Sasuke's No Good Very Bad Teammates
Summary: Naruto and Sakura have gone insane.
Or: Just after becoming Team 7 Naruto and Sakura go through a massive shift in personality, leaving Sasuke out of the loop and wondering what in the name of sanity could have happened to them. His only consolation is that Kakashi is just as weirded out as he is.
Chapter 30 - Meanwhile in Konoha
On a completely ordinary and uneventful day, a drunk civilian watched a genin walk into a tree.
The boy climbed to his feet wobbly, as though walking on his own feet was a new experience, and eyed the village as though he was seeing it for the first time.
The civilian would never know that she had witnessed one of the most impressive fuinjutsu feats in all of shinobi history, as well as one of two drops in the river of time that would change its course irreparably.
She'd have forgotten all about it by morning, and nobody would be the wiser about history changing at the hands of two meddling teenagers.
The second drop fell in another corner of the village.
No bird and no curious ANBU had felt particularly drawn towards a genin's bedroom window that day. Nobody saw the girl go stiff, sneeze and sit up abruptly as though somebody had poked her in the stomach.
The third – and last – member of the trio was practicing his marksmanship at one of the training grounds.
Nothing remarkable happened to him, and he remained oblivious that in different circumstances or another reality he, too, would have blinked out of existence as another, older consciousness took possession of his body.
Sasuke Uchiha kept throwing, none the wiser that anything of importance had happened to his teammates.
"You've got a son, right?"
Shikaku let the sentence hang in the air. "Yes, Kakashi. I have a son."
Kakashi nodded along as though relieved at the confirmation that Shikaku was, in fact, a father. "Right. Did he ever have... mood swings?"
"Mood swings," Shikaku repeated.
"Any sort of odd behavior," Kakashi tried, sounding desperate. "Any big... changes?"
"... No. Nothing like that."
"Not even during," Kakashi paused, closing his eyes as though he was regretting the word before it left his mouth, "puberty?"
Shikaku set aside his drink. Being ambushed and interrogated about the joys of fatherhood by Kakashi wasn't how he'd envisioned his evening. "What's this about?"
Kakashi's features twisted into a grimace. He shifted his weight and looked like he was considering a strategic retreat to avoid answering the question. "... Perhaps I haven't quite gotten used to being a teacher."
Understanding bloomed in Shikaku's chest, and he hummed, picking his glass back up.
Kakashi's history of failing his potential genin teams had made it surprising when he'd finally allowed one of them to pass. His old teacher's son being one of them might have played a role in that, but people still thought that Kakashi had plunged himself into something he wasn't ready for.
Kakashi Hatake was one of the best jōnin Konoha had to offer. But that didn't mean he had any clue whatsoever how to take care of a bunch of genin.
"Teenagers can be difficult," Shikaku said. "Every shinobi taking on a team for the first time is going through the same as you."
"I suppose," Kakashi muttered, sounding doubtful.
He looked into the distance, and Shikaku gestured for another beer from the barkeeper. Kakashi looked like he was in dire need of some alcohol.
"You'll grow into it," he assured, thinking of his own insecurities right after becoming a father.
Kakashi didn't look convinced, but he allowed himself to be distracted. He'd be fine, Shikaku was sure of it.
Konoha's interrogation rooms looked rather disappointing from the inside. They were bland and unimaginative, lacking even the most basic flavor of intimidation. If Danzō had been the one to design them... he'd likely have forgone them altogether. Why waste time and resources when interrogation was merely a useless sidestep in between capture and execution?
"Come on," his current interrogator whined, drawing out the words obnoxiously.
All his interrogators had rapidly cycled through different interrogation techniques: indifference. Intimidation. Bribery. Danzō wasn't sure what this newest one was supposed to be, only that it didn't work.
"Do us both a favor here, buddy. Come on, who was it? Who fought you?"
And won, was the unspoken addition. Irritation rose up in Danzō's chest, and he took care not to let it show on his face.
He pictured himself admitting who had brought his entire existence crumbling down in the span of a few well placed punches and the flutter of bright, ridiculously colored hair. The girl hadn't even had the courtesy to use a Henge and give herself a growth spurt.
Danzō already knew he was going down. He could at least go down clinging to the last remaining pieces of his dignity.
