Lost on the Road of Life (An AU Naruto Quest)

"Ichihara," Kakashi said, approaching the girl's bedside. She had finally been untied after about ten days strapped to the cot, but since being freed, she hadn't moved around much. The burns on her calves and thighs had yet to fully heal, so walking around probably would have caused her intense pain. Yet, Kakashi liked to think that he would have made at least one escape attempt by now. If he didn't know her better, he would almost think she was brooding.

The fact that she hadn't tried it yet (even though at times she was only being minded by Ryuuzaki's civilian aide) made him wonder if she even wanted to return to Glacier. As he approached, she looked back at him with a strange, dull expression in her eyes. After a moment, she pulled that haze back and smiled at him. "Hello! How are you-"

Kakashi quickly interrupted before she could start the bubbling, haphazard streams of conversation that she defaulted to around him. "You've got plenty of reason to dislike me. I probably killed a lot of your friends to get at Rouga just a couple days ago, and even if you didn't like him, that's pretty bad. Now, you probably can't go back since I told Rouga's sis that you were working with me, but you probably wouldn't want to anyway, considering." As he spoke, Mieko's face lost its smile, and she looked at him with a calm, yet serious expression.

Kakashi continued, "Glacier probably wouldn't be after your neck, given that they're going to be in a state of chaos. That's assuming that they even survive the next couple months, of course. You can go wherever you want. I'm sure the Yaks could use a hand, but if you didn't want to go with them, you could come with me."

She immediately lit up, grin splitting her face. "Yes! I do want to come with you! I'm so glad that even when you leave Snow, I'll be able to keep on being useful to you." Kakashi, bone-tired as he was, could detect the hints of strain at the edges of her eyes. She was lying, maybe even to herself.

Kakashi sighed. "I don't think you're actually thinking about what I'm asking. C'mon, don't just answer what you think you want me to hear. I want to know what you actually think."

Mieko stopped. Her grin fell away, leaving her serious again. After a moment, she started to smile once more, but something in her eyes shifted and it slowly slipped off again. Her eyes had assumed that same dull look from earlier, and she looked off into the middle distance. Kakashi took the opportunity to grab a couple of the cookies he had left out for her, breaking off chunks and dropping them down his mask.

"No, I don't think I want to," she whispered after a minute of reflection, in the quietest voice he'd heard her make so far. "I-"

Kakashi cut her off. "That's fine, of course. Wouldn't want to bring you along if you didn't want to come. The Yakuza here can set you up somewhere nice while you heal up, or Ayeka can take you along, or you can take some money -- here," he fished around for a storage seal with a smaller amount of ryou, "and go wherever you like, get treated by whoever you like, and take care of yourself. There shouldn't be any hunter-nin after you for at least a couple months, maybe ever if you lie low and Glacier doesn't recover well. Figure out where you want to go and I can get you set up for travel."

Mieko nodded at that and gulped. Her jaw worked as if she wanted to say something, but her mouth stayed closed. Kakashi saw the tension in her throat and eyes, the way her eyes pinched underneath to keep from getting watery; the girl was clearly on the verge of tears. As she opened her mouth to reply, Kakashi turned away and started to leave. Nope, not worth the trouble.

He heard a word half-spoken die as she pulled her mouth shut again. I barely provided emotional support to my friends, and you don't qualify. If you're not going to be my ally, I'll make sure you're alive and get better from your injuries, but beyond that, whatever you want is not my problem.


Kakashi silently moved over the surface of the water, sending chakra to the soles of his feet to keep himself above the gently lapping waves of the Kushiro bay. He had been waiting for days for the winter ice floes to finally clear out of the port so that ships could sail back to the main continent. Eventually, he had decided to take fate into his own hands.

Last night, he had unanchored the largest icebergs hemming the bay in with his Fire Dragon Bullet, even though every ninjutsu he used caused the deep, aching pain in his chest to worsen. A few storage seals of meat convinced some chakra walruses to break through the ice of the bay and tear it up enough that ships would be free to sail. Kushiro's merchant ships had been holding back on travel for well over a week at this point, but today, they all set sail back to the continent and its various locales.

