Chapter 1
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, Studio Pierrot, etc. Not me.
This is a story I've been working on for a while. It is going to be long, and to focus on all the members of team 7 (Sai and Yamato included) and how they could have changed had things been a little different. Please reserve your judgement of my way of portraying these characters until I've had time to flesh them out more. There is going to be Sasuke/Naruto, but very eventually—romance won't be the focus of things for a long while, and other ships will feature that I won't give away yet. Trigger warnings for individual chapters will be posted as the end note of each chapter, as some of them will contain spoilers. Please consult them if you think you might be uncomfortable with anything. My take on the ninja world is a bit morerealistic than in the manga. Violence will be graphic in some cases, although I try to keep it light.
Thank you for reading.
Title is taken from the song by Kadebostany.
Walking With a Ghost
Chapter 1.
Sarutobi Hiruzen was an expert at treading carefully. One didn't stay Hokage for as long as he had without making compromises—or lightly manipulating people into adhering to his point of view. Right now, the situation he found himself in was a complicated one. He had taken out his pipe, smoking slowly, discreetly burning the remnants of smoke with his chakra before they could damage his lungs. At this point, he didn't even enjoy the tobacco anymore, it was all for show.
"It seems to me that young Naruto just saved your life, Iruka-kun," he said, smiling at the battered chuunin standing before him.
The man answered his smile with a wince, a hand coming to prod at his split lip. It was strange to see him like this, bloody and tired, devoid of his forehead protector. Iruka might not have been one of the strongest shinobi of the Leaf, but he was one of its most loyal. That he should have given his protector away, and to Naruto of all people… He truly was a wonderful boy.
"She did, sir," Iruka finally replied. "Which is why i do not feel mistaken in my decision to accept her as a genin. She showed that she has the ability to deal with real-life situations and she managed to compartmentalize her emotions enough not to let Mizuki's revelations disturb her judgment. And, God knows how, she learned a jounin-level technique in one evening."
Hiruzen nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, she has the skills, and she showed promise. It is, however, the policy of this village to judge shinobi candidates in an academic setting, during the exams they have had time to prepare for. An exam Naruto has failed three times already."
"This policy is a new one and you know it," Iruka protested. "Sir," he added after a second,
blushing at his outburst. "Many of our most excellent shinobi have graduated under special circumstances, or been promoted outside of the chuunin and jounin exams. Naruto is obviously uncomfortable at the Academy, and honestly, I don't blame her. Would you really let her rot there for another six months? Most of the teachers hate her and make no secret of it. Some of them have been failing her on purpose for years. You know that's why she doesn't study anymore."
It was a problem Hiruzen was unfortunately very aware of. When Uzumaki Naruto had started attending the Academy—after weeks of virulent debate in the village council and until Uchiha Fugaku had simply stated that if their junchuuriki didn't learn chakra control, they shouldn't come crying when the Kyuubi broke free and no Yondaime was there to save them—the teaching staff of Konohagakure had made its opinion on the topic very clear. The enthusiastic seven-year-old Naruto had soon stopped making efforts in her studies when she realized that her grades were slipping no matter what. Instead, she had made herself visible through other means, making an annoyance of herself and forcing the villagers to acknowledge her presence through mostly harmless pranks and the gritting shriek of her voice.
It hadn't softened people's opinion, Hiruzen reflected sadly, but it had made their hatred more visible, more justified in their warped minds. Fewer and fewer of his shinobi intervened when Naruto got herself into trouble. The little girl, now twelve years of age, had already almost been killed twice, not counting Mizuki's attempt a few hours before.
The Hokage sighed and leaned back in his chair. The open window next to his desk let in the chilly night air, alleviating the heaviness he always started feeling after long days spent inside. His nape started aching, but he refused to let it show.
"I will let Naruto graduate, as you wish," he said finally. Seeing Iruka's face light up at the announcement, he lifted his hand, stopping the man's thanks before they could leave his mouth. "However, that doesn't mean she will be leaving the Academy. She has to gain the approval of whichever jounin will be assigned to her before her career as a kunoichi of Konoha can truly begin. This will prove most difficult. I cannot guarantee that her evaluation will be free of prejudice."
"Aren't the jounin above all this pettiness?" Iruka asked, a note of helplessness in his voice. Another time, Hiruzen would have smiled, glad to see that Naruto had managed to bond to this extent with her teacher. God knew the girl was in need of a good parental figure.
"I cannot say this for sure. Many of them have lost comrades and family when the Kyuubi attacked. And although they are aware of the Yondaime's wish to see the girl brought up as a hero, and they are better at hiding their personal resentment, none of them have ever made a move to seek her out as a student. I will have to make room in a team for her, and whoever ends up being her teacher is hardly going to be happy about it, if only because of the bad reputation having a jinchuuriki as a student will give them."
They stayed silent for a moment, each of them deep in thought. A difficult situation indeed, Hiruzen wondered, sucking grey smoke into his body, longing to let it have its relaxing effect. I do wish the clans at least had learned to accept the girl. If the Uchiha managed to treat her as they would any other citizen of this village, surely the Hyuuga at least could make an effort. I
thought Hiashi was smarter than this. His heart gave a loud familiar thump at the memory ofFugaku and Mikoto, their would-be treason, and the measures that had to be taken to avoid it.
"Uchiha Sasuke is rookie of the year, I believe," he said, chasing away the old pain in his chest. What was done was done.
"Yes," Iruka replied, confused.
"It is traditional that the best and worst of each class be on the same team, to even things out. I had planned to give Sasuke to Kakashi, to help him master the Sharingan, should he develop it." Which I don't doubt, he didn't say. "The original idea was to have him train Sasuke, Nara Shikamaru and Yamanaka Ino… If I make a team with Sasuke and Naruto, I can have Shikamaru and Ino team with Akimichi Chouji and give them to Asuma. He hadn't planned on taking a team, but the work will do him good. My son is getting quite lazy." And Inoichi, Shikaku and Chouza will finally leave me in peace about the genin placements.
Hiruzen took a minute to organize his thoughts. Knowing all the promising students of the Academy was a part of his job he was very invested in. The younger generations of shinobi were the most important. They were the ones who would carry the will of fire, and watching all of them burn brightly among the battle-weary shinobi that made up most of Konoha's elite was one of his greatest sources of joy, second only to spending time with Konohamaru.
"Haruno Sakura could replace Ino," Iruka said. "What she lacks in stamina and physical strength, she makes up for in hard work. Her chakra control is the best out of all the graduates and her grades are excellent. She's a little air-headed, and being in a team with Sasuke-kun will probably make her a bit of a liability at first, but she should snap out of it soon enough. She's a good girl."
This was an interesting idea. Haruno Sakura didn't come from a family of shinobi. Her parents were civilian merchants who had loudly disapproved of her getting enrolled at the Academy. The girl had probably only done it to spite them in the first place, Hiruzen now realized, but she had become a promising student. She wasn't quite at the level required in brute strength, but she could train and get better. And her intellectual knowledge would be a good addition to a team with Naruto and Sasuke in it. Naruto wasn't good at anything that wasn't physical training, and Sasuke tended to rely too much on his clan techniques and natural talent. Sakura's presence would do them good.
"I agree," he nodded, and Iruka smiled. "I will give Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke to Kakashi. I do not know if he will pass them, seeing as he has never taken a genin team before, and only made himself available because of Sasuke. But I know how Kakashi likes his teams, and I have faith that in that respect, they will surprise him."
"Well," the chuunin chuckled, earning himself a raised eyebrow. "At least having Sasuke-kun and Naruto together should be interesting. They can't stand each other at all."
