Fate

by PancakeFlying

The Kanbayashi were supposed to die, wiped out and never mourned because in the eyes of the world, they never existed. That is not what happens, nor what should have happened. A black alien creature came for them and burned everything they loved to the ground; Sachi, against all odds, survives when she wouldn't have. This will change everything. [Fem!OC] [Fix-it fic]

13. First Impressions & Death Threats

Hello there! This is the FAMILY OF MISFITS ARC, which spans Chapters 13-16. I'm very excited for this Arc, as it introduces a few more of my hcs.

Also, I have a beta! Thank you Windschatten for being my beta and helping me out with this story! They've revised this entire Arc, so any improvement is thanks to their suggestions and hard work!

CHAPTER 13: FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND DEATH THREATS

The Hokage owed Sachi a favour.

That statement was enough to put shivers down the spines of those involved, and had Tsunade or Ashi known that the Hokage had taken a loan from a Kanbayashi, there would have been a reckoning.

Reality was not so dramatic.

"So, a civil war, huh?" Sachi prods, watching the Hokage's expressions closely. He didn't show much, but she had just woken up from reviewing the Archive, which gave her more insight than before. Hiruzen was… worried. "Who would've thought that favouring some clans over others when all contribute the same to this village would piss them off terribly?"

"Sachi-kun, I am your Hokage."

"Hmm, I haven't said my vow just yet," she reminds him, smiling sweetly at the man that could very well kill her in a blink. "You don't need Sachi-kun though, but the Archive."

The Archive was open and Sachi was its vessel. She had found wisdom, and above all, a tool to serve her own interests. The Hokage, however, had his own.

"And what does the Archive say about this matter?"

"That you'll owe me a favour."

The Hokage was not enjoying their exchange quite as much as Sachi, his pipe fuming as they discussed how to proceed. Sachi hadn't considered politics would affect her life so soon, but the Archive was but a political weapon, at least for those that did not bear it. The Hokage couldn't side with anyone or risk angering the clans that supported Leaf. With him standing in the middle, he had reached out for her.

"I see," he says at last, considering it. "I thought that letting you stay with the Inuzuka would be enough to secure your assistance."

"I am grateful for having a home and a family, but you made a decision that day in the hospital, Hokage-sama. You let me stay on the off-chance that I would be useful to you," she says evenly. The Archive had given her a voice, now it was her turn to use it. "Here I am, but it comes with a price still."

He smiles then, letting smoke fill his office. "I… see. What will it take, then?"

"This is the funny thing about favours, Hokage-sama. You don't cash them until you have a need for them," she says, leaning in. "I promise to avoid the clash between the Inuzuka and Uchiha, that much I can assure."

"Good," he bows his head minutely, pleased but not satisfied. "I do hope this favour you will undoubtedly ask of me won't prove too… expensive."

"Not in my best interest to upset you," she adds. She was the Archive, but she was far from being the Archive of the Kanbayashi. The leverage her predecessors had, she did not, and crossing the Hokage by being too cocky would get her killed or worse, alone. "Moreover, I will show you how much I appreciate our deal by allowing you one question to the Archive."

He inhales the rich smoke, holding in and releasing it with a slow breath. A test. He was the sovereign of the ninja of Fire Country, and Sachi was but the ruler of only herself, and the keeper of the thousands in her mind. Hiruzen considers his decision. Another turning point in their strange relationship. Whatever he sees in her makes him nod his approval. "Was Senju Tobirama a Kanbayashi?"

Sachi gets up from her seat, rounding the desk with calm movements as she steps into his space. The Hokage turns his chair to meet her, and leans slightly when she motions for him to do so. "Don't fight it," she warns, putting her glowing hands on his temples and opening the door in her mind.

The Archive, which didn't have the ability to word the answer, instead showed them the memories to retrieve their answer from. It began with the image of a young woman, blonde hair, scarred face and eyes flushed with tears. She was holding a tiny bundle in her arms, and had exactly one minute to look at it before it was taken from her.

"Senju Butsuma had several mistresses," Sachi begins, holding Hiruzen close as the Archive flutters between one image to another. "The Senju Clan needed soldiers with the right genes to fight. One of them was Lady Tsubame, taken hostage from the nomad clans of Iron. She was the one that gave birth to Tobirama."

The Warring Clans Era was but a race of evolution. Selecting the right genes, procreating until they got the best result. In a world where bloodline limits would give them an edge in battle, parenthood was not an option. Children were not children, but tools, a stepping stone for ensuring the survival of the clan.

They become bystanders, only watching as Lady Tsubame sheds only one tear and never sees her child again. How she had wrapped her pain around her like the black shawl over her head; she was mourning her child. "Tobirama was an albino, which for someone who was seeking the best genes, was considered a failure."

Tobirama was marked as a bastard, three scars on his face for the world to see, the very same that his mother had. Separated from birth and shunned by his father, he had only one by his side.

"Senju Tobirama did not have Kanbayashi blood, but the one who did—" the image shifts, showing a woman with hazel eyes a tad too golden, and brown hair tied into a bun. "Was his nanny, Kanbayashi Inzen."

The Kanbayashi were everywhere, right in the center of the action. Never interfering, but always watching. "She had gained Butsuma's trust as a governess and he let her stay with Tobirama. Inzen, who realized his potential, taught him like any other Kanbayashi child."

Tobirama was an odd one in the Senju clan, and only then Hiruzen realized that perhaps his sensei had known too much.

"When Tobirama grew into a prodigy, after Butsuma's other children except Hashirama died, he decided to keep Lady Tsubame and Lady Sawa, Hashirama's mother, as the mothers for his younger sons; Itama and Kawarama respectively," Sachi explains, Inzen watching closely over all of them. Four sons out of twelve children that died either in battle or at the hands of their father.

Inzen had taught them everything they needed to know apart from slashing throats or cultivating the abilities that they had in their blood. She was calm but insistent, not quite a mother, for she must not involve herself, but enough for children that had been born orphaned soldiers.

"Tobirama was closer to Inzen, and when the time came to build Leaf…"

They went to the Archive.

"There's a reason why Leaf came to be so quickly, and why you have what others don't." The answer was right there, the Archive standing in all her glory in what seemed to be the Senju palace, now Hokage Residence. Hashirama and Tobirama bowing their heads together and asking for advice. Tobirama was not a Kanbayashi, but he was raised by one.

Because of that unlikely connection Uzumaki Mito was able to call the Archive in hopes of finding a solution to the rampage of the Tailed Beasts, the world finally reaching a balance after so many years of bloodshed. "Although some didn't like it." Uchiha Madara, the day of his betrayal, and his arrogance to use the Archive to unify the entire world under his banner.

"When Inzen died, Tobirama was the one to wear the fur of her wolf."

When Hiruzen had asked his sensei about the fur mantle he always had on his shoulders, despite the warm weather or how strange it was, he had told him "To honor the dead."

"We favored Tobirama, so alike to us, and when he died—'' there it was, the nightmare Hiruzen had relived over and over again ever since he became Hokage. The ambush, the desperation, the fact that they left their beloved sensei and kage behind. "We had to honor a promise."

"When I die, I wish to be buried with my brothers." And that's what they did.

Hiruzen saw as other Kanbayashi, those that had nothing to do with Tobirama or Inzen, fulfilled a promise Inzen had made to a young child that was set to fight his first battle, not knowing if he would come back alive. Inzen had promised him she would do so, and that the Kanbayashi always honor their promises.

Senju Tobirama died in a swamp. Alone. Sacrificing himself to buy his team enough time to reach camp and perhaps end the war he couldn't finish. Hiruzen had blamed himself for turning his back on him, even though his sensei himself had ordered him to do so. No matter how desperate he had searched afterwards, how many times he went back to that godsforsaken land near Hot Springs, he couldn't find his body.

He didn't need to. The Kanbayashi had taken his torn apart corpse, stitched him together as if he was their own, and then left his body, fur mantle and all, in the wooden casket underneath the Senju Crypt. The same one he had spent his entire life believing it was empty.

The Archive's last memories are of a wolf hunt, a celebration and the prayers of the Kanbayashi to see one of their own pass and rest.

"This answer… is not what I expected it to be."

"Senju Tobirama had not a drop of Kanbayashi blood, but if he was Kanbayashi… that is an answer you must reach by yourself," Sachi says, withdrawing her hands and slowly closing the Archive, feeling the strain in her system. "I hope this answer will bring you solace."

Hiruzen looks at her startled by her soft words. A tiny crack in his steady stance gave away the pain and the regret he had buried within himself. Not all questions must be answered, and sometimes the answers were much harder to endure than blissful ignorance. Sachi bowed her head like Chika-sama had taught her in her lessons, hoping that this one would be enough to keep her alive.

