Hi guys,

I just wanted to give you heads up that I will probably slow down my updating pace because of my upcoming exams.

Chapter 55

Beta'd by Black Sparrow

Inoichi Interlude

Inoichi sighed while he replanted some tulips into fresh pots to be sold later on, his hands were dirtied with earth and he had some liquid fertilizer over his apron, to a casual observer he looked like a normal shopkeeper who prepared his wares for sale.

But the Yamanaka clan head was far from what the civilian population would call average. Yamanaka Inoichi was a Jounin class information specialist who had been fighting and gathering intelligence in hostile territory during the last big shinobi war. Furthermore he had led the T&I division for close to ten years before retiring from the position to lead his clan and take care of the family business and could say without arrogance that he was a seasoned strategist and had nerves of steel under pressure.

There were only two things in his opinion that could get him into serious trouble. Number one was his precocious little girl Ino who he had absolutely no defense against and the second one… well it was his curiosity. And damn it Kakashi's partner was certainly making him more than a bit curious.

Inoichi had thought that he had the silver haired prodigy and his triggers and buttons pegged down to a T. He had been of the opinion that Kakashi was too paranoid to have a working relationship, one with a civilian at that. War veterans were after all notoriously picky and fickle concerning their personal relationships. That the younger shinobi had somehow slipped this under everyone's radar made this even more interesting and a bit embarrassing for the information specialist.

He was literally dying of curiosity here.

Not that he showed it of course. For that his mask was too good, he had perfected it during his time as an infiltration specialist and only a few people in Konoha were able to tell when he was wearing it and when not… unfortunately Kakashi WAS probably one of those people that could differentiate. He was not only observant but had also worked often enough with Inoichi to recognize it, even without the Sharingan. Inwardly sighing the Yamanaka clan head finished his last tasks in the flower shop before handing the reins over to his wife and met up with Kakashi at the front door when he felt the copy nin's chakra signature coming closer.

After a short greeting the two Jounin made their way over the roofs in direction of the front gate before Kakashi suddenly jumped down from an outer skirt building and led Inoichi into a street that the Yamanaka clan head had probably seen once or twice in his whole life. It contained a lot of old abandoned clan compounds that were slowly snapped up by newly rich civilians or smaller ninja clans but most of them were still abandoned. Kakashi led him up to a gate that the Yamanaka was familiar with before he vanished behind the fence.

Inoichi stumbled… Shiori? Kakashi was together with Inoue Shiori?

Said Hatake turned around when Inoichi had unintentionally stopped to gape at his younger comrade.

"Inoue Shiori?" he asked disbelieving.

"You are aware that she lives here?" Kakashi asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I helped her with replanting her cinnamon tree and some bushes when she moved in," Inoichi answered reflexively while his brain was running a mile a minute.

"Ah," Kakashi grunted and just continued his path.

"So it really is Inoue-san?" the Yamanaka clan head asked while he shook his head in disbelief.

Inoichi had known the kind hearted civilian since she was a young girl in the employment of Inoue-san and he knew very well that some of the patrons of her teahouse had massive crushes on her. He just never figured that Kakashi would be one of them, and that Shiori would actually ascend to a relationship with the copy ninja.

"Hatake," Kakashi nonchalantly answered, "Her name is Hatake Shiori."

Inoichi sweat dropped, he could practically feel the possessiveness that Kakashi excluded at the moment.

"Wife, huh?" Inoichi replied dryly, "What is this? Thumbing my nose at the intelligence division day? Hiding not only a lover but a wife?"

In right that moment the front door opened and two of Kakashi's ninken trotted out, followed by a little silver haired girl.

"Daddy!" she screeched happily before toddling in their direction.

"I stand corrected," Inoichi whispered, while his eyes were glued to the young toddler that forcefully reminded him of his little Ino.

"Inoichi-san meet Hatake Hinako, my daughter," the silver haired Jounin said as an explanation while he scooped up the little girl and placed her on his hip.

The blonde's eyes became softer and he smiled at the child but kept his distance, he knew better than to approach an overprotective father without consent, after all he had been one himself and so he settled to wave at her and say, "Hello sweetheart."

Said silver haired girl watched him curiously before she smiled shyly and waved back at him, she then snuggled closer to her father and rested her head on his shoulder.

Inoichi chuckled wryly before actually shaking his head visibly; Hatake Kakashi had a family and that with a civilian. Though now it made a lot of sense that he hadn't acknowledged them publicly and kept them as far away as possible from his person in public, Iwa and especially Kumo would probably have tried something the moment word got out.

Still slightly dazed Inoichi followed Kakashi into the house, his unconsciousness cataloged the lived in and easily defensible living room and the homey feeling it gave off. His eyes drifted to the black haired figure sitting at the table that took up nearly half of the room. Shiori looked up and then smiled at the two shinobi in front of her.

"Inoichi-san, welcome. Anata," she said before she closed the folder with the documents and stood up to greet their guest with a short bow.

"Shiori-san," Inoichi acknowledged before he sighed slightly and said, "To be honest I really didn't expect you when I agreed to meet Kakashi's partner."

The black haired woman's lips twitched and she tilted her head slightly to stare at him with amused eyes. "Who did you expect then?"

"I'm actually still not sure, though congratulations to your marriage and family."

"Thank you." The woman in front of him beamed before she asked curiously, "Is there a specific reason why you are here? Kakashi only told me that he would introduce me to you… but he rarely does things like that without a good reason."

"Ah, yes. Kakashi and I have to discuss some delicate business."

"Ah… would you like some tea and snacks?"

"Tea would be wonderful."

