DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe.
A/N: I also wanted to call this "The One Before He Tells Her The Truth," (Him being Kakashi,) but couldn't have both chapter titles!
Thinking (+ flashbacks, Naruto speaking to Kurama in her mindscape, etc.)
Emphasis
Bijuu, etc. speaking
Bijuu, etc. thinking
"Ero-sennin," Naruto greeted her godfather/grandfather from her front door. She was a little surprised he didn't try to pull one of his usual stunts and break in through a window. "Come on in. I wasn't expecting you! Did you know that I'm on like, house arrest or something?"
"It's not house arrest, Naru-chan,' Jiraiya said before yawning and dropping the large scrolls from his back onto the floor. He reached down to greet the ninken: Shiba allowed him to pet him, while Pakkun just followed Naruto around after giving Jiraiya a quick sniff. The Toad Sage threw himself over the back of her sectional and laid down, groaning. "I wanted to see you and didn't know when either one of us would get back."
"Oh," Naruto said, "still doesn't make sense, though. I got ESCORTED HERE. Ya want some tea or somethin'? I don't have much more, but my clones - well, they should've been back by now after shopping."
"You've got clones out there?!" Yeeee-ikes: good luck, Kakashi! "And sake's fine. You're not supposed to have clones out in the village right now, Naruto."
"I get bored," Naruto shrugged, headed toward the wine fridge. "And why not?!" When he didn't answer, she grumbled about him being an ungrateful bastard and not saying please or thank you - or explaining more - but poured him a cup from one of the drier little sake bottles she brought out anyway, knowing his preferences.
"What's up?"
"Open the box in the first scroll," Jiraiya replied, looking like he would fall asleep at any moment. He sat up to drink the sake, though, savoring it as he smacked his lips.
Naruto opened the storage scroll, finding a white heavy box with her name and ninja registration number on it. She nearly lost it when she opened it to find an ANBU uniform inside. "Are - are you serious?! Is this for me?!"
"Sure is," he exclaimed, accepting the hug his very excited, bouncy blonde granddaughter jumped over the couch to give him. "OOF! As soon as I get word from an old friend of mine, Team Gama will move out!"
"I can't believe it," the blonde whispered, feeling like she'd now really accomplished something skills-wise in this lifetime, although she was a little queasy about ANBU. "Actually, shouldn't I be training with a team or struggling for induction? I know I've heard of that…" Pulling out the uniform, she found the fox mask under the chest plate and gave Jiraiya a look of disbelief. "Are you serious?"
"It was supposed to be your mother's, and no one's used it since because of the Kyuubi attack," he admitted, stunning her. "Kushi-chan wasn't in the black ops long, although she did train for it. It turned out clearly not to be her thing, you see, and it wasn't like the Yondaime Hokage Candidate would force her to remain where she wasn't happy. He would've kicked my ass!"
"Ah," Naruto said, holding the mask more reverently and knowing that Jiraiya was at least at one time in charge of ANBU, conceivably then. "Do you think I can handle it?" she asked in an unsure voice. "Will Team Gama start off training together, I hope?"
Jiraiya sat up and a cold tension filled the air at the look he gave her. "To defeat the Akatsuki, we need our most powerful players on the board and attacking proactively, Naru-chan. You're a Sage. With that title come certain responsibilities."
"Yeah, I know. I just don't think of myself normally as a killer, ya know? Not that I'm not one," she said quite uncomfortably.
"We're ninja, kiddo. We have to do what we have to do, and from what you and Deer Boy say, along with your little Tanuki friend, the Akatsuki's a threat to the entire shinobi world: to life itself!"
"You talked to Gaara-kun?" Naru asked after a beat.
"Yeah," he lied. Jiraiya hadn't spoken more than a few words to the sand rat, but Minato had. Minato, naturally, had reported what he'd learned from Gaara's limited recollections to his mentor.
What pissed Jiraiya off and REALLY worried him, though, was that Minato was keeping what all he might remember a secret. As Hokage, he certainly had the right to, but Jiraiya was deeply concerned that his son, Martyr no Minato, might do something to make things worse. Minato being alive had already changed things. "We'll train as we move, starting tomorrow in the village until I hear something."
