#irtswat

On the day of the Village Spirit Team announcement, the extensive production of the event smacked any snide comments from his slack-jawed face. Shinobi and civilians alike adjoined in a temporary cluster of gazebos destined to be replaced with a permanent structure, a building they would call the village hall. 

Ridiculously portioned canapes floated around with civilian caterers. Servers offering champagne flutes patterned and intersected their movements at equal intervals. Kakashi couldn't help but draw up mental schemes as if he were cataloguing guard rotations. 

Fairy lights entwined with the skinny wooden support beams, linked up to a generator half hidden by table cloth sewn together from doilies. A lone chūnin stood guard on the off chance an enterprising idiot blew the thing up. Besides him, the rest of the guards were far less visible and light on the body count. Likely due to the heavy presence of infamous hidden leaf shinobi mingling with the rest of the guests.

Kakashi stood in one corner of the largest gazebo, adjusting his position as needed to keep his comparatively small stature hidden behind the crowd. Minato had originally deposited him by the punch stand in full view of several bored guests fishing for conversation. The moment the fishmonger turned his eyes to him, he fled. 

The crowd quieted and rippled towards the stage. Kakashi couldn't see Minato, but he could hear his voice. He'd forgone a microphone but his audience were captivated and his words projected. 

Privy to the script, Kakashi slipped out and headed to the smallest gazebo, home to various spare supplies and, most importantly, the generator.

“Ignore him? This is sensitive information, Namikaze, not for just any shinobi to hear,” Danzo said sternly, gaze lingering on Kakashi for a long moment. While he couldn’t pinpoint the specific subject of his gaze, Kakashi got the sudden urge to ask if something was on his face. However, he didn’t give in to the temptation, he pointedly looked up to the hokage portraits and pretended he wasn’t there at all. While Minato had never explicitly stated it, Kakashi knew that his role wasn’t to be a part of the meetings but rather an accent to the setting. He still wasn’t entirely sure to what purpose he served but it was clearly working since Minato hadn’t dismissed him. Although, if Kakashi didn’t get a mission soon he was going to go stir crazy.

“You shouldn’t worry so much Danzo! Honestly, Kakashi has been under my charge since he was five years old, he’s very well trained,” there was a slight conspiratorial edge to Minato's smile. “I won’t be changing my mind,” he said brightly and settled his intertwined hands on his desk, leaning forward invitingly.

The lines on Danzo’s face shifted from indignation to irritation as he acquiesced to Minato’s conditions. Kakashi had to suppress a shiver as Danzo shot one last calculating look in his direction before following suit, acting as though Kakashi wasn’t in the room. He pulled off the impression the best of all so far, even those who had grown used to the oddity that was Kakashi’s side job gave him a cursory glance once or twice. To Danzo, it appeared that he may as well have been a houseplant.

Nevertheless, his words were hidden by a shroud of obfuscation and indirect meanings, “while I appreciate your enthusiasm for my work - an acceptance I couldn’t have hoped to have received from Hiruzen, may he rest in peace - there are still ways in which we could protect the village further that perhaps you would not be as willing to endorse.”

“If you didn’t think there was a chance that I would, I don’t think you would have brought it up to me at all,” Minato replied, his happy-go-lucky manner betraying none of the severity of the implied situation that Kakashi suspected it held. In contrast, Nara Shikaku hadn’t glossed over his words when discussing the high-security details of the jounin command earlier, although he did hum when Minato’s answer to when Kakashi would come back into the fold was an indefinite ‘soon’. Kakashi hadn’t known that his leave from active duty had been official until then and came to the realisation that he must only skim the surface of the Hokage’s duties in his time at Minato’s side if he was missing details like that.

Danzo smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile, so Kakashi stopped paying so much attention to his peripheral view of him. “Indeed, I shall cut to the chase then, I wish to retrieve my former head researcher from his impromptu sabbatical. I believe that, under appropriate supervision, he could contribute much more to the village than he already has.” Whatever that was, it sounded dodgy, but Kakashi lacked the contextual knowledge to confirm how shady the proposed operation was.

