Kakashi-ichi followed Pakkun silently, Naruto-ichi equally quiet, to his surprised contentment. There was plenty to think about, and he also just wanted the chance to pay attention to their surroundings without having to worry about entertaining or instructing his genin. It was kind of exhausting, being a teacher.

Respect, Academy teachers. Respect.

Pakkun was inspecting the scent trail's crossing of a stream when Naruto-ichi snickered, Kakashi-ichi raising an eyebrow and the younger clone responding cheerfully, "They got to Tazuna's place just fine – Sasuke-teme bargained with Boss to get kawarimi'd whenever Ino tried to molest him."

Kakashi-ichi snorted, Pakkun echoing it and saying, "Got the trail. Man, your other kid has it bad – fangirls. You had a couple of those, didn't you, Boss?"

"None as bad as that, we were in a war, after all," Kakashi-ichi shrugged, leaving out the fact that his father's failure had stained his name for good – and by the time he'd started rebuilding the Hatake reputation, he was out of reach of the worst perpetrators of fangirl-ism. Experienced kunoichi at least had some self-respect. "Definitely dodged a shuriken there."

"Yeah – that's one thing Boss never envied," Naruto-ichi agreed. "Hey sensei, what's the plan when we find this place?"

"Depends on if there's anyone else there. If no, investigate, if yes, see what we can do," Kakashi-ichi explained, and just in time as they reached a small outwardly abandoned house, Pakkun saying, "Scents concentrate here, probably their headquarters. See ya, boss," before dismissing himself.

"Definitely not someplace Gatou would hang out," Naruto-ichi wrinkled his nose, "Well, here goes!"

Another clone popped into existence, saluting before darting into the building, crashing through the door and calling, "All clear in here!"

"Well that's one way to investigate," Kakashi-ichi mused, truly, Naruto's chakra capacity was ridiculous – he probably didn't even have to worry about kawarimi problems with a kage!

They entered and both Narutos started poking through things at random, Kakashi-ichi taking a more disciplined approach. "I thought the hunter-nin was a guy," Naruto-ichi commented, holding up a pink floral yukata.

"Maa, maybe he liked pink," Kakashi-ichi shrugged, or was gender confused, he added mentally, deciding to avoid that particular detail of human psychology for the moment. Though given that oiroke no jutsu of Naruto's, he was the one he'd probably have to discuss it with.

It was late afternoon when they'd finished their investigation. There had been a fair amount of loot in the form of weapons and gear – and pink yukatas – but not much when it came to accessible written intelligence or money. That was pretty common though, and if the security-encoded scrolls stored in Zabuza's packs were any indication, there was some serious potential for bonuses in the form of intelligence if they managed to get this back to Konoha.

"So, what's the plan now, sensei?" the clone asked, "We dispel, carry stuff back, what?"

"Hmm… leave things here, for now. Can you manage another clone?"

"Sure thing!" Naruto-ichi chirped, firing off another one, Naruto-ni saying, "Want me to dispel for a message relay?"

"Indeed. Tell original-me that we're sticking around to fool any visitors into thinking Zabuza and his accomplice are still alive until further orders are relayed, he'll know what I'm thinking of doing," Kakashi-ichi shrugged, stretching out on the larger bed and continuing once the second clone dispelled, "Meanwhile Naruto-ichi, we just hang tight and henge if anyone shows up. How many henges can you manage?"

"Uhh… a lot?" the clone just looked confused at the question, so Kakashi-ichi sighed. Chakra capacity detection problems, he'd bet – not something he thought would ever be a problem for a genin, but he'd known this team was going to be weird to begin with.

"All right, then just… work on that plan to prank the council, quietly. We'll be hanging out until original-me gets a plan together or Gatou shows up."

"All right! Hehehehe… who to plot for first…"

***===***pagebreak***===***

"Hmm. Well, we'll leave our clones for the night, we'll head over in the morning after I confer with Asuma," Kakashi said, mulling over the report Naruto had given once they'd finished with their corpse-clearing lesson. They'd done rather well with Zabuza after he'd finished lecturing over the hunter-nin, but the real test would be after a few days had passed at least – see how much they remembered.

Given the swirling sharingan that had been present for most of the session, he knew at least one would have near perfect memory. He'd have to pull Sasuke aside for a sharingan lesson at some point, and share his strategy of one to three pleasant and hilarious memories to mission and death related ones. From what he remembered of the massacre's reports, he'd actually activated his sharingan that night and simply never done it since – so he had a backlog of nasty memories permanently embedded. Especially if that 72 hour replay genjutsu had been accurately described.

"Right, I'll dispel another relay," Naruto agreed, quickly doing just as he'd claimed.

