Chapter Twelve: No Trees in the Desert… Yet


"Minato!" Fugaku's hand hovered on the hilt of his sword, and his sharingan spun with erratic fury. "You are not sending Sasuke to Suna!"

"Why not?" said Minato, exasperated. "It's Suna. What's the worst that could happen? Besides, I'm going there with my son. You're welcome to come, and I'm sending Itachi there, too."

Fugaku paused. "Let me rephrase that. You are not sending my son to Suna with that wretched Hatake!"

"Why not?" he repeated, resisting the urge to bang his head against his desk. Sometimes, Minato really wished he'd switched places with Hiruzen.

"Because he's patently irresponsible!" sputtered the Uchiha patriarch. "Team 7's first C-rank ended up becoming an S-rank with hostile foreign ninja!"

"No one got hurt, Fugaku." The Hokage raised an eyebrow. "Besides, your daughter was there on that same mission."

"Well…" Fugaku gritted his teeth. His eyes flickered between red and black as he tried to control his temper. "It was probably still Hatake's fault!"

Minato sighed. "Really, it's—"

At that same moment, Kakashi burst in through the window.

"Minato-sensei!" he exclaimed, rolling to a stop in front of Fugaku. "You can't send my team to Suna!"

Fugaku immediately drew his sword. In a flash, the Yondaime teleported from behind his desk, grabbed Kakashi, and activated his barriers.

"This proves my point exactly!" Fugaku hacked at the invisible wall blocking him from Kakashi. "He's trying to hurt my son's chances of a promotion! This sorry excuse of a ninja is clearly intent of thwarting my son's career!"

"Fugaku, literally ten seconds ago, you didn't want Sasuke to go to Suna!" Minato signaled to the ANBU agents that had materialized. They relaxed minimally but remained visible. "Shouldn't you be glad that Kakashi agrees with you?"

"Why would I ever want to agree with this… this degenerate!" The Uchiha pointed at the aforementioned degenerate with his blade. "He's not even wearing a shirt!" Fugaku's face turned a darker shade of red, almost matching his sharingan in hue. "He probably approaches my daughter in such lack of dress!"

Kakashi looked down. Huh. I'm really not wearing a shirt, he thought. I may have been a little… over enthusiastic in my rush to get here.

Minato pinched the bridge of his nose. "Kakashi, why aren't you wearing a shirt?"

He laughed sheepishly. "Well… the hawk gave me the message just after I left the shower, so…"

The door opened, and in walked Itachi. After seeing four ANBU agents, a shirtless Kakashi being threatened with a blade by her father, and an increasingly annoyed Minato, Itachi promptly turned around and walked out.

"See!" yelled Fugaku. "He's defiled my daughter's reputation and her eyes! When is he going to take responsibility for his actions?"

Minato slammed his hands against the table. "I swear to god, Fugaku, you've defiled our eyes plenty of times before! Don't you remember that New Year's party? All that sake went straight to your head!"

Fugaku coughed once. "That was… I have no recollection of what you mention."

"Really?" Minato tilted his head and smiled in a way that made even the ANBU take a step back. "I have some photos that could jog your memory. Maybe I could give them to—"

"Mikoto expects me back soon. I must go, Hokage-sama." He sheathed his sword stiffly and turned away. "I"m sure that Sasuke will enjoy his time in Suna."

The door slammed shut, and Minato sighed. "Now that Fugaku's gone…" At his slow hand sign, the agents disappeared. "So, Kakashi," said Minato, turning all his focus to his former student, "why don't you want your team to go to Suna?"

"It's Suna," retorted Kakashi, bemused. "Why would anyone want to go to Suna?"

Plus they have a crazy jinchuuriki, a Kage that's potentially been taken over by Orochimaru, and sand. Lots of sand. Who in their right mind likes sand?

"But they're our allies." Minato furrowed his eyes, equally bemused. "It'll be a great opportunity for your team to get some experience in a non-lethal environment. And Rasa's children are competing too, and I doubt that the Kazekage plans on putting them in danger."

Rasa? Kakashi frowned. Since when has Minato-sensei been on first name basis with the Kazekage? He internally shrugged. Knowing him, he probably convinced them all to be his friends with a combination of smiles and threats.