He approached The Winter Witch, his stowaway ship of choice as it plowed through a field of brash ice. The sailors aboard the ship were keeping a good eye out, since chakra walruses had recently been spotted close to land, but Kakashi was both smaller and more agile. Within seconds of leaving his cover, he clung to the side of the ship with all fours. Switching from water-walking chakra repulsion to tree-climbing chakra adhesion was an old trick for Kakashi, yet with his newly maimed chakra coils, every manipulation of his life-giving chakra worsened his pain. He bit his teeth. He couldn't afford to make a sound while the sailors were on lookout right overhead.

Fucking frigid wasteland, Kakashi thought as icy-cold water sprayed up from the advancing bow of the Witch, I'm never coming back here again. He could feel his skin starting to freeze as the water advanced through his layers of clothing, soaking the furs and his hair. Kakashi waited, still against the side of the ship, hoping that none of the sailors thought to look directly down. Any minute now would be good, me.

In the distance, on the far side of the ship, Kakashi heard the sound of several large explosions going off. The Witch's sailors ran to the side of the ship to see what had caused the noise, and he slid over the ship's railing and ducked below decks before they could return to their posts. His Shadow Clone aboard The Southern Breeze actually had pretty good timing. Kakashi quickly found a cargo hold and stripped off his wet clothing, storing it away and quickly donning a fresh, dry, and blessedly warm set.

Memories streamed in from the Shadow Clone, which had donned his Mr. Tominaga disguise and bought passage to the Land of Rice. The disguise was known, meaning any pursuers would hopefully assume that he had chosen to go to Rice.

His second Shadow Clone, which popped as it passed out of range around him, had taken a less obvious approach, donning a new disguise and secluding itself into a private cabin on a completely different ship. Leaf ninja were skilled, and they knew something about how he thought. If they managed to figure out that Mr. Tominaga's quick exit was a sham without an extended wild-goose chase through Rice, they would look deeper and find another trip booked suspiciously quickly, heading for Hot Springs.

Meanwhile, Kakashi had told no one that he instead intended to stowaway on a ship to a trade city in northern Lightning. He cracked open another crate, and found that, finally, there was enough room for a grown man to sit inside. It was half-filled with some sort of spiced animal jerky, the scent of which made his mouth curl slightly in disgust. He quickly stiffened out his expression. Jerky, however foul, was better than getting killed by hunter-nin.

Kakashi stepped into the jerky-box and closed the lid overhead. He would have to get out a little bit before The Winter Witch anchored in Lightning country and find an escape route that didn't involve being seen, but that problem didn't concern him while he had Shadow Clones. Maybe by the time they arrived, his chakra coils would feel good enough to the point that he would feel comfortable with casting it.

Of course, on the off chance that the hunters saw through his second Shadow Clone disguise, his Frost Yakuza affiliates had also booked a return ship home, and at his request, Ryuuzaki had dressed up Mieko in suspiciously concealing clothing. Hopefully, her naturally fearful demeanour would make onlookers think that the Frost Yakuza were smuggling someone who didn't want to be seen or known -- another foil for Kakashi's true plans. They would be lying low to the best of their ability for a little while, giving anyone on Kakashi's tail yet another obstacle to overcome to find his true location. Besides, he had told them that he intended to go to Mountain.

Kakashi settled down into the crate, pointedly ignoring the jerky-smell that puffed around him. Sadly, his current set of clothing would have to be scrapped. Still, he couldn't help but feel pretty satisfied. Glacier had been decapitated, his client was safe, and there really shouldn't be anyone chasing after him in any meaningful capacity for a long, long time. Isn't it great to finish off a mission with no loose ends?


Nadare Kimiko slowly rose to her feet. Everywhere she looked, the colors of the world had drained away. Even the distinct crystal-clear blues of the ice sheets marking World's Edge had finally lost their shine.

Rouga was dead. Rouga had fought for the village up to the bitter end, trying to find the path that kept them all safe from the threat of Hidden Leaf. He had been right, in the end, that the rest of the world was foul and corrupt. They had sent their servants to Snow to kill and sabotage for no reason other than their own idle entertainment, lording their power over the people of the north who were too powerless to stop it. Even Rouga, the strongest of the strong… even he fell without even a chance to fight back.

