Word Count: 2158

A/N: I'm sorry about the wait, I had the worst writer's block. And from now on, I've decided I'm not going to make any more excuses. I'm just not good at updating regularly, there's always something that comes up or I just don't feel motivated. Kudos to anyone who manages to do it.

Next time I write a story I promise it will all be pre-written weeks before hand.

Review Reply to narutolover:
Oh, I really wish you'd get an account, dear. I absolutely adore your reviews and would have replied to you much sooner. As for the answers to your questions. I always read over my chapters both silently and out loud to make sure things flow for the most part, and now I've been using the built-in spell checker for everything else I don't seem to catch. I probably should look into getting a beta though... Everything in this story comes from my imagination. If it comes to me and I like it, it's in the story. Sometimes I get ideas from other stories (if anything significant I'll put a mention in my author's note) and other times when I have a vague idea of what I want to happen, I look up military strategy and check out what jutsu has been used in the manga.

Is Kakashi going to die? Well, it wouldn't be a secret if I told you. :)

Just a reminder to everyone, Rhyssa Fireheart drew an absolutely lovely fanart for Genma in a kimono in chapter five. The link is on my profile page, check it out and give her some feedback, it's an amazing picture.

Happy New Year (to those in England and east)!

There are many things taught at the Ninja Academy: random things, important things, inane things, your-life-might-depend-on-this things...

And then there are other things that can't be taught, the type of skills that you're either born with, or you acquire (because sometimes hard work can beat genius).

One thing you most definitely don't learn at the Ninja Academy are morals--as odd as that might be to say of a ninja--the type of morals that differentiate shinobi from monsters like Pein or sadists like Orochimaru. The type of morals that dictate just what lines you can and cannot cross as you strive to protect the only thing you hold dear.

The White Fang's morals caused him to value the lives of his friends over any monetary gain. The Yellow Flash's morals caused him to not only give of himself, but of someone else, in the hopes that humanity can overcome disaster (in the hope that war really doesn't destroy love). Obito's morals caused him to save the boy that never acknowledged him as "friend", caused him to give his life--and his eye-- to the son of traitor.

ANBU don't have morals; they were never taught to. The only thing that exists for an ANBU is the mission, and the mission alone. If the mission details the murder of an innocent family, or the torture of a child, ANBU are trained to be impassive and stoic. They're trained to kill for the good of people and country. Once they put on that mask they are no longer the man or woman they see in the mirror when they wake up from their nightmares. They are ANBU, and for them, morals do not exist.

Look at us, any ANBU will tell you, look at what they make you give.

When on a mission, one of the most important things is to keep the objective in mind while avoiding unnecessary casualties--something most ninja have absolutely no problem with, the death gets to you after a while...

And, along with sometimes sketchy morals, there were rules-- rules of engagement, you see; rules that ninja tend to follow out of common courtesy. This tends to happen most often among men; groin kicks are definitely out of the question unless you have a kunai to your throat.

Then, after your rules of engagement, there were principles; which were like rules but totally more fundamental (because there is a difference).

There were rules like: "Rape is never an option", and there were principles like: "Fighting enemy ninja on neutral ground was one thing; fighting on your turf was a good thing, but fighting your enemy on enemy ground was an indisputably bad thing."

When ninja deviate from rules, bad things happen (usually in a moral standpoint), though when principles are broken, things generally go to hell in an embroidered hand basket.

(The most important rule or principle, however, is always that you have to be good.)

-

Genma's first infiltration mission happened many years ago. So many years ago, in fact, that the scars dotting his forearms and criss-crossing up and down his legs have almost entirely faded away. Almost.

But you see, almost doesn't quite cut it when it comes to infiltration missions. It's either you do or you don't, you can or you cannot; and in most cases it comes down to whether or not you live or you die.

Almost wasn't enough when Genma's first teammate almost detected all of the traps the Kumogakure ninja had left behind after their hasty retreat; and then, when he almost escaped the mace that came swinging down and took off his head.

