Hey all. Sorry for the delay in uploads, but some big things have happened in my life, including moving house, a new job and getting quite sick.

Please, continue to enjoy the story, but remember that like most fic writers, I'd prefer to take my time with a chapter than push out some half-assed assortment of words.

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The three members of Team 7 stood before the Hokage, uncharacteristically rigid.

Kakashi was immediately able to deduce that the woman had already been visited by his blonde not-Genin by examining her posture.

Tsunade's hands were clasped in front of her lips, a light scowl adorning the remainder of her visible face. Usually, a genin team reporting in outside of the mission office hours would draw a bored look, or at most pursed lips as she silently lamented the interruption.

The look in her eyes as she surveyed the three of them was sharp and critical, and Kakashi had to force himself to speak.

"Team 7 reporting in." He managed to keep his voice from squeaking, and mentally patted himself on the back for his solid acting skills.

A slow blink and a long silence was his reply.

"Yes," the Fifth Hokage drawled finally. "I can see that."

The hands unclasped as she reached down to shuffle some papers on her desk. Kakashi saw the action for what it really was - her giving herself time to collect her emotions.

"I hear that there was some complications." The tone was chillingly casual.

Kakashi could work with this. Time to play pretend.

"Unfortunately." His eyes closed in a smile. "We ran into a few people we were familiar with in the memory. One of which was Naruto-kun, who therefore wasn't able to view the memory with us. Such a shame!" He sighed dramatically.

Sasuke's arm twitched violently, and Kakashi knew his forced-cheerfulness was aggravating the Uchiha immensely.

Too bad, kid, that's how Hatake Kakashi deals with stress. He'd likely have to put up with it for the remainder of the conversation, unless the Hokage called him on it.

Based on her silence after this statement, it seemed unlikely. She herself had retreated into fiddling - her own way of dealing with stressful situations. Pick up a piece of paper, file it away. Move a paper weight around. Straighten the table mat.

"Was the mission completed, at least?" Tsunade asked with a sigh, her fidgeting hands moving up to rub her eyes.

"Yes," Kakashi confirmed "You'll have your report by this evening."

The goal of the mission had been fairly simple - create a detailed layout of the West side of the city that they had mentally travelled to.

The now-Mayor had reported heavy activity from missing nin in this section, no doubt due to its' advantageous position at the cross roads between Konoha and three other major cities.

While they knew the base was somewhere underground, the city had been changed much in the last few years with expansion and renewal of the run-down area. A year ago, a natural disaster had also rendered a large section inhabitable, and had been completely re-done. Any houses or buildings that housed basements or underground areas were removed or re-arranged, and the law enforcement in the city were having trouble keeping track of all the hiding places.

The previous Mayor - who had been assassinated shortly before the ascension of the current one - was revealed as quite the corrupt businessman since his demise. A slew of accusations were levelled at the deceased man and his consort, ranging from extortion to fraternization with the Yakuza.

Some of his work had been deliberately concealing renovations and destroying blueprints of buildings that could lead to the discovery of the underground criminal group. While the current Mayor was doing an admirable job of trying to fix up the city, the task of manually searching every building on the West side had been far too large a task to undertake while still trying to sort out the political shambles that had been left by his predecessor.

Due to the actions of the corrupt Mayor and the nin-groups themselves, any maps that detailed the area of the city pre-expansion were suspiciously absent, and anyone who was familiar enough with the back streets of the area were being very tight lipped. Thus, the Mayor had asked Konoha to step in to literally fill in the blanks.

Kakashi had hoped to surprise the Genin after leaving the memory, and spend the afternoon piecing together a map between them. Ideally, this would have impressed upon them the importance of paying attention to detail at all times.

However, that all flew out the window the moment that Sasuke spotted his older brother. With the loss of Naruto as well, Kakashi had decided that he'd complete the mission on his own, because if he was going to get chewed out by a hysterical Uchiha, he might as well get paid for it.

He was certain that neither Sasuke nor Sakura would have paid much attention to the scenery with so much distraction.

A curt nod from the Hokage.

"Right. Good." She grunted, more to herself than anything else.

A long, awkward pause as each occupant avoided bringing up the elephant in the room.

