The next morning, Kakashi waited for everyone else to wake up, as was usual even if his tardy habits didn't make that obvious. He'd wanted to start some tea, but negotiations with Tsunami-san the night before had been fiercely entertaining and he didn't want to sour that with assumptions of any sort. Assumptions had gotten the lot of them in this mess in the first place after all.
She'd also been the one who told Asuma no smoking in the house. For that, he might have been a bit generous in his terms with her last night.
He'd had a late night, exchanging some words with Asuma before heading out just before midnight to find Gatou's estate. It had been a simple matter of talking to Tsunami-san and then combining her rumors and their nukenin hideout find. Pakkun had been happy to help, especially once he heard that this was the guy responsible for the slaves they'd saved a few days ago.
It hadn't been particularly difficult to find the man's estate, even a simple search grid could have done it. What had been a little more difficult was getting close enough to adequately assess the security of the place.
And when he said a little more difficult, he meant that if he'd been unprofessional enough to be reading while he trailed Pakkun, he'd have looked up from his book occasionally to sneak in. The mercenaries Gatou hired may be decent enough muscle, even decent enough fighters against civilians – maybe against genin too, if they were intelligent enough to strategize – but against him?
Snarling puppies, except less adorable by far.
Maybe snarling cats? No, that gave them too much credit for sheer evil…
Needless to say, had he been so inclined, he'd have killed Gatou and been in and out in a matter of hours and the whole problem would have been resolved by the dawn he'd watched on the dock a few minutes ago.
But he was a sensei now, and that meant he should take advantage of this learning opportunity. As he'd pointed out to his students the night before, and as Naruto had very clearly understood, this was one of the least-ugly assassination missions you could get. The man honestly deserved it, and even a civilian would agree. Just the kind of assassination one should cut their teeth on – leave all those moral motivational questions for later, after they'd gotten the killing people part down.
Even better, it got them thinking about the morally questionable things in their future without the immediacy of a live mission to stress them out and make the entire matter more difficult to cope with.
"Good morning Sasuke," he said over his shoulder, flipping another page – he'd finished the book the Sandaime had lent him, but thankfully he always carried a spare Icha Icha around so he at least had something to skim.
"Morning sensei," the Uchiha grunted, moving around to sit across from him, "Who's on watch?"
"Maa… me, it seems. Who was supposed to be on watch?"
"Chouji," Naruto replied, yawning and scratching his chest as he stumbled into the room, "He didn't wake up when I tried, so I set a clone on it and slept myself. It dispelled when you woke up – sorry. Team Ten's totally exhausted, sensei, don't be mad."
"I'm not mad," Kakashi lied mildly, flipping a page, "Though I am disappointed."
"Yeah, me too," Naruto grumbled, sitting down next to Sasuke, "Weren't they supposed to be our teamwork rivals?"
"They may have excellent teamwork, making up for poor stamina," Kakashi pointed out, "Did your clone see any of their fight? Did they use team tactics there?"
"Err… I guess? Shikamaru gave the orders and the other two listened, does that count?"
"Given the fact Ino regularly beats him over the head for laziness? I'd say it counts," Sasuke replied dryly, looking back at Kakashi before saying, "Sensei, when are we heading out?"
"After we're not the only shinobi on watch," Kakashi replied, offering a half-shrug, "And breakfast, of course. Tsunami-san and I came to an agreement regarding room and board during our mission and it'd be a shame to skip a meal we've paid for."
"You are such a cheapskate, sensei," Naruto shook his head, grin growing on his face, "I like it!"
"I prefer the term fiscally sensible," he replied, turning the page again and Naruto rolled his eyes, turning to Sasuke and saying, "So when do you make good on this fire jutsu you promised me?"
"When sensei says it's okay, so not today, dobe," Sasuke smirked, turning to face him before asking, "Sensei, I was thinking Great Fireball. I know it best and I learned it at six, so the dobe should be able to get it. Is that all right?"
"Maa, should be fine," Kakashi rolled one shoulder in a shrug, "Stay on the water when you practice, we may as well take advantage of the environment while we're here. But like he said Naruto, it's going to have to wait at least a day."
"Hai, hai, got it sensei," Naruto flapped his hand, a gleeful look on his face, turning to Sasuke and demanding, "Show me the hand-signs so I can practice those at least!"
"Do I get to learn anything this trip?" Sakura asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she dropped down to sit next to Naruto.
