Okay, at this point I feel the fic has degenerated into nothing more than a clichéd fix-it, and Michiyo has totally turned into a Mary-Sue. She's nothing like me, but I recognize that she's a fun character to write, and thus still falls into that category of author self-indulgence. Nonetheless, I will post what I had in mind. You are warned.
Team Four returns to Konoha to be promoted. Kara has a hissy fit about not being promoted. More and more, Walter can't forget what Hiko's lips felt like when he performed mouth-to-mouth. He tells Reika-sensei that privately, and she tells him she thinks he's homosexual. He can't get it out of his head, dreams and enjoys it far more than he does actually kissing Michiyo. She offers to break up with him but remain friends, which he agrees to with great relief. Michiyo is a little disappointed, but they remain best friends. Walter tries to express his feelings to Hiko, only to be shot down. Hiko is a little colder to him at first, then becomes his friend and teammate once more.
ANBU approaches Walter and Michiyo. They are interested in having agents who are good at collecting intelligence, while still secretly having high battle ability. This means Michiyo and Walter might not be officially be promoted to Jounin in the future, in order to fly under the radar.
Both accept, and Walter and Michiyo begin training for mixed-ops duty. Michiyo will be used in intelligence, undercover, and in the far future on the Shadow-Guard, the ANBU who protect the Hokage. Walter will have far more variety in his service – at first in Intel, interrogation, combat, and Hunters. In the farther future, assassination and Shadow-Guard.
Hiko enrolls in the medic training program Tsunade created, then secures an apprenticeship with a seals master. His studies take him out of Konoha for several years.
With Team Four broken up, Reika-sensei takes on a new team – Team 9, which consists of a boy, a girl, and the genius Adrian Veidt. Before too long, with the Third Secret Shinobi War still boiling along, the boy is crippled, the girl quits, and Adrian has Reika-sensei all to himself.
Adrian, ever meddling, sets Reika-sensei up on a date with Hollis Mason. The two Jounin take to each other, and are quickly very serious about each other. Adrian continues to be amazing, and Reika-sensei lets him sign the Cat Contract – his partner is a lynx spirit named Bubastis.
Michiyo and Walter begin training for ANBU.
Michiyo is 'Blackbird.' With a corresponding mask.
Walter takes the name 'Rorschach,' and takes to his mask like no other ANBU has before. Not wanting the name his mother gave him, and to escape the prejudice of many villagers, he pretends Walter Kovacs and Rorschach are two separate people. As Walter, he continues to tutor Academy students in the program the Sandaime created. When he is Rorschach off-duty, he wears a mask made of a chakra-sensitive mask that looks like blots of black and white. He quickly develops a fearsome reputation in ANBU as a smart, ruthless, dogged bastard with crazed intuition, and a weak spot for children. He is promoted to captain of Hunter squad 6 at age 17.
Rorschach is quite eloquent, unlike Walter.
Described by others: "He was practically made to be ANBU."
Daniel Dreiburg was born to a civilian family, but always dreamed of being a ninja. He convinces his mother to enroll him in the Academy, and his father deeply disapproves. He meets Walter at eight, when he was struggling along. Dan graduates at twelve and is put on Team One, under Hollis Mason, with Laurie Blake and Jon Osterman. Laurie is a very tomboyish, foul-mouthed girl with a love of animals. Jon Osterman's body is covered in blue-inked seals – that should give him the ability to predict the future, put on him by his crazy, seal-master father at birth. However, the experiment apparently failed. Jon is very intelligent, but apparently emotionless, and privy to large amounts of money from his deceased grandfather. He lets others tell him what to do with his life. Dan immediately latches onto Hollis as a positive father figure, and develops a deep, abiding crush on Laurie, who has in turn set out to make Jon her boyfriend, rather than her rival, Janey Slater.
Dan likes to tinker with his weapons – he is good at taijutsu and has a delicate hand at genjutsu. Ninjutsu, not so much. He idolizes Hollis.