From what little interaction they had had, Kakashi knew that Danzo had airs about him of greater-goods and mystery, the kind that came from living so long as a ninja. He was reportedly one of the most loyal to Konoha, the extent of that loyalty boundless. Kakashi wondered just what exactly that meant for his will of fire and the heated decisions it would prompt him to make. Kakashi was rash in the field and had nearly lost his head to recklessness on more than one occasion, although he couldn’t completely kid himself into thinking his ‘dedication to the completion of the mission regardless of the risks’ smoothly translated to 'dedication to the village'. How different would things be if he was as loyal as a man like Danzo? Not at all, possibly, but the concept gave him something to chew on as his shift dragged on.

“Hmm, I won’t deny the merits of your proposal,” Minato said after a few moments of contemplation before leaning back into his chair, decision made. “However, I also cannot deny the risks. Provide me with the means to eliminate the risks and the rest I’ll leave to you.”

“Understood, Hokage-sama,” Danzo dropped the informality he had picked up in his earlier irritation, leaving the room at a sedate pace, his posture revealing neither that he was happy with the conclusion of the meeting nor that he was dissatisfied. If Kakashi had to guess, he’d say a bit of both.

“Oh!” Minato exclaimed just as Danzo’s hand wrapped around the handle of the office door. He paused and turned his head towards them, body angled to leave. “I have a favour to ask,” he scratched at his neck sheepishly.

“A favour or an order?” Danzo replied, slowly shifting to face them. Understandably, he seemed a little irritated at having been called back despite the meeting having reached its end. Minato had a bit of a habit of doing that, the veteran shinobi treated the behaviour with fond exasperation, the civilian women found it endearing while the younger shinobi were almost always thrown off balance. Danzo struck out his own category: gravely displeased.

“Oh, well, if you have to be like that, it’s an order,” Minato said with a small laugh that did nothing to lighten Danzo’s mood. “I’d like Kakashi to train with your division once a week, I think your methods will benefit him greatly with what’s to come.”

All at once, Kakashi was promoted from house plant to shinobi as the focus of the conversation and Danzo’s acute attention was placed on him. He knew not to question his Hokage when in the presence of others, Kakashi had a role to fulfill outside of their bi-weekly dinners that he didn’t completely understand but knew how to play nonetheless, but he couldn’t help but send a questioning look at Minato’s side profile.

Meanwhile, Minato maintained that his conversation with Danzo was a two-player game, “you can send one of your shinobi to pick him up when you’ve decided a time and place, his schedule is free for the next week. Do pick a day and stick to it, though, I have plans for him.”

Danzo’s sharp gaze switched from Kakashi to Minato and analysed him, Minato’s cheery attitude unfaltering, before speaking, “understood, Hokage-sama.”

Meeting actually over now - Minato never pulled his spontaneous idea routine more than once - Danzo’s hand twisted the doorknob and he left the office.

“So, Kakashi,” Minato turned to him, a little more upbeat than usual, “we’re going to have a nice conversation over dinner about a little something called Root and what I’ll be needing you to report back to me.”

Perking up at his mention, Kakashi turned his head to Minato, still blinking out the after-print of the light from his vision. Since Minato had shuffled him out of bed this morning and dragged him to Matsumoto’s print house for an interview, he hadn’t been all too focused on his surroundings.

Only a night had passed since his last mission and he hadn’t had nightmares, per se, but he’d been painted into a still-life tableaux of the nameless clan’s master bedroom. Flickering candlelight slanting across the wooden floorboards, a tall shadow obstructing his view, Spider contorted into surrender by her captors.

The captors themselves were shades of real people and he couldn’t make out any meaningful details, but the horrified faces of the civilians he’d never met crowding at the door and looking through windows he knew didn’t exist were all too stark in their clarity.

He’d seen plenty of horrible things, plenty of worse scenes starring people he knew and loved, but the night after tended to have a grip on him.

In other words, he'd slept even less than usual.