Kakashi: Changes
The morning after team seven's return to Konohagakure from Wave country Kakashi got up early, had a quick breakfast and went outside to sit under one of the cherry trees in the soft dawn light. A great deal had happened while he was away that he needed to process.
Firstly, his fiancée had orchestrated Shimura Danzou's arrest on treason charges -among other things- and commandeered his ROOT division in its entirety for her own uses. The Hatake mansion now had a large barracks situated behind the main house and anonymous masked ninja came and went at all hours. Ame supposedly spent several hours each day putting them through deprogramming and rehabilitation, but Kakashi knew that only so much was possible for people as damaged as that. Plus the idea of Ame having what amounted to her own private army -however much he trusted and loved her- made him uneasy.
Secondly, the family member who had come to set a date for the wedding -ten days after the end of the second part of the chunnin exams- was none other than the jinchuuriki of the Gobi. The copy-nin was rather unsettled by having to share his home with someone who had fought for Iwa during the third shinobi war, but grudgingly recognised that neither he nor Han had had much choice in the matter. The Red Insanity was very large, very quiet and wore white garments that concealed his entire body and face, leaving only the area around his eyes uncovered. Kakashi recognised the silence of the uncomfortably-out-of-place and had let the man be. Over dinner the previous evening Ame had managed to get the former Rock nin to open up a little, but the conversation had remained in the 'safe' area of taijutsu styles and their strengths and weaknesses rather than anything remotely personal.
Thirdly and most nerve-rackingly for Kakashi was that the triplets in Ame's womb had turned, meaning that birth was immanent. Not tomorrow-immanent, but probably within the next month. His koi had gotten very large in the two-and-a-half weeks he'd been away and a lot moodier. In fact she had burst into tears as soon as Kakashi had walked through the front door of the mansion and hugged him tightly with tears running down her face, which had been confusing. After her outburst she had explained that this kind of behaviour was fairly normal given her advanced stage of pregnancy, but that hadn't made dealing with the aftermath of the short breakdown any less stressful.
The copy-nin sighed and stared up through the canopy above him at the pale blue sky, letting what tension that had survived the night drift away to the sound of birdsong. Concentrate on the positive.
A wedding date has finally been set, and at a time when most of Konoha's ninja will be in and around the village. Most if not all of those I consider friends will therefore be able to attend.
All the former ROOT shinobi -did she call them yuurei?- will be helping to keep her and the children safe. Their fanatical loyalty seems to have transferred neatly from Danzou to my dearest Ame-koi.
Han is much, much saner than I remember him being described as and considers himself Ame-chan's associate. Or more precisely an associate of her foster-father, whom she calls 'Aniki-tou-san' of all things. I wonder who that is; she's been very secretive of his true identity. I only know that he has a kekkai genkai and is technically a samurai, which is a fairly unusual combination. Said guardian also has a twin brother -'Aniki-ji-san'- who also has a kekkai genkai and is a ninja. Oh, and they are both in their mid thirties, since they are fourteen years older than Ame herself and she is a few months shy of being twenty.
The orphans she cares for will arrive before the wedding but hopefully after the birth; probably around the same time as the teams attending the chunnin exams or a little sooner. Although the idea of thirteen more children running around the place fills me with trepidation, Ame assures me that one of them is fifteen and one of the caretakers to the younger twelve. She also assured me that the next oldest three -and quite possibly the three after that- would be entering the Academy practically on arrival. That means that only six of them would be young enough to be underfoot all the time. Add on that the other two so-called 'designated carers' Ame applied for permits for and I probably won't be overexposed to totally uncontrollable small children not my own.
And best of all, I am actually going to be a father soon. I'm not sure whether I should celebrate or panic, so I'm just going to let it be. I do look forward to the challenge though; parenting is not something I've ever attempted before.
Kakashi sighed happily, closing his eye as the first rays of morning son burned through the dawn mist to penetrate the leafy canopy above him. He fully intended to enter team seven in the chunnin exams which were being held in Konoha barely two months ahead. Despite their relative inexperience they had all killed already, which set them ahead of the rest of their age-group. All three were determined and driven to succeed, whatever their reasons, so he saw no reason to hold them back from promotion. Most ninja never made it past chunnin or tokubetsu jounin, so it was best to get them through the exams as soon as humanly possible so they could gain real field experience and choose their own area to specialise in. I truly believe all of team seven will make it to jounin level though. They are exceptional shinobi.
