Paperwork

It was exceptionally early in the morning for Kakashi as he strolled into the Hokage tower. He was told to be there early and he was there early…for him. Tsunade was no where to be found and as he entered his offices he was immediately greeted by her assistant.

"We have an update on the town your team came across on your mission," Shizune said rifling through stacks of paper on his desk. Hokage's team had been idle for days.

"Who was sent," Kakashi asked as he glanced over the information handed to him. They were still in the dark with minimal if any details.

"Everything is being handled secretly I can't even discuss the details because I don't know," she said fumbling through paperwork.

"So the council is involved then," he asked.

"That's not so unusual to me they are just being cautious as we still don't have enough information about our attackers," she stopped fiddling with the papers lost in thought. Kusagakure were being extremely cooperative. Yet here they were with little information about their attackers and all evidence pointing to the village.

"The information about the woman; Tori or whoever she is, what do we know," he asked.

"Nothing new," Shizune inhaled and continued stacking paperwork, "I get the feeling I'm being kept out of the loop for personal reasons. They specifically requested that Yamato be left off any mission that deals with this woman and I am complete in the dark."

Kakashi began to have a suspicion he knew a reason why they were being left out.

"So if things are quiet and we are completely useless here let's go home," he said.

"Yes. I am simply passing on information," she said.

Kakashi left the offices a bit bothered that he was awaken so early for little or no information. They were not reaching for any conclusions regarding this case. Then the village leaders were also starting to suspect that Sasuke was somehow involved. Several other theories were floating around but they were so ridiculous to him that he quickly forgot them.

This was an era of change for Konoha. Naruto would soon be the Hokage to no one's surprise. There wasn't a doubt in Kakashi's mind who his successor would be it was all a matter of timing. The timing seemed to be coming a lot sooner than later to line up with all the demands of the Land of Fire.

000

Kakashi walked the village in the shadows expertly. He wasn't bothered by anyone and nobody stopped him to ask a question or take survey of his day. His mind was on all that was happening to his village. It was a scary time to be a leader when he didn't have enough information about the enemy targeting his friends.

Sasuke was a lot of things in Kakashi's life but he knew there was no way he was involved in whatever was attacking his village. Someone was attacking the village though and that meant that someone purposefully went after Ino that night. Kakashi couldn't think of a Yamanaka enemy.

In this post war era most of the people he thought about were friends. His enemy list was short and as he went through each and every one he couldn't find the ones responsible for the attacks.

The schedule for the Hokage was full for the week all ready. One meeting he had to remember to pencil in was for Lee and his return trip from Iwagakure. Kakashi already had in mind several other missions to the remaining three nations on his list. For what he had planned in his final moves before Naruto took over required cooperation from all of their friends.

Heading home at least he had a direction in mind. But it troubled him that his family was not secure and his village was not safe. He needed to be able to protect each and every one of them and he wasn't sure he was able to not knowing the threat that he faced.

000

By nightfall Kakashi had at least a dozen scrolls open on the floor of his office. He revisited all the notes of the mission to Kusagakure finding nothing. The night was still young and he had plenty of time to work on a strategies.

Kakashi had already taken all of Tsunade's notes and made a few new ones of his own. He intended to fully leave all this for Naruto when the time came but he wasn't sure if that would happen. The way things were going it looked like he would be the one to see this crisis through to the end and pass a clean slate off to Naruto.

"I should leave this to the young ones," Kakashi said to a distant Yamato.

"Hmn what was that," Yamato asked as if waking up from a cat nap.

"I should have left the strategy to the likes of Shikamaru," Kakashi said.

"He has enough weight on his shoulders with the upcoming birth of his child," Yamato said.

"That's why…I almost forgot there was a reason behind my madness," Kakashi said.

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind getting away from his wife for a while here and there," Yamato said.

"For your information the Nara has been very busy on the Nightmare Jutsu case even helping Tsunade-Sama and Sakura," Shizune said speaking up.

"I am certainly glad for you Shizune. How has their research been going," Kakashi said.

"We are working on it. The attacker hasn't been as busy recently," Shizune said.

Yamato began rolling up scrolls. He didn't know about a lot of things that were going on recently in Konoha but he was still apart of the Hokage's core team.

"Kakashi-Senpai about the woman that has been seen traveling around with Sasuke what do we know about her connections and also what do we know about Sasuke's intentions lately with all that has gone down lately," Yamato asked.

"I didn't want to drag Sasuke into tonight's discussions. Sasuke make no mistake about it has done everything for Konoha. Sasuke is doing his best with his circumstances. I think it is best that any discussion of his accomplices and or his behavior be left sealed off limits," Kakashi said. He knew the reasoning behind it and was even sure that Shizune might know but kept things quite nonetheless.

"I don't understand. I am a part of this team. I do have a level-

"Yamato not everything is for every eye or everybody to see or know. I have to choose my battles and it is for the best to salvage Sasuke's reputation amongst other things that we leave things as they stand. Think of it as if the new Hokage took over and you were left out of the loop because you were not in the circle like you are now," Kakashi said and stacked a set of papers on the corner of his desk.

"So Naruto has something to do with this…I can certainly understand why I might not be in his circle but I don't understand what this has to do with me knowing about Sasuke," Yamato argued.

"It is getting late maybe we should all call it a night," Kakashi said sighing. This was an argument he would not win. For now he'd let the fact that he was the Hokage stand in place of any good reason to offer his friend.

"At least clean things up so we can start fresh tomorrow," Yamato said.

"Maybe with new eyes," Shizune suggested.

"Thank you all for coming back on such a short notice. It really did help me work through a few things that I have to do. Decisions that I must make as Hokage," Kakashi said.

The room agreed and went to work cleaning up. Kakashi had called it a night and they were finished for the day. Another long day as Hokage had come to an end for him. As unlikely as it was for him to accept the job that his late friend once cherished he took a liking to doing it at times. Right now as the day ended it felt good to be in the position of Hokage he wasn't sure how he'd feel early next morning.