"Well?" Minato tapped his finger against his desk. "I'm not going to force you to enter them, but I think it'll be a good idea. If you're worried about security, then relax. I'll be there, along with Itachi, Yamato, Kurenai, Gai, Asuma, and my ANBU attache. There's not going to be anything we can't handle."

Famous last words, sensei. Kakashi sighed. But I'm not sending him into that treacherous pit alone. "

Fine," he said, feeling like he'd regret this very much. "I'll send my team to Suna for the exams."


For obvious reasons, the teams were leaving at different times. Unlike the others, though, Team 7 was accompanied by two extra people: Tenzo and his new apprentice Sai.

"Who's that?" said Naruto loudly, pointing at the pale preteen. Sasuke and Sakura stood beside the blonde, unconsciously in formation. All three peered at the newcomer with suspicion.

"Hello." Sai's smile was clearly artificial, but it was better than it had been in the original universe. His time with Tenzo had done some good, then. "I am Sai. I love dango. Dango is the greatest. Do you love dango? Have you tried it before?"

Never mind.

"Okay…" Naruto stepped back, disturbed. "That's cool, I guess. Ramen is better, though."

Sai's smile froze in place. "What?" His eyes narrowed. "What did you say?"

Sakura pushed Naruto aside, taking his place. "Your name is Sai, right?" She tilted her head. "Sai… sounds familiar." She grinned, a hint of saccharine sweetness hiding something far more sinister.

The former ROOT agent's expression turned blank, but even his ROOT training couldn't conceal his plain terror. Shivering, Sai drew back, stepping behind his teacher. Tenzo turned to Kakashi, eyebrows raised in a way that clearly said, "What the hell?"

Kakashi shrugged. "Kiddies," he said loudly, "this is Tenzo and Sai. They'll be accompanying us to Suna. Sai's already a chuunin, but he's coming along as protection detail. So he technically outranks you. Behave, alright?" His eye crinkled.

His team mumbled their assent, though not a single one seemed happy about it.

"Really, Kakashi-senpai?" hissed Tenzo. "Can't you call me by my actual name? I'm not in uniform, you know. There's no need to reveal my code name to the genin."

Actual name? Since when had Tenzo had a name? No one had bothered to give him a real name besides his call sign. Which was pretty terrible, now that Kakashi thought about it…

"You don't have a real name." Kakashi frowned. "Do you want one, though?"

"What do you mean?" Tenzo's irritation grew. "Of course I have a real name!"

"You do?" Huh. Minato-sensei had probably given him one, bleeding heart that he was. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure!" Tenzo threw his hands in the air. "Do you think my parents just… forgot to name me, or something?"

"You have parents? Since when?" Every word expressed Kakashi's pure bafflement.

"What the hell, senpai! It's not like you don't know them!" The un-uniformed ANBU agent had long given up on whispering. "Is this payback for something?"

"Who are your parents?" asked Kakashi, ignoring his previous statements. "And what's your real name?"

"Aunt Tsunade and Uncle Jiraiya are his parents!" chimed in Naruto. "His name is Senju Yamato, you know. Gosh, sensei, what'd he do to piss you off? If you're pretending to forget his existence, he must've done something pretty bad!"

What?

"No, that's not possible," Kakashi said matter-of-factly. "You look nothing like them."

Jiraiya and Tsunade procreating? And Tenzo being the result? Nope. No way. No.

"I look a lot like my grandfather, you know. I got the hair from him. Besides, I can use mokuton. How do you think I got it?" Yamato (Senju? What?) looked about ready to pull his eyes out.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, not that anyone could see it behind the mask. "Orochimaru."

The supposed Senju winced. "Sure, when Orochimaru kidnapped me, he unlocked those genes… but I needed to have them in the first place, you know. It's not like he could have magically shoved them inside me or something. And—wait, why am I even justifying my ancestry to you?"

"Because it's not true, and you know it. If Jiraiya and Tsunade are your parents, then why didn't you come to dinner that night?" pointed out Kakashi. "I don't think Minato-sensei would forget to invite the his sensei's kid."