A short laugh escaped Hiruzen. It would be worth it, if only for Kakashi's reaction to those news. The teams were to be announced the next Monday, to leave the newly graduated students time to recover from the exams—and, although this wasn't public knowledge, time to
enjoy being shinobi before sixty percent of them were sent back to the Academy benches.
With surprise, he realized that he didn't doubt for one second that Naruto wouldn't be one of them.
x
Naruto woke up on Monday morning feeling like she could conquer the world. This wasn't a new occurrence in and of itself, as she often let her thoughts linger on how incredible she would feel once she became Hokage—the first female Hokage, at that, which was even more awesome— but it was the first time she felt her dream was truly backed by something.
Smiling broadly, she grabbed the forehead protector sitting on her nightstand. She hadn't had it for more than a few days, but it had already become her most prized possession. The metal was covered in tiny scrapes, the cloth well-worn and soft in her hands. Biting her lips to prevent herself from screaming in joy (it was early and her neighbors disliked her a lot as it was), she jumped out of bed and discarded her pajamas.
In the shower, she did a quick job of washing herself. She was running low on shampoo, but even the prospect of having to take care of the groceries soon couldn't dampen her good mood.
She had graduated!
Finally, after three failed attempts, she had managed to impress one of her teachers. And Iruka-sensei had even given her his own forehead protector. It probably didn't mean much to him, as he must have spare ones ready just in case, but to her it was the greatest gift she had ever received, and she would wear it proudly.
Today was the day she would meet her team. She would lie if she said she wasn't anxious; there were a lot of people in her class that she frankly disliked, and even more who outright hated her. The fact that she now knew why they did didn't make it any less true. She would also have to deal with her instructor and whatever prejudice he might hold against her. She frowned, remembering Mizuki's hateful words and his grey eyes gleaming with malice.
Whatever, she decided. What would happen would happen, and she would deal with it then. Worrying about it beforehand wouldn't do her any good. Besides, maybe she would be on a team with Sakura-chan! She blushed slightly at that thought. Oh, if only she could be on a team with her. It was unlikely, since every team was supposed to have one girl in it, and the number of kunoichi candidates, while on the rise, was still barely sufficient. But she could hope.
Naruto stepped out of the shower stall and put on her orange jumpsuit, sandals and beloved forehead protector. When she came home tonight, she would be a true Konoha genin. She would have two teammates and a jounin instructor, and together they would become famous and be the best in the village. Of that, she was sure.
It was still early when she got out of her apartment. Fall was coming, and the trees surrounding the village were already turning a brownish red. Goosebumps crawled on the skin of her bare
forearms—the wind was still cold and damp from the previous night's rain.
She was almost at the Academy gates (The last time I walk through these stupid gates, she thought with satisfaction) when she stopped dead in her tracks.
"Konohamaru!" she yelled, pointing at the side of the road. "I know you're here! Why the hell are you following me?"
She heard a yelp, and soon enough a little boy covered in green paint started out of the bushes and tried to run away. Naruto quickly did the seal for her Shadow Clone technique and waited for another version of herself to catch him. Barely a minute later, Konohamaru was dragged before her, and she dismissed her double.
"What was that technique?" the boy asked immediately, looking with wide eyes at the place her clone had stood a second ago.
"Never mind that! Why are you following me?" she answered, crossing her arms in front of her.
He blushed and refused to say a thing, instead kicking a rock away and into a nearby wall. When he thought her irritation might have receded, he risked looking up, only to catch her cold glare, and she saw him restrain a shriek. She chuckled internally. It was good to know that her imitation of Ayame-san's best glare #2 at least worked on someone.
"I-I-I just wanted to wish you luck with your new team," he grumbled, cheeks reddening.
Her expression softened. "Alright," she sighed. "But next time try a better disguise. That shade of green isn't even remotely similar to those bushes. Are you colorblind? Also, there's no need to sneak up on me like that. You can just come talk to me."
Konohamaru jumped to his feet, fist raised, ignoring her question. "I can see that you're still stronger than me, Naruto! But it won't last! I'm going to become Hokage, and I won't let myself be beaten by a girl! Even if I still can't believe you're a girl," he added, frowning at her.
Laughing, she shooed him away. Talking with Konomaharu like this was rapidly becoming something of a habit, despite the fact that they had met only a few days ago. The Hokage's grandson had developed a bit of a hero-worship attitude towards her after she'd pushed his stuck-up teacher into the river. He had taken to wearing the pair of goggles she had given him after that awful night like it was some kind of a medal. She was flattered, and a little uncomfortable, and mostly she was growing very fond of this little boy who called himself her rival.
Too bad I already have a rival picked, she thought cheerfully as she walked into the Academybuilding. God, I hope I'm not in Sasuke's team.
She was still early. The only other person in her classroom was Shikamaru, and he was sleeping as usual. Sometimes she wondered if the only reason he got out of bed in the morning was so he could go right back to sleep at school. His grades were about as bad as hers, and he was twice as lazy. Which, come to think of it, was supremely annoying.
Naruto sat down in the back and waited for the others to arrive. Little by little, her classmates trickled by and took their places. Some of them shot her surprised looks, but thankfully they seemed too excited too bother her. She grunted when she saw Sasuke sit down in front of her. He didn't notice her presence, probably too busy being a jerk even in thought.
Annoyed, she realized he was so tall that she couldn't see above his head, even when he slouched in his chair.
A low murmur was growing in the room as friends greeted each other. Some seemed anxious, worried about being placed in a bad team. Even Shikamaru had opened his eyes when Chouji had joined him, and was listening to the other's incessant babble. Naruto felt sadness spread through her chest briefly; she liked them, and Kiba as well, and would have loved to spend more time with them. They had never gotten close enough to be friends, exactly, but she used to hang out with them from time to time. Until the boys' mothers had taken notice, and told their sons to stop talking to her. They hadn't understood—she hadn't, either, even if now she did, and it did nothing to ease the pain—but they had obeyed. Slowly, their relationship had strained, until it disappeared. They had never been mean to her; they just hadn't cared enough to be kind.
Naruto scowled, face hidden in her arms. She wasn't supposed to be so maudlin on the day she started her career as a kunoichi of the Leaf! So what if Kiba, Shikamaru and Chouji had stopped caring about her? So had tons of other people. She was stronger than that. If Sasuke could ignore everyone around him and still look cool doing it, so could she.
High-pitched yelling announced the arrival of Ino and Sakura-chan. Naruto raised her head, a grin spreading on her face, and felt her mood brighten considerably as she saw her pink-haired classmate barge into the room, followed by a very angry-looking Ino. Sakura-chan had graduated too! Of course, that wasn't surprising. She was smart, and beautiful, and had better grades than everyone else. She was always going to graduate on her first try.
"Hello, Sakura-chan!" Naruto called happily. The other girl ignored her, passing her by on her way to Sasuke's side. Ino glanced at her, surprised, but made no comment.
The two of them started talking to Sasuke, their voices growing louder and louder, while the jerk only grunted and sighed. It was unfair, Naruto decided, that such a genius had to be such an asshole. He wasn't even remotely worthy of Sakura-chan's affection.
She was about to leap onto the jerk's desk and shake him by the shoulders when Iruka-sensei entered the classroom.
"Alright, folks!" he said brightly, and Naruto reluctantly sat down. Their teacher took attendance —for the last time, which made her feel very strange—before putting down his clipboard and looking all of them in the eye, smiling proudly.
"First of all, congratulation to all of you for passing the exams," he continued once everyone was silent again. "I'm very proud to have been your teacher, and I have no doubt that you will all make excellent shinobi. The village is lucky to have you."
His now-former students chuckled, and elbowed each other, and Naruto could feel herself growing taller when Iruka-sensei's gaze fell on her for a second, warm and friendly.
