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Chapter Text

Minato is worried about Kakashi.

It's not unusual, he always is, that's usually what happens when you're mentoring an orphaned eight years old child soldier. However, this time, he's Worried. Capital letter and all. Things don't seem to be going well at all for his student, and he doesn't know what to do.

It has been a few days now that the boy hasn't allowed him to come to the Hatake Clan house, something he usually did several time every week, going as far as threatening to set Kushina on him if he still tried to enter the place. At first, the jounin hadn't thought much of it -after all, teenagers are a little weird, and Kakashi himself is entering that age, eight years old being a perfectly normal age to go through puberty- but, now, he's starting to wonder why exactly he's being rejected in such a way.

After two years of taking care of his favourite little student, he has no difficulty seeing when he's not telling him something, and this time, that's clearly what Kakashi is doing. He's hiding something in his house, and whatever it is, it isn't good if the bruises he has on his arms and the dark circles under his eyes are a good indicator.

So Minato does what every good teacher would do, he decides do go check on the boy himself, despite the threat of a wild Kushina being unleashed still hanging above his head. He's very brave about it and only spends two hours crying in a cupboard, thinking about his death at the end of a (beautiful so so beautiful) red-haired blood-thirsty monster. He truly is a hero.

Sneaking into Kakashi's house isn't difficult, mostly because he doesn't even try to be sneaky. He's a S-ranked jounin after all, even if the boy wanted to stop him, there'd be nothing he could do that would work against him. Usually, Minato acknowledges that and lets his little student believe he still has some form of private life -the books about mental health he's read all tell that this is good for a child's development- but, this time, he knows he can't afford making such sacrifices. There is something going on in this house, and even preserving its inhabitant's mental well-being isn't enough to make him turn around.

Namikaze Minato, jounin of Konoha, S-ranked shinobi, former student of Jiraiya of the Sannin and potential Child of the Prophecy, pushes open the front door of the Hatake Clan house, feeling full of confidence and sure of what he's doing.

He opens his mouth to tell Kakashi he's here but suddenly stops.

His eyes open wide, he closes his mouth with a snap.

A cheese wheel falls on his face.

And another one.
And another one.

And another one.

And ...

Three minutes and thirty-five cheese wheels later, Minato finally manages to crawl inside of the entrance hall of the house, only to be welcomed by even more cheese wheels. The room is all but overflowing with them, all packed together up to the ceiling. There's barely enough place to move around. In fact, instead of trying to walk between them, maybe he should just swim, that seems like a better choice.

"Kakashi!" he screams, because he's still very worried about his student, and also a bit confused about all that cheese.

There's a loud noise coming from the second floor of the house, quickly followed by the sound of a few dozens wheels toppling to the ground. Minato sighs. Hesitates.

A-ranked jutsus are only supposed to be used in dire circumstances or under the enemy's fire, but this ... This could be considered dire circumstances, right ?

Right.

Let's do this.

He breaks his left arm free from the three cheese wheels that used to pin it to the ground and charges his chakra in it, making it swirl around in his palm, powerful but still contained. It's his best jutsu, his greatest technique, one he has used against terrible foes ...

One that will now serve him in his new mission : destroying all the cheese that has seemingly invaded his student's house.

"Kakashi, don't worry, I'm coming ! Rasengan!"

A few more Rasengans and a lot of cursing later, he finally manages to climb up the stairs and, after insulting the cheese's mother, father, grandmother and great-great-grandfather, he succeeds, at last, in finding Kakashi.

The little brat doesn't even look surprised to see him here.

Sitting cross-legged on a pile of about fifty cheese wheels, the boy only stares at him when he finally comes into the room, covered in cheese and a Rasengan swirling in both of his hands. Asides from a few more bruises on his arms and the disarray of his clothes, the child looks fine, if a bit annoyed.

Minato doesn't know if he should be feeling relieved or angry.

"Kakashi ... what ?"

Well, maybe confused is a good way to start. It's true he doesn't understand a thing of what he's just been through after all.

"Uh ..." starts the boy, avoiding his gaze, "You weren't supposed to come here."

"Because of the cheese?"

Kakashi nods, still not meeting his eyes.

Minato sighs, feeling more exhausted than he's ever been. If this is what his tutelage had been like for Jiraiya, it's no wonder the old man doesn't show his face around Konoha anymore.

"And please, please, tell me ... Why do you have cheese in your house?"

"Uuuh ... Well..."

The kid looks awfully embarrassed, but there's no way he's going to let him get out of this, not after having to rasengan his way through five-hundred cheese wheels.

"... Well ... It started as a collection, kind of ... And then it got out of hand."

"It ... It got out of hand ?"

"Uh ... yes ..."

"And how many wheels do you even have ?"

Kakashi frowns, looks up at the ceiling, which is also covered in cheese.

"I think ... Six-thousand three-hundred and four ... Yes. That's it."

"Six ... Six thousand ?"

The boy nods.

"That's all the cheese wheels in Konoha."

"W... What ? Why do you have all the cheese wheels in Konoha in your house?"

"I told you sensei ! It got out of hand !"

Minato sinks into the floor (well, into the cheese wheels piled on the floor), too mentally exhausted to muster the energy to properly deal with his student. This, this is not what he expected when he took in the boy ... Kakashi looked so normal back then, why couldn't he have stayed that way ?

"I didn't know Konoha even had that many cheese wheels ..."

"Well," answers Kakashi, "the more you know."

Minato glares at him.

Chapter Text

Kakashi isn't the most fashionable person in Konoha, he isn't even the most fashionable person in his team, but, as Rin learned in the years she's spent working with him, he's not completely devoid of common sense, which is sort of a rare thing for a ninja. The boy may not like to take care of his appearance very much but, at least, his clothes are normal, plain and generally completely unoffensive.

And this is why she doesn't understand why he suddenly starts to wear a giant ramen cup around his head.

She has no idea where the hat comes from, doesn't even remember when he put it on. It appeared out of nowhere on his head, as if it had always belonged here, and Kakashi didn't even act like this was anything out of the ordinary, and he still doesn't!

She tries to talk to him about this and only gets a shrug in answer and, when she turns to Obito for an explanation, he stares at her and tells her, in an empty, empty voice :

"Kakashi is like this. Don't ask question."

So, feeling very confused, she finally asks Minato-sensei about the hat, only feeling vaguely surprised when he gives her an answer similar to the one the Uchiha gave her a few minutes ago, the same absent look on his face. It seems like all of her teammates just want her to roll with whatever the hell this is, but she's determined to get an answer, she won't give up just like that.

So she keeps asking, she pesters Kakashi days and nights until, finally, he turns to her and says :

"I just thought it was funny, and since it doesn't lower my [Stats] ..."

She frowns at the strange term but doesn't ask about it, preferring to focus on another part of what he's just said.

"But ... we're shinobis, we're serious people and ... what would the clients say ? And the Hokage ?"

To this, Kakashi only shrugs and answers, in a bored tone :

"They won't notice."

He looks so convinced that she decides not to push it. After all, it's not her that's going to be yelled at when their next client refuses their help because of that stupid hat. She only has to wait a few more days until their next mission and then Kakashi will have to take down his ramen cup head.

