Hi guys,

I have to apologize for the lack of updating yesterday but I fear it's going to be the norm for the better part of this week *sigh*- one of my colleagues got seriously ill on Friday and since then I have taken over his hours along side of mine because everybody else is already away on vacation, only me and him were left – figures (Yesterday I worked nearly 10 hours straight – NOT funny) so yeah I try to update but I can't promise because I will probably be completely exhausted when I come home :(

Chapter 35

Beta'd by Black Sparrow

Interlude Team Kakashi

Naruto sighed while he slumped against the tree, once again they would be waiting hours for Kakashi-sensei. He didn't even know why he bothered with getting up in the morning only to have to wait without doing anything. Wistful he thought about his pranking kit that hadn't had any opportunity to shine since his promotion to Genin. And with a content sigh he sank into memories of successful pranks and the following chase through Konoha, there was nothing better to get the blood pumping in the morning. With a Cheshire smirk he thought of all the ANBU operatives that he kept on their toes, maybe they were getting rusty now that they hadn't been pranked for such a long time. Inwardly Naruto promised himself to rectify that, after all it wouldn't do to let Konoha's finest lose their touch.

Beside him Sakura-chan was sitting quietly and somewhat subdued, normally she would have babbled endlessly about this or that shop. So whatever Kakashi-sensei had said to her yesterday it had hit her pretty hard to look so down. Naruto promised to stop their sensei should he be so mean again to the pretty pink haired girl. Teme on the other hand seemed to relish in the quiet morning, he looked relaxed with his eyes closed and sitting against a tree away from them. He too seemed to be miles away; maybe he was contemplating what Kakashi-sensei had told them yesterday.

To be honest Naruto felt quite embarrassed about the fact that he had dismissed the D-Ranks and the teamwork as necessary evils to become the Hokage. He had no problem working together with Sakura-chan but Sasuke-teme always refused any sort of help and so as reflex Naruto hadn't wanted to work with him either. Maybe this was going to change now, Naruto knew that if they wanted to become powerful ninja they needed to learn as much as possible, even if it wasn't the cool stuff in the beginning. At the last part Naruto started to pout again, he hadn't imagined his shinobi career like this.

"Well, well if those aren't my cute little students slacking off. Good morning," Kakashi cheerfully said from above them.

"Kakashi-sensei, you ARE… wait you aren't late… WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" bellowed Naruto.

"Mou, I'm hurt Naruto-kun, why are you asking this?" the person that couldn't be Kakashi-sensei said.

"Because he is always at least two hours late!" Sakura interrupted with her arms crossed in front of her body.

With an agreeing 'Hhn'-sound Sasuke ended their conclusion.

Kakashi looked at the three in front of him and snorted, "Brats, all three of you. Just because I had an exceptional bad week doesn't mean that I'm always late."

"Not true. I asked one of the ninja at the mission office and he told me to get used to it because you are always late to everything!" Sakura bellowed while she pointed an accusing finger at the silver haired man in front of her.

Kakashi just chuckled and rubbed his neck before he gave them an eye smile and said, "Come on you three I want to introduce you to someone."

"Wait Kakashi-sensei, we are not training?" Naruto asked confused.

"Yes we are but later. First you are going to meet someone important to me. Actually two someones," Kakashi mysteriously promised.

XXXXXX

In anticipation of meeting Team Seven Shiori took the next day completely off from any paperwork or other duties and waited for her husband to show up with his students. When she first caught glimpse of them through the window she winced inwardly. Naruto was sulking, Sasuke was looking thoughtful and Sakura stared at the ground while she was dragging her feet. Oh dear.

Purposefully Shiori ignored the opening of the front door and continued to busy herself with making a big breakfast and only looked up when Hinako's excited cry of, "Tou-chan," echoed through the room. Shiori smiled at her husband who lifted the little toddler into his arms and motioned at the three gaping teens behind him to walk in.

The black haired civilian removed the last pancakes from the pans and then greeted them warmly, "Hello you three, welcome to our home."

"Thank you for having us," came the reflexive answer from a stunned Sakura while Sasuke just hhned and Naruto simply gaped at Shiori before he shouted, "Shiori-nee!"

Naruto's outburst elicited a wounded whine from Hinako and a glare from Kakashi.