"Now, as you know, you will be placed in teams of three and put under the instruction of an experienced jounin. You will start taking missions and doing your share of protection for all the citizens of Fire and whoever else might request your help. This is the official beginning of your career, so good luck to you all. Respect your teachers, obey your orders, and do your best to uphold the will and reputation of this great village!"
His words were met with an enthusiastic clamor, and Iruka-sensei let it wash over the assembly before taking up his notes again.
"Your teachers will meet you this afternoon, but I will announce the teams now. This will be my last advice to you: take your free time today to get to know your teammates. Get to know them, their ambitions, their lives. Team work is important, and knowing who you are fighting with could save your life one day."
He then started listing the names and team numbers of the thirty or so graduates. Tense and excited at the same time, Naruto waited for her turn, wishing for the hundredth time that day not to fall into a team made of people who hated her. As the few people she occasionally talked to were sorted—Kiba and Hinata with the Aburame guy, Shikamaru, Chouji and Ino together, which elicited a great disappointed moan from the Yamanaka heir—she could feel herself become agitated. The ever-receding number of unsorted classmates were now looking all around them, gauging each other, and she felt the weight of their eyes on the back of her head, disapproving, annoyed.
"Team seven," Iruka announced. "Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto. Your instructor will be Hatake Kakashi."
It took a second for Naruto to realize what he'd just said. Sakura's yell of triumph washed over the disappointed groans of most of the other girls in the room. Ino's face grew red with anger, and she jumped to her feet.
"Sensei!" she cried. "Why does team seven have two kunoichi in it? I thought we were supposed to be with two guys! Why does Sakura get to be on Sasuke-kun's team when Naruto's already there?"
She was looking at their teacher with wild eyes, gesturing towards Sakura with such violence that she barely missed punching Shikamaru, who was sitting next to her, in the nose.
Iruka sighed, rubbing his forehead as if trying to wave off the beginnings of a headache. "While we do try to have at least one kunoichi per genin team, Ino-chan, there is no actual rule forbidding other arrangements. We are lucky enough to have more kunoichi than usual graduating this year, so some teams will have more girls than boys in them. I would have thought you'd welcome the change. You're usually very vocal about getting more girls enrolled at the Academy."
Ino spluttered, apparently at a loss for words. Sakura smirked then, and sing-songed loudly,
"Don't pay attention to blondie over there, Iruka-sensei. She's just jealous because she doesn't get to spend every day from now on with Sasuke-kun. Instead, she gets the laziest and most useless teammates ever!"
"Well at least I'm not on Naruto's team!" Ino shot back, teeth gritted in fury. Naruto's heart skipped a beat at that, because, well, she was on Sakura's team, and it was kind of awesome. "Good luck with that one! She'll drag you down to her level, and then you'll realize how unlucky you were that I wasn't here in your place!"
"That's enough!" Iruka called then. The coldness in his voice stopped the two arguing girls in their tracks. "You two sit down, now. This is not the kind of behavior that any respectable jounin will accept. You're lucky your instructors aren't here to see this. You're adults now. Act like it."
The rest of the placements went much quicker after that. Sakura and Ino stayed silent, refusing to meet each other's eyes. Sasuke, as usual, didn't even seem to have noticed anything happening. Wonder boy probably thought he was too good to react to people fighting over his attention.
Naruto was highly aware of the jealousy burning in her throat. She swallowed, hoping to see it disappear. Unsurprisingly, it didn't.
After everyone had been placed into their respective teams—and Naruto was happy to note that one other team had two girls and one boy, who looked decidedly sullen about this fact— everyone started leaving the classroom. Sasuke didn't move a muscle, though. Keeping in mind what Iruka had said about trying to get to know your team mates, Naruto stayed as well. She noticed Sakura doing the same, and her heart fluttered slightly.
The silence that followed was not a comfortable one. Even Sasuke seemed to realize this, for he straightened up in his chair and turned to look at them both, still silent. His black eyes were for all intent and purposes digging a hole in the side of Naruto's face, so she turned to look at him as well.
"What?" she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.
He smirked. "Just trying to understand how I got saddled with you of all people, dumbass." This was perhaps the longest sentence she'd ever heard him utter, but the anger that swallowed her whole at his careless words made her ignore that fact. "Although now that I think about it, I remember. They always make the best and worst of each class team up at the end, don't they? Guess we all know whose career is on to a promising start."
"You-"
The burning in her chest was back, sudden and more painful than before, making her stumble on her words. Sasuke took her hesitation as a sort of confession. He laughed, a short, ice-cold sound that went straight through her. His head came back to rest on his crossed arms, the perfect picture of high and mighty.
"Thought so," he added when it became evident that Naruto wouldn't say another word.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go, she thought helplessly, half of her still fuming silently, the other trying to hold back the insults she could feel on her lips. Sakura was watching them, frowning deeply, looking a whole lot like a deer caught in headlight.
Finally, Naruto forced herself to calm down. Iruka's words were still ringing in her ears. She concentrated on the memory of the acceptance in his eyes, on the skin-warm protector resting on her forehead.
She took a deep breath. "This isn't how it works," she said finally, perhaps more loudly than necessary.
Sasuke didn't move. Jerk, she thought without heat. Sakura, however, looked at her directly, surprise etched onto her features. Naruto's heart sped up, but she managed not to blush.
"We're stuck together anyway, right?" she continued, and this got the imbecile's attention. He threw her a disgusted look, which was probably his way of saying 'you don't deserve my attention so why are you still talking'. Way too many words to bother.
He's even worse than Shikamaru, I swear.
"I just mean…" God, this was hard. She needed to make a point, here. She couldn't be the usual loudmouth, or they'd never take her seriously. What had Iruka said, again? Team work. The key to a successful shinobi career. "I guess none of us is satisfied with the outcome. But we don't really have a choice, do we? We're stuck together no matter what. They don't change the teams once they're made."
Well, she didn't know that for sure, but she'd never heard of teams being broken by something other than the death of one or several of its members. And as much as she loathed the thought of having to cooperate with goddamn Uchiha Sasuke, she'd rather he stay alive and well. His whole clan was already lost, after all. She could empathize with that, if nothing else. Growing up an orphan was hard.
"I don't want us to always resent our situation, okay. I mean, well, obviously we're not gonna start liking each other overnight-" Sakura's face became angry in a flash, and Naruto winced, "I mean- maybe it could happen. I don't know. But I think we should try to get along somehow. Don't you think?"
She tried not to fidget under their gaze. There was sweat gathering in her back and above her lips, and she itched to walk away from the room and forget she'd talked altogether.
"Maybe we should start by not insulting each other," she finished lamely.
"How noble of you," Sasuke deadpanned, making her cringe. She did sound an awful lot like a child trying too desperately to make friends. This isn't about your feelings, she remembered as her embarrassment threatened to take over, this is about your career. This is your one shot at becoming Hokage. Don't screw it up.
"Yeah, well, that's me, alright. Noble, always looking out for everyone else."
Sakura snorted loudly at that. She blushed immediately, covering her mouth with a hand, but the atmosphere lightened somewhat. Naruto had a hard time containing her grin at the thought that she'd surprised Sakura enough to make her forget the delicate persona she always tried so painstakingly to project. This was worth a hundred years of being Uchiha Sasuke's team mate.
"Whatever," said team mate mumbled, already going back to looking at nothing and pondering his no-doubt Very Important Uchiha thoughts.
"That was… surprisingly thoughtful, Naruto," Sakura said, approaching her.
It took Naruto a while to be able to speak. "A-Are you actually talking to me?" she blurted in a high-pitched tone.
