Chapter Text
Everything was—fine.
In a way, it should have been a relief. Missions came and went without major injuries, seasons passed without natural catastrophes, there was no trouble at all with the moon—and why would there be? The sun shines, birds sing, couples fall in love. And Kakashi.
As Hokage, Kakashi is bored beyond comprehension.
Is this what empty nest syndrome feels like? His students are grown now, jonin in their own right with their own teams. Sakura doesn't leave the village much these days, not with her pharmaceutical research division seeking to find the ultimate antidote. Naruto is pestering about anyone working for the village, trying to apprentice ten things at once and somehow succeeding at eleven. As for Sasuke, well, he keeps his projects close to his heart. Kakashi thinks he might be trying to rebuild his clan from the ground up.
The last ten years have been eventful alright, but nothing out of the regular shinobi troubles. No major villain, resurrected foes, or something as garish as hostile extraterrestrials—like in Jiraiya's books. If he were more paranoid, well, Kakashi would probably wrap himself in bubble paper and wait for his inevitable end. It doesn't stop him from thinking there must be some kind of third party at work.
Too many happy coincidences have occurred for him to dismiss that theory on the grounds of confirmation bias.
"This again?" groans Shikamaru, hands firmly set in his pockets. He looks down at Kakashi's notes. "For the last time, there is no 'Ghost of the Leaf' who oh-so-conveniently makes our lives easier. We're just good at our jobs."
"How do you explain that streak of luck, then?" he retorts, waving the last mission report in front of his face. "Deidara joining Konoha because he fell in love with Tenten, I can sort of understand. But Kiri suddenly stabilizing just as I'm about to send Sasuke's team to take out the Legendary Swordsmen? Suna offering us a free-trade treaty unprompted? Uzumaki archives showing up out of nowhere, right when Naruto needs them? Hell, Orochimaru deciding he's grown a moral compass last month?!"
The young man tsks with a very disrespectful roll of his eyes. He's taken to chewing on a senbon stick recently, trying to quit smoking for his unborn child. As if Kakashi needed a mini-Genma nagging his every decisions as Hokage.
"Yeah, yeah, sure. Or, hear me out: you've been out of action so long, you're starting to chew on your own tail thinking it's a snake." He shakes his head dismissively. "Go on vacation for a week, pretty sure the village won't burn to the ground."
Sitting back in his chair, Kakashi tips down the rim of his hat. Maybe he's right. He's growing restless, making it everyone's problem.
"Fine," he sighs, placing the hat down on his desk. "You have the wheel for a week, I will try to get my head back in the game."
"Glad to hear it," Shikamaru grunts, sounding all but. "Ugh, was this a ploy to make me do all your paperwork again?"
"Maa, I would never!"
That's what he gets for nagging.
Back to his apartment, Kakashi manages to spend a grand total of an hour of jittery chores before he brings out his investigation board. Years ago, he refused to move into the official Hokage lodgings, which are much more spacious and would have most likely been luch easier to fit investigation boards in. As it is, he will need to move the massive panel with its red strings and newspaper clippings if he needs to empty his bladder.
The most recent strings lead to Orochimaru and Sakura's picture. It was taken a week ago, when they conjointly opened the Panacea Research Center—both dressed in their white scientist coats and pretending they haven't been thinking about strangling each other for as long as they've been working together.
The man had been a thorn in Kakashi's side for most of his sensei years. Everywhere he tried taking his students, there was a link to the Sannin: giant snakes attacking them, smaller snakes in Sasuke's shoes in the morning, someone leaving complex formulas for Sakura to obsess over, and more. For the longest time, he had been the best—if impossibly unlikely—candidate for the Ghost's identity.
Then, about four weeks ago, he had shown up at the Leaf gates with his student and all of their research in cardboard boxes. Something about their previous employer having met a timely end and their old lab not agreeing with giant fireballs. Kakashi believes Orochimaru only as far as he can throw him, if even that.
"So, if it's not him, then who is it?" he mutters aloud, tapping his eraseable pen against his cheek.
Following the thought is how he finds himself with a potted plant in front of the Panacea center. The front desk clerk startles, but he quickly plasters a customer-service smile on his face.
