- ; -
"Hatake Kakashi?" Kenji echoes. "Oh wow, you really can't escape fate can you?" There's a pause. "Does that mean you can't die until you finish the story?"
"I'm mildly concerned about that, yes," Sasuke scrubs a hand over his face. Blank eyes staring down his week old sushi. He's certain it was long past expired – the rice had a cardboard texture to it and tuna more green than brown. Could he die from eating it? He wonders, poking the fish with a chopstick. "What I'm more interested about is that ghost girl that follows him around. Creepy looking little shit."
"Creepy little – Oh!" Kenji bounces his head enthusiastically, squirting blood all over Sasuke's meal and face. Grimacing, he puts down his chopsticks and wipes a hand over his face. Feeling the cool liquid slowly dissolve.
"You mean Rin-chan," the ghost 'aah's as though he were remembering something sore. "Man, her death was impressive. She made Hatake punch her through the heart like – kapow!" Kenji slams a fist through Sasuke's chest, causing ice to flourish inside him like an infection. "Gotta say, messed the poor bastard up. And he was already messed up to begin with, so, that was like colossal fuckery right there."
"Thought so," Sasuke hums, slithers of memories flickering painfully in the back of his mind. Picking up his plate and striding to the empty bin, he drops it and ignores the porcelain smash.
"Oi," Kenji floats up behind him, peering worriedly over his shoulder and drenching it. "You need to eat."
"I'm not hungry," he dismisses with a wave, absently wiping his shoulder.
"You've already tried starvation," the guy tuts, looming like a bad smell while Sasuke cleans the kitchen.
Earlier he had tried to make some grilled salmon. Only, the salmon had rotted thanks to Kenji's undead influence.
Turns out cooking expired salmon wasn't nearly easy he had thought it would be.
"I don't need the reminder," he says. Shuddering from a mixture of shame and annoyance. Recalling the moment in horrid detail when he collapsed during class. A look of terrible understanding on Iruka's face along with the sharp jab of the corner of his desk. "It's kind of painful."
"You know," Kenji floats in front of him, lower body vanishing beneath the sink. Sasuke pauses for a split second before filling the sink with warm water and soap.
In neither lives had Sasuke thought he would wash a frying pan in a dead guy's mid-drift.
He lives for such wonders.
"When a person repeats the same mistakes over and over again, they're called insane."
"They're also called stupid," Sasuke gives a textbook smile. "I never claimed to be smart."
Kenji snorts and is suddenly surrounded by suds.
"Anyways," he begins, grabbing a sponge and his oily pan. "About Rin, do you know why she's haunting him?"
There are many reasons why ghosts haunt people. Unfinished business, grudge, whatever reason that keeps them from feeling fullfilled.
He recalls the Uchiha incident. Curtain of fire - burning and ripping and tearing as voices scream and beg Sasuke for vengeance.
Whatever reason Rin has for haunting Hatake, it must be a doozy considering the amount of bad energy she's surrounded by.
Class 3 ghosts are a bitch to deal with.
"You know I don't like conversing with other ghosts, especially child ones," Kenji takes to the change of subject without so much as a blink.
Which isn't unusual considering ghosts don't blink in general.
"Damn," he sighs. Looking up at the ceiling with a hard scowl. "Finding out what's keeping her here, it's gonna be a pain."
"Hold up," the dead guy raises a blood stained hand. "What are you planning?"
"To exorcise Rin," he cocks his head, eyeing Kenji. "What else would I be planning?"
Exorcising a ghost has two ways. He either burns their body and they disappear. Snuffed out quietly with little fanfare. That's typically for Class 1 and 2.
For Class 3 he burns whatever they're attached to. Exorcising Class 3 a ghosts are like trying to light a wet leaf – you need to drench everything in gasoline and hit it with a crap tonne of fire.
Kenji gives a look. "Normally ways to die – and I'll admit I'm liking the change of pace, but – uh, why? Rin hasn't done anything to deserve going wherever ghosts go after you roast them like chicken."