Deciding to put them through the chunnin exams however meant that he would have to spent the time up until then making sure they really had what it took to make it to the final round, be it knowledge, strength or cunning.
Naruto is easy: he needs chakra control and a few more ninjutsu. Possibly elemental ninjutsu since he has power to burn and uses shadow clones in bulk. Sakura has chosen to concentrate on ijutsu and genjutsu, niether of which I can really help her with, but her taijutsu still needs honing. She also needs to learn to follow orders. Hm. She also needs to keep up her nawanuke and learn as much chi-mon as can be crammed into her skull. That should be sufficient.
Sasuke... tough one. I'll need to up his ninja-to training and teach him how to make full use of his sharingan. I can probably do those simultaneously, for efficiency's sake. I'll make him run laps around the village, too, since Uchiha are built with speed in mind. With weights on; Naruto can keep him company in that. His genjutsu's adequate, he can pick up and perfect his own ninjutsu now and he can spar more with Sakura and Naruto to keep his taijutsu progressing. With chi-mon in his own time, of course.
Decisions made, the copy-nin wandered back into the house to pick up a new volume of the orange-jacketed books Ame had set out for him in the study. He had his own shelf, which was gradually filling up with little volumes with deceptively decorated covers. He grabbed the nearest new one -Fooling the Brain: lighting-natured genjutsu- and set out, unmindful of the fact that it was half-past five in the morning and the only people up were either a) working; or b) Maito Gai. His dear students had had the previous afternoon off -debriefings didn't count- and needed to get used to the occasional early morning. Besides, unpredictability is much more fun than habitual tardiness. Why irritate them when you can screw with their heads?
He woke Sakura first, since she had actually been invited to stay the night in the Hatake compound by Ame, almost getting concussed by a flying fist before the kunoichi realised who he was. Leaving his mortified female student to dress and eat something the jounin went looking for Sasuke.
The Uchiha was deeply unimpressed by his usually tardy sensei's early-bird impression but nonetheless got moving. That achieved -the black-haired brat had surprisingly good security for a genin- Kakashi went looking for Naruto.
As it turned out the copy-nin did indeed have enough chakra to get through the jinchuuriki's security seal perimeter. He had not however expected to find two Naruto-clones already up and about, one cooking rice and chopping vegetables and the other taking notes from a fuuinjutsu manual.
"Ohayo sensei," the clone writing notes said distractedly. "Oyabun will be up in twenty minutes, tops. Don't bother talking to the kitchen-clone; it can't speak."
"How come?"
"Boss is experimenting. The guy in the kitchen has no imagination and a very low IQ: it can only just follow instructions. But on the plus side it is very physically resilient indeed. The original uses that type for chores, as punching bags and for target practice. They take six or more hits before dispelling and their low mental capacity makes the rebound far less painful."
"How different is their chakra intake?"
"Grunts or drones, as boss calls them, do use less chakra, but not much less. The chakra goes into enhancing physical density rather than creating a true copy, which results in mental retardation. Certain parts of the clones' brains -mainly the bits used in vocal articulation and higher level processing- are subsequently stunted. They aren't smart enough to work independently; they can't even achieve disobedience," the seated clone explained, eyes never leaving its work. "I'm a normal, fragile clone so please don't burst me. I've got enough chakra for another six hours and we need to get this book finished."
"Well Naruto needs to be up now rather than soon so I'm going to make that happen," Kakashi drawled, ambling over towards the bedroom.
"Throw something and he'll be vertical in seconds," the clone called after him.
The jounin took the kage bunshin's advice and threw a kunai into the wall to the right of the sleeping blond's head. As promised Naruto was upright, armed and searching for his assailant in under two seconds flat.
"We're starting early today," Kakashi said cheerfully as soon as the whisker-marked jinchuuriki recognised him and lowered the kunai. "Training ground seven in fifteen minutes; bring everything with you."