"I will never talk," he said, leaning back as far as the bindings around his body allowed.
They'd be the last words he spoke for a long, long time. This was one secret Danzō was determined to take to his grave.
Danzō kept to his promise and refused to talk. So did any of the Root shinobi they'd dragged into interrogation alongside him. One would have thought that being freed from his tyranny would be enough motivation to spill his secrets and take their revenge for all the years he'd spent using and manipulating them to do his bidding.
A few days after Danzō was beaten, a shrine was set up at the center of the crater where it had happened. Nobody saw who established it, nor who kept adding items to it afterwards – old, discarded blades, broken masks and, most oddly of all, candles in shades of fuchsia and peach in between scattered cherry blossoms.
Shikaku's eyes swam from the mass of printed words – files and profiles of the Root shinobi they now needed to figure out what to do with.
Their living room window had the perfect view of one of the craters left of Danzō's underground hideout. Shikaku tried not to look at it.
Shikamaru shuffled into the room and tossed a bright orange jacket onto their couch.
Shikaku would remember if he'd ever seen his son wearing a piece of clothing in that color. "Whose is that?"
"Naruto's," Shikamaru said, scratching his chin absent-mindedly. "He and his team spent the night."
Shikaku paused. "Since when are you friends with Team 7?"
"No idea. Naruto invited us over for dinner this one time and acted as though we'd been friends forever." Shikamaru stifled a yawn and shrugged. "It would have been too much of a bother to correct him."
Anko leaned back against the railing with her arms crossed, scanning the genin taking part in the preliminaries for the dozenth time. None of them could be Orochimaru in hiding – none of them oozed that heavy, nauseating aura Anko had felt in the forest.
She'd recognized his style in the mutilated genin team she'd found right before the second task of the Chūnin exams. She knew that he'd somehow slithered his way into the task – for what purpose, she didn't know. Yet.
Anko reached for her neck and rubbed the seal mark inked onto her skin. Where was he? Orochimaru wasn't a coward. He wouldn't abandon his elaborate schemes until he'd gotten what he wanted. What did he want?
Anko frowned, dug her nails into the skin of her neck and kept scanning the arena.
The exams passed with almost boring uneventfulness. Some villagers wondered whether throwing their demon container into the fray would have mixed things up a bit, and more than one person lamented the unusually low rate of violent, "accidental" deaths.
Yamato sat bowed over his notebook and tried to ignore the gossiping villagers around him. Word of Tsunade's 'defection' and Sarutobi's blunder had reached the public, but Yamato had other things to worry about. That, on top of everything else, wasn't his problem.
This, however, was.
He scanned the pages of the handbook he'd 'borrowed' and let out a groan at yet another paragraph that would make Sai stand out awkwardly more than it would help him reinsert himself into society. He was sure that whoever had given him these guidelines had meant well, but seriously? He'd put his foot in his mouth more often than he'd actually manage to blend in.
Yamato couldn't believe Kakashi had let his students drag him into this. He should have told them 'no' from the beginning instead of allowing himself to be barrelled over. This wasn't his job. It wasn't anything he'd ever signed up for.
Yamato read the next paragraph, picked up his pen and furiously scribbled another note.
Kakashi left the village in a frenzy. Gai heard about it from a fellow shinobi and decided to wait before taking action, not willing to jump to conclusions over such a small piece of gossip. Gai knew his friend, and there were very few things he wasn't able to handle on his own.
Kakashi returned several days later, looking exhausted, disheveled and in desperate need of a decent meal.
"Are you well?" Gai asked, skipping over the theatrics.
Kakashi mustered a carefree grin that might have fooled someone other than Gai. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Gai pressed his lips together. He looked for signs of Kakashi's team – he hadn't seen even one of them during the time Kakashi was gone. He'd assumed they'd all left for a trip. "How is your team?"
"They're fine." A muscle beneath Kakashi's eye twitched. "They're... training."
Gai's frown deepened. "Kakashi–"
"They're alright." Kakashi's voice warped into something that sounded suspiciously close to begging. "Just... trust me."
Gai trusted Kakashi. He offered a slow nod and dropped the subject, determining to himself that he'd try again if he hadn't seen his team by the next day.
"Not everybody will," he warned.
Kakashi's aimless gaze told him that his friend was well aware of it.
