There was three things Hatake Kakashi was certain of.
One, he was running out of passages of Icha Icha that he hadn't yet read aloud to the mortification of his Jonin peers. Their reactions were getting less hilarious and he earned more eye rolls than devastating blushes last time he recounted the erotic sauna scene between Kimi and Michiko while sitting in the Jonin lounge. He almost couldn't hide his pout.
Two, the tap in his downstairs neighbours' shower was leaky. He could hear it drip, drip, drip, with annoying frequency as he laid awake in bed. He knew his neighbour was a civilian, but by Kami he don't know how he was so oblivious to that infernal noise.
Three, he would be copping an earful from his cute little Genin if he showed up with a list of D-Ranks to accomplish yet again.
Ever since their mis-ranked Wave mission, he had held back on the C ranks. The mission had opened his eyes to how far his team had to go before they were ready for larger missions. Their teamwork really was lacking, and Kakashi couldn't babysit them every second of a mission outside the Village.
C ranks were designed to ease Genin into acting outside the Village and without direct supervision of an Instructor. It was a gateway into becoming Chuunin and being able to shoulder more responsibility.
Unfortunately, all the Wave mission had proven to Kakashi was that none of his Genin were ready for the next step in their careers.
Sakura, while very bright, was completely blind to all other cues around her if Sasuke was within her range of sight. He had witnessed the girl miss her own mouth with a scoop of rice while watching her brooding teammate, much to her embarrassment. It was as if she kept a separate room in her mind that she locked away all her intellect and knowledge in when around her crush, leaving only a messy goop of gurgles and squeals in command of her body.
She was clearly not yet able to act objectively or impartially as a team leader.
Sasuke, also very bright, was something of a disappointment to him. His test scores and academy reviews raved over the prodigal Uchiha and his amazing skills, yet what was served to him on Genin placement day was a half-baked powerhouse disaster. As he observed the Uchiha through D rank missions, he witnessed him complete tasks with a sometimes brutal efficiency. But there was a severe lacking of a few things Kakashi liked to call 'normal personality traits.' And this was coming from him.
Empathy, sympathy and camaraderie were all either poor or non-existent within the boy. Kakashi cursed whoever had let the Uchiha wallow in this pity and resentment his whole life, creating this being with an inability to react normally to anybody around him. He was all smirks and sarcastic comments to Naruto, but just once Kakashi would like to see a non-cynical response from the boy. He would gladly kill to see Sasuke laugh openly the next time Naruto face planted over a tree-root, rather than that damn superior smirk.
He had power, true, but lacked any ability to use it effectively without injuring himself or others. As if he had been handed power, but had not been taught when and how to use it effectively. Throughout his life, his dark eyes and hair had earned him bows and opened doors for him, often without him even needing to stoop so low as to ask.
Kakashi would only recommend Sasuke to be a team leader if he wholeheartedly wanted the rest of the team to die.
Then there was Naruto, how often had to grovel to get through the same doors Sasuke had had held open for him with smiles and bows. He had scraped through life to this point, surviving realistically only on the goodwill of the Hokage and an underlying fear from the Village population.
Naruto was strong, but in a different way to Sasuke. Although he would never admit it, Kakashi privately considered Naruto's strength of character to be more advanced than Sasuke's raw power. If Naruto wanted something done, he would bloody well get it done through blood, sweat and tears, where Sasuke would have given up or had it handed to him long ago.
Kakashi admired this about Naruto, but he wished he would be a little more quiet about it. Perhaps he would settle down as he grew, but at the moment he couldn't imagine Naruto being an effective leader for anything other than a team going to destroy someone who had eaten his precious Ichiraku Ramen.
But for all his yelling about becoming Hokage, Kakashi privately believed that Naruto would run head-first into a battle without thinking in the near future, and end up dead. The boy was just too loud, too oblivious to be a good ninja. His outgoing personality said 'Leader,' but his stupidity and brashness overrode his more positive qualities.
Kakashi sighed internally. It was going to be difficult to keep this group alive, let alone functioning as a team.
