~A/N: Wow! I can't believe I've been writing this story for only a month. It seems like it's been longer than that! Anyway, here's a new chapter a bit earlier than I thought I'd get it posted, so enjoy! Oh, and hopefully no one had issues with the last chapter, but the upload messed up the first time, so I deleted it and uploaded it again like two minutes after I'd posted the original chapter. So, sorry if you got two notifications, or anything like that

Seventeen: A New Mission

Sure enough, when Sakura showed up at the Konoha gates a few minutes before noon, Kakashi was nowhere to be found. She sighed impatiently, ready to get on with her mission. She hadn't slept particularly well the night before—if she were honest, it was nerves—and she was anxious to get the mission started. The sooner they found the information about the rebels in the Land of Silver, the sooner they—and the rest of Team Seven—could come home.

Everyone had a bad feeling about this mission, and it was starting to rub off on Sakura. She sensed that if they didn't get out while they could, the Konoha shinobi were going to be dragged into something that was far bigger than they'd thought.

"Waiting for Kakashi?" Kotetsu asked, leaning his head out of his booth so he could talk to her.

"How'd you guess?" she asked sarcastically.

"How many other perennially tardy shinobi do we have around here, eh?"

The dark-haired man's grin was contagious, and Sakura couldn't help but smile. "I suppose you're right. Considering how important timing is to a ninja, I'm surprised he's still alive."

She paused, tilting her head expectantly, but she was met with silence.

"What?" Izumo asked, looking around.

"Nothing," Sakura said. "Kakashi just has a habit of suddenly appearing as soon as I say something that he might find insulting."

"What are you saying about me now, Sakura?"

"Ah, speak of the devil. Nothing, Kakashi. You're perfect."

The silver-haired jonin ambled up to the trio, his bag slung casually over one shoulder.

"That's more like it," he grinned.

"Ready to go?" Sakura asked, turning without bothering to wait for his answer.

"Don't you want to know why I was late?"

She rolled her eyes. "I don't need to hear another one of your crazy excuses."

"Aw, but this one's real this time," Kakashi protested, following Sakura with a sad look in his eye.

The two gatekeepers chuckled to themselves. Interactions between members of Kakashi's team were always fun entertaining to witness.

"Uh-huh, I'm sure it was. Bye Kotetsu, Izumo," Sakura called, waving her hand as she crossed out of Konoha and into Fire country.

"Bye Sakura. Take care of Kakashi!" Izumo called.

"Heh. I bet those two'll take care," Kotetsu grinned as soon as the ANBU pair was out of earshot.

"Huh? You don't mean…"

"Of course I do. Didn't you see the way they were talking back and forth?"

"But no…not like that."

"Yes like that!" Kotetsu said, throwing his arms up in the air. "Come on, how often have you seen Hatake act like that around a girl, hm? Like ever? I don't think so. And I'm sure you've heard the rumors."

"They're just teammates," Izumo said. "All of Team Kakashi acts like that around each other, hence the rumors."

"I'm just saying," Kotetsu said when he saw the look Izumo gave him.

"You gossip too much," his friend grumbled.

"And you're too much of a prude, so there."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Izumo asked.

"I'm just saying, you haven't had sex in like—"

"Okay, we are not going to talk about this. Besides if we're talking about our sex lives, everyone knows mine is way better than yours."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You think Kotetsu and Izumo are still arguing about something?" Sakura asked as the village gates disappeared behind them.

Kakashi shrugged. "Probably. You know those two. So don't you want to hear my excuse for being late?"

"Not particularly, but you seem to want to tell me, so go ahead. I swear though, if it's about a black cat or an old lady again, I'm going to punch you in the face."

"Somebody's not in a very good mood this morning."

"My mood is fine," Sakura snapped. "And it's not morning, it's afternoon. We've wasted almost a whole day, so go on, let's hear why."

"Well, you see, I haven't been in ANBU in a long time, so I only have one uniform, which could potentially have posed a problem for this mission, so I had to go get another one."

Sakura stopped in her tracks, looking at him with a frown on her face.

"What?" Kakashi asked, worried he had something on his face.

"That might be the most realistic excuse you've ever come up with. In fact, it's so realistic that I think I actually believe you."

"You don't trust your old sensei?" he asked, pretending to be hurt.

"Of course not," Sakura said happily. "And don't worry about being late, I only got to the gate like ten minutes before you did, and I only got there that early because I like talking with Kotetsu and Izumo."

"Ah, you know me so well," Kakashi said, giving her his eye smile.

"Seven years will do that."

"Let's not talk about time. It makes me feel old."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Ever since you turned thirty, everything's made you feel old, sensei."

She knew calling him sensei was what made him feel the oldest, but she couldn't resist teasing him. She wondered if she'd be pushing it too far, but she couldn't help herself.

"Maybe you are old, and you just can't admit it."

"I am not old!"

Kakashi sounded so much like a child throwing a tantrum that Sakura found bursts of laughter coming from her mouth. She tried to rein it in, but one look at her team leader's indignant face was enough to open the gates and let her laugher flood out.

"Happy now?" Kakashi asked when Sakura was finally able to control herself.