"Sensei, how much longer until I'll be able to make a kage bunshin?" Sasuke asked, "I'd like to go on those side-missions too."

"Hmm… ask me tomorrow after your chakra has had a chance to recover from the day. Don't activate your sharingan at all tonight unless we're attacked," Kakashi ordered, "Sakura, you have a few more weeks of chakra building exercises at the least, I'll check again tomorrow."

"Right, thanks sensei!" his kunoichi chirped, smiling, "So we're going to the nukenin lair tomorrow?"

"Well that depends," Kakashi half-shrugged, stretching out on the ground so he was propped up on his side to watch them. This was a potentially touchy topic, best to get them as at-ease as possible and if his body-language helped, then he'd take shameless advantage of it.

"Do you remember our conversation with Naka-san?" he asked, the three exchanging puzzled glances at the apparent non sequiter but all of them nodding nonetheless.

"Now, do you remember what he asked me after I said Gatou was controlling Wave with a decidedly Iwa touch?" he prompted, hopefully one of them would recall this, and if not, he'd give them the answer and they'd be embarrassed enough by their ignorance to pay more attention to seemingly inconsequential conversations. Win-win.

"He asked… he asked if there was a chance Konoha would take care of it without an official mission," Sasuke said slowly, brow furrowed as he clearly wracked his memory, and Naruto lit up, snapping his fingers and saying, "Yeah! That's when you said you had different responsibilities now and he started teasing you about having kids yourself!"

Of course Naruto remembered that part the best.

"Wait a minute," Sakura blinked, a startled expression settling on her face, "Was he – was he asking if you would take care of the issue without an official mission?"

Kakashi inclined his head, smiling at her deductions. Now he just needed to get the other two doing it, and to get her doing it in real-time more consistently.

"But why would you do that?" Naruto asked, frowning in confusion as he looked between them, "I mean – you just spent this whole time cracking down on Tazuna-san for not paying the right amount and hitting him with fees – I mean, you even talked about negotiating room and board costs with Tsunami-san! Why would you do a mission without it being an official paid one?"

"And what makes it okay for you to do it and not Team Ten?" Sasuke added, eyes narrowing, "Is it because they're genin? Can their sensei not authorize those sorts of things? Or is it because it's us involved?"

Asking all the right questions. They really were a good bunch.

"Well, first off, there is a certain amount of leeway all shinobi are granted when it comes to fulfilling missions. This degree of leeway increases as you go up in the ranks and the missions get more and more complex. For example, take your D-rank missions – most of them are pretty simple, weed this garden, deliver this package from point A to B, watch these kids – but they don't detail the exact corner of the garden to start in, the down-to-the-steps route you need to take, a minute-by-minute itinerary of what you should do with the kids. So you have the mission objectives, and you meet them. This is where you use your common sense and good-business practices to design a means of completing the mission objectives without alienating your clients. We want repeat customers after all."

"So… the mission's the goal, and it's up to us to complete it in a way that makes the client happy?" Sakura hazarded a summary, "Like – if we're given a mission to weed a garden, we clearly wouldn't use a katon jutsu to sear the whole place. Sure, the weeds would be removed, but the rest of the plants would be destroyed and we'd get a super bad rep and fail the mission."

"Bit of an extreme example, but yes," Kakashi nodded, "Now, take our shore-patrol mission. Sasuke, what other means could we have used to technically complete the mission but not satisfy our customer?"

"Well, our customer was the village itself," Sasuke said with careful deliberation, "And the stated objective was to monitor for hostile activity, with regional emphasis on piracy, while checking in on outposts. So… we could have… had Naruto send out a bunch of clones to check on everyone at once while we hung out on a beach?"

Kakashi snorted, imagining the Sandaime's reaction to that mission report.

Yeah. He didn't think so.

"And for the messenger mission – we could have handed it off for some random civvie runner to deliver instead of doing it personally?" Naruto guessed, "Or – handed it off to the housekeeper that answered the door instead of waiting to see Naka-san ourselves?"

"The former would violate the terms of the mission while the latter would technically be within parameters since it was a delivery to the Naka household rather than the Naka patriarch," Kakashi clarified, "But in essence, accurate, all of you. Now, extrapolate. You have a little leeway as genin – what sort of leeway do you think I have?"

"Team huddle!" Naruto called, reaching out and dragging the other two to lie on the ground next to him, the three of them putting their heads together and engaging in a fierce whispered debate. Kakashi just chuckled and stretched out on his back, pulling his book out from his vest and resting his head on his free arm. They'd get it, he was sure.

***===***pagebreak***===***

Sakura could almost feel her mind grabbing pieces to try and stitch things together to answer their original question. Why would sensei do a freebie mission, especially since they'd literally just seen him do the exact opposite of even allowing a freebie mission?

