Itachi wasn't sleeping on the ground when they arrived the next morning. Instead he was writing something, which Sasuke quickly identified as the bedtime stories Itachi would tell the two at night.
"Finally got around to writing them?" he said.
"Biggest problem is the title," said Itachi. He tossed two onigiri packs (three to a pack) to his brother.
Sasuke took the hint and started eating. Naruto was right behind them, having taken his time in the shower. He also started eating the onigiri Itachi tossed him, despite Kakashi's orders not to the day before.
Sakura was the last to arrive, looking absolutely miserable and her stomach growling.
Itachi tossed her a single pack, and she reluctantly started eating. He could see that she was thin in an unhealthy way, and if she wanted to be a real kunoichi, he would correct that immediately.
"Sakura, exactly how much do you eat every day?" he asked suddenly.
"I eat at least five carrots, a bowl of rice and some miso, why?"
"I thought as much. If you pass this test, I am taking you to the medic nin so they can come up with a proper eating regiment that won't involve you foolishly starving yourself for the sake of appealing to the idiots who think they know what actual beauty is. Anorexia is not something you should take lightly, and it will only hurt you in the long run."
"He's right. Anko-nee-chan doesn't bother with silly diets, and she has an awesome figure when all she eats most days is dango!" Naruto chirped.
"Which brings me to another question. What sort of kunoichi are you? Are you a genjutsu type? A medic type? A weapons specialist? Or do you favor ninjutsu or taijutsu?"
"Um...I don't really have a type," she said nervously.
"What are you good at?" Itachi pressed.
"I have a good memory and really good chakra control. Leaf spinning was my best class," she said.
"Which means you naturally favor genjutsu and medic jutsu. If we pass, you are to ask the medics for beginner scrolls on medic jutsu and I'll ask Anko for some genjutsu you can try."
Three hours later, and they were all ready to commit murder on Kakashi when he finally showed up. Itachi had finished the first draft of the stories of Fire Man, which meant he needed someone to proofread it, possibly Anko or Iruka. He would ask Iruka first though...the man was a teacher and he had better grammar.
Before they split apart, Itachi did give them a cryptic hint on the actual test.
"Remember, Konoha nin always operate under at least three-man cells," he said.
Itachi immediately went back to writing, only occasionally looking up. He had flipped a coin with Kakashi last night and the scarecrow had lost. Hence why the silver-haired man was the one to fight the chibi patrol and the cannon fodder.
An hour later, Sakura was tied to the post and Kakashi delivered a rather strong point home to the trio.
Sasuke and Naruto had teamed up immediately after Naruto gauged Kakashi's skill level as roughly Itachi's in a bad mood. Like when someone woke him up with a kunai to the head or Naruto eating the last pocky.
Sakura was in tears because Kakashi had threatened to kill Sasuke (which he wouldn't, because if he tried Itachi would broil him alive slowly) in order to make his point that now that they were ninja, playing games was out of the question. When they finally got onto the field, enemy nin wouldn't hesitate to kill them.
Though Kakashi did do a doubletake when Naruto casually asked him why they should kill Sakura when she was still semi-useful as cannon fodder.
The look he shot Itachi was amusing.
Sakura looked ready to hit him for that comment, and she was only stopped by the ropes she was bound in.
Once Kakashi hid himself, Sasuke and Naruto shared their lunch with Sakura because the sound of her rumbling stomach (apparently the only thing she had eaten today was the onigiri pack Itachi threw her earlier, which her nutrition starved body had burned through rather quickly) had annoyed them.
Her body was too weak to handle any real training, and Kakashi had taken her out first. He had been disgusted with how quickly she passed out from exhaustion with only a few shuriken.
The other two boys made a much better showing, and had nearly gotten the bells.
Kakashi realized this was probably the best he would get until the trio were trained up a bit more. He passed them, though he wasn't too happy about it.
Itachi's first task was to take Sakura straight to the hospital to get a proper diet regiment so she would be in decent weight class. The medic nin had been horrified when he found out the girl had essentially been starving herself for the sake of a fool's idea of beauty.
Sakura wasn't too happy with how much she would have to eat every day, but if she didn't want to become cannon fodder (as Naruto, Sasuke and Itachi had driven that particular point home rather hard) she would have to eat and actually train from now on.
If not, she could always drop from the ninja program and become a civilian. That was available to any genin who had recently graduated.
She would have a year to find a better teacher before she would be taken to have her chakra sealed.
It was standard protocol for all hidden villages. And while it was possible to remove the seal, it almost never happened. If you weren't meant to be a shinobi, then it was better to wash out within the first year, rather than bring the team down.
