Disclaimer: All characters and places belong to Masashi Kishimoto. The author does not gain any monetary benefit from this.

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I, Hatake Kakashi, am supposed to be a genius. Genin at five, Chuunin at six and only prevented from taking the Jounin exams by the age limit. At the age of twenty-six I have completed thirty-eight S-class missions and two hundred and seventy-six A-class missions, most of them completed before the age of nineteen – according to the elders, this is almost a record. I have a repository of a thousand or so Jutsus in my memory, though it would be utter nonsense if I said I could use all of them. My name is recognized even at the far corners of this world and causes onsets of immense terror to some lesser enemies.

I have good colleagues, though I can hardly call them so, who are sometimes rather insane, but that cannot be helped. Some amongst my colleagues are my friends. Though we do not so much behave as friends as better-than-usual acquaintances since aside our profession we have little in common, except that we suffer together in the face of pedagogy. Any storekeeper might tell you that the most purchased object by the Jounin-senseis is aspirin; I can honestly say that I am no exception.

I teach a bunch of Genin students who are all bright in their own way, though the control and use of their intelligence requires a great deal more training to ensure it does not escape them in time of need as it does now. They remind me of my old team, always bickering and always fighting.

I have also been told that I am a pervert, since I tend to be spotted reading any of the Icha Icha series. This is not quite so horrible, in my opinion, since from the line of disciples stemming from the Sandaime only my teacher did not have such inclinations. I can hardly be blamed, because I was under orders to get a hobby.

This is me at age twenty-six.

Some years back, just following my 'promotion' to Jounin, my team was assigned a mission to the Earth Country. My stupidity cost me a teammate and an eye. The Konohagure memorial statue serves as a glaring reminder to my childhood obtuseness and everyday that I go I ask myself, 'in what way does this qualify me as a genius?'