Chapter 25: Seeds of Rebellion

slammed his drink down onto the counter. Droplets of vodka sloshed over the rim of the glass, joining the many other droplets that had spilled earlier. Kakashi made an exaggerated show of pretending to swallow the non-existent vodka down his throat, before throwing his head back to let a boisterous laughter escape from his lips.

His drunk companions bought into the act. Two hours of drinking and Kakashi was showing absolutely no signs of becoming drunk while his drinking buddies had began to slur their words and sway precariously on the barstool. Twice already, Kakashi's hand shot outward to stabilize their seats.

His companions hardly noticed.

And this was the current state where Kakashi wanted them to be. As someone who hated the taste of alcohol, Kakashi despised the bar scene, yet he found himself frequenting it quite often any time he needed to fish for valuable information. Sometimes, he was receiving information from his own informants – one that he painstakingly spent the last decade building up. While his network of informants was incredibly lacking in comparison to the Akatsuki's, it was more than enough to serve his purpose to keep an eye on the Akatsuki's movements in his absence.

What could Kakashi say? After being betrayed once, those feelings never really went away no matter how much time had passed.

And well, there were just certain things that Kakashi wanted done without enlisting the help of the Akatsuki.

This time, however, Kakashi wasn't meeting anyone he was familiar with. Instead, the three men Kakashi approached had been people he spent three days observing from afar, to see if they were likely to know anything of use. Eventually, Kakashi deemed the possibility of them having useful information to be high enough to warrant him to waste two hours of socializing to get them drunk, and then another half an hour to pry open their already loosened lips.

Kakashi was quite disappointed to find out that they knew nothing of the group of insurgents in Kiri; he had been wrong with his assumption that one of them had recently fled from Kiri. One of the men was a defector from Kiri, yet he had defected long before the civil war had even broken out.

As for the other two men, well, Kakashi never held any expectations that they knew anything of importance. Of course, Kakashi enjoyed being wrong sometimes, especially if those times meant he could get what he wanted.

"Eh Inu? You said you were from Konoha originally, right?" Hiroto asked. Kakashi had to strain to make out his mumbled words over the chaotic commotion of people moving about and the grating shouts of other patrons attempting to get the bartender's attention.

"Yeah," Kakashi responded, scooting his bar stool closer to Hiroto. By now, his two other companions were passed out on the bar counter, a bit of drool dribbling from the corner of their mouths. Hiroto stood up, almost stumbling over his friends in the process of leaning over their backs to speak to Kakashi.

"Have you heard of that snake man? The one who was caught experimenting on children?"

Kakashi made a point of twisting his features into one of deep thought before that contemplative expression morphed into realization. "Oh! Orochimaru? One of the three Sannins?"

Hiroto's eyes lit up in excitement. "Yes, that's the name I was looking for! Do you want to hear what I found out recently?"

Kakashi leaned forward in great interest. "What did you find out?"

"He was recently spotted in the Country of Rice," Hiroto whispered before throwing a look over his shoulder to make sure no one else was close enough to eavesdrop on their conversation. "He's already amassed an army there and unofficially established a village called Oto. The sudden appearance of a neighboring shinobi village has made the leaders of this town a bit uneasy…"

"Of the potential of future conflict?"

Hiroto nodded. "History tends to repeat itself. You've seen how Ame was decimated during the war. Not to mention the countless other nameless villages that were completely destroyed. Ack, talking about this always dampens my mood."

That had been the end of their conversation about Orochimaru, but those five minutes completely made up for the previous two hours that Kakashi had wasted in pretending to drink.

Otogakure. That was the closest they have come to pinpointing Orochimaru's exact location in months. The search had taken much longer than Kakashi had anticipated with the reach of the Akatsuki, to the point where the Uchiha cousins had gotten impatient themselves and assembled a search team themselves.

After sending a message to Shisui, Kakashi stepped out of the dark alleyway and joined the lively night crowd that strolled along the main street. However, unlike the others, Kakashi never stopped at any of the night market stalls. Instead, he kept trudging forward, keeping a similar pace with the crowd. His slow gait combined with his layered henge to give himself a nondescript appearance as Inu. Even to a trained eye, it would still be incredibly difficult to peg Inu as a shinobi. As far as everyone was concerned, he was just a young civilian boy, who had come to the Land of the Hot Springs for a vacation, like everyone else.

There wasn't a moment that Kakashi was scared that someone would see right through his henge, except for that fleeting second when his brown eyes clashed with a pair of black ones. His eyes widened a fraction as he took in the rest of the man's features, recognizing him to be one of Konoha's Sannins: Jiraiya.

The student of the previous Hokage. The new Hokage's former sensei. His father's best friend.

The wrinkles in the corner of his eyes hadn't been there last time Kakashi had seen him. His back once stood straight and tall, but now his shoulders were slightly hunched forward. The spiky white hair had always been long; however, now it had grown long enough to touch his waist.

Despite the changes with time, there was no mistaking the man's identity.

His sudden appearance caused Kakashi to make eye contact for longer than was deemed normal for a casual glance out of curiosity. Upon realizing his mistake, Kakashi quickly snapped his head forward. His feet picked up the pace. His hands reached up to subtly shield his face from Jiraiya's view, afraid that the older man would turn to get another look and see right through his disguise.