"Do you even need to ask?" he barks out a miserable laugh. "If I pass Hatake's stupid survival test, " which he's now certain of since Kenji's brought up Fate - Christ. Such a ridiculous concept but so is reincarnation. One step closer to death, one step back. He waves a wet hand in the air, "I don't exactly want a ghost haunting the team. It's both creepy and annoying, also a bad omen." His head just aches imagining having to constantly ignore Rin. No amount of desensitization is capable of stopping him from ogling that B-rated horror child.
- ; -
The sun was just above the horizon when he arrives at training field twelve the next day. Stomach empty and leaving a slight pinch in the back of his neck.
Kakashi had stated yesterday that they were not to eat breakfast, or else they might throw up during the test.
Sasuke couldn't help but laugh a little at that – either out of melancholy or bitter irony, he does not know. But the last time he had thrown up was at his first murder scene where some stupid sonofabitch blew another stupid sonofabitch's brains out. The unlucky bastard was strewn across a gutter, drenched in brain matter and piss. Sasuke can still recall the dead man's face, slacked in a look of not horror, but confusion and recognition.
A cop does not throw up during work unless they're either a rookie or a particularly delicate individual who needs to reconsider their vocation.
"Oi! Sasuke-teme!"
The man turns around to glance back at an orange blur torpedoing towards him.
"Man, didn't think you'd be here so, well, early!" Naruto comes to a slow jog at his side. Smile brighter than the sun behind him. "That's two days in a row you've been early." His blue eyes narrow in suspicion. "What gives?"
"Felt like turning over a new leaf," Sasuke shrugs and doesn't mention the nightmares. Of Itachi, of his Clan.
Of a nine-year-old shoplifter gunning down Quin, face sprayed with a mix of blood and brain.
"For some reason," Naruto says, "I don't believe you."
"Good, because my relationship with honestly is fleeting at best."
"Your mentality is really messed up."
- ; -
Jesus Christ, Sasuke thinks when Sakura comes storming into training ground twelve. Expression and eyes glinting manically. Gripped tightly in her hand was an A5 book thicker than the English dictionary.
"Tell me I'm good," she grins shark-like.
"You're a goddess," Sasuke drawls, "what's the book?"
Sakura blinks, not looking disappointed, but extremely resigned. "Huh. Wow"
Naruto ploughs over. "I'd pick you over ramen any day, Sakura-chan!"
"Ram - huh," she sighs heavily, flicking to a corner-folded page and displays the book open in front of them. Naruto squawks.
"That's- that's Kakashi-sensei!"
Indeed.
Sasuke's eyebrows flock to his hairline, equally stunned at seeing what looked to be a roughly outlined profile on Kakashi. Underneath a wallet-sized sketch of a younger, more detached version of the man they met yesterday - were stats on his abilities and a briefly summarized background history.
"What is this?" he asks Sakura, who is appropriately smug.
"That," she pronounces, "is a bingo-book I rented from the library."
Sasuke hums the same time Naruto frowns. Mystified.
"A what?"
"Honestly Naruto, did you ever listen in class?"
"No, I was too busy doing something interesting."
- ; -
They spend the next two hours exercising the tactical and analytical thinking that was implanted into their brains during the Academy. Thanks to Sakura and the profile provided on Kakashi, they are able to come up with a few ideas on what he'll have them do. So far all they knew was that there were two bells they had to retrieve if they wanted to pass. Everything else was a mystery to them.
Except Sasuke who stays silent, watching the sun rise above the horizon and painting clouds oranges, pinks and yellows.
No matter what universe, a sunrise is always beautiful.
- ; -
The splintering chill in his spine is what alerts Sasuke to Kakashi's arrival. So when he feels a warm puff of breath fan his left cheek, he doesn't react.
"Yo."
Naruto and Sakura's heads whirl. Leaping to their feet in unison and stumbling over each other in horror.
"Fre - don't do that, Kakashi-sensei!"
"You're late!"
"Oh? I am?" the man eye-smiles at them, still crouched way to close to Sasuke – who's grimacing, not for the lack of personal space. But rather at Rin who was looming behind him and the large piece of rib cage that drops into his lap. It's yellowed from age and has pieces of arteries and skin attached to it.