"That makes no sense! What does dinner have to do with any of this?" Tenzo massaged his forehead, looking ten seconds away from strangling Kakashi. "Besides, I was on a mission!

"Sure, Tenzo." Kakashi rolled his eyes. "I know that you want a family and everything, but appropriating the Sannin isn't the way to go about it."

The trees next to them shivered as Tenzo tried to control his temper. "You know what? Let's just go," said the mokuton user, giving up. "We're late as it is."

"That's what I thought." Kakashi sighed, glad that the crisis was averted. There was no way that Tenzo was anyone's kid. It was just a sad, sad delusion made by an orphan to comfort himself.

His worldview intact, Kakashi started the journey to Suna with his team.


"I swear to god, Naruto!" bellowed Sakura as she tried to kick him in the head, "If I have to hear another sermon on the superiority of ramen, I will eat your face!" She turned around and chucked a kunai at Sai. "That also applies to you, Ugly!"

Sai tilted his head, avoiding the dagger. "I do not preach about the superiority of ramen."

"But you won't shut up about dango," mumbled Sasuke. "Stupid dango."

"Excuse me?" Sai's voice went dramatically up in pitch.

Before the seventy-third fight between the four could break out (thus ending Tenzo's sanity completely), Naruto whooped with glee.

"Hey, hey! Guys! Guys, look! I can see Sunagakure!"

Both Tenzo and Kakashi nearly collapsed with relief. Finally. Finally. Had this trip lasted any longer, someone would've died.

Now, Kakashi just had to keep them from actually dying during the exams.


Naruto sprinted towards the red-haired jinchuuriki.

"Gaara!" he shouted. "I haven't seen you in forever! I missed you so much!" Naruto engulfed Gaara in an enormous hug.

Gaara yawned and patted the blond lightly on the back. "Me too," he mumbled.

Wait.

Gaara… yawned?

Kakashi blinked. Naruto's friendship with Gaara aside… why in the world was the creepy-eyed insomniac yawning?

There! He did it again! Gaara's eyes drooped, and his head bobbed upwards while he tried to keep himself awake.

"I didn't get to nap today," murmured Gaara, trailing off into his third yawn.

Naruto nodded, as if it was an entirely normal thing for the Gaara to sleep. And nap. And yawn.

"Ah, the friendship between those two is one of my proudest achievements," said Minato, appearing out of nowhere. Perhaps the Hokage had just arrived normally, and Kakashi had been too busy being distracted by a yawning Gaara to notice it. "You know, when I'd agreed to fix baby Gaara's seal, I hadn't expected my own son to become so close to him."

"You can't help but bring that up, huh?" A husky, vaguely familiar voice shifted their attention. "You sound like a broken record, Minato."

The Kazekage stepped into the room, arms crossed. He—

She?

Kakashi opened and closed his mouth, squinting to make sure. He'd met Rasa a few times before the Kage's death. This version of the Kazekage looked about the same: short red hair, broad shoulders, tall stature…

But Kakashi was pretty sure that this Rasa was a woman, if a rather masculine one.

Oh, fucking shit, Kakashi thought crossly. The realization wasn't as scarring as… er, some others. He hadn't known Rasa very well. But Kakashi was still opposed to it on principle—he was tired of the universe screwing around with him, dammit! And why was everyone becoming female?

"The Kazekage is female?" mumbled Kakashi, unable to help himself. "Really, but why?"

"Eh?" Naruto took a break from talking Gaara's ear off to stare at Kakashi. "What do you mean, sensei? The Kazekage's always been female! Even I know that Suna's martyarchal!"

"You mean matriarchal?" Sakura said, rolling her eyes.

At the sound of her voice, Gaara jerked awake. He stared at her, eyes widening. "Who's this?" he whispered.

"Oh, that's Sakura. Stay away from her! She's—"

Kakashi glanced back to the two Kages, no longer interested in the conversations of preteens.

"Well, Rasa, would you prefer I change the subject?" Minato smiled brightly. "Perhaps I could talk about my son. He already completed his first S-rank."

Rasa scoffed. "Well, so did my daughter. Did I mention that my other son is now a puppet master?"

