Chapter Ten: Kurenai's Insight

Kurenai's Pov

When she had first met Kakashi, it had been when they were kids, he was the aloof genius, who always followed the rules. She had never particularly liked him, always finding him strange, there was this air around him, that he wouldn't care about his comrades if it meant completing the mission.

Than the day came when he came back missing a team mate and his eye. She had only caught a glimpse of him then, but she had noticed the hard expression in his eye. She saw that he kept glancing at Rin.

The next day they were gone again, on another mission because of the war. When he came back a few months later, it was carrying the body of Rin, who had a hole where her heart was. Soon she was hearing stories about what happened, how Kakashi had killed her. Apparently Kiri had sealed the Sanbi into her and planned on releasing it in Konoha. Kakashi had killed her, his own teammate in order to protect Konoha.

What kind of leaf nin was he that he would so easily kill his teammate?

Years passed and Kurenai kept an eye on Kakashi, in case he ever decided to turn traitor. The war ended and she watched as he seemed to change, becoming more mellow and relaxed and she figured that perhaps the rumours that he killed his teammate on purpose was wrong. The only bad thing was his new habit of tardiness with lousy excuses that she faintly remember his male teammate, Obito, used to use. Then he started to read Icha Icha, which if the man had the decency to do in private would be no problem, instead he choose to flaunt his pervertedness by reading the books in public.

Kurnai suspected that Minato, Kakashi's sensei encouraged it, seeing as Minato was the student of the person who wrote those novels that had started to become popular recently. Minato soon became the fourth Hokage.

Then the day came when the Kyuubi attacked. Sandaime-sama prevented them from interfering in the battle. After Minato's death Kakashi became withdrawn and soon disappeared for days at a time, but it was common knowledge that he was in the anbu, so he was probably taking extra missions. Kurenai wasn't sure what happened, but she heard rumours that he stopped an assassination attempt on the Sandaime.

The rumours also said that he now had a new teammate in his Anbu squad, which seeing as he now had a strange new person when out of mask that he hung around with pretty much confirmed that the rumour was true. He seemed to lighten up again, and gave that strange eye grin of his as he chatted away with the friend of his.

One day Kakashi came rushing through the village, ignoring everybody as he carried a body to the hospital and begged for them to heal him. The man had died right as the medics were about to start operating to try and save him, they had told Kakashi there was nothing they could do. Yet Kakashi had snapped at them, telling them to try or else it would be their lives on the line.

Sandaime-sama had scolded Kakashi for threatening them, and had Kakashi go for a psych treatment with the Yamanaka's. Who reported that other than self-hatred at being unable to save his teammates that Kakashi was fit for active service, though they recommended he be removed from Anbu.

Kurenai was glad she was best friends with Anko, it was the only reason she knew about the Yamanaka report.

She watched Kakashi and felt a smidgen of pity for him, after that scene in the hospital, she doubted he killed his teammates, in fact there deaths seemed to be haunting him still and so he hides behind a mask, both literally and figuratively.

It was obvious now that Kakashi didn't know how to act around other people and in public, which explained why his only friend was Gai. So Kurenai decided that she would have to help him become better at interacting with people.

So she decided to try and become his friend. "Hello," she greeted him with a smile.

Kakashi looked up from his book and stared at her.

"My name is Kurenai."

Kakashi continued to stare at her.

Slightly unnerved by his staring she continued on, "I was wondering if you would like to come to a small gathering? Asuma and Anko will be there, as well as a few other jounin. It's this friday, at Akimichi barbeque."

There was no change in his staring at her. No answer verbally or otherwise. Not knowing what to do she left, hopefully he would show up.

He didn't.

So the next week she decided to try and talk to him again. She found him and he was walking in her direction, soon he was close by and she saw that he planned on entering the bookstore. "Hello Kakashi," She said in greeting as she stood in front of him.

Kakashi stared at her again. Kurenai huffed, "You are being rude, not answering me when I greet you."

She watched as annoyance flashed through the man's eyes, "Sorry. I thought that my not speaking would be enough of a clue to a jounin such as yourself that I have no interest in speaking with you. Obviously I was mistaken about you being able to pick up on that," With that he pushed her to the side and entered the bookstore.

Kurenai scowled when she realised the man had insulted her intelligence. Storming off she went to go rant at Anko who seemed amused. She was always amused when Kurenai spoke to her about Kakashi. Her friend was under the impression she had a crush on him, which was ridiculous. How could she have a crush on someone when she couldn't even see his face?

The next month passed with her trying to speak with him, and Kakashi either staring at her until she left, or insulting her for speaking with him. He was closed off and no one could get close to him except for Gai it seemed.