And so she patiently waits and, sure enough, it isn't long before they're called to the Mission Desk to go on their next escort missio. It's only a C-Rank but the client is rich and one of the village's oldest partners; Rin feels a little bad about what's surely going to happen once said partner realises one of the shinobis supposed to protect him is wearing a ramen cup on his head, but it's not her fault, she has nothing to do with this ... Out of the four of them, she's the only one from Team Minato who tried to make this stupidity end!

So, when she enters the room, she's expecting the worst, which means she's understandably surprised when their client looks at them, a dubious expression on his face, turns towards the Hokage and ...

Nods.

As if everything was completely fine.

As if Kakashi wasn't wearing the most ridiculous hat in existence right in front of him.

No one says anything so Rin doesn't do either, only sending a few astonished looked at Kakashi, who is currently looking incredibly bored, and at Obito, who has an unusual far-away, haunted look in his eyes.

They go on their mission and, every time they come upon someone, Rin keeps expecting them to notice, to say something, to ask the white-haired boy to take off his ridiculous ramen hat ...

Except they don't.

No one does.

No one does and, soon, their C-rank turns into a A-rank and they're fighting for their life against an evil mob-boss who keeps laughing diabolically and sending minions at them. It's dangerous and bloody and, through it all, Kakashi keeps the ramen on his head.

It's getting frankly ridiculous.

To make things worse, the damn thing seems completely impervious to blood, there's not a speck of it on it, despite the fact that the child wearing it is absolutely covered in it from head to toes.

At some point, the big baddy of their current mission starts an evil monologue that they listen to very carefully, Obito with a broken arm, Minato-sensei with a smile on his face, Kakashi with his ramen hat that still no one has noticed and Rin with her faith in humanity completely destroyed.

She's so angry about this that she runs straight for the boss' head and beheads him before anyone even has the time to move. Her teammates look a bit impressed and the minions a bit horrified but she doesn't care, there's only one thing she can think about, one awful, ramen cup shaped thing.

"Kakashi, I'll give you money if you stop to wear that fucking hat."

The chunin frowns, looks up at said hat.

"Well," he answers after a few seconds of silence, "I was starting to get tired of it."

He shrugs and, suddenly, the hat disappears.

By that point, Rin has seen too much stuff to openly show her surprise but, inside of her mind, she's completely, absolutely, freaking out.

"Ah! And I got a new one from completeling this [Quest] !"

"NO!" scream all of the three remaining member of Team Minato in unison.

Ha ! Rin knew she wasn't the only one to notice the hat.

After she's done kicking his ass for leaving her alone to deal with this mess, maybe she'll treat Obito out for some dinner. Since both of them are Kakashi's teammates, they need to stay strong together, something inside her tells her that this isn't the last time she'll see something weird happen around her white-haired friend.

And she's right.

The ramen cup hat is only the beginning.

Chapter Text

"Kakashi, no !"

"Kakashi, yes !"

"Look, as much as I respect your skills, I'm a medic, and when I tell you that you can't go out to train I mean that you can't go out to train!"

"But I'm fine!"

"You are not! You broke three ribs, five different parts of your arm and lost one liter of blood yesterday. AND you have chakra exhaustion."

"But that was yesterday!"

"You don't heal from that in just one night, Sage, don't you know anything about medecine ?"

"Rin, I tell you I'm fine, I slept in a bed!"

"... Even if you slept in the best fucking hotel in Konoha, you still wouldn't be fine. What part of 'you don't heal from that in just one night' didn't you understand?"

"But I slept in a bed!"

Rin sighs and glares at the boy in front of her. Said boy, his clothes still drenched in blood from the previous day's battle and his mask askew on his face, raises his eyebrows and spreads his arms, as if to show her he really was fine.

Tired of dealing with his antics, she sighs and grabs one of his hands, dragging him close to her to scan his body and finally have enough proof to send him back to his room to rest. Medical chakra comes to her hands in just a thought and, as she places it on the other chunin's arm, she's expecting it to tell her just how injured he is and prove her right.

Except it doesn't.

Except, according to her diagnostic jutsu, Kakashi is completely fine and back at full health.

Her surprise must be obvious on her face because the young boy immediately picks up on it and jumps on his feet, looking even more determined to go outside now that her jutsu has failed.

"See I told you, I-..."

"Get back there Kakashi. I'm not letting you go that easily."

The boy sighs but sits back down next to her, not protesting when she violently takes off his shirt and grabs his arm again, inspecting it for any trace of the many injuries he had only a few hours sooner.

There's nothing.

His bones are perfectly fine and so are his muscles and chakre coils. Even the small scratches and bruises he got from a few rough landing and sloppy parries have disappeared and he's left with a perfectly healthy arm, completely devoid of any scars or marks that usually defines most shinobis' body.

"You're ... you're fine ..."

"Yes of course I am."

She stares at him, her hands falling from his arm to fall on the floor from the shock. She feels stunned.

"But ... but how ?"

Kakashi sighs, looking frankly annoyed now.

"I told you! I slept in a bed!"

And, with this, he rises from the ground and leaves the room, no doubt to begin his usual training routine.

Rin, left alone with her thought and the impossibility she's just witnessed, can only yell after him as he walks away :

"But that doesn't make any sense!"

He doesn't deign answer her.

Chapter Text

"Kakashi-sensei, we don't have the time to-..."

"Don't worry, we'll help you."

Sakura closes her mouth slowly and sighs, looking -and feeling absolutely exhausted- at her teacher's antics. It's been more than one week since the beginning of their first C-rank (and how exciting is that!) but they've made no progress whatsoever. In fact, she is nearly sure that they are not even headed in the right direction : they're supposed to bring Tazuna to Waves Country and, from the look of her maps and the few directional pannels they've come accross, they're currently traveling through Wind Country.

How they ended up here is a complete mystery as, she quickly found out after her graduation, are many things around Hatake Kakashi.

It's not that she doesn't enjoy travelling and seeing other countries, because she definitely do, she's a curious person and, since she has never left Konoha before -her parents aren't wealthy enough for them to afford that-, it's an amazing oportunity and very exciting, but she's also a shinobi and she's been taught for years that the mission came before everything. That Kakashi-sensei wanted to help a few civilians they came accross is fine, but that they did so while completely ignoring their previous mission isn't. The political situation in Waves is very unstable, and they're supposed to be pressed by the time, they should be moving as fast as possible, not playing superhero do every single civilian they came accross.

"This is the best mission ever!" screams Naruto, happily highkicking a mercenary in the head, "I can't believe we get to save a princess"

"She's a priestess, idiot, it's not the same." growls Sasuke between a few fire jutsus.

"Sh... Shut up! It sounds the same so it's the same!"

The blond-haired genin ends his sentence by sending a few kunais in one of their oponents' chest and Sakura has never felt more tired before. She quickly sends a look at Kakashi-sensei, who is still talking to the civilian that asked them for help, before focusing back to the fight. It's an easy one, only three bandits, and Naruto and Sasuke are making quick work of them but still, they have to stay focused.

