It was a month and a half later that Kakashi and his team took a C-rank.
Team 10 had already taken one, and Asuma had been kind enough to inform her of the specifics and watched as she glared them down and told them she expected a separate report about their formation and technique success rate.
They had nodded obediently, but had not yet returned. She wasn't as worried about Team 7 because for all Kakashi enjoyed throwing them into the deep end, he was far more experienced a veteran than she could hope to be. He covered his weakness with her presence andlearntfrom her.
If anyone could do that while being as strong as Kakashi was, she could only bow her head at their humility. Really, Kakashi was pretty great.
The kids seemed sad when she waved them goodbye at the gate, but they departed relatively ready for the big scary world of shinobi. Even if there were some problems, as long as it was only up to B-rank, the kids could handle it even without Kakashi's involvement.
While they were gone, Team 3 begged her for mercy, but she bullied them into drinking her tea and sleeping it off before sending them fresh for a new day of torture- ahem, training.
All in all, her kids were leaving the nest and she took a brief 3 day surveillance mission rotation with her shiny special jonin rank. Gai had upped his team's training and she dropped by to fight against those kids whenever she was bored. Gai was quite indulgent of her, thankfully.
In her free time, she started to write. Well, writing down the teaching tips was a little embarrassing, but Kakashi had told her that what she had was a talent. But even if he said that, she didn't believe it was a talent that couldn't be nurtured.
It was for the future of those kids, wasn't it? Kids who would bloom into their strongest, more beautiful self, who would be their future and surpass the past generations.
There were already many jutsu techniques to be learnt, but what made learning jutsuyourspeciality? When she started writing, she realize that there was so much to know, so much she could tell.
She remembered the confused look on Asuma's face when she told him he shouldn't force Ino into another sub-specialization and he had blankly asked her if it wasn't somethingshehad been doing. And she had to sit back and explain to the man that she hadn't been, even if it seemed like it.
She had gone on tangents, explaining aspects that she hadn't realized needed explaining. And when she took a break to breathe, she realized that half her room had been filled with scrolls upon scrolls of paper.
She had to sit down for a moment when she realized how true Kakashi's words had been, even if he couldn't have known. There wasso muchshe could teach people.
She had known Gai had written a few book on body building methods and a few on taijutsu styles, butthiswas different. These were the things she had learnt in the past year, teaching the academy kids who had no base, a clean slate to start with.
It wasn't just a mashup of skills that she had to find the perfect way to hold together. Or to let them build up from that mess of a skillset.
Every single one of her students were trained to her specification. Everyone had created their own techniques, without being forced into a mold like their families or clans, or by their kekkei genkai. They had brought out the truest version of themselves, and she wassoproud.
They knew how to build their skillset now, knew how they liked to learn things and what their body and mind were most inclined towards, and how could she write it down in asinglebook?
She created broad topics to focus on, then added sub-topics, adding more and more until each of the broad topics could be written as their own books. And shewould.
She marked each of the broad topics as the name of the book, adding a'1'after it, so people knew it was the first of a series. Then she wrote.
She only took aproperbreak when Team 7 broke into her room and screeched at the messy interior.
"Oh, sorry about that, kids," she said, eyes heavy, as she made her way to the living room. She wasn't quite sure how her papers had migrated all over the floor, but-
"Don't touch the ones without numbers on the top right, and keep them in the room or pile you found them in, if - she yawned - anything gets disturbed, then it'll be a hassle," she told them. Suddenly, Kakashi appeared beside her, hooking her arm around his shoulder.
"Let's get you to bed first, hmm?" He asked, she shivered at the sudden touch. The warmth of a body pressed completely on one side.
"Okay," she said, relaxing into him. There was a scent of wind and forest from him, and she let him carry her entire body weight as he manhandled her to her bedroom. Even that was a mess, though Kakashi didn't disturb a single paper as he gently placed her on the bed.
He tucked her in carefully.
"I wanted to hear about your mission," she mumbled into his flack jacket. Kakashi hesitated, laying a hand on her head.
"We came back alive," he patted her head, and she let out a soft sigh of relief.
"Coming back alive is - she yawned again- good," she said. She tucked her fingers into the small hoops of the flack jacket. Kakashi untangled her fingers from it, much to her grumbled protest, and shook with silent laughter as he told her that he needed to tell the team to go back to their homes.
"You can just stay" She pouted a little, becoming more alert but playing it up. When she blinked up at Kakashi, she froze at the sharpness in his eyes and realized she had been caught. She sighed, pulling back.
"I guess there's no room with the mess I made," she smiled at him. "All right."
Instead of Kakashi leaving, he bent close to her, one of his hands tangling with her hair, lifting her head, and the other pulling his mask down, until he could press his warm lips to hers.
It was comfortable. A shiver ran down her spine, but it felt warm and comfortable in a way very few things in her life had. She kissed him back sleepily, leisurely.
There was tenderness and a gentle regard. She could understand his feelings from that kiss.
When he pulled back, eyes soft, she smiled back, and tugged him back to her with the arm that was wrapped around his neck. They kissed again, soft, warm and comfortable. It was good. She could stay like this forever, in this haze of a dream, sharing warm and wet kisses with this man.
Kakashi made a sign with one hand that she could feel against her stomach and the door to her bedroom slammed shut, followed by startled yelps from four different voices outside of it.
Reality tugged at her, and she pulled away to laugh, because reality was sweeter than her dream.
"Handle the kids," she laughed warmly, "I need the sleep. You can tell me about how the mission went after you come back," she looked at him with a teasing smile.
Kakashi looked at her for a long moment.
"Should we just leave?" Naruto 'whispered', "We shouldn't really disturb them now."
"Naruto, you idiot," Sakura hissed back, "They can hear us!"
"Well, they can hear you too!" Naruto whisper-shouted back.
"Let's just go," Aime said, after what she guessed was exchanging a silent look with Sasuke, who did a face slap.
Kakashi and Narumi shared a look before, Narumi settled back in her bed and Kakashi stood up straight and went to the door.
She fell asleep to the sound of Kakashi throwing the kids out by their cuffs. Not long after that, a warm body shifted her to the side, taking up space beside her on the bed. A warm bare collarbone nudged against her nose and she nuzzled it before curling around the man in her bed.
It was a good night.