"Naruto-kun it's nice to see you but please use your inside voice here. Both my husband and daughter have enhanced hearing and shouting hurts their ears," the young mother explained gently while moving the plates to the table, "I hope you are hungry."

Naruto looked properly chastised for a moment before he nodded enthusiastically while Sasuke looked at her more closely and Sakura blushed while she sent the pretty woman glances from out of the corner of her eye.

"Well come on you three, sit down," Kakashi addressed his students before he nodded at the table.

He then turned his concentration to his squirming daughter and situated Hinako in the newest Mokuton high chair, Tenzo had made a new one after the last one became a little too small for the silver haired child.

"Why and what and when..." Naruto spluttered while he looked frantically from Shiori to Kakashi to the small little toddler between them.

"Ah well Naruto, when a man and a woman…" Kakashi didn't get very far before Shiori put a hand in front of his still clothed mouth, for that meeting Kakashi had decided to keep his mask on.

"Don't even think about it anata, you KNOW that it will be me who has to answer the questions to that particular topic when Hinako wants to know and I certainly DON'T want to give our daughter THAT talk yet," Shiori said in a very sweet voice that promised violence at the end.

The little toddler in question only cocked her head while she looked at her parents with big eyes.

"Ah… right," Kakashi said somewhat sheepishly.

"I'm sorry for my husband, I'm afraid he likes to tease people. My name is Hatake Shiori but I go with Inoue Shiori in public, it's nice to meet you," the black haired civilian then said to the three shinobi in training.

"Ah... Haruno Sakura, thank you for having us once again," the pink haired young girl stuttered somewhat while her eye frantically wandered between Kakashi and Shiori.

"Hhn, Uchiha Sasuke," the broody black haired boy said while he coolly assessed the woman in front of him as a civilian and not a threat.

"Uzumaki Naruto, but you know that already Shiori-neechan, but why are you going by Inoue if you are married to Kakashi-sensei?" the hyperactive blonde wanted to know.

"It's because I'm a civilian Naruto-kun, I would be a convenient target should someone want to hurt or blackmail Kakashi. Oh and please help yourself to the food," the young mother explained before she pointed at the filled plates in front of them.

All three teenagers looked contemplatively at the woman across from them before digging into the food and sending curious glances at the Hatake family but none of them quite dared to ask further questions.

Shiori herself took care of feeding Hinako in the beginning before switching with Kakashi and taking a few bites herself. Sakura looked at Shiori's plate that had only half of what she had put on her plate and stopped eating while she looked guiltily away and said that she was on a diet.

"Sakura-chan you are a growing girl, a ninja at that. You need to eat if you want to get stronger," Shiori said seriously to the pink haired girl in front of her.

"But mom says I will get fat if I eat that much…" the younger female tried to justify herself.

"Don't be ridiculous Sakura you are a kunoichi, kunoichis don't get fat if they exercise right. It's more likely that you'll get killed if you don't have the strength to defend yourself," the silver haired Jounin seriously said while he stopped his daughter from using the three Genin in front of her as baby food target practice.

"Huh?" came the wide eyed answer from his only female student.

"What have they been teaching you in the Academy? A normal Genin needs at least two to three times as much food as an adult civilian to keep up the energy they are burning through chakra usage. Some clan kids need even more. This should have been told to all civilian parents in the first year of the Academy," Kakashi said unhappily while he looked at his student in a new light.

If it had it been ignorance and parental pressure that prevented Sakura from reaching her full potential he would have to do something about it and fast. Maybe even talk about it with the Academy senseis.

"Really?" Naruto explained now confused, "So that's why I'm always hungry and Iruka-sensei scolds me when I'm only eating Ramen?"

Sasuke sent a glance at his two teammates and cocked his head somewhat, he had thought that they were foolish for not adhering to the strict diet for shinobi that had been a given in his clan. To now learn that they had no idea about it was quite shocking and surprisingly enough he felt some indignation on their behalf. Somebody had, purposefully or not, prevented them from reaching their full potential, and in Sakura's case this could have easily led to her death. He didn't like the fangirl but he also didn't wish her dead, especially now that she was his teammate. Before Kakashi-sensei had explained yesterday the reasons for teams and teamwork as well as the thoughts behind D-Rank missions he had resented both loudmouths as well as their lazy sensei, after all they were slowing down his training. Now, now he wasn't so sure; he had drawn a lot of conclusions without asking for the why and Sasuke HATED being proven wrong, so he would wait a bit longer to form an opinion about Team Seven.

