Much thanks to Anita_Magia, Tavina, and drowsyivy for beta reading. All mistakes remaining belong to me.
"You need to get up."
I woke up to Kakashi's masked face looking down at me in the dimness of Sasuke's apartment, and the events of the last dream flooded back into me. I tried to resist wincing as I sat up.
My— Sasuke's?— head didn't feel as scrambled as last time, but I still felt more muddled than I liked from both waking up as him and from waking up in general.
"What time is it?" It was dark, and Kakashi was blocking the desk, so I couldn't see the alarm clock that was supposed to be there.
"A bit after three." His voice was just above a whisper.
I didn't bother to resist not making a face at that. "Why?"
"You and the others are taking a little trip out of the village. Pack like you did for Wave."
When I got off the bed and reached for the desk lamp, he stopped me from turning it on, shaking his head.
"Oh." I put it together. "No one's supposed to know."
"Not until you're all outside of the village walls."
In the dark, with only street lamps from outside the window providing any kind of light, it was weird, more dreamlike than most of this had been so far. I grabbed a black shirt and a pair of shorts from the wardrobe, yanking more clothes out to stuff into the bag. The one piece outfit was nowhere in sight. I tried to not feel weird about changing out of Sasuke's pajamas in front of Kakashi. He stopped me from strapping on the holster, instead shaking his head and motioning for it to go in the bag with everything else.
Not entirely sure why, I lingered over the souvenir notebook before I gave in and stuffed it in the bag along with a pen. Kakashi didn't say anything, but I could feel the weight of his stare.
Once I was done, Kakashi checked it over and tossed a small bottle from the desk on top of everything else. "Don't forget those," he murmured. Painkillers.
He had us leave through the window.
Outside, the streets appeared to be as empty as it got. It seemed like even ninja didn't particularly like being up at this hour. Occasionally, I saw signs of fighting I could only assume must have happened, but the route we were taking seemed to be relatively untouched. It was only the occasional sight of a bit of rubble in the distance that proved it happened.
It was only once we passed what my head told me were the streets to head towards Sakura and Naruto's homes that I began to wonder. "What about the other two?"
"They'll be there."
It wasn't obvious until we were closer to the village's exit that I was able to see the tops of the wall; the whole section where the gates would be under was missing, broken wood exposing the stone and earthen core at the top, a bit of metal railing hanging off from one corner that managed to stay in place. Looking at the damage left behind, it made me feel uneasy for some reason.
As we came onto the main thoroughfare that led to the gate itself, the damage was far more obvious. It wasn't completely gone, but the top of the wall that the gates were usually in was completely demolished, the doors themselves awkwardly leaning against the interior side of the wall that hadn't been destroyed. The doors hadn't escaped being damaged either; the top beams of both were almost completely reduced to splinters. I could see pockets of rubble on both sides, and the small gatehouse where ninja had checked Tazuna's papers was gone. Probably flattened.
We weren't the only ones here. Ahead, guards were standing watch by the ruined entrance. Even from this distance they looked tense and alert.
Before we reached them, though, Kakashi pulled me off down a small side street, and then to a particularly questionable looking door. From there, we went inside.
The room was cramped and filled with people, the only lighting provided by a bare bulb with a pull-string. There was another door on the other side, but just past someone's elbow, I could see that it looked disused, dried paint filling the cracks between the door and its frame from the other side.
Everyone inside already turned to look at us.
Jiraiya sort of made sense; he had taken Naruto out of the village to find Tsunade in the series, and there was Naruto right next to him, smothering a yawn from where he was leaning against the wall, and then Sakura, doing her best to rub sleep from her eyes.
The others though, not so much. Inoichi and Ino were in here, Inoichi's face tightly drawn from stress and exhaustion, and Ino didn't look that much better, her hands tight around the straps of her backpack. Shikamaru looked half asleep. Shino and his father were also in the tight little space, his dad's hand on Shino's shoulder. Who knows what they were thinking? The gourd his dad had with him during the first exam was thankfully not present; with it, the room would have been an even tighter fit.
This was… definitely not what I was expecting. None of the kids were dressed in their usual outfits, or at least the usual components, leg holsters and any of their usual wraps missing. Naruto's jacket was the most blatantly absent, instead in a blue t-shirt that wasn't completely tucked into his pants.
"Here he is," Kakashi said, voice tired. "Where's Shikaku?"
"He just left," Inoichi answered, sounding just as worn out. "He has a full day ahead of him. He couldn't stay any longer."
Jiraiya snorted. "Well, that's all of them, unless you're planning on springing any more surprises on me. Give the fakes to the kids; I'm not going to be carrying them around."
As I looked around, it was clear that the only ones who were leaving with Jiraiya were going to be the kids. None of the other adults had bags with them.
Inoichi reached into the pocket of his coat, pulling out a set of booklets which he carefully distributed. "Don't lose these."
The cover was mud brown, with a complex seal embossed on it.