"We will see each other soon," Sachi says, knowing Ashi was waiting for her to sort out her situation and then go to court.

Hiruzen composes himself, breaking from the haze of having entered the Archive. He takes a deep breath, his pipe igniting once more. "We will," he agrees, not particularly looking forward to what the day had in store for them both.

"Well, I gotta go now. Ashi's gonna be mad at me if I take too long."

"Yes, yes," he says, Sachi already heading for the door, thinking about the pancakes Ashi had promised her for breakfast. "... thank you." Sachi didn't feel the need to say anything more, looking forward to her meal.

She did keep her promise though.

And now, only one day after she graduated from the Academy, she was back. "I'm here to call in a favor," she said, not giving the Hokage a second to even blink before she continued. "My genin team. I want Mitarashi Anko and Aeka Kasui in my genin team with a jōnin sensei that will teach us properly until we're jōnins too," she demands, putting her chin up while daring to stare right into the Hokage's baffled eyes.

"Very well," The Hokage readily agrees.

She should've known better.

Sachi, too pleased with herself by having one of her plans actually work out the way she wanted it to, had waited a week until their homeroom teacher in the Academy announced: "Team two, Yamata Orochimaru; Aeka Kasui, Inuzuka Sachi, Mitarashi Anko. Training ground forty-one."

Oh no.

.

"A Sannin!" Anko wailed. "A fucking Sannin!"

"Not my idea!" Sachi says, jumping from one branch to another while they rushed to the meeting spot. "Damnit, I should have specified!"

"At least we're together," Kasui says, Sachi grateful for him not screaming in her ears that she had messed up. "You did keep that promise."

"That she did," Anko growled. "But she has just sentenced us! There's no way we're gonna survive this."

"Stop complaining, maybe he's not so bad…" Kasui and Anko give her a look. "Okay, I get it, Sannin are difficult but we've trained together for a long time! We're the perfect team. Sannin sensei or not, we're together."

"Yeah, we'll see if you can keep sweet talkin' us by the end of today."

Training ground forty-one was located in the upper eastern quadrant of the village, neighbouring on training ground forty-four which was nicknamed Forest of Death. Every training ground between forty and fifty was considered cursed, the presence of the Forest of Death cloying the air and contaminating the surroundings.

The Forest of Death itself was proof that even someone kind and good natured like Hashirama could have a dark side. The earth was poisoned where he took his anger, frustration and sadness, the vegetation never growing quite right, and the air humid and oppressive. A dark aura that kept the majority of ninjas away, but not their sensei.

Training ground forty-one was affected by it too, with trees that had grown twisted and far too large, with patches of grass that had razor sharp edges, and strangely colored flowers that were most definitely poisonous.

"I'm not going down there," Kasui says, eyeing the suspiciously tall grass and whatever wicked critters might hide in it.

Sachi noticed the pressure around them too, deciding to stay in the trees. The animals had been influenced by the unnatural energy that flowed through those lands, twisting their features into something alien and bizarre, shrill calls of what Sachi hoped to be birds; not to mention whatever moved the grass beneath them silently and menacingly, trying to mimic the wind.

"Can anyone sense him?"

They spread their chakra, everyone with their backs to one another. "Nothing," they answer.

They have been training together, getting a head start on teamwork because they knew that that's what the initial jōnin test evaluated. Having a Sannin for a teacher either meant that the village recognized them as a team with so much potential that one of their best soldiers had to train them or that they were just the unlucky ones, doomed to an early end.

Sachi hadn't intended for her plan to turn out that way. She had wanted to avoid the Hokage separating her from her friends or putting some nameless bastard in charge of her team and disbanding it. Only the best of the best students got to be taught by a jōnin instead of just drifting to the Genin Corps until they matured enough to be put in a team of their own, and Sachi was aware that their individual skills weren't that good to be considered for one.

She had just wanted a good teacher, damnit. This was the last time she made a deal with the Hokage.

"What do we do?" Kasui whispers, taking out ninja wire as Anko lines up her senbon.

"If he isn't here we should make traps, distract him a little," Sachi had no delusions that they would be able to face a Sannin but that wasn't their goal. "Anko has fire, you have water… steam should be good."

"Do you have your tags?"

"Here," she passes them the explosive tags that she had made just in case. "We can't get separated. I can make seals to keep us safe, but you two need to keep him away 'kay? Anko, you don't need to see him to stab him with your accuracy, and Kasui has that water slide trick." Her mind was working briskly, coming up with scenarios upon scenarios to find the best strategy. "We need to show him how well we work together."

Anko and Kasui nod, preparing themselves. "You won't happen to know somethin' 'bout him, right?"

The Archive might but she couldn't use it and risk them seeing the sealwork. "I will after this."

Which wasn't reassuring at all. It was midday but they could feel the cold bite on their skin; training ground forty-one had no sunlight, only shadows and that chilling breeze that even had the leaves shivering. They were on edge, and Sachi could feel her heart speeding up in her chest. It was the same feeling she had when she had been stalked by that creature in the Needle Forest, and she did not like it.

"... y-you said…" Kasui says with a quiet stutter. "If he wasn't here. What if… he is?"

An agonizing second goes by, all three of them inching back to get comfort in one another while looking out for something, someone, anything. Then their backs collide. Not with one another, but instead legs belonging to neither of them.

"Hn."

They don't even have the time to flinch, a looming presence right between them. Sachi let out an unflattering shriek, promptly falling from the branch and leaving her teammates behind. She sees Orochimaru looking down at her as she plummets to the ground, and Sachi knows that they're absolutely fucked.

Anko and Kasui were still near him, the shock paralyzing them which won them a very hard kick off the trees. Anko, the most experienced fighter from their group, was halfway to making a fireball before Orochimaru sent a water bullet right in her face, snuffing out her breath.

Sachi touched ground, instantly rolling away just as Ashi taught her before straightening her back as quickly as possible to try and help her teammates, to come up with a plan, to do something—

A sudden windblast slashed at her, the sting making her hiss and throwing her away several feet. She landed well, thanks to her training, but her teammates hadn't gotten off that easy.

Orochimaru was using Kasui as a punching bag, going at him with taijutsu. Kasui wasn't the best at sparring and she could feel the pain just by looking at him. Anko was still recovering from being drenched in water, and by the time it took the Sannin to practically obliterate Kasui, he had already disposed of her with another jutsu.

Only Sachi remained, and for the first time in a long time, Sachi felt hopeless. There was nothing she could do about it, the man approaching her with slow deliberate steps, as if she was a lamb ready to be slaughtered. His dark hair blended with the shadows of the trees and his golden eyes was a mockery of her own, filled with such dispassion that it made her mind go blank.

"Pathetic," he says.

Sachi was the weakest of their team, and with Anko and Kasui knocked out, she didn't stand a chance. Orochimaru stops a foot away from her. It's overwhelming, to be in front of a being so powerful that your body can do nothing but stay very still. Sachi was bleeding, Anko was coughing up water and Kasui was turning black and blue. They hadn't sensed him coming and he hadn't even broken a sweat.

It infuriated her and at the same time it was shameful, being beaten so easily. The rage in her veins was nothing compared to the fear in her mind, because that man was a monster and she would only live thanks to his mercy.

The chakra in her blood suddenly becomes alive, fluttering agitatedly. There's a seal on her fingertips, but she knows not even her most deadly bloodseal will win this fight. Orochimaru was a shinobi, one of the very best, and she was nothing.

Orochimaru's eyes are empty of emotion when he strikes her once more, kicking the air of her lungs when she crashes against a tree trunk. Her mind is fuzzy, having hit the back of her head in the process, and the last thing she sees is Orochimaru disappearing into a puff of smoke.

They didn't last five minutes.

.

Ashi is waiting for her pups to come home, excited to know about their first day in the military force. She starts to worry when they don't make it to lunch, and then to dinner. It's then that one of their clansmen informs her that Sachi and her teammates had been put under the Snake Sannin's tutelage.

"No good," Haiiro mutters.

One would think that being trained by a legendary ninja would be something to boast about. That is, if you survived. Soldiers that made a name for themselves were rarely teaching material, human even less. Climbing the ranks until the very top rarely came without sacrifice and a great deal of bloodshed. And yet, Ashi didn't like the idea of Sachi and her teammates being trained by one of them. How could she, when the previous team entrusted to Orochimaru's care, had died?

"We'll see," she says, trying to convince herself of the contrary. It was unfair to judge Orochimaru; after all she had lost teammates and comrades too. "I can hear them coming."