Genma knows how foolish it is to request perfection from an all but imperfect race, knows how stupid it was to even begin to believe that all of his friends would have made it out alive. Genma survived the Third Great War after all, he knows just like everyone else just how fragile mortality is, and just how quickly a life can be snuffed out.

Genma remembers the insane drills they used to instruct the jounin to perform out in the ANBU courtyard--he used to watch them. He used to watch Kakashi.

He can visualize in his mind the faces of frightened elite jounin that were fruitlessly training to become better than they were (they were all much too set in their ways to ever change). He also remembers most of them as they fell to their death; they were almost good enough, really.

And so was his next teammate, lost on that same mission. She had almost dodged the roundhouse kick aimed straight for her head, and after dodging that, she probably would have also been able to dodge the poison senbon that had lodged itself straight into her spinal chord. Hell, she might have even blocked the scythe that finished her off.

As for Genma himself, he was good enough, and because of that he's alive.

It's a little known fact that it was after this incident that Genma first started experimenting with senbon and poison; he figures that it's only after you see a weapon kill a friend that you actually get it--in a visceral sort of way...

-

Now, logically thinking, Kakashi should have been dead years ago. The chances of coming back from as many A ranked as Kakashi has been on should be well be in the negatives. To be exact, Kakashi should have been dead three days after his fourteenth birthday, by then he had just outlived his probability of living by at least a factor of five. Or at least, that's what he figured out one afternoon after talking with Obito; but then again, he had been amazingly drunk, so there's a margin of error of about four or five percent he thinks.

And even excluding the statistics, his amazing luckiness (unluckiness) had caused him to outlive everyone, and it's not fair. And Kakashi knows that it's only because he's just too good.

He didn't fall for the genjutsu that murdered Rin because it was so elementary he could hardly believe a jounin came up with it. It was a fine scene for the most part, a cleverly placed garden in the back of the house they were raiding, and it looked so much in place that Rin didn't have a single clue. But Kakashi knew (just like Kakashi knows everything), and it was the rosemary; there were mosquitoes around the rosemary.

Kakashi tried to move, tried to speak, tried to stop Rin. But he was too late (just like Kakashi was late for everything), the jounin struck and then Rin was bleeding and dying in Kakashi's arms.

Poor, poor Rin, looking so confused.

It was the rosemary, Kakashi told her, not crying (but wanting to).

It was the rosemary, Kakashi repeated. They repel mosquitoes, Kakashi mentioned.

It's the pyrethrin chemical inside of it... and now Kakashi was babbling, but only because the bleeding wasn't stopping, dammit.

Rin smiled at him and Kakashi babbled some more, And Rin knew what Kakashi meant (just like Rin always did).

Sorry I couldn't tell you in time. Sorry I couldn't save you. I promised to protect you. I love you.

And then Rin died.

Kakashi didn't fall for the attack that killed his first ANBU partner because he outsmarted the nukenin (and he didn't even try). When the rain of shuriken and poison-tipped kunai flew out at the two men Kakashi was separated from his partner, and everything from that point on was clouded with the most fearsome haze. All Kakashi can remember (but he could remember more if he tried), is his hands flying through some seals (what seals?) and then he lived.

And his partner died.

Really, the problem with Kakashi is that he knows too much, he's too good (good for nothing?); so fuckin' good that he never dies (but does he want to?).

-

This--This was freakin' wild.

Genma was practically on top of the Iwa ANBU and he still couldn't sense him. Talk about having a god complex after this! Damn Iwa bastards were about to get exactly what was coming to them. Right now, Genma had half the mind to put a well-aimed kunai right in his back, but for this stage in the infiltration he was to stay put and wait for the signal. He'd contacted Kakashi at exactly ten minutes as was ordered, and he was to wait while Raido and Asuma located the Tsuchikage and contacted him back. Genma was not to engage the Kage or his guards in any situation.

All he had to do was wait...

