Sorry about the delay in updates folks! Stupid computer wouldn't read my hard drive... So without further ado...MASS UPDATES!
Sasuke had passed the 'graduation' exam, but Naruto hadn't by dint of having a crappy instructor who was more than happy to use the boy for his own means.
Upon realizing Mizuki had slipped a chakra-suppressing seal on his sort-of brother's neck, Sasuke did something that would have made the shinobi baffled, but the civilian-raised kids understand perfectly.
He walked up to Iruka and handed his headband back to the man.
"If Naruto's not on my team, then I have no interest in being a shinobi."
Shirou took one look at the lack of shiny headbands, and patted both of them on the head anyway. He was a blacksmith whose only concern with shinobi was that they didn't try to stiff him and didn't bother him.
If they failed to become mercenaries as he so bluntly called it, then it wasn't anything to be ashamed of.
Sasuke's clan would have been appalled at the attitude, especially considering he had been training under the man discreetly for years.
Turning in one's headband because your friend wasn't allowed to graduate due to idiots was not something a good shinobi did.
One of Shirou's lessons was that loyalty was earned through trust, and to be honest once he started looking into the clan he had lost a lot of trust in the office of Hokage.
Pride was something that only got in your way, after all. He had no use for pride, and the only pride Naruto had was in his pranking skills and his garden.
Two days later...
Sasuke and Naruto walked into the room, heads held high and with their headbands proudly on their forehead.
Mizuki turned out to be a traitor, and when tested by unbiased jonin, he had passed with flying colors.
It turned out he simply had too much chakra for the standard clone jutsu. Fortunately he now had shadow clones to handle that. And the much more terrifying variant he had gotten a good enough glimpse of before the Hokage put the scroll back up, the exploding clones.
However the second they heard the name of their third teammate and instructor, both had identical reactions.
"Why dear kami, why did we end up with the damn fan girl?" moaned Naruto. Sasuke groaned as well as he banged his head against the desk lightly upon hearing they were now stuck with Kakashi.
After learning there was an active Sharingan user in the village, Sasuke had asked around. And what he heard didn't endear him to the man.
Kakashi had never passed a single genin team, and was know to be perpetually late to unimportant meetings.
Meeting a prospective genin team would be on that long list.
Rather than wait an inordinate amount of time for Kakashi to arrive, the two boys did the smart thing.
They feigned an errand of nature and forced Naruto's recently developed skill of shadow clones to take their place. Very few could break Naruto's henge technique (including the pervert-killer known as the Sexy Jutsu, or it's even more effective variant the Harem Jutsu) and frankly he wasn't missing his turn at cooking just to cater to a perpetually late jonin.
Shirou was terrifyingly territorial of his kitchen, and only allowed Sasuke and Naruto in to teach them how to cook.
Naruto was tolerable at it, but could only cook simple dishes. Ramen was at the top of that list.
Sasuke was a decent to moderately good cook and was best at BBQ, which even Shirou admitted trouble with due to the headaches of adjusting the flames.
The first clue that this wasn't going to be the usual time of splitting the itty bitty genin apart in an effort to impress him was when Kakashi realized that the two boys in the room were in fact clones, both of whom were likely from the same source.
Obviously they had known he was going to be late, or had gotten fed up with waiting, and had left to perform errands. Since Sasuke and Naruto were practically joined at the hip, odds were that they were together and awaiting one of the clones to pop to alert him of his arrival.
From a shinobi's perspective, it was a pretty good strategy for someone known to be late repeatedly. Most shinobi could get to a meeting point (with time for minor interruptions) in less than an hour.
From a jounin's perspective, it spoke volumes of how much they respected him as a teacher.
Suddenly "Naruto" looked up, and took out a kunai to pop himself. Obviously someone had told him of the memory transfer aspect of clones. Sakura looked startled, as she had been unaware that they were clones at all.
"You might as well come down. They'll be here in about three minutes once they finish paying for lunch," announced "Sasuke".
