The sun is bright and Kakashi's single eye is curved in a smile. He sits with his ANBU team at the edge of the training field, unpacking their food onto a picnic blanket. He speaks with his team freely, poking fun at them and generally giving no indication of being affected by Snake's death or the happenings in ROOT.

Perhaps that is the clearest indicator that Kakashi isn't alright, but Sakumo sees the occasional flash of genuine warmth when Kakashi looks at his bantering team. When he's with them, Kakashi's mind can't linger in the white-washed walls of the mortuary or the dark halls of ROOT, and that... that must be a breath of fresh air. A moment of relief.

"Ittadakimasu!"

Hungry from running laps around the grassy field, the new ANBU dig into their rice bowls wish relish. The food is still warm; a useful side-effect of using sealing scrolls to store things. "It's good!" Yugao exclaims with a pleased sound of surprise. "Thanks captain!"

"You're welcome," Kakashi replies, that playful glint in his eye again.

"Has our little kitty gotten his breakfast too?" Rin asks, peering at the edge of the forest where Kakashi had deliberately left the unagi rice bowl set. When asked about his curious actions, Kakashi gave his team a Obito-worthy spiel about wooden cats that sprout from trees. Kou's eyes had bugged out rather comically at that, but Kinoe obviously got the joke, since the plastic container is nowhere to be seen.

"Introductions," the young Hatake announces, replacing his mask with a crinkle-eyed smile before anyone can catch a glimpse of his face. He sets his empty bowl down and takes a leisurely sip of tea through his mask. "Tell me the name, code-name, and the specialty of the person sitting to your right. Kou, why don't you start."

"Uh," the brown-haired man says, looking at Mitsuo, who sits back and raises an eyebrow. "He's Nara Mitsuo. Code-name Lynx. He's a sensor and he can use the Nara secret shadow jutsus." Kou wiggles his fingers as he says that and Yugao giggles.

Mitsuo looks to his right and sighs. "How troublesome. Everyone knows you."

"Then why don't say something that not everyone knows," Kakashi challenges.

The Nara tips his head back, his face turned towards the bright blue sky. Finally, he looks at Kakashi again, a crooked smile on his lips. "You were a finnicky baby. Your mother had eyebags because of you."

Sakumo laughs, because it's true. The shopkeepers in the morning market commented on her zombie-like look and Yoriko had been horrified.

Kakashi's eyebrows have disappeared under his hitai-ate. "Oh dear. My misdeeds have been exposed," he says dryly, though the softening of his gaze shows he appreciates Mitsuo's comment. It must be nice to know something lighthearted about his parents without all that baggage of death and duty attached.

He turns to Yugao. "Uzuki Yugao," he begins, and there are already spots of colour high on her cheeks. Kakashi pretends he doesn't notice. "Code-name Ocelot. Specialty in kenjutsu."

"That's me!" Yugao beams. She turns and points at Kou. "This guy is Amano Kou, also known as Puma. He looks skinny—"

"Hey!"

"—but he's actually a super fast taijutsu user!"

"That's better."

Kakashi nods approvingly. "Seems like everyone has done their homework. I hope breakfast has already settled a bit, because we'll be doing a team exercise now to prepare for future missions. This team is organised according to the metrics of an infiltration-slash-recovery team. Since we have so many front-line fighters, we'll probably get missions with a decent risk of combat if the infiltration portion goes wrong." He sips his tea again as he gestures at the field. "See these flags?"

The team nods. While Kakashi was buying breakfast for everyone, a clone set up the training field. The piece of land is now dotted randomly with about fifty little bright red flags.

"There are antidotes hidden in underneath some of them."

"Those poor children," Rin sighs, shaking her head, as Kakashi's team stares at him in alarm. "Don't eat food offered by strangers."

"Antidotes?" Mitsuo says slowly. Kou gags.

There's a pleased look on their captain's face. "I've poisoned all of you. In fifteen minutes, you'll lose all sensation and fine motor control. The effects will kick in within five minutes."

"A-are you kidding?" Yugao gasps. The poor kid's wide-eyed look of betrayal makes even Sakumo feel bad.

Kakashi smiles fades as he regards them severely with his single eye. "This is to simulate a mission where things have "gone wrong" from the outset. The enemy has already gained an advantage over you but the mission is still incomplete."

"What exactly is the mission?" Mitsuo asks lowly, his eyes narrowed.

"To transport this super-duper military technology from Snow," Kakashi says as he unseals a sandbag marked "20 kg", "from here to the white circle, which is the safe zone." He points to the other side of the field, which is at least one two hundred meters away. "If you don't make it before the thirty minute mark, that's when the pain is going to hit. Might as well move on to torture resistance straightaway, yes?"

