Hello, internet! To the people who give a shit, I apologize profusely for the wait: I was out of the country with sporadic wifi and no laptop and the chapter was only half done. Then school started and basically, I've been prioritizing work on my original stuff.

Meanwhile, they're genin now! I'm hoping not to dwell on this phase, but I feel it's needed. Also, thanks to Taijen for the support! Reviews are the best way to keep me writing. Anyway, onward!

Chapter 6

Unhappy Circumstances

Hidan awoke to find himself lying in a relatively uncomfortable bed, covered in a blanket and staring at a grey stone ceiling with little to no defining features. He couldn't move anything below his head and he had the distinct feeling that his limbs had been forced into the positions they now occupied. On top of that, he had no idea where or when he was. Between being put in an effective-death coma by that Nara bastard and then getting thrown in a sealing scroll, he had no idea what day, month, year or even fucking decade it was. All in all, it was a very annoying situation to wake up to and he had no way to share it with anyone. 'What,' he asked himself, 'is the fucking point of being in this much damn pain if you can't make anyone else feel it too?'

His enraged thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening and closing. He struggled to move his head and managed to turn it the 90 degrees necessary to see who had just walked into the room.

"Hidan, I've brought you some lunch. My sister-in-law cooks very well, you should try it." The functionally paralyzed silver-haired man in question turned an enraged eye on the man before him, "Where the fuck am I?" The man in the wooden mask, who so far hadn't deigned to give his name, sighed and unfolded a small chair he had brought with him, sitting down and sighing in a decidedly annoyed manner. "Look boy, it's been almost a month since we retrieved you. It's remarkable that you're still alive considering we haven't been giving you any fluids, but now that you're awake again, your ability won't do shit to keep you from starving. You do know the root of your ability, correct?"

Hidan shrugged, clearly not especially interested. "I don't fucking die, what the hell else is there to understand?" The eyes behind the mask narrowed and the man sat a bit straighter in his chair, suddenly serious. "There is quite a bit to understand. You are one of the Seiki Karu (Century Reapers), denied Lord Jashin's gift so as to grant it en masse. You can never be killed or die from a circumstance created through battle, but if you were to stop eating, you would starve just like the rest of us." He placed the tray of food on the small table next to Hidan's bed and stood up. "No ability is perfect, regardless of its source. Just as the Uzumakis found a flaw in the work of the Shinigami, so there is a flaw in the work of Lord Jashin. The only man who can kill you is yourself and even then, you will be denied a holy death on the end of a blade. You are a tool for our Lord's work, nothing more. Never forget that."

With that, the man stood up and placed his hand on Hidan's shoulder. "I'm removing the nerve seals on your upper body. Eat, we're taking you out soon for a test run and you need to recover your strength." With that, he left the room, leaving Hidan to eat his meal and ponder what the fuck was even going on.

-G

"I'm SO BORED that my brain is turning to mush." Omoide spared a glance toward his best friend and went back to weeding. "It's mindless labor, you don't need your brain. Just keep doing it and stop making a fuss."

Now normally, weeding would not be a problem for Team 10; they'd been forced to do it many times in the last week and gotten quite good at it in the process, but today was different. Today, they were weeding the western half of the first training ground; in other words, five square miles of open space, with no shade in sight. Just as a bonus, nobody had used or even looked at it for years, so it was a textbook example of overgrown.

"Come on knuckleheads, if you don't finish before Konohamaru's team, you're all running ten laps around the village." Hiruzen let out a groan and straightened up, trying to work out the kinks his back had developed over the course of the morning. Bending over for hours on end tends to do that. "Sensei, we've been working for five hours! It's only ten in the morning! Give us a moment!" Sasuke's eyes narrowed, "No enemy worth fighting will 'give you a moment'. You all have to learn how to push through your exhaustion, and this is as close to a class for that as you're going to get. Now shut up and keep working, I'm trying to read."

As previously mentioned, a week had passed since the bell test and Team Ten had been taking an arduous series of D-Ranks, lacking the chance of death needed to be C-Ranks, but not so easy that they wouldn't be tired out of their minds by the end of the day. This cleanup job was only the latest in a series of tortuous days of labor, the first of which had been the capture of Tora the cat and her litter of equally demonic offspring. Sasuke allowed himself a small, momentary smirk at the memory. Now that had been fun to watch.

About an hour passed with not much of note occurring. Sasuke could feel Konohamaru's eyes on the back of his head as he read one of Omoide's innumerable novels, but decided it was a fact best left alone. Even after twelve years, he could understand the suspicion of his fellow jonin; he'd been a nuke-nin for years after all. Betrayal like that didn't disappear without leaving its share of scars.

Meanwhile the kids had made exceptional progress. Kengen's Busō o Hamingu (Humming Armament) had been especially good for taking out the area's tougher plant life. At one point, Hiruzen had asked if he could just burn the place until there wasn't any vegetation left and have someone else plant fresh grass, but Sasuke had decided against it; the whole point of the mission was to get them used to tough, monotonous work. Letting Hiruzen finish the whole thing in one swoop would be nothing but counterproductive, at least from a training perspective.

"VICTORY!" He turned to see Hiruzen holding a plant with enormous roots, grinning as though he'd just defeated his worst enemy. With a happy roar, he threw it down hard onto their latest pile of plant matter. Kengen's glare was almost as incredulous as it was annoyed. "It's just a fucking plant! For the love of all the gods, calm down!" Hiruzen turned on Kengen and let out what could only be described as a growl. Both boys tensed and Sasuke could see another fight brewing. Without a word he narrowed his eyes and released a tiny sliver of killing intent into the air. All three boys stiffened and turned to him with undisguised fear in their eyes. With a gulp, the Team's resident Sarutobi looked around the few feet of field they had left to clear.

