Warning: Spoilers for the Kakashi Gaiden arc and well…lots of other spoilers too. ;

"Oy! Sasuke!"

Face frozen in his brooding expression, Sasuke turned around with his hands jammed deep into his pockets to face the bouncy, orange-clad ball of hyperness that was known as Naruto. They'd just finished their practice for the day and Kakashi had let them free. Of course, he'd made a point to be late as usual.

This was odd, though. Naruto usually never seeked Sasuke out. What wasn't odd was the fact that Sakura was there as well. Sakura seemed to be around a lot. Still, back to Naruto.

"What do you want?" Sasuke asked, stopping and frowning at his teammate.

Making a face, Naruto said, "I…Sakura-chan and I, we need your help."

"Help?" Sasuke echoed. This was definitely one of those 'weird' days – Naruto would never ask for help from Sasuke. What did he want to know? "On what?"

"Here, let's go to the memorial stone," Sakura said. "It'll be easier, there."

Remaining immobile, Sasuke asked again, "What do you need my help for?"

"Identification," Sakura said.

At the same time, Naruto said, "Come on and we'll tell you!"

There was a brief period of silence in which Naruto and Sakura stared at each other, but Sasuke broke it when he shuffled over, hands still in his pockets. "Identifying who…what?"

"A ghost," Naruto said.

"A Uchiha," Sakura responded. The two stared at each other again, but Naruto shrugged and turned, starting to walk at a fast pace. Sakura looked back at Sasuke to make sure he was following, and went after her other teammate. Taking his time, the Uchiha followed, remembering the brief exclamation from Naruto a day before –

"Ghost?" Sasuke gave Naruto a skeptical look. "Ghosts don't exist…"

"Well, I saw one!" Naruto said, crossing his arms and glaring at his rival. "A Uchiha, too!"

It hadn't crossed Sasuke's mind again any time afterwards, although when he first heard of it he had been interested. Now he thought of it again, and, curiosity getting the better of him, decided to tag along with Naruto and Sakura.

The weather wasn't the best. The sky was a murky gray and the rain from the night before left large puddles and mixed with dirt to create mud. Altogether, it made for a very dreary atmosphere, affecting most everyone outside. However, this did nothing to change Naruto's attitude, for he was just as exuberant and excited as usual. He fairly flew to the memorial stone, making Sasuke run a little harder and faster than usual and leaving Sakura behind them, tired and gasping for breath.

"Naruto – slow – down –" Sakura panted when she finally caught up. They'd reached the tombstone, which seemed slightly more ominous looking with the weather.

"Sorry, Sakura-chan," Naruto said absent-mindedly. He turned to Sasuke, and his expression briefly changed to assure Sasuke that he didn't want to ask for his help, and said, "Have you ever known a Uchiha wearing –"

"Oy, what are you three doing here?"

Annoyed at being interrupted, Naruto spun around and was about to explode on the intruder when he found himself looking at a head of silver hair. He shut his mouth and furiously worked at finding an excuse.

Kakashi stared suspiciously at all three of them. None of the three had anyone to mourn for whose name was on the stone…

Unable to come up with an excuse, Naruto retorted, "What are you doing here, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Trying to read in peace," Kakashi said smoothly. All three genins' eyes immediately flashed to the book he held in his hand and Sakura's eye twitched.

"Kakashi-sensei," she said disapprovingly. "That book–"

"LIAR!" Naruto shouted at his teacher, cutting Sakura off. "You're ghost-watching!"

"Huh?" Kakashi asked, feigning innocence.

Was he? Kakashi wondered sometimes. He tended to hang around the memorial stone more often nowadays – was he really hoping to catch some sight of this ghost of Naruto's? Once again, he denied it all. Ghosts didn't exist, and if they did, it wouldn't just be Obito hanging around, would it? Besides, Naruto was the only one who actually saw the ghost. No one else could back him up. There wasn't any real proof…aside from the fact that Naruto had given a perfect description of Obito although Naruto hadn't been born until after Obito's death.