In any other circumstances, she would have felt very good about what they'd just done but, as it is, she's a bit angry. They were finally supposed to turn around and go to Waves when they came upon a young lady getting jumped by bandits and, after sending them to get rid of the men, Kakashi-sensei had turned and asked said lady if she was in any trouble. She had explained everything about a haunted temple and an endangered priestess, asking for their help, something Sakura was expecting her teacher to refuse.

But something he, against all expectations, accepted.

She downs the last bandit with a vicious kick to the groin and a kunai in the head (she is getting more violent) before turning back towards her teammates. Sasuke is standing on the side, looking grumpy and absolutely adorable, and Naruto is going through the pockets of the men they've just incapacitated (or killed in her case), not at all bothered by the implications his actions have.

Since it's been more than a week that they've been travelling, killing criminals and helping whoever asked them to do anything, she's too used to the blonde's actions to even think about reprimanding him. In fact, she's starting to see the use in what he's doing ... Maybe she should loot her own bandit ?

"Alright my lovely baby ninjas, guess who's going to explore an abandonned temple?"

Naruto immediately jumps to his feet and pumps a fist in the air.

"We are!"

"And guess who's going to assassinate a big bad bandit king in said temple ?"

This time, the small genin jumps in the air, screaming at the top of his lungs :

"WE ARE!"

"And guess who's going to save the priestess they have taken hostage?"

Naruto seems so happy it can't possibly be healthy for him.

"WE ARE! SAGE, I LOVE YOU SENSEI!"

Sasuke scowls at his teammates' enthusiasm but, despite his cold demeanor, Sakura can still see a little smile on the corner of his (beautiful) lips. It seems like she really is the only one who's still concerned about their C-rank. It pains her to admit it but, for the first time in her life, she's starting to doubt even her black-haired teammate's judgement.

"But ..." she starts to say, "Shouldn't we ask Tazuna ? Wouldn't he want us to finish our mission ?"

Everyone turns towards her with varying expression on their face. Sasuke, bless him, actually looks like he's seeing her point, Naruto looks disheartened -and a bit betrayed-, Kakashi looks calm as always, and Tazuna ...

Tazuna looks completely blank.

"Maaa ... Don't worry Sakura, Tazuna doesn't mind."

"No. I don't mind." repeats Tazuna, looking as lively as a robot.

Ever since they left the road to Wave Country, he has been acting like this, repeating whatever they said and only saying a few words if prompted. It did look as if he didn't mind them not finishing his mission, which was weird considering how adamant he had been they return him to his home quickly.

Didn't have a bridge to build ?

"Plus, you kids need to level up a bit before I can let you do any [Main Quests]."

Kakashi-sensei looks like he thinks he's making perfect sense but he's not, he's really really not.

Still, Sakura is a ninja, she's brave, she's professionnal and, if she doesn't understand something, she will at least try to act like she does.

"So ... we're going to rescue this priestess in an abandonned temple in Wind Country and leave Waves Country hanging ? Just like that ?"

"Yes, don't worry, we'll finish our mission. Eventually."

They do, in fact, finish the mission.

The fact that they do it three years later is only a minor detail. By now, Sakura, a jounin and one of the best medic in the world, had lost any hope of ever returning Tazuna to his home. She had even gotten used to seeing him hanging out around Kakashi, robotic and completely impervious to any damage the enemy could do to him. She had even started to forget they even had an unfinished C-rank when Naruto mentionned it, one day they were fighting some Water Country missing nins.

In the end, they have no trouble finishing it and breeze past the enemies (Zabuza has notchance against four powerful S-ranked shinobis), and finally bring Tazuna back to his village and his bridge. To thank them, he names it 'Naruto Bridge', even if Naruto didn't really do anything special, and goes to join his family as if nothing has happened.

He doesn't even look like he has aged one day while he was following Kakashi around.

Sakura, despite being sort of used to the perpetual weirdness that is life around her teacher, eventually confronts him about it, asking him why they never got to finish their laughably easy C-rank, when they spent more than one year travelling around the world, helping random civilians just in the name of 'why the hell not' and 'you have to be nicer to people Sakura-chan'.

"Maaa ..." answers Kakashi, "I guess I got a little side-tracked ..."

"You ... What?"

"Well, I've always been bad at finishing [Main Quests], nothing really happened though so there was no harm in delaying it."

She opens her mouth to scold him then thinks about it and frowns.

Well, he's not completely wrong, no harm really came out of them never finishing the Waves mission and, from what they heard, the Chunin exam that happened during the year they spent helping random people had been absolutely hectic. Maybe having had to follow Kakashi around while he accomplished random [Side Quests], as he called them, hadn't been such a bad thing.

"I guess you're right." she says.

Kakashi eye smiles at her and pats her head gently.

"I knew you would see the light Sakura-chan."

She punches him so hard he flies for twenty meters straight.

His screams of pain are like music to her hears.

Chapter Text

Kakashi, thinks Obito, is definitely not used to having friends.

As cold as the boy may act, there are things that are very obvious about him, and this one is one of them. The kid has no idea what a proper social interraction is and, despite all of his efforts, can't seem to understand how to make friends in a normal way.

But that's fine, Obito likes him just as he is.

Even if he is a bit weird.

It's been only a few weeks since they've really gotten to know each other and it's only been a few days since he realised the younger boy is trying to make friend with him. And, now that he's noticed, it's the only thing he can see. And what he sees ... is completely ridiculous.

For some reason, Kakashi seems to think that, in order to make friends, you have to make gifts to people. This would not be such a leap in logic because, after all, that's what a lot of richer folks do and that's how most children act, giving out candies to become popular. However, the way the chunin does it is what makes the method completely nonsensical, because he doesn't give out sweets or toys, doesn't even gives out anything related to the ninja's arts.

No.

He gives out flowers.

He gives Obito flowers, and ribbons and food and, sometimes, even bottles of wine. And he doesn't just give one once in a while, no, that would be too normal for Hatake Kakashi. As soon as the boy finds a flower he likes, he stares at it for a few seconds then hands it over to his teammate as if it was an ordinary thing to do.

By now, the Uchiha has been gifted half a dozen shiny rocks, three bottles of alcohol, four fully cooked meals, one blue ribbon and thirty-five flowers. And it doesn't stop, Kakashi keeps bringing him stuff and giving them to him without any explanation whatsoever, and Obito really doesn't know how to deal with it.

At some point, he asks the boy why he's doing this, to which said boy answers :

"It's supposed to raise your [Relationship] by one point."

In his head, the chunin translates it as 'Flowers are supposed to make friends like you more'. Kakashi is a child genius and has been in the battlefield for far longer than them, it's normal that he would pick up weird expressions and not really know how a child is supposed to talk, but still ... Even for him this whole situation is a little weird.

In the end and after having asked him the same question over and over (the answer doesn't change, only the number of points vary, the flowers apparently only giving one and the bottle of wine giving two, for some reason), Obito finally decides not to bother with it too much and accept the gifts without saying anything. It's strangely endearing, that his teammate, who acts so aloof and, sometimes, mean, can do something so sweet and childlike. He's only two years younger than him but, sometimes, it's enough to show that, in his own way, Kakashi is still very much a little kid. A murderous, dangerous one, but a little kid all the same.

