This fic does assume its readers have a passing familiarity with the Narutoverse, first because Kakashi does and a lot of it is going to be in his perspective, second because I'm not going to spend four paragraphs describing the byakugan when we all know what it is. There are some nods that I haven't fully explained because I think most people will understand what's happening with the information given. That said, if I'm saying something and you're totally not getting what I mean, lmk so I can put that exposition in – I'm not trying to leave anyone confused.
'm not a superfan personally, so I don't think the level of assumed knowledge will be arduous. Most things that pull from canon specifically (instead of just general fandom knowledge) will prob come from rewatching clips on YT to get character references – e.g. there's a scene with Kushina talking about how she thinks Obito is an unskilled ninja, but how she hopes Naruto will have his indominable will. I'm taking inspo from those clips, but I might miss some things because I'm seeing them in isolation – feel free to call me out on them. There's also gonna be things I change, but I don't think any of my setup is directly in conflict with canon. If anything seems off, or even if you disagree with an artistic choice, feel free to say so in the comments. I won't say I'll always agree and change my direction, but I genuinely appreciate any manner of engagement and I'd love to hear about any impressions you have!
(See the end of the chapter formore notes.)
Chapter Text
Naruto was not like either of his parents. He might have looked exactly like his father, but Minato had been collected and tender and brutally competent; a dependable comrade and a terrifying enemy. Naruto was none of these. Kushina had been loud and opinionated too, but Naruto held none of his mother's patience or calculation. His wildness was belligerent, rude, unskilled; he was everything Kushina herself had condemned in incompetent shinobi. Minato would have him kicked out of the force in a month.
Maybe Minato and Kushina had been different in their youth, more like Naruto, but Kakashi didn't know them then. He couldn't see how his precious people had made this raging brat of a puppy, and he didn't know if that made his current mission more or less difficult.
He settled Sakura with the others and gestured for the next took efficient steps to whereTentenhad stood previously and pivoted stiffly to stare blankly at Naruto. Naruto didn't even move, he just kept talking - spewing loud, belittling, ignorant comments.
"Come here so I can finish this poor excuse of a match," Neji clipped out, about as bored as his affect would allow. "You are so far outclassed that the despair of your loss is hardly worth my sweat. You waste my time."
Cute kid.
It took Naruto a second to process he was being insulted. Kakashi watched, the bluster falling from him as he realized Neji meant to fight him (as if Kakashi hadn't just told him 10 minutes ago). Credit to him, he rallied only a moment later - pushing up to stand with a dirty look.
He was tense in all the wrong places. His eyes squinted and his shoulders pulled tense, his legs were twitchy and his knees were locked. He raised an arm to point at Neji and his entire torso tilted from it. "You talk big game, but you won't be able to beat me. I'm gunna be the greatest ninja in the world!"
"Though we all have our destinies, I doubtthatis yours." Neji gestured a flat, open hand towards the empty space across from him, unimpressed. Naruto stomped over and Neji dropped into stance.
Kakashi wasn't very familiar with Gentle Fist but he knew enough to recognize the opener Neji chose andoh, someone had been very naughty.
Naruto ran in brawling, hitting fast but getting hit back faster. The forms of Gentle Fist were nothing like the Academy's. Naruto just kept getting pushed down. Again, again, again. Until-
"KageBunshinnoJutsu!"
The clearing crowded with at least a dozen Naruto, lurching forward with single-minded determination. Neji froze, surrounded and thrown off-guard, unsure for the first time in the fight. One clone's fist made contact, dispelling itself with the force of the punch, and Neji toppled back.
Impressive, but was it skill or luck? Shadow clones had fully developed chakra coils, making them particularly effective against the byakugan. And, for all his skill, Neji was still a genin. He was unlikely to be used to fighting against overwhelming numbers – but did Naruto know that?
The clones had Neji by his arms but Neji kicked up and through a flip, wrenching the clones' arms around with a gruesome crack. They dispelled. "You have now wasted your advantage" huffed Neji, winded, just barely. Then he was on the offensive and adapting fast, he popped one clone with three quick strikes to the ribs. But it dispelled on the second, so Neji spared the next one only a blow to the neck. By the third, he only needed to brush across an arm and the clones would disintegrate. They imploded in on themselves from the point of contact, a single disruption in the construct destabilizing it.