"Okay," Naruto said, scratching the back of her head. She put on her mask and found that it clung to her face in a really ideal position. She could see just as well as she could without it, something she had always wondered about regarding ANBU members and their masks. "How do I look?"
"Like you'll need contacts. Just like your husband, your coloring and crazy hair don't exactly hide your identity."
"I suppose that's true," Naruto said, wondering if Kakashi used to color his hair or wear a contact over his Sharingan when he was first in ANBU - before the days he was internationally known as such a terrifying enemy. Was he already well known when he entered ANBU? Kakashi-kun was such a boss, it was definitely possible. It was also rather unfair for Jiraiya, of all people, to say that. Then again, he was probably responsible for the texture of her crazy hair. "I can just henge. I've tried contacts before, and have had a lot of problems with them."
"We'll see, and no: you'll need more than a henge. Probably," he hummed, thinking more about it. "Depends on what, who, and where our first targets are. …Maybe a seal, maybe not! We're probably going to have to make a seal that covers your seal eventually."
"I can't imagine I'll be showing my seal or abs to the world," she snorted as she crossed her arms and inadvertently covered Kurama's seal up. She'd sure as fuck better not have to show her abs in some weird-ass mission! Her seal was private!
"What's the last you've heard?" Naru eventually asked, pouring them both some tea. No way was she financing either of her grandparents' boozy habits.
Jiraiya began running through the important threats as he counted them off on his fingers, one by one.
1. "Orochimaru's status is up in the air and not our problem." He ignored Naruto's surprised expression at that "for now."
2. "Kabuto? Same - although that guy's everyone's target, including ours."
3. "Hoshigaki Kisame? Still in the Akatsuki and still running with Itachi." Jiraiya understood why Naru pulled that face, he really did.
4. "The Taki guy? Uh, Kakuzu... He's partnered with the Jashin-guy you told me about, but according to my contacts, they haven't been making shit go down together in over a year."
"They're both still alive, though?" Naruto asked.
"Last I heard," Jiraiya said, agreeing when Naruto looked disgusted at hearing that the Immortal Duo was still, well - alive or something akin to it.
5. "Deidara the Mad Bomber's running missions and rumor has it, his previous partner, Sasori, is dead. -It's been a while since I've gotten intelligence on him, though."
"That's great," Naruto said, incredibly relieved. Sasori had been a terrible opponent, even taking Lady Chiyo down when she was with Sakura-chan AND they had antidotes to his poisons. "Who got him?"
"Supposedly Iwa, but don't count on that," Jiraiya said as he closed his eyes. He let out a snore and woke himself up while Naruto stared at his face, trying to see if she had inherited any of his other features. Finally, she grabbed a blanket for him, covering him up. He jumped. "Where was I?"
Naruto had just received some memories from a group of her clones who had tried to seal/disguise one another's chakra and caused half of them to disperse, instead. What were those crazy clones doing? More of them had hung out with the Hyuugas for a little while before getting jyukened when they challenged them to a spar; the idiots. It had been good to learn that Hinata was doing well, though - and the cousins seemed close and on good terms with each other! "Nagato?" she finally asked.
"I don't wanna talk about my former students," Jiraiya said with a very sour expression. "You and I - and maybe a few of the others - will take him on, but there's much to do before that plan's anywhere ready to begin."
"You're not going to let him attack the village, are you?" Naruto asked him - probably unnecessarily. Hopefully unnecessarily!
"No, but from what you've said, we need him to use that big jutsu of his to slow him down. If my former students can't be reasoned with, we'll have to draw him out."
Naruto let out a low whistle. "Holy shit. I mean, that's what Shika and I had thought, but…"
"You'd hoped he'd come around and be reasonable," Jiraiya guessed.
"Yeah. What about that Tobi asshole? The one that killed my parents?"
Jiraiya sat up on his elbows and gave her a serious look before laying back down. "It's being handled."
"Bullshit: tell me! I'm the one who provided intelligence on him YEARS ago! And he's still not caught."
"Whatever," Jiraiya said, not willing to share what he knew… It would only make her feel worse in keeping certain facts from Kakashi. "You don't need to know what you don't need to know."
"What a crock of shit," Naruto cursed, swearing in her mind to find out what the deal was there. "Anything else?"
