Kurenai surveyed her potential genin team, her mind running through the information she'd memorised from their files as she took in each of the children she might be responsible for over the next few months.
So far, it seemed mostly correct – the Inuzuka boy was visibly bouncing where he sat, his ninken puppy snoozing on his head, but it seemed the boy hadn't reached the limit of his patience yet and was, for now, at least, keeping quiet.
The Aburame was…really hard to read, if she was being honest, because she could barely see an inch of his face, but he appeared quietly expectant, if she had to guess.
The Hyuuga girl was the only slight surprise, because she was looking straight at Kurenai with a slight smile on her face, rather than cowering behind the boys and avoiding eye-contact whenever Kurenai tried to catch her gaze, like her file had implied she was likely to do.
She seemed almost…content, to be where she was.
"Good morning, Team Eight." Kurenai greeted, shelving her musings for the time being and smiling at the children before her. "My name is Yuhi Kurenai. Should you pass my test, I will be your genin sensei for the foreseeable future. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Good morning, Kurenai-san." The supposedly shy Hyuuga replied, her voice quiet, but with no sign of the stutter that had been highlighted in her file. Kurenai also mentally commended the girl for the honorific because, well. She wasn't their sensei yet.
Speaking of-
"Wait, test?! We just did a test!" The Inuzuka protested, waking up his ninken partner judging by the puppy's quiet, unhappy whine. "Why do we need another one?!"
"To check compatibility with the jounin sensei." The Aburame replied before Kurenai could give the pre-prepared spiel about how the Academy Three are not enough to survive in the 'real world'. "Did your family not tell you?"
Kurenai wasn't sure what Kiba heard in the question – or perhaps what he smelled from the other boy – but both he and his ninken growled at Shino, heckles rising.
"Keep my family outta your mouth, man." He snarled, and the way his lips pulled back showed far sharper canines than a normal person would possess.
"I was merely-"
"-pressing Kiba-san's buttons to see how he'd react." The Hyuuga cut in, still quiet, though she managed to catch both boys' attention, judging by the way their heads snapped to her, seemingly having forgotten she was there.
Kurenai wasn't sure what Shino thought about the quiet chastising – because it was undoubtedly that, despite how softly it was spoken – and Kiba took a split-second to preen and bare his teeth at his Aburame teammate, before a thought seemed to occur to him.
"Wait, didn't you have a stutter?" he demanded, and Kurenai barely stifled a sigh at the bluntness. She was about to tell the boy off for his blunder when she saw how much Hinata shrank back at the question, but Shino spoke before she could.
"The test, sensei?" he asked, or she thought he asked, seeing as there was almost no inflection to his words.
Kurenai studied Kiba and Hinata for a beat longer, noting the way the Inuzuka boy seemed to have realised he'd misspoken if the way he was cringing and trying to catch Hinata's eye was any indication, then sighed.
"I think I'd like you all to introduce yourselves first, before I give you the test." She decided, somewhat wryly.
She'd forgotten that 'emotional maturity' and 'twelve-year-olds' rarely went together in the same sentence.
"Could you introduce yourself first?" Shino asked, and Kurenai tried not to take offense at the directness of the request. "Why? Because it would be helpful for us to have a guideline for our own introductions and likely save some time, enabling us to do your 'test' all the sooner."
Kiba snickered, and the look in his eyes was mean.
"D'you always talk with yourself?" he teased, and it wasn't snide, not yet, but it was aimed to hurt. "Sensei didn't even ask for an explanation!"
"Thank you, Kiba." Kurenai interjected firmly, shooting the boy a flat look when he jumped and turned to look at her. "As for your request, Shino, of course I can go first."
Hinata, who'd been quiet since Kiba's question about her stutter, finally perked up and focused all of her attention on Kurenai.
"My name is Yuhi Kurenai. I'm a jounin, as you may have guessed, and I specialise in genjutsu and traps. My goal for this team, should you pass, is to help you become the best people and shinobi you can be. My personal goal, or dream, really, is for the world to not have need for shinobi."
"There's a difference between a goal and a dream?" Kiba asked, and Kurenai bit back a sigh.
"Yes." Hinata spoke, surprising Kurenai, moreso by the sad, far-away expression that came over the girl's face than the fact that she spoke.
Despite Kiba clearly wanting her to elaborate, Hinata didn't say anything more on the matter.
"Alright." Kurenai sighed, turning to the Aburame. "Shino?"
