Chapter 33

Beta'd by Black Sparrow

On the next morning Kakashi felt raw from talk about his old team the night before and distracted himself by spending some time with Hinako in the garden playing hide and seek before he made his way to the training grounds. Shiori had prepared four Bentos for him and his team in the morning and then had left for the tea house very early.

Anko and Yugao arrived shortly before half past ten to spend the rest of the day in the Hatake household and watch over Hinako until her parents returned.

Shiori stretched her arms before she looked upwards at the ninja working on the outer wall of the upper floors; they were making a lot of progress and should be finished sometime today. In the last month Shiori had stopped the renting contract with the owner of the building and had outright bought it. Because of the excellent location and the amount of money she had been making from the clearly well visited tea house the buying price had risen quite a lot since she had started her business there. This had forced her to take out a loan because most of her money was frozen in investments and not very accessible at the moment. Shiori hadn't liked this situation but she had gritted her teeth and signed the documents for the loan, it would not only cover the building costs but also the ones for the renovations and modifications she wanted. Civilian workers and ninjas were now in the process of changing the upper floors into sky lounges with reflecting and reinforced glass panels. Shiori had demanded that doors would be integrated into the sky lounge design so that the ninja didn't even have to jump off the roof to enter it.

The construction on Mariko's had attracted quite a lot of attention from all over Konoha, the expansion and rehiring process would make Mariko's the biggest tea house in Konoha. Additionally she also was a major commissioner for the Fuinjutsu department in Konoha; besides the normal security and privacy seals she also had them reinforcing the building structure and foundation to make it as quake secure as possible. As reason she had indicated that she felt somewhat unsure about the stability of her business because of the many glass panels she wanted, though in truth Shiori hoped to prevent the destruction of her tea house during the Sound invasion with those seals, or to at least minimize it.

In the evening of the bell test day Kakashi returned clearly exasperated from his Genin team and bemoaned the fact that his students while in the end getting the lesson took two tries to get the message of teamwork. And even than it had been more out of pure luck and the fact that Kakashi had to train Sasuke that they had passed than anything else. He also lamented the fact that with the exception of the Uchiha the other two had problems with the basics and would need some serious remedial lessons. While he removed his weapons the silver haired Jounin promised darkly that he would put them through the wringer to get them up to standards.

Shiori tried to feel for Kakashi and his dilemma but in the end had too much fun laughing at his misery; she took the team photograph out of his hands and looked at it.

"So it is really Uzumaki Naruto that is on your team, I had wondered when you said Naruto yesterday," Shiori stated while she traced the faces on the photograph.

"You know Naruto?" Kakashi asked quite curious.

"Yes the brat is once or twice a week at the tea house to get either takeaway or eat there, it's my opportunity to force as many vegetables down his throat as possible," Shiori said grinning.

"I have never seen him there," Kakashi murmured.

"That's not so strange because you come at completely different times, and also sit at completely different corners now that I think about it," Shiori supplied thoughtfully before her eyes wandered back to the photo. "Hhm I have seen Sasuke also more than a few times but I have never spoken to him, he always gets takeout and leaves as fast as possible. Oh and Sakura also has been at Mariko's once or twice as far as I can remember, always with some of her girlfriends."

Kakashi simply nodded at that and then watched while his wife placed the photo in a frame and put it on the long Mokuton shelf that spanned the whole wall and contained some family pictures, photos from their friends as well as his old Genin teams photograph. Kakashi had retrieved it in the morning from his dusty flat and had carefully placed it beside the one with a six month old Hinako in it. Additionally there were also the small presents Kakashi had started to bring back from different countries, which had led to Shiori developing a weakness for extravagant tea cups from around the Elemental countries.

"So… now that they are officially your team are you introducing them to Hinako and me?" the black haired civilian asked curiously.

Since their wedding Kakashi had introduced her to only nine ninja, his ANBU team included, though she knew that he had been brushing up on his other contacts in the last few months. Shiori wasn't sure why he was doing this but trusted her husband to tell her if something was wrong.

"Hhm I want to wait for a bit until I know that they can keep quiet about you and Hina-chan," Kakashi said decisively before he walked into the library and returned with a recently purchased storybook for ninja kids around the age of five.

Shiori nodded in acceptance, as much as she wanted to see his Genins faces when they realized that their sensei had a family, she really didn't want to endanger Hinako with a careless word from one of the two loudmouths on Kakashi's team.

"I also want them to develop at least some kind of teamwork before meeting you; I fail to see why you have to put up with their bickering. If they annoy me enough I might even adopt some of Minato-sensei's training methods," the silver haired Jounin further elaborated.

After arranging the frames a bit while she laughed, Shiori returned to the couch and took a happy Hinako from Kakashi's lap.

Shiori kissed her daughter's cute face and then told her in a conspiratorial voice, "You hear that Hina-chan? Daddy is a meanie and enjoys making his minions… eh I mean students suffer."

Kakashi grinned amused at his wife and daughter while he tugged at Hinako's feet and then playfully bit her tiny toes before he said, "Don't listen to Mummy she finds this just as funny as me."

