"I'm Kakashi Hatake. Things I like and things I hate... I don't feel like telling you that. My dreams for the future—never really thought about it. As for my hobbies... well, I have lots of hobbies."-Kakashi Hatake

The Genin of Squad Seven/A Bunch of Idiots

I stood in front of the mirror in my bedroom at 6:30 a.m., holding my old headband between my fingers. After cleaning it up a little and making the metal protector shine again, I decided it was probably time to put it on.

Pressing my lips into a thin line, I positioned the item so that it sat proportionally in both of my hands. As I held it, it occurred to me that I'd kept this thing for ten years for no reason. It was the only link I had to my past up until yesterday. Perhaps if I had listened to Tatsu's warnings I wouldn't be in this mess. He told me more than once that I should get rid of it, to erase my Leaf Shinobi past, even though I reasoned to him more than once that I might want to go home one day.

"Tch. If you think they'd take you back after all this time, you're out of your mind."

He was right, of course. Even now, although the Hokage claimed to be "giving me a chance," I knew he was only using that as an excuse to figure out the truth. If anyone else was in charge, I'd probably be in a jail cell already. This village had many ears and eyes, which meant that all I could do was bide my time and come up with a way to get out of this, one way or the other. No more worrying or letting my emotions get in the way. If I wanted to survive, I had to go with the flow. And if that meant taking a few exams or hanging out with some old acquaintances for a while, I could do it. I could play the part. They could manipulate my actions, but they would never manipulate my mind.

"I can play this game," I whispered, pulling my hair back to tie my headband. I positioned the metal part at the crown of my head and above my bangs, like I used to when I was a kid, and swept my long red braid aside. "Bring it on."

So, my exams turned out to be not quite as horrific as I thought. The physical exam was a little awkward, but that was mostly just because of my distaste for physical contact with other people. Any kind of touching with people I wasn't close to had always made me uncomfortable, ever since I was a kid. So, when I had a nurse feeling my muscles and joints and checking my heart beat, I all wanted was to escape. But... once again, I banished the desire to run away to the back of my mind.

The skills exam wasn't as irritating, because no one tried to touch me. In fact, no one even really tried to come close to me. However, I was required to use my Kekkei Genkai. I attempted, in vain, to be exempted from that requirement. In my opinion, my Kekkei Genkai was far too dangerous to myself, and to other people to use so casually. Over the years, I had grown more skilled at controlling its effects, but there were times when it still tended to be full of surprises. So, during the exam, I only used it one time, and only to the lowest extent that I could get away with. I wasn't taking any unnecessary risks this morning. Even then, the examiner had fear in her eyes when I showed her what I could do. It was usually peoples' first reaction.

After I had completed both tests successfully, I sat and waited for Kakashi to pick me up. We were supposed to head down to the Ninja Academy today to meet his new students. I was actually rather interested to see how he would interact with these children. I hadn't the slightest idea what to expect from this, or what had changed over the years since I was a student. Needless to say, this would be a new experience for me.

And of course, Kakashi decided make me wait over an hour for him to show up. By the time I finally saw him approaching me from a distance, still reading his stupid book, I was ready to strangle him. "Gee, Kakashi," I said in a monotone voice. "Thanks for finally gracing me with your presence."

"Sorry," Kakashi, said as he put his book away. "This old woman needed me to help her carry some groceries. Naturally, I had to help out."

I snorted in a very unladylike fashion and murmured, "Yes, I'm sure that was it."

Kakashi paused briefly and I thought I saw a glint of a smirk in his eye before he asked, "How were the exams?" I noticed when spoke that something about him today seemed a little bit different. Less shielded and closed off. And yet… something was still a little off about him. Something—not entirely genuine. What did he and the Hokage talk about yesterday?

"Not bad, I guess. Certainly not a walk through the cherry tree orchard... but could've been worse. Anyway," I told him, starting along the path. "We should probably go. You're going to make a bad impression on your students."

