Sasuke wakes to the soft light of predawn filtering through the cracked shades of the window, casting a silver filter over the shadows of the room. Even though he knows he's only been asleep for a few hours at most, right now he's never felt more awake.
Naruto's story lingers in his ears, and he'd spent the night dreaming about what it must have been like, reading the pain and drive between the lines of Naruto's story, imagining how it would have forged him. That night they met on the street makes so much more sense now, now that Sasuke knows the force behind the fury.
Naruto is lying on his stomach on the bed above him, his arm thrown carelessly over the side so that his knuckles brush the floor by Sasuke's futon. Sasuke curls his own hand just shy of the blond idiot's fingertips, and even though they're not actually touching, Sasuke can still feel the warmth radiating off the idiot's calloused hand.
The hell. He's like some kind of furnace.
Sasuke figures it must have something to do with his metabolism; from what Sasuke has seen, he eats enough and often enough to put away more food than a couple of grown shinobi put together. The only other person Sasuke knows with that kind of appetite is Choji.
Deciding he's lazed around enough, Sasuke pushes to his feet and stretches his arms over his head, gratified with the handful of pops that crack up his spine. Sneaking around is more likely to wake Naruto than any kind of morning stumbling, so Sasuke doesn't bother being stealthy as he pads into the bathroom. The floor next to the sink is littered with jars and bottles with plastic caps, the result of Sakura's experiments with different soaps and shampoos. Her finished products line the thin shelf to the left of the shower, about a dozen jars and bottles labeled with surgical tape and swirling red pen. He runs his fingers over the labels until he finds the ones he's looking for, a scentless shampoo and a mostly empty bottle of off white conditioner labeled 'Sakura's special formula'. As stupid as the name is, the cream is light enough that it doesn't weigh down his hair and is scented only lightly with sandalwood and cherry blossom oils, enough to be pleasant, but not enough to last long or give him a headache.
He starts Naruto's shitty shower and waits for the water to warm up. How long it takes is a crapshoot on the best of mornings, anywhere from five minutes to twenty. As he waits he goes in search of a bar of soap that doesn't smell like a field of flowers, another product of Sakura's more than periodic stay-overs, growling when he discovers that they're out of his usual pine-scented stuff. He settles for stealing a bar of Naruto's, the kind that smells mostly like lemongrass and faintly of jasmine.
By the time he rises the shower is billowing with steam, so he strips and steps in, wincing at the too hot water and adjusting the temperature.
Naruto is awake by the time he steps out again, having tucked the futon back under the bed so that he can do morning stretches in the cleared space. He's just finishing up when Sasuke throws Naruto's obnoxious orange towel at him but otherwise doesn't speak, and Naruto responds with a yawn and a lazy wave of his hand, standing up and slipping past him into the now vacated shower.
It's not routine, exactly, it's usually half and half odds, which one of them will be up first, but it's easy and comfortable in a way few things in Sasuke's life have ever been.
He's almost done with his own stretches when Sakura bangs too loudly on the door, stirring a disgruntled shout from the old civilian man that lives downstairs. Sasuke doesn't bother getting the door, and a few seconds later Sakura lets herself in, carrying a triad of bentos under one arm.
"Hey, jerks. I brought breakfast." She calls, but this time keeps her voice low so as not to upset old man Yamada.
Sasuke finishes his stretches and stands, rolling his shoulders as he ducks into the kitchen, whistling at the spread she lies out on the table.
"You must have been up early." He remarks, pulling open the utensil drawer to retrieve their chopsticks.
"Didn't really sleep, to be honest. You?" she asks, pulling out Naruto's chair and taking a seat.
Sasuke shakes his head, handing Sakura her chopsticks and sitting down with his own. He leaves Naruto's at the edge of the table. As an unspoken rule, last one to breakfast eats standing– there's no room in the tiny kitchen for another chair. "We got a couple hours apiece, I think, but it's no excuse to skip morning exercises."
"Agreed." Sakura says easily around a sweet omelet roll. "What time did Kakashi-sensei say he wanted us at ground three? I forget."
"He said nine on the dot, but I doubt he'll be on time if yesterday says anything." Sasuke muses darkly.
Sakura hums in agreement, and then shoves abruptly to her feet. "I'm making coffee. Want any?"
Sasuke makes a face. "Doesn't that stuff stunt your growth?" He grumbles, spearing a cherry tomato with one chopstick and popping it into his mouth.
"Ikari-sensei says that's just an old wives tale." Sakura says, brushing off his concern and rummaging through Naruto's pantry for the dark bag of coffee beans.
Naruto comes into the kitchen then, still rubbing at his wet hair with a towel, and spots Sakura by the coffee pot. He makes a face. "I'll never understand how you stomach that stuff." he mutters, scooping up his chopsticks and snagging a bento off the table before cocking his hip to lean against the counter.