Sakura hummed softly and sat down next to her. "Well, I don't really know you, but you don't seem to be after Sasuke-kun's love like Ino, so I guess that makes you okay. Not competition."
"Definitely not competition," she agreed quickly. "I actually don't know how anyone could possibly-"
"Shut up, idiot," Sasuke groaned from his seat two rows down.
"Go back to sleep, jerk," she snapped back, a slight grin on her face.
"As if anyone could possibly sleep in your presence. Your voice is way too loud. You'll get killed on our first mission if you don't take a vow of silence."
Naruto relaxed. This was better. This was casual banter, not like the insults he'd delivered so coldly earlier. Not like Ino's dismissal. They might not ever become friends, but she could live with this. And Sakura seemed a lot less nervous as well.
"So, um… Iruka-sensei said that we should try and get to know one another?" she told Sakura. "What kind of stuff do you like?"
x
It was a known fact that Kakashi never arrived anywhere early if he could help it. Those who knew him best—a very short list comprised of Asuma, Kurenai, Gai, and his landlady—had stopped caring a long time ago and simply taken to showing on average two hours after the appointed time every time they met. It worked, for the most part. Kakashi's limit was set somewhere before three hours.
He turned up at the Hokage tower three and a half hours after the briefing he was supposed to attend as one of the jounin instructors for this year's rookie genin. It was his petty way of showing how little he wanted to take on a team.
"Finally," Sarutobi said as Kakashi slid in through the window, jumping in place in one swift move.
"You should think about closing it sometimes," he simply answered. "Don't want to have to give
up that hat before your time."
"Oh, please," the Hokage chuckled. "I still have a few good years in front of me."
He tapped a finger against a file on his desk. TEAM SEVEN was written on it in bold letters, and Kakashi tried to contain the sudden desire to rip the thin folder to shreds.
He hadn't wanted a genin team. He never had. Too many risks, too much involvement. Too many jounin coming home one day with ghosts in their eyes and blood crusting under their fingernails. The memories of Obito's crushed body and his own hand tearing Rin's heart out were still fresh in his mind, still keeping him awake at night. They would never stop.
"Do I have to do this?" he asked after a minute of silence. Sarutobi nodded, his expression somber.
"You know Sasuke-kun needs your help, Kakashi."
"I won't be able to help him much." He had said this before, a lot of times. "It wouldn't make any difference."
"Would you rather he be left to his own devices? Waking the Sharingan on his own, stewing in his anger? We would only give birth to a second Itachi."
They had already had this argument, and as usual Kakashi found himself forced to agree with Sarutobi. No, leaving the last Uchiha to his isolation wasn't a risk they could afford to take.
Sighing one last time, he took the folder and opened it, scanning its content briefly. He paused at his students' personal files and felt his heart miss a beat. Lifting his head, he found Sarutobi watching him intently, no doubt trying to gauge his reaction to this slight change of plan.
Well, Kakashi was done playing games.
"What is the meaning of this?" he asked briskly, throwing a page onto the Hokage's desk. The old man's eyes wandered for a second, taking in the picture of a young blond-haired girl smiling brightly.
"Uzumaki Naruto," he said in a neutral voice. "One of your students, as of today."
"I know who she is." Fucking old man, he didn't add. "What I want to know is what she's doing on my team, when you expressively promised me I wouldn't have to be anywhere near her."
Sarutobi winced visibly, but Kakashi was too angry and disappointed to care. The sharp tugging in his chest felt an awful lot like betrayal, and he was having to restrain himself from raising his voice. No matter how informal the Hokage liked to be with him, he was still the old man's soldier. You didn't raise your voice on him without facing the consequences.
"I hadn't planned on her graduating this year," Sarutobi admitted. "But she showed the required skills, even if she came last of her class. You know we pair the last and first together. It's what happened with you and Obito."
The jab at his old team stung, but not as much as the prospect of having to teach Minato's daughter.
"With all due respect, sir, this is a feeble excuse. You could have arranged otherwise. I don't know what your angle is here, whether it's some heartfelt attempt at making me 'deal with my feelings' or just because you get some sort of sick enjoyment out of messing with me, but I don't want her. And I won't train her."
"And who will, if you don't?"
Kakashi paused. Sarutobi hadn't yelled, exactly, but his words had felt like steel in the air. They looked at each other, refusing to back down, until at last the old man groaned and rubbed a hand against his forehead, the other busy rummaging through his drawers for his infamous pipe. He lit it with a fire jutsu—making a small yellow flame appear between his thumb and index finger before shaking it off. It was a wonderful show of chakra control and precision, but Kakashi refused to pay it any mind.
"Look, Kakashi," the old man began. He took a drag off the wooden pipe and exhaled slowly, suffusing the smell of tobacco and herb in the room, probably to the greatest annoyance of whichever ANBU was currently in charge of cleaning it.
"You have to understand, I did not gave her to you for my own 'sick enjoyment', as you nicely put it. I simply don't trust anyone else with her."
"And why should you trust me? I told you when you took me out of ANBU. No matter what happens, no matter how dire the situation, I want nothing to do with that girl. You said this wouldn't be a problem. You promised me I wouldn't have to get close to her."
There was an urgency in his limbs, a trembling in his hands. Kakashi clasped them at his sides, crumpling the folder he was still holding. The paper made a soft, creaking noise, and a sudden weight in his back let him know that at least one guard was standing nearby and tensing up, ready to intervene. He tried to control his breathing again.
"I did promise you," Sarutobi said. His face and body language expressed nothing but sadness mixed with determination, and Kakashi knew he had lost. "But, although I can understand your reasons, misguided as they are, for avoiding her, your feelings cannot take precedence over her safety. The fact is that whether or not you grow to like her as a person, I trust you to keep her safe. I'm afraid I cannot say the same of the other instructors this year."
Kakashi looked at the ground, his shoulders sagging. "Even your son?" he asked after a moment.
"Even my son," the Hokage answered, bowing his head.
Resentment hung heavy in the air. The guard outside hadn't made a move, but Kakashi could feel him more clearly now, which was as good a threat as any. He closed his eyes. His work here was done, he had his orders, and he had to follow them regardless of his feelings over the matter. That's what he did. That's what they all did.
He nodded curtly and jumped outside, away from the sick-sweet smell of the Third's old pipe. The ANBU guard was crouching under the windowsill, his porcelain mask reflecting the sunlight. He didn't make a sound when Kakashi tapped his shoulder, murmuring, "good day, Tenzou," before departing towards the Academy.
He still had time before he had to get there, he guessed. He knew the other jounin had probably gathered their own students and gone for testing already, but the day was still young. Still way too early for him to show up. And yet, he figured he should get this out of the way as soon as possible.
This day was full of surprises, he reflected darkly.
Asuma did a full double-take when he appeared outside the gates, cursing so loudly that he dropped the cigarette he was holding. Damn Sarutobis and their nicotine addiction.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Asuma asked
"Sensei!" a shrill voice exclaimed, and Kakashi finally noticed the three kids following his friend like a row of ducklings. The voice belonged to the blond one, a girl with angry lines etched onto her face. Inoichi's daughter, he thought, seeing her pale blue eyes.
"Well, as you might have gathered, I am here to collect my own cute genin. They're very trendy. I see you already have yours."
"Yeah, but I never expected you to arrive on time…" Asuma frowned, and his eyes flickered to the Academy buildings. He hummed thoughtfully. "You know who they gave you, right?"
Kakashi didn't answer. Sarutobi Asuma had the most controlled mannerisms out of all the current jounin. His laziness was a carefully constructed shield that he could drop in a beat if the situation required him to. His poker face was almost as good as Kakashi's, which made the man a real pain to read. For all he knew, Asuma could had spent his entire life training it through glaring contests with the Hokage.