"Is that not enough?" Jiraiya asked incredulously as he pulled his ponytail from behind him and tied it into a man-bun. "Shit - whether it is in the crocks you mentioned or just sliding your way from a massive sewer hit by catastrophe - always piles up. We'll have more to shovel through, just you wait and see."
Naruto's mouth fell open in disgust. "Gross! Was that supposed to be poetic?!"
"I am an author," Jiraiya reminded her before quickly sitting up again and throwing off his blanket. "We need to put your tattoo on before your husband gets back, and I want you to edit the latest Icha-Icha tonight." He reached into his haori and threw her his Makeout Tactics draft - he knew she had edited it in her last life, so it should be no sweat for the little cutey - before getting up to get a box of tattoo supplies from his scroll. "Go get some dark towels."
Naruto did and hoped that she could stand the pain well. Jiraiya's tattoo kit looked like it also held torture stuff in it - or what she thought torturing implements might look like. "Did you do this to Shika yet?" Naruto asked, hoping that her brother would be on Team Gama, too.
"I did," he said once he returned to sit beside her at the kitchen table before swabbing her entire upper arm and shoulder with alcohol. He handed her a kunai while Kakashi's ninken nervously paced below her. "Nara howled like a bitch!" When she snickered, he explained more. "This ain't no normal tattoo, Naru-chan. Put the kunai in your mouth and do what Shikamaru did NOT do and bite down on it. Do. Not. Move."
So. Isn't this interesting?
After taking a cold shower (the electricity had been turned off) then changing at his old apartment, Kakashi dropped by T&I for a little talk with Inoichi regarding his mind walk of the kunoichi from the Land of Keys. The best mind walker the Yamanaka clan had ever produced hadn't been able to get one single thing out of the young woman other than a younger image of him in her mind. If that wasn't suspicious on its own, what was?
Oh, I don't know…
That the kunoichi just happened to show up in Konoha after the village was attacked? That she did so immediately following Minato-sensei returning from the dead to retake his Kage role - and at the time the reinstated Hokage had conveniently left Konoha to hunt down Danzo? And that she supposedly knew and wanted to thank him for something he couldn't remember?
Right… None of that is suspicious at all.
Which is why he was armed to the teeth.
Reluctantly, he put his book away - it was now armed with multiple poisoned senbon - and strolled into the bakery in which the kunoichi was being observed by ANBU.
"Kakashi," she exclaimed in a breathless voice, standing up and looking star-struck as she moved toward him.
Oh gods, here we go…
The other customers (and ANBU) were even watching this: how awful - he'd never hear the end of it.
"Forgive me," the kunoichi said, dropping into a bow, "Hatake-sama," she added, correcting her outrageously informal earlier method of address. "I'm simply so pleased that you agreed to meet with me."
"Maa, drop the -sama, kunoichi-san," he said, giving her an eye smile and noticing that she looked disappointed in the way he addressed her. "It's unnecessary and too formal. Just Kakashi is fine," he continued, although it really wasn't. "Hanare-san, is it?" he asked as he sat down and crossed his legs casually.
"Ano, yes," she said uncomfortably as she tucked a long, straight strand of brownish-green hair behind her ear. "We met when I was - when we were children," she said with a blush. "You came to my aid and I always wanted to say thank you."
"Maa, maa! I don't want to be rude, but I can't say I remember that clearly, Hanare-san," Kakashi said with an easy smile as he relaxed his jaw into his hand, slouching over the table. "Perhaps you can help me better recall?"
"Of course," she said with a bright smile before ducking her head and smiling more demurely.
Seduction tactic, Kakashi surmised. …And was that KI coming from the window?
Kakashi glanced outside and saw a black-haired woman with Naruto's azure eyes glaring at them and gulped, hoping that no one else was paying attention to her. It didn't feel like Naruto's chakra, and she was supposed to be at their old home right now. He wouldn't put it past her to have "broken out," henged, and sealed or altered her chakra signature, though.
If that's you, please be cool, Naru-chan.
They had a mating bond, right? Maybe she could sense that he was simply on a mission and not later beat the snot out of him for being out on the town with another woman? Even though it was simply during the day at a bakery?
What an unfair thing to wish for. He knew for a fact that if he saw her with some unknown man from another village, he'd want to jump in to shield her, Chidori first. He'd almost done that between stages at the Chunin Exams repeatedly.
