~Another one of the chapter-specific shorts today.

So the background for this short is that chūnin exam that happened in Kiri. Chūnin exams are obviously a great time to sell things, and when you're building relations between villages, it pays to send nice products to help with those relations. In other words, gag tags. Which means someone gets to sell them. Insert short.

Time: Chapter 22

Main stadium, Kiri. Eight years after Kyūbi.

(Isami's point of view)

It was by sheer luck that Isami caught Hatake Kakashi's eye before he walked into the tournament stadium. "Help!" she mouthed.

The ninja in question considered her, glancing at her stand's advertisements. His eye flickered to the stadium's wide doors. Oh, Isami remembered. His idyllic family must be inside. She deflated. He had no reason to help her. He might not even remember that she'd come to Kiri with him.

"Yo," he said from beside her. She squeaked. "Ah, sorry. What's the problem? Do you need help packing?"

Isami had forgotten how terrifying he could be, and it took her a minute to recover her senses. "No," she said. "Not, um. I mean."

Hatake-san gave her a little practiced smile and looked around the stand again. "You don't seem to have any tags left in stock."

"Ah, yes."

He rubbed his neck. "Aren't you supposed to set up inside the tower once the tournament starts?"

Judging from the roars coming from said building, said event was already well on its way. "For intermission," she agreed. "But I've been stuck out here taking orders from people who aren't attending the exam."

"Mah," the ninja said, "We should have put you there the whole time." He paused. "So did you need help?"

Well. . . . "The Hokage said I'd receive shipments from my seal maker at home, but I haven't gotten any and now I'm hundreds of seals behind and I'm worried because she might be dead, but I can't reach her, and I have to take more orders for intermission and after the tournament, and. . . !"

Hatake-san looked like he'd seen a ghost. He swallowed. He coughed awkwardly. "I think your packages were sent to me by mistake," he said. "Let me go get them." He disappeared.

". . . Oh," Isami finished. "I'll just, ah, pack up my stand."

She hoped Suzume had had time to write a lot of seals.

~When you have an outside perspective on what sells well, why not make some products and sell them? Oh, yeah, because demand can be greater than supply. But hey, I don't write fics to teach economics - if I did, that would keep me pretty busy.

Anyway, yeah, Kakashi messed up a bit. Delivery was his job.

Whoa, I didn't realize it's been over a month since I updated KK. I've been working on it pretty constantly. So stay tuned for an update at some point, and keep an eye out for a new chapter here, too.