And, if he has cleared a special place in his room to store his new possessions and if he feels a strange warmth inside of his chest each time he gets something new, then that's Obito's problem and no one else's.

But still, it's sweet that his teammate is trying to be friend with him.

Even if he has no idea of how to do it properly.

Chapter Text

There is something strange going on with his student and, this time, it has nothing to do with cheese wheels.

It's something that started only a few days after the Cheese Incident and that hasn't stopped ever since, it doesn't seem to be harmful to Kakashi but, as a lot of things are around the boy, it definitely leaves Minato pondering what the hell is going on.

He eventually breaks ten days in the new madness that his apprentice has gotten himself into and asks him what has been on his mind for the last week or so :

"Kakashi ... hey Kakashi!"

Obedient as always, the kid stops and turns to look at him, head tilted on the side, a serious expression on his face.

"Sensei?"

"Kakashi, why are you jumping around like this?"

The boy frowns then his face lights up in understanding, he straightens up, no doubt to launch in a grand explanation -at least that's what Minato expects, and kind of want him, to do- but, in the end, he only says :

"It's because my [Stamina] is very bad."

With these words, he turns on his heels and jumps away, landing in a crouch before jumping again, and again, and again ...

He's very good at it, it's a bit surprising.

"Wait!"

Minato kawarimis himself with a leaf next to the chunin, because he's lazy like that, and asks again :

"But why are you jumping around ?"

Kakashi frowns again, this time looking a little bit confused. When he answers, it's in a slow, deliberate voice, as if he didn't think his teacher would be able to understand him :

"Well. I have a bad [Stamina]. I can't sprint for a long time. Sooooo ..."

"So ?"

"So I'm jumping."

The jouning catches the boy by the arm before he can jump away again, which was definitely what he intended to do after finishing his sentence.

"Why aren't you just walking?"

"Walking is boring."

"Walking is..."

Minato shakes his head, not quite believing what he's hearing from a boy he used to think of as calm and wise beyong his years.

"Are you going to let me go, sensei?"

The blond man looks down at his hand, still holding the boy close to him. He sighs and steps away, freeing him and watching as he starts to jump again, looking very ridiculous and very determined.

"You know you aren't going faster than if you just jogged."

"It's not the point!"

Well, it's decided then. The next thing they'll have to train together is Kakashi's stamina. There's no way he can bear going around with his student jumping up and down like this for much longer, Kushina already makes fun of him enough as it is.

Sage, why is his apprentice so difficult to work with ?

Chapter Text

"Wow Kakashi, you've got a new Summon?"

Both of Obito's teammates turn towards him, with very different expressions on their faces. Rin looks a little sorry for him -and he doesn't really see why- and Kakashi looks, as always, annoyed with him and his very existence.

The white-haired boy sighs and the Uchiha feels a sudden need to murder the brat start to rise up in his chest.

"What the hell are you sighing for ? That was a legitimate question," he snarls, a bit offended by his friends' reaction.

The kid smirks at him. Well. Obito thinks he does. It's kind of hard to guess what his expression is, since he seems to never take off his mask -not even when he showers, he has had the bad luck of witnessing it during one of their earlier missions-.

"First," says Kakashi, "I didn't know you even understood what 'legitimate' meant..."

"Oh fuck off."

"... and second, I already have a summoning contract, you've seen me use it before."

"Oh."

Obito frowns, thinks about it for one minute.

Aaaah.

The ninken.

Kakashi does have a Tracking Summoning contract, how could he forget about it ? The pack leader is such a little shit with his snark and his adorable pug-face. No wonder he prefers cats, all dogs are smartasses, at least when they're part of his teammate's contract.

"Ok. But if this isn't a summon, then what is it ?"

The three members of Team Minato look down at the little animal Obito is pointing at. The thing looks back at them, blinking its giant sky blue eyes in evident confusion before opening its mouth and emitting one of the most ridiculous sound the Uchiha has ever heard. It's voice is cute, small and high pitched and it sounds like the perfect mix between a kitten's meow and a bird chirping. It shouldn't sound as adorable as it does but, since the world apparently hates him, it currently is the most endearing thing he has ever heard.

The beast makes a strange noise again and Kakashi sighs, looking a bit annoyed but not making any move towards pushing the thing away.

It curently is hugging the younger boy's leg with all it's might -which isn't very much considering it's mostly a ball of fluff with small, cat like, paws.

"I won it after completing a [Side Quest] and I can't unequip it."

Rin frowns at the nonsensical, typical Kakashi-answer, and Obito feels stupid for even hoping his teammate would give him a normal, understandable explanation of why the cutes-... weirdest creature he has ever seen is currently hanging out with them.

"Sooo ... has it replaced your ninken?" asks Rin, poking at the fluffy animal with a stick she has found on the ground.

Things could have been worse, she could have used a kunaï. This wouldn't be the first time his teammate has poked a small, defenceless being with a dangerous weapon. She isn't very good with animals.

Or rather, she isn't good at taking care of them and ensuring their prolonged health and survival.

"No. But they won't let me summon them."

"Uh ? Why not ?"

Kakashi shrugs.

"I guess they're jealous."

"I'm not jealous!" yells a voice from behind one of the Hashirama trees surrounding them.

The three jounins look at where the cry had come from and, with a frown, Pakkun, the adorabl-unsufferable ninken pug comes out of the shadow to glare at them. Obito wants to hug him, squish his little cheeks and...

God. No. He doesn't like dogs. He doesn't like animals. Cute little animals ? Disgusting. Who would ever like that kind of stuff ? Not him. He's an Uchiha, he's serious, he's dark, he's ...

He's petting the fluff-ball.

It starts to purr.

"I can purr too if I want!" screams Pakkun before running back in the shadows.

They look at him leave in silence, the sound of the pink animal Obito is petting being the only thing they can hear, apart from the ever-present noises of the forest surrounding their village.

"I didn't even know dogs could be jealous." mutters Rin.

"Me neither, I don't even like this thing," sighs their younger teammate.

"That's surprising, you usually love everything that looks weird and potentially dangerous."

Kakashi shrugs.

"Just because it randomly appeared by my side after we finished a C-rank mission doesn't mean it's weird. I'd rather say it's mildly odd. And look at it, it doesn't look dangerous at all!"

They look at the fluff-ball and it chirps happily in answer.

It's very cute and absolutely not threatening.

Obito feels like aw-ing. He doesn't.

"You know," continues Kakashi, "It doesn't even have good [Stats], I don't know why I keep it around."

"Because you can't unequip it ?" tries Rin.

The boy groans.

"I hate glitches." he sighs.

"Me too Kakashi, me too." She answers in a wise tone.

Obito is 100% sure she doesn't even know what glitches are supposed to be. And neither does he.

"Well don't worry asshole, I'm sure we'll find a solution." he says in his most friendly tone.

Kakashi opens his mouth to answer him then, to Obito's surprise, he squints his eyes, looks at him, looks at the fluff-ball, and tilts his head on one side, looking pensive.

The Uchiha is starting to have a bad feeling about this.

"Say Obito ... Have you ever wanted to have a [Pet] ?"

