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Chapter Text

Looking at the demon-ravaged landscape of his home, Sarutobi Hiruzen could only think that this could have been so much worse.

Of course, hundreds of his shinobi were killed in the battle, and even more civilians died in the backlash of the beasts Killing Intent. Not to mention all those who were now injured, some permanently, and the hundreds of orphaned children, and last but not least the loss of two of the greatest ninja in the age. One a Hokage on the same level as the Shodai Hokage himself, and the other a kunoichi that lived up to her title of ‘Red Death’ on daily basis, and the only thing left to show of their greatness was sleeping in his arms.

Hiruzen held the small, warm bundle, cradling her head with his hands. Hands that had ended the lives of so many, he was almost frightened but he didn’t put her down, he refused to put the little girl down. He knew she would need unwavering support from someone; the lives of jinchuriki were hard, though he had a horrible feeling that hers would be harder than any before her.

He leaned back and turned his chair away from the window and examined the tiny face of the savior of his Village, though it would be years before anyone besides him would willingly call her that, ‘Minato and Kushina made a truly beautiful child didn’t they?’

And it was true, the baby girl’s hair was a mix of her parents blonde and red; making it the color of rose gold. Her skin held a light tan; a remnant of her mother's childhood on the sun-drenched coasts of Uzushio, and she had the delicate bone structure that spoke of both Minato and Kushina’s good breeding; all high cheekbones, high bold eyebrows, plush rose pink lips and angular jaws. All in all, the girl looked like she belonged amongst the high-born of Ka City; the capital of The Land of Fire.

“Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto, daughter of Uzumaki Kushina, Princess of Uzushiogakure and Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage, Third Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Yoko. You have the blood of some of the most dangerous ninja in history running through your veins, you are the most valuable person in the whole of the Elemental Countries.” Hiruzen announced into the silence of his office, “And you’re drooling on me. That’s really cute.”

In a village that was already nurturing a lifelong hatred for her, Naruto slept on. The faint echo of a male voice singing of demonic things in a beautiful language she couldn't understand acting as a lullaby.

Chapter Text

If he was being perfectly honest for once Kakashi didn’t feel that enthusiastic about the meeting he had scheduled later. Why? Because for those unlucky few today is Genin Pickup day. The day when the poor unfortunate souls that hadn’t been quick enough to run when the Hokage was picking out Sensei ‘volunteers’. He had only gotten stuck this year cause he’d been distracted by Jiraiya-sama’s latest masterpiece, and it might have also been because he’d avoided his last Sensei rotation a year ago. It was also unfair that Hiruzen had picked him the same year he retired from active ANBU duty so he showed his displeasure by setting every team assigned to him to fail; it worked perfectly up until this genin team.

The civilian daughter of a wealthy merchant, the last loyal Uchiha, and Kohnaha’s very own walking talking weapon of mass destruction. Just great, a really awesome batch of Genin this year. No really, and no he didn’t think his tone was sarcastic at all. Fuck it, the damn team wasn’t even official and it was already a garbage fire. One of his would-be students was spoiled by the village as a whole, the other was hated near universally by the civilian population, and the last was an underpowered nobody. He had his shit well and truly cut out for him. Kakashi sighed as he looked at the academy reports, psychological health evaluations, and general records spread out before him.

“Alright Hatake, it's just like killing bandits, just plunge in knife first and don’t be such a bitch about it.”

He reached over and pulled one stack in front of him. Haruno Sakura: civilian born, the first ninja in her family, father is one of the weather merchants in Konoha, mother is a housewife, graduated as Top Kunoichi of her class, only managed to pass the physical tests by the bare minimum, co-president of The Sasuke Uchiha Fan Club, psych eval says she manifested a second personality called ‘Inner-Sakura’ due to repressed aggression and anger management issues, values hair and appearance highly, small chakra coils due to not training. All in all: Haruno Sakura is an insane, weak fan-girl not even good enough to qualify as cannon fodder. Awesome.

Next up was Uchiha Sasuke: village darling according to the civilians, Top Shinobi of his class, above average chakra control, above average knowledge of ninjutsu, in the top three in his class on written tests, but psych evals revealed he’s suffering from Survivers Guilt, depression, and battle shock and barely coping day by day, hyper obsessed with his brother, a true blue Uchiha Elite, a well documented flight risk with standing orders to stop or kill him if he tries to leave the village without an escort. Great.

And saving the one that Kakashi knew for a fact need the least work for last was Uzumaki Naruto. Daughter of the Fourth Hokage and the last of the royal bloodline of Uzushio, current jinchuuriki to the Kyuubi no Yoko. According to her Academy files, she was a slacker with attention problems that constantly goofed off or skipped class, but Kakashi knew the truth. After all, one the most sought after ANBU missions was doing a rotation as one of Naruto’s bodyguards and as the last living student of her father himself, Kakashi was always happy to pull rank to snag a place on the team. Naruto was an extremely smart little girl that talked fast and learned faster, she soaked up whatever she could like a sponge that had been in the desert for a month. Raised by ANBU, the Hokage, and the hate of low ranked shinobi and civilians alike she was scrappy, mean, and unafraid to hit where it hurt to win. A perfect attitude for a kunoichi to have out in the field where a woman unaware could be captured, raped, tortured, and then left to rot. He wondered how she’d grown since she’d stopped needing the guard after Hiruzen got sick of the treatment of his surrogate granddaughter and started fining people for every infraction against ‘an innocent and helpless little girl’. Yeah right, some of her pranks could be easily modified to be lethal with ease and Kakashi knew that Naruto knew it too. Still, even if he wasn’t allowed to really talk to her in public he still loved her deeply.

If this wreck of a team passed Kakashi would have to train himself for all the special requirements he'd have to meet to actually leave the village. After all, his team contained their last hope if another Shinobi War was started. He'd receive a special summoning scroll from Hiruzen and Jiraiya that would transport two people from wherever they were to the Hokage’s office in seconds. It was for the purpose of ensuring the secret Princess of Konoha never ended up in enemy hands, and to help with that endeavor he would also receive jinchuuriki level chakra suppression seals if she tapped into her Biju and went crazy on a mission. Naruto was honestly the only one he was happy to get but since the Hokage had already called dibs on apprenticing Naruto, he couldn’t just take her and tell the other two to fuck off which sucked. Like really sucked major balls.

Well if these three pulled a true miracle out of each of their own asses he’d do the same and turn them all into shinobi to be feared and respected in turn.

Chapter Text

She looked out over the portion of land their Father had given to her and saw potential .

Mind filled with visions of what could be and what she would create, she felt overjoyed . A sweep of her tails and a powerful river cut through the land from the vast sea, dragging her claws across the earth caused a deep valley to split the ground, grabbing the earth with her snout and pulling brought a great mountain into being. And then she tipped her head back and sang as the voices of her siblings rose to join her own in beautiful harmony, her siblings once a part of her but always what made her feel most whole, they all cast their voices out over their father's world and blessed it. How joyous was this, how wonderful was this? They felt almost whole again, how beautiful . She was elegant and powerful and she was…she woke up.

She does not have claws she has hands. She does not have fur she has hair. She does not have sharp fangs she has blunt human teeth. Her name is Naruto Uzumaki and she is human. She is human. She is human, just human. And she needs to piss.

Naruto rolled off the bed and onto the floor taking a moment to enjoy to the feeling of cool wood on her nightmare flushed body before she really got up.

‘Why the fuck do the dreams have to be so real? It takes for-fucking-ever to get used to human things again and I can't afford any damn mistakes. The last damn time I forgot how to use human words Hiru-jiji almost fucking hospitalized me.’ Peeling herself off the floor and standing on two feet instead four took more effort than she would ever want anyone to know and shuffling to the bathroom to piss was just tedious.

Stumbling out of the bathroom Naruto went over to the closet to haul out her sewing machine and the bag of clothes that still needed to be tailored and embroidered, flicked her desk light on and went to work. The sewing took hours, strained her eyes, and made her backache but at least she made enough each week to pay for ninja supplies and other important things. A glance at the clock told her she had four hours until she had to report to Training Ground 7 for her official Genin Test. It’d be easy to get some of the more tricky embroidery done in the sunlight while she and her maybe-teammates waited the 3 hours for Hatake to finally show up.

Naruto watched her sewing machine punch the needle in and out of a party dress and contemplated her maybe-sensei. Hatake Kakashi: former Anbu captain, candidate for Hokage, a student of the Fourth Hokage, last Hatake alive, graduated the Academy at age 6 due to wartime promotion, the only survivor of his genin team, holds the titles of Youngest genin, chuunin, jounin, and Anbu in Konoha. Invented an A-rank assassination jutsu on his own and the only known successful transplant of a fully activated Sharingan eye into a non-Uchiha in history. All in all, a man many would murder to be taught by.

And all Naruto could feel was anxious, on paper and in real life Hatake is a genius. But Naruto knew the man was mentally fucked up, he had to be! Graduating that early and being sent straight into a war? While he was barely old enough to use a damn microwave on his own? That fucked you up. Permanently.

‘Should they even be trusting him with genin? Kami, the man watched his team die in front of him on a mission HE was leading, if one of us dies this Hatake guy is gonna go straight up bat-shit.’ With quick hands, she finished the last dress, changed out the thread and started in on the pile of shirts. She bent her head to the sewing machine until the sun started invading her room like the bright dick it was and then groaned her way to a standing position.

She filled her little-dented tea kettle with water and left it to boil while she folded up all the (perfectly) tailored clothes and put her supplies away. Just as she was putting her sewing machine back the kettle whistled, she smirked at her own timing and sat to have half an orange, ramen, and some tea. Did Naruto remember that Hatake instructed them not to eat? Yes, yes she did. And did she give a fuck?

Hell No.

Bounding across the rooftops to the bridge where Hatake told them to meet took mere minutes when her shitty apartment was near the training grounds in the first place and there were no shitty civilians in her way trying to ‘innocently’ go about their days. Dickholes, almost every one of them.

“Naruto-baka! You’re late you loser!” Haruno’s breathtakingly annoying voice rang out the moment she spotted her.

-

“No! I’m fucking not Haruno! And the damn Uchiha and the Jonin ain't even fucking here yet. So how’s about you shut your damn mouth already?” The dead-last shouted back at Sakura just as quick.

“Do you have to use such, vulgar, language all the time?” She huffed, “You do know that half the reason Iruka-sensei was always kicking you out of class? Because of your potty mouth?” Naruto just tsked at her and threw herself down at the base of one of the training logs in the middle of the clearing, no thought given to how her clothes would look later at all. In contrast, Sakura sat primly on one of the three stumps in the clearing.

Unlike Uzumaki-baka, who regularly showed up to class with her hair tangled or (kami forbid) an obviously unwashed mess.  Sakura had gotten up almost three hours early to get ready today. Her cheongsam was freshly washed and ironed, her mother had helped her wash and straighten her hair and put her makeup on. Her nails were painted a flattering shade of green to match her eyes and her light pink lipgloss had been applied perfectly.

Sakura was perfect.

She was going to ace the test and Sasuke was going to so impressed with her skills he’d take her into his arms and say, “Sakura, how did I not notice how pretty, and smart, and talented you are? You’re not at all ugly like Naruto-baka or Ino-buta. You must marry me.” and then he’d take her to his huge Uchiha mansion and have his wicked way with her! Oh, Sasuke!

-

Sasuke crested the bridge leading into Training Ground 7 to the sight of Haruno blushing, drooling, and giggling to herself while Uzumaki looked creeped out.

Uzumaki turned to him, “I don't know what the hell’s running through her head but I vote we never ask and keep a 3-foot distance at all times.” He looked from the blonde to the pinkette and came to the conclusion that Uzumaki, despite being a loudmouth dope wasn't as bad as she could be. He grunted in agreement and they both backed away from Haruno as quietly as possible. She squealed and mumbled, “Oh it’s okay, you don’t need those feet anymore.”

Sasuke traded a horrified look with Uzumaki and they both took one more very big step away from the other girl and turned away as far as they could without letting her leave their line of sight. Who know’s what Haruno would do with their backs turned.

“So,” Uzumaki cleared her throat, “What do’ya think this final test thing is gonna be about? Do ya think he was serious ‘bout it being so hard we’d barf? Cause to be honest wit cha I ate anyways. I burn way too much energy to be skippin’ meals when I don’need to.” Uzumaki continued to chatter away, uncaring if Sasuke was actually going her questions.

She had the same accent all commoners born in Konoha did, mixing together words and speaking fast in a slightly louder than was polite tone. It was entirely different from the well enunciated, soft-spoken voices of the dead Uchihas’ that filled his past.

“Ah! Sasuke-kun , you’re here! When did you get here? Oh, it doesn’t matter. You’re here now!” Haruno broke out of her fantasy world with a yelp and immediately started bothering him.

Uzumaki, fortunately, stopped aimlessly moving her mouth in his direction to unfortunately jump to another part of the clearing. Mercilessly leaving him to face Haruno and her uniquely rough brand of affection. Sasuke glared at the blonde, but she just grinned and gave him a victory sign with one hand.

He’d get that dope for leaving him behind!

-

Three whole hours passed like that: Sasuke suffering under Sakura’s constant fangirling, Sakura almost physically feeling the Uchiha up with her eyes and praising him ‘for breathing so healthy!’, and Naruto napping under a tree and laughing at Sasuke’s predicament in turns.

Though all three grew bored and irritated waiting for their jonin sensei they never made any moves to leave the training ground, not even when they got hungry.

‘I guess they can be obedient, if only barely. Now let’s see if they can be intelligent.’

