A/N: This story is supposed to be a grimmer (but not "edgy") take on the shinobi world. I'm going to be changing quite a few things from a world-building approach, but the world should still feel very Naruto-esque.

Introductions

Kakashi pulled a kunai out of his hip pouch and carefully cut the ropes which tied Naruto to a stump. The boy in orange fell to the ground with an audible thud. He looked up into the single visible eye of his sensei, still startled on what they had just been told. Immediate impressions told the genin that Kakashi took showing no emotion to heart. From this close, however, Naruto could make out the wrinkles and facial expression surrounding the man's eye as well as the stretching of the cloth over the bottom half of his face to figure out that Kakashi was smiling down at them.

The silence lasted a few more moments with the only sound in the clearing being the chirping of birds off in the distance. "Yahoo!" screamed Sakura and Naruto together. While Sakura threw both hands up into the air in victory, Naruto jumped and punched the air with a fist of confidence.

Unlike his teammates, Sasuke sat emotionless with a gaze that met his sensei's. "That was the test?" the Uchiha asked again, just to double check. "To make sure we understood teamwork?" He was skeptical. It seemed almost too easy.

"That's it," Kakashi reassured him. "Every jonin sensei is allowed to come up with their own method to determine if a team of genin is truly ready to join the active forces. Some jonin favor strength or courage over other attributes, while I value teamwork. The world is a dangerous place. It never hurts to make sure someone has your back out there, and you can only secure that with friendship."

Sasuke wasn't sure if he was satisfied with the answer, but had doubts that he would get a better one. In any case, he had passed the hidden test that was unknowingly awaiting him after graduation, and that meant he was closer than ever to achieving his goal of revenge.

Kakashi let out a deep breath and put both hands on his hips. "Now, yesterday I didn't really introduce myself properly, so I guess I should do that now that I know we'll be spending quite a bit of time together."

Kakashi let off a mysterious aura to the genin. In their bell test, it didn't seem like he was taking it all that seriously, which raised the question of just how big the gap between them was. His outfit, while mostly ordinary, also raised some legitimate concerns. He wore a standard issue flak jacket over a long sleeves shirt and a pair of pants for trousers, which was ordinary for a shinobi of at least chunin rank, but the cloth over his mouth and the way his headband covered one-quarter of his face meant that anything he was willing to share would be received intently.

"I believe we've established that my name is Kakashi Hatake," the jonin said expressionless. He spoke in an monotone and they were no longer able to read his face effectively. "I'm going to come clean and tell you all why you are a part of my team. Because of how perfectly you guys line up, it might seem like Sasuke is here to balance out Naruto and Sakura is here because of her total test scores being around the middle of the pack, but that's only a coincidence."

Naruto tilted his head quizzically. He realized he hadn't really put too much thought into the actual makeup of their team. He had just assumed that the teams were chosen at random, but from what his silver-haired sensei was saying, that wasn't the case. It intrigued him to no end.

"Sakura, you're here because you don't come from a shinobi clan with hiden techniques, and you don't possess any kekkei genkai. Ultimately, your test scores were average, with your taijutsu woefully pulling down your scores." He spoke without remorse, not caring if what he said embarrassed the girl or otherwise put her on the spot. "Your chakra control is excellent for a shinobi of your level, however, and that benefits you nicely. Essentially, you can become whatever you want. Throughout my career, I've done covert operations as a decorated shinobi, I've gone on assassination missions under the guise of an ANBU black ops member. I can help you decide what you want to do, or rather, what you're best suited for."

Sakura shuddered at how matter-of-fact Kakashi spoke. He talked of assassination like it was a normal part of life, something that can be casually talked about in an evening outing with friends. She knew that death was something a shinobi needed to come to terms with if she ever expected to become a decorated kunoichi, but it wasn't something she was mentally prepared for quite yet.

Kakashi turned his head, skipping over the excitable blond in the middle and focused on the brooding orphan to his far right. "Sasuke, you're here because you're the last loyal Uchiha. I'm not here to nurture you and make your life easier. I'm here to train you into a shinobi that can carry the weight of Konoha on his shoulders. I can teach you how to hone your Sharingan. I can give you the power you desire."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed on his sensei as trickle of anger ignited in the pit of his stomach. The way this jonin casually nodded at the massacre of the Uchiha seemed so emotionless that it was almost suspicious. "How is someone like you going to teach me how to hone my Sharingan?" he asked aggressively.

Kakashi sighed. He expected that reaction. He brought up a hand to grab onto the headband which covered a quarter of his face. He lifted it so that the forehead protector sat on his head like any ordinary shinobi, but what it covered was far from ordinary.

