Kakashi rolled his visible eye to the side and considered the dog that had just darted from cover to cover. The animal was currently just peeking around a corner and watching him intently.
He sighed and looked toward the merchant in front of him.
"Hello, good to see you today," he said, smiling under his mask in a friendly manner. "I was noticing that some of my team members seem to be having some problems recently with some of the civilian population."
"Kakashi...you mean the Uchiha underwear thief and the pinkette?" the merchant asked.
"Uhh....Just so," Kakashi said in response.
"Well, they were buying on someone else's credit with a henge, right?" the merchant asked.
"Ahh, well," Kakashi said with a shrug. "Can you tell me where they raised this debt?"
As he talked he glanced into one of the prayer mirrors and saw man whistling innocently while walking down the sidewalk behind him. This was the third such individual to come walking past whistling the same tune, coming from alternating directions.
Someone with similar body language was sitting next to what looked like someone who had fallen heavily asleep at a sidewalk cafe. The sleeper was a bit too wrapped up to clearly identify, they wore a long sleeved jacket with a hood raised over the head, but it was a kid, possibly a girl given the style of the jacket.
"Uh...why would you want to know that," the merchant asked.
"Well, if my subordinates have raised a debt," Kakashi said in another friendly tone. "Certainly it would be best to pay it. So where is this debt raised."
"Uhh, I hadn't heard," the man responded nervously. "I only heard that they had raised a debt."
"I see, I see, news travels quickly," Kakashi agreed.
A quiet woman with purple hair and an odd style of dress walked past him into the store and started carefully picking out various items to place in a basket for purchase. And despite not looking directly at him, he was fairly certain he'd seen this person before.
Like the whistler, the body language of this one was very telling. He'd seen woman of varying apparent ages and colorations several times the past fifteen or twenty minutes.
"Well, at least perhaps tell me who you heard it from," Kakashi said. "Because my students are completely mystified as to what the situation is."
"I'm not sure I can remember," the merchant said nervously. "Is this on business for their Village?"
Kakashi laughed and mildly waved that idea aside.
"Oh no, no," he said, in a disarming lazy manner. "This is nothing official. You might just call it something a little...personal."
His hand came down and his lazy, friendly expression hardened briefly at the end before it slipped again.
Oh, the sleeper moved for a moment and then fell asleep again.
"Apparently some are of the idea that I'm involved somehow myself," Kakashi said by way of explanation. "And it's rather disappointing, rumors getting spread this way. It does sound similar to a security exercise performed recently, but the bill there was paid. Nor was that exercise taken by my team. So...I suppose it can't be the same thing. You think so?"
The merchant swallowed, trying to decide whether Kakashi was threatening him or not. He had had a pretty laid back reputation as far as day to day life, and all the ninja were highly respectful of him.
Did he really want to get in the way of something that "Sharingan Kakashi" was considering personal?
A few minutes later, Kakashi was walking out of the store with a handful of names that the merchant had heard the rumor from.
Which just left his trio of shadows. Where was the dog, uh, nope, it was a pigeon now, flying slowly at his side at about the height of the second story of most of the surrounding buildings. There was the woman, or girl, shopping casually behind him and falling further away. The whistler had stopped at least that much and was now reading a paper at the next corner.
No, wait a minute, he was on the corner down the other road.
Kakashi paused.
"Hmmm," he said before continuing in his thoughts and his walk. "Clones. Shadow clones."
He leaned back as if stretching and leaned up toward his headband, just curious and let it slip up to uncover his sharingan eye.
Sure enough he heard the woman behind him stutter in her steps even as he recognized the chakra traces of the two people the whistler had cloned himself into and the invading chakra in the pigeon above.
If he turned around he thought he could confirm the byakugan in the girl behind him.
Yawning he turned about as he passed the bookstore and paused.
"Ahhh! A new volume is coming?!" he called out loudly, immediately plastering himself to the window. "I can't wait! Racy violence, sounds interesting!"
He stayed watching the bookstore advertisement display and acting giddy for several more minutes as his watchers started gathering together, the mind that had controlled the pigeon had left it, but. Just a little bit more and...
"Ahhh," Kakashi said with a sigh. "Sasuke."
[Discovered] Mjolnir said.
Naruto looked up in time to see Sasuke coming down to where he would be standing behind Ino's currently comatose body, a kunai knife in hand to place at her throat as Naruto rushed through a hand sign.
Ino, back to your body.
"You," Sasuke told the henged Naruto with Ino taken hostage. "Who are you and why are you following my team."
Ino in his hands puffed into smoke as did Naruto's disguised form and when it cleared they were in reversed positions. Sasuke blinked in confusion only moments before Naruto's disguised head slammed back into Sasuke's face giving him the opening he needed to break free and jump to the top of the table he and Ino had been sitting at.
Next to him, Ino's body shuddered awake and bursting into smoke, leaving behind a blessing cat statue as a substitution. Naruto burst into smoke himself leaving behind what looked to be a chair on top of the table.
"Damn it," Sasuke shouted irritably as he rubbed at his face and scanned around for anybody that looked suspicious.
A flash of blonde braids diving around a corner decided him and he started off after the figure. Diving around the corner he'd seen the person fleeing, he zipped around and seemed to catch up to the running person quickly enough.
