Many thanks to Max, Jake and Nick for reading this stuff before and after it gets released onto the internet.
Now a new OC is introduced because I'm pretty sure she should exist and this chapter is mainly all about Kakashi!
Kakashi cheerfully walked up the side of the Hokage Tower, he even skipped a few times and kept spiking his chakra in certain patterns known to ANBU which roughly translated to 'I'm not harmful', 'I'm okay' and 'false alarm' with a bit of random dot-dash code mixed in, it was good to keep the young kids on their toes. Kakashi fully ignored that some of those 'kids' were not much younger than he is.
The spikes that he got in return made him grin, it roughly translated to 'Stop' with informal ANBU spiking that translated to 'You ass'. Yeah, it was a good day to walk up the Hokage Tower, he really should do it more often.
Looking through the Hokage's window he tried to spot whether or not the Third Hokage had any visitors, it was a bit hard since the Hokage's window was actually made out of a one way mirror. He didn't think he saw anything so he knocked and waited for someone to actually open the window, he had to wait a bit so he just spike his chakra in creative ways and made new patterns to see if the ANBU would respond to it. It was a pity that they didn't this time but he could feel that they wanted to, they were just trying to ignore him. Maybe he should drop in ANBU and mess with them? Pity he would get a black mark if he did.
Finally the window opened, a wisp of smoke floating out smelling of tobacco and elderberry.
"Kakashi-kun, how wonderful it is to see you without an appointment or a summon." Kakashi fully ignored the sarcasm that the Third gave and climbed inside.
"I never pegged you for elderberry before." The Hokage chuckled and took a deep breath from his pipe.
"It's a gift, from the Tsuchikage. Most generous considering that only half of the tobacco was poisoned, the note said happy birthday and that maybe I consider should stepping down at some point," The Hokage gave a wry grin as he took another puff and looked to savour it, "I sent him a gift of Akimichi cured meats that were covered in bitter orange oil and wisteria as thanks with a hint that he should choose a successor soon."
"I didn't know that it was your birthday recently." In fact Kakashi was pretty sure that his birthday was in a few months in fact.
"Oh it was a fake birthday that I made up when I had to infiltrate Iwa back in my youth where I met the Tsuchikage before he was the Tsuchikage, after that every year the Tsuchikage makes a point of sending a gift."
"I bet your wife was pleased to know that you were being courted by such a powerful man."
"Biwako always laughed at the gifts, the Tsuchikage even gave her a black kimono and a dagger for our wedding present with a note telling her to use them both." Kakashi let a few laughs loose at the tale.
"Did she ever use the dagger?"
The Hokage grinned, a faraway look in his eyes as he remembered the old days. It always made Kakashi feel distinctly unsettled when the Third looked like that, "Only when she was angry at me."
Biwako was the type of woman that was both regal and deadly with her tongue, and very intelligent. She also rarely got angry at anything but always looked displeased with the world and merely decided to settle in it as if her presence alone made the world a better place. Even kept up her studies of medicine even after she 'retired'; a true medinin at heart.
"So I don't think you came to me just to hear stories of the past," a breath in, smoke comes out, "so what was so urgent that you decided that you couldn't wait to make an appointment with my secretary?"
Kakashi rubbed the back of his head, the faint feeling of killing intent from the Hokage was sending the place on his head tingling, "Well a couple of things, I need to get your approval for two missions that I want to set up," The Hokage raised an eyebrow as if to tell him to go on, "I need approval for a mock infiltration mission for Naruto-kun. It was proposed by Inoichi Yamanaka-san and supported by Ibiki Morino-san. We will need a week to train him in infiltration and let him have a day of preparation before letting him go into a solo mock mission within the village to send a message to another ninja with a surveillance watching him."
The Hokage hummed before taking another puff. Kakashi really did hope that the Hokage would let him do the mock mission without parameters, he had the perfect target and place in mind.
"Mission granted, Inoichi-san will help train Naruto as he was the one to suggest the mission and the overseer will be Shibi Aburame-san who will watch from afar." Kakashi nodded his consent, getting Shibi to agree to his plans might be a little hard but Kakashi also had a bit of emotional blackmail on the guy so it could go either way.
"The other is a private D ranked mission."
"D ranked mission? I hope you're not sending a team of genin to wash your dogs or dogs that your dogs have had made friends with."
Kakashi placed both hands over his heart and fluttered his one good eye, "I would never do that!" the Hokage snorted and chuckled, shaking his head while he did so.
