But several years before Sakumo was killed, while he and Kakashi were out of the village trying to figure out how Kakashi could function with such a damaging and murderous ability.

Meanwhile back at the village ; things were changing. Sarutobi was no longer the Kage. Another war was brewing. Sakumo was listed as M. I. A. however he and Kakashi had been found several months back by a group of Anbu and had simply refused to return to the village unless they were both dead.

Not the smartest thing to say to a group of sanctioned killers, but they were no match for Sakumo. So it didn't really matter.

Until...

Kakashi could remember the first day he'd met the fourth Hokage in the flesh, Minato had been eighteen maybe nineteen years old and had showed up on their doorstep bright and early at...four in the am. Not even an hour after the two had managed to doze off after a long day of training.

Kakashi remembered having a cold with a small fever and how he and his father had fallen asleep wrapped up tightly in a blanket on Kakashi's bed.

Sakumo's eyes had snapped open, blinked, then a low mean sounding growl had slipped past his lips as he shifted his hold on Kakashi and carefully unwrapped himself from the blanket and slipped free.

And then re wrapped it and laid Kakashi down so that he could keep sleeping as he got up and left the bedroom to go deal with the fool.

But sleep was the furthest thing from Kakashi's now irritated mind. No. He wanted blood. And he'd have it too. He kicked the blanket off and slipped form the bed as his father reached the front door of their cabin and opened it and snarled, "What?"

The person who'd been knocking a moment before was now silent, no doubt intimidated by his father. However this wasn't really the case. The man standing on Sakumo's porch had took one look at him made an 'oooh' sound then turned pulled a piece of paper out of his pants pocket and looked at it as he scratched his cheek.

"I must be lost or something. Damned Sarutobi never knew how to draw a map worth a damn." The young man said, completely ignoring the seething silver haired giant standing not even an inch behind him.

"Lost?" Sakumo asked, barely able to contain his temper as one of his eyes twitched. The man- no that wasn't right. The blond looked like nothing more than a kid to the elder Hatake.

The younger man turned and looked at him from over his shoulder, giving Sakumo the briefest view of dark, dark blue eyes from under his wild blond hair. "Oh! I didn't know that anyone was still up." The guy chirped happily as he turned back around. Sakumo's grip on the door knob tightened to the point where the metal was crushed in his hand.

The Hatake was imagining it was the lad's head seeing as it was four in the morning, he'd only had an few minutes of sleep and this nut job was so annoyingly chipper he wanted to hurt him. Badly. "Who are you looking for?" Sakumo asked as an idea occurred to him.

"Oh I was looking for my cousin, Janique Masterson."

Sakumo pointed left. Towards the woods and smiled pleasantly. Perhaps a little too pleasantly as he said, "Walk about half a mile that way. You'll find your cousin's place." The younger man smiled and thanked him then turned and started walking.

Sakumo stood there watching him until he disappeared as Kakashi came running up behind him with a kunai in hand. "Where is he? I'll kill him!"

"It's pointless to kill him now son-" Sakumo chidded as he ushered Kakashi back into the house and took the kunai from him and picked him up and headed back to bed. Kakashi made a whining sound and laid his head on his shoulder and was silent for a moment before suddenly perking up and nearly shouted,

"Hey, you pointed him towards the cliff!"

Sakumo gave an evil sounding laugh. Yes indeed he had. And if there was a god in heaven that chirpy-waking brat would fall to his death and they'd never have to see or hear from him again.

Unfortuantely by ten the next morning when both Hatake finally managed to rouse themselves from bed and make their way outside to start their morning routines, they found the blond man cooking one of the chicken's that Sakumo had purchased a while back over an small fire in their yard. Both Sakumo and Kakashi froze in the cabin door as the man turned and looked at them and waved.

Sakumo's eye twitched madly and Kakashi pulled a kunai and pointed it at the blond and asked eagerly, "Can I kill him? Can I? Can I? Can I?"

Sakumo reached out and forced his son's arm down and slowly shook his head no as he came to the conclusion that there was no god other wise he wouldn't be being annoyed by the chipper young stranger.