Kakashi hadn't expected to actually enjoy being a jounin sensei – and he didn't always – but overall, yeah, it was sort of fun.
Naruto had thrown himself into D-ranks with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. His chakra control was slowly improving the more he practiced tree walking. It was too early to say for sure, but Kakashi thought that there was a good chance that Naruto might end up being team lead when the three of them made chuunin.
Sakura had gotten tree walking down on her first try and mastered water walking in less than forty-eight hours, so now Kakashi had her working on endurance training while the boys worked on their chakra control. He was also teaching her how to pick locks using chakra and dismantle basic security seals, because that girl had the makings of an infiltration expert.
After his apology during the bell test, Sasuke seemed to be a little less quick to dismiss his teammates out of hand. Kakashi was under no illusions that the kid had dropped his vengeance quest, but he was viewing his teammates as people instead of tools, and that was a good start.
Their teamwork was improving as well. It was odd. Naruto would generally come up with a basic plan, Sasuke would add some much needed detail, and more recently Sakura had started pointing out flaws and suggesting alternative options. The system seemed to work well for them so far.
Naruto had also sort of become team spokesperson.
"Could you please explain to me," the Sandaime sighed long-sufferingly, "how you managed to change your D-rank mission to help organize files at the Academy into a B-rank suspect apprehension?"
"It was all Sakura-chan!" Naruto announced proudly. "She's the one who noticed the code in Mizuki-sensei's files!"
"It wasn't a very complicated code." Sakura shuffled her feet, looking a little embarrassed. "And he'd left the files right there on his desk." She pushed a few strands of hair that had come loose from her bun behind her ear. It was one of her more obvious tells that she was lying. Kakashi had complete faith that Sakura had taken advantage of the opportunity to practice her new lock picking skills on her old sensei's desk.
Had Kakashi mentioned how proud of his students he was?
"And then what did you do, Sakura-chan?" asked the Sandaime.
"Well, I hid one of the files in my weapons pouch, and then I went to find Sasuke-kun and Naruto, because if Mizuki-sensei really was a traitor, I couldn't leave either of them alone with him. Then we took the file I'd found to Kakashi-sensei."
"Yeah!" Naruto interrupted. "And Kakashi-nii told Sakura-chan good work and then asked us how we wanted to handle things since it was our mission, and we decided that we should apprehend Mizuki-sensei before he had a chance to influence any more kids or hide the evidence."
The Sandaime turned a deeply unimpressed expression on Kakashi, who just beamed right back at him. If the Sandaime hadn't wanted to deal with this sort of thing, he shouldn't have given Kakashi a genin team.
"They had a very good plan," Kakashi told him cheerfully, "and I was on hand the entire time, ready to step in if something went wrong."
"And half of Mizuki-kun's hair had been singed off when you brought him in because…?"
"I miscalculated my fire jutsu," Sasuke blatantly lied at the same time Naruto solemnly told the Sandaime, "Sasuke-teme takes traitors to the village very personally."
"So, is this the third time or the fourth time that Kakashi-sensei has hired us for a D-rank at his bakery?" asked Sakura as she squished the excess water out of her sponge.
"Fourth." Sasuke was scrubbing his sponge over a particularly stubborn patch of dirt on the glass of the bakery's front window.
"Yeah, it's great, isn't it?" Naruto nodded. He was swiping off the leftover water from his section of window with a rubber scraper, leaving behind wide stripes of sparkling clean glass.
"The 4am wake up, I could do without." Sakura peered through the window to where Kakashi was talking to another jounin, who was holding two loaves of bread and had a senbon sticking out of his mouth like a toothpick. That did not look safe. She was starting to wonder if mental instability was a requirement for becoming a jounin. "I wonder why he wears that mask all the time," she muttered to herself, not expecting any sort of answer.
"Oh, that's because nii-san has gills," Naruto informed her solemnly. "He's very sensitive about them and doesn't like it when people stare."
"WHAT?!" Sakura yelped, her head snapping to look at Naruto. Sasuke dropped his sponge.
"Haha! Gotcha!" Naruto grinned. "It's actually his Hatake clan marks. They're a really weird color."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously.
"…You're lying."