Difficult not to, when they were all but dragging themselves. Anko and Sachi are carrying Kasui between them, Sachi leaving droplets of blood where she stood in the doorway and the other girl sniffing miserably. Ashi looks at them, wounded and with their egoes bruised. She could scent tears on them, as well as the acrid scent of fear.

"You two go take a shower, I'll heal Kasui."

The girls hesitate, gripping their pained teammate harder before deciding that they could trust her. Ashi helps Kasui sit on their entrance porch, Haiiro going to fetch some medical kit. "Suppose it didn't go too well?" she says finding very mean bruises on him.

"... he didn't even beat us himself," Kasui says once he works past the knot in his throat. "He sent a clone, and it beat us so fast… ow!"

"I have to get 'em darlin', bear it for a sec." She massages his back, unblocking the chakra pathways that Orochimaru had stunned with very scary accuracy. "A clone, huh?"

Teams appointed under a jōnin had to be evaluated to see how their team dynamic would work together; if they didn't pass they were sent to the Academy or their teams mixed up. Leaf put special emphasis on creating small units with bonded teammates, a way to keep them loyal to the village and promote a net of support. Leaf had a history of powerful teams, seen in the disciples of Tobirama-sama or the Sannin, or how Sakumo and his brothers had won them countless battles. Even herself and Isamu, Wolf and Eagle, had been a pair to watch out for...

Usually, the jōnin gave freshly minted genin a fair chance. However, it wasn't unheard of for some to downright snuff out the poor kids for whatever reason. Ashi knew something like this would happen, given that Sachi would immediately clash with whatever authority figure she had to listen to, but she hadn't thought she would get an ass whooping from the start.

"Pathetic," Kasui hisses, his wounds slowly closing where he got scratched up. "That's what he said to us."

They were so young… Ashi felt a pang of pain knowing that it would get only worse from there. Insults, abuse of power, hellish training… It was all part of ninja life, and they had just started. Ashi gently turned him around, going over that split lip of his and finding it healed half-way.

"Are you?"

"What?"

"Pathetic," she says, making him look at her. "Are you?"

Kasui's eyes aren't as bright as Sachi's, or as passionate as Anko's, but he had a strength of his own. He stares right at her, baring his teeth just a bit. "No, I'm not. We aren't."

She pats him, ruffling his blonde hair to wipe that furious frown from his too young face. "Then stop moping 'round. It's only gettin' harder from here on, you're genin now, which means you're gonna get kicked very often, not only by your teacher but by everyone."

It wasn't something people liked to acknowledge, but genin were the bottom of their military force. Cannon fodder, those that didn't make it to a higher rank, were the first to die when a major fight broke out. It wasn't that easy to get promoted, which the only way that left them to avoid the slaughter of being the weakest and most expendable, was to go into a higher category.

There were categories in the Genin Corps, from D to A, five levels of skill in each one. Kasui and his team were D-5 genin, meaning they were as green and as inexperienced as they could be. The fastest way to climb the ranks was under the tutelage of a jōnin; if you belonged to the vast majority of genin that were just average, you needed to work your ass off in the Corps to compete for the missions and slowly fill the quota until you were eligible for a review and then a promotion.

"It's unfair!" Kasui mutters.

"'course it is," Haiiro says, dropping the med kit next to them. "Did ya expect that your sensei was gonna hold your hand or somethin'?"

"He didn't need to be so mean about it…"

Ashi wraps some of his injuries up. "He's your commanding officer, he gets to do what he wants with you." Harsh, but true.

"What're you gonna do now? Take to the Genin Corps?" Haiiro asks, chuckling at Kasui's cringe. "You got a Sannin, so you three are gonna work harder than others. That is if the guy doesn't give you the boot again. What's gonna be?"

"We will come up with something," Kasui promises, leaning over to bump his forehead against Ashi's in thanks. "We're not going to be split up because the weird Sannin beat us up once."

"That's the spirit. Now you go and clean yourself, the whole house stinks of disappointment."

"Gee, thanks Haiiro," the boy says, leaving the porch to argue with Anko about her using all the hot water again.

"You stop worryin'," the dog warns, putting his cold nose into her hands. "They're just a little bruised. Tsume got it worse when it was her turn."

That wasn't what made Ashi worry. Kasui, Anko and Sachi were great kids, and she was sure they were going to become great people some day, but the process of getting there was dangerous. People don't often talk about how some of their children didn't make it into adulthood, and how even Leaf had a horrifying ratio of infant mortality. More often than not, it was just rotten luck or a bad day, and then they were dead; kids who never got to be older than fifteen.

"They'll be fine. They're strong pups."

Ashi just hoped it would be enough.

.

A week later Orochimaru crawls his way out of his lab to go and give the report on his genin. He had been waiting for an earlier summons, knowing that his sensei would have undoubtedly received complaints from the families of those children. And yet, he didn't get called for a scolding at the office. Which was unusual.

The team that the Hokage had assigned him was… odd. As he had waited for them to arrive in the forest, he'd been hoping to see for himself what was so interesting about them. Orochimaru couldn't deny that those three were strangely close, considering they had been put together moments before. Already knowing how to chakra walk, they had stayed on the high ground and avoided the grass where he had put some regular traps to finish them off quickly.

Instead, they had tampered their chakra down, guarding their backs to one another. Orochimaru had watched them argue about their course of action, the purple haired girl and the boy with the glasses asking their third teammate for a plan. And hadn't that been curious? Those two already recognized the Inuzuka as their leader. A girl who, to his shock, had been about to come up with a sound strategy; something which he would of course never admit aloud.

He sent a clone to disrupt them, to see how they would react to a surprise attack. He had been disappointed when they split up so quickly, abandoning their plan just like that. Without the Inuzuka girl, the other two were lost. He had recognized the hand seals to a fire jutsu the other girl had no business knowing, and although she went down after a simple water bullet, she had recovered pretty quickly. The boy had done his best to keep up with the clone's taijutsu, but one didn't need to watch from afar to know that he wasn't the best at it. His reflexes were good, but not enough.

The Inuzuka was the weakest by far. While her teammates had at least attempted to fight back, she had run away and done nothing but stare at him. Underwhelming, when he had pickpocketed the seals that she gave to the boy and discovered they were handmade; she didn't even employ fūinjutsu or perform a jutsu to help herself or her teammates.

"Orochimaru," the Hokage calls, the room focusing on him. "What about your team?"

The debriefs for the genin teams were done by the respective jōnin in charge during individual meetings with the Hokage to decide if they passed or not. No matter how unusual that particular genin team was, Orochimaru didn't have time to waste on them.

"Failed," he says evenly. "May I be excused?"

"After you finish giving your report," the Hokage counters. "What was your impression of them?"

"Weak. Their performance was all but lacking, no consideration of their surroundings and they were overwhelmed the moment I met them," he reports, not interested in how his words made him appear severe in his judgement. "They shouldn't have graduated from the Academy."

The Hokage hums. "Strange. Aeka Kasui, Inuzuka Sachi and Mitarashi Anko were the top students from their year. They all graduated with honors." Ah, so those were their names.

He shrugs. "Not relevant."

"And their teamwork?" Dan asks, slowly beginning to take the lead in these kinds of proceedings. Orochimaru gave him a few more years until he took the hat for good; to be expected from the Hokage's advisor. "How do they work together? Would you say that they are a good team?"

He considers it. They had been familiar with one another, and their movements prior to his ambush were coordinated. Not that bad considering that Nawaki and his teammates had been bashing each other's heads before he even began their test.

"No," he decides. "Their teamwork was nonexistent, they shouldn't be in a team."

They were too young and inexperienced; an utter mess. Orochimaru grimaced at the thought of having to teach those three tykes how to handle pointy weapons, let alone getting them into shape. The Academy was in shambles if children like them had graduated as the best students.

"How so?"

"Why are you questioning me so intently, Hokage-sama?" Orochimaru remarks. "That team was not ready to be trained by a jōnin, and certainly not by me."

The Hokage was not this stubborn. Orochimaru had had the impression that his teacher would let it go after he'd rejected this team; finally leaving him alone with his experiments. Yet he was dragging this matter too much. He didn't need a babysitter, and he refused to be one for others. Standing by his opinion, he added "They failed the teamwork test, which I believe is enough for me to reject them."

Whatever the Hokage or Dan wanted to say was interrupted by thick black smoke. Orochimaru's vision is impared, having to rely on his sense of hearing. There is nothing but the hiss of smoke and steam filling the room, and Orochimaru was trying to pinpoint the location of the foolish attackers that dared attack the Hokage in his office.

The Hokage was not the target.

Orochimaru tried using his wind to dispel the smoke but found that his body was paralyzed. When the room clears, it's the Hokage waving it away with a rush of chakra; giving him a direct sight to three little smug smiles.

He hated them.

