Title: Are You Ready?
Chapter: 55 – Override
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 4,867
Summary: AU. Sakura gives up on Kakashi as a teacher after Team 7 falls apart. Too bad fate, enemy ninja, and sheer bad luck have other plans.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. Part 55 of ? Unbeta'd.
Tenten feels like she's going to puke.
It's not that she doubts her decision-or the application she's got filled out and neatly arranged on her desk-but it's that, now or never, she's got to gear herself up and go and ask for it, taking the choice right out of her own hands and that's...
She's feeling a whole lot of ways about that.
She sits cross-legged on her bed, taking deep breaths, and listening for Sakura to come home. Sakura and Ino were out training with Hatake-sensei today, she knows that, and she knows that Sakura was going to tell Hatake-sensei about the ghost thing.
Which means, if he took it badly, it's probably the absolute worst time to ask.
Tenten examines this thought from every angle, obsessively trying to find away around that. The fact that Hatake-sensei so far seems to have been a stellar sensei doesn't change the fact that... ghosts are kind of a lot to believe in.
So, if he's taken it badly, I don't know that I should ask. But, also, if I want to do this, I need to ask quickly. Sakura will be back on active duty soon and Lee's almost ready to get out of the hospital. I think he'd be out, already, if Gai-sensei were around to keep an eye on him. But... I want to do this so it's settled before those things happen. That way, when Team Seven begins going on missions again, it's a done deal. Not... not a loose end.
Because she knows, she knows, it would be so easy, once Gai-sensei is back, to get caught up in her team and forget about this dream and she's...
I've already let go of the one about being Tsunade-sama's apprentice. I don't think I can be like her, though she's still one of my heroes. This, though, is maybe a smaller dream but it's something for me, decided by me, that I've chosen to go after. I want it.
Which, when it comes down to it, is the thing that matters the most. She winds up spending the afternoon with her mom, helping in the weapon's shop, then making small talk over dinner with Sakura and Ino, who've both shown up in time for it. After it, like they're two peas in a pod, Ino and Sakura beat a retreat up the stairs to Sakura's room.
Tenten drags her feet up the stairs after them. She wants this. It doesn't mean it's easy to ask.
She pauses outside Sakura's door, listening to them chatter but not hearing the words, then, squares her shoulders and knocks.
"Come in!" Sakura calls and Tenten wonders if Sakura knows just how happy she sounds, these days, here in Tenten's family's home.
Here goes nothing! Tenten thinks, bracingly, and then opens the door.
"Hey," she says, popping her head into the room and looking at Sakura, sprawled on the floor rug, her chin propped in her hands, and at Ino, who is lounging on the bed, her back to the wall, and a pen in one hand. Both of them have notebooks. "You two busy?"
"Not really?" Sakura says, with a marked air of 'how is this my life?' to her. "We're trying to figure out ways to case the movie we're going to tonight for, you know, ghosts."
"It would be way easier if they glowed," Ino opines blithely. "But also: rather distracting in a theatre."
Tenten laughs, despite her own nerves, because yes, that would be something Ino would notice immediately.
"You should come," Ino says. "If you're not busy."
"Hinata and I have plans," Tenten says, though she knows Hinata would understand if Tenten wanted to go to the movies instead. She shuts the door behind her and folds herself down onto the floor rug with Sakura. "Thanks, though. What movie are you two seeing?"
"Hiyoo Satsumi's new drama," Ino says promptly. "It's supposed to be devastating."
"And Watanabe Ankoku's her co-star," Sakura says. "And he's dreamy. He'll probably die a terrible death and it'll be amazing. We're going to look like disasters from crying when it's over."
"The price of a good movie," Ino says. "No, wait, the price of an excellent movie. Satsumi-sama can ruin me any day."
"You both have terrible taste in movies," Tenten says loftily, as if her mom doesn't have every single one of Hiyoo's dramas on tape right downstairs and that Tenten hasn't watched them all repeatedly. "I'm glad to avoid that."