Team One's Chuunin Exams are held in Hidden Cloud. He makes Chuunin at age 15 on his second test.
In celebration, Hollis offers his students to sign the Owl Summons Contract, but the terms are so rigorous only Dan accepts. The owls immediately take to Dan, even the picky Archimedes, the patriarch of the Owls.
Dan makes Jounin at 18. He joins ANBU at age 19.
Laurie finally wins the battle with Janey, and Jon begins to date her. She is content to live with him after making Chuunin. Jon makes Jounin, and gets his own team.
Dan dates Leslie for a while, but she is too loose for him.
Dan's ANBU persona is Barn Owl.
ANBU training is very rigorous, and Dan makes it through with average marks. After a year of moving from combat division, to hunter-nin stauts, Dan is assigned to the All-Arounds, a squad led by the mysterious Rorschach, who is three years older than Dan. The All-Arounds are a team of ANBU who can handle any of the six fields ANBU covers. Rorschach has been in ANBU for 7 years when Dan joins. Rorschach was once a Captain of the foremost Hunter-nin team, but suffered a mental breakdown with a kidnapping case, and was demoted to captain the All-Arounds.
Dan's first solo assassination mission nearly breaks him – he is sent to Blackbird's (Michiyo) tender care. Blackbird is still in ANBU, mostly as Shadow-Guard, Intel, and interrogation. She is very good at profiling comrades. The Hokage enjoys her company, cooking, and opinions. Blackbird keeps tabs on Dan's mental condition afterwards, and suggests he commit some free time to community service, to make him feel he does more than kill others, then gives him the card for the Sapling Tutors program, a program that provides free tutoring for civilian children in the Academy. He tries it, and meets Walter Kovacs for a second time. They get along well enough, and Dan tries to open the older man up a little, trying to hang at a bar or join the card games of some of Dan's coworkers. Walter stonily declines, and Dan backs off, confused and a little hurt.
Since age sixteen, Dan has been aware of his bisexuality. Rorschach, though distant, seems to get along best with Dan, who develops an abiding crush on his leader.
At age 22, Michiyo refuses to marry any of the suitors her clan presents her with. When they push the matter, she disowns herself, takes her mother's maiden name, and becomes Michiyo Ashi.
Michiyo's older sister Mikoto marries Fugaku Uchiha.
The war with Hidden Stone ends.
To their surprise, the Fourth orders Dan, Walter, and several others in ANBU to travel to the capital city of the Lightning Country and infiltrate as college students. Dan is to study in engineering and technology, whilst Walter is to study teaching. Dan has already cobbled together several devices now in frequent use by ANBU – the Hokage wishes Konoha to have its very own shinobi inventor. Walter (the Hokage knows of his dual lives) is to rehaul the Academy system with what he learns – he is suddenly more valuable as an educator than an ANBU captain – the Sapling Tutor program now regularly turns out students that rise to the top of their class. The trip serves two purposes – intelligence gathering in a foreign country, and also gaining ninja educated in the foremost university in the Elemental nations.
Dan and Walter are roommates. Dan is worried it will ruin their tenuous friendship, but Walter grows on him, and before he knows it – he's torn between his long interest in Rorschach and in Walter, who is far more available, for all his flaws.
Of course, Walter has been interested in Dan since Dan joined ANBU three years ago. He'd never make a move as Rorschach, who is considered cool, and simply assumed Dan wouldn't be interested in homely little Walter. Years ago, he vented this to Michiyo, who is still his best friend and free therapist. Ever-conniving, and true to her Kagami matchmaking blood, she'd tried to subtly aim Dan in Walter's direction. Dan finally propositions Walter on the third year in the college, and after taking months to think on it, Walter starts a relationship with Dan. They move forward so very slowly Dan wonders if it's a relationship in name only, but they have sex in their fourth and final year of college.
Cue a better version of 'Hallelujah', all you DanxRor fans.
The group of ANBU collegiates graduate and return to Konoha.
Reika-sensei and Hollis-sensei marry, and have a son named Makoto.