What can I say? The mistakes I made hurt, so I had to rewrite and y-in-flame was nice enough to work as my beta again. Thank you! Only minor changes, the plot remains the same. Hope you enjoy it noless.

Today was her big day; she had been waiting for so long now. She looked at her reflection on the relatively smooth surface of the water. She let her yellow eyes roam over her face; she saw the dark bags under her eyes, her cheeks were haggard and her messy blue hair gave her more than just a worn look. Today she would leave Kirigakure... how she hated it to be here. The rules the Mizukage set up were horrifying.
She put all the things she had into an old backpack, and those weren't many. She only owned a picture of her parents, a few coins, the clothes she wore and a necklace she got from him. The one who should've saved her, but wasn't able to safe himself in the end.
'Only one last time. You need to know… they won't catch you today,' she told herself, at least that's what she wished.

Silent as a shadow she crept out of her hideout and silently walked towards the cave her targets were sitting in. She hid in the shadows and listened carefully.

"You have the scroll?" she heard one ask.

"Yeah," someone else answered. "Just as I expected, he gave us the orders."

"To assassinate her?" another one asked.

"No, to ask her out, Idiot." She could hear a hard punch. "Of course we should kill her, bonehead! What else?"

"Nothing," grumbled the punched one.

"Minds on the plan! There's only one person that could cause trouble right now."

They were called to order and she strained her ears to hear more.

"That damned Hatake, right?"

"Right. But he's not the only one I wanted to kill. Konoha's leader of the interrogation squad, Ibiki Morino, he tortured me once, and I want my revenge." She could hear him grumble.

"You'll get your chance." She heard a fourth voice, a cold and dangerous one.

"But first kill that Hatake. A reliable source of mine told me that he's coming to us. Seems fate is playing into our hands today. I think he should reach his destination in about one hour. You go there, and then you can have your fun. But don't kill each other when you fight about the bounty." He laughed coldly.

Her eyes widened. Someone found out! She had to leave immediately and catch him before he could reach their meeting-point. She had all the information she needed, and was about to leave as she caught another sentence of the fourth speaker.

"I don't think I have to mention that the traitor who is supposed to be there as well has to be eliminated immediately."

She gulped. Someone had blown her cover! She sped off as fast as possible, running into the forest and the mist.

Kakashi kept moving; he was already on the main island and getting tired. He just had returned from a longer mission and Tsunade had sent him right away again. His order was to meet one of Jiraiya's spies not far away from the Village Hidden in the Mist. He had masked down his chakra, and carefully walked down the path to the designated meeting-point. Inwardly he cursed Tsunade that she sent him there, but she had insisted. Within this country the Sharingan was nearly useless, a fact that rubbed him the wrong way. Two days ago he had taken the last Hyōrōgan he had in his pack and to him it felt as if the effect already started to wear off.

"How will I recognize the informant?" he had asked the Fifth.

"As far as I know, blue hair, yellow eyes and a necklace with a silver moon. You'll know when you see her."

'A girl?' he wanted to ask, but he knew better and kept silent. That was typical Jiraiya. No way the old perverted hermit would have male spies.

He cursed inwardly again and then he stopped dead. He heard something - someone - and this someone was running pretty fast in his direction. Without pausing he jumped into the next tree and waited. But it didn't take long and the source for the noises came into his visual field: a blue haired person came running towards the tree. He could hear her heavy breathing and literally smell her panic. Shortly after he heard the reason why she was running; there was somebody following her.
The woman stumbled and fell over. She cursed and stood up again.

'Since when am I this stupid? I should've known that there would be a guard around… and then I run right into him… I'm such a moron,' she cursed herself.

She nearly fell again, her vision became blurry.

"Not that way..." she cursed, leaning against a tree. "They'll catch me."
And she stumbled away again, since she could hear them now.

"Find her and kill her! She must be the traitor!" one of the pursuers shouted, and the other ones laughed.

"Would be a pleasure."

Kakashi frowned. So this blue haired woman who stumbled through the forest was Jiraiya's spy?
'Normally he preferred blond women,' Kakashi thought while jumping off his branch. He ran up behind her, grabbed her and continued running.

"What the…! Leave me…!"

"I'd better shut up if I were you. Your hunters are hot on our heels."

As she saw the headband and the leaf-symbol she fell quiet immediately. The silver hair, the covered eye... he had to be Hatake Kakashi.

Kakashi managed to bring some safe distance between them and the pursuers, but he knew they wouldn't reach the shore without being detected, let alone disappear into the sea without being tracked. When he felt it safe enough again he sat her down and listened to the surrounding forest.

"Are you able to fight?" he asked and she managed a faint nod.