And yet Sarutobi doesn't trust him. I wonder why.
The other man didn't say anything else. He lit another cigarette, forgetting the one he'd dropped and artfully ignoring his students' open looks of disgust. He took off with one last wave in Kakashi's direction. Kurenai was nowhere to be seen, but that was no surprise. Unlike them, she was always right on time.
Kakashi walked the rest of the way. Leaping through the open window and watching his students' surprised faces would have been fun, but he needed to ground himself. Already he could see Uchiha Sasuke's eyes turned towards him, watching him approach. At least the boy wasn't completely unaware of his surroundings. If he hesitated for half a second before crossing the threshold of the dusty classroom, he didn't let it show.
What he found wasn't what he had expected. His 'team' were the last ones waiting in the room, Iruka having gone already, probably expecting him to show much later. He couldn't fault the man
for thinking like that. Sasuke was sitting by the window, glaring at him, brooding silently. The two girls were a bit further back, engrossed in each other. Or, at least, the pink-haired one was talking, and the other was listening. He released the breath he had been holding. Uzumaki's face was turned away and towards Haruno, drinking in her every word.
"You're late," Sasuke said, obviously annoyed.
"Am I?" Kakashi replied evenly, even as the other two ceased their chatter to look at him. Blue eyes met his, and time seemed to stop and go backwards for a very long second.
She didn't loon exactly like her father. Kakashi could see Kushina in the laugh lines around her mouth and the way her body shifted—restless, bursting with unused energy, constantly restraining herself from running or screaming. She certainly didn't have her father's natural talent and dedication, judging by her grades and the rumors he'd heard of her many mischiefs. The Fourth would have never forgotten his decorum like that.
But Minato was so glaringly present in her. Her hair was the same as his, short and messy, framing her face in the exact same way. The forehead protector tied hastily on her forehead only reinforced the resemblance. She had the same eyes, and, God, apparently the same smile, the one so wide it made her skin crease at the corner of her eyes.
She was smiling at him, looking innocent and excited, and loathing shot through his entire body like an arrow. He felt nauseous.
"Well, I hate all of you already," he announced. Shocked looks met him, and he tried not to care. "Meet me on the roof."
He did leave through the window, just for the hell of it. The sun was high now, warming the tiles and the back of his neck. It was too hot for an end-of-summer afternoon. Too dry. A storm had finally ripped the sky the night before, cooling the air after a week of damp, sweaty heat that had made everyone exhausted and moody. Now the atmosphere was clear. The ponds littering the ground were vaporizing lazily. Yellowish grass spots burned in the light, already sprinkled with dead leaves.
It took five minutes for all of his team to find him. Sasuke had predictably jumped after him, showing off his athletic abilities. The girls had walked up the stairs instead, Haruno still talking, Uzumaki still looking at her like the sun shone out of her ass.
This might be problematic, he thought, taking in the picture they all made, familiar and foreignat once.
"Take place, take place," he told them, not trying to mask how little he wanted to be here. They all sat down, wincing as their little behinds hit the hot tiles. Even this didn't manage to make him smile. "Introduce yourselves. Likes, dislikes, ambitions. Uchiha, you go first."
It was unusual for genin teams and their instructors to use each other's last names. Instructors were supposed to build a trusting relationship with their students. Companionship, closeness even, was greatly encouraged, as it facilitated team work and moral support in case tragedy
happened or missions became difficult, which was always a possibility. Sasuke must have known this, because he looked at him strangely before speaking.
"I'm Uchiha Sasuke. I don't really want to talk about my likes and dislikes. My ambitions are to redeem my clan's name and… to kill a certain man."
Well, he certainly has his clan's proclivity for drama down. Haruno and Uzumaki were bothlooking at the boy with wide eyes, suddenly at a loss for words.
"Haruno," he called.
"Huh, yes!" she answered, snapping out of her stupor. She shook her head. "My name is Haruno Sakura. I like- flowers, I guess. Reading. Canned peaches. My dislikes are…" she shoot a furtive glance at Uzumaki, who was smiling at her shyly, and hesitated. "I don't like bugs. I want to become a strong kunoichi, like Tsunade of the Sannin."
"What about you, Kakashi-sensei?" Uzumaki asked.
Kakashi reacted instantly. "That's Hatake for you," he said, keeping his voice coldly indifferent instead of the snarl that wanted to come out.
The girl looked disappointed but unsurprised. "Oh," she said. "Well, you can call me Naruto! I like noodles, tea, and when the hot water doesn't run out. I don't like snakes and bullies. I'm going to become the first female Hokage Konoha has ever seen, you just wait!"
She had the same language tics as her mother. The same voice, going up and down, exposing her every emotion to the world. And her father's smile, still lighting her young face.
I can't do this, Kakashi thought.
"You've all graduated now," he said instead, ignoring the girl's outburst. "But you're not genin yet."
A silence. "What?" Haruno and Uzumaki yelled as one. Sasuke simply glared.
"The truth is, the exam you took is just here to determine whether or not you have a chance to become genin. After that it's up to the jounin in charge to decide to pass you… or not."
He looked at them—well, at Haruno and Sasuke. He couldn't look at Uzumaki. They were angry, he decided, and anxious, and he toyed with the thought of leaving them hanging for a while longer.
"We're going to have survival training tomorrow. I'm going to test you, and I'll decide what to do then. You should know that students who graduate have a sixty percent rate of failure at this. Only two or three teams will continue as genin this year. The others will go back to the Academy. I've never passed a team before myself," he added as an afterthought, and yes, he confirmed with a glance, Sasuke was getting paler by the second.
"B-But why did no one tell us?" Haruno despaired, her eyes already tearing up. Uzumaki was
unnaturally still in his peripheral vision. He told himself it didn't matter.
"Why do you think?" Kakashi took out a kunai and played with it absent-mindedly, waiting to see if they would get it. As expected, only Sasuke did.
"The announcement, and how we react to it, is part of the test," the boy told them.
"Exactly. Nice to see someone has a brain around here." That last statement had perhaps been a little unnecessary. But Haruno finally shut her gaping mouth and glared at him with all her strength, her tears forgotten. He ignored her. "Be on training field ten tomorrow morning at five. Don't bother eating breakfast, you'll just throw it back up. See you."
Avoiding the questions they tried to shout at him, he used the body flicker to leave quickly. He wasn't fleeing, not really. He wasn't afraid of three would-be genin, no matter how many painful memories stirred in his chest at the sight of them. He just disliked kids in general, and especially kids who wanted to become ninja. Brainwashed little bastards who didn't realize what they were sacrificing. He should have said that when Uzumaki asked about him.
Even thinking her surname was painful. As much as he'd tried to dislike Kushina at first, the woman had painstakingly managed to worm her way into his heart. She had been so terribly lovely. So bright she was blinding, so full of life, so eager to try everything she could. Deadly and beautiful. Talented, cheerful, forgiving. Minato hadn't stood a chance.
Kakashi dearly hoped her daughter wasn't anything like her.
He slept badly, that night. Not that he ever slept well; and, after all, he could take any genin squad half asleep without any problem. He wasn't worried about the following day. But this time was different. His prospective students' faces flashed through his mind ceaselessly. They were so small. Had he ever been so small? Surely, he had not. And yet he could remember how they had mocked him at the chuunin exam, how very surprised they had been that such a small boy could be so lethal. Thinking back, he could understand the Third's lack of enthusiasm at his early promotions, and the swift reforms that had struck the Academy after Itachi lost it and killed his whole clan. No six-year-old should have a killing record. No teenager should be used as a political pawn, forced to stretch himself so thin between his family and his nation that he collapsed in on himself and did the unthinkable.