"My name is Aburame Shino. I specialise in mid-to-long range combat and my Clan's techniques. My kikaichu can absorb chakra and track or search for targets. My goal is to survive to take over the Clan from my father. My dream…My dream is to get my brother back."
Kurenai studied the boy for a moment, thrown by the unexpected dream, and she could see Kiba and Hinata doing the same, the former looking somewhat uneasy while the girl's face had smoothed of all expression, the look in her eyes cold.
"Kiba?" Kurenai asked after a few seconds, and Kiba jumped, startled, before he plastered a grin on his face.
"Inuzuka Kiba! Akamaru and I specialise in my Clan's technique and perform wicked combo attacks and track over large distances! So, uh, mid-range, I guess? My goal is to take over the vet clinic from Hana-nee, and I, uh, don't really have a dream yet!" he declared, and Kurenai was pleasantly surprised at the honesty and the goal itself.
"Your Academy sensei didn't mention that you have med-nin aspirations." She mused, studying the boy and the way he seemed a mix of pleased at her interest and somewhat sheepish.
"Cause 'm not a med-nin yet. Nee-san says my chakra control's crap at the moment, so I've gotta work on that before she'll let me actually do any of the medic stuff, but chakra control's boring." Kiba explained, his tone bordering on whiny, and Kurenai had to bite back a smile.
For Inuzuka, especially ones with Kiba's apparent degree of hyperactivity, chakra control exercises would indeed be hell.
"Alright, I'll try and see if we can make it more engaging." She promised, and Kiba grinned, an oddly determined look coming over his face instead of the earlier annoyance, no doubt having remembered that there's still a test he has to pass. "As I said, I'm a genjutsu mistress, so I had to work on my control almost as much as the med-nin. Hinata could probably help, too, considering her specialisation."
Upon mentioning the last member of her potential team, Kurenai turned to the only girl and smiled, beckoning her to start.
"H-Hyuuga Hinata." The girl began, and both Kiba and Shino seemed to relax upon hearing the tiny stutter. "I specialise in taijutsu. My dojutsu allows me to track chakra signatures and detect chakra activity. I can also, um, perform some small-scale elemental ninjutsu."
Kurenai blinked, surprised, both at the fact that the Academy had somehow missed that, and at the fact that the admission came from a Hyuuga.
But Hinata wasn't done.
"My dream is to change the Hyuuga Clan. To do that, I need to become a jounin." she dropped her gaze to her hands, her voice growing quieter, and Kurenai felt her eyebrow climb up her forehead when she noticed the pebble the girl was twirling around her hand.
Without touching it.
"So I suppose that's my goal." Hinata finished quietly, then took a deep breath and looked up.
"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you all." Kurenai said after a beat, gifting the children before her with another small smile. "As you may have realised if you were paying attention, we were put together as a tracking and capture oriented squad."
She waited for the reaction to her announcement and got three nods of varying enthusiasm in confirmation.
So they had figured it out. Good start.
"Because of that, your job, your test, to see if you're fit to be on this team, is to find me. You have until sundown."
And then, using the technique that had won her the Jounin Spar, Kurenai cast an area-effect illusion and allowed herself to melt into the ground, masking her chakra at the same time, and headed for the café her and Asuma had agreed on to wait their kids out.
"Wha- she disappeared!" Kiba exclaimed, jumping to his feet, Akamaru whining at being disturbed yet again, and Hinata itched to pick the puppy off Kiba's head and play with him like she'd done before.
"Genjutsu." Shino declared, snapping her out of her thoughts, also getting to his feet. "And perhaps shunshin?"
"Earth manipulation." Hinata corrected before she could catch herself, and both boys turned to look at her curiously. "I, um, felt her go underground." She lied, because neither Kiba nor Shino knew her well enough yet to know that she was awful at sensing, and she couldn't exactly say that she knew the technique Kurenai-sensei had used because she'd been her student for ten years.
"Whatever it was, neither me or Akamaru managed to catch her scent, so I got no idea where she went." Kiba scowled, crossing his arms over his chest and turning expectantly to her and Shino.
"I hadn't placed a kikaichu on sensei yet. Why? I've been told to ask for consent before doing so, and I haven't had the chance to ask for it." Shino confessed, and Hinata couldn't help the wave of fondness that surged over her, even as Kiba wrinkled his nose.
"Gross, man. Bit creepy, too."
"But useful." Hinata cut in, mind flashing through the dozens of situations where Shino's kikaichu had proven instrumental to completing the mission or saving their lives.
"And you?" Kiba asked, instead of commenting on her defence of Shino's bugs. "You said you can track chakra. Can you track sensei?"