"They'll get over it," Kakashi said as he followed.

"So," I began despite his insensitive comment, in another effort to make conversation. At least it felt a little easier than yesterday. "How many students have you had before?"

"None," Kakashi said simply.

I arched an eyebrow. "None? I assumed you would have at least been assigned a few squads by now... didn't you say you've been a Sensei for a couple years?"

"Yeah..." he said. "I've been assigned squads. That doesn't mean that they ever became my students."

Realization donned on me as I caught onto what he meant. "You've never passed any new Genin?"

He shook his head once. "Nope."

"Wow."

"Wow, what?"

"Well..." I met his eyes again. "You must have really high expectations."

"Not really," he said, almost thoughtfully. "I don't think my expectations are all that high at all. They're perfectly reasonable to me. None of those other kids deserved to pass. If they had, I would have passed them."

"Fair enough," I said with a smile. "Then... what exactly are your expectations, if I might ask?"

He shrugged. "Only what every Shinobi's expectations should be."

When we reached the academy, it was past noon. All the other squads were gone. We were the only ones who hadn't shown up yet. Kakashi's bad habit of showing up late for everything certainly hadn't changed.

We headed down the hallway to the classroom, mostly silent, except for one command that Kakashi whispered to me. "Play along."

I wasn't one hundred percent sure what he meant until we were inside the classroom. The door was slightly ajar. Kakashi placed his hand inside of it to push it open, when I saw the chalkboard eraser on top. "Um, Kakashi-" I began, in a futile effort to warn him.

Plop.

The eraser bounced off his head and hit the floor. Not that it mattered; Kakashi's hair was the same color as the chalk.

Epic fail, if I'd ever seen one.

Obnoxious laughter filled the room as Kakashi bent down to pick up the eraser. The laughter came from a young boy of twelve, with a head of spiky blonde hair and an orange suit. "He fell for it!" the young boy shouted, practically choking on air. "Did you see that? Did you see that? He totally fell for it!"

Okay… it's not that funny, kid.

The girl behind him with pink hair and a large forehead looked at Kakashi with innocent eyes. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Sensei! I told him not to. I'd never do a thing like that."

Annnnd that one's the teacher's pet.

And the boy with dark hair planted in a seat didn't say a word. He just sat there like a zombie with a disturbing expression on his face.

I stepped into the classroom beside Kakashi. He looked at me expectantly. "Hm… what do you think of this?"

I briefly glanced up in surprise that he was asking for my opinion, but then rubbed my neck with my hand, looking back and forth between the three students. "What do I think...?" I contemplated for a few seconds. "I think these kids don't know how to pull a decent prank."

Kakashi calmly placed the eraser back on the board where it belonged. "Yes..." his visible eye wandered off into space, as if he didn't know how to express what he wanted to say in words. "How can I put it? My first impression of this group..." Then, he stated in a blunt, deadpan voice, "You're a bunch of idiots."

All three of those students' faces contorted at the sound of those words. Kakashi had just taken a major blow to their self-esteem, without even making an effort. He had a knack for playing the lazy, condescending jerk. And although it was annoying when directed at me, I found it oddly humorous when he was pulling it on someone else. Especially on these losers. It had taken all of two minutes, and my expectations plummeted. If these kids were the future of the Leaf Village, we were all doomed.

We all sat outside the academy, with the students on the steps, and Kakashi and me on the railing across from them. The blonde haired boy looked ridiculous, the pink haired girl looked polite and charming and yet, extremely stupid, and the dark haired boy just looked irritated.

Kakashi sighed. "All right, how about you introduce yourselves?" Not that he seemed extraordinarily interested in anything they might have to say.

"Introduce ourselves?" the pink haired girl asked. "What are we supposed to say?"

Stupid. Like I said.

"Who is she supposed to be, anyway?!" the blonde haired boy exclaimed, pointing at me. "I thought we were only supposed to have one Sensei!"

