Sasuke sighed, his breath warming the mask on his face. He was leaning up against the wall outside the Hokage's office with one leg propped up beneath him and his arms crossed over his chest. Off to one side, his teammates, Naruto and Sakura, were speaking with no regard for the people around them. As usual.
"Ne, Sakura-chan," the dobe was saying. "What do you think happened? Kakashi-sensei left in such a hurry, it has to be an emergency—believe it!"
"Shut up, Naruto!" Sakura flipped her hair and scooted closer to Sasuke—as though he wouldn't notice. "It can't have been too terrible, since they called us here as soon as he came back. Don't you think, Sasuke-kun?"
Sasuke sighed again, leaning his head back against the wall. To be honest, he was also worried. There were few things that could motivate their sensei, and his daughter was one of them. If something had happened to Hana...
"Tch, teme, doesn't that mask get icky? Do you wash it?" Naruto's face was scrunched up and his head tilted in confusion before a wide, blindingly bright smile split his face. "Maybe I should start wearing one, too! We'd all match!"
"Oh, come on, Naruto," Sakura sniffed. "You'd just take it off all the time to eat ramen or something."
"Hehe, yeah, you're probably right."
Sasuke looked away. He'd gotten a lot of grief when he first started wearing the mask—Hana had, too, but she never seemed bothered by that sort of thing. His fellow students had harped on him much in the way Naruto just had, and his 'fan-club' had lamented the 'loss of his face'—blaming Hana for it all the while—before accepting it as a part of his 'mystique'.
Girls were strange.
They were right about one thing, though. The mask had been Hana's idea. After Kakashi-sensei—it was still weird to call him that—took him in, they'd shared a bedroom for a good six months. It only took her a week to notice he was avoiding the mirrors—it was probably less, but he hadn't noticed her noticing—and she went to her father for a mask. He'd initially refused, so afraid of seeming weak in any context, but her words cut his pride down to size.
"I imagine the only thing worse than seeing a corpse in the mirror is seeing a murderer."
That one phrase told him more about her than any of their conversations before or since.
The mask, coupled with a much shorter haircut, lessened the resemblance between him and that man. If it added to his 'mystique' or whatever, it made no difference to him.
The door to the Hokage's office opened, drawing all of Team 7's attention. Their sensei stepped out and raised a hand with a smile.
"Yo."
"Sensei, where did you go?" Sakura asked with a scowl. "You didn't even tell us you were leaving!"
"Mah, Sakura-chan," Kakashi held his hands out in front of his as if to protect himself from her anger. "It's not my fault. Hana needed my help."
He looked over his shoulder almost pleadingly at his daughter who sighed, brows scrunching in a fond display of exasperation.
"Mah, daddy. You're such a handful."
"What the heck, there are more of you?"
A lot of people spilled out into the hallway, one of them—a taller boy wearing a bodysuit and face paint—looking at Sasuke with wide eyes. The blonde girl beside him rolled her eyes and the red headed boy simply scowled. Their headbands marked them as Suna ninja, and Sasuke spent all of a moment wondering what they were doing in Konoha before he remembered.
"Oi," Naruto pointed a finger at the foreigner. "What are they doing here?"
"Dobe," Sasuke scolded. "We're hosting the Chunin Exams, this year. Hana's taking them, remember?"
The blond rubbed sheepishly at the back of his head. "Oh yeah, heheh."
Another sigh.
"Ne, Gaara-kun," Hana said with a smile in her voice. "These are my nii-chan, Sasuke, my friend Naruto, and their teammate, Sakura. Guys, this is Gaara, my new friend, and his big brother and sister."
The red head said nothing, pale eyes passing over them all in favor of lingering on Hana.
Oh, geeze.
He exchanged a meaning laden glance with his sensei. Good, they were in agreement.
"Come, we should find our accommodations," the adult with a Suna headband said. "Thank you for your assistance, Nara-san, Hatake-san."
The Suna group began walking away, with the red head—Gaara—lagging behind until Hana waved him happily away.
Kakashi placed his hands on Sasuke and Hana's heads, ruffling their hair with a chuckle. "Well, kiddos, what do you say we meet at the usual training ground in, say, half an hour? We've got a few things to talk about."
He shunshined away before they could answer.
"Great, so you mean we came all the way here for nothing?"
"Not for nothing, Sakura-chan," Naruto disagreed with a frown. "We got to see Hana-chan!"
He wrapped his arms around the smaller girl's shoulders, grinning like a fool. She smiled up at him despite the mess he was making of her hair.
"I missed you, too, Naru-nii."
Sakura huffed and crossed her arms. "Well, I'm going home. Sensei probably won't be there for a couple hours, anyway."
She was right. Even Hana shrugged in agreement.
Kakashi was not a punctual man.
"So, guys," Hana said as she looped her arms between his and Naruto's. "How's life been?"
They started walking through the halls, Naruto rambling on about anything and everything. They stepped out into the afternoon sun, and Sasuke had to shield his eyes from the light.
"Meh, same old same old," Naruto answered with a huff. "Ever since our mission to the Land of Waves, everything's been boring."
"That's a good thing, Naru-nii." Hana shook her head with a sigh. "Exciting missions mean someone's probably in danger."
Sasuke knew she was right, but he couldn't help agreeing with Naruto—not that he'd ever say so. He'd improved more on one exciting mission than a dozen boring ones.
"Mah, you two," she said, clearly reading Sasuke's mind. "One day, you'll be grateful for the boring missions."
He met Naruto's gaze over her head.
Yeah, no.
"Ne, Hana-chan," Naruto said, not so smoothly changing the subject. "Are you really taking the Chunin Exams this year?"
"Un," she agreed. "I think it's about time I gave it a go."
Sasuke nodded. "You need a team for that, right?"
"Yeah. I don't know who I'll take it with, yet. I'll have to decide, soon, though, so we can train together before the Exams start."
Naruto's face scrunched up in the way it did when he was thinking really hard. "Do you have any ideas who you'll pick?"
"Nope!" She popped the p and slipped her arms out of theirs, running up ahead of them to kick at a loose stone. "And I don't want to think about that, right now. Come on, we're gonna be late."
Sasuke felt his eyebrow quirk and she wrinkled her nose at him.
"Come on, we can spar while we wait for daddy to show up. I have an idea I want to test with my seal and your fire ball."
That sounded interesting.
"Ne, Hana-chan, what about me?"
She put on an obvious show of thinking it over, tilting her head this way and that. "Well, I am a little curious about what'll happen to a shadow clone if I swallow it. What do you think?"
Sasuke smiled beneath his mask, watching his friends as they walked along the path ahead of him. Hana looked over her shoulder at him and extended her hand.
"Come on, silly. Let's go set things on fire."
Yeah, it would definitely be interesting.