Edit 20th May: My computer died with half the next chapter on it. Bah. Anyway, in my fic 'Odds, Ends and Outtakes' there's now a chapter containing one of Naruto's lessons with Kyuubi, which provides some background to the ninja world as a whole. Enjoy!

Kakashi: Issues

Kakashi was not looking forward to telling his koi and his sensei what had happened to team seven -and Naruto in particular- in the forest of death. True, Ame was a Seer and could probably check for herself what had actually take place if she so chose, but since giving birth her Sight was mainly focused on the triplets, enabling her to provide for their every need and ensure they were safe and protected. What attention she had left over was divided amongst the Kamen-Uchiha, the Yuurei and himself, with everyone else being looked in on briefly once or twice a day. Ame-chan had probably turned her sight towards Naruto the previous evening, determined that in the following twenty four hours his death was highly unlikely barring gross stupidity and left him to it.

She had however been somewhat twitchy of late, muttering about lurking shadows, betrayal and snakes in the grass. Kakashi had taken the vague warning to heart -Minato-sensei had informed him that she was never, ever wrong- and trained both himself and his team hard, which had been fortunate since what had been bothering her turned out to be Orochimaru. That the sannin had placed his cursed seal on Sasuke was cause for alarm in itself; that Naruto had somehow modified the madman's depraved masterpiece terrified him.

Kakashi was very concerned for how the events that took place in the forest of death would impact his two strongest students. Not that Sakura isn't strong; she is just much better at sneaky minimalism than the other two, so brute power is less of an issue. Naruto had done something Kakashi hadn't even realised was possible. More, his concise, casual description of his method indicated that seal fracture was a tried-and-tested method of seal removal, one he had likely studies in the Uzumaki seal texts the blond often carted around.

The copy-nin was also more than a little concerned about how Minato -Or should I call him Ahiru now- would react. He had gradually been renewing his acquaintance with his old sensei and had discovered -somewhat to his dismay- that the former Yondaime had changed as much in the past decade and change as he himself had. Maybe even more so; at least Kakashi had not been forced to completely change his specialisation and create a new combat style from scratch, let alone learn how to blend into a completely civilian environment.

When his Ame-koi had given Namikaze Minato a new body to inhabit, it had come with fairly low chakra reserves and little opportunity to enhance them; his reseves were no more than mid-chunnin, no matter how hard he tried to expand them. This, combined with the infamy his signature jutsus had obtained, forced the disguised blond to re-specialise. In life Minato had been a heavy combat ninjutsu/taijutsu type, specialising in space-time techniques with a sideline in fuuinjutsu he had developed to take his ninjutsu further. In his new cover identity of Ahiru he was an espionage genjutsu/fuuinjutsu type with a taijutsu sideline for when he couldn't avoid a fight. He actually had a bingo book profile for his new identity, not that the entry was particularly informative. In fact, it couldn't even be traced back to him.

There was no picture, description or village affiliation on the bingo book page, just a ranking -B- nickname -Deceiver- and a list of probable offences going back five years. In each situation listed, highly qualified ninja and large numbers of civilians had been delayed, detoured, robbed and generally hoodwinked by extremely realistic and subtle genjutsu deployed on a vast scale. Every incident directly involving shinobi had been a mission failure, some even before the ninja managed to arrive. No-one had the faintest clue who was behind the Deceiver, just that there was not a single hidden village that hadn't lost out to him at some point.

Such a drastic change in approach was literally unheard-of in the shinobi world and must have taken Minato an unconscionable amount of time and effort. Kakashi had sparred with him recently and discovered that the faux-redhead was still perfectly capable of defeating him despite the considerable chakra handicap. Rather than attacking head-on Minato now struck from the shadows, layering illusion after subtle illusion so delicately that Kakashi lost more often than he won even when he used his sharingan. He would never have won at all without the extra training in lightning manipulation he had been doing; Minato was lightning natured and used it to his advantage in his illusions. The copy-nin now understood why Ame-chan had called lightning 'the intelligence element'.

