Will Chapter 7.
AN. Have some more Kakashi.
xxx
Today was really not Kakashi's day.
His kick connected with Mikoto's arm guards hard enough to send her flying back, straight into the second layer of his attack: a neatly executed doton jutsu intended to pierce right through her armor. She avoided the blow only by grace of her quick reflexes and his unwillingness to actually kill a brand-new mentor, but she would surely have fallen for the third layer of his attack if –
If he'd actually had the chakra left to execute it.
Mikoto bared her teeth somewhere in between grin and sneer. With a twist of her wrist, the metal wire caught up in the trees around them snapped loose and threatened to encircle him from all sides. Her chakra flared and fire followed it, catching on the wire as though it was covered in candle wax. The only way out was down, down, down, digging through the earth with his new headhunter jutsu to avoid certain fiery death above.
He came up where he predicted her to be and reached for her ankle, but once again the sharingan allowed Mikoto to respond in time and very nearly kick his head in in the process. Instinct and Obito saved him as he sacrificed his left hand to catch the blow instead – better to snap a few fingers than the skull – and he rolled back onto his feet.
His left hand ached abominably as they exchanged more blows and he was fairly sure his legs were shaking, but he wasn't about to give up – until one of Mikoto's fists slipped through his defense and hit his nose like a hammer. The blow was strong enough to throw him off his feet entirely and onto his back. His eyes teared up involuntarily even as blood began to gush from his nostrils, clogging up the mask. "Shit!"
Mikoto paused. "I broke it, didn't I? Hold on," she said, and stepped forward to cradle his nose between careful, thin fingers. Her touch was gentle for about two seconds, and then she snapped and twisted his nose back into place.
Kakashi yelped and stumbled out of her reach, still clutching at his nose, and glared up at her like a vengeful cat. "You could have warned me," he argued.
"That would only have made it hurt worse," Mikoto said, briefly glancing over her shoulder. Her sons seemed to be amusing themselves perfectly well at the sidelines; Kakashi was pretty sure he'd seen Sasuke's tiny fists go up triumphantly when his mother landed a good blow, but that must've been his imagination speaking. Itachi gave them a little wave.
Kakashi huffed. There was something particularly undignified about getting your ass kicked by someone while her children were cheering her on. He knew one thing for certain: he'd be a fool to ever look down on housewives again. "Why the hell did you ever retire?" He grumbled at Mikoto.
Mikoto gave her one of his rare smiles, the one that she usually seemed to save for her children. "Because fighting and being pregnant don't go together. I'll return to the field when I'm ready. As for you," she said, looking him over with a critical eye, "You did well. You almost got me with that earth ninjutsu."
"I wanted to follow it up with another attack. The more I can layer together, the less use your Sharingan is to you," Kakashi said as he sank down onto the grass while he waited for the flow of blood to stop. "Only…" He looked away.
"You couldn't," Mikoto guessed. "Not if you wanted to preserve your chakra." Her eyes narrowed and then darkened as she released her Sharingan. "The combination of using your eye and ninjutsu is very taxing for you, isn't it?"
Kakashi shrugged. He'd have thought that was obvious. "It's not about chakra control. I don't even have to think about using the Sharingan, it's just always there." He refused to say my Sharingan. He wouldn't. "It's just draining my reserves too quickly. I can't choose how much chakra it takes from me."
Mikoto nodded. "And because it drains you constantly, it's hard to for you to gauge where your chakra levels are at and how much you can still use safely. Would you say the drain is always level, or exponential?"
"Exponential. The longer I have the eye open, the more it takes. Is that normal?"
"Not really. Not unless you use Sharingan-induced genjutsu or if you're engaged in intense hand-to-hand combat," she knelt next to him and pressed tissues between his hands. Then she gently peeled back his left eyelid and looked at the Sharingan.
"It seems a little inflamed," she said, and brushed her thumb across the damaged skin. "Judging by your scar, your original eye was completely destroyed, wasn't it?"
"Yeah. Does it matter?"
"It does if the original injury also damaged your chakra coils. It was your teammate who performed the transplant, right? How would you estimate her level of attention to detail?" Mikoto asked.
"Intense," Kakashi said. "If there is any damage left, I'm sure she would have noticed." Not in the immediate aftermath perhaps, when her best friend lay dying beside them, but certainly during one of the many times in the following months where she checked her work over and over again to ensure it wouldn't hurt Kakashi somehow.
Mikoto looked thoughtful. "I suppose she isn't Minato's student without good reason. It could just be that this is how the Sharingan acts outside of an Uchiha body. As far as I know, you're the first person outside the clan to have one in over a century. There's no telling what the consequences might be, either for you or for the eye."