"Ah, Sachi-kun, what a surprise," the Hokage comments, and if he didn't know any better, Orochimaru would accuse him of smirking too. "What brings you and your teammates here?"

"Oh, this?" the girl asks, feigning ignorance. "This is just a test, Hokage-sama."

Orochimaru can't move a muscle, his entire chakra system overruled by whatever that damned child did to him. He recognized the feeling from Jiraiya's botched seals, which was enough motivation to fight it until his gates started cycling painfully. When the seal still didn't budge, realization dawned on him that the seal was truly a paralytic one, and that girl had specifically designed it for this purpose. So much that not even himself could dispel it.

"How come?" The Hokage plays along, completely ignoring his student's plight while his assistant is gaping beside him, gripping a kunai underneath his robes.

"Our sensei takes teamwork very seriously," Sachi says, as if she's convinced of the lies she's spouting, her teammates nodding along. "So much that he has given us an entire week to prepare for this test and prove to him that we are a good team and deserve to be taught just like any other."

The girl was speaking far too confidently for someone who was going to be dead very, very soon. The glance she sent him over her shoulder with eyes of a color he hasn't seen outside of his own clan, can only be described as smug.

"Is that so?"

"You can see for yourself, Hokage-sama," she grins, and Orochimaru thinks of all the delightful ways of pulling her teeth, one by one, until only bloody gums were left behind. "You and everyone else in this room can attest to the fact that we not only worked together, but also successfully apprehended our target."

"Yes! We worked really hard," the other girl, Anko, adds. "We had to track him for days without him noticing."

"And come up with a plan we could prepare beforehand," Kasui comments, sharing the girl's sly smirk.

"As you can see," Sachi says, actually daring to pat Orochimaru on the back. "It worked perfectly. Isn't that proof of how well we work together? Sensei must be proud of us."

Sachi was so dead.

Dan, who finally recovered from his shock, takes a deep breath. "How… What did you do to him?"

"You would be surprised about what the Academy teaches these days, Katō-sama," Sachi answers smoothly. "I excelled in fūinjutsu, as you know, which is what put me as the number one student. The smoke you saw earlier is something that my teammates have achieved by using their chakra affinities together, water and fire, to create the smoke screen necessary for me to apply the seal."

The Hokage is stifling his laugh between faked coughs, and had Dan not been face to face with Orochimaru's death glare, he would be doubled over laughing. "That's… quite the strategy, Sachi-kun."

"My, thank you so much! It's good to know that our team is acknowledged by such influential people."

That daring little bi—

"I think that's enough, Sachi-kun," the Hokage intervenes, recovering from his coughing fit. "Ahem, I must commend your team for displaying such teamwork, although I would prefer you taking these matters outside my office."

"Duly noted, Hokage-sama," she chirps. "Please don't be so harsh on our sensei though, he just wanted to make sure we were fit for his… tutelage. That we came this far only means that he treated us seriously from the beginning, giving us such a difficult test. The result speaks for itself, I believe, a little late and all."

"Yes, yes," The Hokage looks up at Orochimaru, still frozen and silently seething. "It seems that your report was a little rushed, Orochimaru. Although I praise you for going to such lengths to test your genin. Especially since you are not the type to senselessly beat them only to fail them with no actual explanation."

The look his old sensei gives him is meaningful, but Orochimaru is ready to show just how much he appreciates his genin tattling to the Hokage because of a spar. Whatever Sachi had used for the seal was solid, because not even the usual tricks he used to dispel Jiraiya's seals were enough to break it. The seal kept his chakra spasming inside his pathways, preventing him from moving while at the same time keeping his consciousness intact.

Sachi wanted him to see her, them, laughing at him as they played him at his own game. Petty and scornful, Orochimaru hasn't met three genin like them. He changes his assessment instantly, deciding that Sachi was not weak, but the most dangerous of them all; not because she was good at fūinjutsu, or she knew how to bribe the Hokage, but because she was versatile.

"Oh! We won't keep you much longer, Hokage-sama," Sachi says, bowing her head. "Thank you for your time, we will be leaving now since Orochimaru-sensei still has a lot to teach us."

The other two pests bow to the Hokage and then bolt to the door so fast that they disappear in a blink. It takes at least five minutes for Orochimaru to finally break out from the seal, his chakra coming in a rush that pulls a slight groan from him.

The old man is smiling broadly at him. "It has been a long while since I last saw you this aggravated."

"I am not—"

"Are you going to let them get away?"

Absolutely not.

.

Orochimaru ends up taking their team. He had been very pleased after he put them through hell for the stunt they pulled with the Hokage. Especially Sachi, who very obviously had been the mastermind behind it all. Anko and Kasui hadn't escaped unscathed either, and accompanied Sachi in the thousand-lap punishment he had issued them. It might appear easy, but he had sent clones after them to throw kunais when they started to lag off.

He had enjoyed seeing those three brats suffer until they couldn't stand on their own legs anymore, Sachi having fainted somewhere along the way. Then, he left them where they stood; let that be a lesson.

"He fucking sucks."

That was all they said when he finally fucked off to whatever hole he lived in, the damned snake. And it only got worse from there. Almost a month later, they had fallen into a routine.

"Take this," the clone said. "Have it completed by the end of the day."

"Fuck you."

"Sachi, ten more laps."

"Thanks."

"Twenty."

The clone disappears, leaving Sachi with three-finger thick folders containing their respective daily quota. Plopping down on the ground besides her teammates she glares at the booklets. "More homework?" Anko asks.

"Yep. Apparently you need to get started on water jutsus from now on. And Kasui has to practice taijutsu."

"What?" the girl says, baffled. "Water jutsu? I'm a fire affinity!"

Sachi gives her the folder, although it's useless to Anko because the kanji are too small for her to read and understand. "I think he's trying to train us in our weaknesses?" she guesses. "That or he has mixed our names."

Anko sighs. Having a Sannin as your teacher was utter bullshit. "What did you get?"

"Conditioning and ninjutsu practice."

"... again?" Anko frowns. "Doesn't he know that you can't do ninjutsu?"

"He doesn't care," Sachi says simply.

The clones he sent to deliver homework couldn't have cared less; a clear mirror of their caster's true feelings towards them. He hadn't even read their files, or he would have known that she couldn't shape chakra in any form besides seals without grave injury; maybe he had, but he just didn't give a fuck. It didn't matter that she got a seizure just the other week, or that she was left to run around the village until her body magically recovered and was able to meet his orders.

"Damn," she sighs, glancing at Kasui who was sleeping between them. "Do we wake him up?"

"Let him rest some more. He had the graveyard shift at the clinic, he won't be able to do katas like this."

Anko and Kasui had been integrated into the clan seamlessly. It helped that the Inuzuka were already used to their scent when they moved into their own rooms in the Main House. However, they were also expected to do their part. Tsume had immediately snatched Katsui for herself; dragging him off to the veterinary clinic. And because they were currently at the bottom of the hierarchy, they got stuck with the worst jobs. Anko was on call for the clinic too, although only for the rough cases, since she had a way with animals.

"I'll do the written part for you and him, you go and start training."

"You sure? He's going to know and punish you more."

"He already does that."

The clones evaluate them in the evenings to see if they had learned anything that day, meaning they got their lights knocked out each day as a punishment for not following his instructions. Sachi was the prime example of that, forever stuck on the first level of Orochimaru's Guide To Training Idiots. She had no way of passing when her sensei was adamant that she should know how to perform at least one jutsu from every affinity and was able to run miles without fainting.

She and her team had tried telling him that she was physically incapable of doing so, but his answer was always just "Weak."

Which pissed them off terribly.

"Okay then," Anko gets up, taking the book Sachi wrote for Kasui and his chakra affinity. "You think I'm gonna get away with a D-rank?"

Sachi shakes her head. "Here it says C or more. Try the Wild Water Wave, it's similar to spitting a fireball, but it's a waterfall instead."

"Great. I get to throw up for funsies," she grimaces. "Good luck on yours."

Sachi and Kasui remain where they are while Anko goes deeper into training ground forty-one, the boy sleeping the exhaustion away after being awake for a full day on call for emergencies. Opening one of the folders, Sachi starts to answer the useless questions their teacher insists on them filling every day.

"Question number twelve: If an enemy with a lightning affinity confronts you, what is the best jutsu to counteract them? Why? And what would your course of action be if they had an earth affinity?" she mutters out loud, writing the answers in their respective handwriting. "Question number thirteen: You encounter the Asuyoshi noble family, what is the protocol when interacting with them?"

Orochimaru had said they needed to build up their knowledge, which Sachi wholeheartedly agreed with. But doing useless tests was a waste of all their time. They were supposed to answer a hundred and twenty questions, as well as follow the training regime he had issued them for the day. If they didn't, they would get punished, which could very well mean that they wouldn't get an iota of sleep.