"Could be." Naruto folded his arms behind his head and beamed cheerfully. "But why would I lie about nii-san having fangs? The first time I saw them, I thought he was a vampire!"
"Naruto, come on – be serious!" Sakura protested. "Why does he wear that mask all the time?"
"I am being serious – that cystic acne of his is no joking matter!"
By the time Kakashi made it outside to find out what all the shouting was about, Naruto was lying on the ground, howling with laughter, and Sakura and Sasuke had up-ended the entire bucket of soapy water over his head.
Sasuke had started showing up at the Ryouken Bakery on Saturday mornings, because, well, his sensei was weird, but the bakery was a better place to be than the empty Uchiha Compound when he woke up from the usual 5am nightmare. And Sasuke kind of liked the smell of bread dough. His mother used to make bread sometimes, and it was… nice to remember her that way. Having something to do with his hands that wasn't training related was nice, too.
Kakashi never commented on Sasuke's presence even though they never had team training on Saturdays. Sometimes they would talk a bit – usually about inconsequential things. Naruto generally showed up around 10am and had never questioned Sasuke's desire to be at the bakery either. (Naruto seemed to take it for granted that everyone should want to spend their free time at the Ryouken Bakery.)
The smooth, soft ball of dough moved rhythmically beneath Sasuke's hands. It was strangely peaceful.
"So what are you going to do after you murder Itachi, anyway?" asked Kakashi absently.
Sasuke froze mid-knead. He glanced sideways at Kakashi, but his sensei seemed to be completely absorbed in shaping loaves.
"Why?"
"Oh, just wondering." Kakashi didn't look up from his work.
"Hn. I don't have a plan for after that." Sasuke started kneading again with more force than necessary. Silence stretched out, and for some reason, Sasuke felt the uncharacteristic urge to fill it. He tried to imagine his life after he'd finally killed Itachi. He couldn't picture it.
"You're not planning to die in the process are you?" Kakashi asked as he headed for the ovens with a different tray of loaves that had apparently finished proofing.
"No," Sasuke snapped, annoyed. What sort of stupid question was that?
Kakashi just hummed thoughtfully to himself, slid the loaves into one of the massive ovens, and performed a quick mist jutsu.
"Well, I suppose you could always restart the police force," he commented distractedly. "If you want to stick with the theme of honoring your clan's memory and all that."
"What?"
"The Sandaime has never gotten around to restarting the force, and I know it's caused problems. If you want to pursue your quest for justice after Itachi is dead, being a regular shinobi probably isn't going to work well for you but being a police officer might."
Sasuke stared blankly into middle space, his hands continuing to work the dough in front of him on automatic. He'd always thought of his quest as one of vengeance. He'd never thought of it as justice before. His soul burned frantically when he thought of vengeance, but his resolved firmed and held steady when he thought of justice. Perhaps that was a better way of thinking of it – as justice, not vengeance – because Sasuke knew perfectly well that fire was just as likely to harm as help.
Sasuke tried to picture himself as a police officer hunting down people who had hurt others. The image had a certain appeal.
He finally offered a noncommittal "Hn" in response. It was something to think about.
Sasuke hadn't meant to yell at Sakura – the words had just tumbled out, short and sharp and aimed to hurt. But, damn it, she'd been complaining about her parents. Her parents. Did she have any idea what he would give to have his mother alive to scold him about his eating habits?
Sakura's eyes had gone wide and hurt, and Sasuke had stormed away without apologizing, because he was a little afraid that, if he opened his mouth again, all that would come out would be more bile and venom, and Sakura didn't actually deserve it. Naruto had been shouting after him, but Sasuke had ignored him.
Now Sasuke was in a tree near Training Field 6 lost in dark thoughts and definitely not hiding. He scowled as Kakashi settled on the branch just below his and viciously wished for a moment that he had Sakura's talent for making her chakra invisible. Sasuke let the silence stretch out for two agonizing minutes before he couldn't stand it anymore and snapped,
"Are you here to lecture me or be condescending and try to say that you 'understand how I feel'? Because you don't. I lost everything. You have no idea how it feels."
Kakashi stared up at him with that infuriatingly neutral look for a moment before he spoke.
