Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I'd be able to speak fluent Japanese.
Rated: M, but maybe I should change that till later chapters?
A/N: I'm late on this, opps? Beginning of semester is nuts, heh, I'll try harder from now on.
Forgotten Memoirs – Rule Breakers
"Those in the ninja world who break the rules and regulations are called trash, but those who don't care about their companions are even worse trash."
The first time Hatake Sakumo failed a mission was to save the lives of his teammates.
What drove him to do so, not even Sakumo could answer that. The truth was Hatake had loathed his team the moment he met them. Not only did he dislike his teammates for who they were, he also hated the fact that he was filling in for their original team leader. How could Konoha expect the great White Fang to work with such incompetent idiots? He had asked himself in the first few moments in his teams' introduction. While traveling Sakumo had questioned how his teammates ever became Shinobi in the first place.
The medical expert on his team had one strike against the elder Hatake before the two had even met. Sakumo had looked at both of his teammates records, and in his quest to for information, he had discovered that this medical ninja was a rule breaker. However what really stood out was a mission in which the healer had rescued a enemy ninja's son. What made it worse was that the boy was to become a Konoha Genin. Who knew what possible threats this could create in the future, was the reasoning behind Sakumo's initial dislike.
Now Sakumo hated the Medical expert for one sole reason, his personality. A loud and boisterous man in general, who had an annoying habit of almost getting himself killed while walking. No one would have guessed that the man with no respect for others could perform brain surgery on the spot. Hatake, in all earnest, just thought the man was an idiot.
The third member of his team was a middle aged woman. Sakumo could have cared less if she dropped off of the face of the earth. Not only did she seem incapable of fighting, but she fawned over her leader with no insight to his discomfort. Honestly, what kind of woman flirts with a single father, who not only never talked, but threw death glares that would kill bears with one glance?
However, when both of his teammates were captured by the enemy ninjas. Sakumo had to make a decision. Rescue his useless team, or resume his mission solo.
Sakumo had made his decision and he had broken the rules for it. Before the village had discovered that the failed mission had costed the Fire nation gravely. No one had blamed Sakumo for his actions. Until the Daimyo of the Fire nation reprimanded Hatake personally, luckily for the Daimyo, the Sandaime had stopped Sakumo's rage.
The scorning of Hatake Sakumo started slow. Rage was trickled in from the neighboring villages of the Fire country, so much that he was forced to stay in Konoha. Thus prompting the Konoha citizens to wonder why their best shinobi was not being used. Their loved ones returned to them in the form of dog tags, while Hatake stayed in his home village being useless, it was an insult. Hatake should have died in their place.
The people who he saved then turned their hatred on the White Fang. They were grateful for their lives; however, feeling the backlash from their saviors' scorning was worse than living. Suffering through the hatred of others, especially from the village that they loved, was a fate worse than death. So they reprimanded Sakumo, making it easier for them to go on with their lives.
"I never asked you to save my life Hatake!" The medical ninja had said in public.
"You're such a loser Sakumo, no wonder you couldn't differentiate the importance of the mission and the lives of your team," The Kunoichi added.
In another time, Sakumo's actions would have lead him on a different path. But breaking the rules during a war was unacceptable. In the end he was left with little on his mind but guilt. There was no time for missions, himself, or his son.
This was the consequence of breaking the rules.
X
Iruka gave a small sigh as he sat down to kindle the sparks of the small camp fire to stay alive. The day had been exhausting and the responsibility could be blamed on the silver haired Jounin that was his companion. They had argued the whole walking distance. Which surprised Iruka, one would think that a high ranking Jounin would be well…more mature.
Such wasn't the case for Hatake Kakashi.
The man had to keep reading his perverted book. No matter how hard the Chuunin tried to get Kakashi to let go of the adult book, Hatake dodged everything. Apparently a Jounins' skill was so top notch not even naked women, courtesy of the Sexy no Jutsu, could beat them.
What's worse is that Kakashi had started making fun of the Chuunin once he had used Naruto's trademark technique. Giving him lecherous looks, and asking him to perform the jutsu again. Iruka was lead to believe that Kakashi had chosen to forget the fact that they were both men, even with that stupid Genjutsu in place.