"We'll see how today goes," Kakashi temporized, "But we'll do a chakra level check for you and Sasuke and see how much longer you've got until you can manage a kage bunshin – once we get one of those for each of you, we'll have a lot more options. For actual jutsu though… hmm… would you prefer iryo, or gen?"
"Gen," Sakura replied promptly, "I need to practice with a fish a few more times before I advance."
They were taking his self-assessment lecture seriously then, good. Very good. He'd have to continue rewarding them for it so long as they kept it up. Maybe a day off from training?
…Nah, who was he kidding? That'd be more of a punishment than anything. Maybe he'd take them out to dinner somewhere – somewhere where shinobi ran the place and anyone who had a problem with Naruto attending could take it up with him, privately, elsewhere. With a possible guest appearance of chirp-chirp.
Ugh. They even had him doing it now.
"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't think anyone would be up yet," Tsunami-san swept into the room, smiling at the four of them, "I'm afraid I'm used to my father's schedule."
"The time to discuss team matters was appreciated, Tsunami-san," Kakashi replied, making sure his smile was obvious with his eye, "It allowed us to discuss training opportunities and make plans."
"Well then, I'm glad. Would you care for some tea?"
"That would be wonderful, is there anything we can do to help? Sasuke and I can help in the kitchen, sensei and Naruto would be best kept far away," Sakura smirked at Naruto's theatrical cry of pain at her assessment. He had allowed for two assistants per meal at the most before he started charging, with three general errands to be used throughout the day from the genin, or one errand from the jounin.
Then he had written it all up and Tsunami-san had very carefully read every word, and even corrected a few ambiguous clauses before they'd both signed and shared a sharp-eyed smile.
It really was a pity this was a mission. Competence was very attractive.
"Maa… I can make some things," Kakashi shrugged, "And field rations aren't supposed to taste good, Sakura-chan."
"That doesn't mean they need to be nausea inducing!" she retorted, following a giggling Tsunami into the small kitchen, Sasuke sighing and following.
"My instant ramen is awesome!" Naruto insisted, all of Team Seven casting him withering looks.
"That doesn't count, Naruto," Kakashi said.
Asuma showed up next, slumping next to Kakashi and mumbling morning greetings to the earlier risers, Naruto shoving a cup of tea under his nose. Apparently he had assigned himself serving duty – without being asked. Damn it, kid. "You're all on your own today," Kakashi said quietly, "We've got a side job."
"My team's mission anyway, don't worry about it. You're making my job a hell of a lot easier," Asuma grumbled as the rest of Team Ten stumbled in and Naruto bounded over to stuff cups of tea in their faces, "Sorry you got dragged into this mess. I know how much you hate these missions. But he told a good sob story and Ino swore we'd help – and Wave country grows the best tobacco, figured a trade agreement would be worked out."
"Also it's a little hard to enforce the usual penalties with baby genin," Kakashi replied ruefully, "They're just… baby genin!"
"Ha, you don't probably even remember learning about half this stuff," Asuma chuckled, "Sucks for you man. Have fun with the big speech."
Kakashi just rolled his eyes, he wasn't that socially inept. He just didn't understand the big deal about half the 'milestones' jounin-sensei were expected to help their genin through. He'd gotten through Naruto's big speech, had two more to go and if this Gatou raid worked out right they'd both be done in one fell swoop, so he'd hopefully sweep the board before they got back to Konoha.
"By the by," he said casually, turning another page, "My genin were under the impression kawarimi with another shinobi was not only entirely possible, but was without unique risk."
Asuma choked on his tea. So it wasn't just him that found that appalling. Good to know, sometimes his standards were skewed.
"You're kidding," he said flatly.
"Not at all," Kakashi replied mildly, "And Sakura-chan has memorized their textbook."
Asuma started swearing under his breath, pulling out a cigarette and clamping it between his teeth, and then drinking tea around it. That couldn't possibly taste good. "Lucky most of the graduates this year are clan kids," he said after swallowing, "Yours would be the ones at the most risk of not knowing that. Sweet merciful kami – I assume this came up when you planned your interference with Zabuza?"
"Indeed. Naruto came up with a workable strategy to avoid risk to himself if the chakra capacity proved a problem – it seems they not only failed to mention it in class, but the students witnessed Naruto doing it with Inuzuka Kiba and one of his instructors," Asuma's continued cussing was very satisfying. It meant he'd have an ally when it came to storming the Academy – figuratively of course. The Sandaime and Naruto were rather fond of that one chunnin after all.
"I'll check with my kids," Asuma said, "Shit man. Thanks for the heads up – I'll mention it in my report, reference you?"