He surprised himself at his thoughts. Meeting Sasuke had had more of an impact on him than he had expected, if he was thinking of Itachi. This pain had long since dwindled, in the face of the atrocities his once-team mate had committed. But the regret had stayed. He couldn't help wondering if something could have been done to prevent the slaughter of the Uchiha clan.
Not that he would ever pity Itachi, or have mercy on him, if their paths were ever to cross again. Nothing could excuse what he had done.
Kakashi was awake when the sun rose. Eyes wide open, he watched pinkish lines of light crisscross on his ceiling, sliding through the cracks in his blinds. It was around six, he surmised, which meant that his students were already waiting for him. With a snort, he took his time with his usual morning ablutions. They could be patient. They would have to be, in order to work with
him. Besides, he already knew he would pass them. Sarutobi's words the day before left him little choice: regardless of his feelings on the matter, he would end up teaching Sasuke how to use his Sharingan, and Uzumaki Naruto would be put in his care. Should as well do it now and spare himself the pain later on. The kids could sit on their asses for three hours, in exchange for getting the freebie their former classmates were no doubt praying for.
It was high light outside when he finally left his apartment. The weather was colder and more windy than it had been since the beginning of summer. Some of the villagers were wearing light coats, woolen jackets, shawls. A brazier or two were lit in nearby restaurants, to cut out the breeze for early customers.
His students were waiting in a similar configuration to the one that had welcome him back at the Academy: Uzumaki and Haruno were babbling mindlessly, and Sasuke was sitting away from them, watching him arrive silently.
"You're late," whined Haruno upon noticing his presence. "At least three hours late. God, why did we get stranded with the lame sensei?"
"I'm surprised to see you're even still waiting," Kakashi answered airily, willing to let her insolence slide this time. He would train her out of that attitude, in time.
"Sasuke told us it was part of the test!" Uzumaki exclaimed loudly, revealing again her complete inability to be discreet.
"It was," he lied, nodding at the boy—he refused to look at her. Not yet. Not until he really had to.
At least they have basic information-sharing down, he thought, holding back a snort whenSasuke tried fruitlessly to hide the smug expression on his face. They'll need it, if they want to survive. He and Uzumaki are two potential prime targets for enemies of the village.
His visible eye swept over Haruno's disappointed expression. She'll have to learn, too. Especially if the word gets out about Konoha having a genin jinchuuriki. She'll be easy prey if she doesn't.
He wondered what price the Hokage would make him pay if he took the girl apart and told her about her little friend's condition. Not death, he was sure. Even without Obito's eye, the Hatake legacy was too important for the elders. Really, Sarutobi should have thought his law more thoroughly.
No matter. He would not tell her yet. She would have to know anyway, at one point. In the meantime, he would fantasize about making the girl scared of her team mate and taking some of his frustration out on Uzumaki at the same time. He was too tired, too restless after spending the night sitting on insipid scenarios of revenge against Sarutobi, to feel ashamed.
Kakashi rummaged through his backpack and took out a clock. He left it on top of the memorial stone Sasuke was leaning against, and turned to face his students again.
"Okay," he said when he had their entire attention. Which was no small feat, considering Uzumaki kept shooting suspicious glances at the clock every two seconds, fidgeting on her feet.
Great.
"It's set to ring at noon," he continued. "This how long you have to take these-" he held two bells up between his fingers, "away from me. Whoever doesn't have a bell when the alarm rings gets sent back to the Academy. Furthermore, the one among you who will have performed the most terribly will be tied to that post behind me and forced to watch as the others get to eat lunch in front of him or her. You can begin now."
"Wait-" Haruno began, but Sasuke cut her off.
"There's only two bells," he growled. "Which means that only two of us get to pass, right?"
"Right," Kakashi acquiesced.
"But that's just unfair!" Uzumaki exploded, her shrill voice ringing painfully in his ears. "It doesn't make any sense! You can't have just two genin in a squad!"
"The teams are re-made once the jounin have decided who passes and who stays behind," he replied easily. "It's a pain, but we always manage to get three genin per team in the end."
"But what about team work?" the girl asked angrily.
"Yeah," Haruno added, sending dark looks to her only male team mate, "I thought we were supposed to learn how to function together. What's the point of pitting us against each other?"
"None of this matters," Sasuke objected coldly, abandoning his spot against the stone and looking Kakashi straight in the eye. "Obviously this team work idea is all bullshit from Academy teachers who never get into real trouble. I don't know about you two, but I don't intend to become a lousy teacher. I want to be a shinobi. I don't need hindrances like you around."
You're wrong, Kakashi thought with sadness, but he readied his stance. "The clock is ticking,kids. I suggest you make the best of the allotted time and try to make it at least interesting. I'm warning you," he added, using a weak genjutsu—a trick learned from Kurenai—to create fear in their minds, "you won't get these bells if you don't come at me with the intent to kill."
The boy's eyes glinted, and he disappeared.
The body flicker? But then, No. He doesn't have the control for that technique yet. He's just very fast. Kakashi could sense his presence in the nearby trees, although not his exact location.
As expected from Itachi's brother. He's way above the average genin.
"Whoa," Uzumaki said. She was looking at where Sasuke had been a moment ago, wide-eyed.
"Come on, Naruto," Haruno was saying hurriedly, watching Kakashi with a frown, "we need to go too."
"Why?"
But the other was already taking off. Uzumaki seemed confused, and, after a one-second glance in his direction—familiar blue eyes piercing his flesh, it seemed, so painful were they— followed after the pink-haired girl.
Kakashi waited for a moment, but it didn't seem as though any of his students would come at him directly. Sighing, he sat down, and took his book out of his pocket. They would find him, eventually. He didn't see the necessity of chasing after them. If he did, it would be over way too soon. There were still almost three hours on the clock. Best let them plan a bit and watch as their hopes of graduating were crushed.
Unsurprisingly, Uzumaki was the first to find him. Barely twenty minutes had passed.
"Is that porn?" she said indignantly, pointing at the cover of Icha Icha. Kakashi hummed in response, turning a page, but even his upcoming favorite scene—Yako-chan getting out of the hot springs and stumbling into the arms of the narrator, towel slipping down her wet body— couldn't erase the knot in his guts. Uzumaki was still watching him. Not attacking, not even yelling, in spite of everything in her file that had made her out to be easily goaded into aggression.
"You're not even going to answer me, are you?" she asked, and there was something there, in the flatness of her voice and the defeated set of her shoulders. Kakashi didn't look at her face. He was already intimately familiar with the expression he was sure she was sporting.
"Well, I'm going to get one of these bells anyway! Kage Bunshin!" she called, and five clones appeared around her with a popping sound.
Impressive, he thought reluctantly. The shadow clone technique was a high-level infiltration jutsuthat a lot of jounin didn't have the chakra reserves to learn. Obviously, this wasn't one of her problems.
Although, he gathered, straightening up as multiple bright-orange shapes moved in hisperipheral vision, she obviously missed the memo about this being an infiltration technique. It won't be much use to her in combat.
He easily avoided her attacks, not taking his eyes off his book, even if he wasn't reading it anymore. This served two purposes: the first one was to make the gap between their abilities excruciatingly clear. Recognizing one's limits was paramount in the training of any shinobi. The second reason was that it allowed him to train his right eye. Responding to moving targets, even ones as weak as these, without looking directly at them, was always useful. His defeat against Hyuuga Hizashi still stung him viciously, even long after the man's death, even after the priceless lesson his own father had taught him because of it.
There was a reason the Hatakes always wore masks.