The former Yondaime was both cheerful and vocal in celebrating his victories, something he'd probably picked up from sparring with the kids, saying that once again youth and skill had failed to overcome the power of age and treachery. Kakashi secretly wanted Gai to lose a fight to Minato so he could find out how the Green Beast would respond to that particular statement. Maybe the spandex enthusiast would finally change his tune.

The silver-haired jounin let himself into Ame's private sitting room, where his koi and former sensei were playing a complex-looking card game with a red-headed teenager who looked vaguely familiar.

"Hello koi, Ahiru-san," he said amiably, not recognising the elegantly dressed young woman, "Who's your guest?"

"Kashi, this is Benihime, a geisha from the okiya I part-own," ame said gleefully, swapping a few cards around and emptying her hand. "I win! Benihime-chan this is Hatake Kakashi, my intended."

"We've met," the redhead said dryly. "He interrogated me with regard to Naru-kun's first kill."

So that's where I knew her from; She looks quite a bit like Kushina-chan did. I wonder if she's a distant cousin? Naruto had to get his Uzumaki information from somewhere. "What brings you here, Benihime-san?"

"I was concerned for Naruto when I heard he was participating in the chunnin exams, so Ame-onee-san invited me over to pass the time until she received news," the young geisha said sweetly. She didn't look any older than seventeen to Kakashi's experienced eye, probably a bit younger.

Benihime also had unusually large and refined chakra reserves for a civilian; she felt like a chunnin, in fact. One with an almost unnaturally strong water affinity.

"Did you ever attend the Academy, Benihime-san? Your chakra presence is rather distinct."

"No. I am however capable of moulding chakra, Kakashi-san."

"Yet you are not a ninja," the copy-nin clarified. "Why learn to use it if you aren't going to do anything with it?"

"I enjoy helping and healing the hearts of the living, Kakashi-san, not inflicting wounds on those the dead leave behind," the young woman said dryly. "I only recently discovered my reserves were large enough for me to learn to use chakra and I am only developing the skill because the way I was trained dictates I encourage all of my talents to blossom, not just those that I find to my taste."

"If you were a kunoichi, what type would you be I wonder?" Kakashi mused idly, wondering if the hokage was onto something when he pushed through the legislation that sponsored the hiring of geisha to teach the kunoichi infiltration classes at the Academy and even some classes for the boys as well. Geisha training with a little extra chakra competence on the side would create a perfect undercover agent, one nobody would suspect since they really were primarily what they appeared to be.

The redhead smiled bitterly, her mouth creasing in an unhappy little twist. "Espionage and seduction with a sideline in assassination. The seduction I am already capable of and geisha hear all kinds of things without even having to leave their rooms. I know the body and its functions intimately, am strongly water natured and have a knack for illusions. I could become a perfect killer, a condition entirely against my preferences." her face became clouded and an aura of gloom descended over the room as the bright, witty young woman closed up completely behind a perfect, smooth mask of polite interest.

"Gomen nasai, Benihime-san. I should not have pried," the copy-nin said humbly, very aware that Ame was frowning at him.

"Forgiven, forgotten," Benihime said with a gentle sigh, her face remaining unreadable. "Might I ask if you have news of dear Naru-kun?"

'Dear Naru-kun' is it? I knew the geisha got on well with him and liked him, but I hadn't noticed they were this attached. Lucky bratling. "He has reached the tower and suffered no permanent or debilitating injuries," Kakashi said, not going into details with a relative stranger present. "the exam ends the day after tomorrow so he will return to the village then, though you may not see him if he makes it to the final round: He will be busy training."

"Arigatou, Kakashi-san," the young geisha said politely, rising smoothly to her feet and bowing in thanks. "With your permission, Ame-onee, I will take my leave."

"Give my best wishes to the rest of your shimai," Ame said with a smile. The redhead murmured assent, bowed again and left, footsteps barely audible on the polished wooden floor.