Shiori nodded and moved in the direction of the kitchen, Hinako started to squirm in Kakashi's arms in response and after she was sat down she quickly followed her mother to watch interested in what Shiori was doing. In less than two minutes a tray was filled with a pot of tea, two cups and some snacks on the side. Kakashi took it while he placed an unmasked kiss on her temple. When had the copy nin removed his mask?

The Yamanaka clan head was then led to what looked like a traditional tea room, his eyebrows wandered even further up when the younger shinobi activated privacy seals and the room became secure.

Once sure that the room was secure Inoichi unsealed the documents he had been given from the Hokage and together they started the dreadful task of sorting through the knowledge and deciding what Sasuke could handle at the moment and what he definitely could NOT.

"Let's keep the knowledge of the massacre away from him for now. He isn't mentally stable enough to handle it without severe trauma." Kakashi sighed tiredly.

"So the Danzo situation first?" Inoichi clarified after he took a sip of tea. "That will work… I would suggest that we tell him in the Hokage tower, your security seals would do too but I don't want him to start associating your home with bad news, that would be counterproductive to what we are trying to achieve."

Kakashi simply nodded before asking, "What happened to the eyes?"

"Nothing, they are still sealed in a stasis scroll."

"Are we giving Sasuke the option to decide what to do with them?"

Inoichi nodded at that thoughtfully. "It will depend on his reaction but I think letting him handle this would give him some closure."

"And what about what Anko said about Orochimaru?"

"I'm not sure if we should pack this into one meeting, it could happen that Sasuke starts to shut down and then he would be unable to really process the information, a warning would be practically useless then."

"… Anko is of the opinion that she owes him a favor… I will let her train my kids for a day or two and talk with Sasuke about Orochimaru. Nobody will be able to relate to his situation like her," Kakashi said slowly.

"That is probably the most effective way to handle that… but back to the Danzo situation, how do we approach the fact that there will be a puppet Danzo? What do you think will be Sasuke's reaction."

Kakashi grimaced while he thought about his black haired student. "I think he is going to blow a gasket that Danzo's name isn't going to be dragged through the mud but I think he will listen to reason after he has calmed down a bit. Sasuke is a shinobi; he knows that sometimes it is better to keep information away from the public, though his need for revenge won't be easy to control. On that front, when we tell him about the massacre let's keep the Homura and Koharu out if it as much as we can. I may have lost all the respect I had for them and would like to see them punished but if Sasuke was informed about it he would latch onto them as a target and THAT would be…"

Inoichi pinched his nose and closed his eyes shortly before answering, "Yes let's avoid this. Konoha really can't afford an internal conflict and blow to the morale, not to mention the possibility of losing clans."

Kakashi looked up at this. "Do you think that is a real possibility?"

Inoichi laughed dryly. "Kakashi I myself had been tempted for a second to pack up my clan along with the Naras and Akimichis and just leave. If the Elders really have no scruple to order the execution of a whole clan down to the last infant, a founding one at that because some of them were plotting against the village they could easily do it again. Would you risk the possibility of being seen as an enemy of the village and endanger Shiori and Hinako?"

The silver haired Jounin became still at that. "I would be out of here before the next morning."

Inoichi snorted. "Yeah me too. And I KNOW that the Hokage had nothing to do with the order and then took measures to take Danzo down when it became clear that he was not acting in Konoha's best interest."

"The smaller clans would panic and start to distrust the whole administration," Kakashi said in realization.

"And that would be the best outcome… we could have a mass dissertation on our hands," Inoichi stated dryly.

Kakashi groaned and rubbed his visible eye. "Okay… I will impress the importance of keeping quiet about this on Sasuke as much as possible… this is so going to screw up the teamwork between my students, isn't it?" the Hatake asked the interrogation specialist defeated.

"I fear so, Sasuke is going to lash out against anybody that presents itself as a target."

"Just great… I had hoped that I could enter them in the Chunin exams in a few months so that they get a feeling for fights and the other villages in a controlled environment but if Sasuke hasn't gotten his act together until then I'm keeping them back, there is no way I will endanger my students because one of them has anger management issues."

"What if you sent Sasuke to therapy?"

Kakashi raised his eyebrow. "Do you really think he would make any real progress for at least the first six months if he was forced to do it?"

Like hell he was going to leave Sasuke at the mercy of a shrink if he could possibly fix it himself.

"That is also the reason why I want Shiori involved, she is better about the whole talking about feelings stuff and a lot more subtle at that."

"… is this why your psych evals have been getting better? Because you talk to your wife?" Inoichi wanted to know curiously.

"We don't really talk about the missions or even what went wrong, she simply knows when something went belly up and what I need. I can't tell you why but Shiori helps me to center myself again."

"She does have a very soothing quality about her," Inoichi acknowledged before he sighed wistfully, "I wish we had her in the T&I division, she would probably be one of our greatest assets."

"Don't even think about it," Kakashi growled darkly, "I won't have her involved in T&I work, she wouldn't be able to handle it in the long run."

Inoichi snorted before nodding shortly. "I think you are underestimating her but I can understand the concern. Ibiki is of the same opinion as you and she apparently already does enough work for the division just by running her teahouse the way she does." Then the Yamanaka clan head became serious once more, "Kakashi, to be honest I CAN understand the Hokage's trepidation about telling a civilian. Shiori may be uniquely suited to diffuse a lot of Sasuke's anger but the risk is still immense… if I weren't convinced about the positive effect she could have on Sasuke I would advise against it…" Inoichi sighed and tugged lightly on his pony tail. "As it is though I think you are right. I'm going to inform the Hokage about my conclusion… but it will be your task to prepare your wife and impress on her the need to be as discreet as possible."

Kakashi simply nodded at that before they returned to their task and hashed out the details.