Thanksgiving was, as usual, an interesting holiday for Kakashi. He spent the morning at the memorial, as he always did on holidays and days off, before getting dragged with Gai to his large and extended family's shindig three towns over. The Scarecrow never understood why the Green Beast had taken to pulling him out of his alone time at the memorial to his family's get-together, but it was one of the things that radiated "likable" and earned Gai a tiny place in Kakashi's heart as "friend." Over the years, he'd gotten to know quite a bit about Gai's large family, and understood that Gai was very tame, comparatively.

He got back home Sunday and spent the afternoon at the memorial, as was usual, before gearing up for school. The gnawing feeling that had settled into his brain on Wednesday had sunk over the holiday weekend to his stomach and was creating the kinds of knots and flip-flops he hadn't experienced since his time in the service. Something was inherently wrong when he drove in that morning, and it pressed firmly in his mind all day. Sakura was late for homeroom, something she never did, and when Kakashi went looking for her, since he had seen her pink head in the halls that morning, he found her in a power huddle with Naruto in Asuma's room. Bells of all sorts were going off in his head, but damn it, he. Could. Not. Place. What was wrong. Sasuke was absent, and that just made all Kakashi's uneasiness heighten.

He was unusually snappish his first two periods, but the students and paraprofessionals didn't notice the deviation in behavior. After all, Kakashi was a very controlled individual. Even if his control were slipping, it would have to take a major upset to cause him to actually be noticed as behaving differently. He couldn't concentrate on anything during his prep, and during SSR, Sakura was once more giving him significant looks. All he could do was appear approachable while the nagging feeling that something was wrong continued to assert itself front and center in his consciousness.

When the bell rang, Kakashi locked the door behind him and hoped that his lunch with the sixth grade teachers would put his mind at ease. Or at least distract him as he started to learn tidbits about next year's crop. Then he could discuss his concerns with his team. However, just before he entered the teacher's lounge, he felt a tug at his sleeve.

Tuning, he saw Sakura and Naruto, glancing back and forth between him and each other.

Plastering on a smile of welcoming was difficult, but he did so quickly. "Yes?" he asked.

"Kakashi-sensei..." Naruto trailed off, his face tight with worry. The Scarecrow's heart started racing, against his control.

"When someone you care about and respect makes you promise something, should you break that promise?" Sakura asked, more than worry lining her face, fright was there as well.

"Well," Kakashi started, before he felt the proverbial bucket of ice water dump over him. Oh. My. God. Everything fell together all at once and he knew. He knew. Blinking he stared at Naruto and Sakura, realizing they were expecting an answer. He continued to stare at them, his mind doing at least four things at once.

Finally, he said, "I think it depends on the kind of promise. If it's a promise that puts that cared and respected person in harms way, then I think you should break the promise. But in this case, you don't have to worry," he continued, "because I know." The two students gaped at him, shocked at the very idea. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have an important meeting to go to." He dashed back down the halls. Iruka always had lunch in his room, since there was always a student of his coming in for extra help on something. On the way, without realizing it, he raised his hitae-ate.

The Scarecrow burst into Iruka's room, no ceremony, no excuses. He made straight for the special education teacher's desk, completely ignoring his startled look. "I need the team notebook. Now."

"Uh, sure, but what...?" Iruka reached under a pile of papers and pulled out the folder, Kakashi grabbed it out of his hands, not even feigning politeness as he opened it and ripped out a an extra sheet of paper and procuring the pen Iruka had been using. "Hey, hey! What's this about?"

But Kakashi didn't reply. His mind, renowned in his old life by everybody, was working full steam as he went through Iruka's detailed notes and copied what he needed. It was so obvious as he noted all the incidents, all the dates. Why hadn't they seen it before? He was certain he was slipping.

"I'm going out," Kakashi said, folding the scrawled paper and stuffing it into his breast pocket. "You're in charge of F and G."

"I'm what? Kakashi, what--?"

