5. Interlude

Crash Course

noun

a brief, intensive course of instruction, as to prepare one quickly for a test.

Kakashi studied his three adorable students, and in return three pairs of eyes stared back.

"C'mon Kakashi-sensei!" Nagisa begged, her eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. "You need to actually teach us something! Instead of just making us do D-Ranks!"

"D-Ranks do teach you." Kakashi pointed out cheerfully, and it was obviously not the right thing to say to placate his blonde genin, for Nagisa's eyes narrowed dangerously, and the silver haired jounin was uncomfortably reminded of another Uzumaki, one with crimson hair and violet eyes.

(Kushina-neesan would be proud to know her daughter had inherited her glare and- oh look there was a bit of Minato-sensei's heart-stopping glower. A little more practice and his tiny student would be able to make grown men cower in her presence.)

"While it's true D-ranked mission do teach genin valuable lessons and skills," Tobirama stated (how cute, the red-eyed boy was sulking), coming to stand beside his blond teammate. "The main point of being chosen as a teacher is to teach. The students cannot be left to muddle their way through their genin years with only the little information they manage to work out themselves."

"Exactly!" Nagisa flailed her arms at both of them pointedly, "What Tobi-kun said!"

Tobirama nodded, arms crossing over his chest, "While this would be fine in most cases, as over ninety percent of genin are children from shinobi clans, you seemed to have forgotten that that is not the case in this situation."

"We're all orphans sensei," Nagisa pointed out, hand on her waist and lower lip poking out. "We don't have a clan to teach us. Everything we know, we either learned at the academy, or taught ourselves."

Oh shit, the eyes!

His petite student was staring up at him from under long lashes with big, hopeful blue eyes, and Kakashi knew his firm resolve to not give the old crusties on the Council what they wanted crumbled when Nagisa's lip trembled.

And Nagisa knew it too, because with a simple tilt of her head, the sunlight caught her eyes just right to make them sparkle.

Kakashi relented, "Mah mah~ you bring up good points." Sasuke's cough sounded suspiciously like weakling, but Kakashi decided to be the bigger person and not make the brat do pushups, instead- "How many of you know how to climb trees?"

I am so so so so so so sorry about making all of you wait for the next chapter that I have yet to provide. So I decided to give you a small little interlude while I'm mulling over how to write this fricking chapter.

Enjoy~