Cap17:)

I wondered what he was going to do with the extra money. It wasn't even that much. From the open record mission books, I knew that Kakashi-sensei had been on a massive number of A-ranks, not to mention dozens of unlisted S-ranks – and those both paid extremely well. One S-rank was enough to cover room, board, and meals for an apartment in the nice part of town for several months, and he had disappeared from the official mission record book for ten years (either a sign of being a missing-nin or ANBU, and they didn't let missing-nin teach Genin unless their heads were detached from their shoulders first). Judging from his sparse hobbies and limited wardrobe, it could be said that my teacher was a frugal person by nature. That didn't even include his ridiculous skill in deception – he was the type to walk out of a casino richer than he walked in, every time. Unless he was a drug addict…but no, not even drugs could explain, well, the blip in reality that was Kakashi Hatake.

It could very well be that he was just completely barking mad, and, like everything else, was just doing what he did to cause trouble for the sake of trouble.

"You know," Kakashi-sensei said loudly as we passed a tea shop, "I really feel bad for girls who go out on dates with boys simply because they feel sorry for them."

We followed his line of sight to the lone young couple in the shop, and, sure enough, on closer inspection, the girl really, really looked like she didn't want to be there. And now that they had both heard Kakashi-sensei's statement…

("But – so – ")

("I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt your feelings…")

("So you don't like me?")

Things just got very, very awkward.

"Sensei, that wasn't very nice," Ino snapped.

"Well, think about it this way. The girl wouldn't have said anything otherwise. The boy would go home thinking that she really liked him. Then he'd try asking her out again. And she'd just keep leading him on to be polite. And then he gets himself all pumped up over nothing – and when she says, 'Sorry, I don't actually love you' – then it's just a ton of chaos. Instead, I'm saving her the time and boredom, and himthe massive resulting heartbreak – what's cruel about that?"

"But – it's not polite – "

"We're shinobi. We're never polite – unless it suits us."

"Like flirting with girls half your age in front of their boyfriends?" she asked drily.

"Ino, if she was half my age, she'd be your age plus one, and that would make me a pedophile, which I am not," Kakashi-sensei replied.

Naruto blurted out, "But we're twelve!"

"Actually, in Jupiter years, I'm only…"

"But your hair's all white!" Naruto protested.

"…Am I really that wrinkly-looking? Because that's just the mask; it really is."

"No, but your hair's white! Like, whiter than the old man Hokage! Even he has some brown hair left. How'd your hair get so white?"

"…I was born with white hair, Naruto."

"Oh."

"But that's neither here nor there. Here's our client. Hello, Gyoza-san."

Gyoza-san was a portly old man with a thin walrus moustache and an array of gold rings on his fingers that looked fake. The ryo in his money pouch, however, were not, and considering his fear and deference toward even Naruto, it seemed that he wouldn't be double-crossing us anytime soon. Most merchants did not. There was a fifty-fifty chance of getting caught when swindling civilians, and the punishment would be a fine or maybe jail time. Shinobi, on the other hand, were truthfully rumored to be less forgiving.

By the time we got back to the front gate of Suna, Kakashi-sensei had caused no less than four additional arguments – five if you counted him "accidentally" dropping and spilling a bag of birdseed right in front of a flock of highly aggressive pigeons just so they'd fight over it – and we were almost glad to be out of that infernal place.

"Do you always do that?" I asked him.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Causing arguments. For fun."

"I didn't do anything. They were the ones choosing to argue, not me."

That only got him nasty looks from the new Chunin on duty. Evidently mission control had learned from the first time, because instead of the girl from before there were two large, burly, scarred, ultra-masculine, war-hardened veterans glaring down at all the passers-by.

Of course, the fact that we were dealing with a pair of alpha males instead of a dreamy teenage girl didn't stop Kakashi-sensei, who simply pulled down his mask (while facing away from us, unfortunately), winked, and walked away, once again, without paying a single cent.

"How did you do that?" Naruto asked, rubbing his own face.

"I'm special," Kakashi-sensei grinned.

"You couldn't have just forked over the coins?" Ino asked.

Kakashi-sensei clapped his hands together. "Well, when you pay, see, they make a note of the date and your identity so that they know who paid when, and I don't like my name floating around for people to track down."

"Sensei, you do realize that you have a very distinctive appearance, and that if someone was really looking for you, they wouldn't bother with the Suna travelers' ledger," Ino tried.

"But they still wouldn't know the exact date, and now, neither will they," Kakashi-sensei said, gesturing in the general direction of the Kazekage dome. "Which leads to my questions for you three now: why?"

"Why what, Sensei?" Naruto asked.

"Why do you think I didn't give out my name?"

"Because we're shinobi from another village, and they might not like us?" Ino suggested.

"But why wouldn't they? We are allies, aren't we?" he said.

"Allies," Ino responded, making quotation marks in the air with her fingers. "In politics, there are no permanent friendships, just permanent interests. You said so youself."

"Quite right, Ino. But there's a deeper reason for this animosity. Currently, Suna dislikes us in particular, even more than Iwa, which arguably caused them more damage than we did in the last war. Why?"

Ino gave him a dubious look.

Kakashi-sensei glared at her. "Your lack of faith in me is astounding. Besides, I meant Konoha in general, not just me."

"Money," I spoke up. "I saw their rates at the front gate. Their services are way more expensive than ours are. That's why this Suna merchant, who should be hiring Suna nin, is instead willing to wait an extra day for a team from Konoha to come instead. We're stealing their jobs."

"Exactly," said Kakashi-sensei. "It's not just this one merchant, either. The Daimyo of the Land of Wind is also outsourcing missions – of the top secret variety – to Konoha shinobi. Also, something important for you three to know: it's not just the cheaper rates. It's also the advertising and PR. Konoha is unique in that we spend a great deal of effort in maintaining our squeaky clean image. You really don't think our village is a land of nothing but smiles and laughter, do you?"

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