"Well, by the time I was born there were only two members of the Hatake clan left, and I never had an older brother, so in that respect, no, I don't. But you're hardly the only person to have lost everything." Sasuke let out a skeptical snort. "Did you learn how the Third Shinobi War started at the Academy?"
Sasuke frowned slightly at this seemingly abrupt change of topic.
"Iruka-sensei said a mission went wrong, and Suna used it as an excuse to attack us," he muttered.
"My father led that mission. He was one of the best jounin in the village, and they used him as a scapegoat to blame for starting the war. His teammates stopped talking to him. No one would look him in the eye. Some civilians threw things. Some shop keepers refused to serve us. It just got worse and worse no matter what he did. He finally committed suicide when I was eight. I found his body when I came home from training." Kakashi's voice was carefully blank and emotionless in a way that Sasuke recognized far too well.
"My best friend sacrificed his life to save mine on a mission. He probably wouldn't have had to if I had just listened to him in the first place. His name," Kakashi pushed up his hitai-ate and opened the left eye that Sasuke hadn't even realized he still owned, "was Obito Uchiha." And Sasuke gaped, because that was a sharingan. That was a gods damned, fully-formed sharingan. "I lost my eye on that mission, and as he lay dying, Obito gave me his. It was my first mission as a jounin. I was thirteen. Less than a year later," Kakasi held a cupped hand over the sharingan, "my other friend and teammate threw herself in front of one of my jutsus and used me to commit suicide. She did it to protect the village. Her name was Rin Nohara." Kakashi lowered his hand to reveal the black pinwheel of the mangekyou. "My hand went straight through her heart. I still haven't forgiven her."
Something in Sasuke's shocked brain finally clicked, because he may only have been eight when his clan was wiped out, but he knew – he knew – how much trauma was required to gain the mangekyou. The elders used to call it the final gift of tragedy (even if it was a gift that some, like Itachi, had abused). It was physical proof that Kakashi may have never born witness to his clan's massacre, but on some level, he still understood. He really did. Sasuke truly wasn't alone in his pain like he had always thought. It was a revelation – a relief on a profound and visceral level.
"My sensei and his wife died protecting the village the night of the Kyuubi attack, and after that I'd run out of people to lose." Kakashi closed his eye and pulled his hitai-ate back into its usual slant. He turned his head away from Sasuke to stare out over the training field and seemed content to leave Sasuke to his own thoughts for a while.
Sasuke's mind, however, was still all but blank with shock. He'd spent so long isolating himself, because he'd thought his grief and pain were unique, and he'd been wrong. After a long while, Sasuke's branch became too empty, and he clambered down to join Kakashi on his branch instead. Sasuke hugged his legs and rested his chin on his knees.
"What about Naruto?" he asked, not looking over at Kakashi.
"I didn't start getting to know Naruto until he was six, and I didn't officially meet until he was eight." Kakashi's tone was fond.
Sasuke's nose wrinkled slightly.
"How did that work?"
"I was in ANBU," Kakashi shrugged.
"So?"
"All ANBU are weird – it's the only way to cope with the stress. Naruto and I were sort of… pen pals, I guess? Only he did all the writing, and I mostly left him food, because six year olds shouldn't live pretty much on cup ramen."
"What changed, then?"
"One of my former subordinates, whom I'd helped to train, massacred his entire clan."
Sasuke's breath froze in his chest. He wasn't sure how many shocks and revelations he could take in one day.
"You… trained Itachi?" Sasuke whispered.
Kakashi looked over at him. What little of his expression that could be seen was weary.
"In part. He was on my squad when he first joined ANBU."
Sasuke didn't ask any more questions. His head was reeling yet again from too much information. It was going to take a while to process.
He'd never really thought about how Itachi's betrayal might have effected others in the village.
Silence stretched out with none of the tension it had held before. Finally Kakashi rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck from side to side.
"Take ten more minutes, then run two laps of the village for verbally abusing your teammate, and come back and apologize to Sakura. I'll have a chat with her and remind her to be more sensitive to the fact that all of her teammates are orphans."
Sasuke nodded, and Kakashi hopped down out of the tree.