"Sounds good to me," Kakashi agreed, he planned to meet with the Sandaime and discuss it personally after all, so it wouldn't drag him into something he didn't plan to initiate himself. The joys of having a political-disaster-being-salvaged team.
Tazuna finally made it in, cracking his back and covering a yawn, with his grandson – named Inari, if Kakashi remembered right (which he did, of course) slunk in behind him, giving them all furious glares. Didn't quite hide the bitter hopelessness and fear though. Hmm… seemed the kid had a more realistic understanding of their country's situation than his grandfather.
Sad, he supposed, for a kid to have less hope than an elder.
But practical.
***===***pagebreak***===***
Naruto let himself enjoy the run to the nukenin hideout – sensei was keeping the pace down so Sakura wouldn't be exhausted by the time they got there, so he had plenty of time to bounce off trees and do overly-flamboyant flips while he was there. Once you got the knack of tree-walking, it was tons of fun and made you look like something out of those awesome movies he sometimes got glimpses of!
Given, he was pretty sure real ninjas laughed hysterically at those things, but they still looked badass!
He'd decided to wear his mini-sensei shirt today, because when that whole thing with the pirates went down a couple of his clones had gotten blood in their mouths and it was gross. Also, it reminded him of the first time he'd played a prank with someone – really with someone, not just coming up with an idea and having Kiba or Chouji (Shikamaru found it too troublesome) tag along so they could point and laugh and feel smug at the results while he did the work.
No, this time, he had been inspired, Sakura-chan had made it bigger and Sasuke-teme had rigged their hita-ates properly – the knot was a little different so it remained snug to the curves of their faces, which was definitely not something he'd have ever noticed.
That was going to be a good memory forever. And he could use good memories later today.
Especially since he had a feeling he and sensei would be tag-teaming the other two. Nice and morally friendly assassination aside, it was still an assassination. Sure, there would be fighting – there was no way they could raid a crime-lord's headquarters and slip out unnoticed by the goons, not at their level. But their goal was going to be to kill as many as possible without them even knowing they were there, which took out a decent half of the coping strategies he'd been using to deal with the pirates thing.
Not to mention the fact that Sakura-chan hadn't really been taking being a ninja seriously until recently, so may have never even thought about how their job boiled down to doing not-so-nice things (like killing people) for money until then. He'd never really thought about it a lot, but he'd known. The Hokage had made sure he at least acknowledged that before he started at the Academy, even if he hadn't really gotten it until that one class when they were studying bleed-out points and it just suddenly clicked, that this was easy. That being capable of taking a knife, flicking a wrist, and hitting an artery was only a few short practice sessions away.
That this was his job.
Anyway, he'd pulled a few pretty epic pranks out of that crisis, and gotten over it. Figured he'd have years before he'd needed to deal with it and he had, just not as many years as he'd thought.
Sasuke-teme probably had the opposite problem, Naruto was pretty sure he was really hung-up on the killing people part of their job and killing his asshole of a brother was the priority. But what if there was someone who resembled a cousin or something, and he had to kill them? What of one of the goons here begged and happened to pick a phrase that he'd heard a favorite aunt use, when his brother had massacred his Clan?
It could go either way, and he might as well figure it'd go the opposite of well.
Sensei gave a short flick of fingers and Naruto nodded, dropping down to jog in the back of their diamond. He liked the spot sensei had given him, it let him keep an eye on his teammates and left him and his clones as a buffer between them and any assaults from the rear. He also had keener senses than the other two, like smell and stuff, so he would probably notice anyone coming up on them before they would.
Not before sensei would, not yet, but maybe someday.
Sensei was also, quite literally, letting him watch his back, and he knew what that meant – sensei didn't think he was a threat. Kyuubi and all, even after that weird something had happened with the hunter-nin fight – sensei didn't think he was a threat.
Sensei trusted him.
They got within sight of the small house the nukenin had been using and Naruto glimpsed the too-pretty face of the hunter-nin before a much more familiar grin split that face and he beamed, waving at himself before getting hit with the best memories he'd ever gotten off a batch of clones.
"I'm a genius!" he whooped, sensei sighing and burying his face in a hand momentarily, "What was I thinking?" he muttered.
"Naruto?" Sakura asked, raising an eyebrow and Naruto cackled, elaborating, "Well they had all night, right? So clone-me spent the time thinking of pranks for the council! We have got to get that approved, seriously!"
"You really don't like the council, do you sensei?" Sasuke asked, smirking.
Kakashi-sensei just shook his head with a sigh, nodding towards the shack and saying, "Get inside you three, and let's scheme. Naruto, another clone to join mine in standing the watch."