Their daughter laughed and shrieked while she tried to wriggle out of the hold of both of her parents, babbling her delight.

Now that Hinako didn't need twenty four hour supervision anymore Shiori felt secure enough to leave her more and more often in the company of only just Kakashi's ninken when she was occupied with something else in the house. Her husband's canine partners were thankfully infinitively gentle with the sometimes still very rough Hinako. To be honest Shiori felt also a lot better when one of the dogs had an eye on her while Hinako went on one of her adventures and explored the rooms on the first floor or a part of the garden. Kakashi and Shiori had had to child proof the first floor a few weeks back after their curious daughter had nearly tumbled down the stairs to the cellar and were now in the middle of completing the second. They had caught Hinako trying to climb out of her crib and they both knew that it was only a matter of time for their first born to find a way out of her room.

Thankfully Kakashi was now a lot more at home thanks to the team training and the D-rank missions they had to complete around the village and so also could keep an eye on their active daughter. Shiori had laughed tears while Kakashi described the latest escapade of Team Seven to his wife. The silver haired Jounin sensei had with quiet horror admitted that his Genin team had probably the worst luck in the whole Fire country concerning missions.

What was even funnier than listening to the despairing Hatake, was when all four Genin senseis were present and they tried to outdo each other with comical situations or mishaps during team training and on missions. Suffice to say that Shiori and the rest of their friends enjoyed those sessions immensely. Especially Anko and Genma laughed tears alongside the black haired civilian and they couldn't decide if a Genin team was the worst or the funniest thing that could happen to a Jounin. Either way the group had probably more fun than what was appropriate during those evenings.

Whenever their friends visited they also marveled about the leaps and bounds Hinako made in her development. She was now speaking in basic sentences with very few grammar mistakes and was learning that certain actions had certain effects. The smart little silver haired girl was now trying out her puppy dog eyes on her uncles and aunts with varying effects and was learning to go to certain people for certain things.

Especially Anko had been watching this morbidly fascinated since the toddler had started with it and even took some notes to document her behavior around people. It was also the Intelligence specialist that brought up teaching their fifteen month old daughter how to read as early as possible. At first Shiori had been quite against this, she had feared that they were forcing too much too fast on her little baby girl. It had taken Anko and Kakashi quite some time to calm her down and promise her that learning how to read basic words wouldn't overwhelm the toddler as long as they did it in careful dosages. Since then Kakashi and Shiori had taken turns at reading children books with Shiori while tracing the Kanji they were reading at that moment. Shiori relaxed further as she noticed that Hinako really seemed to enjoy those reading sessions and would often toddle into the library after dinner to point out one of her books to them.

These daily reading sessions also forced Kakashi to communicate more vocally with their daughter, he had never said a lot to her. Instead he had loved to listen to her when she babbled, cooed and stumbled over words, those were the most relaxing sounds for him after an exhausting mission.

Concerning his Genin team Kakashi seemed to take a more proactive approach then in the anime of which Shiori knew, she couldn't tell exactly because she was sure there was quite a time skip between the first few Anime episodes. In this world the silver haired Jounin started with correcting Naruto's taijutsu and increasing Sakura's workout, while Sasuke was given speed training and Kata repetitions. But even if he did train his students, the three teenagers didn't seem to get what their sensei was trying to convey with it. Kakashi had come home more than once exasperated at the bickering and screeching teenagers that tested his hearing daily.

After another evening on which Kakashi was close to pouting Shiori finally had enough. She had had a pretty stressful day behind her and Hinako hadn't been very obedient either, their little daughter had started to question each and every decision Shiori made a few days earlier and Shiori hadn't quite figured out yet how to deal with that.

"Kakashi! Tell them what you want from them. They are teenagers. You will have to hit them over the head with the truth for them to understand, ninja or not," came the exasperated answer from Shiori.

Kakashi stilled and completely turned around to look at Shiori attentively, his wife was clearly aggravated but what she was saying had merit.

"You think so?" he asked interested.

"Yes. Kakashi they are thirteen years old and not you or me. You already went through a war at that time and I had to deal with my whole family dying in one year, escape from a marriage, travel across Fire Country alone and then I had to build up a life in a shinobi village that was at least two hundred times as big as my birth village, where I knew nobody. It was daunting, it was terrifying but we both gritted our teeth and got through it. Those kids have no idea what growing up means yet, not in the way that we had to. Sasuke is probably the most mature of the lot because of the murder of his family but even he was not shoved into cold water afterwards and had to deal with figuring out everything for himself," Shiori tried to explain more.

"So I should just tell them everything right out? Minato sensei always talked in riddles and had me figure things out," Kakashi tried to argue.

"Yes anata, but you are a genius and I'm sure your sensei knew it too and did it as a way to stimulate your intellect. And while your Genins will pick up some of it eventually it won't do any good right now," Shiori stated.

"Hhm… maybe you are right," Kakashi said thoughtfully.

At least he would have to try out Shiori's method; the Jounin knew that he couldn't leave the situation as it was right now.