I'm not actually sure how well the lyrics compliment the chapter they go with, especially these earlier chapters, but I think they fit alright with the story in general, so they stay.

Big Machine

Now your world is way too fast
Nothing's real and nothing lasts
And I'm aware
I'm in love but you don't care
Turn your anger into lust
I'm still here but you don't trust at all
And I'll be waiting

Goo Goo Dolls

She knew that she was being silly, but Tsunade still felt better for having Kotetsu, Izumo and Kakashi with her when the mysterious visitor was brought up. Shizune hadn't been able to give her much information: the girl was probably a chunin, if her age was anything to go on, and she seemed to prefer to keep her appearance hidden. Of course, Tsunade thought peevishly, age really wasn't anything to go on when guessing a person's ability. Kotetsu and Izumo were in their twenties, but they were chunin, while Kakashi had been made a jonin when he was thirteen. When she'd pressed Shizune for at least a number for that age, the woman had been even less helpful.

"I have to guess from her voice," she had confessed. "I couldn't even see her eyes."

She shouldn't have felt worried about the girl wanted to keep her face hidden, either. Few enough people knew what she really looked like - although everyone knew what she had looked like when she was twenty - and she didn't remember hearing of anyone who had ever seen Kakashi's face, but there was something about that desire to hide that, when encountered in a stranger, set her on edge. She dragged her mind away from her speculations of what the girl could be hiding - a scar? A well-known and less-liked face? - and focus on the most important piece of information she had.

Far more worrying than the girl's unknown level - she might not even have been a shinobi, but Tsunade doubted that - was the one other thing Shizune had noticed. "Her chakra is odd. I can hardly sense it, but what there is of it feels… funny." That told her almost nothing, but she'd had to let it go.

"Enter," she called, in response to a knock on the door. The girl that followed Shizune into the room was not quite what she had been expecting. She was indeed young - twenty, perhaps - but Tsunade couldn't ever remember seeing eyes so old. Strange eyes, they were too, a deep grey-blue like the ocean, but for a second Tsunade could have sworn they flashed with golden fire.

The girl herself was beautiful. Tsunade had the distinct impression that the three men in the room were staring slightly more than was strictly necessary for assessing an unknown ninja. The style of her dress was odd, yet also strangely familiar.

It had been many, many years ago. She was a genin, and she and her team had gone to the Water Country to escort a feudal lord home. It had been a simple mission, so much so that she was surprised she even remembered it. She had forgotten most of it, in any case, but she remembered the feudal lord laughing at the suggestion that a girl was going to help protect him.

Then she had met the kunoichi of the Water Country, and Sarutobi had explained why the feudal lord hadn't thought a girl was any use in protecting someone. In the last two decades, the female shinobi of the Hidden Mist had grown almost equal to the men, but back then, they'd hardly been worth anything. Why, a young, untried genin had been a match for even the most talented of them.

But they had worn those dresses, with their long skirts slit up to the hip on both sides, and had worn their hair loose to their waists, no matter how much it got in their way. The kunoichi were just for show, Sarutobi had told her. They might have had the potential to be talented, but they were never given any training.

This girl was dressed like one of those kunoichi, although Tsunade had never seen one of them, or anyone else so young, with hair that shade of white-silver, although Kakashi's was similar. Perhaps her memory was fading, but in a way it reminded her of the White Fang of Konoha. Please, don't let there be a connection. Kakashi's team has enough problems without that coming into it. She glanced at the jonin, noting that he looked a little stunned. He'd been reading those trash novels of Jiraya's too much lately, to judge by his face.

"What brings you to Konoha, Kasumi-san?" Tsunade asked once the girl had introduced herself - punctuated with the traditional curtsy of a Water Country kunoichi, Tsunade noticed. And to me. The girl didn't look like a shinobi any more than the kunoichi had so long ago, but there was something about her… something about those eyes. Orochimaru had had eyes like that at times, when they were children together and he was trying to suppress something, some emotion, that he didn't want her to see. She can't be connected with him, can she?

"I'm looking a boy." It seemed strange that a shinobi from another village would come to Konoha to request a mission. And asking for a meeting with the Hokage was not the way to request one. But a boy…

"You could have gone to the office downstairs to request the mission," she said.

The girl smiled in private amusement. "You misunderstand. I'm on the… ah… mission myself. I was told the boy was a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf."

Uchiha Sasuke or Uzumaki Naruto? Tsunade asked herself quietly. She as willing to bet it would be one of the two. There were many talented young shinobi in the village, but those two always seemed to be at the center of things. "His name is Uzumaki Naruto." Damn. She would have put money on it being Sasuke.

"Why Naruto?"

"I want to meet him."

Tsunade caught Kakashi's eye. She didn't doubt Naruto would want to meet this girl too. Naruto liked meeting people, and he would probably be thrilled to meet a beautiful girl like this. But still, she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something strange about this girl. And there was something strange: the sense of her chakra, as Shizune had said, was very odd. Still, there was no way she could stop the girl short of force, and so far she hadn't seen anything threatening about the girl. If anything, she seemed as innocent as could be. Yet…

"It's a long way to come for curiosity."

Kasumi shrugged. "I spend my time traveling in any case. And there was a young man in the Hidden Sand who thought I might find Uzumaki Naruto interesting."

"Gaara, by any chance?" Ah, Tsunade thought. So Kakashi can still think, at any rate. She didn't know Gaara personally, but his name had come up in several reports of the disastrous Sand and Sound attack on Konoha.

Kasumi nodded. Against her better judgment, Tsunade found herself saying, "Kakashi, Naruto is on your team. Perhaps you would introduce Kasumi-san to him?"

And I thought that boy was too old to blush, she thought wryly to herself as Kakashi led the young woman from the room. Looks like he can, and badly enough that even his mask doesn't hide it!