Finally she managed to corner him, well it wasn't quite cornering, but a new Icha Icha had come out, and she knew that Kakashi would be wanting the third book of the series. So she stood in front of the door to the bookstore and blocked his path. "Why do you not want to talk with me?" She questioned.

He stared at her, his posture clearly revealing his annoyance. "Get out of my way," He stated.

"No," The air seemed to become colder as his eye narrowed at her. "Now answer my question."

His hair waved in a non existent wind, and she could feel the air around him becoming charged. She heard a small sigh escape his lips, "I don't want to talk with you, because I find you pathetic."

She growled in response, "What do you mean?!" She demanded.

She shuddered and subconsciously tried to dismiss a genjutsu when the sky seemed to darken. Nothing happened though, and she realized that Kakashi must have made something similar to Gai's unbreakable sunset of youth. "I mean exactly what I said, you are pathetic, and annoying. You are weak with no unique skill set to you, all you have to your name is your genjutsu mastery and genjutsus are the weakest ninja art."

Kurenai was shocked and enraged by the audacity that Kakashi had as he just continued to look at her with that eye of his, she could feel it now, that he had judged her and found her unworthy. She glared at him her red eyes narrowing in distaste. She had been trying to help him and this was how he treated her?

She may not be able to see it, but she knew that Kakashi was sneering at her as he shoved her to the side with chakra enhanced strength. She stormed off after he entered into the bookstore. She wasn't weak and she would prove that to him.

The next day she challenged him to a spar. Kakashi stared at her over the top of his new Icha Icha. "Why would I want to spar against someone as useless as you?"

"Because I'm going to prove to you that I'm not weak."

Kakashi seemed to study her for a moment, "Very well, if I win though I will tell you exactly what I think, if you prove me wrong then I'm sure you wish to tell me how much of a bastard I am or something like that."

Kurenai nodded. The two made their way to a training field and sparred, she instantly started with a genjutsu, but even without his sharingan he broke free of it instantly and charged close to her engaging in a taijutsu battle.

It galled her to realize that he was toying with her, as if she was some mere genin. At least he had put his damn book away. She managed to get away from him and tried to trap him in another jutsu, yet he somehow managed to easily break it again. "I train with Itachi Uchiha, and he uses the sharingan to apply genjutsu's, compared to those yours are quite easy to break out of." Kakashi commented and formed a few hand signs.

A fireball soon left and she had to dive into the ground to avoid the blast, she came up below him and tried to trap him, but he dodged her easily.

She continued to try and attack him, even land a hit on him. But nothing she did worked, and this was him without using his sharingan. "I thought you were a jounin? Sure you were just recently promoted, but I expected more," Kakashi spoke plainly, as if he wasn't taunting her. As if he honestly expected more out of her.

Scowling she formed hand seals and activated a trick that allowed her hair to grow rapidly before she pushed chakra into her hair to control it using the Hair Binding Technique. She watched as Kakashi easily dodged and cut off her hair, she ended the Technique seeing as it wasn't working.

Kurenai realized now, seeing how easy he was able to avoid her attacks, seeing how much he was toying with here that there was a huge difference in there skill levels. That she had no chance of winning. She vowed to increase her training after this fight, she wouldn't let him win like this again.

She continued to try and fight, though she knew it was useless. Kakashi got bored and pinned her down, ending the fight. "Pathetic, even worse than I thought, you aren't even worthy of being called a chunin much less a jounin. Genjutsu's are the only thing you seem to know, and while they may be good against the cannon fodder, against an elite ninja they are child's play. You have a bit of speed to you, but your punches were weak, even when you were using chakra. Not only are you unworthy of the title of jounin you are annoying, you clearly don't respect when someone wants nothing to do with you. I tried to ignore you, but you had to keep bothering me. Also you are a mother hen and are coddling those in your care. I have heard various reports of you interfering in your comrades battles because you thought that they were 'too young to be at such risk.' they are shinobi, the know exactly what they are getting into. Now, stop bothering me." Kakashi stated bluntly before turning and leaving.

Kurenai gritted her teeth together and left to speak with Anko who agreed to train with her, as well as Asuma. She wouldn't be humiliated like that ever again. Another year passed and the massacre happened by the hands of Itachi. That was horrifying to learn, but what was even worse, at least in her opinion, was learning that Sarutobi-sama planned to give Kakashi a genin team to test.

After he tested them she heard the rumours of how he had failed them, how he had berated them harshly. Then a few days later the girl was dead, she had killed herself. When Kurenai heard this she was enraged, storming over to him in the jounin center she glared at him, "What were you doing talking to a child like that?!"