That was one of the lessons that Iruka had driven home rather early on.
What she didn't know was that attitude had really annoyed the Civilian council who had made a point to dumb down the Academy to the level someone like Sakura, who had very limited use outside the classroom could become a shinobi. If Itachi had his way, they would drum out half the civilian kids in a month. He knew full well that there was little chance they would become shinobi, and it was sad that they allowed such dreams to continue for so long instead of giving them a painful, but necessary death.
Itachi's first act as jounin instructor was to give the kiddies something else to think about while Kakashi took his sweet time. Technically, this was his first team and Kakashi was supervising. In reality he was the substitute until Kakashi got off his ass and came.
Finally, Sakura asked why Itachi never used the Sharingan. It was something that had been on the minds of many who knew him, but he never explained why.
"You want to know why I don't have the doujutsu, despite having the best chance at unlocking it?" he asked. He felt like humoring them, as Kakashi happened to be reading on a tree five feet away from him. That was a question his friend had asked more than once.
Itachi popped his neck.
"I don't have it because I don't particular see a need for it. Yes, there was a time when it activated right in front of me in the middle of the night when I happened to be in the bathroom next to a mirror, and I knew how to turn it on and off. But I never expanded on it because I didn't see the need. The sharingan, in my opinion, made the clan lazy. They thought they were better than everyone simply because thanks to their eyes they didn't have to work as hard as everyone else to master jutsu. I disagreed, which was why once they woke up on their own, I simply never bothered to use them afterwords."
Kakashi appeared at that time.
"You have the Sharingan?" he said in surprise.
"Since I was four and locked eyes with the fox. I was in the bathroom and suddenly they shifted to red. Seeing how Fugaku acted because of his precious eyes and the way he treated those without it gave me more than enough reason not to inform him. I was the idol of more than half the Uchiha clan, particularly those who had yet to awaken their eyes."
Kakashi nodded in agreement. He remembered almost painfully the complaints Obito had about Fugaku and the way he treated those who had become shinobi and had yet to awaken their bloodline limit.
He had a feeling Obito would have loved to hang out with Itachi. Those two would have gotten along like a building on fire.
"How many tomoe do you have?"
"All three. It's a fully activate sharingan, but like I said before, I never really saw the need. If I saw a jutsu and liked it well enough, I remembered the hand signs and worked out how to do it later. Having eidetic memory really helps," said Itachi blandly.
Yet another thing he got from this world, aside from a love of reading, the ability to swim again (Fugaku had been less than pleased to learn of his son's reluctance to go near water of any form aside from baths), the weird eyes that creeped him out and a whole new set of skills... was an eidetic memory. His eyes apparently didn't like the fact he didn't use them often, so they gave him an eidetic memory by the time he was five. After that it was simply a process of trial and error.
He had earned quite a bit of respect for not falling back on his clan's doujutsu just to learn an enemy's specialty.
Itachi looked at Kakashi.
"You can tell people I already have the Sharingan. I don't particularly care either way."
Kakashi couldn't wait to see the reaction of the Council when it learned Itachi not only had the Sharingan, a fully activated one at that, but that he had done it at four and never bothered to use it once.
His reputation was about skyrocket if he knew the rumor mill right. Itachi was well-respected in the ANBU for not being a total ass and actually being a kind person to be around. It had only grown when he proved he wasn't above getting dirty and never flinched when it came to death. And then there was the fact that while he had never once used the Sharingan on the field, he worked just as hard as everyone else and had an innate mastery of fire style.
Finding out he had the Sharingan at such a young age, yet worked his body to the bone doing it the hard way was only going to add to his reputation and respect from his fellow shinobi.
Some of them hated those who flaunted their bloodline limits as if they were better than everyone else. But they respected Itachi because he never did, even when Fugaku openly pressured him to activate the doujutsu in public. Itachi had stared him down and asked quite clearly why he should be forced to awaken it if he didn't actually care about the boost it would give him in a fight.
That had been one of the louder fights Itachi had with the man.
Kakashi had an evil grin on his face as he informed them what they would be doing now that Itachi had given them a bit of training today.
"Welcome...to the wonderful world of D ranks!" he said grinning. Itachi coughed behind him, but both boys knew he was actually laughing behind the man's back.
He had also given them horror stories about Tora, the Fire Daimyo's Wife's evil cat. And informed them that it was a standard mission for new genin.
Team 7 was banned from ever taking the Tora mission within a week of first trying it. Apparently the cat had been so traumatized by their handling (namely Naruto slapping a tag on the cat before Kakashi caught on thanks to Itachi's interference) that the Fire Daimyo's wife requested that they never catch her cat again.