Kakashi and Shiori looked at each other, one quite serious while the other worried, they would have to fix that or the kids growth could be stunted.

"Okay, we are going to talk about this later until then Sakura-chan eat some more, you really need it," Kakashi decided.

The young Haruno looked shyly at her sensei and nodded before she dug in with gusto just like her male teammates. For the next twenty minutes there wasn't a lot of conversation while they ate breakfast and Kakashi sneaked food in plain daylight and with his mask on, which irked his students immensely.

Shiori just watched the whole thing amused, she was curious if Kakashi would keep the mask charade up or if he'd let his students in on the secret underneath, either way it would probably be entertaining.

After the three adolescents were full Kakashi led them outside to the rarely used dojo and training field. While the silver haired Jounin had his students run through the typical warm up katas and flexibility exercises Shiori hastily cleaned up the dishes before she followed them outside.

Hinako had been pretty silent throughout the breakfast and was now staring fascinated at what Team Seven was doing. The black haired civilian didn't completely trust her daughter to not suddenly dash over to her father and the three kids that seemed to have caught her interest. And so she made sure to always have her in grabbing distance, which seemed to annoy Hina-chan quite a bit. The problem was thankfully solved when in a show of demonstration Kakashi summoned his pack and Bisuke and Urushi instantly made a beeline for the two of them. The moment the dogs arrived in her vicinity Shiori relaxed her guard and left the overall watch to her husband's ninken, which gave her daughter enough roaming space that she didn't throw a tantrum, because as cute as Hinako could be, she now had entered the faze that was called the 'terrible two' in another world.

Only two days ago Kakashi and Shiori had decided that because they loved their daughter they would set up certain rules so that she wouldn't become a spoiled princess. And one of them was that when mummy or daddy said something, Hina-chan had to obey. Said rule had been met with a pouty face that nearly broke Kakashi's resolve but in the end he had prevailed. One can just hope that he would keep that resolve.

Now that she had a little bit more freedom Hinako instantly vanished into the bushes close to the house for a game of hide and seek. Shiori snorted at the sigh both dogs released before they followed her. Stretching her hands a bit the black haired woman's eyes fell onto the notebooks she had brought with her. With a thoughtful hum she began to write.

After finishing writing Shiori stretched once more and then walked back to the house. The black haired civilian made her way to her garden tools and then started to tend to the raspberry bushes and plucked the ripe ones off the shrubs. When she saw that Kakashi was letting the team take a break she carried some water bottles and a bowl with the berries over to them. She gave Zeke and Bull an affectionate pat on the back on the way over; they too were now participating in Hinako's game of hide and seek. Behind her back she could hear the bushes rustle and a muffled giggle that put a smile on her lips.

When she had reached the group Shiori handed over first the water and then the bowl before sitting down beside them in the grass and handing over the three plain notebooks she had written into.

"What's that?" Naruto asked curious when he opened his on the first page.

"An overview of your skills," Shiori explained after taking a sip from her water bottle, "You have spent the last six years in a grading system so I think it will be easier for you if you write your skills down in the beginning so that you can decide which of them you want to improve or what else you want to learn."

On the first page the ninja-in-training found a generic record sheet with things like name, age, weight and height. On the following side was only a giant headline that proclaimed 'skills' to them.

All three Genin looked at each other before nodding and taking the pens Shiori held out for them this made sense to them, like this they could hopefully track their progress.

Kakashi wandered back over to them after setting up the targets in the trees and took a look at what his Genin were doing with his wife. He had heard Shiori's last sentence and thought that it did make sense but that it was still somewhat irresponsible to leave something like this unsecured around, he would have to do something about that too. Inwardly the silver haired Jounin sighed; being a sensei was a lot more work than he had anticipated.

"… but how do we know how good we are?" Sakura asked frustrated.

Shiori snorted slightly before she pointed at her husband, "You have a sensei don't you?"

As an answer Sakura turned red and vanished back into the notebook.