Koyasu had died in an ambush, where the Copy Ninja only toyed with him. Himura didn't even have the chance to attack once before the Copy Ninja broke his neck… Now, she was the only one with a semblance of power in Glacier… if her abilities could be called power.

What's the point of dodging well, if all it allows me to do is run away while my family dies?

She looked at the small grave she had dug in the permafrost tundra. She had hardly been coherent when she had stumbled back into World's Edge, and her carelessness showed through the dozens of small cuts that criss-crossed her coats. She had wanted to bring Rouga back to Glacier, even though she knew that he was dead, but when she imagined his severed head, floating down to the depths under the ice sheet… by the time she returned to her senses, her hands were raw and bloody and numb, and the grave had already been half-finished.

What power do I need in order to keep my family safe?

Rouga had been obsessed with that question for almost his whole life. He had thought that he finally had that power, he had thought that Glacier was finally safe against threats when he turned his sights on not just safety, but greatness. He had been wrong, and his power had been far from enough to keep himself safe, much less Glacier. But at least he had tried. Rouga had tried to make a better life for them so far from civilization, whereas she had only tried to keep herself alive. She had been so selfish.

He had told her, of course, that she should focus on keeping herself alive, but why couldn't she see that everyone who told her that always died? They claimed not to want protection, but they were the ones that needed it the most. Mother, Father, Shoji, Kanai, Hideo, and now Rouga… Who was there left, that she could amend her mistakes?

There were less than twenty-five ninja in Glacier at this point, Kimiko realized, as she looked at the unmarked grave. She started to look for a small stone to mark the location, as she considered. There were maybe five Koyasu left, and they would rebel as soon as they found out that their new Clan Head had died. With Asato and his daughter dead, their main line was gone and with it, many of their best techniques. Maybe three of her cousins had survived, the Nadare having suffered the greatest losses from the civil war and from the war with Leaf both. And then what, a few clanless genin and chuunin, and handful of genin from lesser clans that would be coming out of the tunnels?

Would Kimiko have to lead them? She couldn't. She wasn't a natural leader like Rouga. She didn't have the vision. She didn't know the techniques that Rouga used to keep himself safe or sense intruders. They would never trust her, not with so many dead to a faraway threat that she had survived unharmed. The clanless now outnumbered the clans, she realized. Would they try to take power from her? Sage's word, she was a brand-new jounin. She couldn't handle this.

She found a long, thin slab of stone and started carving onto it. She had to survive. She wanted the power to protect, but there was nothing, nobody for her to protect now. Everyone who she had ever known had wanted her to stay safe, so she would do that, for their memories. She would learn from Rouga's notes and the words of their ancestors, she would figure out what he had been searching for and find it, and she would fulfill his dreams so that he would be able to rest in peace.

She stabbed the stone marker into the ground, above where Rouga's head would have been. Nadare Rouga. Leader. Brother. Protector.

And once she had fulfilled the destiny of her clan, that same destiny that had gripped Rouga's heart till the very end… she would kill the people that had made her walk that road alone. Starting with you, Hatake Kakashi.


Kakashi looked at himself in the mirror. He had never been able to grow a lot of facial hair before, but now that he had finally stopped shaving for a couple weeks, he somehow had a healthy centimeter of moustache and beard around his lower face. Unsurprisingly, his facial hair was the same grey-white color that his head sported, though if he pulled his face closer to the mirror and stretched out the skin of his cheek, he thought the color seemed slightly darker in some patches.

Growing facial hair seemed a little too stereotypical for even an Icha Icha protagonist, but Kakashi wouldn't complain. Every change to his appearance was an advantage, of course, when on the run.

On the run really wasn't a metaphor at all. Kakashi's arms were aching and tired as he reached out to his bottle of hair dye. He started to work the dye into his hair, letting his normally unruly shock of hair fall limp around his face. He had run nonstop across Lightning country from the west to the east, reaching the port city of Okunai after almost a week of agonizing effort. Kakashi hadn't wanted to stress his system more by using chakra to move, but after about a day travelling at a snail's pace in a civilian caravan, he decided to take the direct route through the mountains.