"They're out... picking flowers? Um. Okay then."
"They're visiting a sick relative? Those poor dears. Wait... what sick– Hey! Kakashi!"
"Meeting with a few friends? Oh, from their mission in Wave?"
"Kakashi," Kurenai said. "The market was last week."
"Hmm?"
"You said you'd sent your team to the market. It was open last week."
Kakashi gave himself away with a wince.
Kurenai's eyes widened. "When's the last time you've seen them?"
"Look, there's... no need to worry. They're fine."
"They're– what?"
"Don't worry. They can take care of themselves."
"They're genin! Kakashi, where are they?"
"You don't know?!"
"What are you going to tell the Hokage?"
"An elaborate training exercise?!" Sarutobi gaped at his out-of-his-mind subordinate. "You sent your fresh genin team on a training exercise all by themselves?"
Kakashi's eye crinkled in a cheerful smile like he hadn't been dragged into the office by an enthusiastic chūnin. "They'd have gotten bored in the village. If they want to become stronger, they have to face real threats."
"Threats you're supposed to be aiding them with."
"I'm giving them a head start. They can handle it."
"Kakashi," Sarutobi said, closing his eyes. "Naruto is Konoha's jinchūriki. Sasuke is the last of his clan. They're in danger all on their own, and the village can't afford to lose them."
A muscle beneath Kakashi's eye twitched. "They'll be fine," he repeated curtly. "All of them will."
He emphasized the word 'all' and left without another word. Sarutobi was left with the distinct feeling of having said the wrong thing.
"It's really careless of him, don't you think?"
"A teacher shouldn't be acting like this."
"Remember who's on that blasted team of his. If something happens to 'em, problem solved, I say."
"They're so young. Shouldn't they have sent out a search party by now?"
"It's been two weeks. They'll have died in a ditch by now, or they'd have come crawling back already."
"That poor Hatake kid..."
"Serves him right. Probably scared them off himself."
"They came back?"
"They brought who?!"
"I told you they were fine."
"So you did," Iruka muttered, debating the likelihood of painkillers being strong enough to cure his migraine. "And you obviously knew where they were the entire time."
"Of course I did. I'm their teacher."
"Which means you also clearly knew about their intent to help a foreign jinchūriki infiltrate Konoha."
Kakashi's palm flew to his chest. "What do you mean they helped a foreign jinchūriki infiltrate Konoha? I didn't see one."
His students and their friends – jinchūriki infiltrator included – passed by on the other end of the street. "Oh, hey, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto called. Kakashi pointedly looked the other direction.
Iruka heaved a sigh. His pounding headache voted in favor of those painkillers. "Since when does Sasuke have a sword?"
Gai couldn't claim to comprehend Kakashi's dynamic with his team. He didn't know them well enough to understand the elaborate game they seemed to be playing – one he wasn't even certain Kakashi took part in voluntarily.
Not only had Gai rarely seen a fresh genin team look so comfortable in each other's company, he could also count on one hand the times Kakashi had allowed himself to get attached to someone over the span of their long, eventful friendship.
Gai watched Team 7 dodge an ANBU team that might end up damaging the beautiful bond they were forging, and he decided that it simply wouldn't do.
"Come, Lee," he said, his voice boisterous and his eyes tracking the nearest ANBU squad laying in hiding to ambush the genin. "Let us join Team 7's efforts to hone their abilities!"
Lee straightened up, immediately on board at the prospect of a new training exercise. "Of course, Gai-sensei!"
And if during their efforts, they just happened to distract an ANBU squad or two from bothering the team? That was just an unfortunate side effect Gai had no way of possibly foreseeing.
"Y-Yamanaka-san! Sir! At the gates!"
Inoichi perked up at the chūnin's – Teijo's – anxious tone. "Is it Team 7?" Those kids would be the death of them. Disappearing from the village all on their own, bringing along another jinchūriki upon their return only to promptly leave yet again – Inoichi didn't know how Kakashi wasn't frantic.
"It's not them," Teijo said, his face pale. "It's the Kazekage, here for a diplomatic visit."
Inoichi missed a beat. "But the Kazekage is–" He interrupted himself. If there was a newly inaugurated kage waiting outside the gates, it wouldn't bode well for them to strain their patience. "Nevermind. Show them in."