"So what is the mission?" It was really better to be honest and straightforward at this point but it could turn out so badly if he was honest. Which one? Which one?
"I want a genin team, other than my own, to find Sasuke-kun a future wife."
The Hokage slowly put his pipe down on the table and leaned back into his chair, "You're going to need to explain this further." that was practically a go ahead to sell his idea, or rather Naruto's idea, to the Hokage but how to do so without saying that he thought that it would be funny or that Naruto suggested it.
"Sasuke-kun is the last Uchiha of Konoha, and he's obsessed with trying to kill his brother or at least getting up to a point where he could kill his brother by himself. I know I'm not the best to say this but if he keeps going the way he is we're going to lose the last Uchiha, either because we don't have enough to teach him or because he's going to kill himself trying. If we keep him in Konoha long enough that we can get him married to someone then we could keep the Uchiha clan in Konoha."
"What about Itachi-san? How do we know that he hasn't had children yet?" Kakashi gave the Hokage a look that must have had said volumes about what he thought about that.
"I gave Itachi-san the talk when he first joined ANBU. I don't think he's having children at any point." The Hokage winced but conceded that it was unlikely that Itachi had children that nobody knew about. After all he was thirteen and in ANBU when he left so it was unlikely he had children before he left and afterwards, and well the Uchiha clan was notoriously asexual for a major clan. It would be considered a minor miracle that Fugaku and Mikoto had two children in the first place if it weren't for the Uchiha tradition of two sons for the head of the clan.
"So why start now? Why start when he's just a genin instead of at sixteen when he can get married?"
"It gives us time to find a good match for him, if we start now we can watch those in contact with him around his age group to find a potential wife for him and set them up when they're older."
"Do you know how hard it is to set up marriages? I've been trying to get Kurenai Yūhi-sensei in my family for years now, does my son ever get the hint? No, instead he dances around her like a damn moth to the light and runs off for a few years to the Daimyo's court to play bodyguard without telling anyone."
"I could probably help with that if you agree to my mission." The Hokage gave him a look that roughly said 'good try' or at least in polite terms it said that.
"If I let you help then she'll probably end up marrying you over Asuma-kun." Kakashi gave a chuckle at that, he didn't know Yūhi and he wasn't sure he wanted to in any sense. He had enough troubles keeping up his friendships over need to worry about a romantic prospect.
"Maybe, maybe not, but it will be a good mission regardless to have on the roster if only to teach a genin team surveillance, information gathering and long term missions. You could give it to multiple genin teams to teach them this as a way of training without stepping out of the comfort of Konoha so it'll be a low risk mission."
"And if the genin team gets caught by Sasuke-kun?"
"Well, they better know how to lie well." The Hokage chuckled before slowly nodding. Kakashi was so close he could taste the success of annoying Sasuke to get cheap laughs.
"It'll be long term ranked c mission." Kakashi tried not to pull a face at that, a long term ranked c was going to make him pay more than he wanted to especially since it had a payment system where if it was open ended you had to pay by the month or in Kakashi's case since it was until Sasuke was sixteen so he had to pay up immediately. Kakashi winced as he figured out the amount of money he was going to need to pay straight up, he was lucky he didn't use most of his money he made in ANBU.
"Iruka-kun!" shouted the Hokage, loud enough that he could be heard through the door. Soon enough there was a knock on the door and a brown haired male with a horizontal scar across his nose and tanned skin poked his head through the gap, just this side of out of breath. Honestly the only benefit of being as old as the Hokage is that he can get away with calling almost everyone either '-kun' or '-chan' and nobody can say anything.
"Yes, Hokage-sama?"
"I need the C ranked investigation mission form."
"Oh-? Oh! I mean of course!" said the tanned male before leaving again.
"I believe you met Iruka-kun before? He teaches the children at the academy and does part time at the mission desk."
Kakashi hummed. To get to the Hokage's office from the mission desk would have had meant that the Hokage's secretary, a woman he knew had to be a retired ANBU, had sent a runner down to the mission office to send a message to Iruka and made him run all the way to the Hokage's office. He knew he liked the Hokage's secretary for a reason and not just because she used to be his team leader in ANBU.
"Yeah, I met him, I believe he threatened to castrate me if I didn't turn in my paperwork this time; quite creatively, I believe it involved my favourite Icha Icha Paradise book."
The Hokage chuckled and picked up his pipe again to take a smoke, "I like to think it's all the time spent around the younger ones."
"You should send him on a B rank mission, it'll do him good."
"Not everyone is you, Kakashi-kun." deadpanned the Hokage, his face was like it was set in stone for all the visual cues he was giving out.