It had almost been more agonizing to run for hours on end at ninja speeds, yet it would have taken so much longer to walk the twisting, winding mountain paths that the caravans took. On his route, he could see their path from above, and he knew it would have taken weeks, if not months to cross Lightning country. Even if the mountains were dangerous, travelling them was worth the time saved. He had actually run across a fair few chakra beasts, and one of them, a strange goat-like thing covered in eyes, had even taken a chunk out of his calf before he came to his senses and used Hiding Like a Mole to avoid getting brained. That had worsened the chakra overdraw pain. At least he could avoid chakra usage for a couple of days now.

Slowly, his hair absorbed the dye, leaving him with a limp mop of plain, ordinary black. A few cuts with a kunai evened it out into a nice, boring, slightly unkempt bowl cut. Kakashi sighed at his new appearance and started dying his beard. Life as a legendary missing-nin had to have its downs, he supposed, so that it could have its ups.

Once he arrived in Okunai, he had quickly found a ship leaving for the eastern continent. The Land of Sky apparently did plenty of trade with Lightning, and he barely had to wait two days to catch a ride. He had figured it would be easy enough to poison a host of the ship's crew as they celebrated one last night on the town before they were back to the seas, and he had been right. Now, all that remained was to replace the newly disqualified ex-sailor miscreants.

Kakashi washed off the excess dye, then slowly affixed the eye-patch over the left side of his face. He barely recognized himself anymore. No more Copy Ninja, just a scruffy young sailor who had read one too many books about the ancient pirate lords in the Land of Water.

Kakashi left the bathroom out the window he entered, careful not to wake the family that lived in the house, and made his way down to the docks. He arrived just at the crack of dawn as the Flying Crane was getting ready to sail with the morning tide. He loitered around the docks with a couple of vagabonds, waiting for the captain to come storming out of the ship looking for new hands.

The captain came storming out of the ship, dragging a pair of incredibly drunken (and poisoned) men by the collars. He tossed them onto the rough wooden planks of the dock in a feat of strength that made Kakashi half-suspect chakra enhancement, before he turned to the few onlookers at the side.

"I'm looking for new hands for a trip to Sky. Don't need to be clever, or even awful strong. Just have to follow instructions and not get drunk off your ass when we anchor in Sky. Any of you reprobates feel like making your mommas proud and earning a few thousand ryou?"

Kakashi raised his hand to volunteer as the ruffians around him looked about in confusion, and quickly stepped aboard as the captain gestured him on impatiently.

Eastern continent, here I come.


"We got a job."

Darui groaned as Kaien stepped in. "Another one? We just got back from the southern isles." He twisted in his chair, draping himself over the armrests to look Kaien in the eye. "Let's chill out for a few weeks more and hand it off to someone else in the village."

"No can do, D-man," Kaien said, holding up a paper that was definitely not a mission scroll. "It's not orders from the top, but it's also not some quick cash from a nobleman. Nope, we got an insurance contract to fulfill."

"Oh really? You told Ryuujin already?"

"Nah, haven't been able to find him," Kaien said as he made an exaggerated gesture of looking around. "You know where he is?"

"No clue, probably off in town somewhere. Anyways, who kicked the bucket?"

"Goda Jin, from Snow."

Darui sucked in his breath. "Oh my, I think that's the biggest fish we've seen so far."

Kaien nodded. "Yeah, he was paying us a quarter-mil a month." Darui whistled softly. "He's been on contract with us for… what, a couple years now?"

"Yeah, that sounds like it's before my time. Should I go rustle up the boys?"

Kaien cocked his head. "Yeah. Tell 'em to get ready real well though, I'm pretty sure the bigger contract means a bigger fish." Kaien extended the paper over, and Darui caught it out of the air.