"Hokage-sama," he greets, willfully not moving even as the building shakes and glass breaks somewhere down the corridor. "Should I call for Doctor Haruno?"
Kakashi looks down the corridor, where a thick green smoke is spreading on the ground.
"Actually, I was hoping to talk to Orochimaru."
"Ah," the clerk jerks in his seat, a low simmering terror in his voice, "his schedule is quite full, I don't think—"
Another explosion rattles the windows. Giving Kakashi one of the most tense smiles he's ever seen, the young man reaches under his desk to gather two hard-shelled helmets. He secures one on his head, then hands the other to him.
"Perhaps we can interrupt this specific meeting, though."
The clerk takes him on a wide detour from the smoking labs, through areas he's almost certain are employee-only, but decidedly safer. Most of the rooms are equipped with large glass panels, probably to welcome students—and oversee Orochimaru's more unethical ventures. As they pass through a series of 'BIOLOGICAL HAZARD' doors, Kakashi hears a man and a woman screaming at each other.
"Why did you put the sample in the patient's anus?!" Sakura.
"Did my dearest teammate ever teach you anything useful, young girl?" Orochimaru. "For better absorption, obviously."
"He's been high for three hours!"
"As I said, better absorption—"
"Excuse me," the clerk calls in a waveringly brave voice. "You have a visitor, Orochimaru-sensei."
If Kakashi ever feels apologetic for the messy state of his living quarters, he will remember the absolute train wreck he just walked in. Where all the other labs were an antiseptic white, with several cots and costly instruments pristinely arranged, this one is obviously… worked-in. There are colorful splats on about every surface, including the two scientists standing in the middle of it. Both have their hair up in dishevelled buns, one pair of safety goggles holding it out of their face, and another protecting their eyes.
Orochimaru is holding a thin, long rod tipped with a tiny pointing hand which he uses to underline chicken scratches on a blackboard. Sakura has sealed test tubes dangling from every single pocket she has, including a single tube tucked on her right ear.
The 'patient', a very large and slobbering dog, is continuously rolling on itself on the ground at their feet. It's green, somehow.
"This conversation is not over," Sakura menaces with a pointed, gloved, stained blue finger. She then turns to him, with a much less lethal spark in her eye. "Hello, Kakashi-sensei. What do we owe you the pleasure?"
"Come to spy on us, Hokage-sama?" snorts Orochimaru, crossing his arms (and the pointing rod) over his chest. "Shinobi's honor, we are not conducting anything morally reprehensible—"
"Yes we are, ignore him." Sakura rolls her eyes, starting to offload her many tubes onto the table—and she seems to have deep pockets.
"I'm not here in any official capacity," Kakashi explains, watching the clerk retreat diplomatically out of range with the plant. "I just wanted to see how my cute little student is adapting to her new role."
She raises an eyebrow—the edge is burned off, he notices. "We have dinner together every other week, what's up?"
"Ah, so perceptive," he chuckles, rubbing the back of his head. "I was hoping to ask Orochimaru some questions related to a case I'm investigating…"
"Not this ghost thing! You said you had given up!"
Orochimaru snorts loudly. The dog is very lovingly rubbing itself against his shins. "Though I'm flattered you would think me part of such a wide conspiracy, I have already given all the information I am willing to give."
"Look," he says, feeling the tip of his ears redden. "I have a new theory. Is it at all possible that Itachi—"
"Nah, Itachi's dead," Orochimaru sighs. "I would have loved to… do some personal projects with him, but alas."
"How did he die?" Sakura asks, momentarily stopping her endless offloading of tubes.
"Shall we turn this into a teaching moment?" Orochimaru asks in a tone as delighted as Sakura's annoyance. "The body had blue lips, sunken eyes, diminished body mass—long-term, as well as localized lung hemorrage."
"Poison, something long-term and affecting blood oxygen?"
"Good, but completely wrong. Ah, there is no helping your lack of education… Want to give it a try, Hokage-sama?"
Kakashi raises an eyebrow. Orochimaru is an asshole, but if there is one thing he has learned about the man, is that he loves teaching. A golden star sticker could very well be awarded if he gives the correct answer.