He'd have to notify the Hokage and Shikaku, extend their hospitality, prepare guest quarters for a yet unknown number of diplomats... It had been ages since a kage had visited other than during the chūnin exams. Inoichi didn't want to imagine the reason for the impromptu visit.
"She's asking for someone," Teijo added before Inoichi had the chance to turn away.
"Who?"
"Sakura Haruno." Teijo frowned. "Who is that?"
Inoichi blinked. For several heartbeats, no sound came out of his mouth. "Just... show her in. I'll take care of the rest."
Teijo gave a dubious nod, but did as he was told.
"Sakura Haruno," Inoichi muttered, tearing himself out of his thoughts and wondering how in the world Suna's new Kazekage could know the name of his daughter's best childhood friend.
The new Kazekage was 16 years of age and blunt as a discarded kunai. She'd brought her brothers along (as though two kids even younger than her were the obvious choices in terms of bodyguards), one of which turned out to be a jinchūriki – and as such, the second foreign one currently residing in Konoha.
Nobody quite had the nerve to try and keep the two demon containers apart once they'd found each other, and the mystery around Team 7 grew when the Suna nin mentioned their names in their efforts to mend the downwards spiral of their villages' relations several decades in the making.
Kumo began to mysteriously refuse all attempts at communication. There was general agreement that if another war broke out, it would be in the village's favor to have Suna standing at their side rather than against them.
Team 7 returned. A significant percentage of the village silently wondered whether dying in a ditch on that very first trip might have saved them a lot of trouble after all.
"So," Inoichi started, braving the silence of a room stuffed full with incredulous shinobi. "Orochimaru."
"Orochimaru," Shikaku sighed, nursing a large tea cup. He took a sip and grimaced. Only about a quarter of its contents was tea.
"They're a bunch of genin. How are they wrapped up in," Shimo – a middle-aged jōnin – flapped her hands helplessly, "all this?!"
"It's no wonder," Tsume muttered, "considering who's on the team."
"Demon container or not, this is insane."
"They should have put someone else in charge of them. No wonder we've lost control of them."
"Is someone with Orochimaru?" Shikaku interrupted his shinobi before they could start (another) full blown discussion about their rogue genin team. Once they gained momentum, there was no stopping them.
"Jiraiya is keeping an eye on him," Chōza said.
Shikaku grimaced at the choice in jailer but nodded.
Orochimaru had been delivered to them almost comatose (Shikaku took another huge sip from his cup.) and was in no condition to even think about fleeing. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry.
Shikaku decided to move on and postpone any and all decision-making regarding the Sannin for later. The village needed to keep going. "We need to reassign Team 7 duty."
There was silence as Shikaku's words sunk in.
"What?!"
"What do you mean 'reassign'? I thought it was Hiina's turn."
The atmosphere around them turned somber.
"Hiina is no longer with us," Inoichi said gravelly.
"Don't tell me..."
"... We lost another one?"
They spared a moment of silence for the next colleague they'd lost to Yamato's program. The numbers were rising by the week.
The moment held only as long as it took the first shinobi to realize that with the assignment up in the air, they were in danger of suffering a worse fate than whatever was happening at Yamato's.
"Well I'm not doing it. I just finished a whole week's worth of jinchūriki watch."
"I shadowed them once." Teijo suppressed a shudder. "Once was enough."
"Are you trying to say a grown shinobi can't handle a handful of genin?"
"Genin?! Don't make me laugh."
"Maybe we shouldn't be so hard on them," Chōza said. "They haven't actually done any harm. And all things considered, Konoha's been doing extremely well since they first left."
"... What are you saying?"
"They remind me of the Sannin when they were young." Chōza shrugged. "Maybe they're exactly what the village needs."
Incredulous silence greeted Chōza's proposition. Shikaku decided against pointing out the glaring red flags in his comparison: namely that two of the Sannin had until recently refused to set foot into the village while the third of them sat in a prison cell near unresponsive.
A messenger burst into the room. "N-Nara-taichō!"
Shikaku no longer knew whether to wish for a nap or sweet, merciful retirement. "What now? Another jinchūriki? A missing nin?"
The shinobi in front of him whimpered. "It's a message from the former Mizukage."