But Kakashi was already gone, marching down the hall and out the door to his car. He wished dimly in the back of his mind that he had parked closer to the building, but there was no time to deal with that now. Iruka would no doubt pass on his sudden leave of absence to the office, and the paperwork would no doubt be waiting for him, as well as a stern lecture from Ebisu. But that was worth shit compared to what he had just figured out.

He took a full three seconds in the car to breathe and think. Konoha Middle was just off-center to the middle of town. Up the street and you found the restaurants that Asuma and the other teachers frequented, down the street you'd see two supermarkets competing for each other, and just beyond them was Main Street, where all the local businesses were. Just beyond that was the local hospital, where several students unfortunately paid visits. The drive took maybe twenty minutes, Kakashi using a few side roads and parking lots to cut corners, to say nothing of the number of cars he cut off.

Parking, he beelined to the first nurse station he found. "Excuse me," Kakashi said, a folder in hand. "I just learned that a student of mine, Uchiha Sasuke, was checked in over the weekend. I wanted to drop by and give him the work he missed today and find out how long he'll be out. His brother, Itachi, was a little vague on the phone."

"Oh, yes, of course." The nurse rattled off the room number, and Kakashi quickly made his way through the halls, finding the location. Deep breathe, sense of approachability, and turn the knob.

Sasuke was dozing in the hospital bed, his wiry body looking very small in the sterile room. The English teacher hated hospitals; too many people he cared about having been lost in them. It never brought up good memories, and to see his student in one disturbed him on a level that rarely touched him anymore. He closed the door silently behind him and softly padded to the bed, taking a chair and sitting in it, assessing Sasuke.

His arm had been re-broken, the cast replaced and slightly larger than before. There was a patch taped to his cheek, and signs that his ribs were wrapped. It had been bad, worse than the other times. It had been steadily getting worse, up to now the wounds never visible, always hidden; the first sign that it was getting worse was the broken wrist.

Why hadn't he seen?

Sasuke opened his eyes, his face tightening when he saw his teacher sitting by him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

"You know, I was going to ask you the same question," Kakashi drawled, tiptoeing around his wording. "We'll start the first full week of school, when you had a bruise on your arm..." One by one, he listed off every injury that had ever been noted in Team Time, mentally thanking Iruka profusely for the detailed notes he always took. Sasuke's face became darker and darker, his mind reliving the memories attached to each injury. His unbroken fist gripped the hospital sheet, his knuckles whitening with the force gathering in his hand. "And then there's today, when you were absent because they wouldn't let you out of the hospital," Kakashi concluded. He folded the paper again and put it back in his pocket. "Did you think I wouldn't notice?" he asked, keeping his voice light, airy.

Sasuke looked away, hiding his shame. "I... didn't want anyone to know."

"Of course not," Kakashi answered, still picking his words with tweezers. "Let me see if I can guess. The first time came as a complete surprise. You weren't even sure that it happened. You wrote it off, saying he was stressed out about work, or that he didn't realize what he'd done. Then it happened again, maybe again. You think it must be you, that you're triggering something that precipitates the behavior, and that if you only figured out what it was, you could stop it. Until you do, though, it's far better to keep it to yourself. After all, how stupid does it look that you can't stop this on your own?" Kakashi paused, letting the words sink in. "You haven't figured out what the behavior is, have you?"

"... No." Sasuke was talking. It was better than the stonewalling that he had been receiving for two weeks. He couldn't hide anymore, not from Kakashi.

"That's because it isn't you. It's him. You can't fix it because you don't have control over it."

"But Orochimaru-sensei said I can take control over it." The response was nearly a whisper.

Only years of life-or-death struggle in the military kept Kakashi from reacting to that statement. The Snake knew?! And he didn't do anything?? There would be hell to pay. A furious Kakashi was a dangerous Kakashi, and a back compartment of his mind was already working out what he was going to do after he ran a dull knife into the (soon to be former) guidance counselor's abdomen.