"Why?" the blond yawned, stumbling towards the bathroom.
"Intensive training," the jounin said vaguely. "Oh, and have your clones make enough bentos for everyone; we won't be stopping for lunch." He shunshined out, but not before hearing the clone sitting at the dining table mutter,
"Asshole."
Kakashi was tempted to go back in and pop the impertinent chakra construct, but decided against it. The bunshin was at least studying.
His students roused, the jounin made straight for the shinobi library and browsed the section open to everyone in the Academy or above. It was ironically the least used section, since it contained nothing at all pertaining to chakra other than theoretical studies and control exercises. The jutsu library was restricted to genin level and higher, but only contained E, D and C-ranked jutsu.
Kakashi found several large, dull and comprehensive volumes including the geology of the elemental nations, the botany of Fire, Grass, Waterfall and other minor nations, a compendium of species endemic to Lightning and a very thick one on the birds, reptiles and marine wildlife of the various archipelagos that made up Water country. There were entire shelves full of similar texts, so his genin would not be running out of study material any time soon.
He added the books to his tab, informed the early-shift librarian that his students would be coming in and out often -so don't you dare keep Naruto out being fairly clear subtext, almost to the point of being text- and sealed the volumes away in a scroll for ease of transport. That achieved, he set off for training ground seven.
By the time the copy-nin reached the little bridge where he usually met his team all three genin were already there, looking grumpy but sufficiently alert for not long past six in the morning.
"Greetings, my cute little students!" Kakashi said brightly. "Since you appear to have finally grasped the importance of proper teamwork I am going to make sure you never, ever forget it. It is now ten minutes past six; provided you are all still free and mobile at ten you will be granted individual tutoring in the fields you are best suited to. I will be hunting you down while you try and stay away from me, and should one of you lose you will all be doing nothing but endurance exercises. If you survive of course. What are you waiting for?"
Sasuke and Naruto each grabbed one of Sakura's arms and fled with her for the trees, the blond leaving half-a-dozen shadow clones in his wake to stall the jounin. Kakashi grinned evilly; it was on.
When ten o'clock finally arrived Kakashi was sore, tattered and slightly queasy. His genin on the other hand looked like they'd been fed through a mincer. Sasuke had electric burns up past the elbow of his left arm, which hung limply from his shoulder, heavy bruising all up his right side, more bleeding cuts than could be easily counted and a twisted ankle. Sakura had a bloody knot on her forehead, a badly skinned shin and forearm and several cracked ribs. Naruto's skin appeared unmarked but his clothing was ripped and bloodstained, evidence of wounds that had already closed, and his right eye wasn't focusing properly.
"Congratulations on surviving," Kakashi told them. "your teamwork is much better than it used to be, but there is still plenty of room for improvement-"
Naruto groaned, clutching his skull. Sakura swayed, breaths short and pained. Sasuke shuddered, burnt fingers spasming.
"-so we'll be working on that another day. Now let's all get to the hospital and get you fixed up so we can continue training."
The three genin stumbled after their sensei, leaning unashamedly on eachother for support.
"Tha' was... hell!" Sakura gasped. "Ka'shi-sensei... 's crazy!"
"Shh, he'll hear you," Sasuke muttered, wincing as he tried not to put his weight on his damaged ankle.
"Cound'a been worse:" Naruto groaned, eyes crossing, "he went easy on us. Let us regroup and everything. We could'a been creamed."
"I'm glad you realise that," the jounin said brightly. "I am training you after all, not trying to kill you. Be aware that each time we repeat this exercise I will be harder on you than the time before."
The chorus of frightened whimpers and pained moans told him the message had gotten through.
oyabun = boss
chi-mon = geography and related subjects
A/N: Kakashi gets serious. Team seven get beaten up. I have now published over 100,000 words; go me!
A/N2: A lot of chapters are getting published in a hurry at the moment because I've got time to type them up and a considerable buffer. However my muse is as temperamental as she is generous; this may not last. On that note, many thanks Fayth85 for your kind words and to marc(), invisible-gurl and Bad Habits for their frequent encouragement! Reviews are food for hungry muses!