The fluff-ball stops in the middle of rolling on the ground, looks at Obito with it's bright blue eyes and chirps hopefully.

"Oh no, I don't even like pets!"

Kakashi smirks, looking like he doesn't believe him for one second.

Sage.

He's screwed.

Chapter Text

Ninjas aren't the most empathic bunch, but, even if he is technically a mass-murderer and considered a demon in human form in no less than three countries, Minato still has some ability to relate to other people, especially when it involves having to deal with his apprentice. He can understand what all of the people who try to talk to him go through, he really he really can.

At least, he hasn't suffered for nothing, he has made a few friends complaining about Kakashi's weird habits with other shinobis.

Yaaaay.

He sighs and the noise makes his white-haired student turn to frown at him, a curious look on his face. The boy doesn't get the time to ask him what he's thinking about, however, as the child who has been trying to get his attention for the last ten minutes makes another attempt and almost throw himself at him.

Minato flinches when the genin's efforts are rewarded by a violent kick in the guts that sends him flying a few meters from them. He has learned the hard way that assaulting Kakashi with any form of, as Kushina would say, "agressive affection" only ends in punches, headbutts and, once, a pretty nasty bruise.

That a nine years old would be able to hurt him when he was a legend in the making and already a terror on the battlefield was a bit embarrassing but, thankfully, no one but him and Kakashi ever heard about it so he thinks he can live with it.

"If you indulge him he may stop." He says to the young Hatake, hoping to convince him to stop beating the poor genin up every time he tries to approach him.

The boy growls at him and, from under his mask, it seems like his lips are starting to form a small, bloodthirsty smile.

"I get one XP point every time I push him back. That's way better than whatever listening to him would give me."

At that point, the dark-haired kid tries once again (-does he ever stop?-) to jump the chunin who, this time, welcomes him by a Hyuuga-style hand jammed into his ribcage and ... yep. That's definitely the sound of bones being crushed. Maybe Minato should intervene.

He grabs one of Kakashi's hand and drags him backwards, waving the genin away as he runs back to them, his face contorted in a demented expression that looks like a mix between pure determination and disproportionate joy. He looks so happy about having his ass kicked by a child two years younger than him that Minato is seriously starting to worry about the mental health of Konoha's youth.

As if to prove him right in his worries, Rin chooses this moment to loudly complain about the "fun being over" and he's pretty sure Obito just asked him to "release the beast" and "let the bloodshed continue".

Maybe raising children in the middle of war, massacre and destruction is not the best way to turn them into mentally stable, peaceful adults but, by that point, he has pretty much given up. He's a ninja, and a jounin at that, he can't be exactly considered mentally stable either, no matter what he tries to act like in front of other people.

"Kakashi," he sighs as he makes the biy forcibly sit down next to his teammates, "we really need to talk about your habit of punching every random thing that comes into your line of view, this is getting worrying."

"But sometimes you can find treasures in boxes!" the kid protests.

"This is not about the boxes! I mean. It is about the boxes. But not only. It's also about him."

Minato points backwards at were the young genin was the last time he saw him but starts badly when he realizes that, somehow, said genin is now stanfing right next to him, back straight and a gigantic smile on his face, seemingly completely unaware of the blood that is pouring out of his nose and from under one of his eyelids.

"This is very Youthfull to worry about me like that, sir ... But don't worry, I'm still ready to take more Beautiful, Energic, Fiery training sessions with my dear Eternal Rival."

The jounin stares at the boy in astonished silence, a silence that is immediately exploited by Rin, who asks, sounding interested :

"How do you do that ?"

"You mean, how am I so Youthful and Cool ?"

The girl stares at him up and down, her gaze lingering on his horrendous bowl-cut and on the eyebrows that look more like caterpillars than like a normal human feature, before answering in a flat tone :

"No."

The kid doesn't even look like he noticed the implications of what she just said and just gives her a thumbs up, still beaming.

"Then you must be talking about my Amazing Endurance! A lot of training and a proper alimentation are all you need to become a Master Ninja like me!"

"You know we're all chunin, right ?" asks Obito in a dubious tone.

"Yes!" smiles the strange boy.

They stay silent for one moment, the bowl-cut kid standing above them and Minato's three little students looking confused, a feeling the jounin is very glad they are finally experiencing for themselves. He was starting to think that it was a little unfair that, except for the unavoidable Kakashi-induced incomprehension, he was the only one not to understand what the new generation of ninjas was doing half the time.

"Soooo, Kakashi ..." started the genin once again, turning his thumbs up towards the last Hatake, "I was think that, as my Eternal Rival, you-..."

"Do you want to get punched ?" his murderous student answered calmly.

"Well, yes, obviously, I would love to train with you, but that's not what I wanted to ask, I ..."

The young chunin doesn't let him finish his sentence and jumps to his feet to throw a punch at his head. However, instead of taking it and being sent flying off, like he had before, the bowl-cut side-steps it with ease, raising one of his humongous eyebrows at the younger boy, who can only stare at him in astonishment.

In all honesty, Minato relates so hard.

"Hoho ! How Unyouthful of you to attack me while I'm talking ... or maybe it's just that you're so Pumped and Enthusiastic that you couldn't hold back your Inner Youth and started the fight early ?"

They all turn to Kakashi, awaiting an answer but, instead, the nine years old keeps looking at the genin, something like surprise slowly settling on his face.

"How are you [Level 49] ? You're stronger than Obito."

"I eat a lot of Vegetables." beams the apparently chunin-level genin, "are you going to listen to me now?"

Minato is expecting Kakashi to turn the kid down, he really does but, instead, his apprentice stays quiet for a few moments before nodding, looking a bit annoyed at the idea that anyone succeeded in making him change his mind.

"Alright ! Hatake Kakashi !"

"Yes ?"

"I came here to challenge you ! Become my Eternal Rival and fight me to see which one of us is the better shinobi ! We shall grow and learn together and, in the end, I will beat you!"

His tirade is answered by a deep, uneasy silence, all three sane members of Team Minato looking at him with something akin to pity, and Kakashi looking like he's reading something in the air (an action he usually does when they get a new mission or when he's talking to one of the random persons that stop him in the street and ask him to do random, often stupid, tasks).

When he's finally done staring at nothing, the chunin slowly raises his head in the bowl-cut kid direction and nods.

"What?" screams Obito, throwing down the bowl of popcorn he had been eating from up until now, "Why does he get to be your rival?"

Kakashi doesn't answer him and he's left sputtering with indignation until Rin patiently pats him on the shoulder to calm him down.

"Who are you ?"

The Hatake's heir voice is the calmest Minato has ever heard it. He sounds utterly serious, even more than what is usual for him, and there's a hint of awe in his tone that can only make him wonder about what he's sensed in the other child that fascinates him so much.

"As of now, I'm your Eternal Rival! Now, let's fight for good!"

Bowlcut cracks his knuckes and drops into a perfect fighting stance. Minato thinks he can recognizes it as the base defence one of the Konoha Tiger Style, a deviation of the martial art reserved to jounin, mostly because it's so difficult to master.

"Guys, what is happening ?" groans Obito, throwing his hands up in the air.

Once again, no one answers him.