"Then let me ask you this," Kakashi countered, focusing in on Sasuke, his two eyed gaze becoming intense, "is it possible to completely control another person's behavior? A person who has his own mind and his own thoughts and his own presence? Do you think you could control me? Actually, I'm a bad example. Do you think you can control Naruto?"

There was an odd, tight, half laugh that left Sasuke's lungs, more of a quick exhalation than a laugh, an admission of irony, perhaps. "I've tried. I can't."

"Then what makes you think you can stop him?"

Sasuke's head dipped down, but even that could not hide the tears as the boy admitted defeat; it was, perhaps, the hardest thing he had ever done. Kakashi let him have his moment, did not interfere as the pain poured out of Sasuke, tear by tear. He remembered the times he had cried like that, the landmarks of his life always marked by those kinds of tears: tears of loss. Kakashi had lost those he loved, and Sasuke, too, had lost those he loved - his parents. Further salt was poured into those wounds by the horrible betrayal of Itachi.

The story fell out of the boy's mouth, haltingly, his tears and his own guilt inhibiting the recitation. The accident with his parents, the immediate death of his father and the painful days it took his mother to die. Finding their blood-soaked bodies; Itachi's cool absence of emotion; the grey memories of the funeral. Then the first strike, when they came home and Sasuke's eyes had again welled up with tears. He thought it was his brother's way to dealing with the guilt, and that was how it started. He talked about his dread of coming home after school, his silent relief at all the time he spent at Sakura's house, and later Naruto's; he envied their families, even Naruto's, because he could feel the love in those houses, and he missed it desperately. He knew it was irrational, but he was jealous of those houses, and yet he could not pull away from them, because he kept trying to learn what was in them that wasn't in his, if there was some way he could mimic the atmosphere and attain what he'd lost.

Kakashi listened to it all, silently if not stoically. There was a resonance in Sasuke's story to his own life. He remembered when he'd lost the love in his own home, the death of his father, all those early years that he tried so hard to forget.

"You know," Kakashi said finally, when Sasuke had finally quieted, "You're not the only one who's been through this. My father--"

Kakashi stopped as he felt a very ugly presence. "Sasuke," he said instead. "I said once that you're intelligent enough to make your own decisions. Now you have to make one: do you want to see your brother?"

The dark head snapped up, unhidden fear filling his face. His response was immediate: "No."

That was all he needed. "Then call for a nurse." Kakashi stood up and walked purposefully towards the door, opening it and stepping outside, closing the door behind him. Itachi was tall, and had the same color eyes as the Scarecrow's newer one.

"Who are you?" His voice was quiet, oddly monotonous, dull, almost bored.

"Hatake Kakashi-sensei. You are Uchiha Itachi."

"You're from the school," Itachi intoned. "I didn't tell them why Sasuke was absent."

"Of course not. But that doesn't mean that it couldn't be figured out." Kakashi radiated intimidation on full volume, a feat that often petrified students and faculty alike; even the old man, Sandaime, disliked it when he did that. Itachi, however, didn't even flinch, in fact he in turn radiated his own intimidation, and Kakashi realized just how deep he was. He hadn't seen this since just after the military.

"I don't want you here."

"Well, what you want doesn't really matter anymore," Kakashi drawled, continuing to stall. Where was that damn nurse? He needed a witness. "Sasuke doesn't want to see you."

"I don't believe you." Still deadpan.

"You don't think it's natural for the victim of child abuse to want to avoid the perpetrator?"

No reaction. Not even a blink. Kakashi was beginning to feel disturbed, even nervous. He kept digging.