There was another thing about today that made it bad for the Chuunin. Turns out that Sakura was one of those 'no nonsense' types of people. Even more so than Iruka, and he was a teacher at that. At the end of the day, the girl was so frustrated with both of her senseis that she was radiating murder. It was kind of scary.
Kakashi finished putting up the tents when he realized that there were only two packed, "Have you two seen the other tent?"
"What other tent?" Sakura answered grumpily, "You both are grown men, so why pack an extra tent?"
"True enough," Iruka said, still stabbing at the camp fire to get more heat out of it, "It's not like I'd do anything perverted."
"What are you implying?" Kakashi said half heartedly.
"That you're a pervert."
"You thought about the perverted actions, not me…"
"Both of you shut up already!" Sakura yelled, her inner self finally breaking out of its restraints, "I've had enough of your crap for one day!"
Kakashi raised an eyebrow, not really shocked by the outburst. Actually he was waiting for her to explode. Could he help it if he liked torturing his students? Iruka, however, was visibly paling.
"Sakura…calm down, we'll stay quiet," Iruka said hastily.
"You had better!" She shouted one more time before retiring to her tent.
Moments passed, neither of the adults wanting to further infuriate the teenager who just retired to her tent. The whole forest seemed to have stopped its activities once the pink haired girl started yelling at the top of her lung capacity. Then, one to always be a trendsetter, Kakashi snorted. And before Iruka could protest, the silver haired man had burst out laughing. Iruka would have been disturbed by this display of emotion out of Kakashi if he too hadn't started laughing.
"I've missed this," Kakashi said absent mindedly, once his laughter had died down.
Kakashi's statement effectively cut off Iruka's humor, "What do you mean?"
"Nothing…" The jounin said, cursing the slip.
"You might as well get it off your chest Kakashi,"
Kakashi remained silent for awhile before he stood up and left the camp sight. Iruka was about to give up and retire to the tent when Kakashi came back with some fire wood.
"I've come to realize how much I have missed Sakura," Kakashi quietly explained as he tossed the wood into the fire, "It's been awhile, since I've been anywhere near my team," Kakashi could feel his cheeks start to glow with embarrassment and thanked his clan for wearing masks, "I forgot how much fun it was to thoroughly disgruntle them…or in this case one of them."
Iruka hummed his response, not sure on how to reply. It's true he was a teacher, but he never really spent time with his students outside of the classroom. The only student he really spent time with was Naruto. Bringing up the sunny haired boy wouldn't bring comforting thoughts to Kakashi or himself.
"I tried not to get attached to them," The older man sighed tiredly, "Yet those three wormed their ways into my life. Now that they are no longer my students, it's nice to have one of them back."
"I'm sure Sakura feels the same way Kakashi," The Chuunin said, hoping that the Jounin wouldn't get depressed on him again. Like the many times he had when they would converse on his team.
"Sometimes I wish I could be more like my father." Iruka raised his eyebrows questioningly, "I don't really remember much about him…he um…"
"Passed away when you were young too?" Kakashi nodded.
"What I do remember about him was that he never got attached to anything or anyone. At my mothers' funeral his expression was, how can I say this," Kakashi paused, rubbing his chin in thought, "It was like he didn't care. I remember saying to myself that I wanted to be just like him, to show no one that I was weak. I think that was the last day I actually cried." Kakashi left out the crying on Obito's eye part. The Sharigan crying didn't count to the Jounin. "Pathetic, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't say that it's pathetic to want to be more like your father," Although why someone would want to be more like their drone like parent is beyond me, Iruka added silently. "Anyway, we should get on to planning on what we're going to do about this mission. We only know the area that Naruto and Jiraiya were last, besides that we've got nothing to go on."
"I've been thinking about that," Kakashi said as he pulled out a map, "But we'll be heading in a different direction," He said as he pointed to a neighboring country, "I know for a fact that Jiraiya has contacts in this city."
"And how do you know that?" The skepticism was ignored by the Copy-Ninja as he pulled out his porn, "Kakashi! Now is not the time for your perverted hobbies!"
