Disclaimer: Same old. i don't own anything, only the plot.
A/n: for those waiting on updates on my other stories, there will be none until june 24th at the earliest. Final exams begin on thursday, so the only thing I'm posting now are either oneshots or already finished chapters.
Team Thirteen, Hana mused, was made of broken people.
First, there was Uchiha Itachi. A genius who graduated at five and made chuunin on his first try at seven. But also a broken teenager who saw too much horrors in his life. A teenager whose smile was now reserved for his little brother.
Then, there was Mitarashi Anko. Also a little genius, she had gratuated at six, but had been taken as an apprentice by the Sannin Orochimaru. When they discovered Orochimaru's secret experiment, they found her, naked and broken, in a cell of his lab. She was nine, and had been betrayed in the worst way possible by the man she used to look up at. She was just a child, not even a teenager yet, and had been raped by her sensei more times than she was able to remember. And now, years later, people in the streets still looked warily at her or called her "Snake-whore". And even though she tried to hide it with a psychopatic façade, it still hurt a lot. She was a broken girl who had lost the ability to trust others.
Then… then there was her. Inuzuka Hana. Not really a genius in the same way as the other two, she was considered a genius in her clan for her tracking abilities and the fact that she was able to fight with three dogs instead of the usual one or two companions her clansmens decided on. But also because she had been assuming the duties of the clan head since she was eight and her father became missing in action and her mother decided to look for him and was barely never at home since then. So Hana took on her mothers mantle, and took care of clans matter, and of her baby brother. She wasn't allowed to act like the child she was, because even in the pack-like clan that the Inuzuka were, the leader had to be strong for the others.
Those three teens should never have landed in the same team. In fact, since they were chuunins, it was strange that they were required to form a team at all. That's when the sensei of team Thirteen came in. She had wanted to form an all-response team, and had badgered the Hokage until he agreed. She had choosen Hana because of her tracking and taijutsu abilities. Itachi because he was a genjutsu prodigy. And Anko because she had large chakra reserves and knew loads of jutsus and seals. Those were the officials reason for her choices. The truth was that she choose them because they were as lost as her. All of them had had to grow up too quickly, all of them had lousy pasts and presents, and all of them had some problems with socialising.
Technically, their sensei had it bad too. Orphan, coming to Konohagakure as the last surviving habitant from Uzu at age eight, she had had some difficulties to be integrated in the village because of that. Regardless, she hadn't given up and had finally achieved the Tokubetsu Jounin rank. She was engaged, and pregnant when the fox attacked, and the demon had taken her lover while her child didn't survive the destruction of the hospital, or so she was told by the Elders. She didn't had that much friends, so she had quickly regressed to her lonely days.
The only ones she stayed close to were her lovers genin team, or what was left of it since one of them had been killed during the great ninja war. It was when visiting one of them that she heard about the three teens who would later become her team. After some spying, she went to the Hokage and flat out demandedthat they were put in a team under her tutelage.
It took two hours of arguing and threatening before he agreeded, but the next day she had showed up on the Uchihas doorstep and had grabbed Itachi away from his family training stating that he was needed for a mission thankyou-goodbye. Then she had dragged him to the Inuzuka compound, where she had nearly demolished the door before standing in front of the teenager who was also the acting clan head and declaring that since she was still an active Konoha Chuunin and since she was now on her team, the minor to medium clan matters could be handled by the Inuzuka Elders who had way too much time on their arms since they happened to be retired, and she would only focuse on the major happenings, at least until she was eightteen – or whenever Tsume came back to earth and stop chasing after shadows. All this in one breath. Needless to say, after the initial grumbling, the Elders realised that they had been slowly killing the heir of their clan by asking her to do the work of the Head on top of her ninja duties and agreed – heck, they even thanked Hana's new sensei! Granted, it took them two weeks, but still! And after that, she took them to the shabby appartement in which Anko lived and told the angry teen that it was time for her to stop brooding and to start going forward again. The teen had trashed, yelled, sworn, and finally broken down in their senseis arms.
That day, team Thirteen was born. Their sensei took them all in, convincing them to come live at her house since it would be easier if they were called and since it would help to improve their teamwork. And boy, did thatneed improvement.
But in the end, it had all worked out. After a verybad start, Hana and Anko had ended up being best friends, nearly sisters. Their sensei had become something like a mother, or second mother, to all of them, and Itachi considered Hana as a sister. True, the relationship between the Uchiha and Anko was still complicated, but that was because they were both attracted to the other and none knew how to deal with that feeling. But, be it out in the field or back in Konoha, they were the best of friends. Itachi may keep his impassible mask most of the time, once he was with his team he was like another person. Hana, without the heavy load of head duty, was finally free to act her age while out of mission. And when people in the streets glared at Anko, they got it back, with interest, from the entire team.
Of course, the Uchiha had been less than happy with the "loss" of their clan heir, and, less than two years after team thirteen had been formed, they managed to get him promoted to ANBU, which, in turn, disbanded the team. Officially, at least. Because, once Itachi joined the ANBU, the others followed, and the team continued together. Until the day when the Elders gave Itachi the order to kill his entire clan...