"Let's call a spade a spade, shall we? It's child abuse. You've hit him repeatedly, since the death of your parents. He's gotten tired of it, and wants nothing to do with you. You may want to consider leaving, because DCF is on the way, and they're less than happy with you. I wonder which penalty they'll give you? Jail time? Or will they lock you in a psyche ward to figure out what's wrong with your head. Imagine spending all that time with other psychos screaming and giggling at things you can't see. It all depends on your lawyer, of course. If you get jail time, that might actually be better, because then you'll have lots of people just like you; people who like to take advantage of others. Who knows? You might be one of their victims. You know, I heard a story once where a man on suicide watch figured out how to kill himself by jumping from the top of the john and banging his head against--"

At last, a reaction: Itachi grabbed Kakashi's throat. The former military man fought his instincts and let the other man do so. The timing could not have been more perfect, the nurse finally rounded the corner just as Itachi did so, and cried out in alarm. "Sir! Please unhand that man right now! I'll have to ask you to leave the premises immediately!"

Itachi threw a very dark glare at first the nurse and then at Kakashi. The silver haired teacher did nothing, just stared back as blankly and emotionlessly as Itachi had done. The brother's eyes were spinning darkly, a purse of his lips that could almost pass for a frown. A thick, heavy, moment passed between them.

"Until next time," Itachi murmured, before turning and leaving.

Kakashi waited, stood perfectly still until he was certain that the monster was gone, could feel no trace of his presence, before he let out a deep breathe. He suddenly felt the intense, desperate need for a shower.

He walked back into the room without comment and sat back down with Sasuke, who had a tense look on his face. "He's gone." Sasuke's face slackened with relief.

Kakashi pulled out his cell phone and typed in a number he sadly knew too well. "There's something about teachers I'm not sure you know about. We're what's called 'mandated reporters'. I now know about it, and I have to report it. But I'm not the only one who can make the call." He turned, looking at Sasuke's dark hair and offering him the phone. "Do you want to make the call?"

Sasuke's head was still down; his free fist began balling the blanket again. His shoulders were shaking as the decision weighed down on him. Finally,

"... I can't do it."

He couldn't let go yet. Not completely. "That's fine, Sasuke. Very, very few people could." He pressed the send key.

The call lasted a little under an hour. He'd made over a dozen of these calls since he started teaching, and it never, ever, got any easier. He wasn't in his office or his home, and he didn't have the paperwork memorized, but as always the person on the other end was very helpful and took him through the process. He described everything he knew, Sasuke occasionally adding information in the background. By the time he finished, the Department of Children and Family were said to be on their way.

"Okay," he said, hanging up. "That's step one. I'm going to stay here with you until we know that you have somewhere to go. You were the one who started this, but I'm going to be with you through this until the end. Next, I have to call the principal." Sasuke snapped to attention, clearly reluctant to talk about this story. How like Naruto. "He's probably curious where I disappeared to in the middle of the school day." The boy looked relieved.

Dialing the school, it wasn't long before Shizune answered the phone. "Put me through to the old man's office," he said.

"But Kakashi-sensei, he's right in the middle of a meeting with--"

"Get him on the phone, Shizune. Tell him I'm in the hospital."

"The hospital?! Are you okay?"

"Get him on the phone, it's important."

"Yes, right away!"

Kakashi slouched further in his chair, wishing it were more comfortable. Sasuke looked at him dubiously, not liking the mention of hospitals. The English teacher shrugged, "I need an excuse."

"Kakashi, what's this all about."

"Sorry," he replied in his singsong voice. "I had to rush myself to the hospital. Did Iruka-sensei tell you how I looked when I left? It was a mess."

"I did speak with Iruka," Sandaime said on his end of the phone. "Are you with the boy right now?"

Iruka had figured it out and passed it on. Good. Kakashi hadn't been sure that he would. "Yeah," he replied, giving a slight pause before adding, "It's the eye. It really hurts."

"He doesn't know you're telling me?"

"Maa, I guess you could say that. I kind of wanted to keep it quiet, the school doesn't need to know that I'm not perfect."

"I see. Have you made the appropriate calls?"

"Yes. The doctor is on his way right now. I'm sitting in the waiting room right now, the lap of luxury. I'll probably be here for a while." Kakashi threw a glance to Sasuke, who was trying to get comfortable in his bed. One ear was open, but it was clear he didn't believe that Kakashi was talking about him. Ha, still got it. "At least until I know that I can drive. It was a little touch and go for a while."