"And the enemy is you," Yugao says in a wobbly voice, her hands clenched in the picnic cloth.

"I'll be trying to stop you every step of the way," Kakashi confirms. He does looks at his pretend-watch again. "Oh, look. I've used up thirty-five seconds of your first five minutes! Better get going!"

The team disappears with a sharp displacement of air.

To both Rin's and Sakumo's surprise, Kakashi doesn't give them the chance to regroup and discuss. Instead, he goes after them immediately, like a real enemy would, and leaves a clone behind to guard the sandbag.

The team splits into two just like how their usual interactions are divided. Yugao and Kou take up one side of the field while Mituso darts into the shadowed forest opposite them. Both groups are halfway between the sandbag and the white circle.

When Kakashi comes for them, Yugao reacts without hesitation, her feet digging firmly into the ground as she meets Kakashi blow for blow, the sound of metal against metal pealing through the air. Kou joins in immediately with swift hits and dizzying shunshins, a kunai in hand to deflect Kakashi's blade. The battle quickly becomes a stalemate, however, when Kakashi pushes up his hitai-ate and reveals his Sharingan.

While they are occupied, Mitsuo rapidly extends his shadow jutsu towards the sandbag, using the ankle-height grass as cover for the incorporeal shadow binds. It's a standard tactic to be expected from a Nara. The Kakashi-clone reacts as expected and uses a Doton, causing a dome of dirt to enclose it swiftly. Mitsuo's shadow jutsu is left poking helplessly over its surface.

Hidden away from sight, it takes all of three heartbeats for the clone to tunnel into the earth and appear behind Mitsuo, the sandbag hoisted over it's back as it jabs its fingers towards the Nara's neck. Mitsuo dodges and rolls, hissing as he falls back into a crouch and folds his hands into the Rat seal.

Shadows burst into ribbon-like serpents and the clone scurries up the nearest tree like a monkey, sandals skinning bark. It barely escapes, and only by dramatically throwing itself out of the six metre tree and into the sun's protection. There is no time to rest, however, as a second set of shadow binds is already rushing along the ground the moment the clone lands.

Mitsuo's has the reserves to spare, it seems. "Get the clone!" he shouts, using his jutsu to corral the clone towards his teammates.

"Uh!" Yugao grunts as a kick from the real Kakashi catches her in the stomach, sending her stumbling. Even as she falls back, leaving Kou to hold fort, she hurls her sword at Kakashi's running clone. The blade spins tip over hilt, the glint of the sun against its polished surface nearly blinding Sakumo, and slips neatly through the clone's thigh.

Clone Kakashi disappears into a fizzle of lightning and the sandbag flops onto the ground.

With a grin that shows too many teeth, Mitsuo plants his feet in the forest's shadows and quickly picks the sandbag up with his jutsu. Eager not to waste their first taste of success, he hurries it towards the white circle, the jutsu moving like a snake with its prey in its jaws. "Start looking for the antidotes," he orders, "I'll handle this!"

"Got it," Kou shouts back. Both he and Kakashi are breathing hard as they clash in a brutal round of bare-handed combat. Every blow is bruising but despite Kakashi's shorter stature, he's is wearing Kou down steadily. "Ocelot!"

"Right!" Snatching up her sword, Yugao runs for the nearest red flag and yanks it out of the ground. Tied to the long bamboo stem is a carrot, of all things. Yugao stares at it, flabbergasted, before hurrying onto the next flag a meter away.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu," Kakashi growls as he falls back, using the moment's reprieve to finish a blur of hand seals.

Eyes widening, Kou tries to stop him, but Kakashi wipes his finger along a cut on his bicep and slams his bloodied hand onto the ground. Instantly, all eight of his ninken appear in a plume of smoke, ready and raring to go. "Go get the sandbag, boys!"

With yips and howls of excitement, they charge towards poor Mitsuo, who hurls the sandbag at the white circle with all the strength his shadow jutsu has.

"Bad idea," Sakumo chuckles, because anyone who's had a dog before would know that playing catch is one of their favourite things*. True enough, the ninken speed up and become little drooling bullets of brown, white, and blue.

Bull body-slams the sandbag out of the air with his solid mass, halting it's trajectory before it can land where Mitsuo had aimed. Shiba, Guruko and Uhei grab at its corners with their sharp teeth and take off running in the opposite direction, while the other four gang up on Mitsuo and try to keep him from following. The pack's teamwork is impeccable.

Mitsuo curses and starts fighting his way through the dogs— not an easy task when most of his opponents are toddler sized and faster than wild hares. Pakkun shows his mean streak when he sinks his teeth into the ANBU's backside, making the man howl like a ninken himself.