"Naruto, be quiet!" the pink haired girl hissed.

Kakashi ignored their ranting and folded his arms across his chest. "Things you like. Things you hate. Dreams for the future. Hobbies. Stuff like that."

"Why don't you guys talk first?" the blonde said. "Tell us about you... you know? So we know how it's supposed to work."

"Great!" I said. "I call, Kakashi goes first."

Kakashi turned his head toward me and gave me a disapproving look before scratching the back of his head. "All right... I'm Kakashi Hatake. Things I like and things I hate... I don't feel like telling you that. My dreams for the future—never really thought about it. As for my hobbies... well, I have lots of hobbies."

I fought of the urge to snicker as the pink haired girl murmured, "Well, that was useless. All he told us was his name."

Kakashi then cleared his throat and thrust his chin in my direction. "Okay. You next."

I pointed to myself, albeit awkwardly as I tried to come up with something to say. "Me... well... I'm Kanata Fujibayashi. You can think of me as, like, your Sensei's assistant, I guess." Oh, God, that sounded stupid. "My likes are..." I started counting them on my fingers. "Hot chocolate, cozy sweaters, fuzzy socks... anything warm, really. I hate snow... and cold weather... pretty much anything cold. Except icecream. Because you can't just not like icecream. Umm... dreams for the future? Well, I tend to be a pessimist, so my dreams kinda change depending on how my day goes. And hobbies. Hmm… I used to read a lot. I train, but that's not really a hobby, I guess. Otherwise… I like to walk, and to be on the water."

For about five seconds, all three of the students stared at me. Kakashi didn't say anything, either. Everyone was completely silent. I wasn't even lucky enough to get a snarky comment like Kakashi did. Were my responses that bad?

"I have a question-" the blonde began.

"Too bad," I said quickly. "Let's move on. Kakashi, it's their turn now."

"Uh, yeah," Kakashi said. "You on the right. You go first."

The blonde boy burst into monologue without hesitation. "Believe it! I'm Naruto Uzumaki! I like instant ramen, and I also really like the ramen Iruka-Sensei buys for me at Ichiraku's. But I hate the three minutes you have to wait after you pour the water in the ramen cup. My hobby is eating different kinds of ramen and comparing them."

Seriously? Did this kid think about anything but ramen?

"And my future dream is to become the greatest Hokage! Then the whole village will have to stop disrespecting me and treat me like I'm somebody! Somebody important!"

I felt my eyes widen slightly when Naruto finished. Hokage, huh? This kid had ambitions, after all. But then again, what else could I have expected from the son of the Fourth Hokage? I guessed he had lived a difficult life with no parents... not to mention that he was the vessel for the fearsome Nine-Tailed Fox. He'd probably been mistreated and neglected his entire life, and yet he still had the guts to stand up and say he was going to be Hokage. It almost made me feel like supporting this endeavor of his, even if he was an imbecile.

"All right," Kakashi said, as if he was already exhausted from listening to the kid's speech. "Next."

"I'm Sakura Haruno," the pink haired girl said sweetly. "What I like, uh..." she glanced over at the boy with dark hair. "I mean, the person I like..." she giggled. "Uh—my hobby is... hehe... and my dream for the future is..." Fangirl squeal.

I rolled my eyes while she wasn't looking.

"And what you do hate?" Kakashi asked with a sigh.

"Naruto," Sakura said simply, leaving Naruto looking shocked and totally heartbroken.

I frowned. Oh, the drama of teenhood. It was just another reason why I didn't approve of twelve-year-olds becoming Genin. They were more interested in romance than becoming ninja. This particular situation brought back a few memories of the frustrating love triangle between Kakashi, Obito, and Rin when we were younger. The only problem was that Obito liked Rin, whereas Rin liked Kakashi… and well, I think Kakashi couldn't have cared less at the time. He was a bit of a grump. I, on the other hand, was just the one on the sidelines Obito and Rin went to with their drama. That is, until their deaths. Then it was just Kakashi and me. And after that—well, it wasn't something I liked to dwell on anymore.