"'Touch and go?' Why?" Sandaime asked on the other end of the phone.

"Mm, about the best way to put it was that I ran into Obito." Kakashi closed his eyes and waited. Would the old man figure it out? Kakashi's past was not exactly a well-known story, and only one person knew the entirety of it. Not even Gai knew everything, and using Obito as a signpost was obscure to say the least. Sandaime knew more than most, and was one of the few people in the building who could interpret Kakashi's double talk with (relative) ease.

"That would be very taxing. Alright, do what's necessary." Good, he understood.

"I'm already doing that."

"Any messages?"

"Yeah, pass on what's happened to the team, would you? Just the basics, I can explain the rest later."

"Alright. Will I see you tomorrow?"

"To be determined."

"Alright. Good luck."

"You, too." Kakashi hung up. "And we're set," he said happily, turning to the fidgety Sasuke. "It's just in time, too, we have some visitors."

The boy tensed, not knowing what Kakashi meant, until the door opened and a pink and yellow pair of heads appeared.

"Sasuke-kun!"

"Sasuke-teme! Ah! Kakashi-sensei, what are you doing here?!"

Tugging his headband back down, he winked into a smile. "Oh, checking up on my favorite team to torture," he said cordially. "I need to scold you two, you've known about this," he jutted a thumb to the startled Sasuke, "for over two weeks, now, right? You didn't come to me; that's bad form. I had to go and take care of it all by myself."

The two stared at him, flabbergasted, because they had finally come to him. Kakashi counted the seconds for them to figure out that he was covering for them. Eight, nine, and ten...

"It's about time you did some of your own work!!" Naruto screeched. "Instead of pawning it off to us all the time you lazy bastard sensei!"

Ah, music to his ears. "You're lucky we're not in school anymore, otherwise I'd give you a detention for language." Naruto flinched visibly, and it triggered another melodious piece of music: Sasuke gave a small laugh. Sakura and Naruto rushed to Sasuke, and the three immediately started talking, seemingly oblivious to the presence of Kakashi, save for the fact that they were talking about Sasuke and Itachi and what had happened with open relief. Kakashi soon gleaned just how they had learned bout the young Uchiha's predicament, when they had, looking out the window as their teammate left for home with his older brother, witnessed Itachi breaking Sasuke's wrist. That was what had brought about the silence, Sasuke had extracted promises from both of them not to tell a soul. They both chided Sasuke when they heard how Kakashi had figured it out, and here the English teacher made a small correction.

"I'm not omnipotent, Sakura, just omniscient."

The conversation degenerated from there as they tried to figure out how all-powerful Kakashi actually was, trying several times to badger him with questions that took every ounce of self control to Not Grin at. He instead answered them half heartedly, having pulled out his beloved book, and overall giving them the impression that he just might be omnipotent.

When DCF and the police came, they looked at the two children and asked Kakashi to take them outside. Naruto steadfastly refused.

"We're both promised to stand by Sasuke-teme, and nothing you guys say is going to change that! I never go back on my word!"

Kakashi looked up. "Let them stay," he said, quietly to the Child Services representative. "He needs this as much as they do."

The interview, if it could be called that, was grueling for Sasuke. Even with his obvious injuries, the DCF wanted to be a thorough as possible to get the maximum effect on Itachi. Kakashi explained his confrontation with the red-eyed brother in the hall, and mentioned the nurse witness. Then there was securing a home; Sasuke had no other relatives, and that put him in the system. Naruto happily offered his own foster father, Yondaime, and Sakura was more than happy to open her house to him until his injuries were healed - neither of them thinking about what their parents would say.

"I don't care where they put you!" Naruto had exclaimed, "That's just where you're gonna sleep at night, from now on your home is with us!" Kakashi quickly hid his grin behind his hand and counted a full thirty seconds before the pole axed Sasuke could finally process the statement enough to smile.