Shortly after, their pursuers skidded to a halt at the end of the tree line and glared at them.
Inwardly he hoped that she wouldn't turn on him; fighting against six would be too straining right now. Judging from the chakra levels they all showed he should be able to deal with them, but he had to economize with his chakra pool. The woman stumbled one step backwards and touched her wounded shoulder to see if she was still bleeding before she looked at her fellow countrymen calculatingly. She aided Kakashi as well as she could and took down two of the five Shinobi before she sunk down on her knees and fought to remain conscious. Kakashi managed to kill two, but the third was able to get away. He dragged the woman back to her feet and helped her to get into the small boat he had hidden. Out on the sea there was a sailing ship waiting for him.

The way there was silent; she drifted in and out of consciousness. Kakashi watched her from the distance; he remained in the bow while they sailed back to Fire Country. She looked sick; her skin color was yellow and her body too bony for a woman her age. He didn't allow himself to sleep, just to make sure that she didn't pull off any tricks.
As they reached the shore he had to carry her, since she didn't wake up again. The first break he allowed himself and placed her down he heard a quiet 'poof' next to him and he looked down on her again.
Her appearance had changed completely.

'A henge,' he thought. 'Why didn't I notice?'

He sighed and summoned his pack.

"Go look if you can find any of our colleagues. I'm too exhausted to keep this up much longer."
The dogs spread out and he lifted her up again to continue his way home.
Shortly after – and utterly to his surprise – Pakkun appeared in front of him.

"I found Gai," the pug said and turned around just as Team Gai landed only a few steps away.

"Ah, my eternal rival! What's up that you need my youthful help?"

Kakashi said nothing, only tilted his head and shortly looked at the woman who hung limply at his side.

"I think we should take her with us," Tenten said after a short examination. "She needs help. We can remove the weapons for our safety, but I think we don't need to. She looks too ill to move."

Neji nodded.

"She's no danger to us," he said, after a short look at her with his Byakugan. "She's out of chakra."

"Well, then let's go. I'll carry her," Gai said and took her from Kakashi.

"She nearly has no weight. And that was too much for you?" Gai asked but Kakashi only glared at him.

Tenten sympathetically smiled at him and then shrugged, before she nodded towards the road again. Lee tried to talk her into letting him carry her, but she vehemently refused. Neji simply sighed and shook his head.

"You're looking rather worn out yourself," the Hyūga said quietly as he walked next to Kakashi.

"No time to recover, Tsunade just sent me out again immediately," Kakashi muttered back and Neji nodded knowingly.

As they reached the village Gai and Kakashi headed for the hospital, and as soon as they entered a nurse hurried towards them. Shortly after the unconscious Kunoichi lay on a bed and was brought into the next free surgery.

"Where's the Hokage?" Kakashi asked the nurse.

"In her office. Should I call her?"

"No need to, I'll go see her myself," he said and left, while Gai remained behind to keep watch.

"Back already?" she asked him as soon as he had entered her office.

"Yes. But it was a henge; I guess you should know that. She is wearing the necklace and she was followed."

"Jiraiya's notes mentioned that she needed to hide. Perhaps a Kekkei Genkai? At least a henge would allow her to move freely. But she'll get chakra blockers, just to make sure."

Kakashi just nodded, somehow he felt strange. Why did it bug him this much?

Tsunade waved him off as she headed for the hospital, while his feet brought him to the training grounds. He didn't feel in the mood to visit the memorial stone. He tried to read but found himself too distracted. He sighed, and looked up through the leaves. The sun was already setting, and he watched how it colored the clouds. During his many years as a Shinobi he had seen many things, many deaths and sure, some things were distracting him, but why now?
Was it because he felt close to the deceased Sannin? He couldn't decide.

The last day's actions still bugged him, and he left again, wandering through the streets. Somehow his feet led him back to the hospital, and as he entered Tsunade was just leaving the surgery.

"Tsunade-sama?" he asked while trying to sound as bored as always.

"What's wrong, Kakashi?" she asked.

"I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. I… just want to know what's wrong with her," he said and waited how she would react.

"Well, where to start? It appears that she lived on the street and on the run, she's underfed and I won't name you all the deficits she has. She has several diseases I haven't seen in years as well as some infections. Her liver isn't working correctly, hence the yellowish skin color. A healthy immune system can deal with the infections, but hers seems to be close to collapsing. Nothing that won't heal, but it'll take time."

"It appears our colleagues in Kirigakure don't have the best working conditions. But she's a Kunoichi, so she should've earned enough money to live in an apartment, or at least buy food."

"We can only surely speak for our own village, what's going on within the other villages is beyond our knowledge. I'll post two ANBU as guards; I hope this is all is worth the trouble."

Kakashi stood there and looked at her, but his mind was somewhere else.

"If it'll set your mind at ease I can let you know how she's doing," Tsunade suggested and he gave a curt nod.

"Let Mitate check you and then go home and rest. There'll be enough missions to keep you busy in the near future."

He didn't seem pleased but he did as she told him. He started to feel sympathy for the Kiri-nin.