Sasuke's arm twitched again, no doubt itching to say something, but bit his tongue.

Finally, without making eye contact with any of the ninja before her, the Hokage spoke.

"Well, I guess we'll have to sort out what to do with him." A sharp nod towards the small blonde boy without quite turning to face him.

Naruto, however, was having none of that.

"He is a perfectly capable Ninja of Konoha with a record to prove it." The blonde's sky blue eyes were dark. As he spoke, he clicked his fingers sharply twice in the direction of the Hokage, demanding attention.

The boy crossed his arms.

"I can see you've busied yourself finding all the information on me that you can." Tsunade's eyes - now turned to the blonde - stubbornly refused to acknowledge the partially-hidden stack of folders beside her as the boy spoke. "No doubt you've got enough proof to convince yourself that this isn't just a huge prank."

The boy took the Hokage's silence for a positive answer.

"I've still been training, and taking missions. You know that. You assigned them." Naruto continued. "There's no reason to treat me any different than you were treating me as an ANBU."

Tsunade finally cracked. Explosively.

"No reason!" Her fists created small craters of splinters in her desk as she slammed them down, propelling herself from her chair. "I have every bloody reason! The stubborn brat who pretended to be Konoha's worst Genin has simultaneously been running S-Rank missions and laughing about fooling us all behind our backs! You were in the Chuunin exams! You could have killed Genin accidentally with a snap of your fingers! This-"

"Oh stop it!" Never before had Kakashi heard a tone of such command from one as young as Naruto. Even Sasuke took an involuntary step back.

"Stop acting like this awkwardness is justified." He jabbed an accusatory finger. "If I was just some random Genin, you'd brush it off, maybe even compliment me on such proficient acting skills! But you know me. You gave me this." He thumbed a necklace from around his neck, and Kakashi's eyes widened as he recognized it.

"You feel betrayed." You could have heard a pin drop. "You think I've been faking everything. Our relationship, my personality. You don't know who I am. I understand." Both blondes deflated, the atmosphere growing calmer.

"Don't worry, Baa-chan." A weak, lop-sided grin. "I may have played up the stupidity and played down the skill, but I'm still me. I've hidden a lot but I've never hidden me." A fist clenched above the boys' heart, and Kakashi politely averted his eye as Tsunade's began to glisten.

The room quietened. The Hokage and Naruto remained squared off as their breathing slowed.

Finally, the older-than-she-appeared woman sagged back into her chair.

"Fine." She muttered sourly, though Kakashi noticed that she couldn't hide the warmth she had been exhibiting ever since Naruto's declaration had begun. "What do we do with you, then."

A huge smirk spread across the whiskered boys' face, and suddenly the boy didn't seem all that different.

"I have a plan." The grinning boy declared.

"I'm sure you do." The tone sounded like she aimed for bitter, but was coming out far closer to amusement.

Naruto seated himself comfortably.

"I think I should remain on Team 7." He began, no beating around the bush. "Now that Sasuke is a capable ninja-" Was it Kakashi's imagination, or was that a twitch of pride on the Uchiha's face "-there's no reason for me to stay around as a guard-come-protector, but the longer we stay together, the longer it will take the rumour mill to get going."

The Hokage nodded for him to continue.

"The plan was always for me to start regular ANBU missions again once this was ended, and if I'm often out of the village and Team 7 is frequently seen without me, something is going to get out eventually. So, no point trying to stop the inevitable. We'll just try and cast some doubt on the rumours."

He leant back in the chair.

"Besides, I've been around the team since it started, obviously, and I'll be able to help out. A secondary Sensei." An awkward look overtook his face suddenly.

"I mean, as long as it works out." He added. "If we can't… work together, then obviously we'll have to look at other options."

Kakashi knew what was troubling the boy. For months, he had been just another Genin on the team. A subordinate to Kakashi, and a frustrating team member to Sasuke and Sakura. For the two young - and prideful - Genin to suddenly try and flip their perception of the boy overnight, there might be some problems. In fact, Kakashi noted with mild realization, Naruto would in fact be a superior to himself. He, too, would have to take some time to get used to that.

"I see." Tsunade drawled.