"You were supposed to wait here until I arrived," said Kakashi admonishing the clone.
"Sasuke heard about you, and your bad habit of being late to unimportant meetings."
Kakashi eyesmiled at him.
"Oh? And how did he know I would be late today?"
"Your track record. You've been on the teaching roster for at least ten rotations of the Academy graduation which happen every six months, and you've failed every single team assigned to you. Which means you obviously deem having a genin team unimportant and more of a task you have to deal with before getting back to more important things like your Icha Icha volumes," said 'Sasuke'.
Sakura clearly hadn't been privy to this knowledge as her shocked expression said volumes. For the 'top kunoichi', it didn't give Kakashi a good feeling for her ability to survive in the cutthroat world of shinobi.
In fact the very first page of her limited file had a massive "FANGIRL" flag on it, which said volumes of her current commitment.
The raven-haired boy in front of him poofed, as the real ones arrived.
"Meet me on the roof," said Kakashi.
Naruto blinked.
"He couldn't have said that sooner?"
"He's an ass, according to popular rumor among the failed genin," shrugged Sasuke.
"You ditched me!" said Sakura accusingly to Naruto. She was too infatuated with Sasuke to be angry at him.
"Of course we ditched you. It's not like you would have eaten anything and we had to finish collecting rumors from the bars so we have a better idea of what we're up against," said Sasuke.
Sakura blushed. Her stomach growled, but she ignored it with the ease of practice.
Ten minutes later...
"Alright kiddies. How about we introduce ourselves?" said Kakashi with mock cheer.
"Uh, sensei? Can you give us an example?" asked Sakura.
"Kakashi Hatake, current 'head' of the Hatake clan after the death of his father following a failed mission. Known as 'Copy-Cat' Kakashi in the BINGO book, he has a Sharingan from an Uchiha teammate who passed right before the Fourth was elected as Hokage. Has an annoying habit of not showing up on time for unimportant things, failed every genin team ever assigned to him, and is on the short list of those who are given the first copies of the Icha Icha series. Is the 'official' rival of one Might Gai, despite the fact that it's mostly one-sided," said Sasuke flatly.
"Former ANBU captain, supposedly copied over a thousand jutsu, and has only one original lightning assassination jutsu...though why you call something so loud an 'assassination' jutsu I'll never get," added Naruto.
Sakura stared at them both. Kakashi was a bit disturbed how quickly they had gotten what should have been sensitive information, despite not being genin.
"How did you get all that?" he asked finally, almost with a hint of unease.
Sasuke and Naruto scoffed.
"Shinobi, especially the off-duty ones, are major gossips and you're fairly well known in Konoha. It might be illegal for us to drink alcohol until our status becomes official, but there's nothing stopping us from bribing the higher ranked shinobi such as your fellow jounin and special jounin with sake and free food," stated Sasuke flatly.
"People like to lay it on really thick when it comes to Sasuke. He is the 'Last Uchiha' you know," added Naruto helpfully.
"One Mitarashi Anko from the T and I division was particularly helpful when we paid for her dango tab and a bottle of high quality sake, once she knew we were trying to assess who we were stuck with as a jounin sensei," finished Sasuke.
Kakashi had to fight the urge to make them genin right then and there. At the very least he was going to recommend these two for the specialized departments like T and I.
Not a single one of the genin he had before had bothered to go that far to get information on him, let alone figure out the loopholes that would provide information that could be used against him. He briefly eyed Sakura, who was still stunned that they had learned that much at all.
She would need a lot of work to become a real kunoichi.
The two boys, however, were practically shinobi already. They just needed sharpening up before he would reasonably consider them worthy of the title.
"We've gotten a bit off track. Likes, dislikes and dreams."
"My name is Uzumaki-Emiya Naruto. I like archery, gardening, ramen, and Shirou-nii. I dislike idiots who judge you without even knowing you, the fact most of the village hates me for something I had no control over. My dream is to save as many as I can despite being a mercenary, even if Shirou-nii said that we're just as likely to kill people instead of save."