"That's comforting," Kakashi scowled.
She snorted. "It wasn't supposed to be. I'm a realist, and I think you are too. Isn't it better if I'm honest with you?" Her expression softened, and Kakashi's automatically followed.
"I guess," he said. "Still, this can't just be it. That the only way to improve is to work on my stamina and hope for the best." He wasn't sure why it was so easy to be open with Mikoto, but he found that confiding in her came easily. Too easily, perhaps.
"Why do you want to be stronger so badly? You're a jounin, and a good one at that – that already makes you stronger than most shinobi ever get to be. What is it you want to achieve here? Why join an organization as dangerous as ANBU? There is little place for ambition in our world," Mikoto said, getting back up and pulling him to his feet.
What do you want to achieve? What did he want to achieve? In the past he'd always wanted to get stronger for the sake of getting stronger. It was what Konoha expected of him, and what he expected of himself. How else would he ever surpass his father or redeem their family honor?
But things had changed since then. He had lost a friend and regained the memory of a loving parent. He had gained perspective. Family honor or strength for the sake of strength seemed like empty goals now. But…
He'd almost lost another friend, two months ago. A friend he had vowed to protect, not just for Obito's sake but also because some part of him wanted to preserve her smile. Rin was a force of good in a world that was far from kind. Even aside from how much her friendship had come to mean to him personally, that made her worth protecting.
And there were Minato, Kushina and their unborn child to think of, too. They were powerful enough that he couldn't fathom anything or anyone being strong enough to threaten them, but he had once thought the same of his father.
In truth, he was growing more sure every year that power didn't matter as much in the grand scheme of things as the world wanted him to believe. Bad things could happen to anyone at any time – power just provided one with the luxury to respond.
"Why do you want to go back into the field?" He asked softly, instead of answering. He looked at the two young children near the tree line. Little Itachi was singing something to his brother, who was steadily falling asleep.
Mikoto blinked and followed his gaze. "Oh. I think you already know why. I have a family to think of."
Kakashi nodded. "So do I."
Mikoto didn't reply but when she looked at him again there was a warmth in her eyes that hadn't been there before. Then, much to his consternation, she reached out and ruffled his hair.
xXx
Kakashi had been looking a little peaky as of late. Minato couldn't help but notice, when his student came to the mission desk later that day to pick up a simple C-rank. The clerk at the mission desk held out a mission scroll without hesitation, smiling pleasantly and wishing the boy good luck, but she didn't see the weary tilt of Kakashi's head or the way he cradled his hand close to his body.
Fortunately, Minato had a few minutes to spare for his first student. He smiled as he intercepted the mission scroll before Kakashi could take it, and flipped it over his shoulder back onto the desk. "I'm sorry, Sora-san, I'm going to have to borrow Kakashi for a few minutes. Please pass that mission on to someone else. We'll be right back!" He said, cheerfully ignoring Kakashi's impressive glare as he grabbed the boy's upper arm and pulled him along to his office.
"Hey – what are you doing?" Kakashi protested, even as Minato steered him in, unceremoniously picked him up, and sat him down on top of Minato's desk as though he was five years old all over again.
Minato held out a finger to silence his student. Bruising on the bridge of Kakashi's nose, and the boy still kept his left hand close to his chest. Minato took Kakashi's wrist and carefully but firmly pulled the injured hand towards himself.
As expected, it was bruised and swollen. Kakashi's pinky finger and ring finger were taped together in a makeshift splint.
Minato raised an eyebrow at his student. "Are they broken, or just sprained?"
"Sprained," Kakashi muttered, avoiding Minato's eyes.
"And how exactly would you have performed jutsu with sprained fingers?" Minato said, as sternly as he could manage. He didn't feel particularly angry, but he knew a good old-fashioned scolding was often surprisingly effective with Kakashi. And this… He looked back at the fingers caught in his hand, still so much smaller than his own, and was reminded of Kakashi's youth. Jounin or not, his first student was still a child, too.
"It was only a C-rank, I would hardly have needed jutsu," Kakashi said weakly, without much conviction.
Minato sighed. "And you were planning to leave without a team, too. You realize that your not officially being assigned to a team doesn't mean you can just run off on your own, right?"
"I am more than qualified –"
"Yes you are, under normal circumstances." Minato frowned and pushed Kakashi's head back, careful not to tug on his hair. "What happened to your nose?"
"… I broke it."
"Honestly, Kakashi!"
"I just wanted a quick break, outside of the village!" Kakashi protested. "The mission is just to go to a nearby farm and kick a few bandits around, nothing too strenuous!"
Was this what parenthood would be like? "You're not going."
"Sensei."
