Kakashi: Discovery

Hatake Kakashi was disappointed by two thirds of his prospective genin team. Sakura, when presented with a fairly obvious if traumatic genjutsu featuring her crush, had just fainted dead away. So much for being the brightest girl in her year. Sasuke, while considerably more competent in the formal ninja arts than Sakura or even Naruto, had completely missed the test's objective. Though the boy had conceded a willingness to work with 'the dobe' on the basis that the other boy 'wasn't as useless as he looked'. Unfortunately Naruto's unconsciousness made the point moot; they couldn't have teamed up anyway.

Naruto had actually achieved both the objectives of the bell test: he had retrieved a bell and worked flawlessly with his shadow clones. Kakashi had to concede that it had been a brilliant way to achieve the test's objectives without team-mates, a loophole he hadn't been aware of. Then again, most genin lack the chakra reserves for even one kage bunshin. So do most chunnin, for that matter. Kakashi paused, his brain ferreting out in minutes a relevant detail that had evaded the academy senseis for most of four years. No wonder the kid can't do normal clones. He's got more chakra as a genin than two kages and almost no control.

When the timer rang Kakashi tied Sakura to the central post then nudged the still unconscious Naruto with his foot.

Naruto's response was not entirely unexpected; he was on his feet in an instant, kunai in hand. Kakashi noted again that the short blond was faster than he looked.

Naruto blinked wide, blessedly blue eyes. "Ano..?" He gazed up at his new sensei, swallowed hard, pocketed the kunai and bowed low. "Gomen nasai, Hatake-san. My loss of control was inexcusable."

The journin blinked at the uncharacteristically quiet formal tones and very polite words. He waved a hand at the blonde. "Maa, don't worry about it; forgiven, forgotten. We all have hot buttons."

"What's with that dobe?" Sasuke inquired, his body language screaming curiosity.

"The Uzumaki clan has berserker blood somewhere up the family tree," Naruto said shortly, sitting on the grass with a subdued look on his usually cheery face. "I very rarely lose my temper but when I do it gets... messy. I'm not fully conscious and rational when it happens."

A berserker jinchuuriki. Kakashi suppressed the urge to scream in frustration. My life is complete. How did I ever survive without all these responsibilities? "Well," the journin said, "I would like to say that -while Naruto did manage to take a bell- you all missed the point of the test entirely. He and Sasuke should probably go back to the academy and Sakura should just give up entirely. You have all failed to grasp one of the most basic concepts every ninja needs to know."

"Wha- what! The baka got a bell?" Sakura screeched, wriggling against her bindings. "Sasuke's way better than he is!"

"And yet, Naruto got the bell," Kakashi said cheerfully. "What does that tell you about Sasuke's priorities?"

"Hn," the Uchiha grunted.

"It's teamwork isn't it sensei?" Naruto said. "You wanted to see if we could overcome our individual desires and work towards a common goal."

"Well, isn't that interesting; the dead-last figured out the bell test. They clearly aren't teaching you the right lessons in the academy if Naruto is the one who passes," Kakashi said dryly, goading the other two. "Didn't you miss half your classes last year, Naruto?"

"I was repeating the year, sensei; I knew what the lessons were already," the blonde replied snarkily. "Besides, the last six years of you failing teams tells me that this lesson isn't taught at the academy."

"True. Now I should just fail the lot of you, but Naruto going berserk made it impossible for you to even try to pass the test so I'll let you have another shot after lunch. However, since Sakura was spectacularly useless this morning she doesn't get any lunch. Am. I. Quite. Clear?" The last sentence was spoken threateningly as he loomed over his genin. Was I ever that tiny?

"Hai," Sasuke muttered.

"Arigatou, sensei," Naruto said, so quietly Kakashi almost missed it. How had so many ninja managed to miss what was underneath Naruto's loud mask? Scratch that; how did they miss that the loud, attention-seeking behaviour was a mask? This is basic ninja deception detection skills! The journin shunshined away into a tree to watch his team's reactions. Hopefully they'll get it. Naruto needs a journin-sensei since there is no way he can be allowed to remain a civilian and he's been in the academy too long as it is.

Naruto and Sasuke both opened their bentos and started eating, Sakura watching mournfully from where she was tied to the post.

"Sasuke," Naruto said, pausing conversationally two thirds of the way through his lunch, "remember what happened the last two times we considered doing what our sensei told us to do?"