"I became a genin at the age of five. Don't think that I'm just some old schmuck. I've fought with Uchiha, including your older brother." He raised one hand up near his eye and pointed at it with his thumb. The eye itself didn't match the pure black pupil of his right eye, but was rather a fully matured Sharingan, a kekkei genkai exclusive to the Uchiha clan. "This was a gift from one of my old teammates. I may not be an Uchiha by blood, but I've spent nearly two decades with this eye. I won't be the best guide for you, but I can help you understand its power." Down the center of the eye and through the eyebrow was the remnants of a scar.

The jonin quickly pulled down the headband to cover his eye once more. He had cursed at the eye many times before. True, it was a transplanted eye, but he had heard stories of transplanted Byakugan that could be deactivated at will. The Sharingan, however, stayed activated at all times, constantly draining a bit of chakra. Though it was usually only small amounts, a leak could become a huge problem over time, and that's what his eye was: a leak. Covering it blocked its ocular prowess, but it also made the chakra consumption negligible.

Sasuke analyzed the possibilities that could have led to a non-Uchiha getting a Sharingan transplanted into them. He ultimately came to the correct conclusion in that the eye was indeed a gift from an old teammate — a teammate who had likely died sometime after Kakashi lost his left eye from the gash that remained on his face in the form of discolored tissue.

Sakura and Naruto, however, were still hung up over their conversation regarding Sasuke's family name. They vaguely remembered hushed voices talking of an incident many years ago, but the details were never released to them. Sakura, a fair bit brighter than her knucklehead teammate, had concluded that something had happened to Sasuke's family. Something bad.

Kakashi's gaze now fell on the boy in the middle. Naruto looked deep into his sensei's eye, trying to focus on the bridge of his nose. Sasuke and Sakura had good enough reasons to be under Kakashi, but Naruto was just an orphan that caused a lot of havoc in his freetime. What reason could there possibly be to place him under the guidance of this man. His entire demeanor felt too much like Sasuke, and it put a poor taste in Naruto's mouth.

Kakashi scratched at his chin beneath his mask, struggling with how to approach what he needed to say. "Naruto… to put it simply I… knew your parents."

Naruto could feel his heartbeat rapidly increase in his chest. It felt like it was pumping so hard that it would burst through his chest. Even Sasuke and Sakura were looking at him. No one knew anything about Naruto's parents at the academy. Of course, it wasn't exactly a matter of conversation in class, and neither of them talked to him very often at all, anyways, but if Sasuke's family was a well kept secret, then Naruto's family was something classified that required only the most advanced clearance. They weren't very far off, either.

"W… what?" Naruto managed. He couldn't believe it. He had been alone for as long as he could remember. No one would tell him anything about his parents no matter how much he pleaded. "Who are they? How did you know them? What happened to them?"

Kakashi almost regretted his announcement as soon as the bombardment of questions came out, but he knew it was for the best. He shook his head and forfeited eye contact with the boy. "Even saying what I did was saying too much. I can't answer your questions, not right now. Look, there are reasons that it's a secret. I understand you know a little bit about secrets now, right?"

Naruto looked down at the ground while his teammates shuffled looks between Naruto and Kakashi. They didn't understand what was meant by that, but it was clear by Naruto's expression that it had deep meaning to him.

"Yeah…" the boy mumbled quietly. He had only recently learned the secret that was kept from him his whole life. He was a jinchuuriki, a human that acted as the vessel for a monstrous creature of chakra. He wondered if there was some connection between his parents and the fox. He knew he couldn't ask something like that here, though.

"I'll tell you someday," Kakashi said raising a hand and ruffling the boy's hair lightly. He waited for Naruto to look up and make eye contact before giving him an affectionate smile. "You have your mother's eyes."

It was subtle, but in that moment, Naruto felt like he wasn't alone. He didn't feel like he was just living life and along for the ride. To him, Kakashi's words told him that he did have a legacy. He felt like there were people who did care for him, even if most of the village seemed distant most of the time.

"Okay," Kakashi clapped his hands together to gather everyone's attention, "now I want to go over the bell test a little bit. I know you've just become genin, but starting tomorrow you will be performing missions under the umbrella of the Hidden Leaf. The first step is understanding what roles you want to play in a team."

"Roles? You mean like support role, lead role, and stuff?" It was Sakura that spoke. It was proof enough that she did at least pay attention in class.