And so he had kept them doing simple D rank 'missions' in hopes of building up his teams cooperation. But sadly all that frequently happened was Naruto ended up face down in the dirt, or covered in slime, while Sakura stood about preening and doing the least amount of work, and Sasuke moped around with a sneer on his face as if the whole thing was beneath him.
He sympathised. He really did. D ranks were the worst and the pay wasn't much better. But he couldn't in good conscience submit this sub-par team to another battle situation where one could accidentally kill the others. Or rather Naruto and Sasuke could accidentally kill the others and Sakura could watch both her teammates die.
That gave him a little bit of a problem now, however. Over the last weeks of D rank after D rank, the teamwork had deteriorated rather than strengthening. He had had to stop Sakura taking of Naruto's head with a pitchfork last week, and only yesterday he had witnessed a gleam in Naruto's eye as he held one of the Kunai he had picked up while tidying Training Ground 3. He still wasn't sure what to think of the look Naruto had given the small projectile, but he got the feeling the blonde was fantasizing sticking it into the soft parts of one of his teammates.
And so Kakashi had begrudgingly requested a C rank for today, under the request that certain restrictions were met.
One such request being that they not travel far from the village. A short journey to the next town over might be the nice stroll that his Genin needed to work out the energy they had had pent up after so long in the village doing repetitious D ranks.
A few other restrictions being they were placed on missions without antagonistic clients who - like Tazuna had in the beginning - might further drive a wedge between teammates. Also a low risk of combat, and perhaps a route that would take them via some historical area where he could provide a little education into Konoha's history.
Perhaps learning more about the history of their village and witnessing the landmarks left over from war would impress upon them the importance of their positions as Shinobi. It had certainly had an impact the day that he revealed the purpose of the memorial stone on their first day as a team.
Receiving the actual mission chosen by the Hokage, however, Kakashi was quite surprised. She had managed to meet all his requests - no doubt partly thanks to her partiality to Naruto - and had even found a C rank mission that kept them inside the village. Very rarely were any C-Rank missions based inside the walls, unless they consisted of guarding the wall or perhaps assisting at the Academy. But in no way did he want his team anywhere near a large group of impressionable brats.
However, this mission would take them deep into the Shinobi archives, a place often limited to Jonin or research nin only. Even Sasuke would have to be a little impressed by the clearance they were given. He might even show it visibly.
He let left his train of thought as he appeared in front of his disgruntled Genin team as they lounged on the meeting bridge.
Eye-smiling as his two loudest Genin shouted their anger at his tardiness, Kakashi waved in a placating way.
"Maa, sorry guys! I was busy getting our new C Rank mission from the Hokage!" He smiled cheerfully down at them
The anger in his Genin's eyes sputtered and made way for confusion. And then…
"WAA REALLY?! YOU'RE THE BEST KAKASHI-SENSEI!"
…Happiness.
Naruto jumped up and down whooping while Sakura struggled to contain her own squeals. Even Sasuke cocked his head and smirked with what was the Uchiha equivalent of an excited grin.
"So where are we going this time?" Asked Naruto excitedly after he had calmed down.
"We're going.." Kakashi began with a suspenseful pause. His Genin leaned forward. "… to the Konoha archives!"
Kakashi almost laughed. Each Genin noticeably deflated in their own way. An eye roll from Sasuke, a slack jaw from Naruto, and a sagging of the shoulders from Sakura.
This was going to be fun.
Kakashi gave a nod to the nin who opened the door to the archives for him. As he ushered his Genin inside, he noticed them all look around at shelf after shelf after shelf of stuffed full of scrolls.
Naruto began to tremble.
"Please tell me we don't have to sort these." He begged. Kakashi was certain he saw Sasuke's eyes widen in horror.
"No, no, no." Kakashi chuckled. "You're not ready for a B rank mission just yet."
He cheerily led his Genin deeper into the room. They passed dozens of identical dusty shelves until they reached the centre of the large room.