Neji hit the real Naruto somewhere in the middle of the pack, but he didn't stop. He ripped through the rest, ending only to look back at Naruto through the smoke. The other boy grunted in pain, trying to stand on a partially disabled leg. Neji let the defeat stretch on and didn't advance again. He just set his hand out in front of him and beckoned for Naruto to charge.
And the idiot obliged. He summoned double the number of clones, then again when those failed; he rushed Neji from behind, catapulted himself above, and each time Naruto stumbled back. Neji only centered himself and beckoned Naruto again. Naruto looked back to Kakashi each time, like he expected Kakashi to call the match. The Academy instructors certainly would have by now.
"You can give up." Kakashi called instead, just the same as he had with Sakura. Bland, unjudgmental. Naruto took it like a taunt.
"I won't," said the kid, pushing himself up on his unsteady leg, cradling an injured arm. Given Gentle Fist, he was most likely bleeding internally.
Neji turned to Kakashi, "Sensei, further attacks will-"
"I'll intervene on incapacitation or immediately dangerous injury," Kakashi interrupted, "as I've said." He raised his book dismissively, though the Hyuuga's activated eyes would still be able to track clearly Kakashi's eye as it never left Naruto's shuddering form. "I understand your concern, genin. Continue."
The rest of the two teams fidgeted nervously on the other side of Kakashi's field of view. Sasuke, grim and nervous despite himself; Sakura, silent but skeptical; Lee, shaking with the physical force of holding himself back; Tenten, eyes tracking across the mission scroll, over and over, like some grand meaning was to be found there.
His meaning was not grand. It was simple, brutal. Shinobi die. They fight, suffer, kill, and have no guarantee of safety. Not on the battlefield, not in training. This was not a game, and this was not a classroom, and Kakashi was not some Chūnin babysitter at the Academy. Neither was he Gai, who encouraged his team so sweetly, and neither was he Minato, who fostered Kakashi like his own and gentled even Obito to competence.
Kakashi wished he was, wished he could look at these floundering children and see what his sensei might have seen, done what his sensei might have done, but Kakashi did not know how.
"Uzumaki-san, stand down," warned Neji.
Naruto stumbled forward still. Foot in front of foot, still somehow cocksure in his own victory. "I'm...so sick...of...losing," he gasped out through the pain, "sick of...people und-underestimating me."
"My escalation will rupture your organs."
"Stop talking...and...fightme."
Neji countered every step Naruto took, keeping the distance between them until Naruto launched forward with a yell – Neji sidestepped cleanly, hitting twice along his shoulder. Naruto's arm slumped but he turned again, kicking out with his good leg. Neji bent backwards, and Naruto's own follow-through sent him sprawling on the ground.
"Stand down," Neji repeated, but Naruto was still struggling to stand again. With careful steps around, to Naruto's bad side, Neji stepped in and grabbed the boy's ankle. He hit several spots there, then along his back, then again across his shoulders, before finally letting him drop once more to the ground.
Naruto just shuddered in the dirt now, twitching. (Even that much was a miracle.) Kakashi snapped his book shut. "Mah, I'm willing to call that incapacitated."
Neji nodded tersely and stiffly walked back to his team. Naruto cried out; voice muffled by the ground so even Kakashi could barely make it out. "Iz not ov-. I can still-, I can st-ll beat 'im."
Kakashi shunshined over, crouching next to him. "Then go do so, Naruto-kun."
The boy tried to, struggling against himself. He made the hand-sign for shadow clones, mumbled into the ground again, but nothing came of it and Naruto grimaced again in pain.