Chapter Text

Tenzo has a new Anbu instructor.

It's the third one this week.

By that point, he's not expecting them to last more than a few days, maybe even hours if they're particularly squittish -which he used to think no one in Anbu ever was but, as it turned out, a lot of shinobis actually are, at least when they aren't on missions-. It's not even that he's trying to get them to quit, he really isn't, it's just that, for some reason, he always manage to freak them out.

And, honestly, how was he supposed to know that people weren't supposed to stare at each other when they took showers ? And no one ever told him to blink regularly.

Normal shinobis really are disturbed by the strangest things.

Clearly done with him, his supervisor looks him up and down as his fifth failed instructor of the month bows and leaves the room, his expression unreadable under his mask but his body visibly tense. The door slams behind him, cutting through the heavy silence with a bang. Everything stays still for a moment, then :

"Tenzo, I really don't know what to do with you ..." the woman at the desk sighs, "This is a desperate attempt. I hope you two can work together, if not, I really have no idea of what we're going to do."

The boy, used to shutting his mouth when being adressed to by his superiors, only nods, trying to keep the curiosity from his face -not that the Captain would notice, he's still wearing his blank Squirrel mask after all (he still doesn't know why it's named that way since it's just a white, featureless mask, just like the one every Anbu trainee uses).

"Hound, you can enter." the Captain says, dragging him out of his squirrel-related thoughts and back into the real world.

He allows himself a few seconds to despair over the fact that his new instructor is among the lucky few with a -dare he say it ?- cool animal name, before his back instinctively straighten and he slips into a military position, saluting his new commanding officer.

Hound, when he sees him, seems a bit surprised by his enthusiasm but doesn't make any comment about it besides a simple : "At ease" that allows Tenzo to relax back into another position, and even cross his arms in front of him.

He thinks he might like to work with this new instructor, he hopes he'll stay more than a few days.

"Squirrel, meet Hound, you may have heard about him before." says the Captain, after greeting the newcomer with a nod.

At this, Tenzo frowns. There are several Hounds in Anbu, after all, there are more than three-hundred operatives, and -unlike himself and his fellow Anbus-in-training- the official agents are named according to their role and their level of power, at least when they aren't working in an unit. Even if no one told him so directly, he's pretty sure that this is in order to make them less distinguishable. It's much harder for an enemy nin to try and assassinate a specific Anbu if several of them are wearing the same outfit, name and undertaking the same kind of missions.

That, and the fact that -when they're going out on missions where people could see them- Anbus usually color their hair and modify their voices with ninjutsus, makes them almost impossible to identifiy.

So, yes. He heard about Hound. Hound is the name given to the stealth-oriented, assassination specialists, usually the ones that undertake high-ranked missions. They're the soldiers the Hokage sets on his enemies when he wants them dead, they're, basically, Konoha's reapers.

"Yes sir." he answers, before turning to Hound : "I'm very thankful that you'd take some of your time to teach me."

Hound shrugs.

"I mean, it's a [Main Quest], and I really should do more of those."

From behind her desk, the Captain lets out a loud sigh and she looks inches away from facepalming.

"Sir ... yes sir ?" tries Tenzo, not sure of what he's supposed to answer to that.

"So you're Squirrel ?"

"... Yes sir."

"That's an ... interesting name."

"Yes sir."

They stay silent for a moment, their superior staring at them from where she sits. Her mask is blank, just like his, but, somehow, Tenzo can feel the sheer annoyance radiating from her.

"Anyways," says Hound, "don't call me sir. Call me Hound."

"Yes sir-... Hound."

"No, not Sir Hound, I'm not a noble."

His instructor said the words in such a deadpan tone that Tenzo is not sure if he's making fun of him or not. He prefer to think he is not, after all, there's no way an Anbu would not take something seriously. They are Konoha's elite force, they are seriousness incarnate, they can't be making stupid jokes with people they barely just met.

"Hound-senpai."

Hound stays quiet for a few seconds before shrugging.

"That's cute, I guess."

Under his mask, Tenzo blushes slightly. It's the first time in his life someone ever called him something that positive and ... normal. He's not quite sure of how he feels about it.

Well. He does know. And it's embarrassed, mostly.

"So Captain, what's the [Quest] ?"

Once again, their superior sighs.

"Your mission is an infiltration one. I want you to train his stealth. As I told you, Squirrel went through the combat and survival trainings already, but no one managed to finish a stealth mission with him."

"Alright ... Am I supposed to teach him some of my techniques ?"

"It would be appreciated. But, please, try not to break him. We need him mentally sound."

No one remarks on the fact that nobody in the entire Anbu building is or ever will be mentally sound and Hound only bows, picking up their mission orders and stopping to stare at the air for a few seconds before waving his hand in front of him and leaving the room.

Tenzo stands still in the middle of the office for nearly a minute before remembering he's supposed to follow the man, yelping, and running after him, hoping he's not lost him yet.

-

"So. Stealth."

"Yes senpai."

"Forget everything they taught you in Roots. I'll show you how it's done."

"What ?! How do you k-..."

Not explaining how he's aware that Tenzo was once a part of Konoha's most secret organisation, Hound jumps down the branch of the Hashirama tree they were hiding in, landing silently on the roof of the building they're supposed to infiltrate. Staying crouched, he then proceeds to creep quietly behind one of the shinobi guards' back and plunges a kunaï into his neck, putting a hand on his mouth to muffle the sounds the dying man might make.

As efficient as Hound seems to be, this is not anything new for Tenzo, who has used this method of killing several times before. Still not very impressed, he watches as his instructor hides the body in a nearby bin. Really, the only thing surprising about all of this is that there is a bin on the roof of a building.

He jumps on another branch to follow Hound's progression, watching as the man (-teenager?) eliminates two more guards with a quick, ruthless efficiency. Even if his methods are classic, there's one thing Tenzo can"t deny and that's that the assassin is excellent at what he does. He moves at least three times quicker than the former Roots agent would and doesn't waste a single move. Everything is perfect, everything is calculated.

Barely thirty second after he got on the roof, Hound reaches one of the door leading to the inside of the building. He stops moving for a dozen or so seconds before opening it slowly and sliding inside. Immediately, Tenzo jumps down to follow him. To his surprise, and slight satisfaction, his instructor waited for him and greets him with a sharp nod when he steps inside.

It seems like the Anbu has gone into full mission mode. It's a transformation Tenzo has seen many times on older shinobis and, while he never had to change his behaviour on missions, he knows that this is not the case for many of his fellow ninjas.

"Squirrel, you will follow ten meters behind me. Be always sure to keep me in your field of view. Don't worry about enemies seeing you, just look at what I do, I'll ask you some questions later."

The younger agent opens his mouth to ask how he's supposed not to 'worry about the enemies seeing him' when they're on a stealth mission, but Hound doesn't leave him the time to speak, raising his hand before he can say a word and silently handing him ... something.

"What-..."

"Put it on."

"But what ...?"

Not bothering with him anymore, Hound turns around and starts walking down the stairs, his steps not making any noise on the floor as he progresses. After a short moment of hesitation and confusedly staring at his senpai's retreating back, Tenzo glances at the thing in his hands, unfolding it to see what it is, and can't help but frown.