It was finally settled that Sasuke would stay with one of the few fosters that had medical training, a man named Kabuto, who was called and finally arrived close to seven in the evening; right about when the Scarecrow's stomach complained about the skipped lunch and dinner. It was only then that Kakashi felt safe in stretching his back and getting up.

"Sensei, are you leaving?" Sasuke asked, his voice again very small. Kakashi turned, the boy surrounded by adults and officials and two very close friends.

"Only if you want me to."

"Sensei... thanks."

Kakashi smiled. "It was your decision, Sasuke. Thank yourself."

The next day everyone sat down in the back of Asuma's room, and Kakashi reiterated the gruesome details, from the covert question Sakura and Naruto had asked and how it all had pieced together in his mind, the conversation he'd had to weasel the truth out of Sasuke, the painful admission and how it had all began, the confrontation with Itachi, the arrival of Naruto and Sakura, up to the arrival of the DCF.

"It was pretty straightforward after that," he summed up. He felt tired, the perpetual slouch in his chair a little deeper. He stared at the ceiling, his head just touching the back of the chair.

The silence was heavy, the other teachers lost in their own thoughts.

"Life can be such shit," Asuma finally said.

"Youth is far too fragile to be assaulted by such atrocities."

"First Naruto, and now this..." Kurenai put her head on her free hand, shaking it slightly. "How can these kids endure it?"

Iruka gave a deep sigh. "Well, at least some good came out of it," he said. "Sasuke's out of it now, the DCF is involved, and he's safe. Not only that, but Team Seven has been solidified; I'm willing to lay money down that they'll be together for life. Bonds like that are strong, and now Sasuke won't deal with it alone. Neither will Naruto, for that matter; and between them Sakura will act as an anchor. On top of it all, now they have Kakashi to turn to."

"... Mm," Kakashi agreed, closing his eyes.

After school he kicked his normal crowd out to other rooms and made a beeline for the principal's office. He waited with Shizune, chatting aimlessly until the old man stepped out of his office. Orochimaru trailed close behind, saying nothing as he wandered off back to his own office.

"Kakashi, if you please." The English teacher followed, taking quiet breathes to prevent himself from performing murder. His hatred for the guidance counselor had never been greater.

The principal's office was of medium size, one corner cordoned off for his desk and computer, as well as a few chairs. The room turned in an L, however, and held a small conference table and an assorted menagerie of chairs for larger meetings. Sandaime almost always preferred using his desk. He sat stiffly in his chair, gesturing for Kakashi to do the same.

"Tell me everything."

Kakashi gave it verbatim, word for word. Sandaime sat, eyes closed, absorbing. Only when Kakashi finished, almost two hours later, did the old man open his eyes.

"What you say about Orochimaru is deeply troubling."

"Of course it is. He knew that child abuse was taking place and he deliberately did not call DCF, which he of all people knows that he has to do as a mandated reporter. Fire him."

"Kakashi, you should know that I'm not the one who does that. The Board of Education does."

"So? That's a formality at this point. Get him packing and worry about the Board later."

"You do not seem to understand, Kakashi. You do not attend the meetings, Orochimaru does, and he has garnered much support in it. He is popular and favored and, in short, wields much power - sometimes even more than me when push comes to shove. He has forestalled and outright stopped many policies I have wanted to put in place. Even this turn of events may not be enough."

It was a gut punch. "You mean to say that he may still be working?"

Sandaime gave Kakashi a long look. "... Yes."

"Fuck."

"Kakashi, come with me to the emergency meeting. Tell them what you have told me, help me show them what a detriment Orochimaru is to this school." The old man leaned back, suddenly looking very tired. "Jiraiya and Tsunade will be there, as will as I, and we shall all explain our lists of disputes and why he should be discharged. You are not alone in your desire to see him leave. I can only hope that will be enough."

Kakashi nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and stood to leave. Sandaime was too tired to see him off.

That night Kakashi attended the emergency Board of Ed meeting. Gai was also there; he loved these kinds of meetings, and he obviously had particular interest in this one. Sandaime was there, of course, as principal, and Tsunade and Jiraiya made appearances, as well as a handful of other teachers. Most of the meeting consisted of parents, town politicians, and tax payers.