There, the Genin all stared curiously at a strange circular table, which was covered completely by a huge, intricate seal. The seal was scrawled in delicate, tiny characters, looping around and through itself in a hypnotic way. Kakashi wasn't certain any of his Genin - except maybe Sakura - were even aware what seals were. However, he could see the respectful and appraising eye they warily cast over the table, indicating if nothing else they recognized that all that work hadn't gone into just some fancy decoration.
Kakashi turned to his Genin.
"I know you all think this mission is beneath you, but in fact you are very lucky. Not many Genin are allowed down here."
His students straightened, taking in his unusually serious demeanour. For once, Naruto was quiet, and Sasuke had lost his slouch.
"Each and every scroll in this room is an important part of Konoha's history. Every mission of consequence has at least one scroll dedicated to it. But these aren't your average mission reports."
He pulled a scroll from inside his jacket, unfurling it with a flourish. The Genin curiously inspected the seal displayed on the inside, not sure what they were looking at but interested none the less.
"Each of these scrolls holds the memory of one or more Konoha Ninja, past and present. Through them, we are able to review important and significant events as witnessed by some of our own, whether it happened yesterday or decades ago. This seal is the physical code behind a memory, and no two are alike."
Kakashi eye-smiled, drawing attention back to the scroll in his hand.
"This one, in fact, is my own recount of our mission to Wave."
"Coooooool!" Naruto gasped, eyes lighting up. "So can we see?! I wanna see us kick Gatou's butt again!"
"Unfortunately not." Kakashi rolled up the scroll. "It is not possible to enter a memory if you are present in it. It can be very dangerous, even deadly, and there are safeguards in effect to stop anyone entering a memory they may be a part of. Even if you are just a passer-by in the street."
Kakashi placed the scroll on a nearby shelf.
"We're simply storing our scroll here for future generations to observe. Scrolls like this can be used for training, recon, or even proof of death for a bounty claim."
"So future Ninja get to see us in action? Cool!" Naruto bounced excitedly.
Sasuke smirked. "More like watch you make a fool out of yourself."
"Enough!" Kakashi frowned, stopping Naruto as he began to round on Sasuke. They straightened to attention again at his serious tone.
"Each scroll here is a physical piece of Konoha. In this room, we can witness our greatest accomplishments, our history, and even Konoha being built." His face became sombre. "But we can also see our greatest failures. Make no mistake, there are memories in here of Konoha nin dying. Of Ninja who have witnessed the deaths of our former Hokage. If we so wanted, we could watch Konoha razed to the ground by the Nine tailed Fox, or the see the Yondaime destroy an entire army of Iwa nin. These scrolls are here to teach us, to guide the future choices and actions of the village. Once again, you are very lucky to be here, and I'm trusting you to take this seriously and respectfully. I hope I have not misplaced my trust."
His Genin gulped silently at his softly spoken words. Silence reigned over the group, making the huge room feel claustrophobic.
"What we are doing here today will be helping Konoha. The Hokage is looking for specific intel on a village far to the north of Hi no Kuni, which not many Ninja have travelled to, and those who have are no longer among us." The Genin flinched minutely. "Records indicate that ANBU Team 4 were there for a mission almost six years ago, and luckily what occurred on that mission was deemed important enough to be put into archives, so with any luck we will be able to explore the village through the eyes of one of the ANBU in this team."
His eyes grew dark once again. "The reason we cannot simply ask the members of this group for the information we are after is that every identifying record of them has been destroyed. We have no names, ages, genders or other identifying information. We have simply their code names and ANBU ID numbers. This is done for only a handful of reasons. One, they are in deep, deep cover. If that is the case, and we see some of these ANBU without masks, we may be looking at the face of someone we recognize. If this happens, you must swear to never repeat or discuss what or who we see in this memory. Do you understand."
"Hai, Sensei!" They chorused. He had their full, undivided attention.
He nodded, satisfied.