They laugh.
"I told Hatake-sensei about my new talent," Sakura says. "He took it kind of well? I think? He didn't run away screaming into the void or yell at me for making up absolute garbage lies."
"Please," Ino says, "as if he'd think you'd make up that kind of bullshit. Not even Naruto would come up with that kind of nonsense and expect to be believed, so if you're saying it, Forehead..."
"Yes, Pig, I know," Sakura says, heaving a sigh. "Anyway, what's up, Tenten?"
"You look antsy," Ino says. "Nervous. Neither suit you, by the way."
"Wow, thanks," Tenten says, and tries to ignore the way her nerves bubble up against her willpower. "I'll try to convince my body that, if it's going to be anxious, it has to do it prettier next time."
Sakura laughs. Ino doesn't, just narrows her blue eyes slightly.
"There is something, though," she admits.
"Is it super serious?" Sakura asks, the light of laughter still colouring her. "Do I need to sit up?"
"I think you'll be fine laying down," Tenten assures her. "It's serious but not 'all hands on deck' serious."
Ino heaves a hugely put upon sigh and shimmies off the bed to join them on the floor.
"I suppose I shall lower myself to deal with you peons," Ino says. "Given that it's either something you need help with or concerns us."
"I think I should be offended, as a peon," Sakura says mildly, poking Ino in the leg.
Ino swats at her hand, catching it and holding it, and looks at Tenten. "What's up?"
Sakura tugs at her hand a few times but, when Ino doesn't relinquish it, she just sighs and gives up. "Sorry for the nonsense," she says. "We're good now."
Tenten doesn't really know how to explain it but, honestly, the nonsense of it all helped a bit. It's made her nerves feel less like this is a crazy important huge thing (though it is) and more... just something to have a conversation about.
With a couple of friends.
She shifts, making herself a little more comfortable.
"It's a bit of a story," Tenten says, almost apologetically, because while she'd rather cut to the chase, both Sakura and Ino always like a bit of a story. Details.
"We're all ears," Sakura says immediately.
"But cuter than that mental image," Ino says. "We're listening."
"Alright then," Tenten says. "I'll tell you that I've been thinking about this for months, not sure what to do about it, and have been spending way too much time in the library—"
"You love the library," Sakura mutters.
"Hush!" Ino says.
"—and, yeah, I do, which means you know it's a lot of time in the library when I'm saying it was way too much time there," Tenten says. "And, it really all started with the question that came up, when Ino first changed teams. The one where everyone thought Hinata would leave her team, until she was very clear about not wanting to."
Sakura's green eyes are serious now, while Ino's eyebrows have raised slightly.
Tenten does not go into all the ways that it had sucked ass to have people wonder if Hinata was going to change teams and have almost no one wonder about her. Like she was invisible, even in that circumstance.
"And, my problem was different from hers," Tenten says. "I love my team. I think Gai-sensei's a pretty good sensei. Neji and Lee can be assholes but they're my assholes to work with. But even with that, I couldn't stop thinking about it. The idea of doing something, because you're chasing a goal, because it'll be better for you.
"And my team hasn't really been functional for a while," she says. "Due to outside forces and injuries, not because anyone is made of fail, but I've been kind of... lost. At first, I thought that maybe that's all it was."
"At first?" Ino echoes.
Sakura looks between the two of them. "Are... are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"I'm kind of greedy," Tenten admits, staring intently at the rug. "I wanted to stay on my team but I also wanted to join yours. It's been thirty-four years since the last all-kunoichi Genin team. It would literally be making history to join you. But I... making history wasn't enough. I wanted it all."
Which is basically the most Team Gai thing ever.
Which tells Tenten that, however this goes, she's making the right choice for her.
"So," Tenten says, "there's a way to have someone permanently but temporarily assigned to a team. It would mean, if you agreed, that my primary team would be Team Gai, but whenever your Team Seven needed someone else... that would be me."