"The Uchiha medical records are insufficient at best, but I know he has been sick for many years now. If it's poison, could be arsenic from the compound's paints."
"Oh, I did not expect you, of all people, to have such an insightful deduction." Kakashi is being pointed at with the tiny hand rod. He doesn't appreciate it.
"Wait, there's still arsenic paint there?!" Sakura asks, alarmed.
"Sasuke-kun is getting rid of it," he dismisses. "So, how did he really die?"
"So impatient," Orochimaru sighs. "Arsenic exposition didn't help, but he died of a lung infection I am working on at the moment. It consumes the victim's lungs until there is nothing left, which is why its tentative common name is 'consumption'. I am still figuring out a proper, scientific name."
The conversation devolves into academic matter faster than Kakashi anticipated. He retreats some time later, sneaking through the research center to satisfy his own curiosity. If Itachi is indeed out of the board, that means the person most likely to be behind it all has the perfect alibi.
Death is not very convenient to get out of.
At the end of his first day of imposed vacation, Kakashi is about to throw himself at the walls.
He has made no progress on his conspiracy theory, all his books have been read a dozen times over, he's annoyed every youngster he knows, and there is only one person he has yet to visit. Which is how he finds himself at the doors of the Uchiha compound.
A genin welcomes him in, a civilian girl with sandy blonde hair and wide black eyes. She wants to become a kenjutsu specialist, if he remembers correctly. It was kind of hilarious to assign an all-girls team to Sasuke, Iruka told him, serves the brat for being his every teacher's pain in the ass all these years.
The find the grown-up brat knee deep in the muddy koi pond, hauling piles of smelly algae into a bucket. Another of his students is watching from the sides as she sweeps the garden stones, not bothering to hide how disgusted she is with her teacher's task.
"Yo," Kakashi calls cheerfully. "Sasuke and team!"
"What do you want?"
Sasuke has never been a very warm person, and and even less warm student, to the point where he almost left the village entirely when he was younger. Whatever changed his mind at the last minute is anyone's guess, but Kakashi thinks a certain teammate of his is no stranger to it.
The young man coughs into his sleeve, rubbing his masked nose against the clean cloth. Even a few paces away, the smell alone could strip paint.
"If you throw up again, I'm not cleaning it," warns the girl closest to him. "Sensei."
"Less talking, more sweeping," Sasuke grunts, slightly out of breath. "We're busy, Kakashi, get on with it."
"Maa, maa, aren't you happy to see me?"
"No. Again, what do you want?"
"Sheesh, wouldn't catch me talking to the Hokage in such a disrespectful way," comments the girl who led Kakashi in.
"Hiyori, I remember assigning you to weeding duty. Both of you girls, go back to work."
"Ugh, okay sensei."
It must be karmic retribution, to make Sasuke deal with not one but three mini versions of him as a teenager. They only obey when they feel the order is warranted, they backtalk constantly, and they hiss as soon as one tries to be kind to them. All three girls are orphans, as well. On top of being his students, they are also his wards—rebuilding a clan from scratch required some rule-bending.
"Fatherhood suits you," Kakashi observes, then quickly adds before stinky algae is thrown to his face: "You've done a fantastic work here, the house looks brand new."
Sasuke lowers his face, maintaining a neutral expression as he resumes working. To anyone else, it might be mistaken for indifference, but Kakashi has been handling the boy's moods for close to a dozen years now. Sasuke is incredibly pleased with the compliments.
"I'm on mandatory rest, my staff is going mad with me," he explains, taking a seat on one of the raised garden stones. "Need additional hands?"
Sasuke ticks his tongue dismissively. "What help could you possibly be? You have no taste."
"I'm wounded!"
"Fine, ugh. If you really want to make yourself useful, go make us food. One vegetarian, nuts-free, reduced salt. One lactose-free, doesn't like broccoli, avoid fish. And the last two just do whatever, but no spice or sauce and I'm in the mood for miso. Make some extra, for tomorrow."
The sun is setting on the Uchiha compound as the weary teenagers take seats on the low table. Kakashi had forgotten how traditional the clan was, with its tatami and floor-level seating arrangements. The green scent of rice straw, lack of overhead lights and the vesperal songs rising from the gardens are a soothing balm—even if the thin paper walls do little to insulate them from the cold of the night. That's what the bowls of udon Kakashi prepared are for.