Shikaku didn't stir.
"... Who is also a jinchūriki."
The former Mizukage wrote in the name of his successor and extended a gesture of peace in the hopes of rebuilding the friendship between their villages.
"... Wasn't Kiri fighting a civil war?"
Village relations continued to stabilize. Peace treaties were signed, delegates were welcomed and Konoha began to reconsider its view on their – oddly diplomatically inclined – rogue genin.
Itachi returned.
"What do we do?!" Yuri – freshly promoted to chūnin and with the questionable honor of delivering the message – looked close to fainting.
Shikaku stared at the opposite wall, wishing he'd know an answer to the question. What did they do in response to Konoha's most famous mass murderer returning to the village?
"Has he attacked anybody?"
"N-No. But–"
"Where is he now?"
Yuri's throat moved in a wordless whimper.
Shikaku narrowed his eyes. "Where is he?"
"It's Team 7, sir," Yuri whispered. "They made him join Yamato's group."
Days passed without a single bloody rampage. Yamato's image in the village grew tenfold – anyone who successfully therapied Itachi Uchiha was deserving of either respect or a special notice of caution in their ANBU file.
"Watcha doing?"
The little Hyūga flinched. He turned rather than whirling around undignified, meeting Anko's eyes calmly as though he hadn't spent the last hour stalking her.
Anko grinned, letting go of her tree branch and leaping down next to him. "Are you going to talk to me, or are you just going to keep watching like a creep?"
The little Hyūga – Neji, that was his name – pursed his lips. He paused. "Kakashi advised me to ask for your advice."
Anko blinked. "He did what now?"
"You're a well respected shinobi," Neji said, "despite your... even though you used to associate with Orochimaru."
Anko crossed her arms. "What of it?"
"Your past, it didn't stop you from reaching what you wanted. Even though many people didn't care to watch you succeed, it did not stop you."
"Get to the point," Anko said, her patience waning.
Neji pressed his lips together even tighter. "I don't want my position hanging over me any longer. Being part of the side branch of my clan, it's... I don't want it to dictate my future."
Anko hummed, twitching her shoulders. "I wouldn't know about that whole clan thing," she said, "but I got where I am because I stopped caring what other people think. Or what they wanted from me."
"That's... it?"
Anko shrugged. If he wanted some proper inspirational advice on how to fix his life, the kid would have to ask... literally anyone other than her. Served him right, following Kakashi's advice and bothering her.
Neji didn't seem satisfied but paused. "Alright," he said, raising his chin. He kept looking at her like he expected her to do something.
Anko raised an eyebrow. "What are you waiting for? Go on, buzz off. I've got stuff to do."
"I know." Neji shifted his stance and proceeded to not leave. Standing right next to Anko. Looking at her, as though he was waiting for what she would do next.
Anko's second eyebrow joined the first. "I told you to buzz off. What are you doing?"
"Not caring what someone else wants me to do."
There was a beat of silence.
Anko snorted a laugh, taken aback. "You're serious?" She looked at Neji properly for the first time.
He didn't shy away from her gaze, and Anko's grin dimmed into something more thoughtful.
"Is it any good?"
Kakashi startled and almost dropped his book. "Huh?"
"The teaching thing," Anko clarified. "Having an apprentice – or several. Is it any good?"
Kakashi paused. "... I'll let you know."
Shimo accepted her third beer of the evening and kept her eyes resolutely pinned on her bottle. Only the Sage knew what she would find upon looking out the window next. She'd learned quickly over the course of the last few weeks that the best way to deal with all the inpouring insanity was to keep her head down and pretend to not notice anything out of the ordinary.
Yuri came storming into the bar not much later, proving that she wasn't as fast on the uptake as Shimo. She'd been a chūnin for only a week. She'd learn soon enough.
"What are you doing," Yuri hissed upon spotting Shimo. "We're on duty!"
"So we are," Shimo said, inclining her head and patting the seat next to her invitingly.
Yuri didn't take her cue. "Team 7 is making a break for it again!"
Shimo took a large drag from her bottle.
Yuri flapped her hands, clearly not happy with the reaction she'd gotten for her grand announcement. "Aren't we going to try and stop them?"