"Reeeally?" Kakashi cocks his head.
Blood dribbles down his neck like melted ice and Sasuke fights back the urge to squirm uncomfortably.
Jesus Christ.
"oh! I'm sorry!" Rin's voice tinkers and she flutters around him sheepishly. Swiping the bit of bone away as it dematerialises and looking at him with big murky eyes. "Sorry."
Sasuke pretends to not see her. He turns over to stare at Kakashi and blinks.
She's right in his face, presence more chilling than an ice rink it makes his nose start to tingle and run. Makes it hard to breathe.
"I really am sorry, I'm not in the habit of dropping pieces of myself onto children" she giggles.
"A-ah," ah shit. This was just too creepy even for him.
She's gonna be one hell of a bitch to exorcise, he grumbles.
"I recall the meeting time being ten." He hears Kakashi speak behind Rin, and thankfully she floats away. Choosing to watch a bird above in a tree branch.
The bird startles something bad, as though it had sensed a natural disaster.
"Lies," Naruto hisses venomously. "You lie!"
Kakashi just smiles again and does a quick once-over of everyone. "Well, if we're all here, let's begin." The man stands languidly and walks into the middle of the clearing. Rin quickly trails behind him, skipping in the air and singing a nursery rhyme about decapitation.
Sasuke wishes he had a set of earplugs and a bottle of tequila.
Naruto growls low in his throat, though doesn't say anything when Sakura flashes him side-long look. So instead, with a low rumble he offers Sasuke a hand. Taking it, he's heaved up and walks to his new trainer.
He remembers his old teachers and instructors – their wise words and cutting voices.
And sighs.
- ; -
Kakashi pulls out an analogue clock and sets a timer on it.
"This clock will be set up to ring at twelve, when it does. Until then you have two hours to come up with a plan to defeat me."
Sakura looked to have been punched in the face. "Defeat, sensei?" She asks, voice strained. "But you said this was a survival exam with the bells – we planned - "
"It is a survival exam." Kakashi cuts in, eyes twinkling. "Because it's against me."
"But, the bells - "
"Please hold all questions until I've explained the entire mission, hmm?"
Sakura closes her mouth, cheeks matching her hair.
"Thank you, now children. Your mission is to capture these bells off of me," he produces two bells strung together by a piece of string that looked older than Kakashi.
"Before noon."...
"That's all?" Naruto whispers under his breath.
"Just curious," Kakashi drawls while he ties the bells to his belt. "Did anyone eat breakfast?"
Frowning as she sense something suspicious going on, Sakura says, "You told us not to. So we didn't."
Checking over Naruto and Sasuke's nods of confirmation, Kakashi's eye creases into a hundred watt smile.
"Excellent! This will only motivate you more to retrieving the bells."
His tone is an abundance of treachery.
"Since," Kakashi seems to smirk like an ass, "whoever doesn't have a bell by noon, will not only fail my test and get sent back to the academy, you also won't have the lunch I made you all!"
"What?!" Naruto shouts, back slapping ramrod straight while Sakura appears to turn to stone.
"Get sent back– ?!"
"No lunch?!" Naruto squeaks, jaw unhinged and expression showing extreme horror before he's smacked over the head by Sakura.
"Oi!" She pounces, gripping him by the shoulders and shaking. "What is wrong with your head, Naruto?"
"You hit it." Sasuke drawls and is instantly silenced by her manic look.
"Now's not the time to be thinking about your appetite, Naruto. Stop being such a gluttonous idiot, Naruto!"
"My my," Kakashi's eyes positively twinkle in delight at the chaos. "Already fighting, are we?"
Sasuke grins dry.
"We're fine sensei," Sakura shrugs Naurto away, the boy grumbles low in his throat.
"Freakin' Sakura-chan, thinking I only care about my belly…."
"It's because you do," she hisses under her breath.
"Do not!"
"Alright," Kakashi cocks his head. "Then it's safe to say I'll also eat the meal in front of you – "
"You'll what you spiky-haired punk?!"
"Naruto!"
