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chapter eleven

Kakashi didn't think there was a better feeling in the world. Triumph. Beautiful thing. The four of them were sitting in Naruto's backyard. Sakura was laying in the grass, feeling the soft green substance under her fingers. Naruto sat watching the birds in the trees. Sasuke stared blankly at Kakashi, and Kakashi looked at all three of them.

"Is it done?" Sasuke asked quietly when he saw Kakashi sigh. It was the unspoken question all three of the kids had in their mind.

Itachi had come home late last night, and so had Naruto's father. Sakura had been at a sleepover at Ino's house, when Inoichi was suddenly called away on an urgent meeting with the Hokage. In the middle of the night. All three knew something was going on, and had been talking about it (telepathically, of course) late into the night. They had deduced this had something to do with Danzo because of the fact that both Itachi and Kakashi were gone, and they had just discovered Sai and Shin today. They had to be talking about them. Talking about them leads to Danzo.

Kakashi looked at Sasuke, finally. Naruto's eyes left the birds and turned to the other two. Sakura didn't sit up, but started paying more attention.

"No. He isn't dead."

An outraged cry came from Naruto, and Sasuke looked at Kakashi with an absolutely confused look. Sakura sat up in that moment, looking like she was about to kill something. All things considered, Sasuke was the one handling things the best.

"How did he not get the death sentence?" Naruto asked, snarling. "He's certainly done enough to get killed three times over! I'm having a conversation with my dad when I get home."

"Naruto, stop, there has to be a reasonable explanation." Sasuke said, placing a hand in the air in front of his friend to calm him down. Kakashi nodded at Sasuke, appreciating his patience. Sakura lay back down in the grass, preparing to hear the lecture.

"There is." Kakashi said, pointing at the three of them individually. He got that patient look in his eyes like he did when he went full surrogate Dad mode. He did that often, actually. Sakura and Naruto laughed about it, even though it did feel nice to have him. Sasuke got a large amount of comfort from it, for some odd reason. "Patience, guys. Sasuke is right. Danzo is locked up tight, I made sure of it. There have been insane security updates, and I've fixed multiple flaws in the system since going back into the ANBU. He isn't getting out of that prison cell, and when he does, it will be in a body bag. My design is flawless."

Sakura sat up for good, finally, looking at Kakashi. "Could someone, hypothetically, break into or out of this prison you speak of?"

Kakashi's eyes moved to hers, and he stood up. His three students sat below him, all three watching him, waiting for an answer. "No." Kakashi said, turning around to leave. "I should go, I'm a part of the team that's going to bring Sai and Shin home." He started to walk away, then stopped for a second. He squared his shoulders. "You three get some sleep. Real sleep."

"Yes sir." Naruto, who didn't have as many problems sleeping as Sakura and Sasuke did, (the Kyubi was exceptionally good at shutting his mind down long enough for him to get good rest) gave their former jonin sensei a thumbs up. Sakura nodded, and Sasuke just sighed. Kakashi disappeared in a cloud of smoke, shunshinning out of there to get ready.

This is going to be a long night.

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Kushina couldn't wait. She had been practically bouncing off the walls the minute Minato told her about what she was going to do. She hadn't had a real, dangerous mission in a long time. Now she was getting one. She left Naruto to sleep over at Mikoto's house, and went to the Hokage tower, dressing in black ninja pants, a flowy black sweatshirt type thing, and she wrapped her hair up in a ponytail.