Ino and Sakura exchange glances. Sakura looks confused, Ino intrigued.
Tenten is still super nervous but, like, she'll take confused and intrigued. They're not a no. They're a chance to explain herself.
"That's a real thing?" Ino asks curiously. "Like, you'd be permanently our third teammate if ever we needed one and your team wasn't already running a mission that was higher priority?"
"You've never heard of this either?" Sakura asks, rather incredulously. "I mean, I thought-"
Ino laughs. "Why would I know that?" she asks. "I knew from before I even started at the Academy who my teammates were going to be. There was never any need for me to go looking into how the teams are formed."
"I have a book about it," Tenten says, quickly, before Sakura can respond and the conversation be derailed. "In my room, I mean. I borrowed it from the library. It... took some time to find. It's not a popular read."
"In this house, it's about to be," Sakura mutters. "Because I'm asking right now if I can borrow it from you."
Tenten laughs.
"So long as you take care of it," she says.
Sakura looks offended. "I always take care of my books."
"I know that," Tenten says. "And, yeah, I don't mind. Just don't tell the librarians. I got a ten minute lecture just for borrowing the book already. They'd lose their minds if I just handed it over without at least a warning."
Sakura looks mollified. "Oh. Well. If it's just so you can say you did to the librarians, that's okay then."
"I'll read it too," Ino says. "I'll even read it here, if you want, just so we can even claim it never left your home, Tenten."
"Probably for the best," Tenten admits, though it sounds ridiculous to have to do that. "They will ask."
"They definitely will," Sakura agrees. "And they will know if you lie to them, even though we've all had training in lying."
"Yeah, but you're a bad liar," Ino says comfortably. "But don't let me keep you from clouding your mind from reality with deliberately faded vision. Besides, we've got more important things to think and talk about right now than librarians."
"Librarians and how they'd reduce us down to merest figments of someone else's imagination if we dared harm a book," Sakura says, then grins at Tenten. "Though, like, most of my questions are all about things like-what if one of us becomes a Chuunin? What if we get assigned someone else? They're not about Tenten."
Tenten isn't sure how to take that, exactly, but Ino is nodding.
"I mean, I imagine it'd still be the same as how it is for other teams," Ino says. "Where technically the teams aren't disbanded until everyone on them is Chuunin or above and, even then, a lot of teams still run missions together. If we get assigned someone else, well, that happens sometimes too. Especially once the team starts moving up to Chuunin. There's a lot more fluidity in the higher ranking teams. Genin teams are the ones meant to be most stable."
"Because everyone's still learning how to work within a team," Tenten says. "Once you reach Chuunin, you're expected to have your shit together enough to work with anyone, even someone you hate, for the duration of a mission."
"Given the way Team Seven is, I don't know that I'll ever have my shit together enough for that," Sakura sighs dramatically, then yelps when Ino lightly kicks her.
"Are you sure you want to?" Ino says. "Like, she's not wrong, Team Seven does seem to have some seriously bad luck given the way our training mission went and how it was before I joined the team."
"Well," Tenten says, "my luck's always been pretty good on missions, and you're lucky. Maybe together we could out-weigh Sakura and Hatake-sensei's luck? If we could bring the team up to neutral luck then it might be okay?"
Sakura laughs. "I'm okay with it," she says. "You're mostly long-range, right? Neither Ino nor I are specializing in that, so it gives us another angle to consider missions from."
"I'm cool with it," Ino agrees. "Tenten's awesome and her adding her awesome to ours? Hatake-sensei isn't going to know what to do with all of our concentrated amazingness."
Tenten breathes a little easier, hearing that they're okay with it. That they like it.
"Do you think Hatake-sensei will be alright with it?" she asks hopefully.
They exchange glances again.
"I don't see why he wouldn't be," Ino says thoughtfully, after a moment. "Not if we explain it like you explained it to us. There's no worry about you having been poached from a different team since you'll still be part of your primary team. We'll basically be your part-time job."