"Good boys," Kakashi murmurs with breathless laughter. "Feeling alright?" he asks Kou lightly.

"Just fine," the brown-haired ANBU chuckles, even though he looks quite the contrary of "alright". His face is flushed and there's a faint tremor to his raised fists as they circle, buying time to catch their breath. "Are you going to use that Chidori of yours?"

Kakashi tilts his head, an unreadable look in his eyes. "No need for that." He claps his hands into a seal and blue-white lightning flares, forming into canine-like shapes that lunge at Kou and Yugao.

"Fuuton!" Yugao cries, her armful of flags and carrots dropping to the ground as an arc of wind hurtles towards the lightning-wolves advancing on Kou. The rest of them dissipate with several swings of her Fuuton layered sword as she fights her way to Kou's side, and the last lightning-wolf dissipates when she kicks a carrot through it's jaws.

"Did she just use Fuuton on a carrot?" Rin gasps, rushing forward to examine the charred orange mush on the ground. "That's... so cool!"

"She's found an antidote too," Sakumo says, nodding at the glass vial that Yugao presses into Kou's hand.

They switch roles, leaving her to battle Kakashi as Kou downs the antidote. "Okay!" he says, throwing aside the vial just as Kakashi sends a Katon flying towards their youngest ANBU.

She yelps when Kou grabs her and shunshins them both away. Her sword falls out of her twitching hand during the sudden movement and she look back at it, aghast, when they land. "I can't feel my hands." She looks horrified.

"All of them have been exerting themselves," Sakumo notes, "but the poison must be affecting her faster because of her smaller size."

"Can you still pull out the flags?" Kou asks, stepping into another shunshin as Kakashi comes after them again.

Yugao must have said yes, because he drops her off at another patch of flags, some distance away from Mitsuo's ongoing struggle with the ninken. One of the shadow binds catches Bisuke and the effects of the shadow imitation techique makes the summon face-plant right into the ground. (Mitsuo's two-legged run being unable to match up with the ninken's four-legged lope, after all.) The poor man has a shadow holding Pakkun up by his henohenomoheji vest and another tangled up with Akino's and Urushi's legs, but the other four dogs are still guarding the sandbag.

"Lynx," she shouts, sweat tracking down her jaw as she holds up an antidote victoriously. She must have had a lucky break. "Get one of your shadow things here!"

"Drink it yourself then find one for me!" Mitsuo yells back, not turning back to look at her. A three meter radius of writhing shadows force the remaining ninken to back off as he closes in on the sandbag. "My ninjutsu isn't affected by the poison!"

"He would be if he has to let go of the hand seal for any reason," Sakumo observes to himself. "His fingers must be numb." Sure enough, after the ANBU picks up the sandbag with his jutsu, his slow walk back towards the white circle is becoming clumsy.

Determination colours Yugao's face as she pries the vial's cork off with her teeth and downs the orange liquid. Behind her, there's an explosion of steam as Kakashi and Kou continue their ninjutsu battle.

Yugao is off gathering another armful of carrots again when Mitsuo groans her codename. She looks up just in time to catch the sandbag he'd hurled at her. "Oof!" Their eyes meet and Mitsuo nods, his face in a grimace of pain, and she's off using the fastest shunshin she can muster. The circle is twenty metres away, then ten, five, two...

The sandbag thuds into the goal just as the dogs gain upon her, and they all skid to a stop, panting and whining in disappointment. They recover quickly, though, and Bull congratulates her with a gruff "good job".

She spares a smile before she's hurrying back to the few remaining flags again, pulling them out with vengeance while trying to dodge the ninken. "Hang on!" she shouts at Mitsuo. "I'm almost done!" Unfortunately, she quickly gets caught under a literal dogpile. "No!" she wheezes as she struggles in vain under their combined weight. Bull is heavy.

A glance over at Kou and Kakashi confirms that Kou is flagging as well. Noting that the sandbag is in the goal, Kakashi finishes off the fight quickly with a combined genjutsu and taijutsu attack. "Dead," Kakashi says, pressing his kunai against Kou's throat before releasing him. The ninken get off Yugao too, whining and nuzzling her face in apology.

The young Hatake turns towards his team, still breathing hard as he puts his weapons away. "Well done, everyone. The mission is complete. But..." He begins walking towards Mitsuo, who has curled into a miserable ball of pain on the ground. "I'm afraid all of you would have died."

*This is actually... not true, haha. I had a dog that loved to run around and chase things, but I never managed to get her to play catch with me. She was also comically scared of the sea.

A/N: So... do you think Kakashi's ANBU team did well? :) And uh, how was the fight scene? Any constructive criticism will be appreciated very much :) Action scenes aren't my strong point but I'm trying to improve on them!