“The bandages make it look worse than it really is” Kakashi said with a soft chuckle “Just a bit tired really” And that was the closest he was going to get to admitting just how exhausted he was. As he was rather lightly injured considering his fights with Zabuza, with the stab wound through his hand being the worst injury. The slash on his chest had been a lighter wound by comparison, due to his vest despite what it looked like at first. Still, his grip around Airi tightened ever so slightly as he partook of her silent offer.

“That was just Akino being smug. We got in to a disagreement a bit ago; recently he was proved to be right.” Was Kakashi’s casual reply “He always was a troublesome pup” The disagreement Kakashi and Akino had delt with Airi, and the fact that the masked ninja was falling for her. Akino was of the opinion that it had taken Kakashi far too long to admit this fact and liked to state that it was fallen for not falling. Kakashi had wanted to bury the dog up to his neck and tried to disabuse him of that notion. Now he just wanted to bury the dog mainly for being right, but also for bringing it up in front of Airi, intentionally no less.

But trying to get back at his oldest dog, and avoiding the questions his vague reply had undoubtedly caused, would have to come later as at the moment there were people to start transporting back. Taking stock of the other kidnap victims, he was glad to note they were fine, if laid about haphazardly. Still he took a slow centering breath, the shadow clone was jutsu that he was always careful about using as he relied upon quality as his Chakra reserves were nothing special, and splitting it always required careful consideration. Thankfully he didn’t need perfect clones, just needed them good enough to carry people.

It was short work to make the six copies he needed, at a glance they were easily distinguishable as Kakashi but each of them was grayed out and lacking fine detail. ”It’s always surprising how useful it is knowing how to cut corners with clone techniques can be” Kakashi said looking at his barely-there-clones before directing them to pick up the still unconscious victims.