"Oh wow, that's good," says Rika, the third member of Sasuke's team. Her long black hair is gathered out of her face in a neat plait. "Couldn't you teach our sensei how to cook?"
"I can cook plenty well," Sasuke grumbles, blowing on his steaming bowl.
"Keep believing that, sensei," Hiyori sighs as she pats his shoulder.
Kakashi grins behind his mask. Obedient little students wouldn't have been good for him, it's better if they keep him on his toes.
"So, are you ready for the chuunin exams?" he asks, winking at Kiku who's been trying to pierce the secret of his mask for the past twenty minutes.
"Ugh! Don't talk about such things while I'm eating!" Hiyori groans, putting her forehead on the table.
"Manners," Sasuke comments, pushing her face up with the butt of his chopsticks. "The girls have been making progress on elemental jutsu, but it's up to them if they want to try the exams."
They talk about shinobi training well after the bowls are emptied, and the girls laying their backs on the ground. While listening, they stare at the ceiling or play with their clothes, but they do not attempt to participate. The younger generations do behave strangely.
Sasuke unearthes some underused politeness and offers Kakashi a room for the night, though he's warned the house creaks and howls and there's nothing they can do about it.
"It's, like, so haunted," Rika comments while she's washing the dishes. Her sensei absconded to his office, leaving the four of them in the water room.
Another traditional feature, the room has the dual purpose of providing drinking water from a tap, washing basins for dishes and clothes, as well as an attached bathroom. Hiyori is currently loading logs in the boiler, to warm up the bath water. They offered him the first bath, very begrudingly.
"Ghosts aren't real," Kiku retorts, drying the pans. "It's just a dusty pavillion no one uses. At worst, you'll find big spiders."
"Oh yeah? How do you explain the white lady I saw then?"
"You're gonna flick water on me if I tell the truth—ah! You bitch!"
"Girls," Kakashi chimes in placatingly. "Let's all be friends?"
"Ugh. Whatever. I know what I saw, she was obviously an Uchiha kunoichi because she was super strong-looking and with super long black hair. And an armor, or something."
"Everyone has black hair, could just be a regular person," Hiyori snorts. "Could have been a mirror, even."
"You're both assholes. She had like, I don't know, something on her eyes? Like bandages or a mask, but black. It looked super cool, and then she just vanished! Pfew! One moment she was there and the next she wasn't. Nearly peed my own self."
"Gross," Kiku grunts. "Anyway, Kakashi-sama, don't go near the old tea pavillion. Haunted or not, the floors are all fucked—sorry, I mean, they're rotten."
"Maa," he chuckles awkwardly, "I will try to avoid it, then."
Moonlight lends the tea pavillion a truly haunted aura.
It wasn't difficult identifying it, based on the girls' descriptions and the fact that it is the single farthest location from the entrance. Kakashi had to walk through an astonishing number of corridors, some in total darkness, and some showing sights of the neglected gardens, before he reached the place.
The pavillion's wooden frame stands lopsided, ivy and morning glories fighting over its bent shape. Cat grass reaches as tall as the knee, hiding the path that once elegantly led guests. From the pond it used to serenely look over, frogs loudly call one another. As if added by a zealous scene director, a thin veil of mist slithers among the remnants of the garden.
"It's a good thing I don't believe in ghosts," Kakashi mutters to himself. No one is there to witness the chill running up his spine.
He wades through the weeds, waving away early-season mosquitoes. The wooden path creaks under his weight as he hoists himself on what remains of the pathway, which can't be helped. As good as he is at his job, there are noises even he can't avoid making. His chakra signature is all but a whisper in the wind, so hopefully if there is indeed someone hiding in the ruins, she will believe him to be one of the night's dwellers.
Ghost stories have been a staple of shinobi students for as long as they have existed, especially in the early days when sensor types would not know what happened to them. However, to be able to give a specific physical description means the girl most likely saw a real person—someone whose intents he needs to clarify as Hokage.