Kakashi sighed. "Last one."

"I'm... Sasuke Uchiha."

I glanced up at the dark-haired boy. Sasuke Uchiha—if my sources were correct, his past was not exactly a happy one. His entire clan had been wiped out just a few years ago. And by the look in his eyes, I got the feeling he wasn't over it yet.

"I hate a lot of things… And I don't particularly like anything. What I have is not a dream, because I will make it a reality. I am going to restore my clan, and destroy. A certain. Someone."

Shivers travelled down my spine.

Well, that was cheerful.

After some more awkward silence, Kakashi seemed satisfied. "Good. You're each unique and you have your own ideas. We'll start our first mission tomorrow."

"Ooh, what kind of mission?" Naruto asked.

"It's a mission that the four of us will do together. A survival exercise."

Wow, way to ignore my existence…

Sakura and Naruto both whined in protest. "But we've already done stuff like this at the academy!"

"This will not be like your other training," Kakashi said.

"So, what is it?" Naruto asked.

Out of nowhere, Kakashi began laughing. And it wasn't the happy or light-hearted laughter that escaped a person who had just heard a funny joke. It was dark, mischievous laughter that might have come from the mouth of a person plotting an evil scheme in a melodrama. And it was even enough to disturb me. "Kakashi, you're scaring the children," I whispered.

The three students were thoroughly creeped out by this point and recoiling as if Kakashi had some sort of contagious disease. "I'm sorry," Kakashi said with one last chuckle. "It's just, I know you're going to freak out when I tell you this. See, of the twenty-seven graduates who came here today, only nine will actually be accepted as Genin. The other eighteen will be weeded out and sent back to the academy. This is a make it or break it, pass-fail test, and the chance that you'll fail is at least sixty-six percent."

Their jaws dropped.

Were they not told this ahead of time? The Shinobi of this generation were cruel, indeed. Or just really bad at communication.

"See?" Kakashi said. "I told you you'd lose it."

"That's crazy!" Naruto exploded. "We worked hard to get here! What was that graduation test even for?"

"Oh, that?" I could tell Kakashi was smiling devilishly under his mask. "That was just to select candidates who might become Genin. Or not."

These students looked like they were about to riot. They were not taking this new-found information well. I could hardly blame them. But, at the same time, it seemed obvious to me that this would happen. After all, they couldn't exactly be sent out onto the battlefield with only the training they'd received at the academy. That was madness. Students were far better off the longer they waited to go out and fight in the real world. Already, I knew that these kids had no idea what they were really getting themselves into. Whether they passed this survival test or not, a skilled Jounin like Kakashi would be able to give them a taste right away.

"That's the way it is," Kakashi said harshly. "I make the rules, and I decide whether you pass or fail. Be at the designated training area tomorrow at five a.m. And bring your ninja gear."

Kakashi stood. "That's it. You're dismissed. Oh, and, tomorrow you'd better skip breakfast. Or else, you'll puke."

"They'll puke?" I asked in disbelief, after the students had left. "What are you planning to do to those kids?"

"Don't worry," Kakashi said. "I doubt they'll actually throw up—well, I guess they could… But it's all just part of the test. I plan on teaching them all a lesson."

"Seems like they could use quite a few lessons, if you ask me," I said, shaking my head as I remembered how they acted. Their maturity levels weren't even close to matching those of a Shinobi.

Still, I was intrigued. Whatever type of test Kakashi had in store for them, I found myself curious about how they might respond and what tactics, if any, that they would use to reach their goal. It was quite the combination to have both the son of the Fourth Hokage and the last survivor of the famous Uchiha Clan on one team. But lineage wasn't everything. They were still just kids, and seemingly still quite ignorant ones, at that.