A poof! and a cloud of smoke shocked the genin potentials out of their routines and into sloppy battle stances, ‘Good instincts, not everyone in the village is trustworthy.’ He smirked behind his mask.

“Hello, my cute little maybe-genin! Sorry, I’m late, I got lost in the magical world of this book I was reading and had to go on a magical quest to find my way back out!” He cheered.

Chapter Text

“Hello, my cute little maybe-genin! Sorry, I’m so late! I got lost in the magical world of a book I was reading, and I had to go on an epic quest to find my way back out!” The silver-haired man chirped at them.

“I’ve never heard a worse lie in my life” Sasuke.

“Inari-sama save me from this damned buffoon” Naruto.

“Did he really just say that?” Sakura.

“Cha, what a fuckin’ moron!” Inner-Sakura bringing up the rear.

All three just stared at the one-eyed jounin. Half shocked he even tried to get away with something so audacious in the first place, and half wondering if he had the balls to keep up the charade.

Kakashi dropped his eye smile and stared back. If his maybe-genin wanted to play, he’d play damn it.

He stared at them and they stared back.

And stared back.

And stared back.

And stared back.

The staring reached the 5-minute mark with not one student even twitching for a second.

Kakashi blinked. Damn today’s youth and their shark-like ability to stare so blankly! It was probably all the lessons they went through, having graduated so early Kakashi had technically spent less than maybe 6 months total in a classroom being taught shit and thus hadn’t had time to develop the dead-eyed stare that had been used on him just now. Damn.

The maybe-genin looked smug. Kakashi was going to fix that. With violence. Violence cleverly disgusted as training. Violent training.

The maybe-genin had started to sweat under their maybe-sensei’s increasingly dark gaze. All three shivered, suddenly feeling like something terrible was waiting in the shadows for them.

“Alright!” Kakashi clapped his hands together sharply, “It’s time to get started kiddies.” His mask hid his shark-like grin, but he felt the point was gotten across just fine when all 3 looked increasingly nervous.

Kakashi walked past the youngsters to the three tall logs in the middle of the clearing and hopped up to sit on the middle one.

“It’s good all three of you came, it makes this more interesting.” He knew he sounded giddy but honestly, he was excited for this. This was his chance to make something great of the daughter of his dear Sensei, to do what his Sensei always wanted for him, to lead, to teach! The Uchiha and the civilian went really of no interest to him speaking frankly. He knew the only reason he’d even been given the chance to teach Naruto was that she ended up on the same team as the Uchiha. Hopefully, the boy would try and live up to the hype and move to chuunin quickly so Kakashi could devote his full attention to making Sensei’s daughter great.

Blinking to pull himself out of his thoughts of the future Kakashi reached for the thick scroll he had commissioned the same day the kids had taken the first half of their genin test. Unreeling the long scroll was easy with the years of practice he had behind him and the kids only caught a glimpse of the seals neatly written down its length before Kakashi was channeling chakra and tossing the scroll up as high as he could. A kind of chime-gong sound signaled the barrier scroll activating perfectly.

Now they were closed in five miles of forest.

“That,” He pointed up, “Was a barrier scroll. A high-level sealing technique that must be ordered from outside the village because Seal Masters: a person that has mastered the art using sealing kanji for battle, are very rare. The one I just activated will last for three days. That’s three days and two nights to get these from me.” From his hip pouch, he drew two silver bells. “I expect you to come at me with intent to kill, you three will do everything in your power to get these from me or you will fail.” He emphasized

The pink one spoke up first, “K-Kill you! But you’re our Sensei, wha-what if we hurt you?” He scoffed, “Trust me you won’t.”

Next was Naruto, “Are there any safe places where we can’t attack you? Like your camp, or when you’re taking a piss?” Her blue eyes had locked on to the bells the second he took them out of his pouch and as he maybe on purpose let them swing from his fingers just a bit more she tracked that too. Heh, she always had liked shiny things. “No there’s not a safe place for me, or you.” Her attention snapped up to his face at that. Her gaze was blade sharp.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sasuke was pissed and just a bit panicked. How did that dope figure out what was going on before him? He was a genius, he came from a whole clan of geniuses! The class idiot shouldn’t figure things out before him.

Far enough in the forest, he stopped in the branches of a tree to make a game plan.

The Silver Bastard said to get the bells but there were only two, that meant this was a free for all kind of game. He would get one of the bells, there was no question about that, but which of the other two useless dead weights would get the other was up to debate. Uzumaki might be an idiot that got kicked out of class almost every day, but she wasn’t afraid to start breaking noses when people talked shit which was better than Haruno’s favorite go-to of hair pulling and bird-like screeching.

Sasuke huffed, took a kunai out of his pack, and started to plan. He had a bell to get.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sakura could feel her heart fluttering as she raced away from her sensei after Naruto and Sasuke. There were only two bells! Just two! One, two! She was about to start fully panicking, she knew she wasn’t the strongest or the most battle capable. Sasuke was the Rookie of the Year for crying out loud! And Naruto, though obviously a complete idiot at classroom stuff, was almost in the top three of the class on combat skills alone and she just knew planning half of those stupid pranks of hers took at least some smarts so Sakura totally didn’t understand why Naruto was the Dead-Last when she was obviously smart and THERE WERE ONLY TWO BELLS AND SAKURA WAS GOING TO FAIL A TEST FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HER LIFE AND THEN SHE’D FLUNK OUT OF THE ACADEMY AND THEN SASUKE WOULD NEVER MARRY AND THEY’D NEVER HAVE THREE KIDS AND A DOG AND! AND! AND SOMEONE WAS SHAKING HER!

“Haruno snap out of it!” Uzumaki hissed.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Naruto was so done with humans and their unfun tricks. Honestly, this one wasn’t even that clever, the answer was either to work together or kill the other two and take both bells for herself. But she knew trying to kill the village's prize Uchiha was a no go from the get-go. So, teamwork was the only option. Besides Konoha held teamwork in high regard and there had never been a two-man genin team. So, her only challenge was getting two people who had been practically brainwashed by the village to hate and not trust her. No brainer. And no, she wasn’t being sarcastic. At all. Ugh!

Settling further into the branches of one of Konoha’s huge signature trees Naruto turned her face into the wind and listened to what she brought.

Excuse me how much are the salmon?, the market.

Good job! Now we’ll be moving on to taijutsu, the Academy. Her dark eyebrows furrowed as she concentrated on the lighter winds that wound through the trees below.

You’re still pulling to the right Shika-chan try again, good a little closer she cocked her head a bit more to the left.

Why are there only two bells!? How am I going to pass?, Bingo! That was Haruno’s voice from the north-east.

A chakra enhanced push had her out of the tree and skittering across the treetops, pure momentum keeping her in motion.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Kakashi gave them what he felt was a very generous 8 minutes to freak out before he snapped his book shut and focused his gaze somewhere beyond the tree line in the distance. “Time to play.” He smirked and shunshined to the Uchiha first, he heard that the boy was pretty good at ninjutsu when he was eavesdropping on the Academy teachers. It was only best that Kakashi tests his genjutsu sensory then right? Right!

Chapter Text

After giving the wannabes some time to freak out Kakashi moved through the forest heading in the direction of his first victim, ahem, potential student.
Kakashi found Sasuke a mile into the forest in the branches of a tree strategizing a way to kill him. In the mood to terrorize he leafed through the jutsu catalog in his head to find the perfect illusion to mentally scar the Uchiha. ‘Ah! That’s just what the sadist ordered.’ Kakashi happily weaved the layered genjutsu around the boy.

Sasuke was minding his business plotting his would-be sensei's death and or humiliating defeat when the wind suddenly changed direction and became increasingly violent. Soon it was enough to move the tree, and more importantly the branch, he was secreted away in. He lost his footing and began to fall he scrambled at branches trying to slow his fall or stop altogether, but it was like the bark was covered in oil, his hands keep slipping and down, down, down he fell smacking off several thick branches on his way down.

He hit the ground in a very un-Uchiha like way with an oof. As Sasuke climbed to his feet the ground seemed to heave under his feet, ‘An earthquake! Im-impossible!’ He tripped back and forth trying to predict the waves the earth was making under his feet. The thought pinged wrong in his head and a realized, ‘It’s a genjutsu! I have to free myself!’ He closed his eyes and concentrated on his chakra and not the sickening feeling of the ground shaking under him. Finding the foreign chakra hidden in his own took several stomach-turning minutes.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sakura and Naruto were surprisingly together, both girls arguing over something or other when Kakashi found them, having easily tracked the star bright presence of Naruto through the trees.
He drove in and gently kicked Sakura in the chest and into a tree. Naruto barely had time gasp before he'd thrown a bola and trapped her against a tree.

Sakura was still down and struggling to breath when he aimed an ax kick for her head. Only Naruto's shouted "DUCK" saved her from getting a concussion. He stopped his momentum on a yen and changed smoothly into a heel stomp that almost came down completely on the girl’s leg, but she planted her hands, lifted up into a handstand, pushed and springboarded off the tree trunk. She made a panicked lunge to cut Naruto free with a clumsily retrieved kunai but Kakashi was there in a heartbeat catching her skinny arm and throwing her into yet another tree.

"You'll never get her free if you don’t put some real effort into fighting me Pinky, now put away the knife and take a stance. This will be a taijutsu only battle or you will deeply regret the consequences."

Green eyes wide and fearful, the girl reluctantly put away her kunai with almost sobbing breaths, "But sen-sensei I can’t fight well, you-you’ll obviously win." She whined taking a halfhearted basic academy stance.

Kakashi obliged the sniffling thing by taking the same starting position but with obvious confidence in each of his limbs. "I don’t care what you're not good at pinky, I'm testing your taijutsu and if you keep hesitating, I will break three bones as payment for wasting my time." If possible, she quailed, even more, her stance becoming even more unstable. He attacked anyway.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Naruto wiggled and bucked against the rope pinning her in place as much as possible while keeping an eye on what was happening in front of her. Hatake-sensei was slowly beating Haruno black and blue, batting aside her feeble attempts to fight him like she was a fly. He was obviously playing with the girl, kicking her, and tossing her around the rough clearing, uncaring about how she took longer and longer to stand up after he knocked her down. Not because she was injured but because he was breaking her spirit bit by bit.

'He knew she was barely passable at taijutsu! He’s fucking with her on purpose! Damn, if she gives up before I can convince both of them to go after the bells with me, we’ll all get sent to the Reserves! I need out of these ropes like now!' She twisted trying to either get enough space to slide out of the ropes or get the kunai in her fist up far enough to try cutting it.

In front of her, Haruno was losing moral quickly, almost fully sobbing now. The only thing keeping her from sinking to the dirt and bawling her eyes out was their Sensei terrorizing her and demanding she ‘take a stance and fight back like a real kunoichi’ before he punched her in the stomach. Naruto had to admit he was being pretty gentle, the other girl didn’t even puke from the blow, just had the wind knocked out of her.

Frustrated she kicked her legs up half wishing she could weaponize her toenails or something weird like that to get herself free. 'Wait! Maybe I can.' The rope of the bola was secured around her waist when she’d kicked her legs just now Naruto realized if she could get a good grip on a kunai with her toes, she could very well free herself while Hatake was busy fucking with her classmate. She dropped the kunai in her hand point first into the dirt and then wiggled her sandal off, getting a grip with her toes took a minute but then she was swinging her leg up and to the side. The rope holding her up and the hours she spent practicing her gymnastics paying off as she awkwardly sawed at them, she just needed to weaken them enough to snap when she put her weight on them.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Kakashi was feeling both a bit of sadistic joy and boredom from wailing on his student. The pinkette was just boring, no skill whatsoever in taijutsu and too green to realize she needed to strategize a way around him to get to Naruto instead of just giving into his demands. Though he was a bit surprised she hadn’t tried to just cut and run yet. All reports showed she had no love lost for the blonde and took every chance to belittle and berate her, so why not just leave, and save herself the beating? 'Looks like she’s more loyal then I gave her credit for. Good.'

While he was goading the pink one back on her feet Kakashi noticed Naruto begin to wiggle her way out of his trap by using some impressive flexibility and core strength. He approved of her tactics when she didn’t try to cut herself all the way free and instead weakened the rope before digging her heels in and pushing to get it to snap from the tension. 'I knew she was a sharp kunai.' He mentally praised.

Then the girl was free and launching herself into the fight a kunai in each little fist.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sasuke was panicking, trying to dodge the figure that kept charging him from the shadows. It was taller than any man he’d ever seen, long thick arms that lashed out so much faster than anything that big should be able to, catching Sasuke with devastating blows to the chest that left him dizzy and breathless every time. And each time he thought he’d escaped, he’d run right into another nightmarish genjutsu that would turn his senses against him or make him see horrific images and just as he’d break them The Shadow would be there. Waiting for him.

He’d been running for what felt like days, unable to rest or another genjutsu would take his mind or The Shadow would deal crushing blows to his body, driven by fear and desperation deeper in the forest. He knew he could break the genjutsu and defeat the beast if only he could get a second to goddamn think! He made a terrible dry heaving noise as the monster bent him over its wide fist angered by his lagging pace, but he had no food since 10 last night there was nothing for his body to throw up.

He was lunched up off the forest floor he’d been stumbling through and back, flying through the air only for his momentum to get stopped cruelly by a tree branch. The branch held for a second longer before it gave under the sudden stress of his hitting it and snapped dumping Sasuke on the ground again. He yelled out in pain on instinct and shock, twigs breaking drew his attention and he focused hazily on the approaching Shadow through the creeping black at the edges of his vision.