All of them had more than a year worth of punishments, and it just kept piling up. It didn't help that the bastard had eyes everywhere and he knew anytime they tried to ditch the training.

"Question number twenty-two: If you have a prick for a teacher, can you shove a kunai up his ass?" she bitterly asks out loud.

This wasn't how it was supposed to go. She had asked around and from what she had gathered, jōnin sensei were supposed to be with their students, maybe not all the time, but they should at least present for a minute instead of sending an army of clones. The written homework had been a surprise judging by Ashi's and Tsume's reaction. While it was true that ninjas needed to have some sort of general knowledge, especially in the beginning, Orochimaru's extensive course wasn't exactly the way to go.

Cue Sachi cursing Orochimaru to high heavens. They couldn't continue like this; she had hoped that their sensei would somehow be swooned by their incredible teamwork and train them in earnest. The only thing she got for her team was a very busy teacher, who didn't even show his face to them. He didn't hesitate to punish them, which made Sachi actually grateful for Chika-sama's softer approach.

"And done," Sachi says two hours later. Thankfully academics were her forte, curbing the four hour test in only two. "Kasui, wake up. Kasui."

The boy groans, Sachi feeling a trickle of guilt for shoving him. She knew that he was worn to the bones, but he only had taijutsu today instead of ninjutsu, which wouldn't strain his already irritated pathways. "...wha?"

"Mornin' sunshine, slept well?"

"... where…?"

"We carried you," she explains. They had taken him right from the stretcher in the clinic where he was napping because he hadn't made it back to his room. "We're at our usual spot, the clone dropped off your folder. You have taijutsu today."

Kasui squints at her, not seeing shit without his glasses that Sachi mercifully provides for him. He frowns, coming to himself quickly and sobering at the mention of the clone. "Taijutsu? Oh… I thought we were doing weaknesses today."

"You're lucky though, I think you'll be doing fire jutsus tomorrow. How you feelin'?"

He stretches. "Yesterday was bad. We got triplet calves."

"You're a dad now," she chuckles, patting him on the back. "Better get started. We can run the laps together since I already finished the written part for you."

"He's going to punish you," Kasui warns, accepting her hand nonetheless and getting up. "Thanks though. Where's Anko?"

"Water jutsus."

"And… you got conditioning again?" he says, warming up as they heard Anko complaining about drying up somewhere in the forest.

"Ninjutsu too."

"No," he growls. "You can't."

"Kasui—"

"Ashi-san said so, Tsume-san said so, Tsunade-sama said so. You can't do it, you'll get hurt. Again."

Ever since she recovered from the Uchiha incident Kasui has been overbearing with anything that could potentially hurt her. She was happy that he cared for her, but she couldn't stand him babying her all the time. "It's okay, don't look at me like that. I am behind in body conditioning."

They start running around the training ground. "Because your body—"

"Shut it," she hisses. "Don't. I'm fine, it's not like I want to get hurt, but I need to become stronger. You and Anko too for that matter."

He isn't happy, but Kasui wasn't happy when he woke up to begin with. "We can't go on like this."

"I know," she agrees. "I'll think of something."

"I hope so."

Anko and Kasui relied on her, she couldn't fail them. She had promised them to get them to jōnin and she will keep her promise. She didn't care about being a ninja, but her teammates did.

When the clone appears in the evening, Sachi is waiting for it. The fake-Orochimaru, although just a chakra construct, is intuitive enough to not take a step further, where a deadly seal was waiting for it.

"Sachi," he says evenly but it still sounds like a threat. "I have been sent to collect your assignments and review your progress."

"That's what you always say," she counters just as calm. "But you ain't going nowhere with this. I thought you would realize it by now."

"Sachi."

"What? Are you going to add even more laps for me to do? Maybe smack me a few times?" she lists. "The results you aim for will not be achieved by sending mindless puppets to do the work you're obligated to do by yourself. But that's not what serves your interests, is it?"

While it was just the face of a clone that turned eerily blank at her words, the resemblance to the beast that was Orochimaru was enough to put a tremble in her body. Sachi wasn't unaffected by his aura, but she pushed forward nonetheless.

"If you don't want to train us, then say so, but don't waste our time," she decides, despite the clone glaring a hole into her. She glares right back. "We've been training under your command for more than a month now, and the only thing I have learned is how to put one foot in front of the other and trot for hours on end. Ah, and also answer questions, which is something that I knew even before you came along."

"Are you complaining about his teachings?"

"Oh, I would, but he hasn't taught me anything, has he?" she says, and she can feel retribution coming her way; she stays rooted to her spot, leaning on the tree at her back. "We haven't gone on one mission, and anytime I say that—"

"You're not ready."

She makes a flourish with her hand, chuckling dryly. " —you answer me that. And whose fault is that? We have completed your stupid questionaires and done your ridiculous training regime, and… now what? I don't see any progress, and the only thing you do is increase our exercises and come with more and more demands that we cannot meet."

"That is your duty. You need to follow your orders."

"Stupid orders that that don't yield any results." That seems to piss off the clone, and Sachi suppresses a shiver. "I hadn't thought that the great Yamata Orochimaru would half ass an assignment. One of the Sannin, the smartest from the triad, and yet…" she points at the clone. "The most disappointing."

The clone has a hand on her neck before she finishes the sentence, and Sachi gazes up at him. "C'mon… hit me, b-but…" she struggles for breath. "I-I'm right. You… either do your job… or I'll find… s-someone who—"

She doesn't have the breath to continue, and from there, it's a world of pain for her.

.

This gaggle of genin is more troublesome than he previously believed.

When the memories of his shadow clone reach him after it is dispelled, he hears a very concerning message. Sachi… that girl had a mouth too big for such a fragile body, but it struck a nerve that bothered him more than anticipated.

Although he didn't understand why she was complaining about him when he had been training them thoroughly. He ponders that question all night, distracting himself from his research to the point that the first thing he does when morning comes, is go directly to Tsunade.

She will know what to do. People's troubles were her expertise; surely she will explain it to him.

"Tsunade—"

"With a patient!" she yells when he steps into her office. The curtain is drawn, and he doesn't understand why she insists on privacy for this matter. "What do you want?"

"I have a question."

That piqued her curiosity enough to draw the curtain a little bit to look at him. She's frowning, and not happy to see him, but that is normal for her. He knows she's routinely looking for injuries, as she often did when she caught sight of him. When she finds none, she says. "Wait outside."

He wants to ask why, but he complies. Upsetting Tsunade would get him a punch, and Tsunade didn't hold back. Time trickles by, he's irked about it, having to wait, but ten minutes later the door opens and a girl steps out.

A very familiar one.

"Orochimaru-sama," Sachi greets, strained as it is.

"It's sensei."

"Is it?"

And with that she leaves, Orochimaru already deciding for a suitable lesson for the next day when Tsunade calls him in. "Why was my student here?" he asks.

"I'm her appointed physician," she answers, gathering gauze stained with blood off the bed and dropping it into the biohazard bin. "Didn't you know?"

"Should I?" he honestly asks. Whatever his students did outside of their training was not his business; including whoever healed them.

"Then why are you asking me?" she counters, Orochimaru falling silent at it.

It used to annoy him, anytime Tsunade made him question his ways. But now he finds it a useful tool to understand what doesn't come naturally to him. People are a complex subject. One Orochimaru can neither claim aptitude nor interest in. But since he usually made an effort to adapt, he felt as though he ought to at least try to get a grasp on human behavior. If only to get the troublesome Yamanaka hounds off his back, who often interrupted him with their senseless psychological evaluations.

"Was she hurt?"

His teammate scoffs. "She's always getting hurt. More often these days," she pointedly looks at him, which means he has something to do with it; he fails to see how. "Is that what you're here for? To ask me about Sachi-chan?"

"I could," he says "It's not what I was here for, but I have come to notice that she has some sort of… chakra impediment. Do you know something about it?"

That seems to startle her. "Patient-medic confidentiality. I can't tell you anything about her medical files that she doesn't want to disclose publicly. I've told you already."

"Yes, you have, and you know my opinion on the matter."

"That is illogical? Yes, and you know what happens if you mention it."

Pain, that's what happens. "... yes. One would think that someone with such a handicap would not be considered for the Academy, let alone become a genin."

She shrugs. "Ask sensei about it. I did my part in writing the important bits in her file, which… you haven't read."

He had not, because he had burned them the moment he decided to fail them. "Does her condition have a name? I'm her sensei, I should know any essential information about her."