"Sensei's a jounin, and a clan-head, and probably a former ANBU Captain," Sasuke reported lowly after Naruto had pulled them into a weird huddle sprawled across the forest floor. "So he's probably got a lot of leeway."

"And leeway's good," Naruto pointed out, "Because it means you can get a lot of things done on the way to your goal."

He must have spotted their askance looks because he explained, "Well, like training, right? You have a goal, and meet tiny goals to get to it. Or a really big prank – the Hokage monument thing, that was my objective, right? But on the way to it, I got supplies I needed to test, so I got to do some other small pranks on the side that were still tons of fun and all, but weren't my final goal. Since my client was myself, basically, I could do whatever I wanted so long as I met my final goal!"

"And that's the angle," Sakura gasped, "You're your own client! Or rather – I mean – ugh. It makes sense in my head!" she groaned, grasping at her hair and Inner bewailing her inarticulate nature before she grumbled a curse and gave it a shot anyway, "Look, so it's like sensei said, our goal is repeat clients, our goal is happy customers – how do merchants get loyal customers? Or get new people to come in? They have deals, sales and clearances and stuff! If you develop a relationship with them, they cut you some slack, give you a lower starting price to haggle from – like a give-away! That's a freebie mission, it's like those cheap free samples people hand out!"

She beamed at her teammates, certain she was on the right track with that.

"But if we use Naka-san's question as an example, that makes it sound like sensei's done freebie missions on the scale of deposing tyrants," Naruto pointed out, "And that sounds like a really expensive free sample to be handing out."

Sakura deflated, before Sasuke smacked the ground with his fist and said, "But it's not!" he smirked at the two of them, eyes swirling to red before fading back to their usual charcoal shade – that was going to take some serious getting used to. "We're thinking too small, we're not just paid in mission pay, we're paid in mission loot – think about it! With the restaurant missions, we got free food sometimes, with the patrol mission, we got a free trip to the beach, with the messenger mission, we got an audience with an influential merchant house. That's on top of what we're actually paid. So missions like this one would be even better if you did it right, because the payout would be huge both in money and in reputation building."

"And in intelligence!" Naruto snapped his fingers, a smile blazing across his face, "Like those accounting books and coded messages and maps from the pirates! Or even the stuff we found at the nukenin hideout!"

Sakura beamed at them, thrilled her mental breakthrough had prompted their own, "I think we got it!" she said, the two boys exchanging nods and then looking to her. Sakura shook her head though and nodded towards Naruto, "If we're going to see sensei's face, you'd best get used to talking professionally. You do it this time."

Naruto visibly gulped and steeled himself before nodding, a determined expression crossing his face and he sat up, Sakura and Sasuke following his lead, and he said, "We think we've got it, sensei."

Sensei looked over at them briefly from his book and just raised an eyebrow. Sakura had to give Naruto an encouraging nudge to get him to start talking, and the blonde took a deep breath before saying, "It's not a freebie mission. It's a mission in Konoha's best interest. If you've done these kinds of missions before, that means your leeway is huge because you can basically assign yourself missions so long as they're for the good of Konoha or at least not against Konoha. So if you were presented with a situation and you judged that the loot gained from the mission – either monetary, intelligence, or reputation boosting – outweighed the cost that would have been charged if it was formally presented and the risk if you fail, you'd be able to act on it."

"There you go," Kakashi-sensei gave his eye-smile and sat up, putting his book away – he had to have a storage seal in his vest or something because there weren't any bulges or indications that he had a pretty hefty book hidden away in there. "Well-reasoned you three, and good presentation Naruto. We'll get all three of you used to verbal reports in no time at this rate."

"So is that the kind of leeway all jounin have?" Sasuke asked promptly, eyes narrowing.

"No," sensei replied, some of Sasuke's intentness fading at that response and Sakura had to stop herself from biting her lip again. He'd wanted that leeway, she was sure, but it couldn't be something every jounin had, or otherwise Asuma-san would have renegotiated terms with Tazuna-san himself. "To be perfectly frank, there are probably only four or five shinobi in the entirety of Konoha that the Hokage has actually granted explicit permission to take advantage of situations as we see fit for the benefit of the village. There's a certain degree of self-serving in every mission of that nature, of course, but overall they must be for the good of the village. And if anything goes seriously wrong, your reasoning must be flawless or that privilege and your career as a shinobi are probably going to be suspended, if not revoked entirely."

She felt her eyes widen at that and she could tell the other two were equally surprised. It made sense, really, from a business-management perspective but still… it was weird to think that deciding to help someone out, or do the right thing might result in them being failures as shinobi if something went wrong.