Hinata shook her head. "My range is less than fifty metres in radius. And I didn't have my Byakugan activated when sensei disappeared."
"Great, so we've got nothing." Kiba grumbled, throwing his hands up in the air.
"You recognised sensei on sight." Shino pointed out quietly, and Hinata belatedly realised he was speaking to her. "When she walked into the class."
Hinata blinked, surprised that Shino had noticed that, and cursing herself for her inattentiveness. First, she forgot about her stutter, in front of first Shikamaru and then her team, now with this?
There was a reason, beyond her recognisable appearance, that she was never made to run undercover missions before.
"My cousin took the same Jounin Exams as Kurenai-san." She managed after a beat, settling for a partial truth instead of a complete lie.
Tokuma had taken the same exams as Kurenai, only she didn't technically know that yet. In her first timeline, after she was disinherited, he'd caught her briefly on her way out of the Compound and gave the most comfort she'd ever received from any of her clansmen:
Yuhi is a competent kunoichi. You could learn a lot from her, Hinata-sama.
It was only after she'd finally asked Kurenai, some months later, that she learned just how Tokuma had come by that assessment.
His spar with Kurenai was the reason he, despite having the best Byakugan in the Clan, was only a tokubetsu, and Kurenai was a full-fledged jounin.
"Have you got any insights as to where she might have gone?" Shino pressed, apparently accepting her explanation, though Kiba didn't seem placated, staring at her oddly, and Hinata was about to shake her head when she paused, because, well-
"You do!" Kiba exclaimed, startling her, and Hinata was on her feet before she quite realised she'd gotten up, launching the pebble she'd been fiddling with at Kiba's head as if it were a kunai and he an enemy.
"Woah!" Kiba yelped, just managing to duck out of the way of the projectile, and he turned to her with wide eyes. "Hell you so jumpy for?!"
"Because you do not seem to grasp the concept of appropriate volume and a good shinobi is always vigilant." Shino all-but snapped, and though his volume remained the same, Kiba must've detected that the other boy's patience was wearing thin because he didn't verbalise his retort, settling for an irritated growl that nonetheless conveyed his feelings perfectly.
"Hinata-san," Shino turned to her after a beat, and his voice was calmer, his chakra quieter, "any insights you may have as to sensei's location will be helpful."
"T-there's a café." She managed, eyes trained on the dent the pebble had made in the tree it had hit, a solid ten metres behind Kiba. Her heart was beating in double-time, her mind flashing through every possible scenario of what could've happened if Kiba hadn't dodged.
She'd come from a war, but her teammates here were fresh genin. She was a fresh genin.
If she wasn't more careful, she'd get them killed.
"What about the café?" Kiba prompted, snapping her out of her horrified contemplation of the tree, and Hinata jumped, turning her gaze to the Inuzuka and belatedly remembering she'd been in the middle of a sentence.
"I think I saw sensei there…once." She finished quietly, avoiding eye-contact with either boy because her heart was still beating too fast and there was an acrid burn of guilt in the back of her throat.
"Seeing as it's currently the best lead we have," Shino spoke up after they were all silent for a few seconds too long, "I suggest you lead the way."
They did find Kurenai, hidden in a tiny alcove at the back of the main room of the café, but by the time they stepped through the door, Kiba and Akamaru were certain Kurenai was in there, so they weren't discouraged after not spotting her immediately.
Hinata had to admit, Kurenai and Asuma-san's shocked faces upon her team's arrival less than half an hour after Kurenai had disappeared on them had been funny.
"Seems like we'll have to take a rain-check on that catch-up." Asuma commented idly, his eyes sweeping almost lazily over Hinata and her team, though Hinata knew better than to be fooled by the seemingly-bored expression.
The Shikamaru she remembered had been a testament to his teacher just as much as he had been the product of his Clan – Sarutobi Asuma was not a man she wanted to underestimate.
"Seems like it." Kurenai agreed absently, though her eyes were sharp as they flickered over her newly-confirmed students. "Well, congratulations, Team Eight. You passed my test."
"Hell yeah!" Kiba cheered, throwing his fist up, then immediately quietened when Shino drove an elbow into his unprotected ribs and more than one patron of the café startled and made to grab a weapon.
"Appropriate. Volume." Shino hissed, cutting off Kiba's protests before they could be voiced. "Or do you wish to actually die this time?"
From the way both Kurenai and Asuma's gazes sharpened at Shino's wording, Hinata knew she'd have to explain her reaction at some point.