It doesn't fool her. "Ah, is that so? You're telling me that you're so very concerned about your dear little genin that you've come to ask me how to train her better... Surely not because she has a strange condition that is so up your alley." She gives him a clear warning. He knows she isn't that mad about it, or she would have demonstrated it already. "No, it doesn't. Sachi is a unique case; the only thing I can tell you is that she has chakra in her blood."

"Chakra in… blood?" he echoes, suddenly interested. "Genetic or acquired?"

"You know that genetic chakra disorders are deadly," she states, crossing her arms. "If I hear that you use her for your research…"

He hears the threat loud and clear. "Chakra in blood is not something you see everyday," he defends. "I wonder how that affects her body, to be in such direct contact with chakra…"

Chakra was energy, having evolved to be contained into pathways because of its corrosive nature, especially in soft tissue. Chakra was an inherent part of the body but also a danger to it. Unrestrained chakra was statistically fatal, seen in how any jutsu that successfully penetrates the body is almost a death sentence; if not for the damage, then for the after-effects.

That is why any fetuses that couldn't contain their chakra died the moment their cells came in contact with it. For anyone with such a disorder it would mean a terminal fate, but Sachi was perfectly alive and well enough to let him know just how disappointed she was in his teaching methods. He wondered about the state of her organs, or her cellular regeneration. Were they able to continue coexisting with the chakra in the blood? Did the blood change its composition because of the energy now flowing alongside? What about the proteins, they could very well denaturalize because of the heat or pH changes—

"Orochimaru," Tsunade calls. "Your students are not subjects, get it?"

"This could potentially—"

"Break your bones if you continue with that train of thought. They're your students, and you're their superior officer. Do I have to point out the power imbalance?"

She did, because Orochimaru had already considered how to introduce them to his research; he hadn't considered it wrong. He knew that he was walking on a thin thread, Tsunade one of the very few that didn't condemn him for his lack of understanding of human behaviour in relation to others. Even if it didn't mean impunity.

"I see," he grits. There were other ways to achieve his goal. "I'm here to ask for… advice, I believe."

"Advice? That's new," she teases. "It's going to cost you though."

"I have sake."

"You think that's all it takes to buy me? I'm offended."

"Do you want something else?"

"... I'll take it. Come on, spit it out. What's got you in a loop this time?"

He gathers his thoughts. "It has come to my attention that perhaps my teaching methods aren't appropriate. I'm wondering if it's just baseless allegations or in fact something that I have misinterpreted."

"Your… teaching methods," she repeats slowly, deciding if he was joking or not; he wasn't. "Okay. It's strange for you to think about these things, who told you this?"

"Doesn't matter. I want to be certain, that is all."

She continues to frown. "Well, what have you been teaching your genin? Where are you at?"

"I have sent them neatly structured regimes, but they aren't thriving as expected. Their individual skills are abhorrent, their weaknesses lay in fundamental areas, which I have been painstakingly trying to correct. So far, nothing has worked."

"What about their strengths? They're freshly minted genin, of course they're weak. Surely you have been polishing their strengths, right?" His silence is telling. "Right?"

"They're still weak," he repeats. "I cannot train them when their level is so low. They only know C-rank jutsu, and Sachi's only redeeming quality is that she has some grasp on fūinjutsu. Kasui's taijutsu is abysmal, whereas Anko is the only well-rounded of the three, but lacking any strategic mind or exceptional chakra control."

Tsunade stares at him, thinking about her answer. "Orochimaru… who are you comparing them to?"

"What do you mean?"

"You have them more or less figured out, but you keep saying they aren't good enough," she explains, putting into words what he should have understood but didn't. "Who are you comparing them to, to say that they are weak?"

That gives him actual pause. It's unsettling, to know that you cannot control the reactions of your own mind, and even he himself was influenced by the subterfuge of his own biases. "Us," he finally says.

"Us? As in you and me?"

"And the other one, as well," he adds, the thought of Jiraiya a bitter reminder. "One with 99th percentile chakra control, another with well-rounded abilities and the last one with… a fūinjutsu proclivity. You cannot deny the resemblance."

Tsunade laughs, honest and free, and Orochimaru doesn't know why but… he's glad, somewhat. It has been a while since his teammate was this unguarded around him. It makes him believe that he did something right this time; instead of being chased out by his inability to perform adequately to social expectations. Tsunade wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye, her shoulders shaking still.

"Sage forgive me, you sounded almost romantic right there, Oro."

He makes a face. "You know my opinion of—"

"Don't ruin it. Okay, woah, that was good. Fūinjutsu proclivity… damn. Okay, I'm good, I'm good." She takes a deep breath, smiling still. "Seriously now, that is kind of unfair to your genin, isn't it? We were hardly normal kids."

Orochimaru wouldn't know, he and his teammates were already strong by the time they were together. He supposes not every genin could be at their level, they were prodigies, after all, but he hadn't believed there existed such a gap between what he considered normal and reality. He was annoyed at having to rework his standards, especially by adapting to the inadequacies of his genin.

But… It did raise some buried memories of times when they were still together. He and Tsunade had grown side by side, neighbours, and their grandmothers had been close friends. Both of them had been tutored at home and then together; Tsunade, bored by other children that considered her something akin to royalty, and him being the closest option she had to be herself.

Tsunade would often drag him around, complaining about his pale skin and how he needed to put his pretty face to business if he ever wanted to make it into society. He hadn't understood her words then and neither does he now, but the fact remains that they were different. At five, they were mastering A-rank jutsus, able to beat any regular chūnin and even some jōnin; so far ahead that they hadn't even spent a year in the Academy before they were put on a team.

Then came Jiraiya. Orochimaru would rather pull his teeth out one by one than to admit that he was advanced at something, but it wouldn't be the truth. Jiraiya had come to them from nowhere, a trade he had told them, and he was a hopeless case only saved by how he intuitively used seals. It had irked Orochimaru how much of a clown Jirayiya was; not having grown up with the regime of a military village, but his social skills did balance out their team.

"Normalcy does not matter here. We were what we were, and we are what we have made out of ourselves."

"So poetic. Don't push your students too much, you have little experience with this kind of deal. I can see why you might see our team in them…" she hums. "You know what? You came to me because you didn't know what to do with your team, why don't you go to sensei and ask him?"

"Sensei…? What for?"

"Because he is sensei. He taught us, didn't he? We gave him enough grief until we made it to jōnin, but we turned out fine. He must know something we don't."

"You might… have a point."

"See? Aren't I the smart one?" she grins. "Or was it the 99th percentile one?"

Tsunade was beginning to tease him, which he didn't have time for. "Thank you, Tsunade. I'll consider it."

Her gaze softens, Orochimaru not quite catching why. She wasn't about to kick him, so he had done something good. "I'll be waiting for that sake, bring it with you next time. We can drink together."

Orochimaru is too far away to hear the last part.

.

"Advice…?"

Tsunade had been by his office earlier that week to share a story about their emotionally constipated Orochimaru seeking advice to train his genin. Hiruzen had been happier to hear actual joy in Tsunade's voice rather than listening to what she was confiding in him. A miss on his part, since Orochimaru had heeded Tsunade's words and come to him.

"Yes. How did you train us?"

Orochimaru is poised. His hair is loose and over his shoulder, having left behind his lab coat for once and using a soft lavender haori with a dark tunic underneath. However, the old sensei could read him even in his perfect composure, and noticed that he was truly mulling over this problem. That he cared enough to do so, instead of continuing doing what he thought was the best course of action, was… shocking. Which is why the question took him aback.

Training the Sannin… Hiruzen couldn't say it had been an easy task. "Is there something troubling you?"

Asking Orochimaru about his feelings was a trap. The boy didn't have a sensitive bone in his body, and Hiruzen was intimately familiar with his student's opinions in anything regarding emotions, sentiments or anything that wasn't purely logical. Orochimaru was aware of that… deficit of his, which displeased him, and resulted in perfecting a blank personality for the exact purpose of masking it. Now, he had not only gone out of his way to reach out to his teammate, but to his sensei too, which was an act of closeness Hiruzen hadn't experienced since the war had ended.

Hiruzen couldn't help but be hopefully optimistic.

"I wouldn't go as far as to say troubling," he amends, quick to dismiss any problems. "Yet, I have been receiving… complaints about my approach to teaching my students."

My students. Good Sage, Orochimaru had actually taken them in.

"Complaints? Who would think to criticize your approach?" Hiruzen questions, knowing that the opinion of the village on Orochimaru wasn't the best. If someone was purposely trying to sabotage him—

"My students," he says, Hiruzen choking on a breath. "Especially Sachi."

Of course, how could have he forgotten? He had given him that team. "If it is about your students… Do you believe you are failing them?"