"Yeah, I think so. Ow, that actually hurt my stomach."

"That means you haven't been doing enough sit-ups."

"Well it's not my fault I had a gaping side wound and had to take a week off."

Kakashi scoffed. "It was hardly gaping."

"Well excuse me for not being almost-dead enough for the great Kakashi Hatake."

He shrugged. "Yeah, I've seen better."

She snorted. "Mostly on yourself."

She had him there, which Kakashi conceded with a tilt of his head. Sakura laughed again, looking up at him with her twinkling green eyes. He grinned back down at her.

This was what he loved most about being with Sakura. The playful banter that the two of them could share. To anyone else, their conversation might have seemed morbid, but they knew each other and they knew how to laugh at things that ordinary people might have found distressing.

Kakashi realized, not for the first time, that he and Sakura shared many of the same coping mechanisms.

"So what's the plan?" Sakura asked as they set up camp somewhere in the middle of Fire Country that night.

They still had a few hours to go before sunset, but neither of them was in a particular hurry to get to the Land of Silver. It would be a long mission any way they sliced it, so they weren't going to rush it for no reason.

"We start at the place I found their camp the first time and go from there. I have no idea how we'll pick up a trail, or how long it will take, but we should find a base or two to use and work from there. Then I guess we just look for signs of a large group, or listen for rumors of an army."

Sakura nodded. It was a solid plan, considering they didn't have any details to help them make a real plan.

"And I'll continue to train you while we're searching, if you want," Kakashi added.

"Like with my new jutsu?"

Kakashi shrugged. "If you want."

"Yeah," she said. "I wish I could figure out what it's lacking."

"Let me see what you've got so far."

"Right now?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Okay," Sakura shrugged. "But don't get your hopes up."

"I have no expectations."

"That doesn't exactly make me feel better," she said flatly, but she stood up and walked over to the clearing and made the necessary hand signs.

Kakashi felt something strange—it was some sort of sensation, but he couldn't quite describe what it was—and suddenly Sakura was behind him, her fist poised at his cheek. If he'd been her enemy, she would have taken him out with a chakra-enhanced punch.

"It's a jutsu that affects your enemy's perception of time," Kakashi said knowingly. Now he understood why she was having such trouble mastering it. Jutsus that dealt with time were difficult enough to learn; creating one of your own was nearly impossible.

"Yeah," Sakura said, sitting down beside him. "But there's still something missing with it. It's supposed to make it so that the enemy feels like no time at all has passed from when I use the jutsu to when I hit him, but you could tell I'd placed you under a genjutsu, couldn't you?"

"Hm. I see your point. Yes, I could tell something was off with my senses, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. Now I realize that it was my sense of time, but when I was under the genjutsu I could only sense that something was wrong."

"So it works?"

"Kind of. It would be completely effective on lower-level ninja. It could even work on chuunin. They might realize something was wrong, but they wouldn't be able to do anything about it."

"But it wouldn't work on any ninja higher than that?"

Kakashi shook his head. "No, not yet. They'd be able to see through it. If I'd used my Sharingan, I would have been able to dispel it instantly."

"Oh." Sakura slumped, and Kakashi could tell she was discouraged.

"Don't get upset. It just means that your jutsu isn't finished yet. Let me think on it for a couple days. I'm sure there's something you can do to help with the time alteration, but I can't think of what it is right now. Otherwise it's a very good jutsu. It's perfectly suited to your attack strengths."

"Thanks, Kakashi."

"Anything for my favorite girl teammate."

"I'm your only girl teammate."

"Yes, but even if Sasuke were a girl, you'd still be my favorite."

Sakura laughed, picturing Sasuke as a girl. "I don't know if that's really a compliment, Kakashi."

His response was his signature eye crinkle.

"I thought it was getting warmer," Sakura complained as they rolled out their sleeping bags later that night. Once the weather warmed up, they wouldn't have to worry about bedrolls, but until then, the two ANBU were going to need all the warmth they could get, because it seemed like the past week's weather had been a fluke.

"It was," Kakashi said. "Key word being was."

He didn't like the cold either. He hadn't bothered with getting a long sleeved version of the ANBU attire, so like Sakura, he was just going to have to deal and hope it got warm soon.

"Ugh, I wish it was summer!"

"Careful what you wish for there," Kakashi said, disliking the intense heat as much as the cold.

"Speak for yourself. I'd much rather be hot than cold."

"I'd rather be comfortable," the silver-haired jonin grumbled, and Sakura was beginning to think maybe Yamato hadn't been joking about Kakashi's pouting.

"What?" Kakashi asked, and the medic realized she'd been grinning.

"Nothing, I was just thinking Yamato might have been right about something."

Kakashi snorted. "Well that would be a first."

Sakura turned to him, one eyebrow raised. "He said you were a pouter."

"Did he now?"

"Yep."

"And you believed him?"

"I do now."

"I don't pout."

"Sure you don't."

"I don't!"

"See! You're doing it! Right now!"

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are!"

Kakashi laughed, and Sakura found herself joining it. His good mood was contagious, and even though she knew he'd just been humoring her, she found she enjoyed teasing him.

Maybe their mission wouldn't be so long after all.