That brought Sasuke and Sakura both back to the topic of the ghost. Making sure that Kakashi couldn't cut her off, Sakura said very quickly to Sasuke, "Naruto said he saw a Uchiha ghost wearing orange goggles with spiky black hair, one eye closed, but his other eye a Sharingan eye. And he said that the closed eye looked empty behind the lid."

Kakashi's lip twitched, but he made no other indication that he recognized the description at all.

Naruto turned away from Kakashi and said, "Yeah, yeah! You know him?"

Blinking, having not understood Sakura as she talked so quickly, Sasuke shrugged and said, "I only heard something about one Sharingan and goggles."

"Well, you know anyone like that?"

"I don't remember anyone in my family wearing goggles."

Obviously, Kakashi thought to himself, still acting indifferent. He sat down next to the memorial stone and started to flip through Icha Icha Paradise. Obito hadn't been alive when Sasuke was born either, so Sasuke obviously wouldn't remember him.

He felt Sakura's gaze on him, and looked up from his book, coolly stared back. She was obviously waiting for some reaction, but she wasn't going to get it. Scowling slightly, she turned away back to Sasuke.

"Well, on this stone, is there someone here you don't know? A Uchiha, I mean?" Sakura gestured in the direction of the memorial stone.

Sauntering over to the tombstone, Sasuke started to look for all the Uchiha names. Impatiently, Naruto fidgeted next to him obviously wishing for Sasuke to hurry up.

"There are a few…" Sasuke began, narrowing his eyes. "Uchiha Arashi…Shimato…Kuma…"

As Sasuke began to read off names, Sakura turned once more to Kakashi. He knew that she was waiting for another reaction, and once more Kakashi was determined that she wouldn't get it. He still wasn't sure as to why he didn't want his team to know about Obito.

Well…maybe not.

Obito was a painful reminder of Kakashi's past, someone he'd failed. Failed, because he'd had a huge stick up his ass. Failed, because he didn't value human life. Failed, because he'd never listened to Yondaime, because he'd convinced himself that his way was right…

"…Obito…" Sasuke read.

Just slightly, Kakashi gritted his teeth together. He was eternally thankful for the mask.

"…Asurame…" Sasuke fell silent as he scanned the rest of the names. Finally, he took a step back and shrugged, shutting his eyes. "That's all."

Sakura sighed in frustration. "Can you identify which ones had Sharingan?" she asked.

"We could check the records," Sasuke replied.

"Come on then!" Naruto shouted, impatience coming out. He dashed off again. Sasuke followed him, although he simply shuffled along. Sakura cast one last glance at Kakashi and then went after her teammates.

Well, he was safe for now. Kakashi focused all his attention on reading Icha Icha Paradise.

Neji was counting the birds again.

It was a habit now. Everyday, while he walked through the woods to get to wherever he was going (today, it was to the Main House, he was sparring with Hiashi again) he'd momentarily stop and count the birds flying overhead, using his Byakuugan. Sometimes he did it more than once. Sometimes he was right, and he managed to count all the birds, and at other times, he was dead wrong and counted one less. It was bothering him.

But today…

"Seven birds…" he murmured to himself.

Seven birds and…

A huge amount of chakra.

Neji deactivated the Byakuugan and spun around. That was an enormous amount of chakra – he hadn't known it was possible to have so much! In fact, it seemed like the source was just all chakra, which should've meant it was a clone, perhaps, but why would a clone have more chakra than seemingly possible?

Yet, all he saw when he turned around was a very normal-looking boy. Sunlight was reflecting off the boy's goggles, and he had one eye shut, and the other eye was a Sharingan eye. Unsurprisingly, the first thought that came to Neji was that the Uchiha family was supposedly extinct.

He wasn't quite sure what he thought afterwards.