Tenten can feel the flush crawl up her cheeks at hearing it described that way. Ino isn't exactly wrong but it's not-that's not-
"Rude, Pig," Sakura says. "Tenten's doing her best to be her best for all of us. We can only do our own part to honour that. Don't insult it by calling it a part-time job."
Ino shrugs a little. "I didn't mean anything bad by it," she says. "Technically, I have a part time job at the flower shop. All Yamanaka do. It doesn't mean my team is any less important and it doesn't mean that my work there is unimportant either. It's just two different things."
Sakura looks ready to argue that point, so Tenten makes herself laugh, instead.
"Well, I hope working with the two of you will be a good time," she says. "If Hatake-sensei approves of it, I mean."
"Have you told your team yet?" Sakura asks.
Tenten shakes her head. "No," she says. "Only Hinata knows. I didn't want to spread it around when I had no idea what the answer was going to be. Neji and Lee are both going to have opinions on the whole thing, I think, and if I can tell them before the rest of the village finds out, that would be better. But I needed to know what you two thought before I even got that far. I wasn't going to go anywhere near Hatake-sensei without asking your thoughts first."
"Makes sense to me," Ino says. "Making your teammates play catch up on the gossip about their own team would be a terrible foot to start off on. I can't think of any reason he'd say no. There might have to be some careful negotiations during the Chuunin exam, mind, since between all three teams impacted, we've only got seven Genin in the village, but that's something we can handle having a random around for, if need be."
Sakura tilts her head slightly. "I think that's all kind of getting too far ahead of ourselves," she says. "But I agree that I can't think of Hatake-sensei saying no and that all the other issues are likely to be pretty solvable as they come up."
"Are you feeling alright?" Ino asks. "That sounds almost relaxed and laid back."
"Shut up, Pig," Sakura says.
"Forehead."
"Anyway," Sakura says. "I think we're good with it. Do we need to sign anything, Tenten? Or do you just need Hatake-sensei's signature?"
"We should go find him," Ino says. "Immediately. There's a little time before the movie and, like, I can put off Satsumi-sama for this."
Tenten considers that. She's not opposed to it.
"And we're friends," she says, "so no one should think anything about it, that we're hanging out. It won't raise any suspicions or cause any gossip, I don't think. I just... I don't mind the talk after, but I really want to speak with Neji and Lee before other people do. They deserve that."
"I suppose we can be your dirty, dirty secret for one evening," Ino says, grinning at her.
"How scandalous," Sakura says. "But in a fun way, for once. I agree. We're now your illicit affair partners, Tenten, and you should treat us accordingly."
"She reads the wrong sorts of books," Ino says in a faux whisper that sets all three of them to laughing.
"I've seen you read them too," Tenten says. "But, yeah, if you guys are cool with it, I vote we go find Hatake-sensei and see if he's alright with me."
"Of course he'll be alright with you," Sakura says bracingly. "Why wouldn't he be?"
Ino bounces up from the ground and looks down at the both of them like they're oh so slow.
"Hurry up!" Ino commands.
Tenten grins as she stands, amazed at how somehow, somehow this has been easy. She'd built it up to be something terrifying and nigh insurmountable and yet, in talking to them, it turns out that it's nothing but-
Just another day, but in the best of ways.
Once they're all standing, Ino darts out of the room, clattering down the stairs and calling for them to get their asses moving.
Tenten would follow, but Sakura stops her.
"You do know, though, that you're signing up for a whole lot of weird, right?" Sakura asks, worry in her green eyes. "I mean, we're welcome to have you, but we're a team of weird."
Tenten considers that and the way Sakura is obviously, genuinely, concerned about this.
"Sakura," she says. "I'm already on Team Gai. I've seen my sensei, wearing nothing but a green leotard, dance on a turtle's back while he cried over a hat. Lee and Gai-sensei can summon sparkles and crashing waves and dramatic sunsets with the sheer force of their emotions."