The girl was still making clones, almost as fast as he was popping them out of existence, without showing any signs of fatigue or chakra exhaustion. Her reserves were way larger than
any genin's ought to be. This was probably the Kyuubi's doing. Her chakra coils must be thicker and tougher than any of her classmates', in order to survive if the beasts's chakra were to leak out of the Fourth's seal.
Kakashi blinked. One of the clones he'd just thrown off course by its ankle had been smoothly intercepted by another and sent back flying at him. He jumped out of the way without trouble. But his eyes were no longer on Icha Icha.
"Hah! I have your attention now," the girl chuckled. Her breath was starting to falter, at last.
Her clones are very coordinated. That was a nice move. She must have been training with them for a while.
Maybe he would have to rethink that bit about the technique being useless in a fight. True, most shinobi only had enough energy to create one or two clones at a time. The strength of this technique—the solid clones, exact replicas of their original, with roughly the same capacity for thought and the very useful ability to transfer everything they learned to the technique user upon being dismissed or killed—was also its weakness: this technique, albeit simple in its execution, was extremely greedy in chakra reserves. But with what he'd observed so far… Uzumaki could make it work. Maybe. If she learned some discipline.
Uzumaki made three new clones. Kakashi felt another presence behind him, hidden by the trunk of a great oak tree. Another clone? No… She wouldn't have been able to slip one past me at her level. He sniffed, focusing some chakra in his nostrils. There was flowery perfume in theair, not discreet enough to escape him. Haruno, then. The girls were out of luck. The wind was wild, changing directions often, and although she had obviously done all she could to prevent being found, Haruno didn't know scent-tracking was a speciality of his.
He refocused on the student facing him when she attacked together with her clones. He was about to take a step backwards to avoid them when his ears picked up the sound of flying steel. He ducked down. A kunai flew past his head, a little ill-aimed, and burrowed itself in one of the clones. Haruno let out a startled yelp, no doubt thinking she'd just hit her own team mate.
Kakashi flattened the real Uzumaki to the ground, using an earth technique to trap her hands in mud. He then made his own clone, who appeared in the branches above Haruno's hiding spot, and caught the girl in a mild genjutsu. The blood-curling scream she let out was highly satisfying.
"That was easy," he told Uzumaki to rile her up. Predictably, the girl tried to kick him in the balls. He trapped her legs as well. She resigned herself to swearing colorfully at his face, yelling revenge and demanding to know what had happened to her team mate.
He ignored her. Picking himself off the ground, he narrowed his eye at the tree line, trying to locate Sasuke's chakra. He had felt the boy approach after Haruno's scream, but he still couldn't pinpoint his presence.
"You can come out now," he called. "Your comrades already failed, it's just you and me. I'd rather end this quickly, if you don't mind."
There was a silence. Then footsteps echoed in the clearing, and with them the sounds of twigs breaking under well-worn sandals and dry leaves being ground to dust.
Kakashi felt the heat before he saw it. Alarm running through his mind, he jumped as high as he could, channelling chakra into his feet, and landed on top of the wooden post he had promised he'd attach one of his students to earlier. A great scarlet fireball was burning where he had stood a second ago. The old Uchiha technique reduced the grass to ash in a five-meter radius, so hot it made the soil crack open. When it vanished, an acrid smell lingered, making his eye water.
Sasuke was standing away from the now dead spot, still in the position he'd used for his technique.
"That was very impressive," Kakashi commented, watching with casual amusement as the boy jumped in surprise. Immediately, he hid his startled expression and glared. "Students fresh out of the Academy aren't usually this proficient in ninjutsu, apart from the basics. Did someone teach you that?"
Sasuke's face darkened considerably at his last words. Yeah, thought that would get you, Kakashi reflected. Well, tough luck. The boy would have to get used to cold remarks about his lost family and his affiliation to a known traitor. His classmates at the Academy might have been too intimidated, and his teachers too soft, but Kakashi was not. And neither was the rest of the world.
"Come on, then, Sasuke." He put his book away and adopted a taijutsu stance he had learned from Gai. "Give me your worst."
"Fine," Sasuke spat out, and charged.
Immediately, Kakashi realized that putting Icha Icha away had been the right thing to do. While nowhere near strong enough to really challenge him, Sasuke was on a whole other level compared to the two girls on his team. He was faster, yes, but also more controlled. His moves spoke of rigid training, of self-discipline the likes of which Uzumaki and Haruno had probably never heard of, much less experienced. And he was clever. His grades were best in strategy and quick thinking. A true genius. He would never beat Kakashi at his current level, but he might just be cunning enough to get the bells from him.
Soon enough, though, Sasuke started tiring. After he managed to touch one bell from the tip of his finger in a rather brilliant move, his arrogance seemed to get the better of him. His attacks became more predictable, less inventive. He was, for lack of a better word, lazy. This told Kakashi more than he needed to know about the boy's most glaring flaws.
I'm ending this, he decided. He had seen enough. Using the same jutsu he'd trapped Uzumakiwith, he buried Sasuke in mud up to his shoulders, leaving enough space for his ribs to expand and breathe. He didn't want to choke the boy, after all. Sarutobi would have his head, Sharingan or no.
"Nice try," he said cheerfully, patting the outraged boy's head. "Still not good enough, though."
He walked away. The entire ordeal had taken less than thirty minutes, and only ten of those had been spent fighting. There was still more than two hours left on the clock. Overall, they hadn't exceeded his expectations. Despite Sasuke's natural talent, Uzumaki's surprising control over her clones and Haruno's quick thinking—he didn't doubt that the girls' poorly-planned attack was her idea—they never managed to get close to threatening him.
At least the girls had tried to cooperate. Sasuke was ahead of them in almost everything, but he would get killed fast and easy if he maintained his hostility towards team work. Hopefully they'd rub off on him in that respect.
It wasn't a good team. Somewhere inside him, the remnants of his objective thinking was telling him, 'you've worked with worse', but he refused to listen. They were an awful team. Their skills were incompatible. Their respective levels were too uneven. Sasuke would be difficult to work with in and of himself, but given who he was paired with… the boy was already made of psychological issues piled on top of one another. Uzumaki probably had her own sob story of a life to deal with as a jinchuuriki. As for Haruno, she was blissfully unaware, but also more in danger than almost all of them. She didn't come from a clan, didn't have any concrete understanding of life as a shinobi. She was one of those paper-smart types that never lasted long on the field. They died, or put their teams in danger with their inability to cope.
The more Kakashi thought about it, the less he thought he would be able to go anywhere with this team. Usually teams were specialized. Gai's genin were an assault team that concentrated on taijutsu, their skills honed to perfect compatibility. What one of them lacked, the other two made up for. They weren't close, a fact Gai spent most of their time together bemoaning heartily, but they were mature enough to know how to put aside their personal feelings. They worked well. They would undoubtedly become one of the village's deadliest trios, on par with Inoichi, Chouza, and Shikaku.
The Hokage had probably hoped that Kakashi's wide array of skills would palliate his students' weaknesses. It was true that while Kakashi came from a family of ninja that specialized in information-gathering and tracking missions, Obito's Sharingan had allowed him to expand his genius elsewhere as well. He possessed enough techniques now to get himself out of every possible scenario. He still mainly took spying and solo assassination orders, but he could lead an assault squad if need be.
But even he couldn't cover for all the weaknesses these kids had. He knew it was the only possible combination for them, as Sarutobi seemed to have his hands tied as well. But it was too risky. How could he ever make them all work?
The first thing to alert him about the fact that something was wrong was the silence. He stopped in his tracks. When he had left this side of the field earlier, the clearing had resonated with Uzumaki's yells and Haruno's desperate sobbing. Not anymore. The wind was still blowing, strong as ever, ruffling the leaves. The rumble it made was loud enough to cover his own breathing. The spot of earth he had left Uzumaki in was empty, dug through in four different places where her limbs had been stuck.