"No. You'll just have to figure out a different way to vent your frustrations. I don't know who you've been sparring with, but I'm guessing it didn't go as you planned, did it?" Minato asked. He had known this boy for almost nine years and knew him almost as well as he knew Kushina – he knew how Kakashi's mind worked.
Kakashi flinched. "I just wanted a distraction," he said tersely. "Things haven't been going my way."
"Nor mine, but do you see me slipping away on secret little missions when I get frustrated?"
"I wouldn't know, what with you and Rin and Kushina-nee going on your secret training trips," Kakashi moped. "And Rin is usually too exhausted afterwards to tell me anything."
Minato felt a guilty start. It was true that he hadn't spent a lot of attention to Kakashi in a while – hadn't had the time, in between running the village and looking after Rin – and he suddenly realized he had no idea what Kakashi had been up to over the past month or so. He let out a long sigh. "I'm sorry, you don't get to see as much of us as you usually do. I wish… Well, it doesn't matter what I wish for. You know this training with Rin is necessary –"
"I'm not jealous," Kakashi said, with all the indignation he could muster (which was quite a lot). "I figured out my own training regime. It's just not giving me the answers I was hoping for."
Minato blinked, and then smiled. Of course. Kakashi was always so independent. Of course he would figure out his own path without their involvement.
Kakashi misinterpreted his smile. "Forget it. I'll just keep going, maybe I'll figure something out eventually."
"No, no! I'm sorry – I wasn't smiling because you're not succeeding, I was smiling because of your show of initiative. You never cease to surprise me, Kakashi," Minato said, and reached out to ruffle Kakashi's hair.
Kakashi ducked out from underneath his hand with an angry hiss. "Why does everyone keep doing that?" He muttered, and then added, "Maybe you can help too. I guess it wouldn't hurt to learn some more fuinjutsu."
He said it the way most people might say "it wouldn't hurt to learn how to bake cookies" rather than one of the most complicated shinobi sciences there was, but that didn't make it a bad idea. In fact...
Minato tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I don't have a lot of time to spare but Rin won't need my involvement with her training for much longer. Kushina will be able to take care of everything after she's had the baby. We could make a start together, see whether you have an affinity for it," he said.
Judging by the way Kakashi's eye lit up, this was exactly what his student had been hoping for. "Really?"
"Sure. Although I'm not sure why you're insisting on doing it at the same time as whatever training regime you've got going right now –"
Kakashi pushed himself off Minato's desk. "Why not? If you're not going to assign me to a team I might as well use my time productively."
"Most kids would take up a hobby..."
"I'm not most kids."
"No," Minato sighed, "no, you're not."
There was a brief silence in which Kakashi stared out the window with a rather intense expression, his clever mind doubtlessly whirring away as he worked on whatever was giving him so much trouble.
"Hey, sensei?"
"Hmm?"
"Is there a sealing technique to improve chakra reserves?"
Ah. "Well, fuinjutsu has almost limitless possibilities for those who truly understand it. Tsunade-hime, for example, can store away chakra into a seal on her body for later use…" Minato trailed off at the sight of the rather militant light that was starting to appear in his student's eye. He knew that look. One more word on the subject and Kakashi would go marching off to drag the legendary sannin back home himself.
Minato closed his mouth with a click. "Let's just start with the basics. We'll see where we go from there."
xXx
Jiraiya was still angry at Tsunade when one of his littlest toads came slithering out of a nearby drain and squeaked to draw his attention.
Jiraiya drew his gaze away from where it had been fixed on the next pebble he'd wanted to kick away, and then made a show of accidentally dropping his backpack near the drain. While shoving his belongings back in, he hooked his fingers around the toad's soggy little bottom and pushed it into his bag as well.
Still grumbling, he turned the corner and went up to his hotel room. The girl behind the bar gave him a pleasant smile, which at least improved his mood a little.
In his room, he carefully placed the backpack on his bed and opened it up so the little toad could hop out. It did so with a slightly disgruntled expression, and then proceeded to shake its little fist at him while squeaking angrily.
"Yeah, yeah, sorry. I can't go around talking to toads when I don't want to be noticed though, can I?" Jiraiya said, dropping down onto the bed next to his summons." What is it?"
The toad produced a slim scroll from somewhere on its body (Jiraiya wasn't sure he wanted to know where) and tossed it at Jiraiya's face. Jiraiya caught it between thumb and index finger and shook his head as the angry little toad hopped away.
Jiraiya unrolled the scroll. It had been inscribed by one of his more intelligent summons, probably one of the bigger ones. It read, Suspicions are correct. Pebble involved, but is wary of Pond. Then, an a series of addresses near the edge of town. Pond, probably meaning Kiri, and Cumulus, meaning Kumo. Codenames through the perspective of a pint sized toad. Not exactly undecipherable, as far as codenames went.