Naruto opened his up first, before he looked at Inoichi with wary eyes. "This is a passport from the capital."
Inoichi's eyes looked over at Kakashi for a moment, who shrugged. "You've already learned the difference, have you?"
"What difference?" Ino looked between her father, Naruto, and then at everyone else, frowning.
"The six of you will be officially travelling as civilian children," Kakashi said. "Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, give me your hitai-ate."
"What!?" Naruto spun towards Kakashi, shoulders setting in place. "But we earned this, these are what prove we're ninja!"
"We aren't taking your rank away," Inoichi told him. "Only the Hokage can do that."
I yanked Sasuke's off and stuffed it into Kakashi's outreached hand, the knot still in place.
Heavy silence took up the room, and Naruto hunched in on himself, taking his hitai-ate off but not letting go of it. Sakura had reluctantly untied her own, bangs sweeping over her eyes for a moment before she shoved them back and handed it over.
"Like he said, you'll be officially travelling as civilians. We don't have the manpower or ability to keep all of you safe if there's another incursion right now," Inoichi explained. "All of you are of potential interest to Orochimaru or Otogakure in some way. We need time to identify and root out as many foreign agents he might have in the village as we can."
I looked at Shino, trying to figure out— it hit me almost immediately. Kabuto's card on Sasuke. Oh.
"But why as civilians?" Ino asked. Her arms had wrapped around her.
"Because it's all documented," Shikamaru said, eyes flicking between the adults for confirmation. "But they won't be expecting us to leave the village pretending to be civilians."
"We don't track civilians the same way," Shibi confirmed. "If there are any spies who are paying attention to departures, they will be focused on the active mission list."
"It will give us at least a day or two," Kakashi said. He narrowed his eye at Naruto. "Naruto. This isn't a mission for you."
Naruto heaved a breath, setting his shoulders, before finally handing it over. "Don't get it mixed up with theirs, okay? Iruka-sensei gave me his."
"I won't," Kakashi promised.
"Mine has a scorch mark on it anyways," Sakura murmured.
Though Naruto gave his hitai-ate up, the tension in the small room didn't vanish.
After a slight nod from Jiraiya's head, Kakashi opened the door out again, and prompted by Inoichi nudging Ino forward, we left. Shino's father stayed behind.
Kakashi uncovered his Sharingan as we approached the opening in the wall, Inoichi beside him. Jiraiya was disconcertingly sharp-looking, standing at his full height with a sort of intensity to him that he didn't bother to usually show.
The guards said nothing, even as they stamped each passport, not showing any sign of recognition or acknowledgement of what they were doing besides going through the motions.
On the other side of the remnants of the gate, Kakashi kept his head still turned towards the guards.
Genjutsu?
"I'll wipe their memories once they've left," Inoichi murmured to him. I had the distinct suspicion I wasn't supposed to hear that, because Kakashi raised an eyebrow at me, and flapped his hand, motioning for me to move ahead towards Jiraiya and the others.
I walked away.
The children did not look all that excited at being outside the village bounds without easy access to weapons. I was hard pressed on who looked the most disgruntled, any of the kids or Jiraiya, who didn't exactly appear thrilled either.
Jiraiya's eyes flicked towards me, eyes squinting slightly in the darkness. "You're getting a jacket at the first shukuba," he said.
"What?"
"Even civilians can recognize the Uchiha mon. We're not going to be out of the village long enough for it to be worth you getting a new wardrobe. You're getting a jacket."
This didn't answer what a shukuba was supposed to be, and I couldn't figure it out from context. There was no little answer waiting to ambush me either, this time.
"If I knew I could have lent Sasuke my jacket," Naruto grumbled.
I resisted making a face at that idea.
The weight of a hand pressed on my shoulder, and I jerked as I looked over, which made me almost lose my balance. Kakashi. Inoichi was next to him, not quite out of sight in the darkness.
"You're still supposed to be taking it easy," he said, voice neutral. "Listen to Jiraiya and try to not draw attention to yourselves. You should treat this like a mission. He's in charge."
"You just said it wasn't a mission." Naruto crossed his arms.
"It's not one for you." Jiraiya rolled his eyes. "I'll make sure no one's brains get scrambled any more than they already are."
"We'll try to keep the talks drawn out as long as we can," Inoichi said, "but I can't make any promises."
Kakashi looked more long-suffering than he usually had in these dreams.
"Reveal the plan if you have to. That should be enough."
"What if—" Inoichi began, but Jiraiya cut him off with a heavy snort.
"'What if' what? Hiruzen-sensei's councillors don't have the final say, it's the daimyō. And I've already sent his court a little message."
Even in low light, it was obvious that Kakashi stiffened. "What—"
"They're not going to settle for anyone else without a solid no." Jiraiya's teeth were visible in a wide, shit-eating grin. "Don't reveal that bit, though." He wagged a finger. "Just follow the plan. There shouldn't be any fancy robes in your near future."