"Neh, sensei, who are the others?" Naruto asked, "Are they all like you?"

"Like me?" sensei asked, cocking his head to one side, "What do you mean?"

"Well – like what Sasuke said," Naruto mumbled, waving his hand towards Sasuke and continuing, "Jounin, clan-head, ANBU Captain and stuff."

"No," sensei replied shortly, before snorting, "One of them's your old sensei actually, Umino Iruka."

"Nani?!" Naruto gaped, Sasuke choking and Sakura stammering, "But – but he's a chunnin!"

"Ah, but would he ever give himself a self-assigned mission that he couldn't feasibly complete?" sensei leaned forward slightly, "It's not power alone that matters, my adorable students. It's whether or not you know how to use what you've got to accomplish your goals. And even more importantly, it's when you can acknowledge and accept that you can't accomplish everything, every time. That sometimes, it's best to just leave things be for another day."

"That sort of trust isn't handed out to anyone with power, it's handed out to those with true self-awareness," sensei eyed them all seriously, "Which is one of the reasons I'm very proud of you three – so far, every one of your plans and exercise schemes has used nothing more than your true abilities. If you can hang onto that self-awareness, you three will go very far indeed."

Sakura felt her spine straighten at that, the boys doing the same, pride warming her. Sensei was proud of them, he thought they could go far! He thought she could go far, civilian-born ex-fan-girl with a scar of stupidity on her face and bright pink hair on her head – and he thought she could make it.

And she would by kami. She fucking would.

***===***pagebreak***===***

Kakashi felt rather touched as he watched his students fairly glow after that honest statement of his. He had received quite a few compliments in his day, from his looks to his skills, but he could count on his fingers how many of those had honestly impacted him, had honestly made him feel proud that someone thought highly of him.

And every one of those had been from one of those he now only visited in his dreams.

It was probably a little early for anything like that, but it was heartening, touching really, to think that his students might view him with the same affection he'd held for Minato-sensei or his own father, before the whole disaster of Sakumo's failed mission had soured their relationship. Given how short a time he'd had them under his tutelage, it was probably more the potential for that sort of relationship than already having it, but it was still… nice.

"Keeping that in mind now," he said after a few moments of letting them bask in that compliment, and in turn basking in their reactions to his statement, "We're being presented with a unique opportunity here. What were probably Gatou's highest ranking henchmen are now dead, and the man might not even know that yet. His actions are clearly despicable, and removing him from the equation here in Wave would put them most certainly in our debt and we'd probably be able to wrangle some very nice concessions from them. Even if we couldn't, it'd be easy enough to wipe out his own not inconsiderable savings and take that money for Konoha, which would probably more than pay for a mission of that rank."

The three all had creases between their brows as they nodded along, Kakashi looking between them for a moment before saying, "This mission is an assassination, at its core. If you three decide to accompany me on this mission, I can guarantee all three of you will kill in the course of it. He'll have guards, mercenaries, possibly even more shinobi, in addition to the man himself."

"If we decide?" Naruto parroted hesitantly, "You mean – we don't have to?"

"You don't have to," Kakashi said quietly, propping his chin on his hand and examining them through a half-lidded eye. "I am entirely capable of completing this mission myself. It would be training for you."

The three all started exchanging looks at that, each of them apparently unwilling to make the first move. Naruto finally seemed to reach a decision, visibly squaring his shoulders and steeling himself before meeting Kakashi's eye and sending a spasm of pain and longing memories through him; kami he looked so like Minato-sensei.

"You said, with the pirates, that they were going to be executed anyway, and I wouldn't always have that comfort," Naruto said, Kakashi inclining his head but not speaking, letting Naruto take a deep breath and continue, "This Gatou guy is a jerk. He's a slaver, and a tyrant, and all around a total bastard. And if this is an assassination – we're not always going to have that comfort either."

Naruto's eyes were dark and his expression grimly despairing, looking at his two teammates, "You always remember your first," he said quietly, "I don't want my first assassination to be for bogus reasons."

Sakura reached out and grabbed his hand, her other hand going to grip Sasuke's arm as she said, "All right then." Looking between the two boys, the kunoichi said, "I think it's probably better this way – to plan our first kills, to know they're coming. And to know they deserve it."

Sasuke let out a shuddering breath, before nodding shortly, sharingan blazing as he looked up at him, "We're in, sensei. When do we start?"

"Tomorrow morning. I need to finalize negotiations with Tsunami-san and inform Asuma that we're going to be sticking around for a bit. Then we'll head for the nukenin's hideout and relieve the clones," he tilted his head thoughtfully and finally decided, "We'll hack out an actual plan there."

A/N: ...And more world-building...