"If it was me, I'd be taking the S ranked missions instead."
The Hokage sighed but the small smile at the corner of his lips gave him away. There was another knock on the door and Iruka entered, holding the forms tight in his hand and glaring at Kakashi as he passed by. Kakashi was almost tempted to try and hit on him to see if he would explode or take Kakashi up on the offer. Personally Kakashi hoped the man exploded to give him a laugh, Iruka was ever so creative in his threats.
"Thank you, Iruka-kun. You've met Kakashi-kun before?" said the Hokage giving out the grandfatherly smile that he does when he wants to mess with people. And people say that Kakashi was a bad influence on the youth but had they truly considered where he got it from?
"Yes, I've met him before." said Iruka dryly. See? He was a funny guy.
"Mah, mah, such hostility, you'd think that we were having a fight," Iruka just smiled tightly before leaving, Kakashi made sure to give a overly cheerful wave and a obnoxious "goodbye!" as the other man left.
"Did you really need to do that?" asked the Hokage.
"Did you?" said Kakashi, he would have had raised his eyebrow but he was pretty sure the Hokage knew what he was thinking. The Hokage smiled brightly before chuckling to himself.
"Here, you should read this," said the Hokage holding out the pieces of paper that Iruka had brought in. It was a standard blank form for ranked C missions and where it said whether or not it was long term Kakashi had to circle yes. Very basic and oh so tempting to mess with and make it a incorrect if not for the fact it was actually important and he needed to use proper handwriting. The sake of his amusement rides on that form.
The Hokage had taken the form as soon as Kakashi was finished, Kakashi might have had been offended by this if he hadn't spent the last few years carefully cultivating his reputation as a lazy, jōnin with too much time on his hands and a perchance of sending in mission reports that were barely legible or nearly overdue or both.
He was extra proud of his handwriting, it took him forever to change his normal handwriting into something that while still being correct with all his spelling you could also just barely be able to get what he was writing so the mission desk couldn't find fault with it, apart from Iruka. It was also probably the fact that he slept with a few of the chūnin at the mission desk to even get his forms even past helped.
"Kakashi-kun..." sighed the Hokage, his eyes staring into the forms.
"Yes?"
"Are you sure you want to name the mission this?"
"What's wrong with the name?" the Hokage gave a glare and held up the form to point where the usual mission name was. Usually the mission names were like 'help me garden' or 'border patrol: Konoha-Suna area' or 'Classified: Kill this person' so Kakashi decided to mix it up a bit.
"It says 'Get Sasuke-kun Laid' as the mission name."
"I see nothing wrong with the name." Kakashi was of course lying but he could already imagine Iruka having to call up some unfortunate genin team or chūnin team and say the mission name to them, oh it would be great.
"It's not a proper name."
"It is a proper name; it tells you the purpose of the mission and is more than one word long. It's a proper name."
The Hokage sighed before placing the piece of paper back down and getting his pen out. Rude.
"I'm changing the name into something a bit more formal than 'Get Sasuke-kun Laid'." Kakashi resisted the urge to stick his tongue out, mainly because there was cloth over his mouth but also because he never had the urge to stick his tongue out before so as many things he had the urge to do but never wanted to do before so he ignored the urge.
"The mission name is now 'The Revival of the Uchiha clan', it'll be sent to the mission office tomorrow morning along with all the other mission forms that I have to consent to. Now get out, I have an appointment with Danzō at three pm and I need to mentally prepare for it." It was only eleven am.
"I'll forever say this, but you need to assassinate him like he tried to do to you."
"Kakashi-kun, that is classified. And what do you think will annoy him more? Me trying to assassinate him or me not retaliating when I retaliate to the Tsuchikage sending me gifts?" The Hokage gave a wrinkled grin that didn't reach his eyes before his eyes flickered, just once, to the ceiling where normally the ANBU would be.
Kakashi sent a faint trail of chakra to the area.
Oh.
Kakashi knew that chakra, how could he not when he met them in ROOT and immediately thought of everyone as a enemy?
No wonder, the sly thing. Kakashi couldn't decide if it was suicidal of the Hokage to purposely let previous ROOT members in his ceiling where he worked or if it was smart to limit the amount of information Danzō had already. He also had to give kudos to Danzō for having very good brainwashing techniques that ROOT members would still respond to him even after it was dissolved.