"Let's see… Killed a couple weeks ago in his office, ninja with white hair, Leaf ANBU look-" Darui shot to his feet, subconsciously getting into a battle stance even as he pulled the paper close to his face. "Kaien, this has gotta be Sharingan Kakashi, right?"

"Yeah, sounds right. Used Shadow Clones too. So anyway, go rustle up the boys and tell 'em to get ready with everything they got. If we can take down the Copy Ninja for crossing one of our contracts, things'll be good. Not only will everyone with half a ryou's sense flock to us for protection, but no one will try to hit our clients. We'll be rolling in it for no work at all."

Darui's face split in a predatory grin. "Looks like Storm's Fang is finally going hunting for some real prey."


Kakashi's eyes followed the words written on the page, completely entranced by the adventures of Yuuta. At long last, he had vanquished the Great Beast Which Preys Upon the Clouds Themselves, and ended the drought that plagued the kingdom, though it had required the sacrifice of the wisest and most noble of men, their king. Now, Yuuta was reclining in his bedroom as the salacious queen regent snuck in. He jumped up at first, expecting assassins, but instead only saw her in a nightgown on the verge of falling off her shoulders. What are you doing here? he asked. Giving the man who saved my lands the reward he deserves, she replied. She shrugged, and her dress-

Kakashi turned the page.

"Hey, you!" The ship's captain spun around with almost shocking speed at the sound of the paper sliding against paper. "Stop slacking and get to work on those ropes! Winds are picking up, so fix those sails or I'll toss you overboard, you lazy, no-good son of a bitch!"

Kakashi shot a foul look at the captain and earmarked the page before going back to hauling rope.


Frog sat across from Daimyo Kazahana, who seemed visibly shaken from his brief encounter with Dragon. Would it kill the Captain to not scare the shit out of every civvie he met? It wasn't even killing intent, she thought. He managed stealth and infiltration just fine, and people who watched him from the sidelines felt no oppressive aura. No, something about a straight conversation with him always made the civvies feel… pious, to say the least.

"I'm sorry, sir, ma'am. I told you, your captain, everything I know. I don't-"

Frog interrupted him. "We don't want to hurt you." She punctuated the statement with a friendly smile, but the expressionless mask probably hurt her attempt at being friendly. It was about the spirit of it. "You're a client of Leaf, and as best as we can tell, you've done nothing wrong." Well, except maybe exploiting Kakashi's foolish, headstrong nature and baiting him into fighting all of Glacier on the Daimyo's behalf, but that was firmly Kakashi's weakness. "However, the Captain thinks you're not telling us everything. If you've told us everything you know for sure, then tell us what you think you know. Anything about the situation helps."

The Daimyo gulped and breathed as deeply as he could. After a moment, he said "let's see. I told you about how he guarded and protected me, and about how he went above and beyond to clear out the threats of the Yakuza against my family. He also found my brother's plot against me and fought against Glacier on my behalf. Other than that… I fear the consequences of speaking ill against a ninja of the Leaf, but I have to say, he was oddly insistent on planning for the full duration of our contract. He seemed to want to stay on retainer for the full eight weeks after the festival."

Frog inclined her head. "This is new information. Thank you for sharing it with us. Why did you conceal it? How is it speaking ill?"

"I did not intend to conceal it, I simply did not want to put forth something I did not understand fully. We ordinary men hardly understand the affairs of ninja, you see?" Frog nodded, but the Daimyo paused, visibly thinking over his words. He spoke again, as slowly as he could, as if each word were dancing on a thin sheet of ice above a churning whirlpool. "I think… Hatake wished me to prepare for him and wait for his return the full eight weeks. I fear… he wished to use that time… to desert."

Frog nodded, face expressionless behind her mask even as her heart thundered in her chest. "Kakashi, desert? That sounds absurd."

The Daimyo bowed deeply, head nearly to the floor. "I apologize, I do not mean to suggest that my words are the Sage's truth. I would far rather speak what I know for certain rather than what I merely suspect. Yet, you have been insistent, so I must comply. I have become a good judge of character in my time as the leader of this part of Snow, and I know many a thing about many a people. I do not mean to say that I fully understand Hatake's mind or motives. Instead, I merely wish to say that this is the impression that he gave me. My sincerest apologies."