"Good. Another reason for records being destroyed is they retired from service, and so they can live a relatively peaceful life without fear of discovery, and potential retribution for their actions while in service. This, however, is a very unlikely possibility, as less than 5 per cent retire from ANBU and the Shinobi career at the same time. More often, they are reintegrated into Jonin ranks, or they die in the line of duty."
You could have heard a pin drop on the other side of the room.
"Which brings us to our last reason for destruction of records. Death. When an ANBU dies in the line of duty, all records are destroyed. This is both to protect any family the Shinobi may have had, as well as to prevent enemy nin from infiltrating and discovering information on Konoha as a result of their death."
Sakura finally found a voice to speak.
"But Sensei, if the ANBU is dead, how could they find anything out?" She frowned.
Kakashi smiled down at her.
"Well, Sakura, imagine this. ANBU are often assigned to very secret missions. Sometimes, they are even required to do the dirtiest of dirty work in the name of Konoha's safety. In instances like this, ANBU can even act completely undercover, dressed and acting so as not to identify themselves as Konoha nin.
"Now, imagine a team were ordered by the Daimyo to assassinate a political member from another country. But, after successfully completing the mission, one of the nin was killed upon escape and his team unable to retrieve the body. Now, an ANBU body has seals in place that completely the disintegrate the body of a deceased if their mask or cloak is tampered with. Their identity may still be a secret, but it is fairly easy to trace the ninja's origin back to Konoha, as this disintegration method is known to originate from us."
The Genin were hanging on his every word.
"In situations like this, which have happened in the past, the Hokage can make an apology, and an official statement is made to say that the ninja had gone rogue and had acted outside of his commands. Of course, this is not easily believed, but without proof, no retribution can be taken against Konoha as a whole. But now, imagine that a sympathetic party of the victim was able to gain access to Konoha's records.
"A spy could easily trace back ninja 'retired' from service during the appropriate period, and through other factors could determine the name of who it was that had died as a result of this mission. From there, a competent infiltrator could trace the files of this ninja into their position in ANBU, and could uncover the mission to kill the politician."
"This could then create huge problems politically for Konoha, and put us in a very bad place. Also, by knowing the ANBU ID of the deceased Ninja, they could then find out the identities of their team mates who most likely were also part of the mission. And there, from a simple paper trail, both Konoha and potentially three or more of their ANBU could have a target painted on their backs."
Sakura and Sasuke were contemplating his words with morbid fascination. Naruto, although seeming to grasp the seriousness of the situation, seemed to be struggling with the complexities of it. He decided to summarise.
"In conclusion, my cute Genin, this room holds information that could get Konoha and many of its Ninja in great trouble, both from people inside the village and outside of it too. That is why it is very important that you take what you may or may not see here today very seriously and not repeat it to anyone else. Or even discuss it amongst yourselves. This room is protected by many strong Genjuutsu and seals, and is not even visible to those without clearance to see it. So, the only way anyone would find out information from these scrolls without infiltrating very high in the ranks of Konoha nin, is if someone were to discuss what they see here outside this room. As they say, 'loose lips sink ships.'" Kakashi eye smiled.
Looking down at his Genin, he noticed their ramrod straight posture and smiled.
Kakashi knew based on the clearance level attached to this scroll that nothing of huge significance had happened on the mission. The ranking system was tricky and convoluted on these sort of things, and it wasn't just a straight scale. Each mission was sorted and ranked and grouped differently based on factors including the participants, activities, mission rank, mission outcome, repercussions of the mission and so many other factors.
This particular scroll had not been ranked high on the 'mission outcome', 'activities' or 'repercussions' scales. Meaning there was minimal combat and sensitive material. It was ranked unusually high on the 'participants' scale, however, and the Hokage had remarked on this with casual interest. It was unlikely, however, that the Genin would recognize any of the Shinobi in the memory. Their ninja contact was limited mainly to himself and the academy. All in all, his Genin would be able to get a taste of the true Shinobi life without much in the way of lasting scarring.
However, his Genin were no doubt expecting the worse, and it appeared their health was suffering for it. He was sure Sakura was on the verge of hyperventilating.