The jounin hall fell silent looking at the two of them. Kakashi looked up from his book and stared at her, "How can you be so heartless as to drive that poor girl to suicide!"

"It was not my intention to have her kill herself," Kakashi stated slipping his book into his pouch.

"Than what cause did you have to speak like that to them!?" Kurenai demanded.

"I do not need to explain myself to you."

With that he turned and left, every jounin staring at him. The next few years passed with him failing genin teams, and driving more into depression, though no more managed to kill themselves. She heard rumours that some had tried, but that someone had managed to stop them.

Kurenai could never understand why Sarutobi-sama kept trying to give him teams. Especially now, when she learned that he planned on giving Kakashi the last Uchiha and the Jinchuuriki child, both of them were special cases and needed to have a stable influence, not someone like Kakashi who she still thought would betray Konoha if something were to cause him to lose the last little fringe of sanity he had.

She had wanted to watch him, but she had her own team to test. They passed and so she went to the meeting. She reported that her team passed, and Asuma said his team passed as well, others failed their teams and just as the meeting was coming to a close Kakashi walked in.

The small chatter went quiet as everyone waited to hear what he would say, everyone expected to hear him fail his team, but it was still the team with the Uchiha and the Jinchuuriki. Kakashi looked straight at Sarutobi-sama and said, "Team Seven passes."

An excited muttering went around as people speculated what this would mean. Kakashi was a genius and one of the most powerful jounin in Konoha, if he was finally accepting a team, would they be as strong as him? Or others wondered if the team would survive. It was no secret that Kakashi's teammates had died after all.

Kurenai was worried for the genin, and she decided to keep an eye on them from afar for now, and if need be she would interfere. The next week passed and she heard how Kakashi had replaced his student's outfits with more practical variants, only they all included a mask. He had them training with Gai in the morning as well and threw weapons at them, not even blunted weapons either.

The first lunch had been a disaster. They were supposed to eat together to form stronger bonds amongst the passing teams. Kakashi had sat on the other end of the table as far away from her as he could get, the jinchuuriki sat next to him and his other two students sat across from him. Asuma and his team sat at the middle table. While she and her own team sat at the other end.

Asuma looked over to the leader of team seven, "So Kakashi, how are your students?"

The man gave an eye grin as he responded, "Oh they're wonderful! Just look at them already taking after me."

Kurenai frowned at that, from what she knew about the members they wouldn't change there outfits like that, especially after only one day. Kakashi must have done something. "What's with the clothing change loser?" Kiba barked out at Naruto.

Kurenai watched as Naruto seemed pale and he kept glancing nervously at Kakashi. Kurenai shook her head slightly, it seems like Kakashi was already traumatizing his genin. "Sensei had us three wear more suitable ninja clothes," Haruno answered.

"I never thought I would see the day that you would wear something other than orange. You're still a loser that Akamaru could beat by himself though," Kiba taunted Naruto a smirk on his lips.

Kurenai frowned at Kiba, she would have to teach him to be more respectful to the other teams, especially around Kakashi, she didn't want her students to be exposed to the man's harsh tongue. She noticed that Kakashi seem to say something to his team.

"What is up with you guys you're acting weird." The Akimichi heir on team ten asked.

"Yeah forehead, you'll never get Sasuke-kun looking like that. Why would he ever date clanless-civilian-trash like you." The Yamanaka heir added flipping her hair.

"Troublesome." The Nara heir muttered lazily as he took a bite of his food.

The whole group stopped its chattering as they all felt Kakashi's threatening aura. Kurenai shuddered at the feel of it, it was even worse than when she had first experienced it, truly the man has become even more terrifying. "I will not have you talking to my team like that. They are my genin now and if you insult them that means you're insulting me. So you will stop with the insults towards my students." The air became dark and a rumble of thunder could be heard. "Or else" He threatened his eye grinning all the while. With that being said Kakashi pulled out his book and started eating.

Kurenai noticed the jinchuuriki looked around at them all for a moment before pulling out a book himself and he started reading it. She kept a careful eye on them as the girl, Sakura Haruno tried to lower her mask and take a bite of food but paused and the whole team looked at Kakashi. They were pale with there eyes wide with fear. "Perhaps we should go get our mission now?" The Uchiha asked, his voice wobbling slightly.

With that Team seven left. A little while later she and her team left and they ended up walking past Kakashi and his team doing a D-rank mission of pulling weeds. Kakashi was throwing kunai and shuriken at them, the genin were getting cut up and scratched when they were unable to dodge in time. Kurenai hurried her genin along so they wouldn't see what Kakashi was doing, they didn't need to be exposed to the man's craziness.