Frog nodded. "Anything else?"

The Daimyo continued, "Well, he did leave my brother in the dungeons below the castle, before it collapsed in the fighting with Glacier. When I spoke with my brother Dotou, he told me of an apparently wondrous family heirloom…"


Kakashi stepped off the ship and onto the eastern continent for the first time. Well, it wasn't the first time, technically, but he wasn't going to count the two hours of unloading crates while pretending to be a moderately-fit civilian as his first time on new soil. Now freed from the ship and his cover story, he waited a couple of minutes for the rest of the sailors to stream into the streets of the town before setting foot on new soil for his first time. He inhaled deeply, letting the air fill his lungs, savoring the new scent. Something in the air felt different. Maybe it was slightly dusty with a new kind of dirt, or perhaps they used different spices in this part of the world.

Hm, I wonder if they have a different baking tradition?

Kakashi shook his head out of the thought, cutting himself off before he could start imagining himself as an internationally famed chef who combined techniques from the east and west, using old ingredients in new, innovative ways that stunned-

Kakashi cut off that thought as well, and he started walking through the streets. Information on Sky had been pretty scarce in Leaf, but he knew a couple of things about them in the roughest sense. First, Sky was one of the few countries on the eastern continent that had an actual ninja village, and that made them dangerous. They probably had people in this city, though as he walked out of the port and into the streets, he saw no one overseeing the primary point of ingress. He probably didn't understand their threat model.

Second, Sky was big. It seemed like it would be small, being in the middle of nowhere, but rather all that meant was that people were spread out over an area almost as big as the Land of Rivers. That was good, because he could just go into the country and there would be no one to spot him. That was bad, because he was still severely injured, and the lack of population meant the chakra beasts were going to be absolutely horrendous to deal with.

Third, Sky was still a bit of a joke. Eastern continent nations struggled to project as much force as on the mainland, and it showed. Pretty much any missing-nin who thought they could make it out east would come to get away from the heat on the mainland, and unless Sky wanted to spend all their manpower firefighting the flow of missing-nin into the eastern continent, they had to let them pass. Kakashi could just waltz through their country and they probably wouldn't do anything to stop him, as long as he wasn't overly destructive.

Sadly, the missing-nin infestation in the east meant there would be hunter-nin as well, though probably no one worth their salt as a ninja, especially in the wake of the Third War. Potential allies, and potential threats.

Kakashi found a quiet apothecary backroom to swap out his eyepatch for his mask and ready his gear. The black hair would have to stay for a few days more, at least, but slipping on the mask was comforting. He felt almost naked when his chin wasn't covered. As he stepped out into the streets, he heard the sounds of people talking with foreign accents, smelled the scent of foreign foods, and felt the air of a new world filled with new adventures.

He started moving south, towards Honey.


Frog danced atop a thousand interlocking shards of ice, each one sharp enough to split skin and muscle like a kunai through summer grapes. The ice slowly levelled away and she came to a gradual stop as she surveyed the destruction ahead of her. The glacier stood upright like a giant mountain of ice, and its exposed face glittered in the sunlight, polished smooth by having melted and refrozen a million times over. One massive swath of that face, a nearly circular area, seemed to have collapsed inwards, a giant, gaping crater in the side of the mountain from which steam faintly rose, as if in the aftermath of a massive Fire Release technique. On a small ledge protruding above the crater, Frog could barely make out Dragon squatting and eyeing her.

Dragon jumped down from his ledge and slid against the surface of the ice down to where the team was forming up. Dragon, a man of middling height with neutral-toned skin and plain, short black hair, seemed unremarkable except for the mask he wore over his face. His appearance had clearly been carefully curated to avoid giving away a shred of information about his identity -- even his build was carefully generic for male ninja and his clothing plain and just large enough to hide any noteworthy scars. Bear, a woman only slightly younger than she was, came up on her left, and Panther, a tall and broad man with an oversize oudachi on his back, caught up a moment before Dragon reached them.

"Very impressive, sir," Frog said. "Is this the location of Hidden Glacier?"

