Ibiki stared at the garden floor, hands on hips as he surveyed his work.
Every tool, weapon, backpack, clothing, armor—
Anything and everything he could carry or wear was laid out in front of him.
The next step: actually choosing.
"That's… a lot of options," Aunt Sakura said.
He knew that, obviously, but adults liked to state the obvious a lot.
"I want something all-purpose," Ibiki explained, "that I can wear in the field or in the Capital. Me and Asuma are almost definitely going to end up on a diplomacy team together, so my outfit needs to do both."
"Who else will be on your team?"
Ibiki shrugged. "Genma and Kurenai aren't really interested in diplomacy, so I don't know."
"And why do you think you'll be on a diplomacy team?"
"It's obvious, isn't it? I'm kind of interested in diplomacy, and Asuma's parents mean he has lots of practice and an important diplomatic name."
Aunt Sakura hummed.
Ibiki didn't like that hum.
It usually meant she didn't have the same reasoning as him, or the same conclusion, but she wasn't going to tell him what she'd reasoned differently.
She and Uncle Juro—who did the exact same thing, right down to the inflection of the hum—called it a 'learning experience.'
Ibiki called it stupid.
He ran through his reasoning again in his head, found no fault with it, and turned back to his selection of coats.
He had four.
"This one's out—gets soaked in the rain. This one's too small."
"The other two?"
Ibiki hesitated.
Which would be better?
"I don't know."
"Well, at least you can set aside what you know you don't want."
Over the afternoon Ibiki slowly whittled down his options. After the second hour Aunt Sakura gave him a third storage seal, which was probably the only reason that he'd finished at all before dinner.
Uncle Juro just smiled when he'd heard how Ibiki spent half the day.
They'd taken him out to eat—barbeque—and he shrugged, unrepentant, as he began cooking his first slices of beef.
"I'm about to be a genin. It's important to make sure I'm doing it the way I want."
"Fair enough," Uncle Juro said. "Anything else you want to do before you get assigned your team tomorrow?"
Ibiki hesitated, thinking, but he'd been preparing for this for months.
"No, I'm ready."
In less than a day he, Asuma, some girl, and their new Sensei would be a team.
A genin team.
Ibiki couldn't wait.
.
The team assignments were taking forever.
There were 112 students graduating alongside Ibiki—the Hokage's ban on under-tens graduating and the new electives had inflated the size by at least twenty compared to what it should have been—and having to sit through thirty or so teams being listed (with the other students skipping teams entirely to get started on their apprenticeships) took. So. Long.
By team seventeen (the seventh overall team to be called, because so many genin teams already existed), he and Asuma still hadn't had their team listed.
"Team 18 will be Sarutobi Asuma—" finally! "—Yuhi Kurenai, and Utatane Asahi, under Akimichi Aki."
What.
Asuma stared at him.
Ibiki stared back.
Then Asuma whipped around to look at Kurenai, grinning like a maniac.
Ibiki—
He—
What?
He'd been so sure.
And it was great, and all, that Kurenai and Asuma were on the same team—
Genma already got his team, Team 12.
Ibiki—
Ibiki was the only one left.
He plastered a smile on his face, slapped Asuma on the back, and tried to think of where his calculations had gone wrong.
The room continued to clear out.
The number of students remaining dwindled.
Finally, with less than half of all the students already assigned,
"Team 42 will by Morino Ibiki, Uchiha Sadao, and Endo Misaki."
Ibiki blinked.
Neither of his teammates had been in his class—he only really knew of them from grade-wide activities, and even then only vaguely.
Also—
Sensei hadn't mentioned their Jounin-Sensei.
"You will meet your Jounin-Sensei in training ground 42. That would be southeast of the city."
All three recited their acknowledgments and thanks and left.
No one moved to immediately introduce themselves as they made their way through Konoha.
It was disquieting, and Ibiki didn't want to deal with disquieting when he was already reeling from him and Asuma being placed on different teams.
He'd really thought he was bound for Diplomacy.
But still, neither of his teammates spoke up.
He decided, based on their body language, that they'd been in the same class for some time but weren't friends—likely hadn't spent any time together outside of class at all.
Ibiki cleared his throat.
"I'm Ibiki. Morino."
"Sadao." Sadao grunted. He… didn't seem to like Ibiki.
Ibiki had never interacted with him before in his life.
"Misaki."
"Nice to meet you."
Both recited the pleasantry back at him.
They did not attempt to continue the conversation.
Finally, they arrived.
Training ground 42 was next to the Nara River, near one of the giant filter-net systems set up by Research.
It was otherwise relatively plain—some trees, brush, not much grass, a lot of dirt…
It seemed heavily used, but not particularly unique.
It was also empty.
"Neither of you happened to catch the name of our Sensei?"
"No."
"Uh-uh."
"Okay," Ibiki said. He took a breath, looking around.
No one in sight.
"Should we go back… ask at the Academy?"
"Everyone else was told," Sadao said. "We weren't. That was intentional; they aren't about to tell us now."
"So…" Misaki said.
Civilian-born, definitely.
Probably not an orphan—they tended to wear the orphanage-provided clothes, because they were good quality and free, until they literally outgrew them.
Her clothes—child of a merchant? A more well-off farmer, maybe?
Not a physical threat; she was too gawky; clearly in the middle of a growth spurt, but even without that she just definitely didn't have the muscle mass that those who wanted to be on the frontline did.
Ibiki brushed the analysis to the back of his mind; they needed a plan.
"Well, I think our options—"
"Who put you in charge?!" Sadao snapped.
Misaki and Ibiki turned to stare at him.
Ibiki noted Misaki's reaction—this wasn't how Sadao normally behaved.
Not good.
"No one," Ibiki said. He kept his tone level—anything that could be seen as placatory likely wouldn't be taken well. "I was just going to explain what I thought our options were, and ideally ask you and Misaki to do the same, so we could all be on the same page.
"I think we're all very confused, and I thought maybe working together on a plan would help."
Sadao snorted. "You're good for now. Let's see how long you keep it up in the real world."
Ibiki… didn't know how to take that.
As it turned out, he didn't have time to decide.
"Hello, brats."
Ibiki turned first.
Sadao, already facing the right direction, had literally frozen in shock half a second before the woman spoke.
Misaki was the last to turn.
She didn't freeze like Sadao, or subtly pinch herself like Ibiki.
She collapsed.
"Well, that's a first," Sannin Tsunade said, looking down at the ten-year-old. "Is she unconscious?"
Ibiki shook his head, not turning to look. "She didn't collapse like an unconscious person would."
Sannin Tsunade gave him an appraising look.
Misaki leapt up, took one stumbling step forward, and began stuttering.
"Sannin Tsunade, it is such an honor—I can't believe—when they turned down my apprenticeship application—and now—but—wait—are you, are you our, Team 42's Sensei? Ma'am?"
"Don't do the 'ma'am' thing," Tsunade said. She gave their group a once over, grimaced. "And yeah, I'm your Sensei. Don't call me Sannin, though. Got that particular epithet after a loss, though everyone just treats it like a fu— a freaking title now."
"You're… a Jounin Sensei?" Ibiki asked.
Had his aunt and uncles known about this?
"Yeah… decided last minute. Healthy, or something."
"In April, right?" Misaki said.
Tsunade nodded. "That when they turned down your apprenticeship?"
"Yeah, um, yes. Um."
"I don't want to be a medic-nin," Sadao said.
"Great. We're a diplomacy team anyway."
"Diplomacy?!"
Of course Sadao didn't like Diplomacy. Or medicine, Misaki's interest. Or Ibiki's whole existence. And now they were on a Diplomacy team with the woman regularly described as the least diplomatic of the Sannin.
Great.