“I-I refuse t-to lose here.” He grits his teeth against the pain and struggled towards his kunai pouch. Fighting the black overtaking him only briefly before it took him completely.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

'Tough kid,' Kakashi-clone muttered surveying his creators would be student. One eye was already starting to bruise and swell shut, a fat lip, some lost teeth, several broken fingers, one maybe twisted knee from where he’d pulled him down from the canopy where the boy had been hiding and threw him ten feet. A strained shoulder from when he’d stuck the kid in an illusion that made it seem like the trees were strangling him, some very bruised ribs, finally a possibly broken toe considering how black the nail had gotten. 'Really tough.'

The last loyal Uchiha had fought hard. Breaking the low-level genjutsu Kakashi-original had started with understandable since he came from a family that lived and breathed genjutsu. He’d obviously know how to break the simple ones since his family would have taught him how not to get caught in something trivial like a sleep illusion. Too bad the boy had shifted his focus to ninjutsu and taijutsu after the massacre, he might have had the know how to break the very subtle misdirection illusion Kakashi-original had woven spider silk thin over his senses. And the one that heightened a targets paranoia, and the one that caused a false sense of exhaustion, but the boy was out cold now and it was too late to clue him in. Oh well.

Kakashi-clone shrugged off the henge into a towering shadow demon and slung the unconscious boy on his shoulder. Now to dump him near where Kakashi-original was tortu-ahem-terror-cough-testing the girls.

The other two would happen upon him eventually.

Maybe.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Kakashi was in the middle of fending off Naruto’s swift assault when the clone he’d left to test Sasuke popped himself. Sakura had fainted in exhausted relief the second she realized Naruto had freed herself and was slumped in the roots of a tree.

‘Two down, one to go.’ They clashed, kunai against kunai before Kakashi pushed the blonde back and she used the momentum to kick off high from a tree and bounce from trunk to trunk before trying to bring her knife down in a powerful slash.

‘She’s still just as resourceful as ever, few rookies would think to try and use an opponent’s superior power against them. I love it.’ He side-stepped her strike easily and grabbed her arm out of the spin she went into to redirect her balance and threw her into a tree. She smacked into it face first with a crunch but didn’t loosen her grip on her kunai for a second, stumbling slightly from the force of hitting her head and nose very much broken with blood rushing down her small face she steadied herself and pinned him with her navy-blue eyes.

Naruto glared and bared her little fangs at him in a determined snarl. Kakashi got the message loud and clear: he would pay for this, she’d make sure of it. A shiver crawled up his spine, revenge from an Uzumaki was no small threat, especially from a little girl who had managed to prank an ANBU guard station when she was only 12. He stared right back with steady eyes and smirked.

‘Bring it, pup.’ She really growled at him this time sounding like an adorable teething puppy and crouched at the base of the tree he’d thrown her against; she spun the kunai in her grip, getting a better hold and shuffled her feet prepping to go hand to hand against him again. He wasn’t hitting them full force, but he certainly wasn’t softening his blows, all three kids would be bruised to all hell by the end of this.

Naruto jumped aiming both kunai for his face with intent to maim. Kakashi jumped too planning to take her arms again and slam her into the ground this time, aiming to stun her and then leave his battered students to gather themselves and try and figure out his test. But then seconds before he could get a grip on her arms Naruto was twisting swinging her foot forward to kick him and so he lowered his hands fully planning on grabbing her leg instead when the metal ends of his discarded bola where swinging towards his balls at full speed and he was forced to kawarimi himself with a branch across the clearing.

Naruto let her spin carry her forward straight for Sakura’s still slumped form, slung the girl over her shoulder and booked it further in the forest away from his tyranny. In the tree, he smiled, ‘What a smart pup, she must have hooked the rope on her foot when she was shuffling at the base of the tree. And what planning! I certainly didn’t pick what tree I was going to hit with her, she must have done that tree bounce thing to line me up. Minato-sensei, look how wonderful your daughter is, I can’t wait to teach her more.’

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Naruto ran through the forest with Haruno’s bony ass hips digging into her own equally bony shoulder, focused only on getting the fuck away from the silver demon that was their teacher. ‘Damn Haruno for not taking taijutsu lessons seriously! Damn that Uchiha fuck for not being close by! Damn that old silver bastard for being an old silver bastard! Damn, damn, damn!’

She ran with no second thoughts for stealth or subtly. The man was a jounin for Kami’s sake! If he damn well felt like it, he could be up their asses in no time, and they would just have to lay there and take it like whores. No maybes about that shit. She yelped as she tripped over a log that was hidden behind the upheaved roots of a tree. She and Sakura went sprawling, the pinkette woken up by her backs sudden painful reacquaintance with the ground, and her own broken nose made worse by her face plant.

“What the hell Uzumaki! Can’t you even run right!” The other girl barked.

“My fucking dose! Ugh, your ditching to yourdelf Harudo. I fucking dripped ober a fucking Kabi damned log!” (My fucking nose! Ugh, keep your bitching to yourself Haruno. I fucking tripped over a fucking Kami damned log!) Naruto pointed at said log with an accusing finger.

The log groaned.

Both girls froze. They stared at each other, terrified to acknowledge what they’d heard.

It’s fucking alive! Naruto mouthed.

Do not. Touch it! Haruno hissed back.

What if it’s like, another ninja? Naruto was slowly turning her head to look but Haruno started shaking her head frantically.

We do touch talking dead bodies! She made very angry gestures for them to just leave.

No, I have to at least check. It’s a punishable offense to leave a man behind Haruno She started slowly inching her way over while Haruno silently made strangling motions with her hands.

Naruto faced the talking log that miraculously felt pain and grabbed a stick. She looked back at Haruno who had fallen truly silent and turned white. Both girls traded solemn nods, Sakura silently vowing to say nice things at Naruto’s funeral and only whisper her ‘I told you so’ to the blondes’ grave after they’d buried her.

Naruto began to poke the log

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Something was poking Sasuke in his butt.

Poke, poke, poke. Then a brief retreat. Poke, poke, poke. He groaned out a protest and buried his head back in his pillow. Poke, poke, poke. Ugh, why was Nii-san waking him up so early? They didn’t have clan training until tomorrow. He gasped hard, the image of the older brother he thought he knew overlapping with the image of the blood covered demon that had replaced him shocking him. He choked on the dirt that invaded his mouth and used his good arm to heave his face out of the dirt and spit what he could out.

“Sasuke?!” Two voices yelled out. Then hands were on him hauling him up and making him sit up properly. He was being patted and poked some more as the voices asked him endless questions.

“Getoffame.” He slurred out weakly wiggling his shoulders to get the hands off him. He promptly started tipping over, his eyes going wide as he tried to figure out some way to get his balance back without jarring his many injuries.

Naruto let out an irritated huff and caught the stubborn asshole and set him upright again, bringing one of her legs up behind his back to prop him up. Close to him now she could hear the wheezes at the end of his breaths. She reached out gently gripping his jaw and turning Sasuke’s face towards hers, “Where are you hurt? And what hurts the most?” She demanded.

Sakura made a noise only specially bred dogs could hear as she squealed, “Get your mitts off him Uzumaki! Wha-hurt? Sasuke’s hurt?! Ohmigosh, where does it hurt? Oh, what do we do I don’t have any medic training! Sasuke’s going to die in a forest in the dirt! How dare that silver-haired jerk hurt you Sasuke-kun! I’ll tell the coun-!” Her attitude did a 180 as she finally registered the bruise that was most of her precious Sasuke’s face, but Naruto just leaned over the Uchiha and grabbed her face too. Making sure to cover the girl’s mouth.

“Why the fuck am I known as the loud mouth? Listen Haruno I can’t find out what’s wrong with him if you keep yelling to the whole damn village where we are or do you want another taijutsu lesson?” She gave the girl a Look eyebrows and all. Sakura squeaked in fear and fell blessedly silent. Naruto nodded at her to say, ‘that’s what I thought’ and released her to turn back to Sasuke.

He was trying his best to glare at her, but the one dark eye that wasn’t swollen shut was too hazy and one of his hands had come up to clutch his ribs, likely without his knowledge. She used the hand still on his jaw to turn his face left and right noticing the way that he was visibly struggling to focus enough to glare a hole in her face like he obviously wanted too.

Naruto let go to get her hunting knife from where she’d holstered it underneath her shuriken pouch. She only went through to frustration of trying to skin an animal once with a kunai before she stole a set of hunting knives as quickly as possible, the damn things were diamond shaped and meant to stab not skin things.
She cut a clean line up his shirt and ignored his and Sakura’s red-faced protests to lean him against her chest and took his arms out as gently as possible, but he still let out a couple of hisses before she got it off and leaned him back on her leg. Both she and Sakura let out sympathetic oohs when they saw the galaxy of bruises that decorated his torso and arms.

“Alright Uchiha, last chance before I start twisting that clearly dislocated shoulder as punishment. Tell me what hurts so I can fix it.” Sasuke just grit his teeth and started trying to get away from her before Naruto’s hand lashed out snake quick and latched onto his out of place left shoulder. Just the threat of her holding it was enough to still the boy.

He glared at the place he thought her eyes were (he was off by a few inches) and put on the Uchiha Scowl of Disapproval #23 (for use when you have no other choice but to let a medic or teammate touch you) and turned away from her slightly blurry face. She tsked at him again but took the gesture for the permission it was and started pulling out little packets of dried herbs and a big roll of bandages out of various pockets sewn on the inside of her slightly too large jacket.
Naruto set her supplies to the side and motioned Sakura closer, “Come’re Haruno, prop him up so I can get from under him and then help me move him to lay against a tree. I’m pretty strong but my leg would be dead for an hour if I keep him in my lap for this.” Sakura made noises over touching ‘Sasuke-kun’s bare chest!!!’ but thankfully kept it quiet and helped her haul the boy over to the tree his unconscious body had been behind in the first place.

She sat back on her heels and looked him over for a moment. His chest was the most bruised and the slight lump she could see on his right side old he might have a broken rib to make the bruised ones seem less bad by comparison. His shoulder was clearly dislocated and now that she was looking, he had maybe four broken fingers and possibly some broken knuckles. Hatake had worked the boy over good but it looked like the Uchiha had put up as much of a fight as he could against the jounin.

“Haruno!” The said girl stopped her useless hand wringing. “You remember how in our kunoichi they taught us basic medical jutsu?” The pinkette paused, blinked, and then her green eyes went sharp as she scanned her big brain for what they’d been taught that day.

Sakura gave a little bounce from where she was perched on her knees next to her crush, “Got it! That lesson was a while ago, so it took a second to think of the day, but I remember. They brought in a real medic-nin from the hospital uh, Hiroko-sensei who specialized in battlefield healing and non-complicated emergency surgeries like amputations and large chest wounds. “She taught us three jutsu good for small wounds and then showed us 7 types of medicinal plants that grow throughout Hi no Kuni we can use in basic salves.”

She paused to double check her understanding of the hand signs they were taught and nodded firmly, “I can scan to see if anything is broken, heal up the bruises and scrapes, and help the concussion along into a headache so he doesn’t have to be kept awake. It’s not much but it’s something.”

Two pairs of blue and black eyes blinked at her in shock. “Damn Haruno, the only reason I remember that day is because I got kicked out and managed to cry my way into free food from a vendor.” Naruto shook off the shock at the other girl’s impressive memory, “Alright I while I get these herbs prepped into a slave, I want you to focus on his chest okay? From what I’m hearing nothing’s broken, but the bruising is pretty deep looking and that’s going to take the most energy to heal, after move on to his hands. We’re going to need them if we want to stand a rain clouds chance in Suna against that silver bastard.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Said silver bastard was perched in a tree above all three under an ANBU level cloaking jutsu to get around Naruto’s keen sense’s listening in and watching to make sure the stubborn-dumb Uchiha didn’t accidentally puncher his own lung. Kakashi would get blamed for that shit first and no one next. The kid really did resemble the old him far too much and he fully planned to rip all those ugly little pieces out and do his best to make roses out of shit.

If they passed.

If not, he would fist fight both Jiraiya and the Third for the chance to teach Sensei’s daughter and leave that hot mess to someone else. Down below Naruto had taken charge as the only one with any experience treating the kind of wounds Uchiha had (and Kami if it didn’t kill him to know how she got that experience) and was browbeating both her other teammates into doing what she said.

'She’s so much like her mother. It’s both good and sad she didn’t get the hair or else anyone seeing that temper and the iconic hair would connect dots much too quickly.’ He mused. Then Naruto asked Haruno about the rudimentary medic training that was a required course for girls and even he was impressed with her memory. ‘I can only memorize things that well because I’ve been trained for it and the farther back, I go the fewer details I remember, that had to have been a year or two ago. Could she have a photographic memory, or something close to it? Interesting.’ Kakashi could work with interesting, interesting had potential to grow.

Then Naruto really started to treat her team’s wounds in earnest, chewing up herbs to rub on scrapes and cuts while ignoring the other two’s noises of disgust, cutting bandages into strips, and pulling bark off trees to make splints. At the same time, Haruno applied her extremely limited knowledge of healing to fix up her crush and herself as much as possible. She was only able to focus her chakra well enough to lighten the deep galaxies on his ribs, heal his fingers after Naruto had realigned them, and sooth the concussion.

But while her control was near perfect since it only took her two tries to figure out the exact amount and speed, she needed to circulate her chakra to heal the boy’s bruising, her reserves were absolutely minuscule. Haruno put way too much effort into healing Uchiha before healing herself and was left panting with bruises that were only two shades lighter than they were before and on the edge of chakra exhaustion.

Naruto picked up her weaker teammates slack flawlessly and wrapped the boy’s chest before moving on to his shoulder. “This is going to hurt like a bitch Uchiha, ready?” She warned. He froze up as she put her hands on him, moving his arm up, and bracing his shoulder back against the tree. Uchiha hesitated, dark eyes skittering around the forest looking for an escape before Naruto gripped and shoved and his shoulder went back into place with a hollow popping sound. The pain hit him seconds after as he yelled out and his feet instinctively scrabbled in the dirt trying to get away from the blonde twisting his arm around making sure the ball was in the socket correctly.

She turned to Haruno, checked her ribs and arms for any breaks or fractures, found none, and started yanking the other two to their feet. “Come on,” She urged, “We need to get to somewhere better to make camp and we need to eat, and we need to plan, in that order.” She got Haruno on her feet and then pulled Uchiha up and put his right arm around her shoulders.

“Why do we have to move? Why don’t we just camp and hunt from here?” Haruno whined as Uchiha struggled to get his arm back from Naruto presumably planning to try walking on his but her grip was like iron and she used her other hand to squeeze his injured left and held him up as the pain buckled his knees. Kakashi approved.

“Because Haruno, we need food, water, and shelter. We can find food and make shelter here but the water part of the needs of the basic human being is more difficult because I can hear a small river or stream near here and the only one strong enough to carry water to and from that river is me. And if I have to cater to either of your scrawny asses, I’ll end you both, council be damned.” She hissed glaring at the spoiled girl.

It might have been the icy glare or the slight baring of her cute little puppy fangs but Haruno backed down and followed obediently as Naruto towed a protesting Uchiha through the forest towards the river a mile away. Kakashi left the kids to squabble and went to prep his own camp and some ‘surprises’ for tomorrow.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Naruto gently dumped Sasuke at the base of a tree and told Sakura to start a fire pit while she shucked her jacket, grabbed her hunting knife, stripped out of her pants, and waded into the river. Sakura’s scandalized screech soon after scared the fish away.

“WHAT ARE DOING UZUMAKI-BAKA!! PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON WE’RE IN PUBLIC NOT A BATH HOUSE AND SASUKE-KUN IS RIGHT THERE!” Her howl startled birds, small animals, and one silver-haired sensei in the middle of setting a trap for his students.

Naruto turned to the other girl, hands on her skinny hips, knife clutched in one hand, and absolutely shameless about being in the middle of a river in her undies and a sleeveless black shirt. “What the hell is your problem now Haruno? I’m trying the get some fucking dinner for you from this cold ass river, you loud-ass.” She gestured at the fish still freaking out around her ankles.

“You. Are in. Your underwear.” Sakura hissed.

Naruto rolled her eyes so hard Sakura thought she saw the backs of her eyeballs. “Listen Haruno,” the blonde had no right to sigh like a mother scolding her unruly kid. “Do you want food?” The other girl nodded when Naruto paused and stared at her until she answered, “Then the most convenient way for me to get all of us food without leaving you two gimps to defend yourselves against that maniac sensei of ours is to fish. Now, I don’t have access to a way to make a fishing pole right now so the quickest way to get fish is to get in the river, right?”

The thought of Kakashi popping up to beat them into the ground again quelled the girl’s outrage and got her to listen. “Getting in the river means getting wet. And we also need enough fish to feed all of us and I’m going to eat at least 7 by myself and I can guess Uchiha is going to eat maybe 3. So that means I’m going to be in this river for a while, and that means any clothes I’m wearing are going to get soaked. So, what’s all that mean?” She made a ‘go on’ gesture until a red-faced Sakura reluctantly replied.

“You, need to have y-your clo-clothes off to fish.” The girl was blushing like Naruto had gotten naked and offered to eat her out while Uchiha took her from behind. ‘What a prude, it’s just my underwear. Everyone has underwear.’ She paused to examine that thought, ‘Though some of the Nee-san in the flower district are weirdly against undies.’ Mind on the pros and cons of underwear Naruto turned back to the river and waited until the fish grew used to her before she started lashing out with her knife and chucking fish on shore for Sakura to cook.

Sakura squealed in surprise unprepared when Naruto tossed a fish over to her and it started flailing wildly, wanting to be back in the water. She made grossed out noises as she wrangled it down and gut and de-boned it for cooking.

“Shut up Haruno and hurry up. I’m hungry.” Sasuke growled, the fangirl’s earlier outburst had quickly ruined the brief peace the babbling of the river created, and his migraine exploded into the forefront of his attention, taking his mind off Uzumaki’s sudden peep show. Every noise the pink one made was far too high pitched for his head right now and just made him want to get up leave, injuries be damned.

He was sure he could get farther and do better than these two idiots even with his bum knee and busted shoulder. But he had a vague feeling that Uzumaki would not hesitate to do something violent to him if he tried to leave the makeshift camp on his own. And fish sounded surprisingly good to his empty belly.

“Right away Sasuke-kun!” She chirped. Ears perked to the words Naruto made a face at the other girl’s instant belly-up compliance to the asshole’s rudeness. She climbed out of the river with hopefully enough fish to fill their bellies and joined Sakura onshore gutting and cleaning fish at the riverside, since the blonde set a faster pace than the pinkette Naruto set her to stoking the fire hot enough to cook and gathering herbs she could use to cook.

The two girls worked steadily in the fading light of sunset and soon had the fish prepped and ready for cooking. They both transferred the clean fish to the fireside wrapped in leaves they had washed in the river and Naruto got her jacket from the heap she’d shucked it earlier with her pants. She used one of her jacket sleeves to dry her legs off and then stepped back into her pants, once again ignoring the way Sakura sputtered at her even if Sasuke had dropped off into a light doze in the brief quiet. Naruto always wore much the same thing as far as Sakura could tell, deep brown cargo pants and a hunting jacket.

The cargo pants were held up with a thick leather belt and on her belt, Naruto had what looked like custom shuriken and kunai holsters, the shuriken pouch was placed on her left side and included a knife holster that Sakura had already seen the blonde pull her hunting knife from. The pouch was also bigger than what you could get off the shelf at a ninja supply store, the kunai holster was a good four inches longer than the standard issue kunai academy students had access to and both were in brown suede. A material the standard academy prep kit did not come in. Her thick jacket was more of the same brown suede on the chest and forest green on the back, the sleeves were a dark grey.

Sakura could see the inside of the jacket was lined with yet more pockets of varying sizes, she wondered how the jacket didn’t have weirdly shaped bulges in it considering all the things she’d seen Uzumaki pull out of it today. Speaking of Uzumaki reached into one of the pockets on the inside and pulled out a small scroll about as long as a kunai and unrolled it to reveal,

“Is that a storage scroll?! I thought shinobi couldn’t buy those until they were at least genin level and even then, they need written permission from their Sensei! How do you have one?” She squawked, for once not paying any attention to the Uchiha that had startled awake in the background as she stared at the little sealing scroll in shock.

Naruto flicked her blue eyes to Sakura briefly before concentrating on pulling out her cooking supplies, “I got it as a gift for getting my headband.” She gave the scroll a small fond smile before rolling it up and putting it away. She took the iron pan and raised grate she had gotten out and set them over the fire to heat so she could start cooking the fish.

She’d also gotten out an ice cubed shaped leaf-wrapped bundle, a metal spatula that she stuck in the fire to sterilize, and a small cloth bag that she opened to reveal it contained salt. Once the pan was hot the leaf ice cube was unwrapped to reveal a yellow thing with little flecks of green in it, Naruto tossed it in the pan and it immediately started to melt down Sakura leaned closer to sniff it and was surprised by the sent that met her.

“Is that, butter? And some herbs maybe? Why do you have that?” Sakura asked. Naruto gave her a look that said, ‘why do you have to ask stupid questions?’ but answered anyway while she added the extra herbs Sakura had picked and three fish.

“Because of this exact situation Haruno, sometimes you need to cook in a place that isn’t a house and so it’s smart to carry supplies like oil and butter with you. I just make soup stock, butter ‘n herbs, and oil at home, freeze them in an ice tray, wrap that in clean leaves, and seal ‘em up so I have it when I need it. You can only have roasted fish or rabbit for so long before that shit gets too boring and you start dreading having to eat it.” While she spoke, Naruto didn’t let her attention waver from the fish, shuffling them with her spatula to keep them from burning and flipping them to make sure they cooked through all the way. Soon their little riverside camp was filled with the mouthwatering scent of fish cooking and all three kids with their empty stomachs were leaning over the fire drooling and eagerly waiting for their hard-earned food.

As soon as they were done cooking the fish went on their little leaf plates and was being shoved into the genin hopefuls mouths as fast as possible, not even the fish being barely out of the pan stopped them from stuffing their faces as quickly as possible. Naruto immediately refilled the pan and started cooking more even as she licked her now empty leaf, long experience with shoving food that most people considered garbage in her mouth letting her gulp down her steaming hot fish in two bites. Her tongue was only numb for a minute before her healing factor took care of the burns.

“Ohmykami, I missed food! This is soo good!” Sakura mumbled through her stuffed checks, who gave a crap about manners when there was finally hot food in front of her and the promise of rest after the crappy day she’d had? She’d been literally starving all day because she’d gone to bed early with no dinner the night before and had no breakfast when she got up per her new Sensei’s orders. Now after being beaten up by the man she realized the ominous warning to ‘not eat in the morning unless they wanted to throw it back up’ was both serious threat and a way to further torment them.

Sasuke just gave a vaguely appreciative “Hn” which Naruto supposed was the closest she was ever going to get to the duck haired bastard ever saying a sincere thanks. The blonde served them their second helping and decided now was as good a time as any to start planning her revenge on Hatake.
“Listen you two, I know we all hate each other to hell and back, but we’re stuck up this shit creek together and that silver dickwad took both our oars, punched a hole in the damn boat, tied us together at the fucking neck, and we’re heading right for a goddamn waterfall.

“We need to work together no matter how much we all don’t like it, and trust me, I really don’t like it. Hatake is Jounin now but he used to be ANBU did you know? That means to him, we’re just a bunch of annoying gnats buzzing in his face we’re so far below his skill level. I heard he’s a candidate for Hokage if the Old Man steps down or some rat bastard manages to finally put that old monkey down.

“The only fucking way we are ever going to get close enough to even smell his shit is if we put our heads together and think. Besides, I looked him up in the records office and he’s never passed a single genin team assigned to him. Never ever. I tracked down some of the failures and they all had one thing to say about his usual genin test: they fell apart during the test because they could never work together well enough. They all fell for his tricks and he let them tear themselves apart by pitting them against each other.

"Most of his former test subjects are stuck in the Reserves or got split up and cycled into old teams that lost a teammate in the field. I for one re-fucking-fuse to get stuck as a Reserve so unless you want me to beat you into working for me instead of with me, I suggest you get over your goddamn egos and help me.” Naruto glared at the other two daring them to try and go solo against the jounin and risk failing them. Her blue eyes were ice colored and bright in the light of the fire and pinned her teammates in place long enough to say her piece.

Sasuke protested first, Uchiha pride demanding he protest working with the class clown and one of his fangirls on anything much less a task as important as becoming a genin, never mind said class clown and fangirl were the only reason he wasn’t face down in the dirt and still unconscious, hungry, and in massive pain still. “Hold up Uzumaki! Why should we even trust a breath of what you just said and how did you even get into the records office? That’s a restricted area, only authorized chuunin and shinobi jounin level and above can go in. And only the Hokage, jounin-sensei, and the chuunin in charge of the graduating class can even breath on team records.

"So how did you, a loser, and a known annoyance, get in there, look at those records, and then actually get those other failures to talk about why they aren’t real shinobi?” He questioned glaring haughtily. How dare this clan less loser speak to him like she was scolding a pair of stupid little kids and then threaten to force him to work for her like a plebeian! If his body wasn’t still paining him, he’d kick her skinny ass and leave, good fish be damned. He could get his own fish! And it’d be twice as good as anything the little blonde nobody could make. Naruto glared right back her little fangs bared as she sneered at the arrogant boy, the way he was talking you’d think he didn’t get his ass beat just a couple of hours ago and was still too hurt to stand on his own.

“Listen you duck ass hair having limp dicked shitheel.” She growled, “Unless you want me to dislocate both your damn shoulders and fully break that knee and leave you to suffer our Sensei’s nonexistent mercy, I suggest you stop fucking talking to me like I’m not fully capable of snapping your fucking neck and burying you in these woods as mushroom food.

“Second, I don’t know if you looked up from your perfect little Uchiha world recently, but this annoyance,” She mocked his voice putting wobbly cracks in it like he was going through a terrible puberty voice change.

“Has managed to paint the entire damn Monument in broad daylight, in full view of the Tower and didn’t get caught until I was almost done. And snuck into the fucking Hyuuga compound and messed with their laundry wash so that every single one of those pale-eyed bitches wore pink for a month! I’m an official Public Menace and damn proud of it!” Naruto thumped a fist to her chest proudly, she’d worked half her life to get the title and she wasn’t going to let this bastard look down on her for anything,

"Third, I used to be a ward of the Hokage idiot. Before I was sent to an orphanage when I was four, I lived with Hiru-jiji and Asuma-nii in the mansion. After I was kicked out of the orphanage and got my own place, Hiru-jiji would visit me all the time and I’d go hang out in his office while he worked. Shit gets boring real quick so I’d explore the place, all the desk chuunin know my face and know very well Hiru-ji would have me fetch shit for him sometimes.

“So, I lied, got in, snooped, and then cut and run before anyone realized I was up to no good. Then I used a henge to talk to the unlucky losers. Ya know, like a ninja? Also, I’d seen Hatake before when he was ANBU, he used to guard the Old Man. You can’t mistake the weird slant of that hair, right duck-ass?” She smirked at him. The boy went to start berating her again but then Sakura spoke up too.

“Wait Sasuke-kun, as much as it hurts to even think it, Uzumaki might be right.” She grimaced as she said it. “All three of us went up against Sensei and the only one who didn’t get put in the dirt near immediately was Uzumaki, and that was just because she was only fighting to get us both out of there. And I know the only reason we aren’t still fighting him is that he was done with us not because Uzumaki outran him.

“ANBU are the top of the ranks, the ones that get well known are all classed A-rank and above. Only the Hokage could even touch an ANBU in peak condition and we’re only just barely considered genin. We don’t stand a chance.

“If what Uzumaki said is right those other teams failed because they didn’t work together and let him turn them against each other with the two-bell clause. Besides, I’ve read a lot of history books and nowhere is there ever any mention of a genin level team with just two genin, ever.

“They pair three students with a jounin level shinobi to guide us because we’re just graduated academy students. We know the basics and that’s it. It’s always your jounin-sensei that teaches and guides you to a specialty or something else for a reason. Konoha’s founding principle is teamwork for Kami’s sake! I-I think to stand the best chance against Kakashi-sensei, we need to work together Sasuke-kun.” The whole time Sakura fidgeted with her leaf plate and dress and hair very hesitant to speak against her beloved Sasuke-kun much less in support of the Dope of all people. Ugh, what was her life coming to?

Naruto gave a triumphant smirk like she’d won the fight already (she kinda had), “Yeah Uchiha! You can go right on ahead and get your ass handed to you and forced to eat it too. Or you can act like you live in Konoha and not Iwa and work with us long enough to make chuunin and then we’ll hopefully never have to see each other outside of the mission’s office again!” She challenged him proudly arms crossed over her chest and leering at him in a way that made her look like a kitsune he’d seen once in the forest around the compound as a child.

Now there were no animals in the grounds anymore, the stench of death had driven all the birds and small animals away. Even the ground was dead, the blood of his slain clan had soaked into the ground down to the water line, now nothing would grow. Sasuke glared at both girls defiantly, Haruno cringed under his gaze but didn’t take back what she said, and Uzumaki just flipped him off before getting back to cooking the forgotten fish.

Damn that look usually got people to cave, he must still be too concussed to focus his eyes enough to cow the girls, yes that must be it. It defiantly was not because he had no right to command either girl and they very well knew it, though it was a subconscious realization in Sakura’s case. Sasuke leaned back against the tree he was propped on and crossed his arms with a huff looking away from the girls and pouting glaring into the woods broodingly.

Naruto took it for the surrender it was and dished up thirds, plopping Sasuke’s hot fish right on his lap and snickering at him when he jumped and flailed briefly at the sudden heat on his crotch. He glared but ate and even occasionally gave vaguely help criticism as they planned their hopefully successful assault on their crazy sensei. Sakura barely finished her third fish before tapping out constant dieting had shrunk her stomach and she felt fuller than she’d been in while, Sasuke managed two more before he also stopped, and true to her words Naruto polished off the rest of the fish herself downing 7 more fish as they planned their victory.

Naruto washed her pan and spatula in the river and put away her cooking supplies while Sakura set up the fire so it would burn through the night. All three agreed to get started setting their sensei up as soon as possible so they set the alarm jutsu they were all taught their first year to two hours before dawn and bedded down. All three shared one murderous thought before falling into exhausted slumbers, ‘I’m going to get that silver fucker if it’s the last thing I do!’
On the other side of temporarily enclosed forest said silver fucker twitched awake briefly before going back to dreaming of the harassment he was going to heap on his cute students at dawn.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

At dawn, Kakashi’s own carefully tuned internal clock woke him up and he had to resist the urge to rub his hands together like some cliché villain in a bad romance novel. ‘Oh, what the hell! No ones here to see it but me anyway.’ He paused for a second to gleefully rub his hands together and give a menacing chuckle that would have him at the top of the list for a deep psych eval if anyone had witnessed him do it. He had plans for his little genin today.

He followed their chakra signatures to where they were surprisingly still huddled together after he’d forced them together in the late afternoon. He kind of expected them to split in the morning but they’d just moved maybe three miles away from where he noted they made camp the night before.

‘Maybe they figured it out. They were stuck together most of the night and afternoon and Naruto managed to get Haruno on her side before forcing the Uchiha to concede.’ Kakashi wondered, he’d left the kids makeshift camp before they started planning because he had traps to set and wanted to set up his fake campgrounds in case Naruto took him up on his ‘no-safe zone’ rule. And also, he kind of wanted their plan to surprise him, it was very unshinobi-like of him to let an enemy have an advantage, but he was confident he could handle what the three could throw at him.

Even if one was a very mischievous Uzumaki.

Who had pranked both the Hokage and his guard on one memorable occasion.

……Maybe he should have eavesdropped a bit more.

Kakashi neared the huddled signatures and cloaked himself before perching above them in a tree, ‘Or maybe they’re still too busy trying to kill each other to plan against me.’ He sighed a little disappointed at their continued squabbling it really looked like Naruto had cinched the deal with the other two. ‘Oh well,’ he shrugged, ‘Time to kick some kids’ asses and then beg the Hokage to let me apprentice Naruto before he can snatch her up, barring that I think I’ll ask about at least being able to teach her a few of my techniques. Sarutobi wouldn’t be selfish enough to hog her all to himself. Hopefully.’ He shunshins into the middle of the arguing children planning to roundhouse them all in the face after they’ve given him appropriately hilarious reactions of shock and dismay.

Except they don’t.

They fall silent like he expects them too. They jump at his sudden appearance like he expects them too. But they don’t cry out and scramble away like he expects them too. Instead, three sets of eyes glare at him and three sets of jaws clench and then suddenly the ground gives way beneath his feet and there’s a small pit filled with bamboo spears underneath him.

Kakashi uses a bit of chakra to push off from a chunk of crumbling earth to get airborne but before he can decide which kid’s face he’s going to use as a landing pad there are more spears flying through the air with intent to skewer. He twists midair to avoid them but then Sasuke is in the air too and fire is blooming from the boy's mouth trying to roast him and as he kawarimis himself with a large branch across the clearing where the kids have apparently decided to really take Kakashi up on his ‘attack with intent to kill’ recommendation.

He’s proud of their deception, they knew he was half-assing this from the get-go and used his own laziness against him and lured him into a nicely made circle of death. Adorable. As soon as Kakashi’s body appeared where the branch was, he realized was another setup because Naruto was there timed by 6, each one had a kunai in each hand and started attacking him in impressive coordination. Kakashi had only seconds to get out a kunai to deflect her attacks.

So far, the kids were being very smart pushing him to react and giving him no time to think and more importantly they were doing their best to keep him from analyzing their chosen battleground and picking apart their plan. Cute. He started popping clones by gently breaking their noses but for each clone popped another was there teeth bared and kunai aimed at his visible eye.

Soon the smoke from the gratuitous clone death built up around them. Just as Kakashi was getting bored with deflecting kunai some of the clones would lunge in with yet more makeshift spears and he had to use a bit more concentration to knock their longer reach aside. He steals one of the spears to bludgeon some of the endless clones over the head and used his kunai to lightly stab others in none fatal areas. The smoke grew several shades darker. He was dodging different strikes at his face, balls, ankles, and back when Sasuke’s voice spoke from outside the cloud of grey smoke.

“Katon: Moeru Nokoribi!” A black could of ash and embers set the whole smoke cloud around Naruto and Kakashi up in a flash fire. He felt to heat press in as he shunshined out again this time above the whole clearing, the side to his left as filled with the white-hot fire that only burned for a minute before it died leaving a patch of burned grass and little stray burns on his clothes. Waiting on the fringes of the clearing were his cute little genin, each at a different spot and all three waiting with eyes focused for him to come back down.

When Kakashi landed in the clearing, just to the right of the pit they’d tried to trap him in first, none of the kids moved to attack. Naruto the original was to his left one hand wrapped around a bamboo spear and blood on her face from her nose, Sasuke was to his right on both feet and looking remarkable steady for someone how’d spent the night in a forest with a mild concussion, and directly in front of him was Sakura crouched just beyond the tree line and looking very nervous indeed. He put away his kunai and twirled the makeshift spear to check the balance and show off a bit and took a ready stance. Kakashi made a ‘come on’ gesture at his kids.

Sakura darted off into the forest as Naruto and Sasuke engaged him. Naruto met his spear head-on, blocking his downward swing and not buckling despite the strength he put behind the blow; Sasuke was just steps behind using her as a springboard and stabbing at his head but Kakashi ducked the boy and shifted his grip on the spear to sweep Naruto’s guard up and then went to use the blunt end to crush her sternum while using his downward momentum to back kick into Sasuke’s chest. But Naruto twisted her chest to the left enough to get away from his blow causing him to bury the end if it in the dirt and used her spear as bat to try and bludgeon him with, and Sasuke latched onto his foot as his heel came down and spun to try and get from the other side at the same time.

Kakashi shifted his grip into a one-handed hold and followed the back kick through until he was keeping himself in the air at a diagonal bringing his head out of attack range at least temporarily and bending the bamboo back under his weight. At the same time gravity landed Sasuke on his face next to Naruto there was a distant twangswishwhisle and a brace of shuriken was flying at him. Two more similar sounds heralded the arrival of two other sets of kunai flying from different points in the forest, no doubt the work of a still hidden Sakura.

He brought his feet down on the bamboo bending it further under his weight and used his hands to rapidly deflect the aerial assault into the ground and tree trunks around him, a yip and a startled grunt told him several of the blades he directed in his students' direction almost hit them. They made more panicked noises as he stepped off the bent spear and let it swing down into where the two used to be as they scrambled to get away. The blades continued to fly even as Naruto and Sasuke set to attacking him again aided by yet more endless clones of Naruto.

The two attacking him were looking more haggard by the second and the blades trying to snipe him more much less numerous than before when a voice declared:
“GOT IT!”

The aggressive duo backed off and sat with relieved sighs and Sakura left her leafy cover to kneel next to Sasuke. All three looked exhausted, Naruto lacking all knowledge and care for manners was sprawled messily and peeling her jacket off the cool down faster. Sasuke raised in a noble house that placed far too much importance on appearance and keeping a public mask kneeled with a touch more dignity but slumped over more than proper etiquette would allow. Sakura with her civilian background was less rigid by comparison but still came from a well-to-do merchant family so didn’t sprawl out with her limbs all over the place and instead sat with her legs crossed. They all had victorious grins on their little faces.

“And, what, exactly did you three get?” His one eyebrow raise was conveyed entirely by voice. Uncowed Naruto grinned up at him

“We beat your stupid fucking test Silver Bastard-sensei!” She chirped, Kakashi had to hold in a snort at the sudden disrespectful nick mane. He swore he saw Sasuke smirk a little and Sakura just sighed at the other girl’s foul mouth, already resigned to Naruto’s immunity to behavior correction that didn’t suit her own purposes.

“Ah, well how’d you beat it? As far as I know, the bells are still on my waist right here.” He sat with his legs crossed to and jingled the bells still tied to his hip pouch. But Naruto’s grin changed into something distinctly foxy and the bells he was twitching poofed and two little dragonflies buzzed lazily away from him. Kakashi turns his attention to the only other possible source. Whatever was in Sakura’s hand. She opened it to his half curious, half knowing gaze and revealed the real bells exactly where he thought they’d be.

“Hmm,” Kakashi gave an impressed nod and crossed his arms in a lazy slouch. “I’m impressed, kids. Mind telling how you accomplished what no one else could?”

“Well after we recovered enough to think straight again last night,” The pink one started off, giving him a slightly reprimanding look for being the cause of them having to ‘recover’ in the first place. “We started planning how to take you out.

“Uzumaki remembered you from when you guarded the Hokage and more importantly she was at the trails when the Hokage was picking out his new guard and saw the way you fought back then. I remembered reading about the Hatake clan in a history book and about how your clan has enhanced senses like the Inuzuka.” Sakura said fiddling nervously with the bells in her hand, Kakashi would have to work on her sounding more confident when talking to authority figures and superior officers.

“Yeah! And I remembered how Hiru-jiji cusses about you always being a late, lazy asshole!” And Naruto would have to work actually being respectful. “I knew from the way you were treating us like toys from the start that you knew we didn’t stand a chance and a lazy-ass like you would never pass up an opportunity to cake walk a test like this.

“So, fucking duh, of course, we could set up some good-ass traps before you came to torture us again. I made a fuck-ton of clones and had ‘em turn into lil’ shit like bugs ‘n birds ‘n animals and shit and hid ‘em allllll over! They told me when you got up and when you came in our direction.” The blonde grinned and proved her point by the massive poof that went up all over the clearing revealing hundreds of the same grinning face before those too poofed away.

Sakura picked the story back up, “And we used the clones to help us dig the pit, set up the kunai and shuriken trap, and rig the rest of the clearing until we knew we’d have an edge in battle. Uzumaki knows some interesting plants that grow nearby Sensei, did you know? When you burn them, they give whoever smells the smoke a sense of ease, unless you’ve ingested the plant within 24 hours of smelling it.” As realization dawned on Kakashi all three kids looked a bit smugly mischievous, and it was no wonder why.

“The smoke from the clones and Sasuke-chan’s jutsu,” Said boy scowled at the honorific, “you were covering the scent of the plant. And used it to drug me into being too confident and letting you two draw out the fight far longer than I would usually ever let it. And then used yet clones to sneak out to me and steal and replace the bells before I could wise up and take the two front runners out and leave the weakest fighter alone.” Kakashi was growing more impressed by the second. It wasn’t every day any shinobi, much less a bunch of kids, managed to drug an ANBU without them noticing.

‘Huh, maybe I have been neglecting my training recently since giving up the mask. Good thing teaching will give me the perfect opportunity to get my edge back!’ He thought with malicious cheer. The kid’s smug looks faded slightly as they felt something akin to death’s touch slide up their backs.

“Yep! And I talked to the losers you fucked over before and they all said the reason you failed them was their lack of teamwork. Though I don’t get why they never got it. Even if I hadn’t spoked your shit out before it would have still been so fuckin’ obvious like a baby could pass this test.” Naruto rolled her eyes at the ‘easy test’ that had failed nearly every other team that was faced with it. Kakashi’s own was almost among those ranks.

He almost went to ask the little blonde how it was ‘so fucking obvious’ but then he remembered that Naruto’s whole damn life was having to look underneath the underneath to read a person’s true intentions. Because half the time anyone even looked her twice, they were trying to kill, humiliate, or manipulate her and that was just her existence. An already hard life made truly fucking difficult by 99.99 percent of the people she’d ever met. God sometimes Kakashi really did want to just kidnap his sensei’s daughter and run.

But then Kakashi remembered that even if he was the last heir to a prolific and well-respected shinobi clan the act of ninja-napping the technical princess of Konoha would have a truly astronomical price out on their heads. Sarutobi would summon both Tsunade-hime and Jiraiya along with every single shinobi he had available to track them down and get Naruto back to the village in one piece and with his head in a bag. So Kakashi internalized his rage.

For now.

Shaking off his mutinous thought of the week Kakashi focused back on the kids; they had turned nervous again in the face of his silence but held face well. Sasuke with a well trained Uchiha mask of Absolute Indifference but showed his nerves in his hands and the muscles around his mouth, Naruto having taken up lying just to get treated like human being had a near flawless bullshit face but her eyes gave her up, and Sakura would have to be taught how to stop all her fidgeting before some card shark in the upper ranks (Inoichi) got ahold of her and cleaned her wallet out.

He put just a touch of KI behind his glare and started growling at them, “So, you spied on, tricked, drugged, and then bum rushed a superior officer. And before that snuck into classified records AND lied to follow shinobi! And then boldly used that illegally gotten information to rig your genin test in your own favor! Way to act like real ninja kids I’m impressed, you pass.” He ended he angry sounding triad with an eye smile.

It took them a second to process what he said past the scolding tone but the look of shocked relief on the three little faces was so worth it.

Naruto abandoned any previous signs of exhaustion to jump up to yell ‘FUCKING A! WE'RE THE GODDAMN BEST!’ Sakura gave the air a victory one-two punch and grunted under breath a ‘Hell yeah!’ Even Sasuke gave a triumphant little smirk. What cute kids.

Kakashi waved a hand to calm them back down. “Maa, maa, my cute little maybe-genin are real-genin now. But now that I’m really going to be your Sensei, I will warn you now. I will make you all into proper shinobi or break you trying. You will bleed, you will cry, you may have more than one existential crisis, but you will learn, and you will grow or Kami help you because I sure won’t.

“The only one out of the three of you even remotely prepared for being a shinobi in the real world is Naruto-chan and that’s because she’s lived a harder life than most stray dogs (“Hey!). You two,” He motioned to Sasuke and Sakura, one looking sour and the other shocked at his criticism, “Have been sheltered and coddled and lead by the nose in life and as far as I’m concerned it stops, now. You’ve got some growing up to do and I’m going to make you do it so fast the growing pain is going to drive you made but, in the end, this whole team will run like clockwork or better.

“I’m going to give you a break this one time only and you can all go home and rest up for tomorrow’s training session. But you have homework. I want all of you to think seriously about what this test revealed to you about your teammates and yourselves and think on what being a shinobi really means at its core to you. I want you all to come to me tomorrow with a goal.

“It doesn’t have to be realistic, long term, or short term. I just want you to come up with something that you feel like working towards, that’s going to motivate you to train, to better yourself, to reach new heights every day. A dream. That’s all I want, be here at 0600. Dismissed.” He ran through 23 hand seals in 30 seconds and took down the barrier scroll that trapped them in the forest and put the special scroll away again. He felt he might need it in the future. The mood turned a bit somber by his judgments/demands the kids left at once for the outside world and Kakashi let them.

Hopefully, Sasuke and Sakura would think hard on how it was Naruto’s special skill set of being the ‘class clown’ that got them through his test and start warming up to the blonde a bit on their own and make his job easier. But the little brats would probably make his job five times harder than it needed to be just to spite him. Sigh kids these days and their social biases.

Kakashi shook off his dread of the future and turned towards Hokage Tower. He had a monkey to report to and some supplies to get. Raising three young shinobi from scratch was demanding work and he’d need lots of ‘teaching aids’ to get drill the appropriate lessons into his kids' heads after all.

Across the village, three exhausted teenagers shivered in their beds at the sudden paranoia creeping up their spines.

Chapter Text

Kakashi shunshined to just outside the tower and then slinked into the large, round multi tiered room under the Tower that served as the meeting room for things like this through one of the basement level windows at the top of the room. His fellow jounin, those who were assigned kids and those who were lucky to not be were all scattered around the low light room at different tiers and in little clusters chatting in whispers. The other teachers were all floor level and bunched together waiting on him. He gave a polite acknowledgment to the ANBU hidden in the wall next to the window and hopped down to join his comrades in child torture. Gai, long since equipped with a state of the art Kakashi-sensor, turned neatly and bellowed as cheerful a greeting as his powerful lungs could afford him while posing.

“YOSH! KAKASHI-KUN MY COOL RIVAL IN ARMS YOU FINALLY ARRIVE!” Dust floated down from the ceiling.

Kakashi just pulled his little orange book and walked past the ‘youthful’ instructor and greeted Asuma, and Kurenai with a lazy two-fingered salute. “Yo.” Then he slumped against the wooden table with his nose in his book.

Gai buckled like someone had somehow managed to kick in one his iron-strong knees and howled like he’d lost a jumpsuit. “ALWAYS SO COOL AND COLLECTED MY YOUTHFUL FRIEND.” The loud exclamation was accompanied by big crocodile tears and a clenched fist.

Asuma ignored Gai’s wails about youth, long since used to his brand of insanity, but Kurenai was new to teaching and hadn’t been exposed to as much Gai as Asuma had. She gave the Green Beast a weirded outlook for his over the top undignified wailing and looked to be hovering between scolding him for being so loud and comforting him for having to deal with Kakashi’s Kakashi-ness all the time. Before anymore ninja brand weirdness could go down the Hokage shunshined in with his advisors at either shoulder and a small portion of his guard visible around him.

All the gathered shinobi went down on one knee and bowed their head to their leader.

“Stand shinobi, Sensei step forward and report the status of your teams when called.” Sarutobi sat at the desk that doubled as the only real seat in the room with his advisors while two of the Hokage’s Guard took up positions in front and to either side of the desk. The rest had already melted into the shadows to join their fellows. The newbies were almost good enough to disappear from Kakashi’s senses. Almost.

The first ten minutes of the reports were from previous Senseis’ reporting the ‘go-no-go’ status of which teams were ready to go on to the chuunin or jounin exams as necessary, or requesting a pass for the year, or getting permission to contract help from other instructors for various specialties. Only some requested the dissolution of their teams for reason related to ‘stagnation of growth’ otherwise known as: ‘they’ve peaked send them to admin to do paperwork’. An unfortunate but sometimes popular reason to dissolve a team.

Finally came the time that everyone had been waiting for: the new Senseis’ of the genin batch for the graduation year. Everyone wanted to see how many of the new teams passed and which Academy students had passed to become real shinobi. Konoha hadn’t had a graduating class this big since before the Third Shinobi War and especially not since the Kyuubi Attack. And with more than half the class being heirs to major clans in the village it was no wonder that Kakashi could sense spies for the clans and various big players in the village in the room with them. More importantly, he could feel their eyes on him specifically.

Everyone knew the Jinchuriki was a part of the graduating class this year, and they knew she had been put under his wing. Not to mention he had the ‘honor’ of teaching the Last Uchiha. Kakashi knew many were jealous that he’d been pulled from ANBU rotation only to teach the Jinchuriki and Uchiha. They’d tried putting him into Sensei rotation after the War was over, his own Sensei wanting him to move on and find something new to live for that didn’t involve as much death but Kakashi proved stubborn to opening up to the students and went into ANBU with Kushina’s blessing. She told her husband ‘he’ll find new people one-day Nato-koi just give him time’ patted Kakashi on the head and went back to making clothes for a then still in the womb Naruto.

“Maito Gai, Sensei of Team 9 of last year. Status?”

“YOSH HOKAGE-SAMA MY TEAM LEARNS WELL AND I’M STOKING THEIR WILL OF FIRE HIGH!!!”

“…Still coming together, that’s good Gai-san.” Sarutobi was an old hand at speaking Gai. “Now for the newest batch of potential genin teams. Team 10, sensei: Sarutobi Asuma, probationary genin: Nara Shikamaru, Yamanaka Ino, Akimichi Choji, status?”

Asuma, newly reintegrated as an active duty Konoha shinobi in the past year after a stint on the Daimyo’s protection squad and some time on border patrol which was the nice way of saying he pitched a hissy at his father the Hokage, left, and the old man didn’t have the heart to mark his son as a deserter. Though not a single body or face in the crowd of shinobi and spies sent by others were dumb enough to let it show in front of their leader Kakashi knew many felt that letting Asuma have a genin team, a high honor only given to talented shinobi that were getting old in ninja terms, after just returning to his home village was a clear sign of favoritism from the old monkey. Not one of them was ever going to say anything where he or his guard could hear, they were ninja, not fish market wives, gossiping only happened in secret rooms and behind false doors with plenty of alcohol and traps.

“Team 10 passed not without some difficulties Oto-sama, they’ve taken the teamwork their names imply for granted and will have to work on becoming one unit, but I expect they will make good progress over the year.” The Sarutobis sighed out twin clouds of smoke from pipe and cigarette respectively and Asuma stepped back into line.

“Thank you, now for Team 8. Sensei: Yuhi Kurenai, probationary genin: Inuzuka Kiba, Huuya Hinata, and Aburame Shino. Status?”

Kurenai hid her nerves well but Kakashi could see it in her too straight back. “Team 8 passes Hokage-sama. There are some over and lack of confidence issues to work out but overall, I believe they’ll all grow strong together.” She gave a respectful bow and ducked back into the cover of her fellow shinobi.

“Very good news Kurenai, now for Team 7. Sensei: Hatake Kakashi, potential genin: Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruno Sakura. Well, Kakashi? Do you have a team this year or no?” Sarutobi asked.

Everyone in the crowd tensed. This was what they’d all been waiting for the whole time. Would Kakashi pass the ‘last’ Uchiha? Would he pass the ‘demon girl’? Would the ‘Dead Last’ of the year drag her teammates down and be cast out later? How did the two most-watched genins of the year fare during Kakashi’s nearly impossible Bell Test? The room was instantly abuzz, no one started whispering to each other because they were very professional assassins for hire but Kakashi knew there would be wild speculation about what he was about to say later. He ignored the feeling of every eye in the room focused on him and finally raised his head from his perverted orange book to look his commander in the face.

“Pass Hokage-sama.” There weren’t any audible gasps, but it was near thing. Before he put his nose back in his book Kakashi caught several shinobi slipping out early, no doubt going to tell the incredible news. Hatake Kakashi finally had a genin team. And the last loyal Uchiha and the Jinchuriki were on it. Kakashi felt one of the Hokage’s Nara guards slip into his shadow and didn’t fight when he was puppeteered into pressing his index finger against the spine of his book in rapid code, then he was free, and the Nara was back at their leader’s side in seconds.

Sarutobi nodded and marked the pass down in the new file on team seven. “We now know the status of our genin this year. If their sensei requests help or mentorship on behalf of their genin from fellow shinobi I expect you all to show your Will of Fire and do your very best to raise these genins into fine examples of Konoha’s values together. Remember: it is through teamwork that wars are won. Dismissed.” As one the room full of trained warriors disappeared to gossip and drink.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Kakashi appeared silently in the receiving room of the Sarutobi compound. As soon as he was done removing his shoes and settling them into the rack Biwako Sarutobi, Hiruzen’s wife was there kneeling gracefully with her handmaidens at her side. One was already offering him a bowl and cloth to wash his feet and the other approached softly to take his vest and weapon pouches as he removed them, a sign of respect to his leader and his home.

“My honored husband is waiting for you in the tearoom Kakashi-chan, allow me to lead you.” She gave a perfectly polite kneeling bow, turned on her toes, and rose in the same smooth motion.

“Please do Sarutobi-sama.” He bowed, deeper than she did and followed. Her handmaidens, his clothes already disappeared to somewhere to be given back as he left, flanked him easily. Kakashi submitted to all of the showy politeness quietly. He remembered well that Biwako and her handmaidens used to be Konoha’s very best and most effective seduction and assassination squad, all three of the women who were guiding him soundlessly down the halls of the mansion had forgotten more about killing then he could hope to know. Hiruzen was a lucky man.

“How did my little princess do on your test Kakashi-chan?” Biwako was most assuredly not leading him directly to the Meeting Tea-room but Kakashi tried not to be so nervous about being alone in the home territory of some of the world’s best silent killers.

“She did well Sarutobi-sama, she tried to cleave my head open and dosed me with a mild poison.” Biwako gave an amused hum and the maidens at his side giggled like bells.

“That child always did hate losing even though she’s too clever to be tricked most days.” She sighed fondly. Then the air shifted and Biwako turned her head just slightly but not enough to look at Kakashi over her shoulder she was ninja royalty and royalty doesn’t turn its head for a soldier and the handmaidens closed in at his sides, a pair of beautiful threats “Does she look well? What are your thoughts on the other two? Will they grow well or try to spread root rot to my lovely flower?” The silent threat was that the Uchiha and the civilian would be ‘plucked’ before they could drag Naruto down with them. Kakashi fully agreed.

“The Princess looks well Sarutobi-sama, she’s hiding behind a mask, but I believe with the proper tools I can pry it off and help her bloom into her full potential. The other two need to be pruned and fertilized but I don’t believe they should be uprooted just yet, give me time Sarutobi-sama.” He bowed his head respectfully.

Biwako hummed at him and faced fully forward again, “You shall have time Kakashi-chan but I would watch the black poplar tree you’ve been given, from what I’ve seen they tend to overgrow and choke out other plant growth in our soil.” Uchiha Sasuke would be under even closer watch now that he’d made it into the real ninja corps, with the entirety of his family tending towards being traitors the higher command of the village wouldn’t be too quick to trust the boy with their long memory and even longer grudges. Kakashi knew working through the boy’s inherited problems and the shadows that followed him was possibly going to be even more difficult than getting Naruto to show a human even a shade of her true face. But he owed it to his teammate and his sensei to do everything to help them succeed.

Finally, they came to a halt in the endless hallways of beautifully painted paper sliding doors before one that was painted to show a field of snow, undisturbed, and perfectly fluffy. Kakashi felt his skin prickle just at the sight of the scenery. Snow was terrible, it muffled the sound of enemies coming, the snow itself showed every movement, and you never knew what could be hiding under deep snowfall. Things, lives, and battles were lost in the snow and Kakashi hated it with a passion.

Biwako kneeled smoothly and bowed her head, one, two, three heartbeats, and then she was sliding the door open and ushering him inside with her ever-present, effortless grace. Kakashi stopped just inside the door and kneeled. Three more heartbeats passed before Sarutobi’s voice came from deeper in the room and bid him “Enter” Kakashi obeyed and carefully shuffled in on the balls of his feet. He knew that while he looked graceful to someone unexperienced that Biwako and any Geisha worth her charcoal would sneer at his awkward movements. He had no idea how the hell Geisha shuffled so delicately and made it look so damn easy, he was jealous but not enough to submit to the absolute torture of Shinobi level Geisha training. He felt truly for his fellow kunoichi that went through it, even Anko a true blue badass of a kunoichi hated Geisha training. And Anko loved anything that involved seduction and assassination.  

“Please sit normally Kakashi-kun, this conversation won't be quick.” Kakashi straightened and sat more comfortably with his legs folded under him. He accepted the tea that was set as his elbow and sipped on it as Biwako and her handmaidens settled around them in a triangle and with an ease born of long practice erected a three-point pyramid privacy seal using the scrolls they always carried. The pyramid privacy seal was usually only used when the Hokage wanted to have private conversations stay private above all else. As the seal settled into place around them the world was muffled with a brief ‘pop!’ and fuzzed-out of focus to his eyes. Only those within the seal line would be able to see out and those trying to see in would get only silence unable to even read their target’s lips.

Once the seal was settled Sarutobi started them off. “Is the Uchiha boy salvageable? His psych evaluations aren’t very inspiring to his future, and he’s shown a steady disinclination to making any kind of deep connection with anyone in the village. If this behavior continues, he’s sure to Desert and we can’t have two active Sharigans disloyal and free.” He asked.

“The Uchiha is a slave to his trauma he practically bathes in the blood of his fallen family. Getting him to let go of the ghosts he’s dragging behind him and move on will be priority one with him. But he has a surface connection with Naruto already, they know the other has suffered so hopefully I can get him to look past the orders his brother laid down on him and get him to trust again.” Kakashi gave his honest assessment.

Sarutobi removed a scroll from his simple yakuta, it was black and small made to fit in a hidden pocket. “If you are captured and it looks like you won’t make it out or the boy does get swayed to another side, I want you to use this.” And he gave it to Kakashi. “It will seal the boy’s eyes permanently whether they’re active or not. And if he’s dead and someone tries to take his body the seal will flash boil his brain if someone who’s not briefed on how to handle his body properly tries to cut him open.” Kakashi took the scroll with a bow and hid it away on his person, he would carry it until the day he either died in action or Sasuke himself proved devoted enough to Konoha to carry the responsibility himself. Just like Minato did for him until his sensei deemed him ready to make the decision himself. On several missions, he’d come very close to using his scroll and sealing away his eye so that an enemy couldn’t force him to betray his village in death.

“And Naruto? Do you think she could learn to trust again? We visit but she keeps too much beneath the surface for us to see a true face. She has to reconnect with something that’s not one of her animals or a plant. Uzumaki’s aren’t made to be alone and living a lie constantly is sure to be taking a toll on her mentally.” Sarutobi looked all his years and then some thinking about his honorary granddaughter and the life she led.

Kakashi sighed in response, “She’s a very good liar I’ll give her that but she was the first to reach out to the other two and get them to try and act like a team. She even came up with a plan that let all of them show some of their skill sets and netted them a pass along the way. She can still reach out and now all I need to do is reach back and pull. She’ll be great and I’m going to make a team that can support her beautifully.” He vowed.

“That’s good to hear Kakashi-kun, I worried about sending her to the orphanage and then that, that Monster getting its hands on her ruined her trust in humans forever. If she can still reach out even if it’s because your test forced her too that’s a good sign for the future. If she can reach out, she can trust again, and that’s all the sign I need to keep reaching in return.” Reassured of Naruto’s metal state Sarutobi let a bit of the tension in his shoulders go, but the burden of a village would be with him until his death. He removed another scroll from his robe. This one nearly made Kakashi gasp as he recognized it. This one was red with gold detailing along the side and held closed with a pieced of carved sea glass.

“The Uzumaki Demon Chakra Eaters.” Kakashi breathed in shock.

“Yes, Kakashi.” Sarutobi handed the scroll over and Kakashi took it with far more reverence than he had the previous one. “The Demon Eaters are to be used only if Naruto looks like she’s going to be overtaken by the demon. They’ll put her to sleep and immobilize her in minutes.” Kakashi held the scroll in careful hands, the first and last time he’d seen this scroll was in the hands of Kushina herself.

It was the night before she and Minato were going to be married and she asked him to walk her down the aisle as her little brother. Only an Uzumaki was allowed to even look at the sacred scroll and it was her way of showing him he’d have family in her no matter what. The scroll was one of the few surviving relics from the long burned down Temple of Nine; a monastery devoted to the Kyuubi that once rested at the base of the mountain that used to house the great demon before the Great Traitor Madara released it to try and destroy the Shodai. The First Kyuubi vessel Uzumaki Mito, the head Miko of the temple sacrificed her body to reseal the demon within her own body and became the first human to hold a demon in them. Until she did it demons were sealed in objects, not humans. The scroll contained restraints made of ‘demon eating’ metal; the metal was made using a long-lost method by the head priest for Mito herself at her request. A grim wedding present to her husband the Shodai Hokage to assure him both of her control over the demon in her stomach and the safety of his fledgling village.

Sarutobi let Kakashi have a second and then straightened donning the mask of Hokage like a shroud. “Hatake Kakashi, ANBU of Konoha, Jounin sensei to team seven. By entrusting you with this scroll I hereby entrust you with the safety of the Jinchuriki Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto, last of the pureblooded Uzumaki, princess of the lost village of Uzushio. Should you ever fear for her life or capture by an enemy do you swear to do all and more in your power to ensure she comes back Konoha alive? Swear even at the risk of your own life you will use the famed technique of your sensei the Honorable Yondaime Hokage and the Nidaime the Hiraishin to teleport her home?” He asked pulling the final bombshell out of his yakuta, one of Minato’s custom kunai marked with the seals of the jutsu that made him infamous. Kakashi took the kunai with trembling hands.

“I swear Hokage-sama I will protect and guide Naruto-hime with all that I have and lay down my life if we are ever captured with no escape. She will learn and grow under my watch until she can take this burden on her shoulders and bare it with pride.” Kakashi bowed fully with his head to the floor gripping the kunai so hard he nicked his hand on the blade. Naruto would grow and learn what real happiness was he swore to the spirits of her parents. He feared what would happen to him in the afterlife once Minato and Kushina got a hold of him if he dared think otherwise.

They both took a moment to let the ghosts in the room haunt and cling to them before both men took deep breaths and shook them off. Kakashi stared at the scroll and kunai in his hands, both priceless in their meaning to him and their shared history. “How do I do this Sarutobi?” the words tumbled from Kakashi before he could pull them back and soon more joined them as his leader’s wizened eyes took him in solemnly. “How do I guide her as he would have? She’s so tiny. So many have done wrong by her and I can’t, I just can’t be one more mistake in her path. Naruto is going to be great regardless of what I do but I want to do all I can to make sure that road is as smooth as possible. If, if they were still here, she’d probably already have the hat by now or something equally impossible and brilliant. How do I not burn myself on her fire or accidentally smother her flames? I want to see her so burn bright she burns the rot out of this country single-handedly. Please guide me Sarutobi.” Kakashi begged.

Sarutobi gave him a small heartbroken smile. “You think it was easy to raise Jiraiya and Tsunade and Orochimaru into the shinobi they are today? Yes, one has gone …astray but all three are nearly unmatched in skill and ability. And then teach your sensei when he came under my arm? I am the only Kage to have a repeat term Kakashi. Ever. Most Kage are replaced by their successor and dead by my age or die fat and happy long after their successors have picked out their successors.  Being unique in our line of work will get you killed or hunted or both or the third silent killer: we make mistakes. I have made many over my time Kakashi. Most of them have to do with either your sensei or his daughter it seems like recently. My mistakes with the Uchiha lead to one of them ripping the Kyuubi of Kushina’s stomach and turning it on the village. Now Naruto’s parents are dead. A Biju resides in her stomach and when it came time for secrets to remain secret if only to give her the slimmest chance of a normal life ignorance and fear turned her village against her.

“Naruto should be showered in the finest of kimono and never have to put her feet on the ground. Instead, they force rotted meat and spoiled milk on her! They spit on the closet thing Konoha has had to an actual princess since Mito herself! If there ever was a time I wished more desperately that I truly could use the power of my title to crush the rot in my home it’s when I have to stand over my medic-nin so that they don’t try and stop a five-year-old’s heart on the operating table. Naruto has suffered in ways I think are unique even among the general tragedy of jinchuriki. I’m amazed she’s as loyal as she is now truly. She believes in the Hi no Ishi and she is loyal to me as her Hokage and her Hiru-jiji, and she has human connections beyond shinobi too. I am grateful she has managed to find good here. Some days I wake up so choked by the poison in the air I fear it might finally kill me and then there she is. Naruto, who has suffered, is suffering, and though it pains this old man to think it probably will continue to suffer. Still here in the place that hates her all but for sport. Still finding the good and nurturing it with her love and attention. That knowledge is all that keeps me going some days, but few could ask for better motivation I feel.

“Naruto needs me to protect her. She needs her Iruka-sensei to show her how shinobi should be strong.  She needs her ramen vendors to show her human kindness. Now she needs you to show her she can trust a human again. I know you will rise to this challenge because not only does she need you but because you’ve never allowed yourself to fail when its something you care about.” Sarutobi placed one withered hand on Kakashi’s shoulder. Kakashi tightened his grip on the kunai and scroll in his hands and sat up straighter. He would be the greatest Sensei to all three of the brats under his care and make all of them truly great or make them hate him trying.

“I will make them magnificent Hokage-sama.” He bowed fully once again and Sarutobi pulsed his chakra to signal his wife to break the barrier around them. In short order, Kakashi had bowed one final time to his leader and was lead out of the bowls of the Sarutobi home and was once again in his vest with weapons back in their rightful places. Another slightly deeper bow to Biwako and Kakashi was on the rooftops and heading for the bar where he knew his peers were waiting to interrogate him on his genins performance and having to teach for once in his life. Kakashi ducked into the usual bar he met the other sensei in and located them by sound alone. Someone must have let Asuma order plum wine that always made the other man a loud but happy drunk.

As he sat at the empty chair left for him Kakashi wrapped himself around the sake he’d be pretending to drink for the night in as a lazy a manner as he could. The other’s all stared at him in silence for a minute all but Gai glaring at him. Then they broke, Asuma and Kurenai cussing him out under their breath as they handed Gai money as he laughed at a volume that people could probably hear on the street.

“I told you, my friends! Kakashi-kun was gifted the honor of students who’s youth burns bright this year!” He boasted newly acquired money disappearing somewhere into his skintight bodysuit. Translation: I knew he’d pass any team as long as Naruto was on it. Suckers.

“Shut the fuck up Gai.” Asuma moped into his plum wine. “Anyway Hatake, how did those kids scrape by your test? You usually send your hopefuls straight back into the Academy crying their eyes out. Did you give them a hint this time or something?”

“A hint? Like Hatake-san ever would!” Kurenai scoffed.

“Well, how else do you explain them passing? I got my genin talking about their class and the kid and the Uchiha always fight like cats and dogs and according to Ino she and Haruno are ‘rivals for Sasuke’s love’ so she’d just fold to the Uchiha’s pressure. And Choji said that the kid attended detention more than she did lessons and failed more tests than Shikamaru. And Shikamaru sleeps through tests!” Asuma gestured at Kurenai with her beer glass.

“Haruno-san was top Kunoichi and Uchiha-sama was Rookie of the Year. They could have worked together to uncover the truth of the Bell Test and convinced Uzumaki to work with them long enough to pass!” Kurenai rolled her eyes and tossed her silky black curls over her shoulder at her on-again-off-again lover.

“Wrong.” Was all Kakshi offered as commentary. Gai stayed surprisingly silent for once and nursed his beer with a smug air only Kakashi knew him well enough to pick up on. The Green Beast knew that Kakashi had been practically ordered by the Hokage’s advisors to pass the Uchiha or Apprentice him. Gai knew Kakashi would turn traitor before teaching the Uchiha over his sensei’s daughter and nothing anyone said would stop him from being in her life even the tiniest bit now that she was part of the Shinobi Corps.

Kurenai glared at the silver-haired man. “What do you mean wrong? How are we wrong? What, did Uchiha-sama rope both of the girls into working with him? Did he do it alone and gave them bells in the end? Or did you not test them all and just pass them because the Nobles expected you too?” She postulated throwing theories at him like kunai already done with his habit of being obnoxious for his own entertainment.

“No, they did it all together and all of them had their little contributions. It was an impressive display of teamwork.” Kakashi elaborated. “For genin.” He amended with a pretend sip of sake.

“But how did they earn a pass from you, you’re a serial team dodger at this point! You’ve been on the Jonin Sensei roster since you stepped back from ANBU and you’ve failed everyone that was assigned you! How did these three genin. Arguably a disaster in the making get a pass from you, a well-known asshole?” Asuma growled hands gesturing more as he got deeper in his glass. Kakashi was about to give them more bullshit when Gai gave him a little disapproving hum knowing full well only Kakashi could pick it up with his enhanced hearing. Pouting a bit behind his mask at his fun being ruined Kakashi gave in if only to poke holes in his colleges' beliefs and brag about his lovely new pup. Pups. He was in charge of three genin and no matter how tempting it was to fail the other two and keep Naruto he would be fair and teach them equally.

For like a month or something.

“The reason they passed was the ‘Dead last’” Kakashi clarified in a deadpan. Asuma and Kurenai both nearly shouted ‘huh!’ at him out loud but kept it professional at the last second. Though Asuma did choke on his drink a little. “Naruto-chan was the only reason they passed or even got close. She remembered me from my rotation on Hokage-sama’s guard. Used the fact that all the Tower chuunin are used to seeing her running little errands for Hokage-sama to sneak into the team records to see who had been assigned to me in the past. Then interrogated my former hopefuls under henge to gather more recent intel on me. And then rallied her uncooperative teammates into working with her long enough to past my test. They ambushed, poisoned, and tried to murder me. Her skills in trap setting and the henge no jutsu were pivotal to them winning. Naruto is the only reason they passed.” Kakashi declared with finality to the near wide-eyed silence of his comrades.

The other three all sat and tried to process what seemed almost like actual passion coming from Kakashi, usually characterized as a lazy bastard by most who knew him for more than ten minutes. After a few breaths, it was Gai that found words. Loud words.

“YOSH KAKASHI-KUN YOUR WILL OF FIRE BURNS BRIGHT TONIGHT!!! TRULY THERE IS NO BETTER FUEL TO LIGHT A FLAME THEN THE PASSION OF TEACHING AND GUIDING OUT BEAUTIFUL YOUTH TO THEIR TRUE POTENTIAL!!! I FEEL SO IMPASSIONED BY YOUR ETHUSIAM I CHALLENGE YOU TO A MANLY COMPETITON!!! WHO SO EVER CAN CLIMB TO THE TOP OF THE BARRIER WALL AND CIRCLE IT TWENTY TIMES WHILE DOING CARTWHEELS SHALL BE THE WINNER!!!” Gai roared near spitting fire as he jumped up nearly upsetting the table and spilling everyone's drinks.

“Maa, maa Gai-sensei I have to decline your challenge tonight I have to start teaching my new adorable genin in the morning and I want to be well-rested.” Kakashi waved off the ‘manly challenge’ with one hand the other bringing his sake up for another pretend sip.

Gai ate it up slamming a hand on the table snapping a chunk off with ease. “YOSH KAKASHI-KUN I TOO AM MOST EAGAR TO GUIDE THE FLEDGLING EMBERS OF MY STUDENTS TO FULL YOUTHFUL FIRES!!! I WILL COMPLETE THE CHALLENGE BY MYSELF AND BRING A NEW ONE TO YOU LATER!! I WISH YOU TO BEST OF LUCK I TRAINING AND GUIDING YOUR NEW STUDENTS TO THEIR FULL POTENTIAL OF YOUTH!!!” Came the final deafening roar before the Green Beast was slamming back his drink and racing out of the bar after tossing down enough ryo to pay for himself, broken table, and all. Those left behind slammed their drinks back to trying to recover from the green spandex-clad hurricane.

When Asuma looked back to Kakashi after draining his glass he found the copy nin gone and a few ryo coins in his place.

“God damn ninjas.” The Sarutobi mumbled signaling the bartender with a gusty sigh.

Chapter Text

“You’ve passed. Congrats! Meet back here at dawn tomorrow and be prepared for a full skills assessment. I want to see everything you know how to do. Everything.” Then he was gone in a simple leaf shunshin.

The three newly minted genin left in their sensei’s dust stayed behind quietly contemplating each other. Wondering if the two days spent keeping each other alive had changed them.

“Don’t look weak tomorrow dope.” Sasuke scoffed ignoring Sakura entirely and walking away. Sakura to her credit looked upset for a few seconds to have been so obviously snubbed before she let out an awkward squawk and trotted after her crush begging him to come to her house for dinner. Naruto left behind just sighed and rolled her lovely blue eyes.

A hand sign and a small squad of clones joined her in scavenging the medium sized clearing Sakura had chosen as their kill box for trying to take down their sensei. Being banned from every weapon shop on grounds of ‘uncleanly demoness’ meant good ninja tools were hard to come by for Naruto so sweeping the training grounds of the village was a good pastime to get the supplies that she couldn’t make herself.

Sakura, Naruto found used the basic Academy tool kit, likely because she focused on books more and didn’t see the need in learning special tools early. There was a Ninja supply store close to the Academy that offered a discount to current students but obviously not to ‘piss haired demon girls’ so Naruto had personally never been able to set foot in the shop. But the low-quality metal of the kunai and shuriken she was looking at in the ‘Sakura’ pile told her there was no need to be jealous. The shopkeeper sold mostly to undertrained civilian children that would be advised by their sensei on a more reputable shop to go to, if they made it that far at all, so his stuff wasn’t very well made at all.

Sasuke’s stuff on the other hand was very high quality, on level with some of the stuff she’d see Asuma-nii with before he left. The clan kids either had access to family members that knew how to forge and got their stuff for free or knew far better and more expensive shops in the Noble or Clan districts and most never set foot in the Academy weapon shop if there was no need for it.

Kakashi’s left behind shit was the real jackpot in Naruto’s opinion. ANBU level gear was a rare collection chance for her since Ninja of their skill level rarely used public training grounds or even had enough down time to train; usually being kept on a regular rotation of out of village missions. Most times when an ANBU was in the village for more than a week it was because they’d been wounded deeply or were on forced vacation under orders by the Head Medic and the Hokage.

Since Naruto was the only one to even think about cleaning up her used weapons it was evident neither of her teammates even thought about how expensive keeping up with ninja supplies could be. “Rich bastards.” Naruto thought with slight envy, looping the high-quality wire Sasuke had used with quick hands. Soon the grounds were scavenged for every scrap of savable metal she could get her little hands on; the metal burnt and twisted under Jutsu fire was saved to be given to the shops in the higher number districts were the poor tended to buy from to be reused in pots and pans. As she finished up and her clones began to dissipate her Sensei finally pulled himself from the foliage where he’d hidden himself earlier.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Kakashi made a polite amount of noise as he approached his sensei’s daughter from the forest so as not to startle her. As she turned her attention to him, Kakashi went to his knees and bowed with his hands at his sides and his head to the dirt. Above him Naruto let out a small squeak of shock as she took in the sight of one of the most powerful jounin in the village, a candidate for Kage, kneeling before her. The demon of the village, the most hated girl in Konoha, the class idiot. Was being given a bow of utmost respect that one would give to royalty. To one’s Kage.

“What was going on?” Was Naruto’s bewildered thought before Kakashi spoke.

“Naruto-hime I beg you hear this lowly ninja and allow me to give you an apology long overdue.” Kakashi didn’t wait for Naruto’s permission and instead bulldozed his way into the speech he’d been mentally writing since the girl before him was mere hours old.

“Naruto-hime please forgive me. First, I must introduce myself properly, I am former ANBU like you said to your teammates. I used to be on your protection detail when you were young. I was given the name ‘Inu’. I’m sorry hime that I couldn’t protect you the way you should have been. You never should have been left in that orphanage. If it was up to the Old Man and his wife, you would have never had to leave the compound if you didn’t want to. You would have been safe and loved until it made you sick. But we. No. I didn’t protect you properly.

“I let grief and selfishness turn me away from my one true duty to you. And you should never forgive me for that. But at heart I know you’d never hold that against me so I instead will bear the burden of my shame and hold myself to the standard I should have set long ago.” He looked up for the first time and let Naruto’s endless sea blues bore into his. Driving all the determination he had in his soul into his gaze trying to tell the girl with words and heart that he wasn’t going to leave her alone again.

Kakashi knew the most important thing to Naruto would be his actions or lack thereof. He would have to prove himself with more than just words to get her to trust again. And Kakashi had never been more determined to do anything in his life. He took a slightly shaky breath before standing. His next words couldn’t be said to the ground. They were too important for that.

Kakashi looked eyes with Naruto, took another breath, and prayed to Kami that either of them made it through this next conversation without a break down. Naruto sensing a far more serious topic on the rise gulped but steadied her tiny little shoulders and raised her delicate chin. Someone so small shouldn’t be so ready to take on potential burdens. “Sensei. Kushina-ane-sama. Your daughter is so strong already it’s amazing. It’s heartbreaking.” He thought with mournful admiration before prying his jaw apart on his next words.

“I was a student of your fathers and close to your mother. Yes, I do know them. No, I cannot tell you who they are. That kind of knowledge could bring about your death if you’re not strong enough to put down the enemies they could not. I ask humbly that you please have patience with myself and your Kage. Our most ardent wish is to tell you all you want to know but we can’t. Not yet.” He looked up slightly his lone dark grey eye-catching devastating blue. The sheer heartbroken hunger in that gaze to know more nearly made him run but he dug his heels into the dirt and held himself in the present. No more running away. Not from this. Not from her. Never again.

“Please know they loved you more than anything. If they could defy Shinigami himself and come back to life if only for just a moment with you, I know they’d tear heaven itself apart. They loved you Uzumaki Naruto. Never doubt that. Please never forget that.” Kakashi swore to his future Kage. To a lonely little girl that just wanted to know she was loved.

Naruto’s eyes were filled with tears, but none fell. “They, loved. Me?” Her voice was tinier then Kakashi had heard it in a long time, she’d been hiding under the mask of a loud troublemaker for some time. “They really loved. Me?” The disbelief in those eyes and that voice made him want to burn his own village to the ground.

“Yes.” Kakashi made sure the conviction in his voice was unavoidable, undeniable. If he had to tell it to her every day for the rest of his life and for some time after he’d make sure his imoto never doubted her parents love again. Slowly he offered one weathered and beaten hand to Naruto. He wasn’t sure she would accept comfort from him after ‘Inu’s’ leaving her, but he wasn’t going to leave Naruto alone to process all the information he’d just dumped in her lap.

Blue eyes focused on his outstretched hand. Naruto had seen the cruelest side of her own home village for years on end. Beaten and starved and ignored. Kakashi was sure there were hidden scars on her mind that had faded from her body that would drive him to try and kill many that he didn’t know about but still in spite of that she still did something that amazed him.

Naruto reached out and took his hand.

She gripped his hand as relief and heartbreak took her knees from under her and she sunk into a crouch her face buried in her knees as near silent sobs shook her tiny shoulders. Kakashi simply gripped her back with just as much strength as he dared without risking breaking the small hand that was engulfed so easily in his larger one. Turning his face away so as to give his imoto some privacy Kakashi acknowledged the ghosts at his shoulders “She’s still so small Sensei. To small for the burdens placed on her but she’s learned to bare them so gracefully it makes me want to break something. Please don’t worry you two I won’t let her be crushed under them and I won’t let anyone try to make her fall. Your daughter won’t just live she’ll thrive and find joy and know you are at her shoulders guiding her. I swear.”

Naruto cried for some time letting out sobs so quiet the rustle of wind in the trees and birdsong nearly drowned her out. But Kakashi witnessed each little hiccup of breath and vowed to bring her one happy moment for each tear shed in sorrow.

As Naruto tears ebbed and came to a gentle stop, she looked up at him with red rimmed eyes and slightly puffy cheeks he met her eyes head on and kept his own silence. As the searching look in her eyes faded, Kakashi guessed she found what she was looking for since she stood up and kept her hand in his until her feet were under her again. A soft squeeze and then that small hand was gone, and she was bounding away through the forest for her home.

Left behind Kakashi looked at the little silver bell that had been slipped into his palm as clever fingers left his and knew ‘Inu’ could finally rest. The dog that lived in shadow and blood and was mad with grief had been given peace at last. Now it would be just Kakashi, a simple man who would do his best by his team and his beloved sister.