"I'd come and go, just help out with tips and things. Fill in as a team member and such where needed, since there'll be a member down. Obviously I won't be able to fill in for the next Chuunin exams, but I mean, I could help out in other ways." Blue eyes turned to look out the window as he continued. "I still consider the Rookie 9 my friends, so I'd still like to stay around them, if I can."

Kakashi had no doubt the boy had averted his gaze to the window to hide the vulnerability in them. Despite his clear and strong words, Kakashi could hear the light undertones of panic from the boy as he recognized the real possibility of rejection that could come his way.

"He can." The Uchiha surprised the other occupants in the room by biting out his first statement. "I mean, if he's available, we could… learn some things from him." He finished curtly, turning his eyes to the floor immediately.

Kakashi, however, looked up, and ended up meeting the bright blue eyes of the boy who had turned to face the Uchiha as he spoke.

They blinked once, twice, before whiskered cheeks stretched into a grin.

And the room had not felt lighter.

"Great!" Naruto declared, re-invigorated by Sasuke's gruff expression of acceptance. "If that works for you, Hokage-Sama." He added formally.

Tsunade's nose scrunched in disgust.

"That sounds awful, brat!" She shook her head. "Formality doesn't suit you."

Naruto laughed brightly, head flopping to the side.

Tsunade sighed, shaking her head as she rubbed her eyes.

"Alright. Uzumaki Naruto," the addressed boy snapped to attention at her tone of authority. "I hereby award you the official title of Tokubetsu Jonin. Off the record, of course, you shall continue as a member of ANBU. That is not to leave this room."

The occupants nodded at the unmistakable command.

"I'm not promoting you to full Jonin until I've seen what you can do, brat, so you'll just have to deal with that for now." Tsunade grimaced.

Naruto, however, just shrugged cheerfully.

"That's fine. It's just a title anyway. I know what I can do, and once I've been assessed that'll change." The boy spoke.

At that moment, Kakashi truly realized just how different this Naruto was to the one he knew. There was no frustration, or anger at being what was no doubt under-ranked. There was simply respectful acceptance and the promise that he would wait calmly for his chance to show himself.

As though the thoughts had also occurred to Tsunade, it took her a second longer than usual to nod at the boys' declaration.

"Right. Well, there is no way to keep Naruto's abilities completely hidden if he's going to start being as much of an asset to Konoha as he can, but we can certainly keep ANBU status out of the general knowledge. I hereby classify Naruto's ANBU rank as a S-Ranked secret with a Do Not Repeat order." Each Shinobi before her nodded in acceptance.

"Now, go catch Sakura before she has the chance to spread anything around." Tsunade commanded wearily.

Kakashi bowed at the dismissal, bringing his arm up to guide Sasuke from the room. He did not react when Naruto chose not to follow, and instead shut the door behind them with a snap.

Now alone, Tsunade raised her eyebrow at the boy before her.

"Something else you need to mention, Naruto?" Her tone was probing, and she teetered on the line between her 'Hokage' tone and her 'Granny' tone, that she reserved only for Naruto.

"Yes." Blue eyes were wide and calm. "I want to get my team back together."

The room was silent as Tsunade leaned back in her chair.

"All of them?" Tsunade questioned after a pause.

The boy nodded sharply in response, passion burning in his eyes.

The Hokage examined the Uzumaki, taking in his determination and the hint of pleading in his eyes. She understood his wish to re-connect with his teammates. However, she also knew that such an act could disrupt village operations, and one deep-cover mission.

While ANBU Team 4 had been very impressive before their retirement, there was nothing to say that re-forming would grant the same results, or even if team dynamics could reach a workable standard. At least one of the ex-members - the student of her former, corrupt team mate no less - had a well-known temper.

Unblinking blue eyes bored into her own.

Internally, she sighed. Anything for the brat.

"Fine." She was too exhausted for this anyway. "Report back here in one week with a full team."

"Thanks, Baa-Chan!" A blinding smile became a blinding flash as the boy before her disappeared.

Finally fully alone, the blonde Hokage groaned out loud, letting her head fall to her ruined desk with a loud thud.

She really should have held on to that necklace. It really was nothing but trouble.