He shrugs, a graceful and subtle gesture that speaks volumes. "I believe they are weak and useless in their state, but my attempts at instructing them have been met with… boicots."

"Come again?"

"They are intentionally dispersing the clones I send to deliver their instructions and evaluate them. They have sent a message through the rush of memories, claiming that they refuse to continue being my students if I do not teach them in person, however pretentious that might sound."

"You… aren't teaching them personally?"

Orochimaru shifts his stance. "I am a very busy person, I cannot spend my time babysitting children that are so far back. Until they are at a respectable level, I will not be spending more time than necessary with them. My clones and individualized regime is the obvious choice when considering our situation," he explains. "Nevertheless, they are growing more demanding by the day in spite of the punishments I deliver when they question my authority. I would say that I'm finding myself at an impasse, but that is ridiculous."

And yet, there he was, in his office, at first hour in the morning while sporting a very dangerous frown. Hiruzen had given him Sachi's team in hopes of killing two birds with one stone; getting Orochimaru away from his lab and fulfilling the favour he had towards Sachi. He had not anticipated either of them doing what they were supposed to do, and he winced at the sound of punishments coming from his student's mouth.

"What are they… demanding?"

"They might want to insert pointy weapons through several of my bodily orifices," he deadpans, Hiruzen struggling to swallow his laugh. "That I take them on missions, even if it's only a D-rank; and that I stop sending them study material and the clones." He puts a strand of hair behind his ear, showing the earrings that he used on in his leisure days. "I wouldn't normally consider this matter, but they are… rather resourceful for genin. I had to cancel a mission they took under my name while impersonating me with a henge; they have, somehow, discovered where I live and they're disrupting my snakes with their attempts at breaking in."

To think that Sachi would sit still was absurd. He could very well picture her and her teammates employing every trick in the book to get what they wanted; to go as far as actively waging war against their sensei was… not something he'd expected.

Yet, this time he couldn't side with Orochimaru.

"They're troubling you quite a bit, I understand why you would be at a loss what to do with them." Before Orochimaru opened his mouth to assure he wasn't in the least bothered by it, he continued. "You've asked me how I trained you and I'll tell you."

Senju Tobirama had appointed him the sensei of his grandniece, deciding that he was the best fit to train her and her teammates. He hadn't known then how difficult it would be, and not because his students were lacking, but because they were too good.

"You and your teammates were, and still are, exemplary shinobi. You could assert yourself even at a young age, with well developed individual skills."

He could still remember the day he discovered just what kind of beasts his students were. Tsunade had such chakra control that she was devastating to everything she touched with the slightest nudge, Jiraiya had an impressive charm as well as his deadly seals and Orochimaru… he had already mastered all five elemental affinities. Alone they were outstanding, but together…

"Do you remember the first assignment I gave you?"

"Yes. Stealing the Hokage's hat."

He chuckles. He hadn't known what to do with them, and he figured that sending them on an impossible mission would humble them. Cue his surprise when they brought the hat to him, and then he had to explain himself to the Second.

"How did that go?"

He huffs. "Jiraiya almost got us dishonorably discharged, since he knocked that envoy from Tea Country unconscious. Had it not been for Tsunade's quick thinking at distracting the Second, and me using my summons we would have been demoted to the Academy." His tone might have been biting, but Hiruzen wasn't fooled. He had heard the underlying fondness in it.

"Do you know why I sent you on that seemingly useless task?"

"Because you were tired of us and were seeking an excuse to drop our team."

It startles a genuine laugh out of Hiruzen. It was partially true that they had him ragged the first week because they were already better shinobi than others decades older than them. "Not exactly," he amends. "You were hardly a team before that mission, or am I wrong?"

That makes Orochimaru squint his metallic eyes at him. "... a teamwork exercise," he says carefully. "You wanted us to work together."

Hiruzen ignores the annoyed prickle of chakra his student lets out. "You three were too caught up in your own circumstances and had not shown any inclination to collaborate. You would have not learned the strength of a unit dynamic."

"Teamwork," he hisses. "All those missions fetching scrolls were just… teamwork exercises."

Hiruzen takes pride that not even Orochimaru had realized until then. "It served you well."

Orochimaru doesn't mention the obvious, about how one third of their old team is missing, but he implies it with his aura. "This is futile. My students do not have the same… quirks. Their teamwork is too ingrained in them, they lack any strength of their own."

He hadn't seen Team Two in action, and so Hiruzen couldn't do anything but speculate. However, he did know Sachi, and the girl had picked her teammates herself. It wouldn't be too far of a stretch to believe that Sachi and her team were closer than most, since Ashi had taken to sponsoring both Kasui and Anko. He had read the intensive reports he had sent to his own recruiters in the Academy when Danzō showed his interest in them, and they had quite an edge. If not rather blunt for now.

Kasui had baffling chakra control, Anko dominated the ninja arts and Sachi… well, one could draw parallels. The astonishing thing about this observation however was that it came from Orochimaru of all people. His student didn't have a history of sentimentality, and anything outside of rationality was either dismissed or ignored. Hiruzen wouldn't go so far as to say that his student had accepted that team because he saw his own in it, but… here he was, in front of him, asking for advice.

"They are a different team, and as such, they have their own particular challenges," Hiruzen eventually points out, trying to make him understand. "There is a likeness between your teams, but to compare the two would be detrimental. Do not be blinded by your previous experiences, Orochimaru, and instead see for yourself what kind of team they are."

Orochimaru hums, taking every word with the same intensity he had had during his early years. "I… see."

"About the demands… You might want to look into the reasoning behind them. Questioning authority so boldly is a very serious problem, but I do want to believe that in this case it is just a miscommunication rather than an outright challenge."

His student nods once, already deep in his thoughts. Orochimaru might be a bit slower than most to pick up the subtle signs and tells of other people, but when faced with a challenge he was the best at reaching a conclusion.

"Thank you, sensei," he says, disappearing before the words fully register with Hiruzen.

He sighs, content, and leans back in his chair. He had hoped that Orochimaru would grow out of that awkward phase of not understanding others without him and his team acting as a moral compass. And yet, he couldn't help but believe that he made the right decision in giving him Team Two.

(He had believed the same with Nawaki's team. They were all dead.)

.

Orochimaru felt a complete fool as he masked his chakra to stalk his students. They lack the experience to know where or how to look for signs in case someone was following them, especially in-village; and yet, he stays in stealth.

"Huh. A snake?"

A senbon came flying right where he was standing up in the trees, hitting besides the nook where jaw met neck. His students look in his general direction, not quite sensing him but having noticed him nonetheless. Anko was the one that threw that weapon. One moment talking with her teammates with her back to Orochimaru and a second later sending the senbon without hesitation.

Interesting.

Anko was the one with the keen accuracy, but Sachi was the one with a clear view of his position. She was quiet, and despite Orochimaru not being familiar with her behaviour yet, he supposed that her silence was troublesome.

"The bugs got quiet," she says, a comment so light had it not been for the implication of it. The forest was noisy, unless a predator was near. That is why Orochimaru slowly minimized his chakra, blending in with his surroundings until not even the small critters noticed him. "Maybe we should move."

Sachi is still suspicious, a clear signal that she had quite sharp instincts. Good, considering she didn't have anything else to save her life. Her teammates nod, not questioning her or fighting her on her decision.

Trust. They trusted each other. Orochimaru squints his eyes at the display, tracking them carefully as they move their position deeper into the training ground. He believed it was a mistake. In case of being threatened, they should have moved closer to the village, on the chance that a conflict broke out and they needed to alert a comrade.

Orochimaru was shocked to find that once they settled down, Sachi put her hands on a few trees around their perimeter and a glowing seal appeared.

Blood seals.

Now that was interesting.

"The clones will be here anytime," Kasui comments, yawning. "Are you sure you will be fine?"

They weren't surprised that Sachi was able to use seals, which meant that they were fully aware of it. Kasui and Anko trusted Sachi, so much that her opinions held a certain weight within their unit dynamic. They looked to her for direction, their designated leader, and yet the weakest of them all.

"Yeah. Get some rest, you two have a late shift tonight." They agree, complaining about 'clinic' and 'furry bastards'. Orochimaru wasn't sure about the meaning of the conversation, but he could tell they were tired. "I'll wake you when it's due."

They listen to her, and when his clone appears to deliver the folders with their instructions for the day, they are already asleep, Sachi putting her haori over them.

Orochimaru then watches them the entire day. How Sachi writes the questions, forging their handwriting, while they sleep curled around her. Orochimaru hadn't noticed that Sachi was writing the answers for all of them, but he should have. Because they were all flawlessly answered.

