I'm SOOO glad that my exams are over, I slept nearly 12 hours straight after the last one.

Hinako: 15 months
Sakura: 13 (March Birthday)
Sasuke, Naruto: 12 (July, October)
Shiori: 21
Yugao: 21
Hayate: 22
Tenzo: 23
Anko: 24
Kakashi, Gai: 26
Asuma, Kurenai: 27
Genma: 29
Raido: 32

Chapter 32

Beta'd by Black Sparrow

Shiori Interlude

On the day he met his team for the first time Kakashi used the morning to play with Hinako just like he always did before Shiori shooed him out of the house because he was already two hours late for his appointment at the academy.

When he returned in the early evening Kakashi was in a strangely melancholic mood and even Hinako's babbling and questions only elicited a small smile while they were having dinner. Their smart daughter recognized that something wasn't right with Kakashi and so she curled up on his lap after eating and gave him one of her still somewhat clumsy toddler hugs. The silver haired Jounin pulled her closer and burrowed himself in her hair and neck to inhale her baby smell until she drifted off to sleep. Without a word he carried her upstairs before he returned to the living room and sank onto the couch once more. Shiori had finished the dishes in the meantime, it was normally Kakashi's duty but her husband seemed to be so out of it that she wordlessly took over the chore. Shiori dried her wet hands before she joined the silver haired Jounin on the couch and curled up in the crook of his arm.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" she asked quietly while she softly traced his pectorals through mesh and the black turtleneck shirt.

Kakashi sighed while he pulled her closer and buried his nose in her hair. He didn't answer for some time before his deep voice sounded once more.

"I have never told you about my own Genin team have I?" the Sharingan user asked distracted while he was engrossed in his memories.

As an answer Shiori just shook her head and closed her eyes while she concentrated on her husband's voice.

"My sensei was Namikaze Minato, Konoha's Yondaime… he was an absolutely brilliant man. Then there were my teammates Uchiha Obito and Nohara Rin…" Kakashi trailed off while his eyes became distant, "I was a right bastard at that time, completely immersed in the shinobi rules of conduct and cold and brash to my teammates. Minato-sensei had been my teacher since I was five and suddenly there were two more who wanted his attention. Rin was bearable, her crush on me was annoying but she wasn't in my face with it and she was a fairly competent kunoichi and even more so as medic nin. Obito on the other hand was always late, a gofer and barely above average in skills and so very, very different from the typical Uchiha… let's just say we clashed… a LOT."

Shiori hmmed while her hand kept tracing some simple patterns on Kakashi's abdominals.

"We had a little bit less than four years together…" Kakashi started but couldn't continue.

The black haired civilian felt the shinobi's careful controlled rise and fall of his torso while she continued to reassuringly trace his upper body.

"It was during the last months of the Third Shinobi War, I was thirteen at the time and I was placed as team leader because I just passed my Jounin exams and sensei was called back to the frontlines to help out." Kakashi took another shuddering breath before he continued; his voice had become carefully blank and monotone, "We were infiltrating Kusagakure to destroy the Kannabi Bridge and cut off the supply chain for Iwa… but we were discovered by Iwa nin and they kidnapped Rin… I wanted to continue the mission instead of going after her. Obito shouted at me before taking off after Rin… I… his words woke me up and I followed him. We found Rin's kidnappers and in the following skirmish I lost my left eye… Obito activated his Sharingan and we got the Iwa-asshole… but as revenge he brought down the cave on us in his last moments… Obito, that idiot pushed me out of the way and got caught under the rocks… he was still alive but we couldn't move the rocks off of him and the rest of the cave was coming down… he gave me his eye, his Sharingan as a present for my Jounin promotion… Rin replanted it in my eye socket and then we had to run to get out of the damn cave," Kakashi's voice had broken a tiny bit at the end of the sentence and he was now visibly struggling with his composure.

Shiori listened attentively while her husband spoke… the exact details of his story were pretty new to her. After Eliza graduated college and started to work in 2005 she had to drastically reduce her Naruto intake. She had gleaned most of her knowledge about the Naruto verse from fanfictions as well as the occasional subtitled videos on the internet. So her thirdhand knowledge about this world's timeline was a lot vaguer than Shiori would have liked.

"This was pretty much the beginning of the end. Yes we finished the mission and destroyed the Kannabi Bridge but we lost Obito. The Uchiha clan gave me a lot of grief about Obito's eye but I could keep it thanks to sensei's intervention. The war was still going on for a time and so we kept running missions with other ninja. It… Rin died not even half a year later… she was kidnapped by Kirigakure nin this time… they, they made her into a Jinchuuriki with a faulty seal, so that the Three Tails would be set free in the middle of Konoha… She begged me to kill her but I refused… I couldn't… I wouldn't not after Obito, not after promising him to take care of her." Kakashi's voice was now nothing else but a light whisper in the room, Shiori had to concentrate to hear him, "We were chased by Kiri nin, probably to have us return even faster to Konoha… when we were attacked again Rin impaled herself on my Chidori, the lighting attack that I invented," the last part was spat out with a bitterness that Shiori had never heard in Kakashi before, "… and finally sensei, he had become Hokage shortly before Rin's death, Konoha was finally recovering… and then the Nine-Tails happened one year into his reign."

The black haired civilian stopped tracing his torso and settled her hand a bit above his heart while she tried to find words and fell short.

