“I certainly hope not,” Oita said.

“No,” said the T&I commander, sounding almost cheerful. “But we were just discussing your spectacular takedown of a man who might or might not have been connected to Konoha's most famous traitor—at least most recent famous traitor.”

If there were ever a set of circumstances that landed him in T&I’s extended care, Kakashi thought, he’d make absolutely sure to stab himself in the brain first.

“Returning to that incident,” Sagara said, slightly icy. “There were two ANBU agents directly in your line of fire. Not Hyuuga and unable to detect your position clearly through the wall.”

Kakashi answered the unsaid question. “I could feel them.”

“Well enough to be sure you wouldn’t hit them?” Oita asked.

“I didn’t hit them,” Kakashi said. “So — yes.”

“I think what you mean, shinobi, is ‘It’s a good thing they dodged’,” the T&I commander said.

Kakashi met the man’s eyes. “I could feel them,” he repeated.

The T&I commander made a short, gravelling sound in his throat: hm. But he dropped the point.

The vice-commander leaned over Sagara-sama’s shoulder. “Konoha has a mission to copy an S-rank enemy jutsu,” he said, derailing Kakashi slightly. “There’s a four-agent team including an Uchiha with a fully mastered Sharingan. You are on a five-agent team. Who should get the assignment and why?”

“My team,” Kakashi said, after a moment.

“Why?” said the vice-commander.

Kakashi shrugged. “Based on that information, I trust myself more.”

Lamplight gleamed on Sagara-sama’s mask, lightening the bone and darkening the black. Her voice, when she spoke, was soft as an extended claw. “And when it’s your commanding officer who is not as clever, or as skilled, or as trustworthy as you?”

Minato’s smile had vanished.

What answer did they want?

The scenario was a possibility — he’d never worked directly under any commanding officer after Minato, who was demonstrably smarter, more skilled, and better trusted. He’d worked with other field-commanders, but he’d made jounin at thirteen. None of them outranked him. There’d always been an avenue for disagreement.

What would he do?

Get promoted fast was not, he suspected, an acceptable answer.

“ANBU is Konoha’s elite,” Kakashi said at last. “I cannot believe any shinobi hand-picked by the Hokage, and by yourselves, would put their subordinates in a position so dangerous, or so questionable, that I would consider breaking rank.” He straightened his shoulders. “That said, Akiyama was able to make it all the way to the second Trial without being discovered, and we’ve discussed how I handled that. If I truly believed my commander was wrong, I’d hope they would listen to me.”

The T&I commander glanced at Oita, and smirked. Oita didn’t react.

Halfway through Kakashi’s little speech, Minato’s hands had steepled in front of his mouth. He gave a slow, unrevealing bink, and said, “Thank you, shinobi. You may go.”

Kakashi bowed stiffly, turned to the door he’d come in through, and hesitated. No one else had come back through it.

“That one,” said the T&I commander, hooking a battle-scarred thumb at a door on the opposite side of the room.

Kakashi bowed again, crossed the room, and let himself out. The door opened into a quiet, dimly lit anteroom — and here were the previous candidates, sitting side by side on a padded wooden bench, looking entirely drained.

They barely glanced up when Kakashi walked in.

The room had a tall, elegant window against the rear wall. When he went to it, he found a sprawling, star-lit view of Konoha laid out like jewels on a map. Kakashi leaned his forehead against the cool windowpane, metal hitai-ate plate clinking once against glass, and crushed his frustration.

The T&I commander had liked him.

He was fairly certain no one else had.

If he failed at the last hurdle— He could try again in six month’s time, without killing a teammate, and fall short in some other way.

Minato was always going to outshine him.

“Goddammit,” Kakashi muttered, almost soundlessly, and didn’t punch the window through.