"My son knows how to use the rasengan."

"Gaara has sand-armor that makes him invincible, and Temari can use gold release!"

"Naruto has chakra-regeneration that also makes him invincible!"

"I have three kids, and you only have one!"

"But my one kid is better than your three combined!"

Kakashi slowly turned away from the one-upping Kages. Naruto was busy babbling his head off to a dozing Gaara, while Sakura was staring contemplatively at both jinchuuriki. Sasuke was scowling at the floor, which was normal, and Sai was hiding behind Tenzo.

"Are they at it again?" groaned a red-headed girl with a fan. A red-headed girl who looked a lot like Temari. Yup, that was Temari. With red hair. Why did she have red hair? Kakashi eyed her warily. She wasn't an Uzumaki, was she?

"Ugh, Mom always acts like that around the Hokage." Kankuro, who looked exactly as Kakashi remembered, sighed with annoyance.

"At least my son doesn't look like a cat with purple makeup!"

"You take that back, you blond pansy! You probably spend hours conditioning your hair!"

Kakashi blinked. Gaara was awake, now, but he was in a staring contest with Sakura. Naruto had started punching Sasuke for some reason, Sai was egging them on, and Tenzo was nervously backing away from the shouting Kage. The two Sand Siblings had wandered over to Sasuke and Naruto's fight and were now taking bets.

"So what if I do?" Minato grinned. "Why, do you like it?"

Rasa smiled back, showing her teeth. "It makes me want to run my fingers through it. And I'll get plenty of chances to do so when I separate your head from your body."

Minato blushed.

Kakashi blinked again. His teacher had only blushed around Kushina. Why would he be blushing around Rasa? Blushing with anger, maybe? Why else? Sure, the Kazekage was a loud, powerful, redhead… huh. The sledge-hammer of realization smacked Kakashi in the face.

Naruto gagged loudly, his fight with Sasuke forgotten. "Ew, gross! Kakashi-sensei, let's get out of here!"

"That's a great idea, Naruto!" chirped Kakashi as he compartmentalized his horrified understanding.

You know what? For once, Naruto's right. I'm just going to leave.

"Sensei? Where are you going? Kakashi-sensei? Sensei!?"

With that, Kakashi mentally and physically checked out.


"I can't believe you just left us there!" shouted Naruto. "Dad and the Kazekage nearly blew up the whole place, and you just left us there!"

"That's nice," Kakashi mumbled, entirely distracted. He patted Naruto on the head with one hand and flipped through the pages of Icha Icha Married Life with the other. Jiraiya's famed book series was just as good in this universe, but the actual story was different.

"What!? That's nice? That's all you have to say for yourself?" Naruto spluttered for a bit, waving his hands as he tried to think of something to say. Sasuke grunted in agreement.

"Gaara is creepy," announced Sakura.

Everyone stared at her.

"You're one to talk." Naruto scratched his head, his face scrunching with confusion. "Besides, that has literally nothing to do with what we're talking about."

Sasuke grunted again.

"He keeps following me." Sakura's eyes narrowed to green slits. "He doesn't say anything, but his face keeps turning red whenever I try to determine his motive. Do you think he's suspicious of me? I may have to eliminate him…"

Kunai calling the shuriken sharp, Sakura.

"Woah, woah!" Naruto exclaimed. "No one is eliminating anyone! And Gaara's one of my best friends!"

"And that's supposed to convince me not to eliminate him?" Sakura rolled her eyes.

"I think that's a great idea," said Sasuke suddenly. "You should definitely eliminate him."

Naruto gave a squawk of betrayal. "What?"

"For you, Sasuke-kun, anything!" Sakura fluttered her eyes at him. "Just you wait! Before the exams are over, I'll lay his corpse at your feet!"

Kakashi looked up from his book. Was Sasuke jealous of Gaara? Yeah, Sasuke was definitely jealous. Kakashi pushed aside a concerning thought about the dynamics of the new Team 7, instead deciding to check the time.

"As nice as your murderous fantasies are," drawled Kakashi, "the Chuunin Exams do begin in ten minutes. You should probably get going."