Sakura's face is a study of complex emotions.
Tenten's always been kind of bad at reading them though.
"Okay," Sakura says, after a moment. "That's fair. But most of Team Seven's weird is less harmless than that."
"And you can't tell me it until I'm officially on your team, huh? It's weird that I don't already know?" Tenten asks.
Sakura nods. Once.
"Well," Tenten says slowly, "you and Ino are still my friends, so unless that's the great big secret that I'm not allowed to know, that you really cannot stand me, then I think I'm going to take my chances."
Relief flickers across Sakura's face, so clear and easy to read that it's almost painful to look at.
"We definitely like you just fine," Sakura says. "That would be a terrible secret to keep from you."
"You guys are so slow! Hurry up and get down here!" Ino shrieks up the stairs.
"Coming!" Sakura shouts right back and Tenten is laughing as she and Sakura go down the stairs like a herd of elephants.
"You'd think none of you were ninja," Tenten's mom says.
"Sorry, Mom," Tenten says, kissing her cheek. "We'll try and remember."
"You'll try and remember and fail," her mom says, with an amused sort of resignation. "Get out of here, you three."
They scoot on out of there.
"Was it just me or did that have a strong flavour of 'go out and play?'?" Ino asks.
"I mean," Sakura says, "we kind of are. It's a quest to find Hatake-sensei and he's not the easiest to find any time."
Ino grins at Tenten's quizzical look.
"It's really hilarious, actually," Ino says. "Given that he's only got about five places he might reasonably be."
"Well," Tenten says, with a laugh. "I guess we've at least got a starting point then. Which of the five places is first?"
"Apartment?" Sakura suggests.
"Apartment," Ino agrees.
In short order, they find themselves outside of Hatake-sensei's apartment-with, alright, a detour for ice cream just because they can-and, despite knocking, there's no answer.
"There's wards up," Ino says, faint pain lines showing around her eyes as she scowls in concentration at the door. "I can't tell if they mean he's in there or not though. I don't know enough about wards, except that breaking them is generally left to Chuunin and above. Genin tend to die."
"Let's not try and break into his place to see then," Sakura says hastily. "There's the bookstore and the memorial stone to try, after all."
"What are the other two places?" Tenten asks curiously.
"He's got a favourite grocery store," Ino says absently, even as Sakura tugs her away from the door to Hatake-sensei's apartment. "Last one would be the administrative buildings."
"We should save the grocery store for last," Tenten suggests. "That way, if we don't find him, we can at least pick up food for snacks."
"Our own little picnic," Sakura says. "For less weird reasons and more great reasons! And we can go see the movie tomorrow night."
"A celebration!" Ino says, grinning, though not all of the pain fades from her face. "We totally need to celebrate!"
"Not until it's official," Tenten says severely. "Getting ahead of ourselves like that is bad luck and I won't have it."
"You're going to have it at some point," Sakura says morosely, then laughs. "But, alright, fair point. Just a normal picnic, then? And we can discuss how you ought to bring it up to others!"
"And maybe we can figure out what can be shared now and what'll have to wait for the super official stuff," Ino says thoughtfully.
"I am supposed to be meeting Hinata later," Tenten says. "I can't stay out all evening with you two."
"That's a shame," Sakura says, smiling. "After all, you're going to have to get used to us, aren't you?"
"If he agrees," Tenten points out.
"Stop worrying about it," Ino says. "Or we're going to get the impression that you don't want us that badly."
Tenten just laughs.
They don't wind up finding Hatake-sensei that evening but, they agree, it's okay.
It's midnight, or thereabouts, before the panic attacks subside enough, and his stomach stabilizes enough, for Kakashi to feel up to staggering over to the bathroom and flinging himself in a shower.
Soap and shampoo help ease the way the scent of vomit have burned themselves into his senses and he comes out of the shower clean and feeling hollowed out.
He feels better.
