Funny, Shimura Tetsuo reflected Despite the fact that Hatake Kakashi rarely goes out to drink, almost every time I've met him is in a bar.
For some strange reason, instead of giving him, what was for Kakashi, a friendly greeting like he usually did, the man was glaring at him as if he'd just stole the last roll of toilet paper in the public restroom while he'd been using it, which was beyond evil in the ninja world where killing was as common as breathing, and toilet paper was something to be treasured because you couldn't always get your hands on it when you were out in the field,
"What'd I do?" he asked as he sat down next to the Hatake at the bar, wondering how he could've upset the man so badly.
"Nothing." the man replied, obviously still beyond upset at him, which was rather strange considering the fact that they'd gotten on well enough for the past two years, and they'd been on good terms when they'd most recently parted. They weren't the best of buddies, especially since he'd once conned a favor out of the man, but he'd thought it was safe to consider Kakashi to be amongst his circle of friends.
"What is this about then?" he asked, wondering what the hell was up with the other man who was still glaring at him.
"...Naruto." the Hatake eventually replied.
"That's funny, I came here to talk to you about something related to him." he said, hoping that he wasn't putting his foot in his mouth because Naruto had done something to the man that had upset him to the point that he was ready to take his anger out on anyone who was even tangentially related to the boy.
"What about?" the man who was sitting next to him, glaring at him while nursing his drink, asked sourly.
"How much vacation time can you take before it starts seriously eating into your savings?" he asked, hoping that he hadn't just wasted his breath, and quite possibly what little capital he had with the man.
"Quite a bit, why?" the Hatake asked almost suspiciously.
"Because I've got a team that I want to get ready for the Chunin Exams in two months, and I'm going to need some serious help." he replied, despite knowing that any efforts he'd make in this endeavor would most likely be futile, but holding out hope that there might be a slim chance that he could succeed, and that the Hatake would help him do it for Naruto. For some strange reason, the other Jounin had a soft spot for his student, or at least he usually did. Hopefully, because of that soft spot, the Hatake would get over whatever anger he had at Naruto and do what was best for the boy.
"Let me get this straight, you've got Naruto who's beyond ready to become a Chunin, the Rookie of the Year and this year's Top Kunoichi, and you need MY help to get them ready for something that should pretty much be in the bag if even half the things I've heard about the Uchiha are true?" the Hatake asked incredulously, his anger having apparently been replaced by shock.
"Normally, it would be in the bag, but one of the Instructors for this year's crop of Genin was a traitor, and I don't even know where to begin with what he left behind." he replied, feeling the weight of the challenge he'd taken upon himself begin to bear down on him once more. "Normally, I wouldn't have even tried this, and would've tossed the Uchiha and the Haruno back, but I promised Naruto that he wouldn't miss another Chunin Exam. It hurts to watch Naruto hurting over the fact that through no fault of his own, he's been left behind. I don't expect the pink haired girl and the Uchiha to become Chunin, but I do want them to be able to pull something approaching their own weight in the portions of the Exams that require a team when the time comes."
Apparently, if the expression on the visible portion of the Hatake's face was any indication, he'd found and said the magic words.
Naruto sighed as he waited for his sensei to arrive. He was unusually late which had him worried, since that was a sign that something might be seriously wrong. The last time that his sensei had been anywhere near this late had been when Kakashi had dragged him off on some stupid adventure. He wasn't entirely sure what had happened, but it had involved them tripping over the cats that the old lady over on Life street kept. Those things were vicious, and if you weren't careful around them, you could get seriously hurt. Fortunately, all of the old lady's little monsters were black, so there were few worries of running into a normal-looking cat and getting your face shredded for just looking at it. Normally, his sensei's tardiness wouldn't be too much of a problem because he had several independent study projects he could be working on, but today was different.
Today, he had new teammates. New teammates who were making absolutely no effort to get acquainted with him, or re-acquainted rather, since they'd known each-other back at the Academy. Neither Sakura, who seemed rather wary of him, nor Sasuke, who seemed to be lost in his own little world, had made any attempts at conversation with him since they'd arrived, and had stopped conversing with each-other for a while after Sasuke had shot Sakura down with as few words as possible.
"You know, you two are damned lucky." he said, breaking the silence after growing tired of watching Sasuke and Sakura who were both sitting far away from him, and making no attempts at communicating with him.
