A/N: Has it been one whole year since I last updated?! How did time pass that fast?! I'm so, so, terribly sorry for leaving you all hanging. It has been a long year full of ups and downs, and writer's block. Admittedly Sakumo and Kakashi are no longer my current obsessions anymore, but I am still deeply fond of their story. Hopefully, I will be able to bring us through some more exciting moments that I have prepared, even though I cannot promise any consistent posting schedule.
Thank you to everyone who has shown me so much love and patience! I appreciate all your kudos, comments, follows, and views. This fic would not have come so far without your support.
Recap: In previous chapters, Kakashi killed his good friend and senpai Snake in order to prove his loyalty to Danzou. Upon joining ROOT, he received a seal on his tongue. So far, he has met Kinoe, Inoue (a half-snake, half-human experiment of Orochimaru's), Hinoto (an abusive ROOT agent), and Sai and Shin briefly. Kakashi is currently conducting his first training session for his new ANBU team, now that he is an ANBU captain. His team comprises of Uzuki Yugao (Ocelot), Amano Kou (Puma), and Nara Mitsuo (Lynx).
Enjoy!
Kakashi helps Mitsuo drink some antidote first. "I'm mean, but not that mean," he assures, giving the groaning man his trademark eye-smile.
"It feels like food poisoning," Mitsuo moans with his face in the grass. The rest of the team is similarly slumped on the ground, panting. "I demand compensation. Your dog bit me in the ass."
Yugao giggles nervously, surrounded by Kakashi's ninken and busy giving them scratches. There are a lot of wagging tails.
Kakashi sits down with a huff, his legs stretched out before him. "So. Things that you did well and things that you didn't. Anyone want to start?"
Mitsuo drags a hand over his face. "The bad: everyone died; the good: we got the sandbag."
"That's the gist of it. The loss of an entire ANBU team is pretty much catastrophic, especially if any of you are captured alive, but this is what training for. How could we have decreased the number of casualties?"
There is a silence.
"Maybe we could have switched roles?" Kou suggests tentatively, his voice gaining strength as the team turns to him. "Mitsuo's shadow jutsu could have helped Yugao with the antidotes."
The girl hums in agreement. "Maybe you could have even pulled them all out at once, at the very beginning. Then we would have been able focus on Kakashi-taichou and the sandbag."
Mitsuo nods, sighing. "I could have used some help with the ninken from either Kou or Yugao," He jokingly narrows his eyes at Pakkun but the pug just snorts and pretends to doze. "I could catch some of them but if I managed to pass on that sandbag earlier, it might have worked out better."
"I could have done it," Kou says, "with shunshin. Yugao could have held off Kakashi-taichou."
Yugao flushes in pride. "Yeah! The kenjutsu fight we had was pretty good."
"Good ideas," Kakashi says with another eye-smile. "I have to say, you all displayed better teamwork than I'd expected. After all, it was your first try and I didn't give any planning time. I wanted to see what your natural team dynamics were like. It seems that you all have a good intuitive sense of how to support each other. The more we work together, the smoother things will be. Next time, we'll train against another team and we'll see how all four of us function together. We should be getting a mission soon as well. Any questions?"
When there are none, they clear the field of flags and carrots together. The latter are undamaged, so Kakashi divides them up between the four of them. "Here. Fibre is good for you. I promise they're not poisoned this time."
That gets some eye-rolls. Rin giggles at Mitsuo's suspicious squint, but Yugao is beaming again. There are no hard feelings here, to Sakumo's relief.
The team soon leaves to train on their own. Kakashi closes his eye for a brief second, the smile on his face slipping. His ninken leap for him immediately, wagging their tails fiercely as he tries to hug them all. "They're a good bunch," Pakkun comments from his usual perch on Bull's head. Kakashi gives him a scratch behind the ears, then Bull too.
"You're a good bunch too," Kakashi says with an eye-smile. "Thanks for the help today."
"You are most welcome, boss," the pug says with a nudge against the young shinobi's chin.
As Kakashi holds his ninken, he turns his face to the sky, eye crinkling faintly as the sun warms his face. "That wasn't too bad, was it? Sensei, senpai..."
"Hound-san."
Kakashi jerks upright in his bed, a kunai replacing the book in his hand as he whirls towards the voice. A spiky haired ANBU is crouched on the sill, framed by the open window, the perfectly round eye-holes of his masked face turned towards Kakashi. Sakumo observes the markings on his mask carefully, noting the three red curves above each eye.
"You are to report to Danzou-sama immediately."
Kakashi lets his grip on his kunai relax and drops his hand to his side. "Understood," he replies warily, his gaze flickering towards the sky. The setting sun has already sunken below the treeline. "Is it a mission?"
The ROOT agent's unnervingly empty stare does not waver. "No. Report as usual."
And with that, he's gone. Kakashi shuts the windows with a grunt of frustration, his eye narrowing as the glass panels rattle.
"Suspicious," Rin says as she frowns after the ROOT agent, voicing their unspoken thoughts.
"The Council of Clans is holding a meeting tonight," Danzou announces when Kakashi reports to his office. He hands Kakashi the agenda with a nod before turning back to the scrolls laid out on his desk. "Now, actually. You should attend— it'll do the Hatake name good."
Kakashi's gaze flits over the page, the subtle tightening of his grip hinting at his sudden anxiety. A quick glance over the page confirms Sakumo's suspicions. Because of the Kyuubi attack, the original budget that Minato drew up has been rendered largely useless. Despite the good recovery that they are making from the Third Shinobi World War and the sizable emergency funds that have been set aside, their reserves will be severely overdrawn if some adjustments are not made in light of the Kyuubi's destruction.
