Ch316. Kakashi awakens

Kakashi woke up, not opening his eyes or giving any visible sign he was awake as his first instinct cultivated by his ninja experiences dictated. He explored his surroundings with his senses, only relaxing when he found out there was no threat around.

Naruto, who was on Kakashi-watching duty, was almost dozing off when he noticed his jonin instructor slightly stirring, instantly pulling him from his half-asleep state as he energetically jumped towards Kakashi's bed and saw the man's eyes opening.

"KAKASHI-SENSEI! YOU ARE AWAKE!" He happily exclaimed in his outdoor voice, making Kakashi involuntarily wince as his head throbbed in pain, and cursed his luck. If he wasn't fully awake before, he definitely was now. Alongside the entire house.

Na... r... to." Kakashi rasped, unable to pronounce Naruto's name because of how parched his throat was. Only now his head caught up and realized how shitty his body felt. Kakashi's lone visible eye slightly widened as the events before he fainted came back to him.

"AH! Don't worry! I will bring you water." Naruto's face brightened before he scrambled out of the room.

Kakashi could only helplessly watch his excitable student bounce out of the room with a deadpan gaze. Water would be nice but knowing what exactly happened to the rest of the team was the priority. He was responsible for them, dammit!

Fortunately for Kakashi, he wasn't alone in the room. Naruto's scream awoke Sasuke who was shooting the door with very irritated looks, judging by his eyes most likely imagining a hundred ways he could skin a certain loud annoyance. Sasuke just KNEW Naruto did that on purpose.

'The dobe most likely doesn't want to explain the situation...' He grumbled, feeling Kakashi's piercing gaze on him.

Sasuke let out a long-suffering sigh at his teammate's antics. "We won. Raiga ran away. The Rain team was wiped out except the girl. She is being held prisoner in Anko-sensei's room. We are at Tazuna's home." Sasuke described their situation in a droll voice, trying to keep it short and factual. When he got to the part of the rain girl, he noticed Kakashi slightly winced at the fact she was rooming with Anko. Somehow, Sasuke could sympathize.

Sasuke looked at Kakashi and saw the unasked question in his eye.

"Anko. She patched you up. I was also hurt." He said that in an almost sullen voice, "Watching her heal you was actually amazing. The burnt flesh rejuvenated at a visible rate and the gaping hole in your hip closed... I had no idea Anko-sensei was a medic ninja." Awe seeped through Sasuke's facade.

Kakashi grimaced. Of course, Sasuke had no clue. Despite being Tsunade's apprentice, nobody in his right mind would let Anko into the hospital with the aim to cure people. He had no idea how Anko attained her mastery in medical arts but it definitely was NOT in Konoha hospital. Which was strange, considering nobody could become a skilled medical ninja just by reading books. They needed experience and hands-on practice.

Kakashi couldn't know that Anko had this much-needed practice in the Village on the Other Side where she was a quite popular medic.

Something in the way Kakashi's eye cringed must have given him away as Sasuke mirthlessly chuckled, "Don't worry. I have watched the whole time she was healing you. She didn't slip any poison or otherwise experimented with your body."

The sad part was he couldn't assure himself of that. He indeed watched Kakashi's healing, mostly because he was afraid of what was awaiting him since his turn was next. But once Kakashi was done, Anko zoomed on him, and unfortunately, Kakashi was unconscious so it was just him and Anko in the room... a very dangerous situation in Sasuke's opinion. He was on the verge of shitting himself the entire time until she finished with his wounds, expecting an excruciating pain to start at any given moment, considering her personality.

It was this worry that made Sasuke faint halfway through his treatment, not that he would ever admit it wasn't due to fatigue, so anything Anko did to him after that... he wouldn't know.

"Oh~, you believe you would notice, genin?" Anko's cheerful voice suddenly resounded through the room, making Sasuke flinch and splutter. "You are still too overconfident in your Sharingan, Sasuke-chan!"

Hearing that, Sasuke decided to do the right thing. He threw her a stink eye, huffed, and lied back down into his bed, petulantly turning his back at Anko.

"Cute..." She rolled her eyes before striding towards Kakashi and putting her hand covered in a light green aura on his forehead. She smirked at the older Jonin, "Raiga got you good, Hatake." She patronizingly patted his forehead, not raising her palm high enough for the medical Jutsu to stop affecting him.

Kakashi groaned and wanted to do nothing more than to shake her hand from his forehead but his body finally started to feel better. In the end, he could only silently bear with the smugness oozing from Anko as she enjoyed treating him like a misbehaving child.

"H-He was S-rank." Kakashi croaked out after he finally regained his ability to talk, "Got a J-Jutsu similar t-to Rai...kage's Li-Lightning Armor." That sentence made his throat hurt again but he knew this might be a very important piece of information.

Anko's patronizing smirk fell, easing into a wry and understanding smile. She knew best how hard it was to face S-rank ninja in one versus one. Tsunade's training regime consisted of lot of battles between her and Anko, basically beating Anko into the half-dead pulp before healing her and repeating the process until Anko got better.

"Don't worry, I have already sent a report and request for reinforcements to Lady Tsunade." She informed Kakashi, trying to make him feel at ease.

Kakashi closed his eye, relaxing into bed. Getting reinforcements was good, there was no telling what Raiga would do, now that he knew Team Seven was capable of handling the Rain Team. Worse yet, what would Gato do...

Gato was incredibly wealthy. Hiring ninjas was no problem for him. He didn't do it because most of his criminal activities simply didn't require ninjas. Common thugs were enough. If he suddenly decided to splurge in order to get Tazuna's head, though, Team Seven would be in trouble. Raiga was a problem but if he was supported by some jonin level fighters...

"I should have discarded the mission the second I understood the client lied, shouldn't I?" Kakashi sighed, finally feeling good enough to speak without gasping for air afterward. He inwardly marveled at her medical prowess. Not that he would tell that to her anytime soon. It would just inflate the woman's ego and give him more ammunition to tease him.

"Meh, I opted for continuing too." Anko carelessly shrugged, "Nobody could have known there would be S-rank ninja in the opposition."

And that was the truth too. S-rank ninjas were extremely rare. Most ninjas have a goal to become Jonins, not even thinking of becoming an S-rank level threat simply because of how small a number of them existed in the world. Most ninjas never met someone classed as S-rank in their whole lives. Anko reckoned there were not more than sixty of them in the whole Elemental Nations.

"Ah," Anko abruptly stopped channeling her soothing chakra into Kakashi's body through his forehead, causing him a mild headache. He opened his eye, inquisitively looking at Anko and finding her giving him a sheepish and apologetic look, "Naruto is coming. I am in no mood to take on his exuberance this early in the morning. Sorry, Kakashi, it's time for you to act like a good team leader and sacrifice yourself for the team."

With that, Anko poofed into smoke, revealing she was just a shadow clone, the original no doubt sleeping.

'And here I thought she cared.' Kakashi's stomach sank as the door flew open, Naruto triumphantly bounced through them with an excited expression. Kakashi somehow knew this was his revenge for all the D-ranks.

"Kakashi-sensei! Here, water!" Naruto hurried towards Kakashi.

He was almost near the bed when he suddenly... tripped, splashing the water all over Kakashi's face. Naruto lowered his head, hiding his grin before he looked towards Kakashi, his face a perfect picture of sheepish regret.

Kakashi knew who to blame for his not-so-cute little orange genin's sadistic streak and taste in revenge. His mind again strayed to the woman who left him to his fate in his bleariest hour of need and his mood soured.

'That... bitch.'

Some very hard hours with Naruto were upon the poor Kakashi who couldn't even move.