He was a jealous SOB, but he was working on it…
"I had gotten lost," Hanare admitted, blushing. "It was years ago, as I said - and I was just a child. I… I had walked for so long, I was absolutely exhausted when you found me!"
Kakashi hummed, pretending to think back at first before an image of a small girl with a huge forehead and big eyes edged into his consciousness. He thought the hair of the girl in his memory was about right: perhaps Hanare-san wasn't lying about meeting him before. "Do you remember where we met?"
"As I said, I was lost, but I know that you, um…"
There was that demure smile again, this time it was accompanied with a batting of the eyelashes. Kakashi sighed. He was tired and wanted to take a nap. Preferably with his beautiful little wife who wasn't out to maim him.
"You carried me on your back," Hanare admitted, looking as if she felt a little foolish, "for quite a long time, I'm afraid," she chuckled quietly.
Kakashi simply tilted his head and continued staring at her, looking curious.
"At the time, I was terribly lonely, and you told me to look to the clouds: that I could always find my way and comfort there."
Kakashi's expression would've morphed into one of disbelief if he wasn't an elite shinobi. That didn't sound like him at all! Especially something a chibi-him would've said!
He had been a total dick when he was a kid!
"I remember you don't like sweets," Hanare continued, looking around, obviously noting that the ANBU was still watching her. "Perhaps we can go somewhere you'd prefer? I'm afraid I was escorted here, but I don't care for sweets that much, either."
Was that a proposition, or does she just want to spy on more of the village?
The kunoichi's weapons had been confiscated and were currently being thoroughly examined and traced, so he felt relatively safe. He had to figure out what her angle was.
"Either way," Kakashi said, shrugging carelessly. He'd play along for now.
"Ugh. Boss ain't gonna like this," henged Clone 12 said, rubbing her temples and watching from the bushes across the street from Sakura-chan's family's bakery.
"That son of a bitch," Clone 20 agreed, always a hothead. "I'm gonna recommend we beat his ass. Here," she exclaimed, grabbing her forehead and squinting unbelievably hard as she let out a long obnoxious grunt. "I'm thinking 'ass beating' super hard so Boss is compelled to do it!"
"She's just gonna be pissed at you," the other clone replied, shaking her head. "And that's not how it works… I don't think anyway," she said before humming and pulling her henged doppelganger down the street so she could think straight and talk without ANBU possibly hearing anything. "I just don't get why he went back to his old apartment," she whispered.
"He came out all clean and shit, so that means he still has uniforms there. Maybe the Boss was right: maybe he is leaving… She sucks at seduction, ya know."
Clone 12 was more reasonable and also thought to use code words, although she realized later that they were a little lame and too on-point. "Boss still has that old shitty apartment in her name: him having something similar doesn't necessarily mean anything. She had to hold onto the place to keep the whack jobs off the clan's back when she moved in with Sleepyhead, ya know, then when she moved in with Hot Stuff. …I'm thinkin' the latter's on a mission with that chick."
"I don't know," Clone 20 said, seriously considering it. "Remember Geezer Toad's warning about betrayal? His prophecy?!"
Clone 12 shook her head slightly, although she didn't look like she was as convinced that the other clone wasn't as right as her words tried to convey. "He likes her. Boss might be stupid about it, but she feels it from him."
"I don't," the other clone replied, "know, I mean: I don't know how he really feels! And it hurts," she said, rubbing her fingers over her chest.
"Yeah," Clone 12 agreed before putting her arm around her differently henged counterpart. "Believe me, I know. Love kinda sucks."
It was a few hours later that Naruto received these two clones' memories as she was modeling her tight new ANBU uniform for herself in the downstairs hall's mirror. It fit her like a glove and Jiraiya had woken back up when she groaned loudly, holding her hands over her mask's eye holes.
"What is it?" he asked, still half-asleep.
Naruto fell back onto the sectional. "I'd forgotten that Kakashi might have had a love interest, a serious one."
"What?! No way - other than YOU," Jiraiya assured her. "Don't be silly."