This is possibly the worst kind of meeting for someone of Kakashi's experience— or lack thereof. Prodigious as he is, Kakashi has yet to hone the same killer instinct on the battlefield of politics. A technical matter like this is not easy to handle even for experienced clan heads. Until Kakashi can stand his own against all the others who are pushing for their own agendas, Kakashi will be forced to rely on Danzou. It's another tactic, Sakumo muses darkly, to make Kakashi the elder's puppet.
The silver-haired youth straightens, sets his shoulders and his jaw, and musters up a courage that makes Sakumo proud. "It wouldn't do the Hatake clan any good if I show up as unprepared as I am."
The brush in Danzou's hand stills. The elder raises his head to peer at Kakashi, his gaze piercing. Then, as if he'd divined something from Kakashi's unnatural stillness, he shakes his head and returns to his work.
Kakashi's brow creases in uncertainty.
"Nonsense," the elder says, his tone so light as to be dismissive. "We won't be expecting speeches of groundbreaking insight from you. In fact, it would be wise to listen, since you are young and inexperienced. If you are lost, you need only look to me for a cue." He smiles.
"But..."
"You asked me to mentor you, did you not? This will be a good opportunity. I cannot help you if you do not put in effort yourself."
Kakashi's eye widens as if he had been slapped in the face.
Danzou raises an eyebrow. "Yes?"
Unable to decline without giving Danzou an excuse to write off his end of the deal entirely, Kakashi nods. "Yes, Danzou-sama."
"Good. Let's go, then. We're already late." The elder gathers his notes and sweeps out of the room, leaving Kakashi to hurry a step behind him.
The guards at the meeting room open the doors for them, bowing them into the space traditionally reserved for meetings such as these. The low chatter falters at the sight of them, more than ten pairs of eyes immediately fixing upon Kakashi. The young Hatake cannot help but twitch under the weight of their shrewd stares. With his youth and tarnished clan name, he is suddenly and very obviously out of place. The years he had spent isolated after Sakumo's death have marked him as an outsider amongst the people who should have been his peers, had Sakumo been able to hand over clan leadership properly.
Inuzuka Kamu's lip curls in disgust and Sakumo realises that the old wounds between them have not scarred as cleanly as he had hoped.
"Good evening," Danzou says, strolling into the room to take his place near the head of the table as if nothing strange has occurred. "I've asked Hatake-san to join us today."
Kakashi stiffens even further, as if he is trying to physically prevent himself from turning tail and hurtling out of the room. "Good evening."
"Ah, this is unexpected, isn't it?" Chouza chuckles, breaking the silence that had Sakumo's heartbeat pounding in his head. "Hatake-san, please take your seat."
Frowning in surprise, Kakashi instinctively reacts with a bow before realising that perhaps this might not be the right response. He ends up jerking awkwardly in place, instead. At the other side of the table, Fugaku's eyes narrow a fraction and Inoichi hides a wince of sympathy. Chouza might be chairing the meeting but he is not Kakashi's superior; they are all equals here. Danzou pretends to not notice, his attention seemingly on his documents, and Kakashi is left on his own.
It is Shikaku who breaks the awkward silence. He beckons Kakashi with a hand, dusting off the Hatake seat beside him with a flick of his hand. "I don't bite," Shikaku jokes. "Promise. It's just my face that's fierce."
Kakashi attention zeroes onto Shikaku as if he's the only solid ground in these strange new seas that Kakashi has been thrown into. He strides jerkily towards the Nara and sinks into the Hatake seat, back straight and smile fixed. "You look just fine, Nara-san," Kakashi blurts out saying, his face pink above the edge of his mask.
The smile that spreads across Shikaku's face is a wry, crooked thing that softens the violence written in his scars. "Ha, thanks."
Sakumo heart swells with gratitude. There's a reason why the Nara clan is well-liked. Despite their formidable abilities, they are gentle like the deer they care for.
"Danzou," Rin mutters, glaring daggers at the elder who had essentially set Kakashi up for humiliation. At the corner of the meeting room, Kara notices her moment of belligerence and hides a smile behind his hand. Sakumo spares him a short wave and the other ghost nods back.
Seated in the old oak chair that is as old as Konoha itself, Kakashi looks so very small compared to Shikaku on his right and Hiashi on his left. Sakumo takes a moment to indulge in the nostalgia of seeing the Hatake crest where it has been inlaid into the chair's back, the glimmering mother-of-pearl the same shade as Kakashi's hair. This is Kakashi's birthright; his rightful place as heir. An aching pride fills Sakumo's chest at the sight of his son at the very table where the founding treaties of Konoha were signed, generations ago.
"Akimichi-san," Kamu says loudly, his arms crossed before his chest, "I was under the impression that the Hatake seat is no longer in existence."
A/N: dun dun dun! ;) Also, you might not have noticed but I changed one of my OC ghost's name to Kara. He's the friend of Kagami and Hyaku that I introduced in Ch23. I just realised that his name means something I didn't mean to imply. So embarrassing ahaha. He appears only rarely and doesn't have plot significance so don't worry about it. No relation to Boruto either, I'm just bad at naming characters XD
In other news, come find me on tumblr! My original content is generally AoMei or Kiri stuff, but I also reblog a lot of general Naruto content. Feel free to drop me an ask or message anytime!
Thank you, again, for staying with me on this fic :')