"Well as much as I would love to stay and see Danzō again," actually if he saw or spoke to Danzō in the next ten years it would be much too soon, "I have places to see and people to be,"
"Kakashi-kun, I'm pretty sure the saying is 'people to see and places to be'," Kakashi just gave him a one eyed smile, extra bright and got a amused smirk in return along with a slow shake of the head, before he headed back to the window because doors were evil and the most trapped object was always the door.
"I would say stop using my windows as doors but I know that you'd still ignore that. Don't forget to come back later with the money for the missions by the end day otherwise your 'missions' will get lost in my paper work."
"Yes, sir!" Kakashi even gave a cheery salute that he learned from a mission in the Land of Water before jumping to the nearest rooftop to go to his team.
He was pretty sure he heard the window shut behind him, he was also pretty sure that the Hokage didn't shut the window as well. Ex-ROOT sure were useful, as window operators.
He spiked his chakra in thanks getting another rude flare from the ANBU members. He chuckled lightly before going towards the memorial stone. Well, at least they had personality now. Wait until Obito heard about this.
It took Kakashi half an hour jumping across rooftops and treetops where he could to get to the training ground. It was good to talk things out with Obito, maybe Gai will find him as well and challenge him after a while.
Kakashi cursed as he ran. He didn't mean for it to get this late in between talking with Obito, playing with Gai and needling Anko to pay for food. The latter didn't work but Kakashi still had to try, the things he did for Anko.
Kakashi ran all the way home to get to his emergency stash number three, he named it (and even placed the name on the box too) as such because burglars would be forced to look for numbers one and two before he got home. It hasn't happened yet but he has a feeling that it will one day and when that days happens he'll be ready.
Why in his haste he actually disarmed all of his trap and activated them again too within record time, maybe he could do something similar for his cute little genin group? Threaten Sakura with anmitsu, Naruto with ramen and Sasuke with cherry tomatoes? It would be good incentive for them too. The traps in his place weren't so difficult as well, apart from the first ten initial traps around each opening, door, and window after that they were practically harmless.
Double checking that everything had been set he double checked it again, and again, and again.
It never hurt to be too careful and he also made sure that all the windows and doors were locked as well during these checks. Kakashi was pretty sure the free ninja psychologists that were offered to him would have a field day, and not only because Kakashi was sure half of them were actually from Danzō. The other half would cry at the sight of him in therapy.
Jumping out his window, after placing the time based seal along the edges that created a barrier, he raced towards the Hokage's Tower. He was late. That was nothing new but this time he actually needed to get the Hokage tower soon. If he wanted his missions sent in by tomorrow he needed his missions send through by tonight, hopefully the Hokage would be working late.
Kakashi uttered a silent curse as he moved towards his goal. He was getting sloppy with his timing. If this was an actual mission...
But it wasn't. Everything was fine, he can salvage this with a quick quip about getting old or a unbelievable story. The Hokage would laugh and will accept his money then Naruto could get training and Kakashi could organise someone else to take Sakura and Sasuke for a week.
It was fine.
Knocking calmly on the Hokage's window he waited a few moments then knocked again. Kakashi flares his chakra long enough that someone could identify him but nobody opens the window. Was there a problem? An attack? Just before Kakashi is ready to break into the Hokage's office he felt the Hokage's chakra flare before fading and laid crouching on the side of the building.
The window slowly opened so that the Hokage's face and the smell of his smoke entered his line of sight.
"Kakashi-kun, you're late."
"You know me, I'm never late." The Hokage chuckled at that and let him in.
Oh. Right.
"Himejima-sama, forgive me, I didn't know I was in the presence of a lady." Kakashi politely bowed to the older woman in the Hokage's office.
Nagi Himejima was a plump and shortish older woman whose hands were soft and smiled widely, not to say that she couldn't murder a person within seconds but she had no reason to. She had married a nobleman from the Capital and had moved there for most of her life but had moved back to Konoha when her husband died leaving behind her son and daughters in the capital.
She also happened to be the Hokage's younger sister.
"Oh please, I haven't been Himejima-sama for a long time, call me Nagi at the very least." Her eyes danced with amusement and that was the difference of growing up in Konoha compared to the Capital; in Konoha you only needed to smile with your mouth while in the Capital you had to use your mouth and eyes to fool people.
"Of course, Nagi-sama."
Himejima got a fan from her satchel to cover her mouth with, to hide the ways she laughed, and her eyes stared into Kakashi with a warm intensity of a woman who was judging if a man in her presence was really worth her time and effort to even make an effort. That is to say, not very much warmth at all.