Naruto shook her head. "In my previous life, Kakashi-sensei had this really pretty 'companion' that my team followed around. With him… I'd been so depressed 'cause she was so lovely," she sighed and swallowed down the anxiety she'd felt back then and the flat-out pain she was in now. "So naturally - all those years ago, I fell down from a tree and knocked them into each other while spying on them, causing them to kiss."
Jiraiya stared at her for several moments before throwing his head back, laughing.
"Oi! It's not funny," she cried, crossing her arms over her cool new chest plate and waiting for him to stop. "And now my clones just basically did the same thing to them!"
The man began howling with laughter!
"I didn't even get to replace one of them for Kiba this time," Naru griped.
"WHAT?" Jiraiya asked, still beside himself. "I swear! You are too much, Naru-chan!"
"I've gone and thrown my man into the arms of another woman, ya know. You could be worried for me or somethin'!"
"Give me a break," Jiraiya drawled. "Kakashi loves you!"
Naruto's eyes widened at his easy declaration. She swallowed the lump that came up in her throat at those surprising words. "No, Ero-sennin," she said, finding it hard to look up at him. "He's just a good man who's done me an immense favor, ya know. I mean, I think he likes me and stuff." Likes my body, but that's okay because I "like" his, too, to put it mildly...
"We get along well enough, but he uh… I think he's bound by a ton of clan stuff, really," she shrugged. "That's what he's had to do; there's a lot to his clan..."
Jiraiya was thunderstruck. THAT'S what his little Naruto thought was going on? Oh, he was going to have a word with Kakashi!
"Anyway, he's on his way back, I think," she added.
"Oh shit! I'm outta here, then," Jiraiya said, deciding to deal with the kid later after Kakashi cooled off. His grandson-in-law was going to freak out from him putting Naru in ANBU without his "permission:" the brat! Sunshinning away, he left a pile of leaves for Naruto to pick up, right in the middle of her living room.
Kakashi shut the door and made sure the home's front door was locked and resealed before he turned around, ready to give his little wife a look of disbelief for what he was now SURE she had done.
The ANBU following the kunoichi had barely been able to contain themselves when one shadow clone, then another, dispelled after forcing his masked face into Hanare-san's, her teeth smacking into his masked lips. Gods, it had been so embarrassing. He'd changed masks as soon as he could and hoped his little wife wouldn't be too angry with him. Standing up straight and turning around to give her a dry look, he paled at what she was wearing.
Naruto rubbed the back of her head. "Umm, surprise? And sorry!" She couldn't believe her clones had done something so stupid! Were they trying to end their relationship or make her realize something she already knew?! "I'm really sorry."
"No."
"What? Ano - sumimasen?" Naruto asked, not liking his incredibly serious posture as he slowly stalked toward her.
"No. I said no, Naru-chan," Kakashi said, standing tall in a low voice. He was calm although it was with great effort he held back his anger. "No ANBU."
Naruto sucked in a breath. "What do you mean 'no ANBU?'"
Kakashi chuckled darkly. "I told Jiraiya-sama no. I am your alpha, Naruto."
"Yeah?" Naruto wondered if her voice had really just faltered the way it sounded to her that it did.
"And I say no."
"But Kash, the village needs me," she began before he ran his thumbs and forefingers down her cheeks and neck, feeling that he'd applied a bit of electricity on the path they ran.
"I said no. I am. Your. Alpha, Little Fox."
Naruto found tears coming up in her eyes, but she wouldn't let them fall. She tried to be tough: to get outraged and either debate or yell at him, (later she even wondered why she hadn't punched him, or maybe stomped his foot after everything that ended up happening - gods knew she wished she had,) but she couldn't even meet his eyes at that moment. Fuck, she couldn't even look up at him or talk!
"Submit" echoed in her head. What a bunch of bullshit! Fuck that!
"You can't," she got out brokenly, barely in a whisper, as he turned away. He only returned to her to pull her trembling body to him and nuzzled her head before bending down to bite her earlobe.
"What I say goes Hatake Naruto. You made an oath," he said in a low, serious voice before nipping her neck.
Naruto felt lightning jolt through her entire body and when she looked up again, he was closing the door behind him. He'd left!
A minute or so later, she was still standing there like a dumbass. "What the fuck just happened?! Did he leave?! Did he - did he go back to her?!" Pakkun was saying something, but she didn't even hear him.