Naruto beamed and complied, two clones bouncing over to the freshly made sensei-ichi while they went inside to check out their new headquarters. Gear and intelligence had been examined and sorted, so Naruto made a beeline for the extra shuriken and kunai, dragging Sasuke-teme with him. Some of his had probably been damaged in the hunter-nin fight and if they hadn't, he still never wanted to find Sasuke standing in front of that asshole's rooms looking lost and grim and horrified again.
Sakura glanced over their way but was sorting through the medical supplies his clone had made a separate pile of, coincidentally close to the pretty yukatas clone-him had found. Maybe she'd like some, maybe she wouldn't. He thought a couple would look really nice on her and if she didn't take one, he definitely would for some oiroke no jutsu practice, but he wasn't going to suggest it.
Taking fashion advice on selections out of the wardrobe of your dead enemy might be a little much at the moment. It had taken his clone some oiroke style henge pranks (innocent blue-eyed little girls searching for lost kittens came to mind) to get over the idea him-it-self.
He'd get over a lot for the sake of some of those pranks!
"While you three are enjoying the spoils," sensei said dryly, Naruto looking over somewhat sheepishly, even though sensei was being a total hypocrite since he was examining some of the wire his own clone had set aside, "I am going to brief you on Gatou's headquarters and we're going to plan."
"You've been?" Naruto asked, startled, before shaking his head, muttering, "No, of course you have. That's where you were last night, right?"
"Exactly," Kakashi-sensei nodded slightly, "And if you three hadn't decided to take advantage of this opportunity, I'd have dealt with him then too."
On one level, sensei was a total badass and Naruto hoped one day he was as cool as him. On another, sensei was fucking terrifying.
***===***pagebreak***===***
They were good kids, Kakashi thought, watching them as they worked out a plan for another night raid on Gatou's headquarters. They had quickly decided that a night raid was best, as that was when Kakashi had inspected the place so it was more likely everything would be accurate, as well as the fact it made it more likely Gatou himself would even be there. He'd let them keep thinking for a while longer before he forced them to present a plan or two and then walked through it with them. It wasn't like they didn't have the time.
It was going to be interesting, how this one worked out. Most first kills were in the heat of combat, an ambush even, so there would be no planning outside the basic 'it could happen'. But this one – Sakura and Sasuke knew it was coming, knew and were bracing themselves for it. He honestly had no idea which way was better, so it'd be something of a social experiment.
Shit, this whole team was a social experiment, it was just miraculously working better than he could have ever hoped.
His clone had organized all the written intelligence and started on decoding it, so he was just continuing the process. He had known that Momochi was run off after trying to assassinate the Mizukage, but hadn't realized the man was still trying to build resources for a revolution. It made for an interesting thought exercise – how would he have reacted, had Orochimaru been made the fourth Hokage? If the man had gone completely off the deep end still, had continued his experiments even as a Kage – who knew if he would, perhaps he would have abstained if he'd been chosen, but that was in the past entirely – what loyal nin would stay?
Who would be more loyal, the one who tried to kill the bastard or the ones who ducked their heads and let everything their village stood for get washed away in blood?
Given, Kiri had been pretty washed in blood to begin with, that graduation policy had only changed after Zabuza had taken shameless and relentless advantage of it, but still.
More relevantly though, Kakashi was now the only living person who knew where all of those resources were. It might be worth it to send word to the Kiri revolutionaries; no link to Zabuza and he apparently wouldn't support them at all, but they might be grateful for those resources. Grateful feelings, which foreign shinobi actively interfering would most certainly not engender, might be useful. Especially if he layered things appropriately so it was easy – but not blatantly so – to find out it was he who had sent them these supplies.
Having Kiri revolutionaries ever so slightly in his debt would be handy someday, he was sure.
Clone-sent memories washed over, derailing everything, as to be expected.
"Huh."
"New plan!" Naruto hissed, having received memories at the same moment, "Gatou's here with two bodyguards!"
"We went to all this scheming for nothing?!" Sakura actually sounded insulted – so adorable.
"Only two?" Oh Sasuke…
"Naruto, henge," Kakashi murmured, "Sasuke, disappear. Sakura – prisoner."
They needed no further explanation, smoke leaving behind a placid-faced hunter-nin, a bandage-wrapped nukenin and a slightly battered Sakura huddled on the floor. Sasuke, clever brat, was nowhere to be civilian seen. He'd managed to blend in with the ceiling, clinging there so he could drop down behind Gatou and block the exit. It would be interesting to see how they decided to divide these kills.