"What do you think of them?" I inquired out of my own curiosity.

He pondered the thought momentarily. "Well… they're certainly an eccentric bunch. Clearly, they have a lot to learn… but they say a teacher learns as much from his students as his students learn from him. So, maybe they'll surprise me."

I nodded in agreement as I hopped off the railing and followed him down the steps. "So… Naruto Uzumaki is a ramen-obsessed child with his heart set on the highest ranking position in the village. Sasuke Uchiha is a brooding, vengeful loner. And Sakura Haruno is an overly emotional, love-struck tween…"

Kakashi looked at me expectantly.

Grinning, I concluded, "It's a recipe for disaster. I love it."

He laughed. It was a short one, but he laughed just the same. "Right. Even if they fail miserably, at least it'll be entertaining."

I allowed myself to laugh along with him, but then cast my eyes down and shuffled my feet. "Sorry about this," I said. "I know it must be annoying to have to take me everywhere with you. And to constantly have to use up your otherwise free time on me."

"Well, I highly doubt this is much more convenient for you, is it?" Kakashi said with a sigh. "Don't worry about it."

I let out a scoff and muttered, "I can't even count how many times people have told me not to worry…"

There were a few seconds of silence, but it quickly started to bother me, so I added, "Anyway, I'll make sure I don't get in the way or cause any problems tomorrow. Whatever the popular belief may be, I'm no super villain."

Abruptly, Kakashi stopped walking. I took a step back instinctively as he turned toward me and met my eyes. All I could do was stare at him incredulously as his eye travelled down to my feet, and then slowly back up again to the top of my head. Then, seeming satisfied, he nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Yep," he said as he started walking again. "Definitely not a super villain."

Still disturbed and a little irritated by his dismissive observation, I quickly ran to catch up with him. "Wait… what makes you so sure about that?"

He raised an eyebrow and turned his head as I came up beside him. "That you're not a super villain? Hmmm… I guess I just don't get that impression."

"Impressions can be deceiving," I remarked. "I could be a super villain."

"So…" he began in a bored tone. "What are you getting at? That I was wrong and you are a super villain, or that you're just trying to make up for the fact that you aren't the least bit intimidating?"

"Well, you just haven't seen me in action."

"Hm. You've thoroughly piqued my curiosity." But his curiosity didn't sound piqued at all.

I rolled my eyes. "You could at least act sincere."

Kakashi's tone was mocking as he said, "Oh! You got me. I'm simply trembling with fear. But one problem: how do you expect to get me from way down there?"

I realized immediately that he was making fun of my height and let out a sigh. "Great short joke… are you actually trying to insult me, or what?"

"That depends. Did I?"

"No."

"That so…? Then I guess I'll have to step up my game next time."

I met his gaze, a little astonished by how closely he resembled my former best friend in that moment. That amused, mildly playful glint in his eye, and the tiny lift in his tone with a trace of irony… it was him. At least a little more so than I had seen so far. Not the same as the cold, condescending prodigy that he'd been when we first met. Not the elusive, tortured Anbu member he'd been when we last met.

It was him.

"Kakashi."

"Kanata?"

I noticed that it was the first time he'd said my name since yesterday in the Hokage mansion. Except he called me Kanata… which felt strange coming from him, even though no one I knew in the last ten years had called me by my old nickname, Kana. And suddenly, I felt even more distant from him than I had yesterday.

But Kakashi continued to watch me, waiting, as if the only issue here was the fact that it was taking me so long to speak.

"Are you just going to stare at me like that all day?" he asked, turning away with a narrow gaze.

Realizing that our situation was quickly becoming uncomfortable, I lowered my head to look in front of me instead of at him. "Sorry," I said, walking past him. "I got lost in thought."

Don't lose perspective. You're a prisoner.

As we headed home in silence, I kept my head down to make sure I didn't catch Kakashi's gaze.