Kakashi took a step forward, and the unmistakable sound of a wire being pulled made his heart skip a beat.
He used Kawarimi, and not a second too soon: the log that took his place got hit on all sides by about twenty shuriken. Thin strips of bark were ripped off and sent flying by the violence of the impacts.
"Damn it," Uzumaki growled, jumping into the clearing with Haruno's arm over her shoulder, supporting her weight, "I was sure we had him this time!"
"Calm down, Naruto," Haruno answered. She was panting, her muddy face strewn with tear tracks. Her hands, covered in dirt, were clutching at her leg, which was bleeding from a nasty cut.
"But your plan was perfect," Uzumaki pouted.
"Hatake-sensei is an experienced jounin. We can't expect him to fall for such a simple trap. We'll have to find another way to get these damn bells."
This… was not something Kakashi would have predicted. He put his hands in his pocket and fell down from where he was perched, landing about a dozen meters away from the girls.
"Ha! Found you!" Uzumaki exclaimed, pointing wildly at his face.
"Yeah, you did," he drawled. Even if technically, I found you. But he was curious, all the same. "Care to explain how?"
Uzumaki grinned. "Sakura-chan is a winner," she declared proudly.
The other girl blushed a little before answering, "Not really," in a small voice. "It took me a long time to figure out you wouldn't really kill Sasuke-kun, and that I was probably in the middle of a genjutsu. I cut my leg to break it, because I remember Iruka-sensei saying that pain was one of the ways to free yourself from an illusion, and then I found Naruto."
"She dug me out with her bare hands," Uzumaki said, worship in her eyes. "It was so cool. And then she told me she'd had an idea about a trap, and since her leg hurt she told me what to do and I did it. And then we caught you!"
Haruno was still blushing, mumbling and trying to remind the other that the plan hadn't worked, really, but Kakashi wasn't listening.
It was an interesting turn of events, to say the least. In the few minutes it'd taken to subdue Sasuke, they had come up with a rather clever trap. Well, Haruno had. But Uzumaki, brash, undisciplined Uzumaki, had complied eagerly. In fact, she had never tried to attack him on her own, he realized. They had worked in tandem from the start. This showed a maturity that their other team mate was very far from achieving.
Tension built up between them. He was aware, as were they, that they stood no chance of getting the bells from him now. Sakura was hurt, unable to walk by herself. The genjutsu had exhausted her mentally as well as physically—her voice was rough, barely a whisper. Uzumaki would have probably come at him anyway, if it wasn't for that fact. She kept looking between her friend's injured leg and Kakashi's location, perhaps trying to establish how long it would take
for her to flee while supporting Haruno.
This answered his earlier question.
"Test is over, girls and boys," he told them.
The two girls looked up at him in astonishment, jaw dropped unattractively. He smiled. Somehow this must have shown through his mask, because they seemed to relax minutely, still confused.
He formed the seals for a shadow clone. "Go fetch Sasuke," he told it, before turning back to his now official students. "Haruno, let me see that leg before it gets infected. You go wait by the stone," he gestured vaguely in Uzumaki's direction.
She breathed an annoyed 'fine' before carefully lowering Haruno to the ground, answering the other girl's smile, and taking off towards where the clock still sat. A moment later, while he tended to the shallow cut as well as he could without the help of a medic, he heard a string of colorful swearing. Uzumaki's wild laughter answered it. She was cut short, however, and started yelling too. He surmised that his clone was tying her to the post, as he had wished.
"There," he said, getting up. He helped Haruno do the same, but let her walk alone. She would suffer worse injuries in the future. Better that she get used to fighting through them now than when it mattered.
Once they were all at the stone, he paused. Haruno and Sasuke sitting down, sulking quietly, looking in opposite directions. Uzumaki was struggling against the rope tying her in place, whining about one thing or another. Kakashi looked at them for a long minute before speaking.
"You all fail," he declared.
As expected, his statement earned him a vicious glare from Sasuke, a teary look from Haruno, and an angry cry from Uzumaki.
"We're not the ones tied like idiots," Sasuke said, shaking his head towards Uzumaki. The girl answered by suggesting he do something terribly painful-sounding involving his ass and one of the Uchiha fans he was so fond of. It would have been hilarious, just for the scandalized expression on his face, but Kakashi refused to find anything Uzumaki said relevant in any way. He was petty like that.
"Still, none of you managed to get a bell. Do you think Konoha needs shinobi so weak they can't pass the first test their sensei gives them?"
The boy had no answer to that. Haruno didn't cry, thankfully, but her face was so pale she looked like a ghost. She was certainly thinking about her parents' reaction. It was Kakashi's understanding that they had disapproved of her enrollment at the Academy. She must be wondering how to face them still, after failing so spectacularly on her first real challenge. He could see her curl in on herself, hiding her face, eyes fixed on her bloody hands.
Uzumaki was not so silent. She squirmed, and kicked, and grunted, doing everything she could
to slip between her bounds. She would fail, he already knew. His clone had tied her solidly.
"The fact that she was the worst out of you all doesn't mean you were good," Kakashi finally said, looking up at the clouds, sliding his hands into his pockets. He fingered the cover of Icha Icha, but didn't take it out. "In my eyes, you're all equally lousy."
"I was rookie of the year," Sasuke protested.
"So what? Academy grades don't mean anything if you can't apply them to reality. You were better than them at hand-to-hand and ninjutsu, but you tried to play it cool, and that was ultimately what made you fail. Well, that and your arrogance." His student reddened and opened his mouth, but Kakashi cut him. "The girls at least tried to work together. Their first attempt was risible, but Haruno had enough ingenuity to build up a pretty good plan in very little time. She could have avoided hurting herself so badly that she was immobilized, though. Pricking your finger or biting your lips would have been enough to break you out of a genjutsu of this caliber," he informed the girl, and she nodded blankly.
"What about me?" Uzumaki asked.
Kakashi eyed her. "There's a reason you're tied up and not them, isn't there?"
"Yeah, I bet there is," she replied angrily. And then she shut up, eyes wide, and paled.
Cold sweat gathered in his back. Thankfully, neither of her team mates seemed to have noticed her maladresse. Taking his eye away from her suddenly prone and silent form, he cleared his throat.
"Haruno and Sasuke, you can eat. There's food in my backpack over there. Don't," he growled, "give her anything. She has to watch, that's part of the punishment."
His body flicked out of their sight. Releasing a tired sigh, he leaned against the trunk of the tree he was hiding in, and started thinking.
Did Uzumaki know about the Kyuubi? That was supposed to be impossible. As much as he enjoyed the leeway his unique position in the village gave him, Kakashi knew that none of the villagers, shinobi or not, could escape breaking the Third's law. That didn't mean they couldn't find ways around it and, indeed, plant the seeds of hatred into their children's hearts, but none of them could have outright told the girl and walked away with their head intact. He might survive the punishment, but they would not. And he had certainly had no contact with the girl previous to being saddled with her the day before.
A shinobi had disappeared recently, he remembered in a flash. An Academy teacher. He was reported for stealing a scroll of forbidden techniques from the tower, was supposed to have been delivered the usual slap on the wrist that accompanied petty crimes like those—the supposedly private Hokage library had long been considered reserve of sorts for most jounin, and they had all broken in at least once before—and had then vanished. As far as Kakashi knew, no one was even looking for him.
And the scroll in question had contained the shadow clone technique…
Yeah, he thought, watching from aside as his students gleefully disobeyed him and startedfeeding Uzumaki. Sarutobi has a lot of talking to do.