Sakura tapped her foot with impatience. She sighed and glared at Naruto, as if what had happened – again – was his fault. Who knows? In her mind, it might have been. She puffed out her breath.

"Where is Kakashi-sensei!"

Sasuke glanced over at her with his head bowed. He shrugged. He couldn't understand what she was making such a huge fuss about. It wasn't like he wasn't late every day. He looked at Naruto, who was huffing and kicking at the dirt. He thought for a moment longer, than spoke.

"Every single day Kakashi is late, and every single day you guys won't shut up about it. Who cares?"

Narutos eyebrows slanted down, and his eyes squinted shut as he yelled. "Well, I'm gonna do something about it! I'm gonna go find out where Kakashi-sensei went, and tell him to be on time! Where's his house!"

He immediately set off in the wrong direction. Sakura steered him around. "Well, it's that way, but…are you sure we should be doing this?" Inner Sakura threw a fit. "Of course we should be doing this! We'll find him and kick his ASS for him!" She carefully pushed that part away. A sudden thought occured to her.

"Hey, what if he's doing something, you know…" she blushed furiously, as Inner Sakura roared. "We'll still kick his ass for him!" She firmly pushed it away again.

Naruto blinked in confusion. Sakura made vague hand motions. "Well, you know how he's always reading those dirty books…" She trailed. Naruto remained blank until Sasuke made some hand motions that weren't quite as vague as Sakura's, and the light blinked on.

"Oh! You mean he might be beating o—" Sakura slapped him on the back of his head. Hard. "Don't say that in front of a lady, you jerk!" "Even better that way! Tender parts exposed for some REAL hurtin'! Ha ha!"

While Sakura was occupied telling this part of her mind that that was disgusting, Naruto set off for Kakashi's house. He turned back and yelled to his teammates. "Are you guys coming or not!"

Sakura shook her head nervously. "We really shouldn't do this. Right, Sasuke?" She looked over at him for confirmation.

Sasuke looked at her for a second, then shifted his gaze to Naruto. Then, to Sakura's surprise and Naruto's delight, he got up and started to walk after Naruto, who grinned.

"You coming, Sakura?" he yelled. She stared after him in horror and spluttered for a moment. She watched them get farther away, and then rolled her eyes. If this was what it took to get Kakashi to come on time, then by her reputation as a ninja and her undying love for Sasuke, she would do it. Slowly and painfully.

For once she and her inner self were in complete agreement, and she set off after her teammates.

…

"Captain! Brssshh! We're taking on water! Brssshh! We can't hold out, we—AHHHHHHHH! OH NO OH NO OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOARGHHHHHRARARAHGLJKLH…"

Kakashi provided his own sound effects as he gleefully destroyed another toy ship. He gazed in satisfaction at the tiny floating bit of wreckage amid the soap suds. Dutifully he swept his hand to his forehead in a salute, and then carelessly swept the boat out of the tub and onto the bathroom floor (and it really was a bathroom, he kept a whole room reserved for this) and grabbed another to start a new drama. The people at the store were usually rather puzzled as to how he managed to go through them so fast, but no one asked questions of the copy ninja about anything, and certainly not about what he did with his bath toys.

Just as he was about to start his new game, there came a pounding at his door. He ignored it. It got louder. He ignored it some more. Kakashi was pretty good at ignoring things when he wanted to be.

He ducked down under the water so that only his eyes and his nose were above water, and fixed the new toy with a baleful glare. How would this one fare, and against what?

A brilliant idea popped into his head. This new ship would be avenging the other one, of course! It would valiently battle the sea monster, and then—

His plans were interrupted as someone kicked down his front door and came very loudly into his house. Kakashi frowned. He was in the middle of something very important…okay, fairly important…alright, alright, something completely stupid and pointless, but dammit he was enjoying himself! He started to get out of the tub but slipped and sloshed water all over the floor. He could hear his students in the next room.

"Kakashi-sensei! KAKASHI-SENSEI!" There was a loud crash. Alarmed, he tried once more to get out of the large tub but only succeeded in splashing more water. And then the door opened.

"Kakashi-sensei, you—whoops!" There were three identical crashes as Naruto, then Sasuke, and finally Sakura slipped on the water all over the floor and landed with tremendous splashes in the tub.

Kakashi blinked and rubbed soap out of his eyes. He smiled at a very displeased and shocked-looking Naruto, then held out an offering.

"Rubber ducky?"