"Oh dear." He muttered inside his own head. Might need to take it down a notch.
"Maa," he smiled reassuringly at them "While we don't have specifics, I can tell you that none of the ANBU died on this mission, so don't worry about that. All we are going in for is to have a look around."
He was pleased to see they relaxed minutely and Sakura began to breathe somewhat normally.
Kakashi created a Shadow Clone that went to fetch the scroll they required. As it made its way back, he gave them some more information.
"Now, when we go in, we will be looking from inside the eyes of the Ninja whose memory it is. A memory is kind of like a TV show; nothing outside of their field of vision 'exists,' so to speak. So we can't look around. You will be able to feel each other's presence, but we won't have any bodies, so it might take a while to get used to the sensation. Just relax, and think of everything you see like it is on TV. It can't hurt you, you are simply watching."
His clone returned with the scroll, and rolled it out across the seal-covered table, poofing out of existence. He moved over to continue setting up, lining up the scroll to match the seals together.
As he did so, he had a final re-think of what they were going to do here.
When he first received the mission from the Hokage, he had been surprised, and a little uncertain. Thinking about Lady Tsunade's reasoning now, however, he realized this would be the perfect mission for his Genin. A chance to experience what Shinobi life really meant. To witness real, powerful Ninja and their battles, and see first hand how far they had to go until they reached such a level. He hoped Sasuke would be taken down a peg or two after realizing that he still had so much growing up to do before he was ready to be on the level of elites that he already thought himself a part of.
They would see a highly trained team interact and coordinate to complete a mission, and Kakashi was hoping this would be exactly what would push their team further together as they recognized the importance of teamwork. If they just functioned properly together, Sakura's brains would complement Sasuke's precision, which would in turn complement Naruto's strategic mind and brute strength.
Genin teams were created to complement each-other. Unfortunately this worked for Team 7 only in theory, as emotions and personalities between them were so mismatched and simply would not work together, no matter what Kakashi did in way of teamwork training. Perhaps a shared experience would push them closer together.
He finished preparing the seals.
"Alright, everybody step forward and place your hands on one of these." He gestured to one of five large seals - the symbol for 'combine' - that were spread around the edges of the table. "When I activate it, we will all be pulled into the memory. Our physical bodies will remain here in an unconscious state. The recommended time to stay inside is no longer than three hours, so I'll set the limit to wake us up after two and a half, but that should be plenty of time to view this scroll. Most unimportant information like travelling is cut from the recordings."
The Genin surrounded the table, nervously placing their hands where indicated.
"Good. Now are we all ready?" Kakashi asked, eye smiling.
Three nods.
"Excellent. Night night then!" And with that he channelled his Chakra into the scroll.
Kakashi felt himself slip into darkness as his mind was drawn from his body and into the memory seal.
The room fell silent. No other Ninja were allowed inside while the memory seal was active.
Slowly, Naruto's eyes opened.
His face blank, he observed each of his teammates closed eyes.
After a long minute, he turned on his heel and quietly walked past the shelves of scrolls, following the path back to the front door, and left the room.
… … … … … …
Welcome, new readers! For those who jumped across from Origins of Naruto, welcome back!
This story is a time skip from the end of Origins into the middle of canon. It is not necessary to read Origins before this as it can easily be stand-alone, however you'll probably miss the deeper connection between a few of the characters.
Anyway, to those returning, I hope this gives some more information on the very cliff-hanger end to Origins.
- Post-reading notice. -
In this story, there is a little longer between Tsunade returning and Sasuke defecting to Sound. The Anime showed it as pretty instantaneous from Tsunade's inauguration and Sasuke leaving, but I believe that Sasuke would have waited until things calmed down to see if the new Hokage and her rule changes would bring him more 'power' before defecting.
Other than that, hope you enjoyed reading. It's in the same AU as my Origins of Naruto story, where Naru is secretly an ANBU, and focuses on the dynamics of his ANBU team.
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Please Read and Review!