asuma wanted him to train a lot, these days, probably because he was a chuunin. Shikamaru was beginning to regret passing the Chuunin Exam.

Still, Asuma was nowhere to be found, so there was no need to keep running until he appeared again. And Asuma was usually easy to spot…or smell, because of the cigarette that seemed permanently glued to his lip. If he didn't die during a mission, Shikamaru was sure that he'd die of second-hand lung cancer. Even if he didn't spend the rest of his life around Asuma.

So he made his way over to his favorite cloud-watching spot. Relieved, he found the benches empty. He'd always preferred to watch the clouds by himself, or with Chouji. Still, Shikamaru had a suspicion that his friend was still eating, so he wasn't there.

Shikamaru had just lain down when he spotted someone else coming up. Twisting his mouth into a frown, he sat up again and realized that this new person was someone he'd never seen before.

Spiky hair, weird goggles…Nope, never seen him before.

Never.

That was odd. Shikamaru didn't forget faces, not usually, and never when they were wearing orange goggles that glared out at you like Naruto's outfit. Maybe the boy was another chuunin – Shikamaru didn't know all of them. Or a jounin. No, that was doubtful. Probably not a jounin. But definitely a ninja, unless he'd stolen someone's forehead protector and was wearing it for the fun of it.

No one did that. It wasn't smart to pretend to be a ninja. Naruto hadn't even done that.

So, probably another chuunin. What was he up here for? Was he tracking down Shikamaru with a mission for him to do? No, didn't seem like it. Watching the other sit down, it seemed that he wasn't going to bother Shikamaru.

He lay back down again, but just as his head hit the bench, he sat straight up, noticing something.

The boy didn't look at him, so he probably didn't notice Shikamaru staring at him.

No, that couldn't be right, Shikamaru thought. He stared at the boy harder.

That's…not possible.

Before Shikamaru could stare longer, the boy got up again and left. Half-considering following him (he didn't, though, because it would just be far too bothersome), Shikamaru mulled over what he'd just seen.

As his attacks were usually connected with shadows, it was natural of him to notice other peoples' shadows without even thinking about it. So although others might not have thought about it, Shikamaru quickly noticed that the other boy did not have a shadow.

Even with his level of intelligence, he couldn't figure out how someone could manage to hide their shadow. Well, obviously stading in the shade of something else would hide it, but when the stranger had been out in the open, he still didn't cast a shadow.

That was impossible. It just was. Sure, people said that 'nothing is impossible' and that seemed very true in Konoha, with all its ninjutsu and genjutsu users…

Wait. Yeah, that had to be it. He was hiding his shadow using genjutsu. That was possible, wasn't it? Still, he'd only do that if he thought Shikamaru would attack him, or he was going to attack Shikamaru. Neither of which had happened. So that couldn't be right.

It would've made sense if he was going to attack Shikamaru, but he hadn't. If he thought he'd get attacked, then why'd he even go and sit next to Shikamaru in the first place?

"Shikamaru!"

"Damn!" Asuma had found him. Why hadn't he noticed the cigarette smoke earlier? Thoughts interrupted, all musings of the stranger were pushed to the back of Shikamaru's mind as he scrambled upright and dashed away.

x Eh…not sure if Hayate, Genma, and Raidou were on a team, but oh well. ;

xx I'm also fairly sure that Sakura and Sasuke and the rest of them still don't know that Naruto has the kyuubi sealed within him. Dammit, I have to review the anime/manga sometime soon.

Eh heh…and just to clear things up more for myself than for the audience, this is supposed to take place after the Chuunin Exam, and after Tsunade becomes the Fifth Hokage, but before Sasuke runs off.

Stupid Sasuke. –mobbed by all the Sasuke fans-

I'm also hoping I get my timeline right, but Naruto did meet Itachi while they were hunting Tsunade down, right? XX; If not, I have to go back and edit some parts where he's mentioned or vaguely referred to…

And thanks to all my reviewers! X3; Ideas are good. If you give me some, I might put them in depending on how well they'll fit in with my storyline. :D Yay, reviewers rock!