Sakura still had a crush on Sasuke, but… she wasn't sure if she was in love with him anymore. Or if she had ever actually been in love with him in the first place. Because the longer Sakura was on Team 7, the more she realized that she didn't really know Sasuke. Naruto seemed to understand Sasuke better than she did, and that sort of stung.
There was also the fact that Inner Sakura really wanted to punch Sasuke in the face. Hard. Because all it would have taken was the slightest of flinches for that kunai at her neck to break skin – to slit her throat. She was just lucky that Kakashi-sensei was better shinobi than that. Sakura may have forgiven Sasuke for his rash actions, but Inner Sakura definitely hadn't.
"All right." Kakashi looked between Sakura and Sasuke. "Taijutsu only. First one to go under the water loses. Understand?"
They both nodded.
"Kick his ass, Sakura-chan!" shouted Naruto from the river bank where he was trying to use his chakra to split leaves.
"Go." Kakashi swept one hand down and then stepped out of the way.
Sasuke's taijutsu was stronger than Sakura's, but she was much better at water walking.
Sakura ducked out of the way of Sasuke's first kick. This was the third time Kakashi-sensei had had them spar this way. Sasuke had won the first two, and even though she was improving, Sakura didn't have much hope that she'd win this one either.
She ducked again and threw a punch that Sasuke blocked with ease but-
Sakura noticed for the first time that Sasuke's footing wobbled when his attention was split between blocking her and staying upright. She hadn't caught that during their previous spars. Maybe… she could use that?
She dropped and tried to sweep his feet out from under him. He jumped over her leg easily, and when he landed, his feet were rock steady. Okay. Keep his attention off his feet.
Sakura wouldn't say that she was holding her own exactly, but by keeping her blows aimed at Sasuke's face and shoulders, she definitely wasn't losing as fast as last time. Sasuke wasn't moving his feet quite as much as he should be – wasn't quite as poised and graceful as usual. Inner Sakura was taking a certain amount of smug satisfaction from that. At least she was going to make Sasuke work for this victory.
Sakura feinted left just as someone in the next training field over disturbed a flock of crows, and the birds burst from the treetops cawing raucously. Sasuke's eyes flicked to the crows for the narrowest fraction of a second.
There was a crack as Sakura's right jab connected solidly with Sasuke's nose.
Sakura caught the briefest glimpse of Sasuke's shocked expression before he apparently lost focus entirely and disappeared under the water with a splash. She gaped down at the rippling water. Had she- Had she just beaten Sasuke? And… oh gods, had she broken his nose?
"YEAH! That was AWESOME, Sakura-chan!" cheered Naruto.
Sasuke spluttered to the surface. Sakura bit back six different apologies, because she finally knew Sasuke well enough to know that he wouldn't appreciate any of them. She offered him a hand up, and he took it. Blood was streaming down his face. Oh gods, she really had broken his nose….
"Good hit," Sasuke commented as he pressed one of his arm guards under his nose to help staunch the bleeding. He gave her a small, approving nod. It was the most acknowledgement Sakura could ever remember receiving from him.
A hand landed on top of Sakura's head.
"Good job, Sakura." Kakashi sounded… proud.
"But it was mostly just luck," protested Sakura despite the warmth starting to glow in her chest.
"We're shinobi. A lucky win is still a win. And you had the skill to back up your luck."
"Yeah, Sakura-chan!" Naruto came wobbling out onto the water to join them. His water walking was doing vastly better, but he wasn't quite up for doing more than katas on the river, yet. "Before you wouldn't have been able to hit Sasuke-teme even if he had given you an opening!" Naruto looked over at Sasuke and burst out laughing. "Your shorts are see-through when they're wet! I can see your boxers!"
"Shut up, dobe," Sasuke muttered and made a halfhearted attempt to sweep Naruto's legs out from under him. Naruto yelped and nearly lost his balance.
"Let's see that nose." Sasuke moved his arm so that Kakashi could get a better look at the damage. Kakashi nodded to himself. "We'll stop by the hospital before we head over to the Mission Room to pick up today's D-rank."
Sakura trailed after her teammates as they headed off the river to collect their things. Inner Sakura was still gloating. Sakura herself was feeling an odd combination of shocked and giddy. She'd always limited herself to book smarts because, well, parents had never entirely approved of the Academy – not really – and she's been so distracted by Sasuke… she'd never really thought that field work was an area where she could succeed.