Sasuke paused, chopsticks suspended over his bento. "Hn."

"Exactly. I think he is trying to get us to think for ourselves through sheer frustration."

The Uchiha grunted again, head on one side.

"You too, huh? Well, Sakura will be even more useless if she hasn't eaten anything."

"I. Am. Not. Useless!" the pink haired girl hissed, drooping a bit as her stomach roared.

"Yes, you are," Sasuke said flatly, making Kakashi wince in his hiding place. "Eat something."

Sakura blinked slowly then brightened, eyes shining in rabid worship. "Sasuke-kun! You're so kind!" she squealed. "I..." she looked down at her arms, firmly lashed to her sides by the rope holding her against the post, "I can't use my arms. Sasuke-kun, would you..?" She batted her eyelashes at the boy.

"No," the Uchiha said, his tone forbidding protest.

"Here, Sakura-chan," Naruto said brightly, holding out a rice ball gripped between his chopsticks, "open wide!"

Kakashi watched for a few minutes as Naruto fed Sakura the remains of his and Sasuke's lunches, pondering the dynamic of the blond and brunet comedy duo. For all his apparent denseness, Naruto understands Sasuke and can read him easily, drawing him out with little effort. Sasuke, for all hostility, actually respects Naruto just enough to listen to what he says and take his opinions seriously.

This may work after all. Team seven lives!

Kakashi shunshined down to the posts, scowling thunderously "YOU..."

...he paused dramatically...

"...pass." He eye-smiled at his gob-smacked little genin. "Before now you just did what I told you" -mostly- "like good little automatons. But you are shinobi, not robots, and a ninja's duty is to look underneath the underneath, seeing what is hidden with clear eyes."

Kakashi walked over to the memorial stone and pointed at it. "This is where the names of Konoha's heroes are written. They all have one thing in common: they died protecting this village. The name of my best friend is on this stone." He turned to look at his new team -team seven reborn; what do you think Obito, Sensei?- and met each genin's eyes sternly. "You are team-mates, comrades, and I expect you to look out for each-other. Those who break the rules may be trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash." He paused, taking in their reactions.

Sakura looked slightly dazed, probably because she'd just eaten for the first time in almost twenty four hours. I have to get her to stop dieting; Maybe Ame-koi can help?

Sasuke looked thoughtful. The Uchiha clearly accepted Naruto as a comrade, meaning getting him to work with the team would be far easier than the journin had initially feared.

Naruto was clearly both determined and excited, eager to have comrades -friends?- for what was probably the first time in his life. I may have failed him up until now, Sensei, but I will make up for it.

"Meet me back here at nine tomorrow morning for team training and your first mission," Kakashi said, waving goodbye to his genin and shunshining off to the hokage's tower to report.

In the Sandaime's office all the journin who had tested teams were standing around, having to take it in turns to tell the hokage who had passed and who had failed.

"So Kakashi, did -what happened to you?" the Sandaime asked, lowering in his surprise at the copy-nin's tattered and singed appearance.

"My new students," Kakashi replied shortly, acutely aware of his slashed journin vest, sleeves torn to ribbons and the cuts and superficial burns decorating every inch of exposed skin. "Team seven pass."

"Did one of them ambush you with explosive tags?" Sarutobi Asuma, journin-sensei to the new team ten, asked. His amusement at the copy-nin's bedraggled appearance was tangible.

"It turns out that Uzumaki Naruto learned bunshin bakuha as well as kage bunshin during his little adventure with the forbidden scroll," Kakashi replied evenly, wishing he'd had the presence of mind to change before reporting in. It wasn't like they would have commented on his being late. "He gave me a good run for my money. I'm amazed he didn't graduate earlier, considering that the only reason he can't perform bunshin is his frankly ridiculous chakra capacity. Speaking of which; might I have a word with you in private after the meeting, Sandaime-sama?"

"Bunshin bakuha?" Yamashiro Aoba, one of the journin who had failed his team, asked incredulously. "Hell, I don't have the chakra for that!"

"Blew me up, cut me up, mobbed me with shadow clones and came damn close to disemboweling me," Kakashi responded coolly, fingering the low, jagged rip in his journin vest. "I should have remembered that Uzumakis were famous for their explosive tempers before provoking him."

Yuuhi Kurenai's red eyes widened; as a journin level kunoichi she had investigated the handful of famous female journin Konoha had produced. "Naruto-kun is a berserker? Like the Akashi was?"