"Naruto, calm down. I warned you: spoken words can, at times, have more significant meaning…"
Kurama really wasn't surprised that Hanyou/Dog/Yokai Boy would pull out his alpha bullshit at some point, but this was NOT the right time for it. He'd give the Ningen a little time to change his tune before he broke the kit out of the spell - for lack of a better word - he'd put her under.
Fucking Hanyous.
Kakashi went out to hunt Jiraiya down but couldn't find the man anywhere. He was furious and eager for a fight. Fortunately for the village, he'd run into Gai and they'd sparred until the morning. It was as they were eating breakfast a couple of hours later - Kakashi still in a foul mood - that the word came down that a Leaf Jonin had been kidnapped by Hanare's village.
"I knew it. I've gotta run, Gai."
Gai limped off to first tell his team of Chunins that he wouldn't be available for training until later that afternoon. That was around the same time that Naruto made more rather sad and pathetic clones, using the seal on them that Jiraiya taught her to hide her chakra, to go find out what had happened to her… "husband." She'd taken a shower, but had put the ANBU uniform back on, and felt pathetic as she looked at her reflection in the mirror.
"I thought I looked good in it," she said to herself before sitting down and putting her face in her hands, wiping away tears. Like looking good in it or anything would matter to him, though.
And as if what I look like should matter to me!
Factually, Kakashi had been out all night after being with that woman for a good part of the day yesterday. And he was frequenting, if not living in, his old Jonin apartment again. He was out all night fucking her, wasn't he?!
A large part of her didn't believe it, but she figured that was only wishful thinking. Seriously! What kind of pathetic kunoichi was she that she simply allowed him to sleep around without stepping in? That she sat here when she should be out, soon meeting with her first ANBU team?
Honestly, her sadness and humiliation were probably the only things keeping her from going out and killing both of them, no matter what Kurama said. She got up and headed to the gate to meet her team.
Things escalated VERY quickly. Having found an entire SQUAD of Lock shinobi holding the Leaf Jonin hostage, Hanare had been dragged forward by her once-upon-a-time savior through the Leaf forces facing them around and on a bridge over a deep ravine.
Decades before, Jiraiya had flicked his student's child over that very same ravine, hoping to get her to use the fox's chakra.
Kakashi was furious, animalistic, and had his Sharingan revealed, something that terrified the Lock kunoichi.
"Kakashi," she whimpered when the shinobi from both sides stopped making demands of each other. "I'm sorry about all of this," she said with a sniffle.
"Shut up. As if I didn't know you were full of shit," he mumbled in a low voice. His grip on her arm was painful - as was the kunai pointed against her neck.
"I - I really meant what I," Hanare began, but Kakashi wasn't even looking at her. In a louder voice, making sure he understood, she said just what he'd said to the woman he was in love with. "I was actually awake that night you told me you loved me," she said - Kakashi looked at her as if she was insane, that Sharingan spinning as both his eyes narrowed. The kunai drew blood, but she continued as he tensed even more.
She should've never come here. But it's not like she could've simply gone against orders or gone rogue!
At this point, she wanted to make sure to keep the boy who once saved her, mentally and physically, safe from her village. Unlike her own, Konoha was such a wonderful place, and after yesterday, she really wished she could be the woman who had won Kakashi's heart.
Focusing more on that memory, she put herself in this "Naruto's" place, her heart beating so loud she was unaware that shinobi on both sides of the bridge had gone quiet.
"You said that you'd love only me for the rest of your wretched life - until the end of time - but I don't want your life to be wretched," she exclaimed, looking straight into his Sharingan with both eyes. She was already erasing the memories she'd recorded with her eye and hoped that he could see that. "You said that I make it better and make you hopeful," she continued. "I'm sorry that I didn't say it before, but lying in bed with you, hearing that you were worried and couldn't say the things I needed to hear? I get it," Hanare went on, reaching up to touch Kakashi's mask, wondering what was underneath it. He flinched, horror continuing to dawn in his eyes. "And if I'm your sun, you're my bright, shining moon."
"I can't let her go," Kakashi growled to his comrades behind him in fury.
He closed his eyes and could barely see straight. This bitch had been recording EVERYTHING she'd experienced and now he knew that Hanare could even reach into minds to do the same - meaning his and Inoichis, and possibly many others' memories and all of Konoha's secrets were hers to take back to her village!