Kurenai was worried about them, having to deal with a man like Kakashi all the time wouldn't be good for them. The next day she heard rumours how Haruno had gotten disowned and was now living on her own. Kurenai also heard that Kakashi had threatened her parents into staying away from the girl. Which was a horrible thing to do, they were her parents and should be allowed to see her.

The genjutsu mistress firmly believed that it was Kakashi's fault that Haruno had been disowned. The next day she worked with her team, helping them with there taijutsu, correcting there forms and giving them encouragement. At the lunch she noticed that Kakashi's team was acting like him, which annoyed Kiba to no end as the jinchuuriki ignored him. She noticed that there food was slowly disappearing of their plates.

The week continued to pass by and she worked on training her team, though she made sure they didn't get to tired or sore. Asuma hadn't trained his team in much, though he seemed to have taken to playing shogi with Shikamaru. Both Team Eight and Ten took one D-rank every other day while from what she heard, Team Seven took three every single day. Not to mention that they were also having to run laps around the village with Gai in the morning.

Kurenai was worried that his students would break under the pressure and so she sought Kakashi out, hoping to get him to see reason. As soon as he saw her Kakashi's eye narrowed. "What do you want?" He demanded upfront.

"You are training the genin to hard! They aren't Anbu, if you keep training them at the rate you're going they're to break!"

Kakashi's expression didn't change but the air around him became charged and the sky darkened once more, she could see sparks of electricity coming off of the man.

"My students are able to handle it perfectly fine, just because your students are weak and would break, doesn't mean mine will. You coddle your students, and because of that they won't be ready for the horrors of the shinobi world. If you don't take training them seriously they are going to get hurt or killed on their first real mission."

Kurenai gritted her teeth, but she wasn't going to back down, "If you're so sure about your students strength how about we have my team, your team and Asuma's team fight against each other, last team standing wins."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at that, and a thoughtful look came across his eye. Finally he nodded, "Very well than, tomorrow, ten o'clock." With that he disappeared in a leaf shunshin.

The next day the teams showed up and they fought. Kakashi's team ended up with the victory, even when both team eight and ten working together to take down team seven. And then they were leaving on a C rank mission, they have only been genin for a short time, but Kakashi already took them out.

What was Sarutobi-sama thinking, letting Kakashi take his students out. Weeks passed and she continued to train her students at a normal pace. She was enjoying time with her team when she heard a commotion. With a sense of dread she looked and jumped onto a rough to see Kakashi holding someone with two other members of his team behind him, there expression were panic and as Anbu tried to intercept them she watched in shock and horror as the Jinchuuriki and Haruno easily punted them away as they continued to the hospital.

Kurenai returned to her team who was looking at her in confusion, "Whatever you do, don't antagonise team seven right now." She warned them seriously. If the Uchiha died… who knew what Kakashi would do, but if what she just saw was an indication… Haruno and Uzumaki would follow him.

Kiba scoffed a bit, and Shino stayed quiet, though he tilted his head questioningly. Hinata just continued to poke her fingers together. "From what I just saw it seems Sasuke Uchiha was critically wounded on their mission."

"Ha! Of course that weak bastard gets injured!" Kiba crowed with an arrogant grin.

Kurenai frowned at Kiba, "T-that is not very n-nice to s-say Kiba-kun..." Hinata said looking down at the ground and poking her fingers.

"Tch, whatever, that bastard needs to be brought down a beg, hell so does Naruto and Sakura, ever since they became the students of that scarecrow they seem to think they're the best."

Kurenai shook her head and tuned out her students as Shino said something to Kiba and they started arguing. She knew that Kakashi's team hadn't been ready, and it seems she was proven right.

After the Uchiha gets out of the hospital she would have another chat with Kakashi, maybe now he would see reason and not push his student's so hard.

A few days later she was going to talk to Kakashi when she saw he was training with his students. They were all working on taijutsu and she glowered, Uchiha had just been released yesterday and already Kakashi had the barely recovered working again. She watched as Uchiha stumbled and nearly collapsed and then Kakashi say something and Uchiha nodded and shakily stand back up and get back into a taijutsu stance.

Minutes later Haruno fainted and Kakashi sent a water jutsu at her and she woke back up and with trembling limbs she got back up and continued practicing. Even Naruto collapsed and was forced to get back up. All three of his genin looked exhausted, but the man wasn't letting up. In fact he seemed to be pushing them even harder.

Kakashi was a monster.

A/n: I like this chapter, and had a lot of fun writing it. This also lets you learn a bit more about some other characters. It became surprisingly long as well.