"See? I was waiting for Kakashi-kun here," said the Third as he cut the tension with a blunted kunai. Kakashi wanted to send the Hokage a grateful look but he didn't want to show weakness to the woman who survived the Capital's court for thirty years and without her husband getting re-married to another woman or having massive scandals. That alone said volumes.
"Oh, Onii-sama, you could've waited until tomorrow," stated Nagi as she frowned delicately and sent a disapproving look towards her older brother, "Kakashi-kun would still be here in the morning, surely."
The Hokage sighed, a deep heavy and bone wary sigh, that made Kakashi wince. He swore that he could hear the Third's bones shake together.
"I had to wait for the money before I could approve his mission." said the Hokage as he sent a glare towards his sister. Kakashi had always wondered what life would be like if he had another sibling. Considering who his father would have had ended up marrying it was probably better that he didn't have other siblings. Siblings look like hard work that he was just not cut out for.
"And in doing so are currently missing out on family dinner with his son and grandson," scolded Nagi before making a sweeping gesture towards the window where Kakashi was standing. For a second he thought that she was gesturing towards him, "It's already past eight pm, young Konohamaru-kun will need to go to sleep soon. He can't have at this time of night, you really should be more considerate."
"I'll just leave this here and go." Kakashi sneakily, as much as he could with the Hokage and his court trained sister, placed the money that he owed on the Hokage's table. The Hokage sent him an amused look that he had seen just moments before on his sister's face, it made him uncomfortable in a vague way that reminded him that people who were related share more than just blood.
They also happen to share facial features like amused looks that are sent to very undeserving ninja, in Kakashi's personal opinion. Kakashi turned to leave the same way he entered but didn't want to turn his back on Nagi.
Nagi smiled gently at him before turning back to her brother to argue more. The Hokage merely waved him off and Kakashi took that as his cue to leave.
"Oh, Kakashi-kun?" called out Nagi's voice before he jumped out the window, Kakashi tensed a bit but turned around anyway, "Please remember the Hokage office hours next time," Nagi was still smiling gently and her voice just perfectly warm but there was something about the way she clenched her fan that told Kakashi that she was perfectly serious.
Kakashi rubbed the back of his head as the faint killing intent set his instincts wild with the need to destroy whatever was sending that killing intent his way. He was pretty sure that the Hokage would kill him if he accidentally murdered his younger sister.
"Absolutely!" called out Kakashi as he took a backwards swan dive out the window. He was pretty sure he heard the siblings laugh at him but there was no way he was going to stay around a second longer.
Landing on a high branching tree he made sure to avoid all the very terrible branches and bushy leaves as he landed on a suitable branch to head home. His life savings were lighter but his amusement was just beginning.
Now he needed to train up his team for the Chūnin exams.
Nobody can tell me that Kakashi isn't messed up. Nobody.
New fact about Narutoverse:
I was going to talk about the technology of Narutoverse but instead I'm going to do my fact on chakra. More particularly Orochimaru's body transfer technique where they seem to be able to keep their previous memories from before the body replacement and the bodies they take over and that's incredible to me. It's incredible because that implies that:
1) Chakra contains the soul and mind, where mind refers to consciousness and memory, despite it being a semi spiritual body function caused by Alien genetics (god I hate aliens in Naruto, it gets me so much) over a period of 300 or so years.
It's like learning about mitochondria, in how it was a virus that the human body just went "yeah this is mind now, totally didn't copy it from something else" but instead it's bodies in Naruto going "See this new breed of crap? I like it! I'm going to keep it!"
2) The Yamanaka clan techniques rely on using their own soul to take over other sentient beings if it is the case of the mind and soul are mixed into one being and probably were the basis of which Orochimaru built his body replacement technique on.
3) Orochimaru is just Voldemort. Like plain out Voldemort with his soul being kept in different vassals and without a grudge against kids.
4)Hagoromo used chakra replacement technique to give people chakra apart from they didn't have chakra veins back then apart from his brother and mother. Since he and his brother were the first to be born with chakra. So how did people that gained this new chakra hold onto it for so long and not just go back to Hagoromo each time for a new refill?
5) Also I hate chakra and everything it stands for after having a 30 minute argument with Jake, Max and Nick about the way chakra works because you can have someone block off your chakra, which effects your health but we don't actually know for sure if chakra has physical veins like blood veins or if they're metaphorical veins that people assume are there and the Hyuga clan can see it so it might be a physical thing but when Sakura pumps Naruto's heart manually we aren't shown the chakra veins.
There, rant done for now. Possibly do another chakra fact thing later on since chakra gets me so damn much.