"Come on." Sakura whines. "You have to try it at least once."
"No I don't." he counters, popping a piece of fried shrimp into his mouth in defiance.
Sakura ignores him, pouring three mugfuls of hot caffeine anyway, though she does have the decency to load Naruto's with cream and sugar. She shoves the mug into his hand in such a way that Naruto has to either grasp it or lose his favorite amber ceramic cup to the linoleum.
Sakura lopes into the hospital waiting area, clutching her warm covered mugs of bribery close to her chest. She honestly doesn't understand Naruto's problem with the stuff– it's not so overwhelming once you get used to it, and the bitterness is easily counteracted by a bit of sugar and cream.
She skips up to the counter, still pleasantly giddy and tired from morning sparring with the boys, and plants her elbows on the counter.
"Morning Shiki-san!" she chirps, pushing one of the steaming mugs across flat surface "I brought you a pick me up!" The secretary looks up, glasses flashing in the fluorescent lights, and takes an audible breath through his nose.
Shiki Senri is the lone secretary for the Shinobi hospital and registered Tokujo, a tall, lean man in his early thirties with amber-blonde hair and dark blue eyes. He reminds Sakura a little of Iruka-sensei sometimes, in that all his power hides behind a genuine smile and a mild go-with-the-flow personality. But also like Iruka-sensei, cause trouble in his domain and Shiki-san can make grown-ass Jounin feel like toddlers.
"Are you trying to butter me up, miss Haruno?" Shiki asks mildly and with a soft smile, taking the cup with greedy fingers.
"Is it working?" Sakura asks, grinning.
Shiki takes a long drink before responding, and by the relieved sigh he gives as he sets down the mug, Sakura got his preference right. Half a spoonful of sugar, no cream.
"I'm ashamed to say it is." Shiki admits with conspiratorial smirk. "Here to see the old grump, I imagine?"
"Is he free?" She asks politely, though she knows the answer. Barring specific emergencies, Ikari-sensei spends the first few hours of his morning holed up in his office with paperwork. It's really the only time he's free to teach her anything.
"He is." Shiki-san says, gesturing up and to the right with his pen. "Third floor down the hall, last door on the left. You know the way. Don't dawdle, and don't bother the patients."
"Yes sir!" She says brightly, giving him a two-fingered salute and taking off towards the stairs.
"See if you can get him to finish signing his discharge papers before I die of old age, will you?" he calls after her, and she throws him an affirmative thumbs-up before she rounds the stairs. She darts keenly through the maze-like hospital corridors, staying well out of the way of the doctors and nurses and waving to the ones she knows as she passes by. She comes to a stop in front of Ikari Ryouta's office, pausing to take a solid breath before giving the door three firm knocks.
"This had better be good." a deep voice from inside growls, and Sakura opens the door a crack, just wide enough for her to stick her arm through to wiggle the remaining cup of coffee where the cranky head of surgery might see it.
There's a sharp sigh and a shuffle of papers that precedes another heavy growl, though this one decidedly less grumpy than the last. "Oh get in here, squirt. I don't know why you even bother knocking anymore."
Sakura hip checks the door open, ducking into the dark office. The head of surgery leans sideways haphazardly in his desk chair, a file balanced on one knee, which is thrown over the chair's arm. Ikari Ryouta is an ex-Jounin, (Sakura secretly suspects ex-Anbu), with dark skin and darker hair, face split brightly with steely blue-grey eyes. He's only thirty-five, but the dark lines under his eyes and the semi-permanent scowl on his face give him the appearance of someone in their forties.
"Morning Ikari-sensei." Sakura singsongs.
The man only grunts in response, not looking up, and holds his hand out expectantly as he chews the end of a pen. She presses the still warm cup into his hand and steps over the pile of binders to get to the windows.
"Shiki-san says you're behind on your paperwork?" she comments as she hunts for the buttons that hold the curtains shut, balancing on one foot so that she doesn't knock over another stack of files.
The surgeon doesn't respond until he's drained a good third of his coffee, relaxed for a handful of seconds before he puts the cup down with a clack on the mahogany desk and is instantly scowling again.
"He'll get the discharges when I'm done with them, and not a second before." he growls, wincing when Sakura finally finds the fixtures holding the curtains closed and proceeds to throw them open, revealing a pleasant, rolling view of training ground two. "Who said you could open those?"
Sakura turns on him, planting one hand on her hip and stuffing the other in the pocket of her sweats.
Even Ryouta has to admit that the girl's glare is impressive, for a twelve-year-old. He would probably have never let her in his office otherwise.