Kakashi never thought seeing people from his former life would have been such a nerve wracking ordeal. Then again, the only ones he had ever seen were the people who betrayed him, and Tenzo.

Tenzo wouldn't blame him for the choice he made.

But Jiraiya?

Let's just say Kakashi was glad that his father was already dead, because he couldn't handle the thought of two of the most respected adults in his life disappointed in who he had become today.

Their enemy.

Zetsu watched from the corner of the room as Yagura stood up from his seat to move closer to his platoon of men. The Fourth Mizukage was saying something, but Zetsu was too far away to catch much more than a few words here and there.

Those few words were enough for Zetsu to be satisfied in knowing that Madara's hold on the young Kage was still strong. Luckily, Madara had the foresight to cast a strong, controlling genjutsu on a few valuable pieces around the world before his unfortunate death. Now all Zetsu really needed to do was activate the dormant genjutsu to get them to follow his orders.

Even if he was a one man army, Zetsu refused to give up in carrying out Madara's will.

Orochimaru, that bastard, had gone and messed up the plans to create another Rinnegan. Although having to get through Okami to retrieve Nagato's Rinnegan was not the preferred option, Zetsu didn't have much of a choice left.

Fighting Okami head-on was a suicidal option, especially since the clever man had figured out the extent of Zetu's abilities. Instead, Zetsu had figured out a work-around. All he needed to do was create a diversion to draw Okami's attention away from Ame, away from Nagato and well–

A civil war in Kiri was the perfect set up. A chaotic enough situation that wouldn't be resolved quickly, and intense enough that a substantial amount of Akatsuki forces would be sent to aid the rebellion.

Draw Okami away and weaken the Akatsuki's forces…it was a perfect plan. And from the looks of it, when Okami immediately began heading towards Kiri upon receiving the news of the civil war, Zetsu's plan was working out splendidly.

A ten year old kid sat at the edge of a pond, completely frozen over by a thick layer of ice. Coincidentally, Kakashi had been in the right place at the right time to witness a kid innocently sticking his hand into a pond, and subsequently freezing the entire thing. All the other kids in the vicinity ran, screaming from terror and fright as they fled the area. Only Kakashi lingered, still half-hidden behind a tree, as he observed the kid attempting to pull his hand out of the ice.

Brute force was the first method he tried, and one that he quickly discarded to be useless after three unsuccessful attempts. The kid followed up that method by extracting a kunai from the waistband of his pants and slowly began to use the dull blade to chip away at the ice.

He was resourceful, Kakashi would give him that. However, from the slow progress he was making, the kid would be seen by the Mizukage's men and killed before he broke himself out of the ice. At his age, Kakashi doubted he was even aware of what he had done…and why doing so painted a massive target on his back. One of those kids would surely blab on what they had witnessed to their parents, and the parents would certainly report the incident to an authority…

And the rest would just be history repeating itself. Just another day of Kiri's Hunter nins killing off anyone who was seen wielding a kekkei genkai.

Kakashi stepped out from behind the tree and slowly approached the child, disregarding his usual habit of keeping his footsteps absolutely silent. Scaring a child into crying wasn't on top of the list of things that Kakashi wanted to do.

Either the child was completely unaware of his presence or he was intent on ignoring him because the child didn't even flinch when Kakashi walked up to him. He simply kept continuing to chip away at the ice like Kakashi wasn't even there.

"You'll be here until sunset if you keep going like that." Kakashi's kind advice fell upon deaf ears. Once again, he yielded no response.

"If you want, I can help. I have a method that will break you out in thirty seconds."

The child remained completely uninterested. Fine. If the boy wasn't smart enough to accept his help, then Kakashi wouldn't feel an inkling of remorse when the child was ultimately killed by Kiri's Hunter nins. It was his fault for being too dense to grasp onto the chance of survival when it came to him.

Just as Kakashi turned to leave, a massive wave of killing intent exploded into the park. His feet nimbly danced out of the way of three kunais that landed in the dirt where he had been standing moments ago. The purple substance that dripped from the metallic surface told him just how deadly it would have been if Kakashi hadn't dodged in time.

All thoughts concerning the kid and his safety completely left his mind as Kakashi geared himself up for a fight. A wave of lava came pouring towards him, the hot and gooey substance moving quickly to coat every inch of grass. With nowhere else to go, Kakashi was forced to continue retreating.

Retreating undoubtedly to where the enemy wanted him.

Unfortunately for them, Kakashi wasn't so easily fooled.

One moment Kakashi was taking another step backwards to get out of the range of the lava and then the next, he felt a flash of quick movement from behind him. A sword swung at him, nearly clobbering him from the collarbone up, but instead the sharp edge of the blade only got a few stray pieces of hair.

Nimbly jumping to his feet as the swordsman was recovering from swinging a heavy blade in such a wide arc, Kakashi took the opportunity to jab him in the stomach just beneath his raised arms with a weaker lightning jutsu. That was all that Kakashi had the time to charge up his chakra for, but it served to complete its job wonderfully. The zap of lightning now running throughout his nerves was enough to momentarily stun him, just enough for Kakashi to knock him over with a well-placed kick to the spot underneath his ribs.