As quickly as it had come, the subtle pressure in the air lifted and a triumphant grin came to Hiruzen's face. Quickly, he ran over to a large plant and pulled it out of the ground. "THERE! If we're not done now, we never will be!" Sasuke looked around the field, activating his sharingan just to be sure. He gave the whole thing a once-over and frowned. 'He has a point.' After a few moments of thinking, he nodded. "Right, we're done here. We'll report to the Hokage tomorrow morning for payment."

Relief was evident on all of their faces. Deciding they should be punished for such blatant disrespect (Sasuke's sadistic streak had mellowed, but never really gone away), he brought up his book to hide a self-satisfied smirk. "Because you finished early, you only have to run five laps around the village. I'll be watching, so don't try to slack off." They all groaned, but at this point, they knew better than to dawdle. Moods dampened, they all set off at a jog for the edge of the village, thinking the curses they dared not speak.

-G

The next morning went largely as usual. Kengen arrived at their meeting bridge several minutes early and Omoide and Hiruzen got there exactly on time, right as Sasuke appeared in a flurry of lightning. They all set out for the Academy in their usual moods; all except Omoide, who was clearly preoccupied. When Shizune smiled at them and told them to wait outside for a moment, he actually gulped.

The Godaime herself was stressed out what with having a large amount of paperwork to get through before having to go off to the annual Kage Summit on top of mission assignments to the point where she hadn't slept in several days. Just a few hours ago, she had seriously contemplated using a soldier pill just to get some energy back. Needless to say, her customarily bad mood was even worse than usual. "Tsunade-sama, Team Ten is here to see you." The Godaime waved half-formed acknowledgement to her assistant and frowned. "Thank you Shizune, send them in."

Omoide came in first, followed closely by Hiruzen and Kengen, then finally Sasuke. The three boys lined up in front of their sensei. "Hokage-sama, We're ready for today's first mission." The woman sighed and looked down at her clipboard. "Let's see, one of Tora's kittens is out again, an elderly woman needs a rat infestation in her backyard cleared out, the Southwest Block is due for garbage collection-" "No."

Tsunade was unprepared for the even, calm interruption and paused, frowning. "I'm sorry Uzumaki-san, is there a problem?" The boy seemed about to falter for a moment, but his conviction quickly returned. "With all due respect, Hokage-sama, these missions are below us. All three of us were in the top four for academy taijutsu scores, and none of us did badly in ninjutsu either. We're shinobi and much as it's nice helping out the village doing grunt jobs, it seems like a waste. We were hoping for a higher-level mission this time." Hiruzen nodded somewhat enthusiastically and Kengen rolled his eyes, but couldn't disguise a hint of bitterness in his expression.

Tsunade, for her part, managed to keep a straight face for several seconds before her frown gave way to several cackles and then full-blown laughter. A few more awkward seconds passed as the Godaime Hokage came down from what could only be described as a giggling fit. "Oh gods, I needed that." A few more snickers escaped before she could continue. "Best in the academy? Kid, let me tell you what that amounts to out in the real world: jack shit. An A in some class doesn't mean anything when you're getting your jugular cut open. Now, I think you've got a kitten to capture. You're dismissed."

Sasuke made a quick visual survey of his students. Kengen was of course infuriated and looked to be on the verge of a tirade while Hiruzen seemed momentarily stunned, but it was Omoide's reaction that really caught his attention. He'd never really seen the young Uzumaki mad – he tended to keep his negative negative reactions to simple annoyance – but this was different. His mouth was curved visibly down, no more than if he were simply distracted by something moderately frustrating but his eyes were narrowed in the chilling death-glare his mother's family was famous for. It was an intimidating expression, even taking into consideration some of the people he was in a room with.

"Team, you go on ahead, I have to talk to the Hokage." Kengen opened his mouth to protest, but Sasuke put the smallest bit of murderous intent into a glare. The young Hagoromo backed off and the boys walked out, sending dirty looks over their shoulders. Once they were gone, Sasuke rounded on Tsunade, glaring. "Lady Tsunade, with all due respect, what the fuck was that?"

Once again, the Godaime managed to keep her face completely straight, looking through some paperwork as she offhandedly explained. "Exactly what it sounded like: I told them they weren't good enough for a C-rank mission. Even if I did think they were ready, we don't have anything above D-rank on Genin level; hell, we aren't even taking anything over C-rank outside of ongoing ANBU operations until I get back from the annual summit in a week. Omoide is overly sure of himself and the Green-haired brat was marked down as – and I quote – 'almost as arrogant as Uchiha Sasuke when he was at the academy.' I wasn't about to send that out into the field, much less on a mission where others' lives would almost definitely be at stake. Now, is there anything else?"

Sasuke kept his glare leveled, even and piercing as always. As he looked on his Hokage, he couldn't help but wonder if she had been this world-weary before the war, before Naruto's death. They seemed to have had some form of bond, and he could tell she'd been seriously messed up by his sacrifice. "I'll admit they're not the most friendly team, but neither was Team 7 and a trial by fire was exactly what we needed to pull together and work as comrades. I'd be there and I don't doubt that would mean Tenzo hiding in the shadows, so it's not as if it's really that much of a risk. I'm not asking for something important. All I want is something to challenge them." With that, he did a stiff mock-salute and shunshined away in a flash of lightning.

So yeah, not much to say here really. Sorry again for the ridiculous wait, but hey, factors conspire and suddenly it's been months since I posted last. Hope you liked the chapter despite it being mostly setup and filler, I thought I should get SOMETHING out after all this time.

Leave a review, please!

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