Itachi and Anko had nearly laughed themselves sick when they heard.
It took them a month, but eventually Sakura was finally at the proper standard for a true kunoichi. Once she realized how much eating properly and actually training made her feel as opposed to the horrible feeling of a partially starved stomach, she vowed then and there never to slip back to those silly diets.
And then Itachi threw her to the wolves...so to speak. He sent her to train with Inuzuka Hana, who helped Sakura learn medic jutsu (he had guessed correctly as to her ninja type...the girl was a natural at medical chakra) and ironed out her Academy style taijutsu.
She also helped Sakura with those little things that only kunoichi knew, since she was the lone female on Team 7. Itachi knew better than to try to teach her, and he knew Inuzuka were less secretive about what happens at puberty. He would help the boys once hormones kicked in at full force. Sakura had yet to hit that stage thankfully.
Another thing he had done was put an end to Sakura's habit of hitting Naruto for the smallest infraction. She mistakenly believed putting down one teammate would endear her to the other. A habit ingrained by her mother, one who hated Naruto for the fox he held at bay.
Every so slowly, they were becoming a real genin team. Then came the day that it almost fell apart. They day Itachi took them to Sand on a regular exchange run while Kakashi took an A rank assassination to Wave. Apparently a man named Gato had crossed the line by nearly assassinating a civilian who was considered the hero of the town. Itachi had been coming back from a mission of his own at the time and happened to stop it at the last second.
Kaiza was currently in Konoha answering their questions until Gato was taken care of. The people of Wave assumed the man was dead.
"Itachi-sensei, where is Kakashi?" asked Sakura. She didn't consider Kakashi a real teacher ever since Itachi held his little book hostage and she learned what was in it.
"You know about the countries bordering ours, right Sakura?" said Itachi.
She nodded.
"A merchant has taken control of Nami no Kuni illegally and has been acting like a Daimyo, cutting off all messages to the lands surrounding it. Kakashi has gone to deal with him so we can get someone in there to start the recovery efforts. According to our reports, the situation in Wave is bad. Very bad."
"What about us, Itachi-nii?" asked Sasuke.
"We will be training until he returns, or until I am informed otherwise. Today we'll focus on unusual shinobi weapons. Since I am your teacher, you are all going to pick one weapon not standard to the usual genin. You will learn how to maintain and fight with it, so pick carefully. And just to be clear, we are on a budget, so try not to get anything over ten thousand," said Itachi.
He had already gotten his unusual weapon...a very poor, but useable gun...though he had to show that Tenten girl what it looked like and how it worked...and occasionally he switched it up with a crossbow.
He couldn't count the times he had taken out an enemy shinobi with that gun and their looks of shock. Sure it was noisy as hell and he had to get custom bullets for it, but when secrecy was out the window, he preferred a gun at his side to some wimpy kunai or shuriken...besides, ninja had exploding tags, so they had no room to talk.
"What is this place?" asked Sakura.
"Higarashi Weapons. If you bring them an interesting weapon to trade or sell, or come up with an entirely new weapon to play with you get half off on practically all shinobi gear. Besides, the owner's daughter is a year older than you three and is also a genin," said Itachi blandly. He was actually trying not to grin.
Tenten had a thing for seals, but not enough chakra to power them. Itachi had promised Naruto as her new target dummy in exchange for teaching him seals and a few tricks to maintain his weapons.
Tenten was more than happy to help Naruto when Itachi casually mentioned to her that Naruto was like a living chakra battery and could power some of her unused seal designs.
He still wanted to be there when they set them off, because most of Tenten's designs blew up. And like the pyro he was, he loved explosions.
Sasuke immediately gravitated to the swords. Despite popular belief, Itachi does own a sword. The problem was that most people didn't recognize the kind. At least no one in Fire Country anyway.
Someone from the Water country might have recognized his sword as a cutlass, which is the preferred sword of a pirate.
Itachi made a note to introduce his brother to Hayate Gekkou, since he didn't know the first thing about fighting with a katana.
Naruto's choice also surprised him. He picked up a naginata and a short crossbow similar to Itachi's.
Apparently he knew his own problem with ranged attacks and planned to use a naginata to compensate. A smart move.
It was Sakura who surprised him the most, however. She picked up a pair of knives...according to the label they were deer horn knives. He had no idea how to use those, which meant he would have to look for an instructor on their use.
(He would later find a monk from the Temple of Fire who took pity on the girl and showed her how to use them properly. Apparently their main use was against anything that gave the opponent a longer reach, like a sword or spear. She had made a smart choice, considering the boys now had a longer reach than she did in spars.)