Kakashi slipped out a kunai, holding its blade against Naruto's neck. "You're dead, brat. Several times over by this point." He held it steady, even as the kid struggled. The knife dug into his skin, Kakashi could hear in sick detail as blade met blood. "You're slicing open your own throat, if you couldn't tell," he said, light and soft like he had been with Sakura but the feeling wasn't the same because this- this was a different kind of strain he couldn't keep entirely from his voice. A rising panic that his steady hands belied; an unquenchable fear that Kakashi had missed something, that Kakashi didn't know anything at all, that Kakashi was about tokillthis boy.
Kakashi wasn't inexperienced with fear, it was something he dealt with every day. This was the same panic that churned under his skin every time he took Team Ro out, every time he drank to a buzz and his fingers itched and his senses found enemies out of alley-rats, every time he woke with his hands around the throat of a well-intentioned but terrified bed-partner after they'd taken one too many liberties with his sleeping person. Yes, Kakashi was often afraid, but that had never been an acceptable excuse to stop, so he kept his kunai steady and Naruto struggled harder against it, digging a deeper and deeper gash through his neck.
"Give up," Kakashi reminded him. Naruto did not, he pulled against the knife like he didn't think he could actually die. His struggles grew weaker, his blood still flowing, but still, the boy didn't reconsider his options so Kakashi held firm. e watched with forcibly dispassionate eyes as Naruto fell into unconsciousness.
His fingers twisted, middle over index, and a second Kakashi appeared on the other side of Naruto. Kakashi brought his hand to his kunai blade, green briefly flickering there, but pulled away entirely as his shadow clone picked the boy up and sped away.
In a half-second Kakashi was back in front of the children again, book in hand and forcing himself bored. His kunai was stashed again, like it had never been out, (and as far as the genin knew it hadn't been.) "Next match."
Lee looked uncertain, but Sasuke stepped forward cock-sure. The grim set of his Uchiha face had turned to something satisfied, pleased, anticipatory. Something that looked half offended at Lee's uncertainty, how the other boy didn't take Sasuke to be a threat.
"I'm not like the others," Sasuke informed him, but Lee didn't seem heartened.
He stepped up to match Sasuke, rolling out his ankle experimentally and testing the uneven ground. "I understand you are a... genius, Uchiha-san, but my hard work is more than enough to match you."
He was more worried about his teammates and the shock of the last match than Sasuke. Dismissive, good. The Uchiha could do with the insult. Let him hype himself up asdifferentfrom his teammates, he would get knocked back down all the same. Not letting another precocious little Uchiha graduate early was understandable, but counterintuitively, it had done no favors to the boy's ego.
They started without Kakashi's prompting. Sasuke at least made use of the area, flipping back into the trees and sending out barrages of kunai, shuriken, flat knives. Lee dodged, speed blurring him from untrained eyes as he closed the gap rapidly, getting a good kick in before Sasuke was off and swinging through the trees withanunsettled look on his face.
He got hit again three times even as he ran, Lee's speed unmatchable and devastating to any of Sasuke's attempts to guard. Chasing, catching, running again. Sasuke finding little moments to catch his breath, but they were less his own skill and more Lee's generosity. Letting his opponent ready himself just so he could test himself all the more.
The Uchiha should have pressed that advantage, running further, hiding better, but he didn't. He took his lulled moments at face value, as young shinobi do. It wasn't the first trick in the book, but feigned openings were certainly not revolutionary. Sasuke just hadn't realized they weren't always so literal.
So Lee kept striking just as Sasuke caught his breath and then letting the other run to catch it again. Between branches, across uneven roots, kicking up sand, testing, testing, testing. Lee wan't used to such conditions, but he was clearly at least informed of what to do in them. He braced a hand against unsteady ground, flushed Sasuke out from spots he felt comfortable in.
Finally Sasuke retreated again to the clearing, jumping once and then flipping back. Lee followed, a half step away from where Sasuke first landed, and watched as Sasuke settled there.
Sasuke met his eyes, taunting, "Going to keep disappearing on me like a coward? Or are you going to fight me head on."
Ha. As if Sasuke had been fighting head on, running through the trees as he was, being shinobi trained as he was – but it was a clever jab, accurate to a rudimentary assessment of Lee's personality thus far with how it pointed out how the older boy didn't press his advantage when Sasuke was down and tended to attack as if he wanted a fair fight.