"We will." Shimo slid over one of the shot glasses lined up in front of her and waved for another. She picked up her bottle and downed the rest of it in one go. "In a bit."
Shimo carried a very drunk, loudly snoring Yuri out of the bar a couple hours later. Team 7 had gone ahead and shaken off the shinobi trying to catch them with miles to spare – a chase Shimo and Yuri had tragically missed in its entirety. Pity.
The new bingo book was issued only a few days later. Seeing a picture of their resident rogue genin team displayed proudly on its pages – while mildly bizarre – surprised only those who'd somehow managed to avoid the insanity of the past months.
Their Hokage throwing in the towel might have been a bigger shock had not half the village seen it coming.
"I'm more surprised he held out as long as he did," Inoichi muttered.
"We all have limits," Chōza said, leaning back against the wall. "I would have reached mine far earlier."
"I'd call that self-preservation. If Sarutobi had more of it, he'd have retired ages ago."
"You are both being incredibly helpful," Shikaku noted. Considering their Hokage had just rejected his position and rather dramatically left his village without a leader, the mood in HQ was rather placid.
"No offense, Shikaku, but who in their right mind would want to take over and be responsible for," Inoichi gestured vaguely around himself, "all of this?"
Chōza – although much more sympathetic – clearly agreed. So did the vast majority of the village. To this point, nobody had been a large help in Shikaku's rather thankless task of determining a new Hokage candidate before the other villages realized that they were currently without a leader.
"I don't get all the buzz, anyway," Anko called over, sprawled out halfway across the room.
Her new pet project, the Hyūga kid, sat next to her, looking rather stiff among the older shinobi around him.
"What buzz?" Inoichi raised an eyebrow. "You mean our lack of a village leader or literally everything else that's been happening?"
Anko shrugged. "The inter-village climate hasn't been this peaceful in ages. Konoha is better off than ever – did you see the reputation those brats are getting us, pulling in all those bounties they do? What's a little chaos to make up for it?"
A short, strangled laughter burst through the room, and somebody weakly echoed the words 'a little chaos'.
"If you pardon Tsunade," Chōza suggested, "perhaps she'd be willing to–"
"Play leader for the village she hasn't set foot into for years?" Anko snorted. "Good luck."
Inoichi frowned. "Well, Jiraiya's back. We could ask him."
"He already made it clear that there are other things he needs to focus on." Rather passionately so and merely minutes after Sarutobi had made his decision to retire permanent.
There weren't many potential candidates in the village. The position was difficult and easily taken advantage of – they were lucky that Danzō was not around to seize the opportunity.
It left Shikaku with an empty Hokage seat and the sobering knowledge that he couldn't think of a single person suicidal enough to volunteer for a job that involved dealing with Konoha's current... everything.
"Shikaku, why don't you do it?" Inoichi suggested innocently. "You'd be the perfect shinobi for the job."
Clamors of too enthusiastic agreement and encouragement sparked through the room, ones that Shikaku met with a general scathing look.
Anko snorted. "You guys are acting like being Hokage would be hard."
Incredulous eyes swayed her way.
Anko took a few beats to notice. Once she did, she gave a matching, disbelieving laugh. "Seriously? Konoha's issues have been taking care of themselves lately. Or somebody has. What's so difficult, being in charge of a village that's allied with its neighbors, has trading relations with most of them and is on friendly terms with several demon containers and half the people listed in the bingo book?"
Shikaku straightened up in his seat. The discussion was already moving on, but Shikaku stopped listening.
Anko was right: as long as whoever was in charge wasn't misusing the title, it was (at least currently) rather difficult to run the village into the ground. Somebody needed to take over the hat – anybody, someone willing and resilient enough to not be phased by any of what was going on in the village.
Shikaku took a deep breath, steeling himself for the decision he was about to make. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
Far away from the village, a jōnin and his team reunited after a days-long chase and the following agreement that neither party was dragging the other back to the village for forceful Hokage-recruitment.
All four of them agreed that whatever was going on in the village, it was Konoha's turn to deal with it. Team 7 would be otherwise occupied.
A/N: For everybody who asked to see a POV other than Sasuke's: here you go! :D
I've been looking forward to this chapter for so long. Only two more to go!
Thanks to To Mockingbird, Igornerd and PyrothTenka for their wonderful help!
~Gwen