"I take it there is more to what happened than that?" Minato asked lightly, collecting the cards together and stacking them neatly.

"Aa. Oddly enough it hasn't been classified yet so I can legally tell you that Orochimaru infiltrated the forest of death disguised as a genin -which we can't do anything about since everyone signed a waiver- and placed his disgusting Juin Jutsu on Uchiha Sasuke," Kakashi said heavily. "Naruto was also badly wounded, but the fox healed him; he says he's okay, by the way. Naruto also managed to delay the seal's taking root and mutilated it -something about breaking off and transferring part of it to a squirrel- then further reduced it by sending Kyuubi's youki through it and replacing all of Orochimaru's chakra."

There was a stunned silence.

"My son," Minato breathed reverently, "is a genius. What a brilliantly simple idea, yet so incredibly effective. I've never thought about whether it was possible to demolish a complex matrix in sections by function, but it must be since that's how seals are written. It has the additional advantage that as it isn't being cancelled the programmed failsafes won't kick in. what a novel way to deconstruct a complex seal without undue risk to the victim."

"If you say so, sensei," Kakashi said laconically, not having understood a word. Genius I may be but fuuinjutsu is not my thing and never will be. "I'd like Ame-chan to look at the seal once the second exam's properly over. Please, koi? You're the best seal expert I know, sensei included."

Minato huffed a little at his dismissal, but did not look offended. While the former Yondaime was very good with seals, Ame-koi had an uncanny instinct for them that made her better.

"Of course I will, Kashi-kun. Sasuke is one of your students and you want to ensure he is as safe as can be achieved," his starry-eyed fiancée said with a gently smile, rising to her feet from beside the table and embracing him. "Come and fetch me on the final day and I will see him as soon as he is released."

"Arigatou, Ame-chan," Kakashi murmured huskily, pulling his mask down so he could kiss his lover properly. For Ame, a promise to 'see' someone was an agreement to look into their possible futures for potential outcomes. It was a whole lot more reliable than just guessing and would put his mind at ease.

"Who is expected for the wedding next week, Ame-chan?" Minato asked, apparently engrossed by the cards he was shuffling. Kakashi was sure there was something off about his former teacher's reactions to the PDAs the copy-nin engaged in with Ame, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it...

"Aniki-tou-san can't come but Aniki-ji-san has promised to come and give me away on his behalf," Ame said happily, fingers intertwining with Kakashi's own, "and both my tou-san and kaa-san have wrangled leave so they'll be able to watch even though I'm not technically a part of their clans anymore. There will also be a mixed bag from Shougakure, a few ninja and civilians from Kumo and Lightning country respectively and a few acquaintances from Wind. I've also received replies from a few dozen replies from friends in the various minor nations -both shinobi and not- as well as promises to be in the area from a good number of people whose presence would definitely be disapproved of by anyone acting in an official capacity."

"Nukenin?"

"They're my friends, Kashi. Please? They just want to watch from the sidelines, not participate. Well, most of them anyway."

Kakashi prudently decided to ignore that 'most' for the time being. He was going to get married and everything he'd witnessed on married life indicated it was important to pick one's battles with extreme care. "Anyone else?"

"I invited quite a few people from Earth country but considering where I now live and who I'm marrying they may not turn up," Ame said nervously, leaning back against her betrothed and playing with his fingers. "There will also be a large number of summons present due to my status as Yogensha and what it means to their races. We need to set aside a section for them with suitable food."

Kakshi found himself at a total loss for words. At least he wasn't alone in his befuddlement if Minato's expression was anything to go by.

Notes

shimai = sisters

koi = lover

PDA = acronym for Public Displays of Affection

note that the 'youthand skill/age and treachery' bit is a paraphrased quote from Trickster's Choice, a book by Tamora Pierce.

A/N: I am unfortunately completely stalled at the moment as I have no idea how the wedding is going to go. The next chapter covers the preliminaries, but after that my muse is being irritatingly secretive. Please be patient.