Now, if Kakashi knew anything (and he was reputed to know everything by students) he knew himself. He was eccentric, aloof, quick minded and patient, but the one thing he could not deal with were people in charge who were idiots. Dealing with a room full of screaming children? A walk in the park. Dealing with a pissed off teacher? A breeze. Dealing with an upset parent who doesn't like how he disciplined their children? Could do it in his sleep. Dealing with a conglomerate of people who were more than happy to bury things in subcommittees and red tape and then complain how nothing gets done, people who heard their children's stories about him and judged him as incompetent, people who did not want to hear was he had to say?

Well, there were problems.

Kakashi was a popular teacher amongst the students, but the parents split down the middle with their opinion of him. The smart ones saw was he was doing and loved him. The rest heard about his tardiness and his slouching and his off-color reading and hated his guts. That he was even present caused a minor uproar amongst that corner of the Board. The taxpayers just wanted to do whatever was cheapest, and the politicians! They just wanted to line their own pockets by taking whatever side was the majority.

Tack on to this was the fact that Orochimaru, who did attend Board meetings regularly, was on a first name basis with just about everybody, and for every point that Tsunade or Jiraiya or Gai brought up, he had three possible explanations and a litany of good that he did for the school. He skillfully manipulated the situation, turning it around and saying Kakashi was actually making it all up.

"If this is all really true," he said to the Board, "then where is this boy so that he can tell us? We only have Kakashi's say that this alleged incident even happened; and even if he was speaking the truth, he only has the word of a twelve-year-old boy. Can even that be trusted?"

This wasn't to say that Kakashi didn't play every card he had. He had a great command of language, and he utilized it to the fullest, cultivating several specific multi-syllabic words that made the adults think - partly to remind that that, thank you, he was an intelligent, educated man; and partly to give them pause to think. He wanted them to realize exactly what he was saying, that an adult knew a child was being abused and did not intervene.

They were insistent on muddling it with details.

"When did you find all this out at any rate?"

"What kind of proof do you have that the child was even being abused?"

"What does this have to do with how good a guidance counselor Orochimaru-sama is?"

"Why don't we just bring the kid in and ask him?"

"You don't seem to understand," Kakashi replied, annunciating each word, "A child was being abused. He's been beaten, badgered, and belittled. The boy is traumatized. Do you really want to drag him in here and interrogate him over who did or didn't know the hell he was going through? This isn't about the kid, this isn't about me, it's about a man, that man," he pointed his finger at Orochimaru, "knowing that child abuse was occurring and deliberately not saying anything."

A Hyuga stood up. "What I find most interesting," he said, "is that you are continually trying to attack the character of man who had proven himself over and over as a valuable asset to this school. Now, what I want to know is, are you just as valuable? If you're so determined to trim the budget by eliminating a faculty member, then perhaps we should start looking at your credentials and service? You are, after all, erratic at best."

Sandaime had to step in at that point.

The meeting ended, Kakashi turned exhausted eyes to the old man, and the principal could only offer an equally tired look of sympathy.

Again, these are events we've actually gone through. I've had to make DCF calls, and sadly stories like this are all too common. Another teacher we know had to stay with a student until she was certain the girl had somewhere to go - and that was at about nine at night when the service people finally showed, so this is an amalgam of stories.

We were happy to see that it ends all right for Sasuke, at least for now. He finally buys into Team 7, Naruto and Sakura get to shine, etc.

Itachi was difficult to write. In the anime, Kakashi has open fear of Orochimaru after he sealed Sasuke's curse when he realized he was about to go head-to-head with a Sannin. He didn't show this fear with Itachi after the chuunin exams, but his fight hardly fared well; that said he did technically win because he survived the magenkyou (sp?) without going nuts. We hope this encounter worked out well.

More Team 7 goodness in the next chapter, along with some looks at Team 8, so look forward to it!