He's so, so confused.

Because this, what Hound just gave him, is a hat.

A hat, but not any hat.

It's a chicken hat.

Now, Tenzo has nothing against chickens, he likes eating them just fine, but he's not the kind of person who would usually go around wearing one on his head. It's not even a very cute one either. In fact, it looks completely ridiculous.

He raises his head to question his partner but, when he looks up, the other man has disappeared.

Sage, it's not even been one minute in the mission and he's already screwing this up.

Begrundingly, he places the hat on his head, which is a bit hard to do with his mask in the way, ties it beneath his chin and starts to jog to catch up with Hound before he gets too far away.

He finds the Anbu in the middle of questionning a guard -no doubt in order to get the position of the prisonner they came to free. He stays on the side as the enemy ninja gets punched in the guts then asked the same question over and over again. This, spiced by a fair amount of killing intent and quite a few kunaïs in his body, proves to be quite effective as; in the end, Hound gets what he wants and they're moving again.

After a few meters, they come to what seems to be a long corridor, from which several sets of footsteps can be heard. Instead of doing what any proper ninja would do and turn around to find another, stealthier way through, his instructor steps back, crouches, puts his hand in the air and drags it down, as if he was grabbing something that wasn't there.

Then, a cardboard box falls on him.

Tenzo almost cries out, startled, wondering what kind of jutsu would make a box appear directly above his superior's head, and if said jutsu is the enemy's attempt at stopping them.

Maybe the box is the enemy.

He takes a kunaï out and points it at the box, ready to stab it if needed, when, suddenly, it starts to move.

That's when he realizes that Hound is, thankfully, still under it and in control of everything, walking crouched and entering the corridor, leaving Tenzo behind.

The boy waits for the screams and the sound of fighting as the enemies notice the Anbu but, when nothing happens, he throws a quick glance in the corridor, quick glance that turns into an astonished stare as he sees Hound, still under the cardboard box, pass by every single guard in the corridor (and there must be at least six of them) without any one acknowledging him.

Slowly, his surprise turns to awe. So that's what an elite Anbu can do! For the first time in his life, he feels excited about something. He has never seen anyone use such a technique, learning it from Hound is an unique opportunity!

The Konoha assassin reaches the end of the corridor and the box stops moving. With a start, Tenzo realizes that his senpai must be waiting for him ... except he hasn't got any box, there's no way he's going to be able to sneak past the guards like the other shinobi did!

Then, he remembers.

'Don't worry about the guards'

This was a stupid order, still is a stupid order, but he finds that he wants to trust Hound. Out of all of his instructor, he clearly is the most skilled and is the only one that doesn't seem disturbed by his behaviour. He was always told to trust his commanding officers, maybe it's time to do that.

He takes a deep breath and steps forward.

No one reacts.

Somehow, his hat feel a little warmer on his head.

He walks past the guards and none of them react to his presence. Soon, he's standing next to the box Hound is crouching under, in complete awe of his new instructor and feeling like he has just discovered something wonderful.

"Sir, that was-..."

"... My S-rank going out the window. I'll have to redo this mission," Hound sighs.

He thinks about apologizing to the Anbu but doesn't dare to. In the end, they sneak up to a random room and hide inside of it.

"Don't worry too much," says Hound once they are settled inside, looking at the air a few centimeters above the ground, "I gave you the hat so you could use it. You'll get better at stealth eventually."

"Y... yes senpai."

Hound was right earlier : despite everything they taught him in Roots, he really knows nothing about stealth. He's so lucky to have been paired with someone like his partner!

"Alright. The map says the mission objective-..."

"You mean the prisonner?"

"-... isn't far.I'm thinking crawling through vents, what do you think?"

"Ye-..."

Before he can finish his sentence, the door opens and Hound straighten ups, kunaï already in his hand before Tenzo even has the time to react.

'!'

There's a weird sound, like a very very short alarm and a fast paced music starts to play out of nowhere. In an instant, Hound is on the man who opened the door, his weapons already planted in the nin's eyes.

As soon as the body hits the ground, the music stops.

"Alright Squirrel, let's keep moving." sighs the elite ninja, after stuffing the corpse in a cupboard.

"Yes senpai!"

After living in Roots for so many years, Tenzo guesses that his Anbu instructor is not that weird after all. At least, he doesn't do anything to the corpses, unlike some of the operatives he had the displeasure to work under, back in his secret-illegal-organization days. He thinks he can live with a few cardboard boxes and random music appearing out of nowhere. In fact, it does even sound a little fun.

So far, out of everyone he has partnered with, Hound is his favorite. He hopes it stays that way in the future.

He still has so much to learn from the older Anbu agent. 

-

Three weeks later, he manages to summon his first cardboard box. The key, he finds out, is to believe in it really hard and act like this is a possible feat to achieve and not some weird, unexplicable power. He's so happy to have finally found the trick to it that he keeps summoning it again and again, earning himself quite a few disturbed glances from his fellow Anbus. It's nothing unusual so it doesn't bother him too much.

His joy at having achieved this is not, however, shared by everyone : when she sees him use Hound's stealth technique for the first time, in the middle of one of his training exercises, his Captain stares at him in silence before shaking her head and leaving the room in a hurry.

He's pretty sure he heard her mutter 'Not another one' when on her way out but doesn't really know what to make of it so he chooses to ignore it.

From the other side of the room, Hound lets out a victorious cry.

"Squirrel your training [Quests] give so much XP ! Keep getting better, please!"

"Yes senpai!"

Chapter Text

Naruto is practically jumping up and down with excitement as they ride the boat taking them to their new destination. The shaking of his legs makes the small wooden structure move around in the water, and it takes all of Sakura's willpower not to turn around and whack him on the head to get him to stop disturbing it like that.

However, while Kakashi-sensei does not seem to have that strong of a policy against hitting teammates, he does speak an awful lot about teamwork and friendship and, in the last few days since their departure from Konoha, she has decided to try and be nicer to the blond boy. After all, it's not his fault if he's ... like that. He never had anyone to tell him better.

So instead of punching him with all of her might and a bit of help from Inner, she turns towards him and calmly ask him to stop shaking his leg. Something he does, obviously -he wants to please her after all- but doesn't manage to keep up as, barely ten seconds later, he's back at it, and even harder.

From where he sits at the far end of the boat, Sasuke sighs. The sound is like music to her ears and she can't help but answer it with a sigh of her own, an enamoured, romantic one, of course.

"Wow, today sure is rainy!" Says Tazuna with a stiff smile, "Waves Country weather, you Konoha folks don't know that, right?"

Sasuke's sigh turns into a full blown growl as the old man finishes his sentence and, honestly, Sakura understands him. It's the third time in one hour the civilian has said this exact same line and, to make matters worse, it's not even raining. Since Kakashi-sensei has, for some reason, decided to take them to a trip accross Fire Country instead of going back to Waves to finish the mission, they're still under the land's weather : the sun is high in the sky and the air is warm and humid, in true Fire Country fashion.

"You want me to put Tazuna-san on [mute], Sakura-chan?" her teacher smiles sweetly once he notices just how annoyed she is by the old man.