"Don't be a hypocrite, sensei." she admonishes, the nerve. "Didn't you spend a good half hour lecturing Aburame Shibi about how his vitamin d deficiency was due to a lack of sunlight?"
"Not sure how that applies." he mutters, finally catching sight of the hitai-ate hanging around her neck. "About time you made Genin. Who's the sorry bastard that got you for a student?" He pointedly ignores the irony of his statement, but by the wicked gleam in the new Genin's eyes, Haruno doesn't miss it.
"Hatake Kakashi."
Ryouta snorts. "Couldn't have happened to a better jackass."
Sakura tilts her head, hopping back over leaning paper towers to the front of his desk again. "Do you know him, Ikari-sensei?"
"That idiot is the second worst patient I've ever treated." he growls.
"Who's the first?"
"Shiranui Genma." Ikari snaps without hesitation, and Sakura snickers.
Ikari sits up out of his lazy slouch with a grunt, slapping his file down next to his coffee cup. "I suppose, now that you're an official ninja and all that, you'll be wanting to learn some actual jutsu." he rumbles, surveying her with narrowed eyes.
Sakura flashes a cocky grin, completely uncowed. "You know it!"
Well she's got guts; he'll give her that.
"This is stupid." Sasuke growls, voice dripping with venom, teeth on edge and mouth set in a frustrated frown.
"Well this isn't going well."
~It's going about as well as can be expected." Kurama muses. ~He spent so much time and energy developing his fire pathways that I'm not surprised his system is off balance. It would probably be worse if we hadn't saved water for last.~
"We could take a break?" Naruto says aloud. They're sitting cross-legged on the water of the Glade's basin, willow branches twisting between them in the soft breeze, the tips trailing through the water like idle fingers.
"No!" Sasuke snaps, his eyes flicking open to catch Naruto's unimpressed gaze. It's not the first of Sasuke's angry outbursts Naruto has been witness to, and it won't be the last. Naruto understands actually– this is probably one of the only areas of training where Sasuke's natural ability doesn't factor in, the only place he really struggles.
Naruto waits him out, not rising to the ire, and thinks oddly that his experience dealing with Kurama's anger is useful in dealing with Sasuke's as well.
Sasuke sighs, calming visibly and changes his answer. "Ya, fine. Whatever."
~He's doing better than he was.~ Kurama says idly as Naruto gets to his feet.
"It's still giving him a lot more trouble than the other three."
~Water is the natural counter to fire. It's natural it would challenge him more than the others.~
"But Sakura didn't have this much trouble with earth. How is it different?"
~The pink one's inherent stubbornness helped her over that hurdle.~ Kurama explains. ~Water chakra relies a great deal on introspection and inner peace, and something tells me that your Uchiha has trouble with the 'peace' part.~
Naruto pauses as he stands, a new thought piecing itself together in his head.
"I think I have an idea."
~Oh, I'm gonna like this one, aren't I?~
Naruto waits until Sasuke is mostly to his feet, the prankster in him watching for the precise moment when the Uchiha's guard will be at it's lowest…
"Suiton: Flash Geyser."
Sasuke's reflexes aren't quite so slow that the spout of water actual hits him in the face, but he does swing back and lose his balance on the water, careening under the surface with an echoing splash.
Kurama dissolves into laughter in the back of Naruto's head and it's so contagious that Naruto bends over with mirth too, their amusement feeding off each other until Naruto quite literally has tears in his eyes and an ache in his chest.
Sasuke hauls himself out of the water, expression nothing short of murderous, eyes narrowed with all the indignant fury of a drenched cat. The look in his dark eyes promises swift revenge.
Half an hour later, soaked and exhausted, Naruto tells him to try his meditation again.
"What, now?" Sasuke asks, incredulous, but this is the Sasuke Naruto had been after– tired and relaxed, at ease in a way he rarely lets himself be, limbs loose and eyes soft around the edges.
"Ya. You might be surprised." Naruto assures.
The Uchiha shoots him a skeptical glance, but listens anyway and crosses his legs, dropping into meditation after a few moments of controlled breathing. Naruto watches him all the while, waiting for any indications that Sasuke's figured it out.
He's rewarded for his patience when the lines around Sasuke's eyes tighten and loosen in turns, the harsh set of his mouth smooths out, and he blinks his eyes open, not in frustration, but in wonder.
"Got it?" Naruto asks, tilting his head and grinning because he knows the answer.
Sasuke snorts, but his mouth curves up in a little half smile, half smirk. "Ya, idiot. I got it."
Kakashi fully intends on being at least an hour late to his first training session with his brats. Best to teach them patience early on, he reasons, but it's also a subtle form of revenge for yesterday, petty as it may be.
He fully expects to spend his morning wandering uselessly around the open market after he finishes his daily memorial stone visit, but looking back, he really should have known better.