There was an electrified pause. Kakashi was glad he wasn't the only one to find the idea of the cheerful blond being a berserker irrationally scary. Then again, he is a jinchuuriki. So perhaps it's not irrational at all.

"Only slightly," Kakashi said once he felt he'd spooked his fellow journin enough. "But enough that I had to work at not inflicting lethal blows. One does not expect a green genin to actually try to kill you when provoked."

"Quite," the hokage said dryly. "This meeting is over. Kakashi, please remain."

After the other journin had filed out and the Sandaime had activated the seals of the privacy jutsu Kakashi started talking in earnest:

"Uzumaki Naruto had his first kill aged eleven; probably not long after failing his first graduation exam. The person killed was a rapist attacking a maiko Naruto knew and was friends with. As a result of this experience he reacted very badly when I started reading Icha Icha during the bell test. By 'very badly' I mean he went half-berserk and tapped into the Kyuubi. Considering how furious he was, I'm amazed he didn't alert half the village with his outburst."

"He tapped into the power of the bijuu because you were reading Icha Icha?" the hokage repeated faintly, no doubt concerned for his own stash of little orange books.

"I suspect the rapist he killed mentioned Icha Icha or had some easily recognised connection to it. That could explain Naruto's development of a thought process that seems to go: Icha Icha = pervert = that rapist = kill; though that really needs to be investigated," Kakashi admitted. "As for the fox, Naruto's eyes went red and slitted, his whisker-marks deepened and his fingernails sharpened to claws. Towards the end of the fight he manifested a thin red chakra shroud covering his entire body-" the copy-nin's left hand twinged, the youki burns making themselves felt "-at which point I used my sharingan to give me an edge and knock him out. When he woke up again half an hour later he was very quiet, polite and deeply apologetic." The journin paused. "Why was none of this in his file? The kill occurred almost two years ago and Naruto knew he had berserker tendencies so how did the academy sensei's miss it? How did the village's entire ninja population miss the fact that Naruto goes completely berserk when sufficiently angered, especially considering how the civilians treat him? The boy must have the patience of a saint!" Kakashi reigned in his temper. Shouting at the hokage wouldn't help. "He is also far more observant and intuitive than his profile indicates. Not very book-smart, but acutely aware of his surroundings and fellow ninja. In light of these discoveries I suspect his latest graduation exam was not the first time his education has been sabotaged."

"I will have to investigate that myself," Sarutobi Hiruzen growled, radiating KI at the idea of the boy he loved like a grandson -and had already suffered so much- having his education sabotaged.

"I suspect willful neglect more than anything else, hokage-sama. I do believe that there is a third party bolstering his education, however: he is highly proficient at calming his chakra through meditation and brought a well-used bokken to the training field. He also knows a lot about the Uzumaki clan and seems to have access to material not publicly available within the village."

"What else?" The Sandaime looked very old and tired when confronted with the sudden influx of new information that mocked him with how little he really knew about Uzumaki Naruto.

"He has no genuine interest in Haruno Sakura and gets on well enough with Uchiha Sasuke for the latter to consider Naruto's opinions and factor them into his decisions," Kakashi replied. "Likes geisha, doesn't like prejudice or wilful blindness. Wants to fulfil his potential and become the greatest hokage ever."

"Thank-you Kakashi, you have given me a great deal to think about."

"Just get that file updated; the information that isn't in it nearly got me killed since I wasn't expecting an intelligence failure inside the village."

"We may have become complacent; I'll have to investigate that, too."

Kakashi tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Permission to investigate the Hanamachi in search of information pertaining to Uzumaki Naruto's first kill, hokage-sama?"

"Granted," the Sandaime sighed. "Thank-you for passing him."

"He actually got a bell, hokage-sama," Kakashi eyesmiled. "and he's a good ninja. I'll have to get some different reading material, though."

Notes

jinchuuriki = power of human sacrifice; a person who is sacrificed for the good of his or her village by having a bijuu sealed within them

bijuu = a tailed beast; sentient chakra constructs that assume the form and behavior patterns of various animals. The number of tails indicates a power hierachy; nine in total

bokken = wooden blade used in kenjutsu practice to prevent severe injuries. Can be a lethal weapon in its own right if properly wielded

hanamachi = flower district; area dominated by pleasure-related businesses, mainly geisha

A/N: Kakashi proves himself a more competent ninja and sensei than the entire academy chunnin population put together and gets to meet the Real Naruto.