"How did you find me?" Kurenai asked, apparently unable to fight her curiosity. "I genuinely thought it would take you much longer."
But she still thought they'd manage to do it. Hinata couldn't help but smile, touched by the fact that her sensei had had faith in her team even before they were an actual team.
"Hinata said she'd seen you here before, and then when we came in, Akamaru 'n I could smell you!" Kiba explained, apparently recovered from his annoyance at being on the receiving end of Shino's pointy elbow.
Kurenai's eyebrow rose even higher on her forehead, but it was Asuma who spoke, his gaze far from disinterested now and trained on Hinata.
"Your sensei's jounin promotion is rather recent. And you're a tad too young to recognise her from other fields." He pointed out, and Hinata could tell, even without looking, that Kiba didn't know what he was alluding to.
'You had no reason to take note of Kurenai' which, to Hinata's ears, was rather rude to say, though Kurenai herself appeared more exasperated than insulted.
When Kurenai also turned to look at her, less intense than Asuma but no less curious, Hinata settled for another half-truth, the guilt at lying so frequently a small but unshakeable weight on her shoulders.
"Tokuma is my second cousin." She murmured, and though Asuma's expression didn't clear any, Kurenai's eyes widened marginally, then a flicker of guilt passed over her face.
"Ah." Was all she said on the matter, smiling wryly. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. That was admittedly my nastiest genjutsu."
Hinata smiled, aiming for comforting but likely landing on something too faint to offer any real reassurance. "He doesn't begrudge you the victory, sensei."
Kurenai looked surprised for the briefest of moments, then offered her a tentative smile.
"Thank you." she acknowledged, then focused her attention on all of them. "Come to the training ground we were at today at eight tomorrow for our first team training."
Hinata knew she wasn't the only one who felt proud after Kurenai's words, though Shino's face was mostly covered and Kiba seemed to have learned the lesson of not being loud around shinobi, or Shino's elbow was pointier than Hinata remembered.
She smiled.
Team Eight was back.
Over the following week, the rose-tinted glasses she'd unconsciously donned when thinking of her genin days were shattered.
Repeatedly.
And rather brutally.
She'd forgotten, what with growing up, with the trauma of Orochimaru's invasion, of Pein's assault, of the war, that they hadn't started out as the paragon of teamwork.
She'd been too shy, Kiba too blunt, Shino too unused to people and Kurenai, despite her best efforts, too new at dealing with children and being a direct superior, that it wasn't until the Chunin Exams that they'd really clicked.
Now that she wasn't paralysed by her shyness, she was noticing everything a lot more – noticing the petty fights between Kiba and Shino, Shino's complete cluelessness at how to interact with his peers, Kiba's much simpler, more animalistic understanding of the world that she'd just…ignored the first time around, and Kurenai's endearing, well-intentioned, but, with the gift of hindsight, rather clumsy attempts at getting them to work together.
[the fact that her sensei was currently barely five years older than her was something she actively avoided thinking about]
Over the week they've been a team, they fell into a routine – a D-Rank a day, many 'teamwork building' activities, and Kurenai's sneaky inclusion of 'tracking practice'. Then, at the end of that first week, Kurenai deviated from the routine and uttered the words Hinata had been dreading.
"I'd like you to spar with each other now."
Her and Kiba's spar had been fun.
He was quicker than her right now, but she was more flexible, more stable, so in the first few minutes, they were reasonably well-matched, though Hinata refused to use her Byakugan no matter how much Kiba frowned at her for it.
She was managing just fine without it – she could hit the less debilitating tenketsu with her eyes closed, at this point.
Still, she let Kiba win, because when it came down to it, when Kiba used Fang over Fang, she couldn't bring herself to hurt Akamaru.
Her spar with Shino, however, was much worse.
Because it never became a spar.
When she drew close for a taijutsu sequence, she felt a small but unmistakeable pull on her chakra, a tell-tale sign Shino's kikaichu had latched on.
"Please don't take my chakra." She murmured, striking at Shino's centre of balance as she concentrated, disrupting her chakra like she would to break a genjutsu and seeing as well as feeling a handful of kikaichu fall off of her, stunned.
Shino frowned, then darted away and stretched his arms towards her in a much-too-familiar pose.
A second later, a veritable cloud of kikaichu flew towards her, and this time, the loss of chakra was immediate and impossible to miss.
Her irritation at the blatant dismissal of her wishes was overshadowed by her sudden panic.
No, no, no, not my chakra, have to protect, have to fight-!