After breaking off from his squad Genma had headed towards the village center; if Iwa was anything like Konoha, all the important government buildings could be found there. It was surprisingly easy to maneuver his way past guards and other traveling ninja, so much more easy than expected, at any rate. He only had to take action against five ninja, three if which never knew what was coming to them before he snapped their neck; the other two double-teaming him but they were also disposed of quickly. They couldn't have been more than twenty years of age, newly promoted jounin at best. They really were no match for him.

But, it was because it was too easy that Genma took extra precautionary measures; he'd be a fool to think that one of the Five Great Hidden Villages would be so lax with their security.

It'd taken Genma not more than ten minutes to sneak past the rest of the sentries and guards into an imposing rock enclosure where most--if not all--classified information was kept. He ran up and vaulted over the wall in no time flat; only to land on top of one of the many overhanging stones that circled the area. He then crawled back into the shadows and waited.

From where Genma was sitting, it seemed like he was in some sort of inner court yard, maybe even the Tsuchikage's personal backyard if the stone benches and bird baths were anything to go by.

It was deserted, or at least it appeared to be so. The courtyard wasn't large by aristocratic standards, it was about forty by thirty feet and surrounded by a menacing looking rock wall with wicked looking spikes fitted into deep grooves. There was very little grass (though Genma had been surprised that there had been any at all) and one very well taken care of cherry tree tucked safely into a corner under an alcove.

It looked completely and utterly deserted.

He couldn't outright sense any other Iwa ANBU, but if they had even half the cloaking jutsu that he had up, he could almost forgive himself for that.

And what a cloaking jutsu it was!

Genma had been working on a specific type of jutsu that would make it virtually impossible for any enemies to detect. It sounded pretty simple once he first thought of it, but a month into actually forming the jutsu he became stuck, it actually was a difficult jutsu to create. Instead of just manipulating the five senses, he would also have to manipulate the surroundings with a genjutsu on a level of messing with the space-time continuum; needless to say, it didn't turn out well. (Genma was no genius after all.)

He would have to combine elements of at least two different genjutsu; one of which would have to be at least an A-rank jutsu if he wanted to form something that wasn't a complete waste of time.

Genma had spent another month on it before realizing that it was a complete a complete waste of time coming from someone like him; he was a poisons expert and the last time he had created his own jutsu would have been fifteen years before. And so, Genma did what he always did when he couldn't figure something out: he went to Kakashi.

Within the week it had been created. It turned out Genma had been right to combine two genjutsu (he just didn't quite know which ones). In actuality it was so simple Genma contemplated literally biting the damn grin off of Kakashi's face.

Kakashi used Kokuangyou no Jutsu: a jutsu used by the First and Second Hokage. Instead of creating the black void that enveloped the opponent, Kakashi reversed it so that instead the user was shielded inside of some sort of a vacuum. But, after the jutsu was actually activated, there was a visible "black hole" in whatever area the jutsu was cast.

To remedy this, a supplementary jutsu--Kokohi no Jutsu--was used. It was a simple C rank genjutsu that changed the appearance of any object the user desired, and so that jutsu was used to basically nip-and-tuck the surroundings until the void was completely undetectable.

It was pure genius; they called it Kuuhaku no Jutsu.

(Genma had a feeling that this jutsu would win them the war.)

Kiki's Excuse Corner-

-Kumogakure- Cloud Village

-Kokuangyou no Jutsu- Actual Jutsu- explanation in text. It translates to Journey into Blackness Technique. Used by the Second Hokage towards the end of the Chuunin Exams arc while fighting Sandaime.

-Kokohi no jutsu-Actual Jutsu-explanation in text. It translates to False Place Technique. Used by Kotetsu during the Chuunin Exams arc to change the classroom number to throw the genin off.

-Kuuhaku no Jutsu is my own jutsu that I created using elements of the above two jutsu. Kuuhaku translates out to meaning something like "blank space" or "vacuum".