But between the bell test and catching Mizuki-sensei and now this….
Maybe she had been wrong. Maybe she could be strong in her own right.
Maybe Sakura didn't need to worry about her teammates leaving her behind, because she could keep up with them all by herself.
"-and then Sakura hit him square in the nose while he was distracted. Sasuke was so surprised that he completely lost focus on his feet and went under," Kakashi finished. "It's the first spar that Sakura has actually won."
"Sounds like they're all doing well," Iruka concluded as he stirred the pan of beef stir fry on his stove. Fridays had sort of turned into Kakashi's weekly update/teaching-advice-session and dinner with Iruka. Kakashi still wasn't allowed within three feet of the stove under pain of pain.
"Yeah. I think they're ready to start taking C-ranks." Kakashi watched Iruka's back carefully, trying to predict Iruka's reaction from the shifting of his shoulders. He didn't detect any disapproving shoulder rolling or stiffening, so Kakashi didn't think that he was about to be yelled at.
"I don't see why not," Iruka agreed casually. Kakashi had been expecting to have to defend his opinion a bit. He still wasn't sure how many D-ranks was sufficient D-ranks for a team. He didn't actually remember all that much of his time as a genin when he was five, and then he'd mostly done D-ranks with Obito and Rin on sufferance before they made chuunin as well. (Kakashi had been field promoted to chuunin at six and then Konoha had lied about his status so that he could be snuck into the chuunin exams with his teammates to help ensure they passed.) And that had been during a war – the sooner genin teams could get to doing useful things like C-ranks, the better. "A few C-ranks should give you an idea of what survival training areas they need to work on."
"No lecture about how I'm pushing them too fast?" Kakashi asked hesitantly just to be sure.
"From what you've told me, their teamwork is getting pretty solid which is the main point of D-ranks. Sasuke is listening to his teammates, Sakura's endurance has been slowing increasing and her taijutsu is improving, and Naruto seems to be developing some impressive leadership skills and should be able to start learning elemental jutsus soon. Plus, I've seen all three of them taking the shortcut over the roofs, so obviously their chakra control is doing well. At this point, a C-rank sounds like the next logical step."
"Oh. Good." Kakashi paused for a moment. "I was just wondering, because Asuma hasn't taken Team Quick Bread on any C-ranks, yet, and I sort of assumed he'd be the first one to take his team out of the village."
Iruka rolled his eyes.
"Why do you keep calling them that?"
Kakashi shrugged.
"Quick breads use a chemical raising agent instead of yeast and don't require any kneading. They're basically minimum time and effort for maximum yield which is what that team is. They probably shouldn't have all been put on a team together until they made chuunin so that they could learn to work with other people before being stuck in their parents' patented formula." Kakashi had given it more thought than he probably should, but he also remembered other people trying to stuff him into his father's mold when he was young. He could sympathize.
Iruka just shook his head and dumped the finished stir fry into a bowl.
"True, but you try explaining that to the Sandaime and their parents. I was out-voted. Hopefully Asuma will take them on some missions with other teams to compensate for that." Iruka plunked the bowl down on the table as well as a bowl of rice. "How would you feel about an escort and protection mission for your team's first C-rank?"
"Sounds good to me."
"Excellent. There's a bridge builder from Wave Country who wants an escort home and someone to guard his bridge from ruffians until construction is complete. Drop by the Mission Room tomorrow morning, and I'll assign it to your team."
"Well then," Kakashi scooped some rice onto his plate, "I guess only one question remains – will you look after my sourdough starter for me while I'm gone?"
Iruka half-choked on a piece of beef.
"Your what?"
"My sourdough starter, Ukki-san. Don't ask – Naruto named it. It's five years old, and I can't leave it by itself – it'll starve."
"The hell is a sourdough starter? And why do you apparently need to feed it?!"
"It's a live yeast culture. It gives bread a more robust flavor. I've had it since I started the bakery," Kakashi explained patiently.
"And Naruto named it because…?"
"He found it in my fridge and said that, if it was alive, it needed a name."