More succinctly, it was clever because it worked. Lee kept eyes on Sasuke as he launched forward, not realizing the area was grassier than the rest of the clearing, not remembering this was whereTentenhad swept herfootspikesto. He slipped with a grunt, just enough time for Sasuke to flip through the hand signs and-
"Katon:GōkakyūnoJutsu" Fire spewed from Sasuke's lips, hot and ferocious, licking through the clearing in a moment and leaving only blackened ash that moment later.
Sasuke wheezed as he finished, sucking in air greedily, so it took a second for him to survey his destruction, see that nothing lay in it, and recognize that as dangerous. He jerked to the right, to run again, but his body caught on Lee's knee as it cracked along his ribs. Sasuke spun into the grass.
Lee stood over him. "You might not believe it right away, but you simply don't have the speed to keep up with mytaijutsu."
He didn't walk away then, nor did he drop stance or assume he had won or look to Kakashi to call the match. Lee kicked away every attempt of Sasuke's to stand up again, knocking out his arms, putting pressure against his ribs, smacking away where Sasuke tried to grab Lee's leg.
Sasuke managed the first four signs of the kawarimi onehanded, but Lee noticed on the Snake sign and kicked him again – sending both log and Sasuke halfway the distance, still in the open. Then Lee was on him again, knee to his back, and pressed. Pressed until Sasuke cried out a hollow yelp.
Sasuke muttered what must have been him yielding; it was so quiet Kakashi couldn't hear, even with his enhanced senses. Lee let him up tersely. The mini-Gai nodded to Kakashi and left Sasuke there in the dirt to push himself up.
Kakashi left him too, signing Team 10's missionscrollperfunctorily as the team cast uncomfortable eyes at the injuredgeninaround them. The team they'd led to this very clearing, bright eyed and confident, but left in ruins. One in the hospital, the other two needing to be there. He handed the scroll back toTentenwith a muttered promise to be in touch about the team's bonus rewards, but the girl didn't seem so enthusiastic about it now. She perked, but only nervously, and her gratitude and pleasantries were wooden.
The team turned away awkwardly, Lee and Tenten starting to discuss a team dinner now that the sun was beginning to set. Neji hung back just a second, pale eyes fixed upon Kakashi. Kakashi blinked slowly back. The boy turned to follow his team, but in an unthinking moment Kakashi shunshined in front of him, blocking his path. Should he? No, he shouldn't, but still-
"Your stance," Kakashi said. Neji kept a stoic face but Kakashi could see the rising flush on his cheeks, the anxious hammer of his heart rate along his throat.
"TheHyuugause a clan style-"
"I've seen." The boy's eyes flicked up, to Kakashi's covered eye and then to the retreating backs of his teammates. His jaw worked in a subtle grind. "And whenever I've seen that stance," Kakashi let the words fall slowly, the boy's the panic cloying, before he switched to a more casual tone, "I've noticed the leading hand tracks somewhere in the lower stomach – not the chest."
Neji looked back at him, byakugan suddenly active again, piercing and judgmental. Kakashi let him look, let him judge. Kakashi let his good eye close softly, like a smile.
Kakashi shrugged and watched with a lazily hooded eye when Neji didn't seem inclined to do much else. "It's not a threat,Hyuuga-san." Though it was. It was knowledge, it was leverage, and those things were never anything but threats. "Just an observation. I was hardly focused onHiashiat the time."
Neji seemed to know not to take him at face value, Kakashi's name drop making him more both more suspicious and giving Kakashi exactly the credibility he needed. They kept eyes on eye until finally Neji nodded. "Thank you," he said, terse.
He was much to well-bred to ask what he wanted to,what do you want for your silence, never mind your help? At the same time, Kakashi wasn't going to give his answer so easily (he didn't know if he had an answer,) so instead he waved jauntily and shunshined back to Sasuke's prone form, his back to the dallying Hyuuga, and hoisted to his shoulder his own little arrogant prodigy. Sasuke gave weak, indignant protest. He hoisted Sakura too and vanished from the clearing before the Hyuuga had even caught up with his team.
Kakashi dispelled his clone just as he crossed onto the hospital's grounds, a surge of memories making the area only slightly less unfamiliar. He walked directly though the ER and the nurses let him pass. Averted their eyes, even. Maybe it was the vest or the two half-dead children he was carting around, but it was bad security either way.
Naruto was passed out on one of the beds in Room 402. Kakashi set his two other charges down on the second bed and, seeing neither one much capable of complaint, was gone as fast as he came. The brats wouldn't suffer while he ran a quick errand.
The man Kakashi could remember treating Naruto was two rooms over but Kakashi kept going, passing nurses and doctors all the same. He wandered a bit, taking his time before he came eventually to the end of the hall he half-remembered, where a young iryō-nin crouched next to a gurney, eating a bento. Kakashi crouched next to her, quiet as he could.
"Yo."
The woman startled, knocking the gurney away. Kakashi leaned over to catch itswrungsand keep it from rolling away, leaving the woman to push herself out from under his arm so she could stand.
"I'm off duty." Her voice was higher than he expected, not young, but soft in a way that didn't fit with her muscle.
"Aa, sorry," Kakashi lied easily, putting something like reproach in his voice and standing lazily to scratch along the back of his headband. "I just wanted to know if I could commandeer an extra bed for 402? I forgot what the rule is on that. I can do it myself; I won't ask for your time..."
She regarded him suspiciously, tapping her puzzle book nervously on her thigh. Sudoku. Kakshi made a point not to look directly at it. "Two beds to a room," she said, paused, "but what do you need a third for?"
Kakashi shrugged, let his eye smile and head tilt just so. "Well if I made one of them stay in a separate room, wouldn't they get lonely?"
The kunoichi squinted her eyes a bit at Kakashi, but whether by kindness or curiosity she caved – walking off back the direction Kakashi had come from. He followed, first waiting while the woman peeked in 402, then to 401 to grab a cot, then back to 402. Kakashi ushered Sasuke to the new bed while the iryō-nin puttered around Sakura.
"I don't need-" Sasuke coughed, and though he tried to hide it Kakashi could see the blood where he'd shielded his mouth, "don't need the hospital."
Kakashi ignored him. The hospital was sure to have bad memories for any shinobi and Sasuke had more cause for this than most of his peers, but the brats would have to learn to deal with it. Either until they stopped getting hurt or convinced one of themselves to studyiryō-ninjutsu. Win-win-win for them really, given 'legitimate and unavoidable training injuries' were just about the only break Kakashi's parameters would allow the team.
Needless to say, Kakashi was about to become a very dedicated enforcer of full and complete recovery periods. MaybeDanzōhad a sense of humor after all.
"Asano, your boyfriend's been harassing the front desk for you," said a voice from the doorway flatly. Kakashi turned to see theiryō-ninhe'd brought - Asano, he filed the name away - tucking away the clipboard with Naruto's patient information casually and Naruto's attending doctor at the door – his eyes not on the otheriryō-nin, but watching Kakashi. Asano muttered some thanks, brushed out of the room, and when Kakashi could hear her footsteps fading down the hallway the other man narrowed in on Kakashi. "Why are my patients multiplying, Hatake?"
He didn't answer, butIōhad known him long enough he probably didn't expect Kakashi to. Answering questions just invited people to ask you more questions, and that tended to leave the impression Kakashi cared about what those people thought, or would take their opinions into consideration and that was just inconvenient and inefficient. No, ifjōninof his caliber had earned anything, it was the authority to do what he wanted.
If he wanted to pull rank and go over the heads of some desk-chūninin receiving so his team got faster medical care, well, they'd just have to accept Kakashi had his reasons.
Iō, despite his reluctance, seemed to be on the same page. Or at least, he'd given up fighting such eccentricities. Going along with shinobi ridiculousness was probably in the hospital protocols at this point. He took Kakashi's new arrivals in stride despite his exasperation, tapping quickly on his pager and flagging a civilian nurse to grab him the necessary intake paperwork.
Kakashi hunkered down on Naruto's visitor's chair, keeping a quiet eye on his two subduedgenin. They hadn't said much since their respective battles, but they hadn't had much of a chance. Now, though, Kakashi watched them.
Sasuke was as expected; he kept accidentally aggravating his ribs, unused to being so severely injured, but he bore the pain quietly. Angrily, even. He'd ignored Sakura's attempts at getting his attention at least four times, instead alternating between brooding and staring expectantly at Kakashi.
Sakura had fallen even more into herself, dejected, but seemed to have come to terms with her own failure. She avoided looking anywhere around Kakashi. Loud sighs and other reminders of his presence had her swallowing nervously. Still, she seemed to have a curious mind not otherwise mentioned in her file, and it showed itself even in her nervousness. Her eyes lingered around the room, watching.
She'd been marked as selectively competitive with her peers, praise-seeking but not ambitious, undermotivated and indecisive – but as Iō worked his way through her treatment she asked pointed questions and while Iō responded, she didn't look once towards Sasuke.
That wasn't necessarily counter to the Academy profile, but it was notable. A quick acceptance of one's own limitations – accepting defeat, accepting another year at the academy – could easily be mislabeled as disinterest rather than caution. After all, a risk-averse personality became stagnant without clear guidance; shinobi life involved many difficult choices but the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions was scarce for civilian-raised shinobi. A lack of clearly definable ambition might just have been the natural conclusion to Sakura's high trust in authority, a 'belief in the process', s sign of her deferring judgment either to a qualified person or until she, herself, had more information.
Or maybe she just found the silence awkward, or for whatever reason wanted Iō to like her and found detailed questions were the best way to attract positive adult attention.A nurse had returned with intake papers and Kakashi put away such thoughts to instead rattle off various bureaucratic nonsense on behalf of his brats, who evidently hadn't thought to memorize their identification numbers yet. (Sakura looked quite affronted he had hers. Civilian sensibilities, perhaps?)
"Is there a team number?" asked Iō, looking up to Kakashi with a look on the border between teasing and reprimand, "I'd assume 'no' knowing your record, Hatake, but with wounds like this all over evenyouhave to give these kids a pass, right?"
He didn't. At least not for that reason. Getting hurt didn't make you shinobi, it didn't make you brave, and it didn't make you ready for the responsibilities of taking or protecting a life. These were children and if given any choice at all Kakashi would not be the one taking that away from them.
But he couldn't say that."No test," he said instead, the closest he could come to the truth, "Team D-7."
"We made it?" Sakura's voice was hoarse and hopeful and very unwelcome.
It made something sick slither in his stomach but there was no way to correct her, no way to explain that this was just a mission, no way to explain that even with that mission she was just unintended collateral, so Kakashi pushed down the feeling. He felt worse for it, the tentative pride that cracked through her voice echoed in his head like so many of his mistakes did and it cracked him too.
Sasuke made that little Uchiha noise, something half a sigh, half a hum. Sakura looked over at him and, in that little breathy way of hers, called out, "Sasuke-kun, does that- well, that means we're a team now, so do you want to-"
"No." Sasuke said.
Iōhad finished with Sakura by then and filled out what he could on both of their intake forms, so he graciously chose that moment to start healing Sasuke's cracked ribs. "You'll both stay the night for observation," he told them, a compromise which made neither happy. "It's chicken fingers tonight, very romantic."
Nothing for team bonding like staying a night in the hospital, after all. Sasuke didn't seem to agree, or perhaps he just very much didn't want to bond with his team. "I feel fine," he said.
"Complicatediryō-stuff, kid, it's not as simple as it looks,"Iōdismissed, pulling Sasuke up and setting about wrapping his ribs up – much to his disgruntlement, Sakura sitting right there to watch him strip off his shirt.
The comment was casual, but Sasuke took it as an insult – as Kakashi would have at that age, he couldn't help but see thesimilarities. Sasuke glowered at the doctor, "I'm not allergic."
Kakashi cut in before it could escalate, full of false brightness. "Bring your clan file over in the morning, ne? They don't self-update. The hospital will need to refresh what's there anyway, it's been so long." Both flushed, Sasuke at the backhanded reprimand and Iō for whatever reason Iō had. He addressed the next to Sakura too, "I'll put you all in for the full workup sometime this week. Bring a written family medical history." Sakura nodded seriously.
The iryō-nin was finishing up. He kept glancing at Kakashi like he might disappear any second (not an unfounded concern), so Kakashi stretched slowly. "I'll go do that, then. Front desk, I'll be back."
He did go down to schedule the appointments, but he loitered a minute in the lobby untilIōcame down too. The man looked tired, but nowhere near the worst Kakashi had seen him. He looked better in fact, good. He toldIōso.
"And I'm sure you look like shit, Hatake," was his wry reply.
Kakashi didn't have anything to say to that. He couldn't speak to the statement's accuracy; he hadn't seen his face in so long heprobablywouldn't have been able to tell anyway.
Whatever bluster or friendly reportIōhad been trying for fell away in the face of Kakashi's silence. Theiryō-nindidn't shift nervously, he was too well trained for that, but he did swallow his own dry throat and the noise was loud and damning.
"The, uh, Uzumaki kid,"Iōstarted. Kakashi nodded, but it didn't seem to calm the other's nerves. "Well - his throat. It was half-healed when it came in but it was sloppy. Practically all scar tissue, I won't be able to get it out."
"That's fine."
The man fingered a thick, pale mark along his own wrist, a spot Kakashi vividly remembered because it was burned into his sharingan. The last time he'd seen it so close and still, Iō had been half passed out, the entire squad a week away from base, and Kakashi had been trying to save his kōhai's hand from field amputation. "You don't like scars."
It was a surprising statement, but Kakashi didn't suppose it was wrong. He just hadn't thought about it before. He practiced a little iryō-ninjutsu because it could save lives, he perfected that iryō-ninjutsu because he could. He was excellent with it, but he was excellent with everything. He hadn't thought about what that specifically meant about him, or if his insistence to heal himself and his team was anything other than a demonstration of his excellence.
"I don't like reminders; I remember enough on my own." Kakashi said finally. His voice was stronger than he felt, disembodied in its surety and even as he said it, he wasn't quite sure what he was referring to. Did he mean scars were reminders of wounds, or that they were reminders of Kakashi's inability to make whole what he had broken? "Naruto needs to remember this."
Iō was far too pensive for Kakashi to be comfortable looking at his face, at the blankness there as he thought. Had he thought someone else had healed Naruto, and that Kakashi would be upset his genin were so soon marred? Possibly, Kakashi tended to dislike people who couldn't do their jobs.
"Genin aren't the same as...what you're used to. And what you're used to isn't normal – thats, I mean, it's a very specific standard – in the first place." Trying to explain to Kakashi that children were not ANBU. How out of touch did Iō think he was? "I mean, the kami know I couldn't hack it, only lasted two years -"
"If you feel better saving lives, then I'm glad you made the switch," Kakashi interjected, to prevent him from rambling.
"I don't," the other man caught his tongue in his teeth, some sort of grimace there, "I miss it. I wish I could just fight again, but it fucked me up too badly. That's what I'm saying."
Some part of him recognized Iō was commenting on the larger differences between ANBU and standard force work, but the larger part justhurtat the correction. Kakashi had failed to keep this man safe, like so many others. Kakashi was so unreliableIōhadtaken one look at hisgeninteam and decided Kakashi was an unfit sensei.
He was. He knew it already. He kept telling people he would be, but theHokagedidn't listen.
"These kids, they're going to learn a lot,"Iōkept on, "but when you hear aboutgeninteams down the line, you hear about how the best of them were like families – you know?"
He didn't. "Teamwork will be a primary objective of the squad," Kakashi reassured him.
Iōsmiled softly, strangely. "Yeah, your teams are always immaculate. I've never doubted that."
Then what was the point of this conversation?
Kakashi gave a stiff nod, excusing himself. He made a shadow clone and sent it up through the ceilings to spy on the brats and took off to take a shower, roll out his sore muscles, and continue on with the plan.
Notes: