Sasuke's first purple arrow caused a massive amount of chaos across the village.
Kakashi, who was currently handling official Hokage business in his secure little dark room, noticed the violent tremor too.
He pulled aside the curtain and peered out the window.
When he saw that it was Sasuke "invading" Konoha in a giant Susanoo, Kakashi immediately grew anxious.
Sasuke was his subordinate, he couldn't just ignore him.
He had to go stop him!
"Lady Tsunade?"
Just as Kakashi was about to sprint out the doorway, he saw Tsunade firmly blocking the exit.
'Could it be that even now, Lady Tsunade still isn't willing to let me out of this dark room?' Kakashi grumbled inwardly.
Isn't that failing to distinguish the village's priorities?
"Kakashi, I know what you're going to do. I can choose not to stop you, but there are some things I need to tell you first."
Looking at Kakashi, Tsunade slowly relayed the classified information Makoto had passed on to her.
Among the debriefing was the fact that the "assassination" of Koharu Utatane and Homura Mitokado was actually an official black-ops mission she had issued herself. I
tachi and Sasuke had accepted that mission.
It also included Kakashi's newly established public identity: a man who had been abducted by Granny Chiyo, but had then willingly stayed behind, revealing a highly specific, degenerate preference for old women.
"..."
Kakashi fell entirely silent after hearing all that.
But then, on second thought, his reputation had already become infamous throughout the shinobi world because of those questionable books he wrote, so a little more infamy hardly mattered at this point.
In that case, it didn't really matter.
What's more, according to Tsunade, Itachi wasn't a rogue ninja.
Back then, he had been carrying out a top-secret mission assigned by the Third Hokage, and the clan massacre had also been a direct order from the village brass.
Itachi had borne all of those horrific sins alone.
Now Sasuke, by accepting the mission to kill the two corrupt elders, wasn't just taking revenge—he was also taking those sins onto himself.
And then there was Naruto, the son of his teacher, who since childhood had borne the sins of the casualties from the Nine-Tails' Night.
Jiraiya had once said that a ninja was someone who endured all things.
If that was the case, then what did it matter if he, Kakashi, bore a little sin as well?
Compared to the tragic burdens those people carried, the sin of being known as a true MILF lover amounted to almost nothing.
"Lady Tsunade, even if this is a mission you issued, I still have to go," Kakashi said firmly, his resolve hardening.
"Sasuke is still young. If he loses control of his emotions and starts thinking about the night of the massacre, his killing intent might flare up. If he hurts innocent villagers, that would be bad."
"Kakashi, you're incredibly responsible. That is exactly why I want you to become the Sixth Hokage," Tsunade said, very pleased with his answer.
Kakashi's chronic lateness and lazy act were only imitations of his departed close friend.
In truth, Kakashi had always been a hardworking, bleeding-heart genius!
"But Kakashi, there's something else I need your help with," Tsunade sighed, rubbing her temples.
"While taking advantage of the commotion Sasuke is causing, that brat Naruto just ran off to the ANBU archives to steal your personnel files."
"..."
Hearing that gave Kakashi an instant migraine!
Was there a single easy kid in Team 7? Every last one of them was a menace!
"In any case, I need you to cooperate a little. You should understand—this is a highly suitable excuse."
After lowering her voice and murmuring a few more tactical instructions, Tsunade patted Kakashi on the shoulder and stepped aside.
Kakashi took a deep breath, pulled down his headband, and made his move.
....
"Sasuke, I got them!"
Naruto leaped from rooftop to rooftop with a massive pile of classified document bags in his arms.
"Let's go."
Sasuke's second purple arrow cleanly vaporized Homura Mitokado.
Without missing a beat, he had his Susanoo seize Naruto and rushed straight toward the forested outskirts of the village.
The accompanying ANBU and Police Force were all deliberately held back by Tsunade.
Only Kakashi followed after them.
Deep in the woods outside the village, Sasuke dismissed the Susanoo and set Naruto down.
Naruto dumped the stolen archive bags onto the dirt.
"Quick, before they catch up, let's hurry and look through them!" Naruto squatted down and started tearing open the wax seals.
He hadn't read a single one of these files, nor had he had the time to browse.
Before leaving the hideout, Naruto had left a wisp of Nine-Tails chakra on Sasuke as a communication medium.
Sasuke simply used Heavenly Fox, set the sensory search range to the archives, filtered the data with the keyword "Kakashi," successfully narrowed down the exact files, and then telepathically told Naruto where they were.
At last, Naruto no longer had to fumble around blindly like in that old mission to find Kakashi's true face—where they searched forever, found nothing, and eventually got caught by the ANBU.
"This is bad," Naruto's expression suddenly changed when he looked at one particular file.
"What is it?" Sasuke frowned.
"Actually, Koharu was kind of tempting for Kakashi-sensei too! Kakashi-sensei used to be in the ANBU, directly under Grandpa Third. It says here that Grandpa Third and the elders often held closed-door meetings together." Naruto pointed at the paper, his face full of deep regret.
"So that means Koharu also counted as one of Kakashi-sensei's direct superiors! She may not be an old woman from a friend's household, but breaking the chain of command would definitely still be incredibly exciting for him!"
"...She's already dead. Stop worrying about that and look for someone else," Sasuke curled his lip in disgust.
"Sasuke! Naruto! You two—"
Kakashi came rushing through the trees, landing in the clearing.
With the kinetic visual prowess of the Sharingan, Kakashi instantly saw that Naruto was just about to pull out a highly critical file—the specific one containing an unmasked photo of Kakashi's face.
"Kamui!"
With a perfectly aimed spatial distortion, a swirling hole appeared right over the document bag.
By the time Naruto pulled the file out, the section with the photograph had already been sucked into another dimension.
Kakashi let out a quiet sigh of relief.
Naruto didn't even care whether the photo was there or not.
He was just shocked that Kakashi had actually shown up here!
But he was only shocked for a brief moment before sudden realization dawned on him.
He turned to Sasuke and grinned triumphantly.
"Sasuke, see?! I told you Kakashi-sensei likes Koharu! I sent him a photo of her bathing, and he immediately abandoned Granny Chiyo and came rushing back!"
"..."
'I never left Konoha in the first place!'
Kakashi felt incredibly helpless, but for the greater good of the village's cover story, he had to endure all of this.
So, he chose silence.
In other words, tacit acceptance.
"Sasuke, Naruto... do you have any idea what crime stealing ANBU archives amounts to?" Kakashi walked over to the two of them, asking with an exhausted sigh.
"The same as stealing the Scroll of Seals?" Naruto asked tentatively, ready to run.
"Not quite that serious," Kakashi shook his head.
The importance of the Scroll of Seals was definitely far above standard ninja personnel files.
"Then it's fine! Sasuke, let's keep looking!" Naruto instantly relaxed at that answer and eagerly called for Sasuke to keep opening the bags.
"..."
"If you wanted to know something, why not just ask me directly? Why insist on breaking the law to look through these things?" Kakashi rubbed the bridge of his nose.
He didn't use force to stop what the two were doing.
Kakashi knew himself well, and he knew his students.
Given Naruto and Sasuke's current overpowered state, they were basically two toddlers holding super-explosive tags.
If he made the first move, then Naruto and Sasuke might very well decide to avenge that old bell test and hit him with a barrage of One Thousand Years of Death attacks.
"FOUND IT!"
Ignoring the conversation between his teacher and his friend, Sasuke kept speed-reading through the classified files until he finally found a highly suitable candidate.
The main reason was that one specific keyword stood out to his Sharingan at a glance:
[Uchiha]
Since Kakashi-sensei had one Sharingan eye, then sure enough—he really did have a scandalous connection to the Uchiha Clan!