Because the last thing he expects after he rounds the corner onto the market road is to be ambushed by three twelve-year-olds on a mission.
He's learned his lesson this time though, has clocked their individual chakra signatures and memorized their movement patterns enough to not only to see their ambush before they make it, but to act in kind as well.
Naruto hurtles past him, missing him by a handful of centimeters at most, coming to rest crouching on a bakery balcony.
"Late!" he shouts, hands cupped around his mouth like Kakashi can't hear him from around the block.
"Oh really?" Kakashi says with faux innocence. "I must have lost track of time."
They chase him across town.
It's starts out as a hassle, and at first he does generally try to shake them off, and even succeeds a couple times, but instead of running off he lingers nearby watching the three Genin come together to go over strategy and plan.
Watch, assess. The memory of Iruka's voice tells him. Find out where they're strong and where they need strength.
So Kakashi starts to evaluate them. He judges their speed and coordination, power and agility, reflexes and response times. He finds out that Sakura hits hardest but also gets tired quickest, that Sasuke is fast but needs to hone his physical strength, that Naruto's endurance is off the charts but his economy of motion needs work.
And then finds himself actually, legitimately, enjoying himself. He finds the brats are far easier to talk to when everyone's in motion, even though in typical settings that's usually the opposite of how things work out.
He finds out that the reason Naruto and Sasuke move so well together is because they live in the same dingy apartment, close enough that if they didn't anticipate each other's movements they would run into one another constantly.
He finds out that Sakura has been spending her mornings taking anatomy and healing lessons from one of the angriest shinobi Kakashi knows of, and gives her personal bonus points for both cunning and nerves– even Kakashi has trouble dealing with Ikari when he's whole and uninjured.
He finds out that all three of them train together most mornings, and that they eat together most nights, and that even though Naruto's apartment is by far the cheapest and smallest of all their homes, it's the one they spend the most time in.
It's like he's inherited a family in the making, a set of siblings born, by some flaw in fate, to separate families. They're each outcasts in some way, but they've found grounding and acceptance in each other, and even at this point Kakashi can tell they're going to be so so strong.
Choose Kakashi. Iruka's voice says again in the back of his head, but there is no choice, not really, and some part of him wonders if Iruka knew that from the start.
Probably. He thinks. In Kakashi's experience, there's very little that Iruka doesn't know.
By the time he lets them catch him, it's almost evening. Kakashi would have tried to stop the game earlier, but, to be honest, he hadn't wanted to.
He takes his new brats out for ramen. It's the least he can do.
Genma drags him out for drinks later than night, with much complaining on Kakashi's part. Something about the new teachers drowning their sorrows in good old-fashioned sake binging. Kakashi is fairly sure he's just doing it to piss off Raidou– the Tokujo had spent that entire morning loitering in the standby station looking like he'd just taken a bite out of a rotten lemon. Kakashi figures they're just having a domestic spat– they've been arguing about Genma moving in for weeks now, not that Kakashi will admit to knowing that.
If he starts being loose tongued with gossip, Iruka will stop telling him things.
They all meet at a dark booth in the shinobi only section of the establishment, Genma, Anko and Hayate on one side, so that they can laugh and make fun as a unit, and Kakashi, Kurenai, and Asuma on the other, for solidarity.
He's seen this kind of thing go down before. He expects complaints, whining, grousing, the whole nine yards. This is the most Genin to graduate at once in over a decade, and with all the clan heirs and such involved, he expects the moping to be spectacular.
That's… not what happens.
It turns into a teaching technique swap almost immediately.
Kurenai is the first to hound Kakashi about it, demanding any ideas he might have on training more physical kids– she has both an Inuzuka and a Hyuuga in her lineup, and both clans are known for being heavily taijutsu reliant– Kurenai has always leaned towards genjutsu. She gives him tips in exchange on basic genjutsu properties and underlines that his kids need to understand theories like reality fragmentation, and Kakashi takes vigorous mental notes. She gives Asuma the same tips on coaching his trio, the latest incarnation of the Ino-Shika-Cho formation. Apparently he's having the most trouble assessing Shikamaru, no surprise there, since the boy would rather cloudwatch than participate in training. Hayate is the first to mention that playing shougi always focused Shikaku when he got lazy with his work, and it sort of devolves from there.
Kakashi walks away from the night only mildly tipsy instead of smashed, and with a plethora of knowledge to use in training his brats; ideas on out-of-the-box ninjutsu from Asuma, kenjutsu and taijutsu tips from Hayate, a list of agility and speed exercises from Genma, stealth and infiltration assessments from Anko.
He's actually entertaining the idea of going to Gai for even more ideas. He must be out of his mind.
Maybe though, it's a good thing.