The swordsman emitted a strangled noise from the back of his throat as he stumbled a few steps backwards. Darting past him, Kakashi snatched the heavy blade from his grasp. Spinning around at the same time, the enemy had a regular sword pointed at Kakashi's arm while his own blade was jammed at the base of his throat.

"Where is your real body?"

The swordsman merely cocked his head to the side, a smirk undoubtedly splattered on his face underneath the black mask. The clone fell apart into hundreds of droplets of water, congregating to form a makeshift puddle at his feet. The makeshift sword had gone with it.

Gripping the handle of his kunai tightly, Kakashi's eyes darted in every direction trying to pinpoint their location. There were at least two enemy nins in the vicinity, three if Kakashi counted the young boy with the kekkei genkai. One of them Kakashi recognized to belong to the ranks of the Seven Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist and the other's identity was still unknown. Neither were opponents to be underestimated.

When a thin layer of mist began to settle in the atmosphere, growing progressively thicker as the seconds went by, Kakashi knew that he was at a major disadvantage. Buying himself some time, Kakashi opted to slip underground while leaving a lightning clone in his place.

When the first sounds of metal clashing against each other rang out, Kakashi knew that the enemy had found his clone. Only one of them though, as Kakashi could only pinpoint two chakra signatures in that general area, with one of them belonging to his clone. Two more chakra signatures pricked at his senses, located quite a ways from the fight. Tunneling his way to them underground, Kakashi stopped short of just reaching the two of them.

If he was correct in his assessment, then right now he was positioned to emerge above ground right behind the child–

And Kakashi did just that, breaking cleanly out of the earth with a well-aimed lightning jutsu. Landing deftly on his feet, Kakashi immediately wrapped his arm around the child's neck, pulling him backwards before the other person could react. A kunai was pressed to the base of the boy's throat by the time his companion had drawn a kunai.

A woman with vivid green eyes stared back at him. The lava user Kakashi assumed, but while Kakashi had a hold on the child, it was guaranteed that the woman wouldn't be so reckless using a wide ranged jutsu.

"Let him go," the woman demanded through gritted teeth. "He is just a child."

In Kakashi's rulebook, age didn't matter. If ten year old Kakashi was old enough to become one of Konoha's greatest undercover weapons of war, then twenty-three year old Kakashi had no qualms about using a child as his hostage. From the moment the first batch of kunais landed at his feet, any traces of sympathy that Kakashi had for the kid was long gone, especially knowing that he was working with the two that ambushed him.

Now that Kakashi thought about it, the kid was acting as bait for their targets.

"You didn't seem to think about that when you decided to use him as bait," Kakashi retorted. "If you truly cared about how young he is, you wouldn't have involved him in your schemes. Once you do, he's fair game to be killed."

Her teeth gnawed at the bottom of her lip. "We wouldn't have to do this if the Mizukage stopped hunting down those with kekkei genkais!"

His mind blanked for a moment before responding. "I don't work for the Mizukage."

"If you weren't there to kill Haku, then why did you approach him?"

"His hand was stuck in the ice. I was just giving him a hand, but he didn't want my help. When I was about to leave, you attacked me."

"Suspecting you to be one of the Mizukage's Hunter nins is only the only reasonable assumption to make in that situation," the woman retorted. "You must not be from around here if you still think that the village is still a state where strangers approaching those with kekkei genkais is still a normal occurrence."

"So does that mean you believe that I'm not working for the Mizukage?" Kakashi loosened his hold on Haku as a show of faith. Only marginally though, just in case the woman was putting up an act the entire time to get him to lower his guard. That, and Kakashi was wary of what the boy could do with his kekkei genkai.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

Ah, Kakashi had forgotten that his henge as Inu was still up. As much as he liked to use this persona so he could freely make appearances without any heads turning, Inu's face wasn't one that was well-known among shinobis. Okami's features were though; no one could mistake the Wolf mask. It was the only distinctive feature of him, considering the rest of his body was covered with a black cloak from head to toe.

The woman's lips parted in recognition. "You're Okami."

"And you're…?" If Kakashi's suspicions were correct, she was one of the members of the rebellion group.

"Mei Terumi." Even better. She was the rumored leader of the rebellion itself.

By now, Kakashi had completely loosened his hold on Haku. The moment he had enough breathing room to wiggle out from Kakashi's grasp, he broke out of his hold and sprinted back to Mei's side.

Kakashi jerked his head towards Haku. "You're playing a dangerous game, using him as bait."

"What choice do we have? The preferred option is to be able to save everyone out there who possesses a kekkei genkai, but everyone has been scared into hiding. The only other way we can protect them is to get rid of those who are tracking them down."

"And you've never considered getting rid of the root of the problem?"

Mei scoffed. "If it's only as easy as you say. Why are you here anyways? Don't tell me you are interested in meddling with our affairs?"

"And what if I am?"

A/N: Hi again!

Thank you for reading; until next time.

-MM