Kakashi almost choked. He had heard volumes of what Shirou Emiya thought of shinobi, even if they were his best customers. Contracted mercenaries was the least painful thing they had been called over the years.
Mostly because it wasn't that far off the mark. They might glamour it up, but they were technically mercenaries.
Kakashi looked at Sasuke.
"Uchiha-Emiya Sasuke. I like tomatoes, cooking, and learning how to use the swords Shirou gave me for graduating. I dislike being compared to a clan who let their pride get them killed, people who pretend to like me because I'm the last of a founding clan, and those who expect too much of me because of a pair of fancy eyes I haven't even unlocked yet. My current dream is to surpass Shirou in the kitchen, since he still sucks at cooking barbecue," said Sasuke deadpan.
Kakashi blinked.
It sounded like Emiya had done the impossible and beaten out the high and mighty attitude all the previous Uchiha had. Which made him a little easier to work with...if they passed.
He barely listened to Sakura...she had her head firmly in the clouds and was obviously one of those who put the "last Uchiha" on a pedestal he didn't deserve or want. The look he shot the girl spoke volumes of how much he liked it.
"Well?"
"We're stuck with Kakashi the perpetually lazy and a fan girl," said Sasuke in disgust.
"He also said not to eat anything in the morning or we'll puke," said Naruto with a tone that spoke of his disbelief. His expression said volumes of his trust in Shirou's ability to cook a meal they could keep down.
"I'll get to preparing something you can take with you in the morning, in the event it's a trap," sighed Shirou.
"We did get some respect from him when we mentioned the information we got from the other jounin and Mitarashi," offered Naruto.
"I'm not sure we're going to get much training out of him though. I've heard about his own training regiment and once he realized he was going to be stuck on the genin rotation he hasn't really kept his skills up to snuff. He's considered a potential Kage candidate, but for some reason has never pursued the title."
"Probably doesn't want to deal with being stuck behind the desk all the time. Most village leaders have to deal with the day-to-day matters of the village and that means a lot of paperwork, whereas jounin have the option to leave the village on 'fun' missions without requiring a full ANBU escort," said Shirou.
Naruto and Sasuke shuddered at the thought.
"Yet another reason to avoid the Hokage seat," said Sasuke.
"So, what are you going to do in the morning?"
"I found some D-ranked jutsu scrolls around the compound. We're going to see if they're feasible for Naruto before testing them while waiting for him to show up, since skipping out isn't an option," said Sasuke.
"I'll check our weapons so that they're in fighting condition before we leave, and seal our breakfast/lunch. That way if it is a trick, he can't deduct points from us for eating ahead of time," said Naruto.
Over the years, they had found a strange sort of family dynamic despite the fact Shirou had never adopted them formally.
Naruto was the 'younger brother' and Sasuke was Shirou's ward, which by their standards meant Naruto and Sasuke were brothers in every way that mattered.
Even if the council wouldn't agree to that assessment, the fact was that the trio considered themselves family. Though truth be told, it had been more reluctance on the part of Shirou than the two boys.
The next morning...
Sasuke and Naruto were both lounging out of sight of Sakura, reading some of the books Sasuke had dug up from his clan compound.
He only went there to look for useful things, and most of the time it was left abandoned. There was some word of having it re-purposed by the more greedy civilians and rare shinobi, but the Hokage kept shutting all talks of it down.
So long as Sasuke was alive and loyal to the village, they couldn't touch the place. It was part of his heritage and there was still a chance that it could be used by the clan again.
Unsurprisingly, it was the major clans that owned vast tracks of land (Hyuuga, Inuzuka, Aburame, and Nara) that supported the Hokage's decision.
It was almost noon when Kakashi showed up, and Sakura was positively livid.
She was also the one who was the most unprepared for Kakashi's bell test.