However, his bitterness at being played is smothered by the fact that Team Two is already bonded. Normally, a genin team took some time to get accustomed to each other, to work out a hierarchy and their place within it. They were already familiar, almost intimately so. Sachi was their leader, and they trusted her to look out for them. They were resting beneath a blood seal, which could be so deadly if not performed exactly as it was intended.

Sachi eventually wakes them up, and then they are split while they are trained by the clones. Anko is practicing genjutsu today, which she is good at despite her lack of control. Orochimaru doesn't approach to test the illusion she crafts, lest she detect him, but it is enough to almost dispel his clone.

Kasui has more of a challenge, as he is doing taijutsu. The clone beats him ruthlessly, Kasui receiving more hits that he delivers, but those that connect, are directed to sensitive spots. Jaw, groin, kidneys, liver… It dawns on him that Kasui is biding his time until an opening appears instead of trying to force one by himself, proving his cool thinking. It is not enough to make up for his lack of taijutsu skills and leaves him bruised and writhing on the ground while the clone kicks him across the training ground.

Sachi… is a disaster. Ninjutsu was her training for the day, which is inconclusive from the start. "I can't do it!" She argues with his clone, who does not care, and forces her to perform a simple henge. "Listen to me! Ugh, you useless—"

The clone roughs her up, some punches to the stomach enough to double her over, heaving. The moment Sachi is on her knees, her teammates pay attention to her, which makes Anko drop her genjutsu and Kasui takes a hit to his ribs. All three of them are groaning now, cursing when their respective clones punish them for their slip.

"Perform a henge. Now."

Orochimaru watches as Sachi gets up, noticing how her teammates were hurt because of her. Until that point, she had accepted any pain the clone inflicted on her, but when her teammates were involved, her will faltered.

Huh.

"This is going to hurt…" she says as she slowly makes the hand seals for the henge.

Orochimaru is close enough to notice how Sachi's chakra, already out of control before, was growing agitated. The air is heavy with electricity, pure chakra strong enough to visibly manifest in sparks that seek the closest conductor; which in this case, was her.

The chakra ignites before she finishes the sequence, declashing an explosion powerful enough to make Orochimaru channel some chakra to the soles of his feet to keep him grounded. Sachi didn't, which is why she flew a few feet before hitting a tree.

Her clone is gone, the chakra enough to disrupt its form and dispel it. "Sachi!" Kasui yells across the clearing before using a shunshin to her side. "Sachi!"

Kasui's clone was not pleased that he broke form, which meant it was already by his side and raising a kunai. The clone puffs out before it can successfully stab either of his students. The reason for it was Anko, who had sent a senbon so fast that the clone hadn't sensed it coming.

It's impressive, Orochimaru notes as the memories rush to him. Neither of them gloat or boast, too worried about their teammate as she starts shaking.

Tsunade had drilled the signs of heavy injuries in battle into both her teammates, which is why Orochimaru could deduce that Sachi was having a seizure. Anko holds her limbs down, while Kasui quickly unseals a series of tags that he cannot recognize the matrix of, sticking them to Sachi's neck, armpits and groin, as well as where her gates would be.

He watches, enthralled with how Sachi's seizure dies down quickly, regaining a normal pattern of breathing and stopping her erratic movements. She's unconscious, but the tension in her teammates' stance is not as prominent.

"Do we call Ashi-san? Tsunade-sama?"

Kasui shakes his head, checking her pulse. "She's breathing normally, and her temperature is down. Reflexes are there too," he says, opening her eyelids to check for pupillary changes. "Ashi-san will only get worried."

"At least it was quick," Anko agrees, helping him put her legs up and unstick the tags as they change color. "Not like with elemental jutsus…"

Henges, as well as shunshin or kawarimi, used only Yin and Yang chakra. They remained the most useful jutsu from any ninja arsenal, simple and efficient, but Sachi had nearly been blown away from it. Anko being concerned about elemental jutsu meant that for her teammate, it was probably a death sentence.

It was already evening, shadows growing darker. Kasui taps her cheeks gently, waking her up. "There you are. How are you feeling?"

Sachi groans, her teeth bloody and her hands uncoordinated when she raises them to rub her temples. "My head hurts…"

"It's good that you still have it on ya," Anko teases, but she's careful to help her sit up. "You keep pushin' your limits like that and you won't wake up."

Sachi dismisses it with a scoff. "Yes, yes. Did we finish for today?"

"Of course not. You got classes today."

Sachi blinks, her mind starting up again. "Damn… we should get going then."

And that's what they do. The three of them pull the other up the best they can. Kasui was healing the cuts and bruises on his body while Anko helped Sachi get out of the training ground and then up on the rooftops. They were staying close; Sachi might be the leader, but her teammates knew she was weak.

Just then Orochimaru comes to realize that Team Two was not like the Sannin. Whereas Orochimaru's team was composed of three individuals, with skills powerful enough to stand on their own, working together, Team Two was made of three weak bodies working as one.

They were the complete opposite of one another.

Orochimaru follows them until they reach the Inuzuka Compound. He believes that maybe Anko and Kasui want to make sure she gets home safely before they go back to their respective houses; but then all three of them go inside, and no Inuzuka bats an eye at it.

He observes them from afar, not going further into the Inuzuka territory under risk of trespassing. The Inuzuka could pick up scents anywhere, and Orochimaru hadn't bothered to hide his because he hadn't thought about following them that far. As it stood, they were too interesting for him to stop.

Kasui is the first one to leave, a white lab coat and a stethoscope on him as he crosses the street and enters the Inuzuka Veterinary clinic where he stays until the following morning. Anko spends the night around the kennels at the back of their property, where he knows she is handling the dogs the Inuzuka breed and train for either the clan or for sale.

Sachi goes to a training ring where children of all ages are waiting for her, sitting on stone benches with their ninken by their sides. Orochimaru watches with growing unease that the three of them have many more responsibilities than he had previously suspected.

By whatever means, Kasui was working as a veterinary medic, taking care of the emergencies. Orochimaru got to see him healing ninken twice as big as him, deep gashes and wounds that no one except someone with 99th percentile chakra control could take care of. Anko was called to the clinic too, surprisingly handling the frightened dogs with ease and strength.

Sachi, who didn't have good chakra control or the natural aptitude at handling animals, was left tutoring the children of the clan. It was too far away from him to hear, but her lips told him she was teaching them about history, and then mathematics, which the children were listening intently. And then, when her students left, she stayed behind reviewing their homework and writing books worth of notes that he was curious to investigate.

In the end, they didn't stop working until early in the morning, which left them beyond exhausted. Orochimaru watched them collapse on a patch of grass and sleep a grand total of three hours before they had to peel themselves from the ground and head to the training ground to continue being beaten.

The results weren't what he had expected, and the strange weight at the bottom of his stomach certainly isn't a pleasant one.

.

The next day, Orochimaru, the real one, is waiting for them in training ground forty-one.

"Here. Read them and complete them by the end of the day."

He throws them ten small scrolls, Anko and Kasui baffled to discover they were actually mission scrolls.

"What are you doing here?" Sachi questions, squinting her eyes suspiciously at him.

"I am your sensei," Orochimaru tells her, not letting her say anything more. "I am giving you another test. Complete it and we will… reconsider where we stand."

That shocks her as well, her golden eyes calculating while she decides if he is being honest or not. Before she can come up with a way to test his sincerity Anko and Kasui take hold of her arms and drag her away. Especially before their sensei could change his mind.

The missions were boring D-ranks; painting houses, delivering messages and finding forgotten weapons in training grounds. Orochimaru watches them, not engaging but not leaving either. They do not like him, the bonds of their team not extending to him, but they're willing to tolerate him as long as he doesn't go back to his previous training.

Their teamwork is impeccable. D-ranks were supposed to build the connection between teammates as well as improve their resourcefulness when it comes to their limited abilities to perform menial tasks. Painting houses was easier when you could walk on vertical surfaces, watering gardens with a water affinity is ridiculously simple and delivering messages is faster when you can already use the branches and have an extensive knowledge of the village and its many districts.

However, the speed at which they complete them is a testament to their teamwork. Anko is strong, but she lacks direction; Kasui has control, but doesn't have knowledge; Sachi has both. They are a perfect team, if only because their weaknesses can be covered by the strength of the other. As long as they are together, they are powerful.

"Money!" they cheer, receiving their first payment tickets.

They're happy. Orochimaru sees that in their relaxed features, as well as how they jump up and down. All three of them have dues to pay to their clan, and the amount left after clan tax is drawn will be minimal. But they're still happy, because for the first time in a month and a half, their hard work paid off.

"Tomorrow you will have twice as much," he says, only to gauge their reaction.

They go stiff, but they smile wolfishly at him.

Maybe they weren't so hopeless, after all. At least they could be bribed with money.

.