"To succeed and not witness such mutiny," Kakashi continues cheerfully, oblivious to Rin's disapproving words. "I repeat, you will have to defeat me." He plants kunai at their feet with a lazy throw. The three of them flinch. "In the academy you were taught ways to use various methods of force. To take me down," his gaze is hard against his jovial voice, "you will have to use lethal force."
"But sensei," Sakura tries to process what's happening, "that's – "
"Ya want us ta kill ya?!" Naruto shrieks in horror, the red district accent he's spent years masking accidentally slipping out.
"If it's any consolation," Kakashi turns around to place the analogue clock on a patch of grass. "There's a ninety nine per cent chance you wont succeed."
"Oi," Naruto says after a pause. Voice unnervingly calm. "Ya don't believe'n us?"
"A deadlast, a mindless fangirl, and pyromaniac." The man lists off with each finger and wiggles them in their face. "Doesn't exactly inspire confidence."
"I hate people like you." Naruto's hands clench by his side. Face twisting into a snarl. "People who label others with just one glance, not even bothering to understand, to take the time to get to know them and realize just how hard... the shit they've had to deal with, just to get where they're at."
"In your case, not very far. Hmm?" Kakashi taunts and dodges the fist Naruto rushes at him. Grabbing and twisting the blondes arm before sending the kid to the ground. He plants a foot on the Naruto's head and bends down to whisper gently, "I don't allow people to back talk and assault me, Naruto-chan. Especially children who are ranked lower than me. Far lower. Remember your place and behave yourself."
Besides him Rin tuts.
Even Sasuke's a little taken aback. He would have thought the constipated brat cared at least little bit about the child he abandoned to the wolves of Konoha.
"Do you understand, Naruto-chan?"
Naruto scoffs into the dirt, "I don't listen to people like you."
"You'll have to," Kakashi applies a little more pressure on his arm. Naruto lets out a whimper of pain that sends Sasuke's spine to straighten. In the far recesses of his mind, something biting whispers.
You swore an oath to protect innocents.
"If you want to become Hokage, you'll have to listen to people like me."
"No. I'll have to beat people like you!" Naruto shouts, gasping when Kakashi continues to twist his arm.
The whispering prickles Sasuke's skin, "Let him go," he hears himself say.
Kakashi looks up and blinks. If he's surprised, he doesn't show it. In fact, Kakashi doesn't show anything.
"What was that, Sasuke-kun?"
Yes, what was that Sasuke?
"Nothing, sensei."
"Nothing?!" Sakura breaks out of her stupefied reverie with a burst of anger. "Fuck you, Sasuke."
"Oh. Hey," Sasuke frowns. "Uncalled for."
"You get off of Naruto right now you...you slithery, ass-Sensei!" She storms forwards. "I don't care if you're my sensei you do not hurt my teammate!"
"Oi oi oi Sakura-chan," Naruto starts flailing like a kitten being dumbed in a bath as she draws near. "I'm perfectly fine - " he cuts himself off with another terrible whimper that makes Sasuke almost feel dirty for not doing anything.
Almost.
"Like hell!" She glowers at Kakashi, who meets her gaze shamelessly. "Let. Him. Go."
"I will."
"Good."
"If you're willing to kill me."
Sakura makes a split-second jerk before raising her chin. "I won't do that."
"Then – "
"Yet." Her gaze goes hard and promising. "When our exam starts, then I'll come at you with everything I've got. But for now, hand over my teammate."
"Sakura-chan," Naruto stares at her in awe. Totally enamoured.
After staring at her for a long moment, Kakashi steps off Naruto and hauls him up. Arm still locked in a firm grip. "Your argument could use more work, but it's convincing enough for now." Kakashi releases Naruto and nudges him over.
Sakura sags and drags Naruto to stand in-between her and Sasuke.
"Bastard," Naruto eyes Sasuke. Looking thoroughly put out. "For a second there I thought you actually cared."
"So did I," Sasuke shrugs a shoulder. "Fortunately we were both wrong."
"Oh yes, there's an upside to everything isn't there?"
- ; -
Side note: Kakashi isn't an actual ass he's just testing them (okay so he's a bit of an ass but meh *shrugs*)