Kakashi continued to ignore accusations of impurity and immaturity as he calmly opened his Icha Icha Paradise to the back of the book, where Jiraiya had the stuck up attitude to put an Authors Page. "This is why,"
At first Iruka blanched at the thought of reading the smut, but then he saw a picture of the legendary Sannin himself, "Jiraiya is…"
"Yep, he's the author of the Icha Icha series, and the place where we are heading is where he produces it. I'm betting that he has a monthly deadline coming up soon, so this will be our best bet."
Kakashi grinned under his mask triumphantly when Iruka realized that he was not just fooling around, "You're very cocky…do you know that?"
"Yeah, it's one of my endearing traits," Kakashi winked, which made Iruka blush.
"Let's go to bed already…" Iruka all but scrambled out of his seat in an attempt to hide his blushing, and Kakashi couldn't help but grin more.
X
"This technique requires a huge amount of power and control, and yet here you are with no chakra left," Orochimaru couldn't help but let out a small laugh at the sight in front of him.
Sasuke had tried to skip steps on performing the Jutsu that would kill the people closest to him. Really, one would think that the boy was eager to kill the people whom he considered friends. Not known to Orochimaru, Sasuke was simply a perfectionist. No matter what the Jutsu was used for, he would learn to do it perfectly.
"Shut up and tell me how to do this correctly."
"Now, now," Orochimaru teased, "You've wiped out your chakra reserves. We'll have to attack them in a different way now that you'll have to recover for a bit." Sasuke groaned, and Orochimaru laughed again.
X
"Kakashi! Your leg is on my chest!" Iruka exclaimed in the middle of the night.
"Can I help it if this tent is too small?" Kakashi whispered, he would have yelled, but it was against his personality, "Besides, I kind of like being this close to you." The Jounin could feel Iruka blushing, and he would have laughed if he didn't think it was rude.
After a few moments of stuttering Iruka finally got the senses back in him, "Shut up Hatake."
"Oh come now, it's not like you haven't been this close to another man before."
"Like you would know anything about my dealings with men, or women Kakashi."
"Never doubt a Hatake's source of information," Kakashi grinned as he got into a more comfortable position. In other words, Iruka had thrown the Kakashi's leg off of his body. The Jounin shifted until his face was even with the Chuunins', "You don't have to lie to me Iruka."
"Why would I have anything to lie about?" He asked the Jounin, more out of curiosity than anything else.
"I know you like me," Kakashi snickered as he felt another blush radiate from the Chuunin.
"I…I do not!"
"Whatever," Iruka sighed in relief, too bad Kakashi wasn't done, "Say Iruka, would you do the Sexy no Jutsu for me again?"
"I am not turning into a woman for you!" Iruka yelled as he raised his hand to knock the Jounin's cranium in.
"Who said I wanted you to do it as a woman?" Kakashi said right as Iruka's fist came within inches of his skull.
Iruka paused, shocked at what he heard. Hatake Kakashi was asking him to…"You're joking right?"
"…Maybe" Kakashi mused.
Iruka finished his striking motion and let the Jounin recover before going on, "You're such an asshole."
"Truthfully I wouldn't mind," Kakashi said with a low voice that Iruka recognized. Kakashi was being serious.
"Well…in that case, I…uh" Iruka stumbled on his words, his cheeks reddening again.
"So you'll do the Jutsu for me?" Kakashi coyly interrupted.
"Not until you take me out on a date!" Iruka huffed.
"Fine, we'll go on a date in the next town we stop in," Before Iruka could protest Kakashi gave Iruka a light kiss. Their lips barely grazed, in Kakashi's opinion. Yet Kakashi couldn't help but grin as he turned away from Iruka to go to bed.
However, Iruka had stopped dead in his tracks.
I just sucked face with Hatake Kakashi! His mind screamed and he quite literally fainted off to sleep.
There are some advantages to breaking the rules after all, well…Iruka's rules. Kakashi chuckled and tried to get some sleep. At least the day was looking up, although it was over.
A/N: yeah, I tried…heh, Feedback is greatly appreciated.