"How's that?" Sakura asked after flinching and jumping when he'd broken the silence, while Sasuke scowled at him.
"If this is how the two of you normally behave, you'd've bombed out on the final graduation test if you'd've been placed normally after graduation instead of filling the empty spaces on my team." he replied, wondering if Tetsuo-sensei's skipping the test for his sake had been worth it.
There was a look of confusion on both of their faces at this, the one on Sasuke's was less apparent however. Sasuke was a stuck up ass who saw just about everything as being beneath his notice, and it showed.
"But we passed..." Sakura started.
"You passed the test meant to weed out the hopeless incompetents." he replied. "After that, there is another test that the Jounin sensei gives that normally at least two-thirds of the students fail."
At this point Sasuke started muttering something about biased personality evaluations and how he'd've never failed them because everyone was too busy kissing up to him. That boy was a potential problem and he would have to keep an eye out for anything coming from his corner. This went so far beyond stuck-up that it wasn't even funny, and was probably a sign of something else, especially considering what happened to him four years ago.
"Do you know why at least two thirds of the class fails this test?" he asked, cutting across the Uchiha's pointless and nearly inaudible muttering.
"Why?" Sakura asked.
"Because the complete nincompoops who fail couldn't put aside their differences and work together as a team long enough to complete one measly mission." he replied, remembering the stories of what had happened before the teamwork portion of the Genin test had been instated a couple years after the founding of the Academy. "The final graduation test is based on teamwork. The first two portions of the Chunin Exams are almost always based on teamwork. Almost all of the missions given out in every last ninja village across the continent are assigned to a team."
"In the ninja world," he continued, noticing that Sakura at least was paying attention. "If you can't work on a team, you almost always either get someone, quite possibly yourself, killed or you get booted out because everyone refuses to work with you because they don't want themselves or their comrades dying needlessly because of something you've done. Those who think that they can take all of the glory for themselves, and that their teammates are holding them back, almost always either get themselves killed or their teammates killed in the long run. Enough things can go wrong on a normal mission, and we don't need the added complication of a "Lone Wolf" running around making things worse by destroying plans that would've otherwise worked had the entire team worked together."
Sakura looked appropriately chastened at this. Sasuke however, Sasuke had given him the handsign equivalent of "Whatever, I'm not listening to you.". Considering the boy's usual attitude, he probably wasn't even aware that he'd done it. Or, more likely, considering the crap people let him get away with because he was the "Poor orphaned Last of the Uchiha", he'd known full well what he'd done, and expected him to take it like everyone else did. Fat chance of that happening. If that boy didn't get an attitude adjustment soon, he was going to end up dead, and it would probably even be his own teammates who killed him.
Giving the Uchiha a look that clearly said "I'm not going to put up with your crap.", he replied with a rather vulgar handsign he'd picked up from a KMPF officer back before they'd all vanished. The other boy looked shocked for a moment, then there was an expression of "I can't believe he just said that" which was rapidly replaced with a look of anger. No, this went beyond anger and climbed the scale into absolute outraged fury. The pissed off Uchiha then launched himself at him, but in the instant before he reached where he was standing, waiting to defend himself, however, Hatake Kakashi, who'd just Shunshined in with Tetsuo-sensei, grabbed him out of the air, flung him to the ground, and restrained him.
"No trying to kill your teammates." Kakashi said to the boy who was pinned on the ground.
"Well, now that that's over." Tetsuo-sensei said, determinedly ignoring Sasuke who was pinned beneath Kakashi. "Go home and pack for an extended camping trip, and return here in three hours."
"How long will we be gone sensei?" Sakura asked, after actually raising her hand and waiting to be acknowledged by Tetsuo-sensei.
"Two months." Tetsuo-sensei replied, obviously having something planned, something that would most likely be highly unpleasant for all of them, like his team's first hundred-mile hike had been.
"But..." Sakura started, quite likely about to object to a Winter camping trip, which was an unpleasant prospect in and of itself.
"I've already okayed it with the Hokage." Tetsuo-sensei replied. "Now go home and pack."
He turned and headed back to his apartment in order to comply with Tetsuo-sense's orders, quietly hoping that he survived what was coming with what was left of his sanity intact. Two months in the wilderness with Kakashi and Tetsuo-sensei wouldn't be too bad. Two months with Haruno Sakura and his highness Uchiha Sasuke however...
Edited 10-04-12