Still, if Cumulus – dammit, Kumo – was wary of Kiri it probably hadn't accepted their offer yet. The two villages hadn't clashed as often as some of the others due to the sheer distance between them, but that hardly meant they were just going to trust each other.
Which meant there was still an opportunity for Jiraiya to prevent the complete disaster that would be an alliance between the two.
He frowned and lay back onto the bed. How, though? He obviously couldn't go barging in on their meeting to kill them all. He could keep an eye on them through his toads or, if he was feeling particularly gutsy, by using his shadow techniques to get really close, but he couldn't influence their decisions himself. Not for the first time he wished he'd learned a couple of Yamanaka secrets, but those blond bastards were annoyingly secretive.
But if he could figure out who the Kumo agents were… All it would take was a weak link. He grinned to himself. Once upon a time he would have said Orochimaru was more suited for this kind of work, but by now he knew better. If you wanted to change people's minds, you had to first understand them. Jiraiya wasn't very good at understanding what people wanted from him, but he understood the base needs of a soldier far from home better than anyone.
He sat up and summoned one of his bigger toads (this one roughly the size of a cat). "Give Minato this note. He will understand," he said, and gave it the note he'd just received.
Once the toad had left, Jiraiya went to stand by the window. Well, if they weren't hiding away, they had to be out in the open. Obviously. His toads were busily searching the area, but there were quicker ways to find out whether there were other pockets of activity aside from the address he had gotten. Disguising himself with a simple camouflage jutsu that rendered him very nearly invisible, Jiraiya climbed out of the window and back onto the roof.
Gathering nature chakra was more difficult with his anger at Tsunade standing between him and tranquility, but he managed it in the end. He honed in on the largest chakra signatures he could find in the area (and tried not to notice that Tsunade's had conveniently disappeared) and decided that the most significant signatures were near the northern edge of town, just as his toad had suggested – which, fortunately for Jiraiya, also happened to be the red light district. At least it wouldn't be hard to disguise himself appropriately before going; after all, he knew exactly what kind of man would visit that area.
When infiltrating an area where you suspect a shinobi presence, it was always better to use a genuine wig-and-fake-moustache disguise. That made it much easier to properly suppress one's chakra and not leak any by accident. If they had a sensor –if they were clever, they did – the smallest of slip-ups could give him away.
Disguising his hair was always the most difficult part. He ended up slicking it back with a fragrant hair oil he had once bought in Fire Country's capital city, and then wrapped his pony tail up into a thick, messy bun. Next, he washed off his face paint (never tattoo your clan marks on, kids) and replaced it with a powder to make himself look a little bit paler and older. He added some blush to his nose, cheeks and ears for that hint of alcoholism, and silently apologized to his poor old mother for doing this to himself.
He couldn't do much about his physique other than padding his waistline with a few strategically placed pillows, which at least made him look more middle-aged and less force-based taijutsu user, and topped the whole look off with slightly oversized clothes which had the happy side effect of making him look smaller than he actually was.
Jiraiya looked at himself in the mirror and saw a forty something-year-old, paunchy merchant-class civvie with a taste for cheap booze. He grinned, put on a pair of flip-flops, donned a simple straw hat, and set off towards the red light district.
It was a good thing Minato hadn't come along. The poor boy would have blushed himself into an apoplexy five steps into the district, where neither the men or women seemed particularly inclined to cover up their chests. They were all rather pretty, if nothing else, and Jiraiya felt slightly sorry that he wouldn't be able to properly enjoy their company.
He walked past the most popular, err, bars, picked up a jug of saké at a stall, flirted just a little bit too loudly with two women, got himself slapped in the face and, uncorking the saké with a loud pop and boisterous laughter, knew that he had created the image of a bawdy, drunk tourist who didn't have enough money to properly treat himself.
He settled himself in the back of one of the medium-priced establishments and even allowed one of the workers to sit with him even as he scanned the crowds in search of what he was looking for. The girl rolled her eyes and left when he didn't spend enough attention to her, so he took a large sip of the sake to strengthen the image of a man too inebriated to entertain company. The trickiest part was keeping his face slack even as he focused on analyzing the other patrons.
This would take time, in all likelihood. A stakeout was called a stakeout for a good reason. But he had his toads gathering information, and he had his own keen eyes and keener ears.
If there was anything to be found, he would find it.
xXx
AN:
And so they're getting closer and closer to October 10th, the original date of the Kyuubi attack… What do you think? Will Madara be able to prepare Obito in time? A version of Obito who has no reason whatsoever to hate Konoha?
Next chapter, it's finally September 15th, and we get an update on Obito.