And then, it wasn't Shino, it wasn't her teammate and one of her closest friends, it wasn't a twelve-year-old boy that was before her.
It was one of Pein's Paths, it was Zetsu, it was Obito, it was Kaguya, it was an enemy.
Hinata closed her eyes.
When she opened them, they were bulging with the Byakugan, and she was standing on the surface of the stream running through their training grounds.
"Mizu Hari."
Kurenai fell into the seat opposite Asuma, back at the café her team had found her in a week before, a sigh escaping her as she let herself finally relax.
"That's a big sigh." Asuma observed, his eyes amused as he sipped his tea, and Kurenai gathered enough energy to shoot him a glare.
"Either the Academy has gotten even worse at profiling its students since we were there, or my kids are fantastic actors who've been pulling the longest practical joke in Village history on the instructors." She grumbled, arranging herself into a somewhat more presentable position.
"That sounds promising. Here," Asuma mused, pushing a steaming cup of tea towards her, "looks like you'll need it."
"I'll need something stronger than tea, Asuma." Kurenai threw back tiredly, but still picked up the cup with a small smile.
"We'll get to that later. Now, vent." He all-but ordered, and Kurenai paused, because no matter how tempting the idea was, she had to ask-
"Are you sure? We're not going to get many opportunities to just relax like this for a while yet. You sure you want me to dump on you?"
Asuma waved her off, then gestured at the waitress for more tea. "I have a feeling I'll need to complain about my kids soon, so I'll get my money's worth, don't worry. Now, come on, you got me curious. What's your kids' deal?"
Kurenai sipped her tea, getting her thoughts in order and trying to figure out what her biggest problems were.
"I was given profiles of a brash, arrogant Inuzuka and two quiet, smart kids. Aburame-kun would've been presumed mute if not for what Clan he's from, and Hyuuga-chan got an F in positivity. I didn't know it was possible to get an F in that, but she did."
Asuma chuckled, nodding. "Alright, sounds like a potential pain to get them motivated and working together, but nothing drastic. What's the issue?"
"Kiba-kun isn't arrogant at all – he's a bit cocky, but he's also an Inuzuka; they're not exactly quiet." She complained, half-frustrated, half-baffled. "And he had no issue with getting a female sensei, which I was warned might be an issue."
"The Inuzuka are matriarchal, aren't they?"
"No," Kurenai scoffed, sipping her tea before it got cold, "I thought so too, but that was too sumple, apparently. Turns out the potential alphas beat the shit out of each other and whoever wins becomes Clan Head. Tsume-san just happened to be the one who won."
When Asuma blinked at her, visibly surprised, she laughed shortly. "I asked Hana-chan if she thought her brother would be difficult with me being a woman."
"And?"
Kurenai shot him a look. "It's not polite to repeat what she said in civilized conversation."
"Alright, and the other two?" Asuma asked, voice a little choked, and Kurenai could tell he was barely holding back laughter.
"Shino-kun is shaping up to be the arrogant one. He completely ignored Hinata-chan's request before their spar. Lost a good chunk of his colony as a result."
This time, Asuma simply stared for a few seconds. "Alright, I'll bite. How does a genin destroy an Aburame colony?"
Kurenai put her cup down for a second, then met Asuma's gaze.
"With water needles." She said simply.
"...damn." Asuma whistled, then blinked. "Wait. A Hyuuga using elemental manipulation?"
"Mmhm." Kurenai hummed, picking up her tea again. "Hyuuga heiress, at that. According to her, though, 'tradition is predictable'."
Bafflingly, Asuma started to laugh.
"You got a revolutionary."
Predictably, after Hinata's spar with Shino, Kurenai changed her tune.
"Alright, boys. Hinata-chan can water-walk, you two need to catch up."
Naturally, Kiba and Shino took to it with all the determination of stubborn twelve-year-old boys itching to beat a 'rival' - though perhaps that was more Kiba's motivation than Shino's. Nevertheless, they mastered tree-walking in a matter of days, water-walking in a little under a week. While they were doing that, Hinata worked on the size of her reserves through the C-Rank water jutsu Kurenai had found for her. Once all three members of Team Eight were capable of the tree-running Konoha was famed for and could also run and fight on water, their potential missions immediately expanded to include C-Ranks, which was, well.
Less than ideal, if she was being honest.
If Hinata's memory served, Team Eight's first C-Rank didn't happen until three months after their genin test.
Now, she was staring at a C-Ranked mission scroll and a client barely a month after graduating the Academy.
And Hinata had no idea what to expect.
The consequence of competence.