*POOF* *POOF* *POOF* *POOF* *POOF* came a very familiar set of noises from behind him.
There was no doubt in Kakashi's heart and mind that Naruto or her clones had heard all of this woman's bullshit if that mass of dispelling behind him meant anything. – All of the things he had admitted out loud to Naruto while she slept that night, this bitch took from them! Taking a deep breath and snarling, he swiftly pulled two three-point kunai out of his pouch and sent one in each direction. Feeling Naruto's despair, he tossed Hanare straight over the bridge.
Riichi, the Leaf Jonin who had been captured and was being held, fell into further shock. The kunoichi he was being traded for had spoken rather scandalously about what his comrade had been doing with her, and now he was going to kill him since Hatake "couldn't let her go?!" Barely dodging the kunai Kakashi threw, he was shocked beyond belief when the Copy Nin appeared there and grabbed him out of thin air, reappearing with him on the opposite side of the bridge.
And hallelujah, the only other man he knew that could teleport had appeared and was standing in the middle of the bridge, radiating a cold, furious Killing Intent as he stepped toward the group of shinobi from the Lock village that had kidnapped him.
"You believe you can enter my village, steal vital information while taking one of my shinobi?" Minato asked, his long white cloak billowing dramatically behind him. "You have made a grave mistake." Within less than five seconds, all of the Lock shinobi were dead at the hands of the Yellow Flash.
The Yondaime turned around, smiling grimly at his men as he strode forward, most of whom were cheering him. He looked at the small crowd, knowing that really needed to get to know his shinobi again: most of the Jonin here were near-strangers to him. Dismissing them, he asked Riichi to be escorted to the hospital while he called for a squad from Forensics. He called one man back: the one who wasn't cheering.
"Kakashi-kun? A word please."
"That's the thing, Ero-sennin," Naruto whispered in a small voice, careful not to let the others hear her. "He doesn't want me to go and… I'm so fucking pathetic!"
"He pulled that alpha shit on you?" Jiraiya asked, knowing that's what Kakashi was going on about when he'd told the younger Jonin that he'd be putting Naru on his ANBU team. "Bah! I've seen that with Inuzukas and Sakumo - he was even worse about it than Haru," he grumbled before slapping his big hand down on her shoulder and shaking it. "We gotta go, though, kid! I got word last night, and we might as well make this fun."
Naruto had little idea of what he was talking about, aside from the fact that Jiraiya had heard from one of his contacts, which meant that they needed to move. Her heart was racing and she felt sick. Depressed but refusing to mope, she nodded her head and soon found that she couldn't step outside of the village. Literally!
That's when, naturally, the clones' memories hit her.
She let out what she later realized was a horribly pathetic but deeply felt sound between a gasp and wail before quickly throwing herself over the village walls, taking off on such a tear that her team could barely keep up. She didn't stop until Shika (aka "Deer:" once again, very little creativity there) grabbed her with his shadows, panting. She turned around and stared at him, knowing that he was concerned about the stupid way she was acting. She felt nothing but numb and just wanted to do her job. Nothing else. Ever!
"Sorry 'bout that. Thought it best to get a move on," she said without emotion. "I am moving in the right direction."
"Yeah, kid," Jiraiya said, breathing hard and jogging forward. "You were really hauling ass!"
"Yeah. I want to get the fuck away from there."
"You alright?" he asked worriedly. When Naruto couldn't seem to step outside the gate, he was reminded of Tsume-chan's mother, Hana, who had used her Gatsuga to try to tear her way out, also taking with her jutsu the old guard's booth and nearby standby station. Her husband, Haru, had pulled the Alpha Card, and she wasn't able to leave at all! He was proud of Naruto's strength - he had planned to just throw her over his shoulder and take off - but she looked like she was in pain. "Does it… hurt? Disobeying that idiot when he lays down the law, so to speak?"
If so, he would kick Kakashi's supposedly alpha ass.
"I'm over it," Naruto replied blankly, crossing her arms and nodding at her teammates.
"Well, then we probably should move out before he comes for you."
"Fuck him," Naruto replied under her breath, not meaning that at all, "I don't care anymore."