It was to everybody's surprise all those years ago, when Kakashi had boldly strolled into Konoha's jounin meeting, a customary two hours late, and spoke five words that struck horror into the hearts of everybody present.
"I want a genin team."
The Third Hokage had given him a gentle smile with that grandfatherly glint that Konoha's citizens had always been accustomed to.
"The hell are you on, Kakashi?"
Kakashi had stared at the Hokage with a blank and vaguely sleepy look. The other jounin in the room watched him with the intensity of men who knew their lives were in danger. They thought they heard him the first time, but just to make sure-
"I want a genin team," Kakashi had repeated, his expression as flat as his words.
It was official.
Hatake Kakashi wanted a genin team.
And so the Hokage had complied, giving him that year's best and brightest. The Rookie of the Year, and, breaking tradition, the two runner-ups. It was the sort of team that got other jounin-sensei salivating, the sort of team that had the drive and the potential to become the village's very elite, given a suitable teacher.
Kakashi had failed them without a moment's hesitation. He was quite honestly so shocked and disgusted with their poor performance that he entirely forgot to file the appropriate paperwork and immediately set off for the first S-Rank suicide mission that he could get his hands on to relax. He deserved it, after encountering that team. Garbage, those three kids were.
As the years went on, it was only one catastrophic failure after another. Not a single team could even come close to his expectations.
His coworkers scoffed at him as he failed one promising team after another. They were quite fond of lecturing him whenever they saw him, or whispering behind his back. They'll never meet whatever ridiculous standard you set, they said. You want the Sannin, the Minatos, the Itachis. Those sorts of kids come along once in a generation, if that.
And after a point, he began to reconsider his choices as well. Was it perhaps true what the other jounin said? That the mythical genin team that he was chasing after didn't exist after all?
Nah. Non-believers, the lot of them.
Kakashi didn't think he had especially high standards for a genin squad. What he wanted, after all, wasn't much.
All he wanted were legends.
He wasn't content with the riffraff, with the mediocre. The average ninja didn't interest him, he was off chasing the real deal. He wanted the sort of team that would go out and rip the world to pieces. He wanted the type of people that would start fires and stir up trouble.
Team 7 would go down in history, for the better or for the worse. They would get wild. They would change the world.
And just when he was beginning to lose hope, just when he was beginning to think that the other jounin were right and that the fabled Team 7 perhaps didn't exist, he met them.
The Hokage had assured him that these three, these three, yes, they were what he had been looking for all this time. Kakashi wasn't exactly inclined to believe him. After all, the Third Hokage had been saying that exact same thing to him for years now.
But they were. They were everything that he had been looking for and more. The three of them were the game-changers, the revolutionaries, the heroes of a new generation.
Uzumaki Naruto.
Haruno Sakura
And the other one.
With the three of them in front of him, he could feel it in his bones. The same sort of electricity that jolted down his spine whenever he had stood in the presence of the Third Hokage. Or of his late teacher, Minato-sensei.
His excitement built as he stared the three down, and three pairs of eyes stared back.
"This test," he drawled, careful not to let his mounting exhilaration bleed into his voice, "is simple. I have two bells. Those who get a bell will become genin, and those who don't will get sent back to the Academy. You have until noon. Start when I say 'go.'"
Idly, he took out a book and flipped to the spot that he had marked. Things were getting naughty in his novel, and he let out a small giggle. Half of his mind was engrossed in the book, and the other half eagerly watched his new team in anticipation. Which meant that he was fully in a good mood.
His day only got better when he had said 'go,' and all hell had broken loose.
Sakura lunged at him first, her face contorted into an expression of sadistic glee. She drew a kunai as she ran, her form perfect. She was far faster and far more refined than any genin had any right to be.
She threw all of herself in right from the start, limits be damned. And that was exactly what Kakashi had been hoping to see. Legends had neither a need nor a want to pace themselves.
There was a lust for violence in her eyes and she thrust her kunai at Kakashi's neck, a clean lethal blow.
She was a textbook-perfect killer, Kakashi internally cooed.
"Cute," he said, favouring her with a bright smile as he caught her wrist. Three fingers, thumb out, wrist flicked, and Sakura's arm was easily deflected. A lazy kick sent her down on the ground.
But then, with the force of a thousand suns, Uzumaki Naruto flew into the picture.
Explosively.
There were hundreds of clones of the orange-clad boy jumping out from the tree lines. The sound of echoing war cries and pattering feet filled the clearing as each and every one of them ran at Kakashi.
Naruto's taijutsu was rough around the edges. Especially compared to Sakura's nearly flawless form. One of his clones swung a heavily telegraphed punch and Kakashi neatly sidestepped it, causing that particular Naruto clone to bowl over into another, causing a sort of clone traffic jam that had about half a dozen clones in a messy pigpile.
Still, it didn't matter. If Sakura was an efficient murderer, then Naruto was the exact opposite. He was quantity over quality. But, Kakashi mused as he easily avoided another few sloppy swings, quantity was a quality all on its own.
Kakashi suddenly swung around, planting a sandalled foot into the stomach of a clone that had crept up behind him. The clone exploded into smoke, revealing a pink-haired girl who had been disguised as one of the many Narutos.
"Oof!" Sakura grunted, the Henge dispelling in a puff of smoke.
"Your taijutsu form gave you away," Kakashi cheekily told her even as she scrabbled at him and flicked shuriken in his direction, "Naruto isn't nearly as refined as you are."
Kakashi ducked underneath the spinning shards of metal that Sakura had sent and neatly sidestepped a kick from another of the clones, popping it with a casual backhand.
Another Naruto ran out from behind the cover of the smoke that the dispelling clone had created. He shouted triumphantly as he ran at Kakashi, "Take this, you bastard!"
Strapped to the clone's chest was a pulsating explosive tag, just waiting to blow. A crazed kamikaze attempt.
Cute, cute, cute, Kakashi internally squealed. They were all so cute!
Kakashi was there in a flash, grabbing the clone's arm and tossing him into the crowd of other Narutos. The cluster of clones flinched, scrambling to get away from the clone, whose tag detonated in short order. The bang of the tag was heard around the clearing, and several dozens of clones popped in the resulting explosion, which eliminated most of the remaining ones.
Kakashi idly performed a kawarimi, quickly moving out of the range of a large fireball. Ah, he was wondering when the third member of Team 7 would make a move.
"Nice try, pretty boy," he smiled at the Uchiha boy, "You'll have to do a bit better than that."
Sasuke only gave a wide-eyed look over Kakashi's shoulder. Kakashi spared a lazy glance behind him.
"We're back, asshat!" The united cry of a thousand fresh Naruto filled the clearing. They dropped from the sky by the handful.
And each and every one of them was armed with explosive tags, glowing and ready for detonation. It was a rain of suicide-bombing Naruto clones.
"Makes you wonder where he got all those explosives from, huh?" Kakashi pleasantly said to the shell-shocked Sasuke.
After a moment's consideration, Kakashi grabbed Sasuke by the arm and flung the boy way into the sky, sending him flying out of the clearing.
"Wouldn't want you dying so soon!" Kakashi said, facing the impending rain of Uzumaki orange. In the back of his mind, he wondered if Sakura would be fine. As quickly as the thought came to mind, he dismissed it with contempt. Of course she'd be fine. The girl was far too bloodthirsty to die like this.
Kakashi flung himself at the explosive Naruto clones with glee.
. . .
In the end, none of the three had managed to get a bell.
That was fine though, Kakashi thought. They had good enough teamwork. Sakura had used Naruto's clones as a disguise, and Sasuke had used them as a distraction. Even if it wasn't really working together so much as using each other to further their own self-interest, that was more or less teamwork, right?
The three genin in question were currently buried up to their heads in the dirt. The training grounds around them were a smoking and cratered wreck thanks to Naruto, and their faces were black with soot and bruises.
"Come on now," he said with a smile, "Cheer up, you three!"
Indeed, the three of them were glaring at him, leaking more killing intent than most chunin could muster. Or perhaps it was just Sakura. The girl had enough murderous thoughts for the three of them.
"The hell is this supposed to be!" Naruto struggled in vain.
Kakashi merely crouched down and ruffled his hair affectionately. He didn't say anything for a minute or two, merely considering the wrecked training grounds. The Hokage would have his ass for this. These three were something else.
"The three of you," Kakashi said, leaning back languidly, "Think you're hot shit, huh?"
They blinked owlishly at him for a minute before Naruto grinned, his glinting smile contrasting roughly with his ash-smeared face.
"Sensei," he said, "We are hot shit."
Kakashi paused, before letting out an excited giggle.
He'd found them. He'd finally found them. And he'd make legends out of them yet.