Chapter Text
“Huh…” Iruka tapped the side of his chin in thought, chewing on what his former student had told him. “I don’t…get it.”
”Right!?” Naruto exclaimed, sending noodles flying around the shop and earning her a grave stink-eye courtesy of Ayame.
“You’re cleaning your own dishes for that, Naruto!” She scolded, cleaning up the broth that had splattered all over the counter.
“Sorry Ayame. Yes Ayame.” Naruto muttered, embarrassed.
It was just her and Iruka at Ichiraku that night, the village pretty deserted around the weekdays. The older man wore a puzzled expression as he hunched over the issued curriculum books that Sasuke and her were given.
”Bastards probably done by now,” Naruto sulked, pausing in her inhaling ramen to brood. “If I was born with a spoon up my ass I bet I’d be a super genius too.”
“Language.” Iruka reprimanded, as he often did when she swore in public, but it didn’t have any of its usual anger, looking towards him she can see the reason why.
Naruto rolled her eyes. “God, Iruka-sensei, you're a bigger nerd than Sakura and that’s really saying something! You sure you don’t wanna get on this mission with us?”
“No? What, of course not.” He snorted, rolling his eyes. “It’s just—their ‘magic’ system goes against everything we teach and practice. Are you sure this information is accurate?”
“Yeah, Old guy gave it to us himself. Said to study up before we meet the kiddos.” She said, picking her nose. “Man, I wonder if I can get away with cheating at a magic school, it can't be harder than the academy.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say that Naruto Uzumaki.” Iruka gritted out through clenched teeth. “There will be no cheating. I know you’ve been using your shadow clone more and more lately, they will help you catch up before the school semester starts.”
”You want me to study while I’m in the magic village?” She whined, though, not outright dismissing the simple genius of it. “You’d think I’d have more respect around here being the ‘savior of the leaf’, the only good deal I got out of it was the unlimited ramen voucher.”
He shot her a look. “Only you would care more about a ramen voucher than the endless gifts that I can bet are being stuffed into your closet right now.”
”Heh, yeah that’s gonna be an upside.” She grinned, wiggling in her chair. “I can leave my crap for future me to deal with, I mean you don’t need a clean house if you’re not even in it, you know!”
She tapped her chin in thought, adorably reminiscent of her teacher, and said. “That’s if it doesn’t catch on fire or randomly get sold if I’m gone too long…maybe I should get insurance?”
”You don’t know how long it is? Were you not briefed with the client?” Iruka raised a brow.
“Hmm yeah we were supposed to do that but I think Granny got bogged down in intimidating him more than anything. That guy looked super freaked after me and the Bastard finished our spar. I bet she’s trying to sucker him into spending more than he has to cause he saw how cool we are,” She grinned, evilly. “Hey, you think we’d get a bonus if we scare the kiddos enough not to do dumb shit?”
“Stay focused, Naruto! You’ve got a job to do and you will not drag down Konoha’s reputation just so you can continue slacking off!” Iruka yelled, his infamous anger finally going off like a bullet in a gun, a distraction to those around him and himself( Iruka was so distracted, in fact, that he had missed Ayame subtly erasing a chalkboard that said ‘days since last Iruka explosion’ going from 5 to 0).
“Fine, fine, When we go to our next base I’ll make sure to study with the shadow clone, and ugh read those stuffy books, you happy now?” She rolled her eyes but reluctantly smiled when he bumped his shoulder against hers.
”Immensely, you little brat.” Iruka snorted, ruffling her hair and listening with one ear about the many impossibly crazy things they might see beyond the gates.
It was quiet moments like this he appreciated most about returning to the village.
While waiting for their client to pick them up (because apparently their means of transport would be the most time efficient, not that he cared) they had taken to sparring. A habit that developed after years studying under a perpetually late teacher.
They met up early and it was a rare, blissful, silence as they shuffled through their respective moves. Sasuke naturally found himself over-extending himself not yet used to the new asymmetry of his body and Naruto was still rubbing sleep out of her eyes, with her bed head still fluffed up from her pillow. No world ending threat to combat, no more deaths to mourn or politics to abide by, just them side by side, the way it was supposed to be. Perfect.
”You tell the brat you’re leaving?” Sasuke, in a rare good mood, decided to open the discussion.
“Yeah, Konohamaru and the others promised to keep up maintenance at my apartment,” She smiled. “It’s cute, they got super into it for whatever reason.”
“It’s because he’s got a crush on you.”
“Probably adds to it, yeah.” Naruto nodded, shooting him a look when he went for a particularly harsh move. “What about you, weirdo? We didn’t end up telling everyone, I feel kinda bad.”
”Don’t be stupid,” He replied, earning him a solid kick in the stomach. “They’ll all just tell each other and it’s not like we’ll be gone long.”
”That confident, bastard?” She raised a brow, sweeping under his feet, her leg extending the movement when he jumped out of the way. “We’ll be going back to school and there won’t even be a Shikamaru to cheat off of.”
“You know he purposefully wrote the wrong answers to mess with you, right?”
She waved it off. “No, he stopped doing that after I put itching powder on his seat for a month.”
”You didn’t have the brain capacity to just do the work yourself, huh? Guess I should expect a blond airhead looking over my shoulder every test, figures.”
Amusingly, she didn’t even seem offended by the slight, something her younger self definitely would have. Maybe that’s what they mean when they say growth isn’t always visible. “Obviously! You messed up big time buddy! I caught ya and there’s not a shot in hell you’ll ever get away from me again!”
He smoothed down a smile that threatened to show.
”Idiot.”
”Bastard.”
And so their spar continued.
There was no real heat in their insults anymore, not after everything they’ve gone through, but it’s main comfort was in the familiarity, the mere fact that it was Naruto saying it. That’s what made it special.
“Ah, It seems we’ve arrived at the perfect time.” A voice said, suddenly.
Breaking away from their positions—Naruto’s kunai digging into his gut and his pressed right above her heart— they find that their little match had a hidden audience.
There were three figures waiting for them to finish up, one of which was the ‘Headmaster’ figure they had met the day the mission was assigned. He still had the strange robes they had met him in and the same unnervingly perceptive eyes.
As first impressions go, Sasuke found him wholly unremarkable. Powerful, yes, but unremarkable. If he wasn’t sure the old man had a similar dismissive opinion on him he’d probably feel bad about it.
“Oh, old magic man! Hey!” Despite the near death glare being sent their way by the two new figures around the old man, Naruto waved enthusiastically.
”Young lady,” The older woman tutted, silver hair and sharp crow eyes. Sasuke can tell she is the most against their involvement. “You will be referring to Headmaster Dumbledore appropriately when the semester begins, I will not have unruly children disrespecting our halls, substitutes or otherwise!”
The other man with the limpid straight hair and blankly disapproving face is likely another offended teacher. He knew Tsunade withheld most of their background and highlighted their long service, as if to appease those that believed them inadequate much as their client had upon first meeting. But he couldn’t accurately gauge if their disapproval was based on their clothes, looks or for their profession in general.
“Ahh, I’m sorry about that! It’s not what I meant, I uhh—” Naruto said with enough genuine apology that it didn’t ruffle any more feathers. All three were too distracted by her panicky corrections to notice that she had stashed all three kunai she had on her fingers and discreetly hunched her shoulders, appearing smaller than she is.
“I didn’t mean to be mean or anything! It just kinda—slipped out.” And as she rubbed the back of her head, a tic that never really went away over the years, it became clearer and clearer to Sasuke the angle she wanted them going towards.
“Iruka-sensei tried beating manners into my head for years, I’m kind of a lost cause!”
Despite being a dumbass most days, Naruto could be surprisingly perceptive. She must have noticed how their hands hovered over their wands just now when they walked over.To their weapons.
Which meant the wizards considered them threats. And that was abstractly interesting, to say the least, being all tense over a little spar.
It isn’t like that made much of a difference to him, though.
He is a threat, after all. Naruto moreso.
If she wanted to play up into her more airheaded naive tendencies then he can play up his more serious professional ones, for balance.
The older woman lost some of that fierce expression, melting it into something warmer. “That’s…that’s quite alright, young lady, just—in future it would pay to be respectful to your teachers.”
“You got it!” She gave a thumbs up, as if she had ever respected an authority figure in her life.
It would make things a whole lot easier if they gained their trust fast, something Naruto’s was pretty much born for, while also maintaining their confidence that shinobi were killers, guards and above all else, professionals. Which would, of course, be his job.
”I am Sasuke Uchiha,” He stood ram-rod straight, startling them out of their conversation and just like that their severe expressions were back in place as if they had never left. Fun. “The idiot is Naruto Uzumaki, a pleasure.”
”Yes, yes indeed, it is good to see you both again.” The old man nodded with a wide grandfatherly smile, a strange glint in his eye that did little to dampen the weariness just barely hidden underneath it. “This here is my incredible staff from the very school you are to be guarding! Professor Minerva McGonagall and Professor Severus Snape.”
”Nice to meet ya!” Naruto greeted enthusiastically, thankfully taking most of their attention by the sheer exuberance she exudes naturally. ”I know we’re on assignment and all but I gotta warn you now I’m not really the best student but— I kick butt like the best of em! So you don’t need to worry too much about your school and that Potter kid getting into trouble while we’re here!”
“A lovely thought that likely, given our track record, will not yield such hopeful results.” McGonagall snorted, seemingly taken with Naruto’s personality rather quickly for one so tense only minutes ago. “Now, let us get down to business.”
”I believe we were promised transport?” He spoke up quickly, because god forbid Naruto remember pertinent mission information.
”Yes, indeed.” For whatever reason the woman’s sharp edges returned as soon as he spoke, and the man—Severus Snape, got to remember that—minutely sighed. ”I will not be escorting you to your temporary lodgings, I only wished to see what… protection—“
And it was this word she said with an angry, bitter snarl that he couldn’t help but compare to Tsunade herself.
“—we have been promised and if you would be able to assimilate properly into the school. I take the safety of my students very seriously and, If I can be frank with you, children, I disagree entirely with your involvement and subsequent hire.”
”Understood.” He said, because, really, what are you supposed to say to that? That sucks but sorry we don’t get paid not to do our jobs? He doesn't understand civilians. “Will that be all, then?”
That, evidently, was the wrong thing to say because she narrowed her eyes and honed into him. This is why he leaves all the talking to Naruto, good grief.
“Listen here boy, I don’t take that kind of tone with any of my—“
”Students?” Naruto interrupted her, jolting the older woman back in surprise. “You were gonna say ‘you don’t take that kinda crap from my students’ right? Well, I mean, technically we’re not really your students yet, you know? Hell, we haven’t even left the village yet! So really our only superior officer is Granny Tsunade until we go to the magic village and then it’ll be old man magic himself!”
Whether they were surprised by her willingness to get involved or because she was defending him specifically was anyone's guess.
“I get being worried about whether we’re good at our jobs cause of how young we are…”
McGonogall flinched and it was clear Naruto had hit the nail on the head. Neither shinobi missed it.
“—But we’ve been in this business for a really long time, miss.” Her eyes took on that sombre, mature quality she almost never showed. The kind he had seen far too many times. “We’re trusting you guys not to lie about the crazy stuff we might have to face on this mission and so you gotta trust us that we know what we’re doing. Cause I know I might not seem it but if there’s one thing I know better then anyone, it’s protecting people.”
“It isn’t that…simple, young lady.” The older woman sighed, wearily and tired but now no longer as bitter and defiant. It truly was a wonder watching Naruto just talk away issues like that.
“Be that as it may, Minerva.” Dumbledore chimed in, the twinkle in his eye a little dimmer. “It is the decision that we have landed on. I can vouch for their strength myself.”
There is a deeply uncomfortable silence after that and Sasuke resisted the urge to sigh or send off a shadow clone to get him a drink for the road because it was clear this assignment would not be as easy as he thought it would be.
Just his fucking luck.
Severus never liked subscribing to the school's archaic and glorified system of sorting personality types into certain paths of learning. He was a proud slytherin, had been a proud slytherin student, but that did nothing to dissuade the very real criticism that sorting pushed children into direct pathways at a far too early age.
He had faced his own form of scorn as a student and had bore witness to thousands of other slytherins face that irritatingly persistent image of what green and silver meant about a person (of course, overlooking the many many times his students had perpetuated such an image, played into it even).
With this in mind, he had decided to forego the snap judgment he often made when meeting new students (because they aren’t students at the end of the day, if anything they are a much higher position than him and isn’t that a thought?).
“Where is your luggage?” He said with a very visible sneer. Incompetency had always annoyed him, the fact he was to work alongside children was a sting he likely won’t get over for a long time. “We were led to believe that you were self sufficient, we do not need any more detours.”
The boy narrowed his eyes in turn and the girl covered her mouth.
“Holy shit,” She muttered with far more glee than he would have expected from his words. “It’s like a crappy older you, this is the best day of my life.”
Not knowing how to interpret that, he ignored it.
“We have seals…sir.” The boy, Sasuke Uchiha, said lowly, the cold direct tone coloured with mild distaste. ”All of our luggage is accounted for. We are ready to leave at any time.”
”Oh so soon?” Dumbledore seemed gently surprised. “Ah, I suppose given the nature of your job, family and friends do not often wave you off when you go on so many missions.”
“Yep pretty much!” The girl, Naruto Uzumaki, chirped, wrapping her arm around the crook of Dumbledore's offered arm that likely was intended as a polite offer to walk side by side that the young girl had taken to being asked to assist an elderly man cross the street.
He had little to no hope in her potion making skill let alone for her credibility in this job, Dumbledore's word or otherwise.
”Keep up, then.” He drawled, hand clenching around his wand, still tense after watching their display earlier. “We will have to apparate to get where we need to go.”
The girl hummed. “Is that gonna hurt?”
There was a twinge of disappointment after he realised they had at least some knowledge of the wizarding world. First time apparitions were one of his few joys.
A quick glance to Uchiha confirmed that at least the boy was aware of his disappointment and seemed rather smug about it.
“We’ll just be travelling somewhere very fast, idiot.” There it was again, that degrading nickname that the girl took with almost no resistance.
“Should I bring a barf bag?” Uzumaki asked, suddenly worried. “I don’t do good on boats, is it kinda like that?”
It is going to be a very long year.