"Exactly!" Kakashi answered with a nod. "A well rounded team will have people that specialize in close-range fighting as well as others that specialize in filling support roles like sensor-type shinobi and medical ninja. As your jonin sensei, it is my job to help mould you into the foundation of these roles. Don't feel pressured by your teammates, as it's unlikely that your genin team will be the team you do on missions that require a more organized team. If you all three choose to be offensive-focused, then it won't impair your ability to move up the shinobi pipeline."

"I'll take the lead," Sasuke said casually. He felt that the lead role would give him the spot of shot caller. Whether the subject at hand was exam scores alone or innate talent, Sasuke was at the top of his class and it felt like the most obvious role for him.

"Alright, that's fair," Kakashi agreed. "With the Sharingan you could even fill a sensor-type role at the head of a squad. Strictly offensive squads aren't unheard of, especially if the members of the squad have supplementary abilities that help them balance out the team."

Naruto, who had been fairly quiet for the last few minutes wore a wide smile as his voice rose in volume. "I'll just do a little bit of everything and become the most powerful Hokage ever!" Most people had taken Naruto's goal to be Hokage as little more than a joke, but Kakashi could tell that he had confidence in his ability to reach the legendary title.

Kakashi chuckled lightly, but tried not to give off the impression that he took it as a joke. "A little bit of everything, huh? Well the closest people to that is probably Lord First and Lord Third. They've both been known as the God of Shinobi in their life. The Third Hokage is known as The Professor because he has become a master in all forms of the shinobi art. That's a fair bit more than a little bit."

Naruto huffed in opposition. "I don't care! I'll master everything, then! I'll be the strongest shinobi the world has ever seen!" He ignored the chortle through Sasuke's nose. He was used to people not being on his side, but that just gave him greater motivation to prove them wrong.

"Alright," Kakashi said, deciding to take the bait. "Well then, first of all, you should know that you're using the Shadow Clone terribly wrong."

Naruto beamed at his sensei as he angrily crossed his arms. "What do you mean I'm using it wrong? I can make hundreds of them!"

Kakashi lowered his head into the palm of his hand, rubbing his temples with his thumb and middle finger. "You can't just throw numbers at a skilled shinobi. You could probably throw twenty clones at Sasuke and he'd be able to dispel all of them using taijutsu alone, not to mention if he has enough time to get off some ninjutsu, too. The Shadow Clone technique is supposed to be used for intel."

Naruto scratched the back of his head as he looked for an answer, but couldn't come up with one. "Intel? What's that?"

Kakashi was dumbfounded. The boy's test scores were no exaggeration. "It means intelligence. They can be used to learn important information about your enemies without putting yourself at any immediate risk." He sighed when he realized the technical approach wasn't going to work. "Create a single Shadow Clone and have it follow my own."

Both Kakashi and Naruto gathered chakra and created a Shadow Clone. Naruto watched the clones carefully as they shrunk and became only chunks of colors, and then specks, and finally disappeared behind the sea of trees. He grew impatient, but it wasn't long before his eyes shot wide open in surprise.

"It looks like you understand now, when you—"

"You owe me a bowl of ramen!" Naruto announced, pointing a finger at Kakashi's chest accusingly.

"Okay," Kakashi said with both hands up to motion for Naruto to settle down. "Yes, our clones played rock, paper, scissors, and the deal was that if you won then I'd buy you dinner."

"How do you know that?" Sakura asked curiously. "The clones haven't come back yet."

"Unlike the basic Clone technique you were taught in the academy, the Shadow Clone technique creates a physical copy of something. In this case, a physical copy of the caster. When a Shadow Clone dispels, anything they experienced comes back to the original." Kakashi had to hold back when Naruto slammed his fist into his palm with an 'Ah ha!' to indicate that he finally understood. "It's useful for scouting out areas and gathering information. It isn't a technique used in combat. It's taxing on an individual and is terribly ineffective for anything but the most basic of distractions."

"If it's that taxing, how come Naruto can use it?" Sasuke was usually silent, but Kakashi seemed to speak highly of the technique. Sasuke was in the same class as Naruto, of course, and he saw the awful excuse of a doppelganger that Naruto had created in the academy. It was the reason everyone was surprised he had graduated — he had clearly failed the Clone test in front of everyone, yet he could somehow use a much more advanced one that did more than create illusions?

"The Shadow Clone technique is a B-rank technique that few jonin utilize and even fewer chunin use," Kakashi explained. This wasn't supposed to be a basic lesson on the Shadow Clone technique, but he couldn't just dodge the question. "It requires the user to split up their chakra into a segment and give it to a clone. Because of how much chakra is needed, a lot of chunin have to nearly split their chakra reserves in half just to create a stable Shadow Clone. The risk is that the technique could easily lead to chakra exhaustion."

