Naruto x Digimon
Alive - Team Minato's Digidestined
Chapter 02
Originally Written: November 5, 2022 810PM to 937PM
. . . . .
Kakashi wasn't sure when he stopped getting rid of the item, but it showed up once again one day, and he decided to stop wasting his time. Though he didn't know what it was, or what it did, he still murmured little things to himself while the device was in his hands. Thoughts and ideas and feelings that maybe he wished someone would listen to him say. He didn't know. Someone wanted him to have it, and so he started keeping it. He just hoped keeping it didn't kill him.
The days blurred. Just him, the device, his thoughts, and the jeering students who wouldn't ever really like him, no matter how hard he trained or impressed them. The Hatake name was uttered like a curse word. He wasn't sure when he started using it as an act of defiance, but he had. He started to use the name as though it were his vow that he would never ever wind up like his father. No matter what he did, Konoha would be proud that it was he who did it.
Despite skipping up a grade partway through the year into his current class' final year, he passed the graduation exam anyway. First try, at the top of his class, leagues beyond those who ridiculed and mocked and bullied and stalked him. The last person who scored so high on their tests was Orochimaru. He didn't care, but he knew anyway, because the teachers kept reminding him.
Now he stood in the middle of a training field. The item was tucked in his pocket, clenched in his hand. The grass crunched underneath his feet. Dressed in a gaudy outfit of dark blue and orange, his supposed teammate Obito Uchiha was tied up in a trap a few trees away. Dressed in black, red and light purple, his other assigned teammate Rin Nohara crouched with a kunai in her hands on his other side. And his other hand stretched out. Stretched out towards a faint shimmering sphere of visible chakra surrounding him. The shimmering interrupted his vision, partially blocking out the image of their entirely green-in-experience Jounin, Minato Namikaze.
Minatao Namikaze finished the completely flashy, served no purpose backflip he had thrown himself into, and landed on the grass in a crouch. His blue eyes studied Kakashi. Two small, jingling silver bells hung from Kakashi's outstretched fingers.
Kakashi hoped he'd get sent back to the academy. He clenched his hands around the bells. Tentatively, he shifted closer to Obito. Pleased that the barrier followed him, he continued walking. He silently hooked one bell onto Obito's goggles, and let him down. Obito stared at him in confusion. He ignored his useless classmate, and walked over to Rin. He dropped the second bell into her hands.
"Does this answer your question, Namikaze-san?" Kakashi didn't look at the man.
"It does, but what about you?" Minato sounded both amused and resigned.
"You can send me back to the academy. I don't mind. These two will slow me down leading to them being injured, and you're just going to lead us all to our deaths." He looked back at Minato with a bored expression. "Life is boring, but I still like living." The barrier surrounding him slowly faded, as Minato's frown deepened.
"Why are you such an ass!? I don't care what you say about me!" Obito shouted, running up to him, but "Minato-sense is cool, Bakakashi! And Rin's even cooler!" He shoved the bell back into Kakashi's hands. "I don't need a bell you got me!" He hissed.
Kakashi stared at the bell in confusion. Meanwhile, a bell flew past his face. It bonked Obito in the temple. He fumbled with the bell as he tried to catch it. Eventually he succeeded.
Rin glared at Obito. "Y-you don't get to miss your own graduation a-and then fail yourself on purpose!" Her clenched hands shook. "Y-you worked hard for that!"
He flushed and ducked his head as though those ridiculous looking goggles of his could hide his face. Kakashi casually tossed the bell Obito gave back to him, to Rin. She caught it, and glared at him just as fiercely.
Obito gave Rin's bell back to Kakashi. Rin threw her bell at Obito, who caught it.
Obito's face turned red in frustration. "I don't want your bell like this either, Rin!"
"What's wrong with how I'm giving it to you?" Rin asked.
"N-nothing!" Obito flushed, calming down as he stared at the bell.
"So keep it." She murmured, looking at the grass underneath her.
Obito shook his head, unable to speak.
Kakashi put his hands in his pockets so Obito really couldn't give the bell back. Obito got around it by putting the bell into his pocket. Their hands brushed for the few awkward moments the action took. Seconds later, Rin's bell smacked Obito in the temple again. Obito fumbled to catch it, and Kakashi took a deep, calming breath. The rectangular item in his other pocket felt warm in his hand. Kakashi took another deep breath, fished the bell out of his other pocket, and threw it to Rin.
She didn't catch it, and it landed in her skirt with a jingle. Her frown deepened into a scowl of frustration. "Stop that…please. I didn't do anything." She partially growled. "Y-you just strategically placed me in the right location…"
"Goddammit Bakakashi!" Obito shouted, once more holding Rin's bell. "Take your damn bell!"
"I've more stamina than the both of you combined." Kakashi replied as though he'd rather be doing anything else. Like figure out how he created the barrier that surrounded him to begin with. That would require a complete analysis of the ridiculous test Minato gave them. "Meaning, you both will get tired first. So keep them. I'm not letting this recently promoted Jounin kill me."
"So you want him to kill us!?" Obito yelled.
Kakashi held in a sigh, unable to speak. 'You can't have a three man squad…' He thought Obito would have caught that much, but he was the dead last of their graduating class for a reason.
"Oh, I've got it now!" Minato laughed. "You're like the annoying younger brother, Kakashi!"
'No…No he wouldn't. He's not that…' Kakashi's blood froze. He slowly turned around. "Don't you-"
"-You guys pass!"
"-dare…" Kakashi breathed out a heavy sigh.
"Huh?" Obito and Rin stared at Minato in surprise. Minato grinned, kneeling on the ground with one of his strange three pronged kunai still gripped in his hand.
"W-why?" Rin asked. "I-I don't understand, Minato-sensei." She fiddled with the bell in her hands.
Minato continued smiling. It was a smile that was as strange as the chaotic calm Jiraiya brought when he was asked to give a small presentation to Kakashi's class. "As convoluted as you three went about it, you all managed to work together. That was the point of the test. To test how well you three could work together as a team."
Minato waved a hand, beckoning the trio over from his crouched position. Rin and Obito moved, but Kakashi remained where he was. "And as much as Kakashi doesn't see it, or even you guys don't see it, you both helped Kakashi as much as he helped you. And you two helped each other as well."
Kakashi steeled himself, and looked at Minato. He didn't like this test. Why test them on teamwork, if Konoha drove his father to his death, because he protected his team? Fire burned in his heart. This man, this man, who's blond hair shined like the sun, with eyes like the sky, thought he had some clue of how deep the darkness in people's hearts went. He did not. He would get them killed, and there wasn't anything Kakashi could do to stop him or get himself out of it.