"Why didn't you tell us before!" howled Naruto. "We're gonna be late! Like you!"

"Oops." Kakashi made a show of flipping a page. "I guess you better hurry then. It'd be a shame if you were stuck as genin forever." Ignoring the fact that his Naruto had spent most his life as a genin, despite being stronger than most jounin.

After cursing him a little more (ah, what a wonderful sound!), his adorable team sprinted away. It'd be such a shame if they'd missed registration.

Kakashi giggled at one particularly raunchy scene in his book. And though he was supposed to be with the other teachers, they could wait. It'd been awhile since he'd gotten to read any new books in the Icha Icha series, and nothing was more important than that.


Suna, being as poor as sand, only had two parts to its exam. The first was a brutal written test/clash royale, and the second was the exhibition matches. The jounin didn't get to watch the students via video screens, due again to the lack of funding. The arena did, however, have one-way glass through which they could keep an eye on their students.

"Aren't you worried?" Kurenai (who was thankfully normal, though it was debatable if her bandage-dress was ever truly normal) sauntered towards him.

"Nope!" said Kakashi cheerfully.

"Why not?" Asuma puffed at his cigarette as he joined his girlfriend.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "My team consists of Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. I'm more concerned about the other teams surviving them."

Especially Gaara. Poor kid. He won't know what hit him.

Asuma blew out a cloud of smoke. "Good point."

Kurenai stepped back. "Wait, that Sakura?"

"You've heard of her?" Kakashi asked, frowning.

"Who hasn't?" Kurenai looked disturbed. "I'm so sorry."

"Me too."

The three jonin had a moment of silence for the genin who would be inevitably traumatized by Sakura.

"Anyway," said Asuma, once they had properly mourned, "it seems like Itachi doesn't share your opinion." He motioned towards the Uchiha, who was staring at the glass like she could burn it with her very eyes. Which she, uh, could, but that was besides the point. Technically, Itachi wasn't a teacher and shouldn't be here, but who was going to tell her no?

"What can I say?" Kakashi's voice was the paragon of innocence. "She's just a little overprotective of her little brother."

Which, in hindsight, was pretty reasonable. And it would still be reasonable if this chuunin exam was anything like the one that had happened in Konoha. Kakashi just hoped that there wouldn't be an invasion. There probably wouldn't be—why would Orochimaru want to invade a desert?

Then again, the universe did love proving him wrong...


Kabuto pushed up his glasses. "Orochimaru-sama, why are we going to Suna, again?" At the Sannin's glare, he quickly backpedaled. "I mean, not that I'm questioning your impeccable judgement, my lord… but it's a desert. Why are we invading a desert?"

Orochimaru chuckled darkly. "A certain dog insulted me. It's time to teach him a lesson in respecting his elders." His chuckle turned into an all-out cackle that echoed ominously through the trees. "Besides, it's always good to visit family… though the reunion won't last very wrong. My snakes are feeling a little hungry."


AN: What a wonderful way to start 2017! This chapter has been brought to you by my cold and procrastination. Anyways, Happy New Year, everyone! Woo. Hopefully, I'll finish this story before the year ends... wish me luck. (In a review, hopefully? Ha. Ha ha.) Anyway, thank you for your constant support! Branches has managed to breach 2000 in favorites and follows, which is honestly very humbling. Every alert from y'all is super, super motivating, and I couldn't have done it without y'all.

Much thanks to Duesal Bladesinger and Igornerd for looking it over. Really, they're the best. The quality of this story has been much improved by them.

In the next chapter, we have the chuunin exams! And Chaos (capitalization intentional)! Yeah, the E̜̮̜̙n̮̳̫̳͈͎d͚͘ i̴̹͘s̨̗͍̯ͅ ̸̨̲͕̗̠͞N̛͠͏̰̳͙̲͇̩i̺̣͉͎͈͡g̢͔͕̝͔͍̗̥̞͡͞h̙̞͜.

Also, I've updated Twigs, the companion piece! In it is a short Minato/Fem!Rasa ficlet. I... honestly have no idea. I'm also pretty sure that such pairing has never, ever been done before...

Thank you very much for reading, and comments, criticisms, and concerns are appreciated.