Not good-there's not a lot to feel good about, truly-but the worst of the need to scream and be ill has subsided and, wearing a pair of drawstring pants and nothing else, he makes himself eat.
It tastes like sawdust but that's not the point. The point is he chews, swallows, and the food stays down.
Just getting something in him helps make the headache that pounds through his temples begin to recede. Cool water from the tap helps further with that.
There's a lot of things he still needs to decide but, for the moment, he's stable enough that even that list out in his living room no longer seems quite as insurmountable.
Quite.
There's nothing about them that's easy, even after falling apart.
And the pieces aren't even put back together yet, he thinks, wryly, but there's only so long he can be all feelings and no thoughts except the worst of his nightmares.
And he's still got training tomorrow, with the girls.
I could give them the day off, but then I'd have to explain it.
Which would honestly be harder than just going and doing training with them. They're learning, and fast, and improving in leaps and bounds, but they're still just Genin.
Fighting with them doesn't take that much thought, not one on one, and if he sticks to reviewing things that Sakura can handle while she's recovering, that's an even easier way to exhaust both of them without having to be one hundred percent focused.
They're good enough and know me well enough to know I'm distracted, he decides, carefully doing the dishes and focusing on the way the warm, sudsy water feels on his hands. But Ino's sense of decorum is very well-honed and Sakura follows her lead when it comes to things like that. I think they'd let me be. Whereas, if I cancelled training...
Kakashi smiles faintly at the thought.
If I gave the excuse that I was ill, they'd be over here with soup and medicine and it would take serious effort to dislodge them. They both know I wouldn't be sent on a mission without them-my status, as well as theirs, is complicated enough right now without adding that-and I didn't give them notice ahead of time that I'd be busy with something else.
In retrospect, he probably should have, but he'd been so busy trying to keep the pieces of himself together right then and there that that particular aspect of the future had escaped him.
Once the dishes have been washed, dried, and put away with a meticulousness that even he doesn't bother with most days, Kakashi looks out the window of his living room.
Part of him wants to go and visit his family at the memorial stone.
The rest of him is too tired, too unready to deal with the fact that, should he go and see them, will they actually be there?
I wonder if Sakura would tell me, if I asked...
He wonders if he'd have the nerve to ask that.
Kakashi sighs, brings a bottle of water with him, and slumps down on the couch.
The whiteboard, with all the problems he can think of, stares back at him. Not accusingly, no, but it doesn't need to accuse him of anything.
The words are loud enough, just as they are.
The question is, now that I can look at them without screaming, what am I going to do to fix them?
His dogs... he's out of ideas, but there's still the library and he thinks Tsunade-sama might let him look at the Hokage's private collection of scrolls, the forbidden ones, if it's about summoning. He's been a summoner for years.
It's not the same as having them back but it's a starting place he hasn't tried yet.
Kakashi breathes a little easier and goes down the list.
Likewise, his being stuck in this time isn't something he can do about, but...
I can follow up with the researchers. I know there were people looking into it. I should see what information they've discovered and what it might mean.
For his father's death...
I don't know that Tsunade-sama will allow me access to those records. I've never tried before. But I'd be interested to see if I can my hands on them. If not, there's ways around that, and if I'm not allowed to look at them... that means there's something there I shouldn't be seeing.
Which would be another starting place, something else to look into.
I can't do anything about Sakura nearly dying, except work past that, and I can do that. I've done it before, when people have actually died, and she didn't. She's alive and well.
Kakashi looks at his last two points thoughtfully.
I think we're going to be spending more time than either of them might want to, learning history and holing up in the library. Maybe I'll balance that out with letting them take on D rank missions within the village. We could clear one a day, do training, and then hit the library. Or library, mission, training based on whatever the mission is...
Kakashi considers that, then shrugs a bit. It doesn't really matter, and he'll have to decide soon, but for now... for now, there's the tentative beginning to something approaching a plan and that's...
That's enough.