With the ANBU squad nearly assembled and ready to go, Kakashi felt the familiar tingle of nerves at the base of his spine. It was just a simple espionage mission near Kumo, some crime syndicate had been stirring up trouble a little too far within Lightning Country's borders for comfort, but there was something about the weight of the ANBU chest plate against his sternum that brought up old feelings he'd long left behind. It'd been years since he'd last been sent on a mission as a Black Ops member, and even longer since he'd been on one under someone else's command, but the war was still taking its toll on the number of healthy available shinobi and Tsunade had few other options.

Not that he particularly minded, with someone else functioning as the team's captain Kakashi would have ample opportunity to sit back and enjoy his favorite past-time. The other two ANBU members that made up his team were roughhousing somewhere to his left, rolling around in the dirt and loudly shouting curses and threats. One would expect a certain level of subtlety from Konoha's best assassins, but considering the black ops with his face smashed into the ground was Shiranui, Kakashi couldn't muster the energy to feign surprise. While certainly nowhere near Naruto's level of rowdiness, his long time friend certainly wasn't a master of the art of delicacy.

Said man gave a triumphant whoop as he flipped the other ANBU member over and rolled him into an arm bar. An incredibly mussed Kotetsu huffed and tapped a submission into the calf Genma had wrapped around his shoulder socket, reclaiming his arm with a wince.

Genma wasted no time in skipping over, throwing an arm around the taller man's shoulders, grinning like a mad man.

"So? What do you think?"

Kakashi contemplated the likelihood of convincing Genma that he'd suddenly gone deaf so he could read in peace.

"Think of what?" Kakashi drawled, making a show of meticulously dog-earing his page and turning to face his comrade. Genma just rolled his eyes like he knew Kakashi knew the answer was obvious.

"Our captain, lazy ass."

Kakashi raised his visible brow and ignored the slight.

"I can't imagine I'd be able to form any opinions on him at the moment, considering I haven't met him yet," he said in a bored tone, fingers reverently tracing the outline of Icha Icha in his pants pocket.

Genma's face screwed into a cross between confusion and mirth, and Kotetsu outright scoffed from behind him.

"Tsunade didn't tell you who it was in the mission briefing?" He asked, tone two pitches higher in incredulity.

Ah, the mission briefing. That had been this morning, hadn't it? He'd meant to make his way to the Hokage's tower after training this morning, but then he'd run into Yamato and couldn't pass up the opportunity to skeeze breakfast off the innocent wood user, and then there had been an unfortunate incident with some yogurt and his jounin pants and he'd been forced to return home to change just as the check arrived. Once in the refuge of his apartment, Icha Icha had dug its irresistible claws into him and he was lost to the world for the better part of the afternoon.

Only when it turned early evening, the sun was finishing its pitch behind the mountainous walls that surrounded the village and a cool breeze kicked up dirt along the well worn path out of the village, had the jounin realized he had a mission to leave for sometime relatively soon.

It only just occurred to him, while possible his lack of knowledge pertaining to their exact scheduled meeting time could be to blame, he was nevertheless in fact early. They'd been waiting for nearly ten minutes now.

Kakashi crinkled his eye and gave a half-hearted shrug.

"I must have missed it," he said. His partners simultaneously rolled their eyes.

Genma opened his mouth to no doubt rib Kakashi on his habit of perpetual lateness, but was interrupted by a cheerful voice from somewhere behind the silver haired man.

"Maa, are you lost, Jiji-san? Do you need me to escort you home?"

If he hadn't spent the past decade or so of his life listening to that particular voice, Genma and Kotetsu's wolfish grins would have given away his new team captain's identity anyway.

"Is that a proposition, Sakura-chan?" He asked with an air of innocence, placing his hand over his heart in feigned surprise.

The pinkette rolled her eyes, as people seemed to be doing around him frequently tonight, and shot him a grin that would have made a lesser man (Genma) tremble.

"You wish," she teased, fluidly tossing their masks to each of them. Kakashi caught his with ease, and took a moment to really study his former student under the guise of surprise at her appearance. The flexible cotton of the standard ANBU bodysuit fit her well, complimenting the paleness of her skin and stretching over the visible tone of her muscles. Two short swords crossed each other on her shoulder blades, hooked to the back of her chest armor and peeking over her slender shoulders. With the pale bone and sharp red of her panther mask resting against her cheek bone, she looked more like an ANBU captain than he thought someone he had watched grow from a preteen had any right to.

"You shouldn't say such things to old men, you know. They might mistake your meaning for something else," he admonished, the picture of innocence.

"Pervert," Kotetsu muttered into his scroll.

"Louse," Genma coughed into his hand.

Sakura paused in her fastening of her mask to shoot them all an amused if not slightly exasperated look.

"Right," she said, slipping back into the professional no-nonsense side of herself he had come to associate with either unpleasant post-mission stays at the hospital or Naruto's pitiful moans. "Have you guys all read the mission materials?"

The traitorous half of his team nodded dutifully from behind him like well behaved children answering to their mother. When their captain saw that there was one member of her team suspiciously still, she raised a brow and leveled him with an expectant look. Great, now his former student turned direct superior was going to think he really was an incompetent old man.

He rubbed at the back of his neck in sheepish gesture, feeling equally stupid for both not going to a debriefing for an espionage mission of all things, and for having to actually admit that to someone thirteen years his junior and a former student.

"Well, you see, I was helping poor Yamato open his yogurt," he started, only to be cut off when his favorite student impatiently raised her hand and shooed away his excuses.

"We don't have time," she said simply, tossing him a scroll from the pouch wrapped around her thigh. "Read while we travel."

Genma couldn't have pulled a more smug expression if he tried, scooping up his pack and prancing after Sakura's retreating back. Kakashi hefted his own pack over his shoulder and bit back a long sigh. He was definitely not feeling embarrassed by his former student's snuff, and he even more certainly could not feel his cheeks warming underneath his mask.

The group devolved into silence as they took to the trees, the whistling sound of wind and passing trees taking over. Kakashi unraveled the scroll and resigned himself to catching up on all the information he should have memorized earlier that morning, hopping from branch to branch with a mechanical grace and sneaking furtive glances at his former student's back when he was sure neither of his teammates were looking.

1. Heyoo.

2. So, this story has been in my head forever and I only recently felt confident enough in my writing to actually attempt it. It will be multichapter, but not super long.

3. Please be sure to review if you'd like me to assign more priority into updating this.

4. Hachi will be updated soon, don't worry.