Kakashi slumped. "Fine."
This was definitely off-script, and there was something broadly hilarious about the fact that none of the kids had any idea of what was playing out in front of them.
Inoichi and Kakashi left us after that, returning for the inside of the village.
"Here, hold." Jiraiya swung his pack off for a moment, and rummaged through it, eventually pulling out a small battery powered lantern which he turned on, and tossed over to Naruto, who scrambled to catch it without dropping it.
Naruto made a face at it. "A lantern? What do we need that for?"
Shikamaru squinted at it. "Isn't that going to ruin our night vision?"
"That's the point," Jiraiya said, which only gathered further consternation from all the kids. "It's an obvious tell. Any civilians that travel at night carry a light with them because it makes them feel safer. Shinobi don't."
Ino looked at him with an unsure look on her face, eyebrows crinkled together. "But what if we need to-"
"You won't."
"I didn't even get to finish what I was saying," Ino muttered.
Without letting any of them have another chance to start, he started walking, forcing us to follow him.
Without the hitai-ate, in mostly normal-looking clothing, and looking awkward and unsure of themselves, they all looked more like particularly disgruntled middle schoolers than they usually did. Children on a field trip they didn't want to go on. It made me nostalgic for a moment until I remembered how much the one overnight trip I did in eighth grade made me annoyed.
The awkward quiet lasted for however long until Sakura broke the silence.
"You made it sound like we're going to meet someone," she said. Her words were careful.
"We are." Jiraiya's voice was serious sounding, to the point. "With the Sandaime dead, they need to select a new Hokage. I have someone in mind."
"Someone not currently in the village?" Shino asked.
Jiraiya laughed. "You could put it that way. I know my sensei's old comrades; they like to keep things simple, all in order. All of you are either related to important people or are going to end up shoved into important positions on your own if you live long enough."
Judging from the fact that Sakura's face turned red, visible from the yellow glow of the lantern's bulb, she had figured out what Jiraiya was implying. Nepotism. She didn't exactly seem a fan.
"The Shodaime and Nidaime were brothers," Jiraiya began, in a tone I was familiar with from years of lectures that were starting off with basic facts. "And the Sandaime was taught by the Nidaime. I was taught by the Sandaime, and taught the Yondaime."
"And the Yondaime taught Kakashi-sensei, yeah?" Naruto confirmed. The gleam in his eyes suggested that he saw where this was going.
"I'd eat the hat and everything that comes with it before I ever put it on, and your sensei's not exactly in good repute right now, even if he was willing to take it."
"Who does that leave, then?" Sakura asked.
"I'd guess maybe Asuma-sensei, but he's in the village." Shikamaru made a face even as he suggested it. "And there's no way he would want to be Hokage anyways."
Ino grimaced.
"My other old teammate, Tsunade," Jiraiya said.
Naruto tilted his head slightly. "I thought she quit or something? That's what Kaka-sensei said, right?" He looked to Sakura for confirmation, and she nodded.
"It's not as simple as that, but she's been gone for a while, yeah."
"Tou-san's mentioned her," Shino commented. "She's been gone from the village since before we were born. Even if the jōnin and daimyō were willing to confirm her, would she want to?"
Jiraiya laced his fingers together, and bent them backwards, letting them pop audibly. "Oh, I think she would. As for the jōnin, you kids might have noticed—" he took a glance at Naruto and course-corrected— " at least some of you might have noticed that they've been unhappy for a few weeks."
Naruto stuck his tongue out at Jiraiya. "I'm not dumb. Even I've noticed they were the only ones still okay with Kakashi-sensei," he grumbled.
"They'll be more willing to take someone who's not been involved in any of the political garbage going on after everything that's happened, and she's the granddaughter of the Shodaime and great-niece of the Nidaime. As far as the daimyō's concerned, she's a ninja princess," Jiraiya cracked. "Which is why I sent them a message about reaching out to her to be the Godaime Hokage. If she's not where she should be, it'll buy time."
On the other side, Ino looked wan, probably from the yellow light washing her out.
The conversation petered out from there; the painfully early morning wasn't exactly the best time for conversation, and everyone except for Jiraiya was occasionally yawning, trying to fend off being tired as the sun slowly rose ahead of us. Eventually, Jiraiya took the lantern from Naruto, turning it off and putting it in his bag again once it was light enough.
I was used to doing things exhausted, or at least, normally. Normally didn't seem to count for these, though, because my head was starting to pulse. It wasn't until I stepped on a rock and almost lost my balance that I realized how bad it actually was.
Jiraiya yanked me up by the shirt collar before I could actually fall over, which I grimaced at.
"Alright, time for a break," he said. He veered for the side of the road, leaving it entirely.
Shikamaru covered his mouth as he yawned. "Fine with me."
"We haven't even been walking for that long." Naruto's complaint didn't have much heart to it.
"Sasuke is still concussed," Shino noted. "Since he's recovering and we're not operating under known time restraints, we're supposed to operate within the restrictions of the weakest member of a squad." His head tilted towards Jiraiya.