Staring hard at the posessor of the Sharingan, Neji tried to determine whether he was looking for a fight, and for the moment, ignoring the fact that he seemed to be entirely made of chakra. Neither of the two did anything except for watch each other, so Neji finally broke the silence and asked, "Who are you?"

The boy ignored him, not saying or doing anything automatically. Instead, he stared Neji right in the eye. Finally he did something - lips moved, but there was no sound. Wondering if he was mute, Neji walked up closer to the boy. Well, if the Uchiha was mute it wasn't because his tongue was cut out, Neji could see that just fine. However, that wasn't helping him understand what the boy was trying to tell him – Neji didn't know how to lip-read.

"I thought Sasuke was the only surviving member of the Uchiha clan," Neji said warily. He'd never seen this Uchiha in Konoha before, and he didn't look like a chuunin or jounin, and definitely not an ANBU. Surely, if he lived in the village, Neji would've spotted him at least once? After all, he wore glaring orange goggles – that wasn't something that was common and Neji certainly would've remembered it. He also would've definitely remembered another inheritor of the Sharingan eye. Perhaps this Uchiha had run away before the Uchiha clan was wiped out and was a missing-nin? In that case…

Neji quickly sized the boy up. He wasn't tall or large, so Neji was sure that he was at least on equal footing with the Uchiha in physical strength. The Sharingan would always pose a problem, but Neji didn't entirely depend on jutsu and besides, he had his own Byakuugan. He held no weapons, aside from whatever he kept in his pouch, but that was probably just kunai and shuriken and other small weapons. Judging from the empty look behind the boy's eyelids, Neji judged that the boy only had one eye – one less Sharingan to worry about.

The boy didn't look like he was about to enter a fight though. His pose was relaxed, hands empty and at his sides. The only disturbing thing about him was the fact that he had more chakra than seemingly possible, and the fact that although his lips moved, he made no noise.

No noise? Neji thought about that for a moment. Since he'd been counting the birds again, he would've saw the boy walk in…yet, right before he'd seen the Uchiha there'd been nothing there. It seemed that he'd just magically teleported into place. Neji wasn't sure if that was possible, and besides, he would've noticed the swirl of chakra freed by any teleportation jutsu. The boy had chakra, yes, but it was all within him. He hadn't used any of it.

So, he hadn't seen the boy walk in. Perhaps that was possible, because he didn't always get the number of birds right, but he would've at least heard him. It'd rained heavily during the night and the ground was muddy, so whenever someone stepped in it, the mud made squelching noises. However, Neji hadn't heard the boy arrive either, nor had he seen him.

And…

Neji cast a quick glance down at the boy's feet. He wasn't quite sure why, but he knew the boy definitely wasn't normal. From the feet up, the Uchiha looked normal, but looking at his feet, Neji immediately noticed that although the ground was muddy, the boys' sandals were clean and completely mud-free. That was impossible, definitely, unless he'd cast some sort of jutsu that protected his feet from coming in contact with mud, but why would someone do a useless thing like that? Also, he had no more chakra concentrated in his feet than in any other part of his body, so he obviously hadn't used a jutsu.

"What…who are you?" Neji asked again, narrowing his eyes, ready to activate his bloodline at any time.

Having seen Neji look down, the Uchiha had followed his gaze and looked down at his own feet as well. Apparently, he didn't realize the fact that they were mud-free was not strange in anyway, he looked back up with a confused look on his face.

Once more, Neji's question was ignored as the boy waved and turned around, leaving. Neji stared down at the ground and noted with growing bafflement that the boy left no footprints in the soft mud.

And the plot, she thickens! (gasp!) Neji, smart cookie he is, has realized other things about the Uchiha ghost aside from the fact that he can't be heard, has no shadow, and is from an supposedly extinct clan!

And will Naruto and company discover the identity of their ghost?

Stay tuned for the next to-be-procrasinated-on chapter!

:smacked: