Chapter Text
Sasuke followed Riku and Kakashi through the streets on the way to the nin-mesh workshop, bringing up the rear of the group with Daisuke. His gaze scanning the area as they walked, noting the way the those they passed looked at them, a mixture of pity and wariness that made his jaw clench with memories of how the villagers had looked at him since that night.
(He refused to acknowledge the fact that this only made the pressure on his jaw increase as it had already clenched at the way the Idiot seemed to refuse to be out of arm’s length of their team leader when outside the main house area they had settled in and Sakura kept her head down and avoided the gaze of any Hatake that was not the small group they had entered the compound with.)
“That’s it,” Riku pointed out a large two-story shop building similar to some Sasuke had seen in Konoha as he came to a halt in front. “Do you think you need me to swing by this afternoon?”
“We’ll be staying in,” Kakashi answered with a flick of his eye back to the genin, one hand resting on Hayate’s head as the russet wolf stopped with the group and sat with one paw on the jounin’s foot.
Sakura and the Idiot had stopped almost as close as the wolf, huddling close to the older man with Kaori circling them. Sasuke lingered further off with Daisuke and inwardly snorted.
There was no need to be that close.
(Given the man’s speed, he was in a perfectly safe distance from the jounin without also being so close that they would get in each other’s way if they needed to make a move.)
(Sasuke might have joined his teammates, if anyone in his personal space didn’t make his skin itch after that girl at the river. Even his teammates, who he hadn’t had that reaction to since they left the Village.)
“Okay, you can grab your lunch from the kitchen on the way back, but I’ll bring you dinner and check in for the plan for tomorrow,” Riku smiled as he started walking backwards towards another street.
Sasuke was torn about the Hatake leaving them again. He was an annoying presence who was always around when Kakashi wasn’t the past few days, watching them and being smug about how he could complete all the tasks that Kakashi had set them, even that annoying leaf trick. But he was also obviously good at getting the other Hatakes to get their noses out of their business and wasn’t generally someone who just expected them to follow whatever expectations the Hatakes had of them (unlike the other lady they had been left with the first day).
Kakashi waved Riku away lazily and led team 7, and the wolves that had apparently become part of the team, toward the building they had been pointed towards.
Sasuke caught the sound of voices inside as they neared the entrance. He made out words like “small” and “dangerous”, but the rest was too low to be heard.
Kakashi knocked gently on the side of the open doorway when he reached it to announce their presence.
“Who is it?” A male voice called from inside.
“Kakashi,” the jounin answered leaning lazily on the doorjamb, blocking the way in. “I got a note to bring the cubs over for a fitting.”
“Ah, yes,” the voice continued, becoming louder as if it was getting closer. “Bring them in and we can get started.”
Kakashi shot a look at the genin and stepped inside with Hayate on his heels, waving them to follow.
Sasuke brought up the rear, eyes narrow as he tried to figure out what that look was supposed to communicate to them.
As he entered, he noted that they two grey wolves opted to remain outside the storefront, as if guarding the entrance.
“We probably should have been able to bring them in for this fitting yesterday, but I’ve been having a bit of a personnel issue the past couple of days,” the voice continued as they entered and Sasuke could finally see the man who was speaking.
He was older, maybe between the ages of Riku’s father and the old clan storekeeper. The man had the usual Hatake colouring but seemed a bit shorter than the height that Sasuke had noticed was present in most Hatake males, hair cut short and some scars showing on his bare arms that told the story of not only having been a craftsman for the clan.
“Come on through,” The man waved them further through the shop towards the back. “Name’s Saburo and this is my workshop. I’m going to have to get you cubs to introduce yourselves so I can fit the right measurement sets to the right one of you.”
Sasuke flicked a glance at Kakashi and waited to get a slight nod before starting to lead the way in the direction that the older man had indicated.
“Sasuke,” he grunted as he saw the jounin tap the Idiot on the shoulder and flick his hand towards Saburo out the corner of his eye
“Naruto,” the Idiot said brightly behind Sasuke as the Uchiha reached the curtain that separated the shopfront from the back.
“Then you must be Sakura,” the man continued as Sasuke pulled the curtain aside and noted a familiar figure behind it with a woman he hadn’t seen before.
Yoshi? Sasuke thought, he was pretty sure that was the old man’s name. He’d been good at treating them like the shinobi they were, compared to many of the Hatake’s they had come across. He did his job and didn’t make a fuss about anything.
Sasuke nodded with a grunt to Old man Yoshi as he stepped to the side and kept the curtain open to allow the rest of the team to see through to the back before they followed him through. Taking in the new woman as his teammates filed past him.
She had Hatake colouring, pale with long grey hair pulled into a braid down her back. She was soft-looking, in a way that reminded Sasuke of the long retired kunoichi, and rare non-combat craftsman Uchihas had been, not the civilian-soft of those that had never been trained, but the soft of those that had been trained but had long put any discipline in maintaining training behind them.
The woman glared at Kakashi as soon as he came into her view through the curtain behind the workshop owner.
Saburo sighed loudly.
“Yoshi,” the workshop owner made his way over toward the two of them. “How many times have I told you not to enter from the back?”
“Masami,” growled the old man storekeeper before anything could be said, causing the woman to turn her glare at him.
“It’s easier to find you by coming in this way,” Yoshi continued, answering the workshop owner before jerking his head in the direction of team 7. “I heard you were going to do a fitting for this lot and wanted to check in.”
“They shouldn’t need a fitting,” scoffed the woman, glaring at all the men in the room. “They shouldn’t need nin-mesh at all.”
Sasuke tensed, the hostility in the woman’s tone and body language alone causing his hand to unconsciously move from where he had kept it ready near his weapon pouch, so it slipped into the pouch and grabbing a kunai. He felt the way the rest of the team also stiffened around him at the words as the implication that this woman thought he (they) were not combat capable enough to be able to wear the armour.
How dare this woman, who is basically a civilian, judge his (their) ability to do the work he (they) had been training for years for? He (they) had seen more of the world than he bet this woman had ever seen.
(Red splattered tatami and still bodies that had been laughing just a few hours before hand.)
(Senbon flying at Naruto (the Idiot), who couldn’t move fast enough to dodge (but Sasuke could).)
“Masami,” Old man storekeep rebuked sharply, causing the woman to huff and turn away from them fussing with a task on one of the worktables there.
Sasuke shook
The workshop owner sighed again.
“Yoshi mentioned that you all already wear some mesh, and that was probably what you got the measurements off,” he continued to team 7 as if exhausted from the interaction and had decided to ignore it. “But I need to check the measurements as the give may be different from the mesh you are used to, and to see how much leeway I need to leave for your growth.”
“For Sage’s Sake!” The woman shouted, furiously throwing down equipment she had been using. “They wouldn’t need leeway if they weren’t getting nin-mesh so young!”
Sasuke didn’t realise that he had moved until everyone stilled in the aftermath of the woman’s outburst. He had unconsciously moved into formation with the rest of his team, Sakura a step behind and between Sasuke and the Idiot. All the genin had kunai defensively before them. Sasuke was also already holding a hand sign to start a great fireball, and he could recognise the Idiot holding the hand sign he usually used just before there were suddenly too many Idiots in the area.
Kakashi was standing before them hunched in a defensive combat stance that reminded Sasuke of the one he had taken at the river a few days before, Hayate hunched and growling at his side. The danger that Sasuke could sense coming from the man made him relax a bit more into his stance.
He shouldn’t feel so confident (comfortable) in the ability of another to defend him, he can defend himself. He didn’t need to rely on anyone; he was strong enough to do it alone.
He was going to be strong enough to kill that man.
(He was not going to think about how he had felt when he had realised he could rely on Kakashi back at the cave when he was still feeling weak and out of it. Like he could relax for the first time in years, like he could let down his guard and rest without nightmares.)
(He refused to think about how the thought that if this really was time travel, he may never be asked to kill that part of himself that still just wants that man’s (his big brother’s) attention and recognition.
May never be able to really avenge his family.)
Sasuke must have missed the sound of claws on the shopfloor he noted that Kaori had appeared beside Sakura, stance cautious and ready to move as needed.
The older men in the room had stepped away from them just as quickly as they had moved and held their hands to the side showing they were empty, making themselves non-threats.
The woman on the other hand, just stood there, gaping at them.
“Masami,” the workshop owner sighed, after a quick glance at his worker and a shake of his head.
“Wha..?” The woman looked confused.
Sasuke noted the way that Old man Yoshi started to slowly motion with his hands in a calm down signal, though he didn’t know who the man was signalling to.
“My cubs are not the spoiled rotten, little runts you raise here in the compound,” Kakashi growled, facing directly at the woman, causing her to jump a little. “You may have your thoughts on how cubs are to be raised safely, but that only applies in the safety this place holds, and you grossly overestimate how much protection a compound like this grants.”
Kakashi shifted out of his defensive stance and stepped forward towards the woman, causing her to stumble back into the table behind her.
“I used to make decent money for our pack by getting in and out of places with tighter security than this compound,” Kakashi tilted his head slightly to the side. “And doing things that were certainly not safe for the people in them.”
The jounin’s words made Sasuke shiver at the way they shifted from a growl into an almost amiable tone and the way he paused afterward to make sure he was understood. Sasuke’s eyes dropped without his permission to the anbu tattoo he knew was there under the grey sleeve that currently covered it, reminded again of the nightmares he had had after he had read the vague, semi-declassified versions of the reports of combined missions that had been hidden in his father’s study of those Uchiha that had worked beside an anbu squad, where the missions the anbu squad was taking alongside the normal mission was only implied.
He also noted the way the other Hatake’s all froze for a moment as the implication sank in.
“You may be frustrated at the fact we don’t fit into how you see this clan working, but you do not get to scare my cubs just because you don’t like how I do things.” Kakashi continued, relaxing as he seemed to feel his point was made. “These cubs have seen more of the world and combat than you can know, they are used to nin-mesh and they, and I, are more comfortable with them having the protection of it than not.
If you have any issues with my way of doing things you can take it up with Baa-san.”
When Kakashi turned his back on the woman to check on the genin, he had returned to his usual lazy stance and eye-smile. He gently tapped Sasuke’s shoulder and the last of the tension from the confrontation seemed to melt off him, and Sasuke let his shoulders fall as he noted that the Idiot had had the same reaction beside him.
“Masami,” the workshop owner quietly called the woman. “Take the rest of the day off.”
“But…” she started.
“Go.” Old man Yoshi growled, causing the woman to drop her head and turn to leave.
There was a long moment of silence after the woman left before the workshop owner sighed loudly and looked at the genin.
“So, who wants to be fitted first.”
Kakashi looked down at his three genin who were all close to passing out on the ground of the secluded training ground.
Well, at least I didn’t allow them to have breakfast, so they didn’t have anything to throw up.
Kakashi sighed and realised he probably ran them a bit hard for their first real physical training session since arriving in this time. But they had managed to frustrate him by starting a physical fight with each other on the way to the training ground, so he changed plans on how to check their physical condition.
The plan had been to run through the jounin training session set for reconditioning after long term injury. Instead, he had decided that the anbu recruit training might actually get them to exhaust all the energy they had built up on the long wait for the nin-mesh to be completed.
And it had certainly felt like a long wait, with the delivery having arrived the afternoon before, the fourth day after the rather eventful fitting. It had left enough time for the genin to fully settle into the area around their room in the clan head’s house and the training routines that Kakashi had set for them while they were there but had also let them recuperate all their energy and get absolutely sick of living on top of each other.
This may not have been as bad as it had been if any of the genin would allow each other to wander off a bit for some quiet alone time. But every time one of them would try, mostly Sasuke, the others would follow, almost unconsciously.
(Kakashi was starting to get a bit worried about co-dependency possibly becoming an issue. It wasn’t bad in a shinobi team per se, but if not managed could make things difficult later.)
All up, the resulting mess that they had become had even made Riku realise they really were as bad as Kakashi had been trying to tell him they could be from the beginning.
(And Kakashi hadn’t even been able to bring himself actually voice the “I told you so”, when he had returned from one of his own training sessions to everyone and a good part of the courtyard they had made most use of covered in paint, scorch marks and ashes, with Sakura squealing, the boys rolling all over the ground, and Riku standing in the centre mouth opening and closing silently and a blank look in his eyes.)
Not that he blamed Saburo for how long it took to get the nin-mesh completed, considering it seemed that the craftsman was having to do the work alone, if the rest of his workers were as resistant to working on their commission as Masami had been. The older craftsman had thrown in an extra set for each of the genin, on top of the two they had ordered, and when Kakashi was checking over the final product noted that it was the best quality he had seen, outside of the (very expensive) nin-mesh he had seen on the Hyuuga head family elders.
(It even beat the quality of the nin-mesh that Kakashi had picked himself from the Hatake clan stores, which was levels above in quality of the base nin-mesh he had worn most of his shinobi career from his Konoha equipment allocation.)
Even with the need to get the cubs to get rid of some of their energy, Kakashi had held back on taking them straight out to the training ground to get them to run it off, knowing that having a good baseline idea of their physical condition at full rest would be best to start their training with.
So, he had made sure that Sakura embroidered the identification marks on the nin-mesh so they wouldn’t get mixed up and informed them that they should be ready for training to start in full the next morning. He had even been nice enough to tell them directly that it would start early with a physical conditioning test.
Maybe he should have warned them how early the training would start, having pulled them from their futons before the sun had risen and forced them to get in their new training outfits with the new nin-mesh and out the door to the training ground he had claimed for the past week.
He had hoped that getting them there before they were fully awake would keep the snaping at each other to a minimum, instead it had got them to react violently to each other.
And here they were.
At least he can now say he had a clear idea of their physical limits (even Naruto’s who Kakashi had honestly not thought was possible to find), and it had taken less than three hours so there was still time in the day to work on other training types.
“Come on,” Kakashi said cheerfully, poking Sasuke gently with the toe of his sandal as Hayate and Daisuke had wandered over from where the wolves had flopped themselves at the side of the training ground and napped as the genin trained. “Up and stretch properly otherwise it will only be worse later.”
With much grumbling and struggling all three genin eventually pushed themselves up enough into positions to start some form of stretch.
The jounin made sure they were all moving and stretching properly, not taking shortcuts, before he moved off to prove that what he had been asking of them was not as impossible as they had kept trying to tell him it was as he had been pushing them through it.
There were identical glares on the three cubs faces when he fully completed the training routine, less than an hour later, from where they had ranged themselves at the edge of the training ground with the wolves flopped around them when they had completed a full stretching routine.
(And he had been proud to notice Sasuke correcting the other two on correct positioning of stretches, and Sakura leading them all through one of the sets stretching routines that were laid out in one of the Hatakes training manuals he had had them read in their training from the past week.)
“Time for a bath, I think,” Kakashi stated brightly, sauntering towards the cluster of genin and wolves as he shook the sealing scroll that he had added a change of clothes for the entire team in before he flipped it up into the air and caught it again.
Sakura brightened and almost bounced up, except that her body caught up to her, causing her to wince, while both boys groaned.
“You may still be too exhausted to smell yourselves yet, but that will change soon,” Kakashi pointed out to the boys. “And I don’t want to have to deal with the stink until it does.
So, bath. Then we will pick up some breakfast.”
While they all grumbled about having to move, the jounin’s words seemed to be enough to get them stumbling back in the direction of bathhouse in the centre of the compound.
It was a good thing that Kakashi was very used to the eyes of people one him as he walked through Konoha, otherwise the many looks he got from Hatakes and others who lived in the compound as they trekked their way to their destination may have caused him to react negatively.
Some of it may have been the obvious exhaustion from the cubs, but most of it was probably to do with the way his reputation had grown within the clan. First, from the incident at the river, then from the information that had been passed around about who he, and the cubs, were and the circumstances behind why they had entered Fire Country and returned to the clan.
Riku had also informed him that his implication about his specialties that had been given during his argument with Masami had made the rounds. He probably shouldn’t have been so harsh with the woman, but he had sensed that she was a member of a part of the clan that were not happy with the way he was doing things and he had needed to make a point to that faction that he had his reasons for his choices with the cubs.
The clan members that were part of this faction had very different experiences than Team 7 did and seemed to be very sure that their way was the best way to do things. Kakashi wanted to make sure he made his point quickly, to stop them from trying to push the issue. The way the Hatakes generally do things would not work with his cubs, they had already experienced too much that they would not fit in with their ideas of how they should do things.
Sakura might be able to settle in eventually, but she would struggle even then with the difference between a wild clan and her civilian background and shinobi training. Not even mentioning the way that she struggled with her self-image around other children her own age. (Kakashi had finally put together her reactions around food and children outside the team with the psychological profile that was created for her by the academy. She was good with these things around Naruto, mostly dealing with her annoyance with the blond but she was starting to reign back on that as they settle in as teammates in the compound, when not on each other’s nerves. Her crush on Sasuke had her reacting still, but that had been taking a backseat over the past week as she even got sick of living in his pocket.)
Sasuke would chafe immediately under being treated as an innocent child, too used to his independence now. (He was settling in with the team and allowing them into his personal space, when not in a heightened state.)
Naruto probably would do the same not long after, used to having a long leash as far as supervised and directed time was concerned, he needed to be able to connect with the person directing him and not be forced to do things he didn’t understand the reason behind, as Kakashi had realised as he was really putting thought into training him.
At least all that that had come from his hard stance that day had been a pointed visit from Baa-san to let him know that the message had been received by the clan and to maybe keep to himself for a couple of days to let the information settle.
Kakashi had shrugged, he knew what he was and what he could do. But knew that some of the less experienced could have issues with his skillset and had mostly kept to training in the morning and wrangling the menaces that are his genin.
The jounin huffed a laugh at the way a younger Hatake scrambled out of their way as they walked and pulled out one of his planning scrolls to see what he needed to move around or add into his training plan now he had a full idea of the physical capabilities of his cute genin to make them into the powerhouses that are really going to scare those Hatake that were set in their ways about how cubs should be trained.
They may be annoying, but they really were his now, and he was going to make sure they had the skills to survive in this time.