"Clinical little thing, aren't you?" went Jiraiya in response. He continued speaking, ignoring the slight buzz that started from within Shino's coat. "You're right, though if I had it my way I wouldn't be dragging a genin with a head injury along for the trip, much less this many of you."
Sakura glanced in my direction. "Sasuke-kun, are you doing alright?"
I shrugged.
Jiraiya looked at me for a moment, expression considerate in a way that unsettled me, before continuing to walk, dismissing whatever it was he was thinking. "He'll be fine."
He didn't stop until we were deeper into the trees, the road and anyone else who might be on it no longer in sight, hidden past a thick panel of bushes. "This will do," he said, unslinging his pack and the giant scroll holder from his back. "We'll stay here for about an hour, give the ones who need it time for a nap, and then continue moving. We'll probably stop again around noon."
I let myself drop onto the ground, pulling my- no, Sasuke's- gear bag off with more care than Jiraiya had just shown, and poked it cautiously. It wasn't packed dangerously, and the mention of a nap had sounded good, even though sleeping in any of these Sasuke-dreams only spat me out on the other side of them. I hadn't realized how suddenly fatigued I felt until he suggested the idea of resting in the first place.
I carefully laid down, resting my head on the bag, in order to use it as a particularly lumpy pillow.
The last thing I was aware of was Naruto bugging Jiraiya about something.
In what was beginning to become alarmingly frequent for it, Kakashi's head was beginning to pulse threateningly again, the warning signs of yet another headache from the last few days' events, and it was only the start of his own morning, one he had put off as long as he possibly was able for the sake of sleep. It didn't even have the decency to wait until he had left his apartment, already throbbing while he woke up. It wasn't nearly enough rest, not to make up for the last few days. Five hours the night before the tournament and attack. Two hours the night of, and another three just now. Barely tolerable for running combat with strategies worked out ahead of time, but not nearly enough when he had to think.
He finished off the glass of water he had grabbed before knocking out earlier, throwing back a couple of headache pills, and after a second's consideration, a caffeine pill as well before he shuffled himself into his bathroom to shower, leaving the door open to let some of the light in.
The whole block his apartment building was on was without electricity, which meant not only no lights in his windowless bathroom, but no heated water, either. It was also considered low-occupancy, low priority because not only were most of the people living in his building ninja, they were one-room studios. The buildings with families and the elderly were prioritized for regaining power if they had lost it.
Kakashi got soap in Obito's eye in the middle of rinsing off when the water suddenly gave out. He had to leave the shower to grab the water pitcher to irrigate the eye and wet a towel to finish the job as much as possible, trying to not trip over the pair of sandals he had been wearing during the attack in the process. They still smelled vaguely from Sasuke's vomit, among other things. The water was still off when he left, the back of his neck slightly itching from unrinsed suds and eye still irritated under the hitai-ate.
Standing in the rain at the memorial only made the sensation creep further down his back after the water slowly soaked his hair and through his funeral clothes.
The funeral for the Sandaime was a somber affair, enough that not only were the whispers that were still following him in the last month silenced, but no one asked out loud about the noticeably missing genin, either. Only his team's Academy sensei's eyes met his in curiosity at their absence. Kakashi ignored it.
The water was running again when he returned to his apartment. He poured the remaining water from the pitcher into the pot of a plant that he was mostly certain was one of Naruto's since it was salvaged from the debris of the blond's apartment building, refilled it, and threw himself into the shower again to get the remaining dried suds off. The remaining soap in his hair washed into his eye.
He swallowed a second caffeine pill before pulling his mask on when he got dressed in his uniform. His clean pair of sandals squelched when he pulled them.
Kakashi made it roughly halfway to the Kirigakure of Wave's lodgings— it took longer than it normally would, due to the occasional pockets of rubble and detours he didn't bother to ignore for once, along with taking his time—before he got pelted in the head with a small, green walnut that bounced off in front of him. He grabbed the second one out of the air before it could hit him in the face.
Tenzō dropped from the tree next to him, a disapproving expression on his face before he prodded a cold can of coffee and a bento at Kakashi's stomach. "How much sleep have you been getting?"
"Enough." Kakashi took the coffee can, opened it, and with a trick he practiced and learned when he was ten and particularly stubborn and obnoxious, chugged the whole thing in less than six seconds. It wasn't one he was planning on showing off in front of any of his genin, lest Naruto get it into his head it was an idea to learn. No one had been particularly impressed with the resultant gassiness when he had mastered it as a child, and it would not be any cuter from the far more obnoxious and older Naruto. It was easier with non-carbonated drinks, anyways.
Tenzō didn't seem that convinced, and fell into step next to him when forcing Kakashi to take the bento didn't work. "They still have you on the diplomatic mission?"
"Momochi Zabuza thinks it's funny," was Kakashi's response. He shrugged. "He refuses to deal with anyone but me until a Godaime Hokage is selected. When did you get back from your mission?"
"This morning."
The rest of the walk was in silence. Despite Tenzō's recent interest in his genin— to the point of offering to help train Sakura for the tournament— Tenzō didn't ask after them or where they were today. It wasn't something that would have been easily noticeable to any observers.
The only sign that might have been was when they passed a few blocks from where Naruto's apartment used to be and Tenzō's eyes looked in that direction questioningly. Tenzō must have done a brief reconnaissance of the village, then.
"Ah, Naruto's staying with Jiraiya," he said, shoving his hands into his pocket. "He has running water and electricity. My apartment is small and only has water," which led to a brief phantom itch on the back of his neck, though he had fully scrubbed and rinsed it off, "Sasuke's is without either—" and the boy refused to stay anywhere else in spite of it, even while concussed— "and Sakura-chan's family has water and a generator, but her parents have civilian relatives from the capital staying with them."
Tenzo just nodded in response.
That had made it both harder and more vital to have Sakura leave with the other two; while she wasn't necessarily an attractive target in and of herself except for her connection to the boys, any incidents in front of those relatives would have only spread things Konoha didn't need spreading in the months to come.
It was better for all three of them to leave with Jiraiya, under the current circumstances. Being pushed into being the one representing Konoha in the talks with Zabuza's Kirigakure meant that even in spite of his current reputation, Kakashi was forced into a position where he had more say than he usually would have, and had to take part in meetings. If they remained in the village, Kakashi would have had to run himself down into nothing to make sure nothing else happened.
Tenzo followed him all the way to the Mist-nin's lodgings, and even inside, where it was pleasantly cool, unlike most of Konoha's buildings in the summer.
The front desk right inside the doors was positioned in just a way that allowed whoever was at it to have an advantageous view of the building's ground floor lounge and the walk from the street. Whenever the building was provided to the ninja of other villages, it was meant to be manned by a chūnin of the Leaf. Otherwise, if it was rented by civilians, they had to provide or hire someone themselves.
Today, and like nearly every other day since Zabuza and his people had arrived, it was manned by the same radio-nin that didn't like Kakashi, enough that Kakashi suspected it was also intended as a punishment detail for the chūnin.
The man at the desk was, like the rest of them lately, also overworked. In his case, it meant that when Kakashi and Tenzo entered, he was in the middle of messing around with the interior of a larger radio, screwdriver in one hand, a bracelet around the other wrist with a cord trailing down out of sight from. There was a pile of others next to him: some larger and meant for more stationary fieldwork for mobile bases along with the much smaller handsets. The chūnin's face wasn't quite visible, looking deep in the radio's casing, only a short crop of brown hair visible.
"Good morning, Shinju," Kakashi said.
Shinju jolted, smacking the top of his skull against the metal case with a satisfying echoing thud, and sat straight up to glower at him. "Hatake." Kakashi ignored the sweared insults. He had been on this particular chunin's bad side for about three years now, and if anything, Shinju barely seemed to have noticed the crash of Kakashi's reputation. "Momochi's got a new guest or something; they're up in the fourth floor meeting room."
Kakashi eyed the radio-nin from curiosity, but he had already returned to working on the radio in front of him, visibly ignoring Kakashi. Trying to extract more information from the chūnin would be an exercise in frustration; Shinju had no issues with getting mouthy or tight-lipped depending on circumstances in the past and had provided technically enough information for Kakashi. Whoever it was wasn't immediately identifiable to Shinju then, but was a known entity to Zabuza, and someone the self-proclaimed Mizukage has taken up to the simultaneously more private— and therefore carefully bugged— spaces on the upper levels.
He passed the Demon Brothers, who were sitting in the ground floor lounge, on the way to the stairs. Gōzu and Meizu had been released to Zabuza the day after his contingent had arrived in Konohagakure. Their faces were exposed, rebreathers and paired gauntlets sitting on the table before them. They were not-so-subtly guarding the ground floor, then, since there were no other Kiri-nin around.
The talk between the two stopped when the shaggy-haired one sat up straighter than he had been, and looked at Kakashi before he reached the stairs. "Hey! Hatake!"
His brother's eyes widened. "Gōzu! Don't you dare!"
Kakashi turned his head enough to look. "Yes?"
Meizu elbowed his brother sharply, giving Kakashi a sharp-toothed grin. "That girl at that ramen stall the Uzumaki brat keeps dragging people to, what's her name?"
This was the newest low of everything to have come out of the mission to Wave for Kakashi, and almost too much. Not allying himself and the Leaf by implication with a dangerous missing-nin, or the side-effect of the prices of certain goods becoming expensive even on jōnin-level pay while others became obscenely cheap and everyone in the village was aware it was due to him, or even the diplomacy work that was slowly and inexorably dragging Kakashi slowly away from fieldwork and towards a life with only paperwork ahead of it. It was the fact that he was now being sought as assistance for the love-life of someone he tied to a tree a few months ago.
He decided to ignore them until he was halfway up the stairs. "Ayame-chan is only fifteen," he lied. Kakashi was at least able to savor the flustered shouting and laughing that echoed up the stairway after him. Tenzō at least wasn't able to give him a disappointed look until they reached the landing for the next floor.
When they reached the landing for the fourth floor, the door handle was visibly frosted, and Kakashi used the palm of his hand to push it down and enter the corridor beyond.
Tenzō's breath fogged in the air next to him. The corridor itself was near-freezing, empty except for a sulky-looking Suigetsu who was standing outside one of the doors. The boy was in an oversized and dated sweater that must have come from a local second-hand shop if the decorative collar with the spiral-leaf pattern was anything to go by, hands shoved into his armpits.
He gave Kakashi a glowering look as though it was his fault he was out here, reluctantly pulling one hand free to open the door to call inside. "Hatake's here! And some other Leaf-nin! Can I leave already instead of standing guard over this damn door? I'm hungry."
Zabuza's head poked out not long after, bandages loose from his face and around his neck, and the man gave him a smirk that told Kakashi he was probably going to be having a headache today regardless of however many painkillers he took or glasses of water he drank. "Good, you're here. It was too hot for my guest, but Haku got a bit overambitious in solving the problem." It was an awful lie even by Kakashi's standards. Zabuza glanced at Suigetsu. "You're staying and guarding the door."
The damage from a sudden and severe freeze would be enough to knock out any hidden cameras, nevermind what moisture would do to any microphones meant to pick up on conversation that were only rated for domestic spying. This was now going to be Kakashi's problem to report— to Shinju, since technically the chūnin on duty was responsible for anything like that breaking— and his problem in general, since this didn't appear to mean that Zabuza wasn't planning on including him in whatever was happening to begin with.
Tenzō gave him a look he didn't deserve and shoved the bento that was supposed to be Kakashi's into Suigetsu's hands. He suddenly regretted not eating it when he had the chance, because Tenzō giving food that was originally meant for him away meant that he was going to have to do something eventually if he didn't want Tenzō to be bothering him over it for the next several months.
It was made more galling by the fact that Suigetsu, who had proven to be a more petulant and violence-inclined brat than most genin, gave Tenzō a thankful look before beginning to cram the contents down his throat as they entered the meeting room.
Inside, Haku was standing directly under the ventilation grate, which was lightly coated in what appeared to be a slow build-up of frost caused from the snowflakes that were slowly being sucked in.
But Zabuza's apprentice wasn't the one that gained Kakashi's focus.
That was the man sitting at the table in a way that allowed him a view of both the door and the room's window. Half sprawled in his tilted-back chair with the black robe he was wearing open, Hoshigaki Kisame stared at Kakashi with a shark-toothed smile, the giant sword that must be Samehada leaning against the wall right next to him. The missing-nin who was known for assassinating daimyō and being a near-unstoppable force showed no sign of concern at being in the middle of a foreign village.
"Hatake Kakashi the copy-nin… isn't this interesting?"
Kakashi felt his head begin to throb.
Ino was staring at me when I opened my eyes, and I wasn't able to resist making a face. Her face turned bright red and she hastily turned away, looking towards everyone else instead.
I had no idea what that was about and didn't want to ask; it seemed that while Sakura had mostly toned it down in these dreams, Ino had not. Not for the first time, I regretted being reminded so vividly of middle school and early high school relationship drama, especially after yesterday's lunch with Xochitl when I had admitted to having these dreams to her.
I wasn't so sure these were stress dreams or came from some terrible, hidden desire to return to the feral experience that was middle school. I hadn't pursued a teaching certification for a reason. Her attempt at some kind of sympathy and advice hadn't stopped her from asking with wagging eyebrows if I thought Kakashi was hot anyways, or prevented me from smacking her with my cane afterwards.
Kakashi, especially in his role as sensei to Team Seven, was about as hot as a flaming compost pile. I still felt better about everything when I went to class after, enough that when I got home I even had dinner. Two meals in a day.
Deciding to ignore Ino being an awkward twelve year old girl for now, at least, I sat up all the way, feeling annoyed that the extra rest had helped. Then again, Sasuke did have a concussion. I vaguely remembered that rest was supposed to help with that sort of thing for recovery.
A bit further off, Jiraiya had the other four paying rapt attention to him. I wandered over.
Jiraiya was crouched down in front of a clear patch of dirt, drawing in it with a stick. There were plenty of weird-looking squiggles around a central spiral pattern, but from the fact that Sakura, Shino, Shikamaru, and even Naruto didn't look confused, it apparently made sense.
Jiraiya looked up, and gave me a toothy grin. "Sleep well?"
I made a face at him.
He laughed, and stood up, taking his time to do so with his hands on his knees. "That's enough of a break for now."
"Hey, you didn't show us how to finish it!"
Jiraiya prodded Naruto with the stick, and Naruto swatted it away before snatching it. "I showed you enough. Why don't you see if you can finish this one? Use what I taught you."
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at Jiraiya, doubt clear in his eyes.
"Jiraiya-sama, if he finishes this seal incorrectly, what could happen?" Shino asked.
"It probably shouldn't explode or anything," was his answer. It was too evasive.
Sakura met my eyes, and we both backed away to stand behind the next ring of trees out, Shino and Shikamaru joining me behind the tree I picked.
Naruto made a rude gesture, before dropping into a crouch and adding more to it, tongue sticking out in concentration as he did.
Eventually, he looked up at Jiraiya. "Did I do it right?"
"I don't know," Jiraiya said with a shrug that said to me that he did in fact know, and was just wanting to watch Naruto's reaction. "Why don't you find out? Channel some chakra into it."
Naruto straightened up, a determined look on his face, and presumably did that.
Nothing immediately exploded, and for a few seconds, it was silent. Shino yanked Shikamaru back behind the tree when the other boy was about to step out from behind the shelter we had taken.
It was a wise decision because all of a sudden, a giant gust kicked upcoming from the ground where the seal was, strong enough that it sent dirt, leaves and twigs into the air, Naruto and Jiraiya's clothes billowing and the older man's hair straight up until Jiraiya dragged his foot through it all, cutting the seal off.
"Next time," Jiraiya said, after spitting dirt out of his mouth, "use less chakra."
Naruto rubbed his tongue on the bottom hem of his shirt. "Okay. Got it."
I helpfully pulled a missed twig out from Shino's hair after combing a hand through mine to get rid of the fallen tree bits that had gotten in it. Shikamaru took his hair out of his ponytail to try and get the debris out.
Sakura ended up pulling her brush out of her pack. She and Ino had been a bit closer to ground zero, and had more hair.
By the time we got back to the road, Sakura had brushed her hair out, had helped Shikamaru with his, and was now in the middle of brushing Ino's, walking in sync a few steps behind the blonde.
Jiraiya was still fighting with his own hair, running a hand through it going from the very bottom. He had a long way to go, and I did not envy him.
"I bet Sakura-chan would let you use her hairbrush next," Naruto suggested.
Jiraiya narrowed his eyes slightly. "I'm not borrowing a twelve year old girl's hairbrush."
"I'm thirteen!"
"Fine, thirteen. Still not."
Even when we stopped for further breaks, there were no further practical lessons, though Jiraiya was still explaining— if slowly and having to sometimes repeat himself or break things down further— to a mostly-interested Naruto. Sakura and Ino listened in as well, but any interest Shikamaru had seemed to disappear with the fact his hair needed to get brushed, and by Sakura, since she refused to relinquish her hairbrush at all. That probably played a role in Jiraiya's refusal, if I was guessing. The road we were on gradually went from large, to small, and then larger again as we took different routes that slowly took us eastward.
It was early evening, the sun about to set, when we finally reached the boundaries of a small village, surrounded by a wall. It wasn't gated, but it was narrowly built, none of the buildings that I could see from our direction stretching out past the road itself. They also looked much more dated than anything else in these dreams, except for maybe some of the buildings in the village where we had come across Jiraiya in the first place.
Jiraiya looked pleased, presumably at the prospect of shaking himself off children for a while. "We're staying here for the night."
Shikamaru, on the other hand, not so much. "Here? I thought we were trying to lay low."
"We will be. Places like this see constant travelers, since they're funded by the capital. As long as none of you try to pull off anything big or get too loud—" he glanced at Naruto— "no one's gonna remember any of you. Especially not during this time of the year."
"Why this time of year?" I asked. By all appearances, the kids weren't going to ask.
Jiraiya gave me an unimpressed look.
I ended up putting it together, to my own dismay, about ten minutes later, when Jiraiya shoved me into a general store just on the inside of the walls with the reminder to find a jacket, Sakura and Naruto trailing in after me.
The inside of the general store was crawling with children. Most of them were accompanied by what were probably their parents, but it was still enough that even Naruto was giving the whole interior a side-eye, probably because he was the one used to being the loudest in a room. While none of the kids in here were being bratty, there were still enough of the under-ten crowd for it to be mildly overwhelming.
In the far corner, they sold clothes, separated by a shelf from a toiletry section which was mostly filled with travel-sized goods or products that were easy to pack away. It wasn't particularly big, or stocked with a wide variety of things, just giving me more of an impression that this store was meant for travelers more than anything else.
Out of spite for the demand of it being a jacket, I ended up picking out a short-sleeved haori in a charcoal grey. I had to drag both Naruto and Sakura out of the short aisle of books and magazines, but not after grabbing a 'Updated Maps and Geography of Fire Country' out of sheer curiosity.
It took longer to wait in line for the cashier than it did to actually choose anything, which was probably why the others waited outside. The store itself wasn't uncomfortably crowded, but it was close enough to not want to come in if you didn't have to.
We were led to an inn after that, and up to a single large room. It had bedding stowed away against one wall, enough for a group this size, and not exactly a new experience after dreaming so long about the Wave mission, but what was fascinating to me, at least, was the CRT TV on a low stand on the other side of the room. I had 'inherited' our old one back when I was in high school— my mom wasn't so willing to throw out something that was still working, especially when it meant carrying it out of our second story apartment back then— but these days it was lying in state in my abuela's garage, occasionally trying to break toes.
What kind of channels did ninja world television have?
Jiraiya unslung his pack by the door and after casting a glance at Sakura, yanked a hairbrush out of it, and ran it through his hair, getting out the worst of the snarls from Naruto's brief adventure with fuinjutsu.
"Right," he started, after he shoved it back in, "I'm going to be waiting to meet a contact at the izakaya at the other end of the street from here. You don't need to stay here, but I don't want any of you going in there."
This gathered a mix of expressions, ranging from doubt on Shikamaru's, to utter disbelief from Naruto.
"If you don't want us to follow you there, why are you telling us?" Shikamaru asked.
"It's actually women, isn't it?" Sakura let out a small noise of disdain.
Jiraiya rolled his eyes. "No, it's not women. I still have work to do and I don't need you brats gumming up my work unless there's an emergency. If something happens, send the Aburame."
Shino didn't look particularly happy at being set up for this.
Naruto squinted his eyes at Shino, and then looked up at Jiraiya. "What if something happens to him?"
"Then send Sakura if you have to. Get some food and sleep, because we're leaving in the morning." With that, he left.
Shikamaru looked around at everyone and without saying anything, pulled one of the futons out from where they were stacked, and fell face forward onto it with an impressive flop.
"That's not very hygienic." Shino walked towards the window, where he set his own bag down and began to pull things out.
"Shikamaru!" Ino grabbed one of his arms and attempted to yank him upwards. "At least go take a shower first!"
Naruto wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, that's gross."
Sakura stared at Naruto, probably over the idea of him calling anything gross, before shaking her head. "I'm going to go find somewhere to eat," she decided.
In the end, those turned out to be the magic words to get everyone to leave the inn, including Shikamaru, though in his case Ino had to roll him off of the futon first. I reluctantly pulled the haori on when we left, with a last look at the TV, though I took the map book with me.
Thankfully, the assortment of magical middle schoolers I was stuck within these dreams were just at the right age where they were beginning to find other, slightly younger children obnoxious or preferable to avoid, which meant that we ended up inside a more casual sit-down restaurant rather than a ramen stall that had a loud toddler at it, right next to a window that looked out onto the road.
While we waited for the food, I pulled out and unfolded the large map. Somehow to my surprise and not, Konoha wasn't just labeled on it, but had its leaf symbol as a marker, surrounded by dots for towns and the lines that indicated different kinds of roads. Not exactly a Hidden Village.
A brief glance of black and red outside the window tore my attention from the map, especially as the kids started to talk about where they had gone before this, and where they wanted to visit.
I woke up still exhausted but feeling better than I had for the last several days. It seemed I had forgotten that attempting to take care of myself— by way of eating food and drinking water— helped me feel like less of a complete raging trashfire. Funny how that worked.
I closed the still-concerningly-multiplying tabs of Naruto-related internet content on my phone, admired the photo of Xochitl's mother's obese 18-year-old Chihuahua, toothlessly drooling in a Cowboys jersey themed dog sweater, and left my mother on read when I saw her text about brunch this weekend with Abuela until I looked up where to buy tattoo concealer before I left for campus.
TA a class. Attend my grad level course. Buy tattoo concealer.
That was all I had to do today, and with that, I could mostly melt into a puddle for the next week. I just had to survive the next few hours to make it to spring break.
I wrote the Kakashi bit with his water turning off in the middle of him being all soapy and went to bed. The next day, after I woke up and I went to shower, the water turned off in the middle of me being all soapy. Unlike Kakashi, I just flopped over in the bathtub until the water turned back on. It was very hilarious, and unfair to have the universe visit this upon me after doing so to a character in a story.
Out here, it's getting quite hot- enough that today it hit a feel of 101F/36C and that's it's going to be pretty similar for the rest of the weekend. The sun is shining, it is burning, and the next time I go outside for more than ten minutes during the middle of the day I'm definitely turning brown. It's already sunny enough that I got a minor tan. I'll be fully vaccinated soon, too, which is exciting. Last week (the 18th) also marks a full year since I started writing this fic. I can't wait for the next year of chapters and everyone's reactions. I hope everyone in the northern hemisphere is going to have the opportunity for a nice summer with limited things on fire or burning, and for those on the other side of the planet that you all have a decent winter.
But yes! Quite a few changes have begun to emerge more obviously here and will be causing further changes, and poor Sasuke's brain is still recovering from being so thoroughly scrambled. There should be an upload within the next few days for Perne in a Gyre.