"Was," replied Dragon.

Bear spoke, her voice quiet as always. "What did you find? I assume you asked some pointed questions?"

Dragon shrugged. "No Kakashi." His voice was strangely muffled, as it always was. Frog thought it was some sort of Wind Element technique, but she had never caught Dragon casting it.

"Alright," Frog said. "So Glacier's ninja last saw Kakashi in a fight at the Daimyo Kazahana's castle, where he absolutely fucked them up and escaped unharmed. Since then, he hasn't been seen anywhere but Kushiro, where he was booking ships to pretty much everywhere but back to the Land of Fire. Daimyo thinks he's going missing, couple other sources corroborate. Did I lay everything out correctly?"

Dragon nodded. Everyone was quiet for a second, before Bear said, "Kakashi's pulling a shell game, right? None of the ships have him."

Panther scoffed. "Obviously. That's what we were all thinking. The real question is where did he go instead? Maybe west, across the land, to cross into Iron and into Earth?"

Bear said, "You don't really think he's gone missing, do you? He was the Fourth's student."

Panther shook his head. "I don't know. I don't have access to his files, but he's been dodging ANBU missions lately. Yet, before that, he did an awful lot of missions near Hidden Rock. He could have been turned while he was there, or something else altogether."

Frog said, "Well, we can answer this conclusively, can't we? If he's already left back for Leaf, he'll be there when we return. If not, then we'll know he went missing. I don't think he'll be able to get off easy with an 'a black cat crossed my path' when this kind of accusation is flying around."

Dragon nodded, as if having won an argument with himself. "Return to the village. Tell the Hokage we can own Snow. I'm taking a vacation. I'll find him."

---

Approximately twenty days have passed in-character. The in-game date is January 20. Kakashi's Mild Consequence has healed, but his Medium and Severe Consequences have not. While he is using chakra frequently for ninjutsu or Shadow Clones or even travel at ninja speeds, he will not get natural recovery bonuses for his Consequences. In particular, while his Medium Consequence has been healing very slowly, his Severe Consequence has instead been getting worse. With his condition deteriorating, Kakashi desperately needs a medic.

While Technique Hacking would typically be possible with a Severe Physical Consequence, since his Severe is "extreme chakra exhaustion", Technique Hacking, an extremely internal process that involves extensively manipulating your own chakra, is going to be intense on his chakra coils. If he Technique Hacks, he will not get the benefit of natural recovery. With sufficiently good medical care, perhaps this won't be a problem, but it will certainly extend recovery time.

Kakashi found a rather powerful chakra beast in the Land of Lightning that attacked him. It gave him a Mild Consequence, but he escaped quickly afterwards. Even though he almost died, I'm not going to give him a Fate Point for it, since it wasn't a particularly meaningful encounter and he had an incredible escape option in Hiding Like a Mole.

Kakashi has no knowledge of the scenes outside his point of view for this update, and won't take actions that depend on information gleaned from them. Also, as a note about my writing preferences, I didn't enjoy writing the Mieko scene at all. I think this was largely because Kakashi's characterization is a little incompatible with the suggested "be nice and understanding to the person that you have power over and no respect for".

Voting Time! What do you do now?
Here are some options to get you started.
[] Travel quickly as a ninja, in plain sight. No one's trying to pick a fight out here, probably.
[] Travel through the wilderness. Strange beasts and creatures are better company than ninja.
[] Travel as erratically as you can manage. It's not paranoia if they're literally out to get you.
[] Announce your presence as the Copy Ninja loudly when you arrive in Honey. Recruit a medic-nin by getting them high on the idea of your legend.
[] Discreetly recruit a medic-nin with a generous cash payment. If possible, insist on swearing them to absolute secrecy.
[] Start laying down feelers in taverns and watering holes to hear what rumors are around the city.
[] Write-in.

Remember, we use approval voting, so you can vote for as many plans as you like. Also, feel free to ping @Paperclipped or @MMKII to ask setting or detail questions that Kakashi could plausibly know.

Voting is open, and closes at 9am London Time, Thursday February 11.