After some time she finally said, "Tell me about the good times."

"The good times?" Kakashi choked.

"Yes, tell me about your training under your sensei," Shiori insisted.

"Minato-sensei was… I can't even describe. He was a genius and he always started our training with an all out spar. When Rin and Obito joined us when we were nine he was adamant that we practiced teamwork as much as possible. Today I understand but then... I was pretty arrogant thinking that I wouldn't need the help of my team." Kakashi sighed before his lips twitched up into a tiny smirk, "I can remember how frustrated I was that every time we didn't work together flawlessly sensei bound Obito and me together by our ankles and made us run rounds around Konoha until we collapsed in exhaustion, or something similar with sit-ups, pushups or chin-ups… now that I think back Minato-sensei was quite sadistic for such a nice guy."

Shiori snorted lightly before she stretched and kissed him on the cheek. Kakashi's lips twitched and he bent down to kiss her properly.

"Feeling better?" the dark haired woman asked while her eyes became soft once more.

To be honest Shiori wasn't sure what to make out of this situation. It seemed as if her marriage to Kakashi and the birth of their daughter had led to Kakashi confronting his past and starting to accept it instead of just ignoring his state of mind as best as he could.

Kakashi contemplated her question for a moment before he nodded still somewhat unsure.

"Good, now tell me what brought this on," Shiori kept prodding, Kakashi needed to talk about this.

"The brats, they are… they have certain characteristics that mirror my old Genin team," Kakashi tried to explain.

"Oh?" his wife said while she raised an eyebrow.

"Naruto is a lot like Obito, loud and boisterous, a bit stupid and has a crush on his female teammate. Sakura, well from what I could glean from the reports she is pretty intelligent, has excellent chakra control and has a crush on her broody teammate, though she is as obvious as you can get. And finally Sasuke… he reminds me a lot of me, silent, arrogant and angry," Kakashi finally elaborated.

"Arrogant and angry? You must have grown out of it since your Genin time then," Shiori murmured quietly while she contemplated what she had just heard.

Beside her Kakashi chuckled, he was torn between being bitter and amused, "I had a long time to think about my actions and the consequences."

"Will you tell me one day why you were this rule obsessed and angry?" the blue eyed woman asked tentatively.

Kakashi stiffened before he forced himself to relax his muscles once more. "Maybe someday," he acquiesced.

Shiori just nodded to this before changing the topic and asking curiously, "So how will you train them?"

At this Kakashi grinned at her before he mischievously answered, "They aren't Genin yet, first they have to pass my test tomorrow."

"Do I want to know what you are planning?" the young mother asked amused.

"Hhm, I'm going to check their skills in a three to one battle tomorrow… after I leave them to wait on me for a few hours and on an empty stomach," the last part was chuckled in unholy glee.

"Kakashi! You are making them fight on an empty stomach? That is really mean," Shiori tried to say with a straight face before she burst into giggles.

Oh she remembered that particular day VIVIDLY especially Naruto's taijutsu lesson had never failed to make Eliza laugh.

Kakashi looked down at his wife while she gave into her urge to laugh. He didn't like to admit it but he did feel better after telling her about his team. His mind felt lighter and while the pain had turned into a hollow feeling some years ago felt sharper once more it didn't bother him that much. To be honest it was a welcome change in comparison to the numbness he had experienced during the later years of his ANBU career.

Kakashi had never really talked about his team with anyone other than during the mandatory sessions with the special division that dealt with the psychological problems of the elite nin.

The silver haired Jounin grudgingly had to admit that they had a purpose other than being the bane of existence for the black op corps. Their job was it to catch mental breakdowns early enough to either head them off or deal with them in a controlled environment and far away from a potentially important mission. They were also responsible for breaking their fellow Konoha ninja and then putting them back together once more should they need it; especially the Yamanaka clan had proven handy at that.

Throughout his years in ANBU service Kakashi had belonged to the curious group of the functional insane ones. It meant that while he had psychological problems he had a tight enough control over them that they didn't hinder his missions and so didn't warrant one of the shrink bastards, as the ANBU corps affectionately called them, to break him yet.

And now in one evening Shiori had unconsciously done what a whole team of elite shinobi had tried to do for about ten years. She had pried the festering wound open and while it fucking hurt he could practically feel how the pus was slowly draining away. Yes it was uncomfortable and he had no idea how long or even if this wound would heal someday but Kakashi felt strangely inclined to at least try and put his fucked over childhood and teenage years behind him, if not for himself then for his family.

Coming out of his realization the Hatake could only stare at the white wall in thoughtfulness, maybe talking about the old Team Seven wasn't such a bad idea as he had suspected. Hell, Obito would have probably kicked his ass for being such a coward, the former ANBU captain thought wryly.

A bittersweet smile stole itself on his face, Obito. What would the loudmouth's reaction have been to him being saddled with a Genin team? He probably would have laughed at his misfortune before reminiscing about their own Genin days before turning red and promptly trying to forget about all the times when he put his foot in his mouth. Now that Kakashi thought about it he snorted lightly, oh there was some pretty funny stuff that had happened throughout their missions. Obito stumbling into the female section of a bath house was only the tip of the iceberg.

With a still shaky smile Kakashi turned back to Shiori. "You know there was this one time we had to escort a whole merchant family to the coast and…"