Kakashi could have (should have) sent for his personal guards, or his secret services. This is the kind of job they excel at. However, as previously established, he is bored out of his mind. A good mystery, even if it ends up being a simple spy act, is the most fun he's had in months.
His eye adjusts quickly to the inside of the pavillion—a single room, its windows obscured by the growing vines, but clearly maintained. The tatami are old, but not rotten. There is a large box, with a large padlock, which could have been abandoned there almost twenty years ago… or it could be someone's stash. So close to the pond, there should have been some kind of water damage. Lucky, if it was avoided naturally, but more likely because the spy took care of it.
Most prominently is that smell. He lowers his mask a fraction. A human smell—musk, sweat, and right there, almost vanished, dried blood.
"What are you doing here?" asks a pissed off voice behind him, just as he's about to see how well the padlock can hold against a chakra blade.
Kakashi turns to Sasuke, arms crossed over his chest, standing in the middle of the cat grass. The frown on his forehead might stay forever, with how deep it is.
"Maa, I seem to have gotten lost on my way to the bathroom…"
"Sure," Sasuke rolls his eyes. "They told you about the ghost, right? I didn't think someone well into their thirties would fall for such bullshit."
"Hey, I'm only thirty-one!"
The look Sasuke gives him speaks volume of how little he cares. "Anyway, there's no ghost. Go back to sleep."
"They saw someone—"
Sasuke sighs, grunts, raises his face up to the sky, and places both hands on his hips. "It was me. I like dressing up in my free time. Go. The fuck. Back. To sleep."
As he's less than gently escorted back to the room, Kakashi cannot help the feeling that he very narrowly avoided something monumental.
Kiku is still staring at his face throughout breakfast.
Kakashi smirks mischievously, knowing she is far from the first, or the last kid to wonder at the mystery of his mask. Sasuke, for all he pretends he's over it, would drop everything in a heartbeat for a single blurry sight. It's endlessly entertaining.
"I dreamed of the ghost lady," Hiyori stage whispers to his right. "She said that you offended her terribly, and you need to cook for us again or she'll haunt you next."
"Enough with this ghost," Sasuke says, reading the newspaper like an ojisan. See who's old, now. "If you want better food, endeavor to cook it yourself."
"But," Hiyori complaints, stretching the vowels. "I'm so bad at cooking!"
"She is," Rika confirms, yelping when her sister extends her foot to kick her under the table. "I'm helping you here!"
"I could be convinced to stay," Kakashi says with all the subtlety of a bull barging in a china shop, "I have no plans for my vacation."
The glare he gets rivals some of his greatest foes, but on Sasuke's face it looks slightly constipated.
"Please, please please please!" Hiyori exclaims, tugging at his sleeve. "We're like, so malnourished. It's a matter of health and safety, or something."
"I'm actively experiencing hypoglycemia," Kiku nods. "Sakura-san told me it's very bad."
"As the eldest heir of the Uchiha clan, I approve this recruitment," Rika says, crossing her arms over her chest.
Sleeve half tugged off, hair not yet properly combed and morning journal astray, Sasuke looks like he might throw his entire self in the pond. "Ugh, fine. But no one is allowed near the tea pavillion or I swear I'll make you thatch the roof with your hands tied. That applies to you too, sensei. Understood?"
He does not seem to wholly believe the chorus of 'yes sir'. He's be right not to.
"Alright girls, here's the plan," Kakashi says as soon as Sasuke is back wrangling the garden into shape. "There's definitely something going on with that haunted pavillion, and we have a week to figure it out."
The children nod as gravely as if he was assigning state leader assassinations.
"Kiku-chan, you're the observant one, I need you to find a way to witness who's getting in and out. Hiyori-chan, you're the most distracting one—no offense."
"None taken, it's true," she grins.
"So, you'll keep Sasuke away while we figure things out. And Rika-san, I've been told you're getting good at genjutsu, so you need to work on a way to trap whoever is trying to pass as a ghost without harming them. Got it?"
The girls disperse with such professionalism that he feels slightly bad he cannot tell their sensei. They will be great kunoichi, that much is certain. As for him, he needs to tail the ghost.
Hopefully, his ANBU tracker glory days are not too far behind.