Chakra exhaustion was a serious problem with shinobi on the battlefield. While the exhaustion itself was rarely life-threatening, it would leave a shinobi vulnerable and would mean certain death if they ran out in the middle of combat.

"As to why Naruto is capable of using the technique to such an absurd level, well, I can't really explain why, but Naruto's chakra reserves are far greater than your average shinobi. Part of that is because of his heritage," Kakashi said, trying not to sound too much like an academic instructor. "The Uzumaki clan was known for their large chakra reserves, among other things. Again, for reasons I can't disclose right now, Naruto's… condition gives him far greater reserves than even some Uzumaki with some of the largest chakra reserves."

"Yeah!" Naruto cheered, taking this knowledge as a personal victory. He had innate chakra reserves that surpassed most average shinobi, and that meant he wasn't the dead last in everything. "And now that I know how the jutsu works, I can use them to train really quickly!"

"Not quite," Kakashi butted in immediately. "First off, taking in a large amount of mental exhaustion is arguably worse than physical exhaustion. Your body will shut off when you hit a certain point of physical exhaustion, but your mind will keep going until it's no longer able to, even if it means going insane."

That alone put the dangers of the technique into perspective. He couldn't lose his mind before becoming Hokage. "Wait, but I've summoned hundreds of clones before and I've been fine."

"Those clones didn't have to deal with all of the mental strain that comes with pushing your body to its limits," the jonin said. "In addition to the risk of mental strain, it doesn't matter if you have just yourself or a thousand of yourself, they're still you. While you could potentially take multiple routes to try and solve a problem, they're not going to be effective if you're all doing the same thing. A hundred Naruto's won't learn a single jutsu any faster than a single Naruto if they're all going about it the same way."

It didn't really make sense to Naruto, but he figured that his sensei knew what he was talking about. It seemed there really wasn't a shortcut afterall.

"However," Kakashi said, which grabbed Naruto's attention, "no one else has been dumb enough to try and train with Shadow Clones. It's possible that you could potentially learn multiple things at once. Whereas normally you'd dedicate one day to ninjutsu training, and another to shurikenjutsu, et cetera, you could maybe summon a clone and have your clone train in one field while the original trains in another."

Kakashi knew there was a risk with the mental fatigue ruining the boy's body, but with his stamina and life force, it was possible that it would be a non issue if it was kept under control. Even if he couldn't tell Naruto, he knew that because of the boy's heritage, he did possess some innate talent that had thus far been left untapped.

"Excuse me, sensei," Sakura said, raising her hand shyly before realizing they weren't actually in a classroom setting. "I don't really know what would be best for me."

"Your chakra control is excellent," Kakashi complemented, "and your chakra reserves are right where they should be for a genin fresh out of the academy. There's really no bad choice, but genjutsu and medical ninjutsu would both compliment your precise control. If you care more about combat abilities, chakra-enhanced strength can be a deadly, if simple addition to a shinobi's arsenal. Tsunade of the Three Sannin has combined her knowledge of focused chakra from medical ninjutsu and chakra-enhanced strength to create the pinnacle of chakra-aided taijutsu. Of course, anything else is fine, too."

Sakura felt like she was getting some valuable knowledge until the last sentence where she was basically told that she could do whatever she wanted. "Well do you have any knowledge in those things, sensei?"

"I've never practiced medical ninjutsu," the silver-haired jonin admitted, "but there are classes at the Konoha Hospital where you can learn everything you'll need to know to get started. I do have some knowledge of genjutsu and chakra-enhanced strength, however."

Sakura nodded her head in understanding. While she still didn't know what she wanted to do, having an idea of where to go when she decided was beneficial in its own way.

"Okay, well tomorrow we will start with D-rank missions. We will do training whenever we have the time and the missions will be the testing grounds for progress. You guys are free to spend the rest of the day however you want, but I recommend some team bonding. I have to report to the Hokage."

"Hey, what about my ramen?" Naruto called out as Kakashi disappeared in a puff of smoke.

End

A/N: The tangent about shadow clones was my way of saying Naruto wouldn't just spam hundreds of clones and become a master overnight because the fact that memories return to the original was obviously retconned to give Naruto a massive power boost in canon. That said, Naruto will (reasonably slowly) transition from his throw numbers at the problem attitude to using the clones for intel purposes and relying on numbers less in combat.