It would also be interesting to see how they let this play out. Would they wait? Would they spring immediately? There were ups and downs to either approach, Kakashi mused, settling back in his chair and waiting for the games to begin. Getting them to defend their choice would be interesting – seeing if they all made the same choice, or at least were believable in acting in unison, would be equally interesting.
This mission really was checking off all the boxes.
"Why the fuck did I even waste money on you!" Gatou tried to snarl as he walked through the door, his nickel-samurai opening the door for him. "Heard you were a man who got things done and I hear Tazuna's back and working on his bridge? Demon of the Mist? Ha! More like the Bunny of the Mist!"
Kakashi raised what would have been an eyebrow and let his grin bare all his bandage covered teeth. "The Konoha-nin he hired got reinforcements, wouldn't be surprised if more of the tree-huggers started showing up soon. Sarutobi? Easy, the three brats aren't even worth mentioning. Hatake's the one to worry about, but don't worry," he sneered, jerking his chin towards Sakura, who cringed away with a faint whimper, "We've got collateral to bring him to heel."
"What?" Gatou snorted, "This Hatake has some brat sucking him on the side?"
Gatou had just added at least thirty minutes to his death.
"That, is one of his genin students," he said flatly, the scum in front of him scoffing and leering at the by now nauseous looking Sakura, "Please, a pink-haired ninja? Only one reason they'd drag her along – what do you say sweetie? Get paid for your work, meet some new people? Got plenty of girls you'd fit in real nice with."
Naruto was hiding fine tremors by sticking his hands up his disguise's robe-sleeves, Sasuke was choking back some impressive killing intent and Sakura – she slowly rose to her feet, nausea burning away to leave an utterly incandescent fury in its wake. It took the merchant and even the body guards a shamefully long time to realize something was off, and by then Sakura was already screeching bloody-murder as she went for Gatou, Naruto lunging for the nearest guard while Sasuke tackled the other one with a kunai to the spine.
Kakashi sighed, shaking his head.
That temper would have to go. He'd thought Naruto would be the one to snap like that, especially with the fox stirring, but no.
"Right," he said finally, Sasuke having immediately jumped into Naruto's fight and dodged the sword like nothing with his blazing red eyes, giving the blonde an opening for a deep slice in the femoral, red spraying out as the man collapsed. Sakura was standing over Gatou's gutted corpse, panting and seemingly torn between utter victory and making a face at the smell.
"That… got the job done," he conceded, "But your break in cover was unacceptably rash Sakura – boys, good job jumping in anyway."
"Thanks sensei," the boys chorused while his kunoichi-in-training bowed her head before jerking it up, not willing to stare at the pooling guts at her feet. "I'm – I'm sorry sensei," she whispered, "I just – how could he say that?"
"We'll be working on that temper of yours," he said sternly, dropping his henge and his genin following his lead. "I don't want you going into combat like that, fury burns out too quickly and fogs the mind horribly. Might be worth giving all you some temper-control exercises, that killing intent was nowhere near concealed enough for shinobi or even decently skilled samurai to overlook Sasuke, and Naruto – shaking hands are a bit of a giveaway, even up your sleeves."
"Yes sensei," they chorused, sounding disheartened.
Well he couldn't have them all down on themselves, they'd accomplished their mission and in such a way no one would know Gatou was dead until some infiltrators cleared out his accounts, if they got back to Konoha fast enough. He'd clear out the mansion tonight, leave some for Wave and curry ever more gratitude for Konoha – but the kids were sitting this one out. If insinuations of getting her rank on her knees would send Sakura over the edge, he didn't want to bring her somewhere where she'd see girls who were forced to serve on their knees. Not yet at least.
"Maa, you did well brats," he smiled, ruffling their hair and wishing briefly he had three arms before thinking about how that would look and no, not worth it. "Just gives us an idea of what we need to work on in the future – that's what missions and training are for, all you have to do is live through them to learn the lessons, and you've got that part so far. We'll clear this place out and head for Konoha in a day or two. Sakura, remember how to seal corpses?"
"I think so?" she hesitated and he offered her a red and black ringed scroll, "Seal up Gatou," he said simply, "The other two we'll just take the heads for a bounty record. Boys, check them for useful stuff and identification, then take the heads and seal them."
"…Yes sensei," the boys sounded dubious, but not distressed, so he'd keep an eye on them and leave a clone to stay in tonight. He was pushing them hard, he knew, but they'd delivered.
So far.