Only to have it dissipate into smoke.
"A clone?" he said.
Ino was catching her breath, but surprisingly didn't feel to bad despite the run they had just had. Apparently there were benefits to this bloodline beyond just being able to have extra grabby things and making people cramp up with a stare.
But neither Naruto nor Hinata seemed even winded as they stopped around her and looked relieved.
"That was going so well," Hinata said with a sigh. "Until Sasuke spotted us."
"Yeah, we barely got out without people seeing us," Naruto agreed.
"Well, that's just how awesome Sasuke-kun is," Ino said proudly. "He definitely would catch on, he's just that good."
"I suppose it is good that we did get out at least without Kakashi-sensei seeing us," Hinata noted.
"Well..." a voice drawled. "About that. Not so much."
The three genin turned around and looked up to see Kakashi sitting on a tree-branch above him reading a little orange book.
"Ino Yamanaka," he said. "User of the mind-switch jutsu and possessor of the newly discovered 'gorgon' bloodline."
He raised his head for a moment and looked across toward her.
"You look like one of those rappers in the Land of Lightning," he noted.
She flinched as he said that.
"Hinata Hyuga," he continued. "Heir presumptive of the Hyuga main household who is trying to distance herself from the clan. Rank B+ Knight of the Ancient Belkan system."
Hinata shivered slightly with the identification.
"And Naruto Uzumaki," he finished. "The Village's Number One Hyperactive, Unpredictable ninja. Rank B+ Mage of the Modern Belkan system. User of the shadow clone."
Naruto swallowed nervously.
And then Kakashi dropped down to stand in front of them, a smile apparently on his face under the mask.
"Why is Team 8 shadowing Team 7?" he asked.
"It is a training exercise, Kakashi-sensei," Hinata said with Ino nodding.
She felt somewhat bad about speaking up, but she didn't want Kakashi thinking that they were doing infiltration stuff for the TSAB or something. That would just hurt both sides.
"Ohhh?" Kakashi said. "Training to do what?"
"That's for Kurenai-sensei to know and you to find out," Naruto said crossing his arms and stepping forward to stare into Kakashi's face.
"Naruto!" Ino snapped. "It's not important. We're just trying to practice studying a target for impersonation."
"Ahh," Kakashi said. "Then you probably shouldn't have told me."
"Huh?" Ino said. "But you're a jonin..."
"I'm the target," Kakashi corrected. "Naruto was the most obvious in the shadowing, but he had that much right. The target of the mission has no business knowing the nature of the mission."
"Oh, right," Hinata said, slumping.
"And what would have happened if we hadn't said anything?" Ino asked.
"Ohhh, I don't know," Kakashi said. "Probably less than what Kurenai will have for you for telling me the mission."
The two girls winced at that.
"By the way, you wouldn't know anything about any rumors about Team 7, would you?" the jonin asked in a friendly tone that was more or less steely.
"Huh?" Naruto said. "Someone's spreading rumors about Sasuke and Sakura?"
"And Shino," Kakashi added. "Well, not so much Shino. He seems to be forgotten fairly often, actually. I suppose that's a good thing in this case. Probably saves him money."
"Do you mean the underwear thief thing," Hinata asked.
"Oh, no, that's from his uncle," Kakashi said, waving it aside. "We know that one. I'm talking about disguising as other people and running up a tab."
"You mean like I did on our test?" Naruto asked, blinking. "I didn't hear anything about Sasuke doing that. Did you give them the same sort of test?"
Kakashi examined them curiously, arching an eyebrow.
"Hmmm," he said.
They didn't seem to be lying.
"Well," he said finally. "I think I'll go. I have to see about training my own team and all. See ya."
And then he burst into smoke.
"Okay," Ino said. "Now, I think we go talk to Kurenai first and beg for mercy."
"So, did everyone notice they were being followed today?" Kakashi asked his team members after gathering them up.
"Yeah, Naruto was following me around all day for a while," Sakura said.
"Can you follow around someone all day for only part of the day?" Shino asked. "I do not think so. In any case, yes, I was observed by a number of oddly behaving animals through the day."
"In any case," Sakura said. "Naruto was following me. He even copied Sasuke a couple of times."
"One of those times wasn't a copy," Sasuke noted, rubbing his chin.
"Oh, right," Sakura said. "Sorry about interrupting your shopping, like that. And I know you're going to say not to say too much about your Naruto-kun, but he really was being a creepy stalker today."
"I was not shopping when you p...'my Naruto-kun?'" he repeated, confused.
"Anyway," Kakashi said, cutting off further discussion. "It seems that Kurenai's Team 8 had a training mission."
"Is that so?" Shino asked.
"Really?" Sakura said. "What sort of mission?"
"They were supposed to study us to practice on impersonation and infiltration techniques," Kakashi said by way of explanation. "I assume each was assigned to a different one of us."
"That explains it," Sasuke said. "And then all three were trying to observe you."
"Right, but they only got a handful of minutes thanks to Sasuke's interruption," Kakashi said. "Now, I think it is only fair if we return the favor."
"Huh?" Sakura said. "You want us to spy on and observe them now?"
"That's right," Kakashi said with a smile.
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(Posted Tue, 31 May 2011 17:41)
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