It's not the first time he offered this and, as with every time he has done so before, Sakura does not understand what he means and can only shrug vaguely, hoping he can deduce an answer from the gesture.

Thankfully, the jounin doesn't push the issue and only hums toughtfully before turning his gaze back on the water before him, frowning a little at the world map he's holding in his hands.

"The island is supposed to be in the middle of the map, isn't it?" Sakura suddenly asks, because, hey, it's better than listening to Tazuna repeat the same thing again and again or try to deal with Naruto's need to be constantly moving.

"Hmhm."

"But ... it's not."

"No."

"Why?"

At this, Kakashi-sensei sighs deeply, a frown on his face and a very, very annoyed look in his eyes.

"If I had known this was going to turn out like this, I'd never have bought this boat."

"But sensei, you didn't bu-..."

"Well, I guess I have no choice."

On these words, the adult ninja rises to his feet, perfectly stable on the front of the small embarcation, and searches through his pockets until he finds what seems to be a giant bag of money, way too big to be contained in either of his pants' pockets but that he has still managed to stuff there somehow (maybe it's a jounin thing and all of them are able to break the limits of reality. Or maybe it's Seals. It must be Seals.).

"And it's expensive at that," he sighs.

By that point, Sakura has decided not to question her teacher's decision too much, which means she doesn't ask him what he's doing when he starts pulling Ryos out of his bag and throwing them into the lake, a dejected look on his face.

She really, really wants to, but she doesn't.

However, Naruto doesn't have such restraint and, as soon as he notices what their sensei is doing, he turns around and asks loudly :

"Hey sensei, what're you doiiiiiiiii-what the-"

The boy barely has the time to close his mouth before water splashes onto his face and their boat is almost turned over by a way almost as big as a house. By some form of miracle, it stays stable and they manage to avoid falling into the water. It takes them some time to regain their bearings but, once they do, Sakura has to take a double-take in order to be sure that what she sees really is in front of her.

Because, in the center of the lake, where before there had been nothing but an empty void, devoid of lands and filled with a whole lot of water (and probably fishes), there is now a massive island, easily the size of Konoha, if not bigger. The fact that it has a gigantic mountain overlooking it makes the fact that they didn't spot it before even more surprising : it was as if the thing didn't exist only a few moments ago.

But that ... isn't possible, right?

"S... sensei?" she asks, because at that point, she doesn't know what to do, or to think.

However, when she turns to him, her teacher doesn't seem particularly bothered, or even surprised by what just happened in front of them. If anything, he's looking even more annoyed, pocketting his money and crossing his arms, a sullen expression on his face.

"Can you believe it, Sakura ? Paying for an island!"

Completely ignoring her bewildered gaze, he looks at her and adds wisely, as if it made perfect sense to speak that way :

"I really hate DLCs."

And, at that, he turns back towards the newly appeared island and steers their boat towards it. As they advance silently, the three genins still too dazed to say anything, Tazuna opens his mouth :

"Wow, today sure is rainy! Waves Country weather, you Konoha folks don't know that, right?"

For the first time in her life, Haruno Sakura really feels like murdering someone.

Chapter Text

"Alright kids, how much experience do you have in infiltrating enemy villages ?"

From his tone, it's obvious that Kakashi-sensei is expecting them to answer that they are proper infiltration experts and, who knows, maybe Sasuke and Sakura actually are. Maybe one of the classes he skipped was about infiltration. Maybe all of them already know how to enter a foreign country and act like they belong here, maybe...

He looks right at his black-haired teammate, who is trying very hard not to pout but still looks a bit sour, and then left at the love of his life, who is looking a bit lost herself.

Thanks the sage, it seems that he's not the only one who is clueless, for once.

"I've got none sensei!" he smiles, his confidence restored, "Are we going to infiltrate a village? Like Anbus?"

"Well considering we'll not be, hopefully, murdering anyone it's not going to be exactly like Anbus."

Sakura blanches dramatically, obviously a bit put off by the idea that they might soon be killing people. Despite the fact that she's the most bloodthirtsty out of the three of them, she still has some difficulty assassinating civilians. Naruto can relate, unlike Sasuke, he isn't that good at slitting people's throat in their sleep, he prefers full-blown battles and duels to quiet halls and the shadows of the night.

He wouldn't make a very good Anbu.

It doesn't stop him from finding them cool, though.

"What village are we going to infiltrate, sir?" his rival suddenly asks.

Ever since they got their field-promotion six month into the Waves Mission, after having brought down a crime syndicate and destroyed a dangerous relic that threatened to destroy the world, the Uchiha has taken to address to his superior officers with "sir" or "captain". He probably thinks it makes him sound more serious. Naruto thinks it makes him sound like an idiot.

Well, like more of an idiot.

"Kiri", Kakashi-sensei answers, giving them a thumbs up and an eye-smile.

Both Sasuke and Sakura choke on air and the jinchuriki is almost certain that his eyes are sparkling right now.

"Why Kiri?!" the most beautiful girl in the world yells, once she's recovered, "Kiri is the most dangerous of the Hidden Villages, why can't we do something normal for once ?"

"Oh we won't be doing any fighting. Well. You won't be doing any fighting. Kiri is a [Level 60] area and you kids are still barely above [Level 40]."

"Can't we just go back to Waves?" Sakura sighs.

"Waves Country is the most beautiful place in the world, and with my bridge, it will be even more beautiful!"

With a groan, Sasuke takes out the Tazuna notebook and draws a quick cross in the 'Most beautiful place in the world' page. It's the tenth time he has done it today and Naruto is starting to wonder if it might be one time too many. Unlike him, the Uchiha doesn't seem to find the civilian's propension to repeat himself that funny.

However, having him on [Mute] isn't much better. When they put him on that [Setting], has Kakashi-sensei would say, he stops talking and follows them silently. Staring. All day and all night long.

"Are we going to murder the Mizukage?" Naruto asks suddenly, because why not.

"No, no, that's a [Level 100+] [Quest], you would get killed in an instant. We're going to kill the Jounin commander."

A heavy silence settles over them as he finishes his sentence and all three Konoha genins look at each other. Both of his teammates look desperate to be anywhere but here but as far as he's concerned, the jinchuriki finds the opportunity to assassinate a Jounin commander very exciting.

"And ... how are we supposed to enter the village?"

"Good question Sakura! That's why they call you the clever one!"

"They don't," Sasuke grumbles.

"Oh but they will. Anyways, we're going to the hairdresser."

They let themselves be dragged to a little shop at the edge of the town they're staying in for the night and none of them dare ask any question as they walk. Soon, they end up standing awkwardly, cramped in a tiny roomed that smelled vaguely of booze and burned hair. Kakashi-sensei looks delighted.

"It's been such a long time since I've changed my [Appearance]," he tells Naruto.

"Are we going to get a haircut?" Sakura asks, "Can I choose Sasuke's?"

At this, the Uchiha shudders. It doesn't stop her from winking at him, though.

The bastard doesn't realize how lucky he is.

"Alright kids, watch and learn."

At this, Kakashi-sensei sits down on the only chair available and claps his hands until someone comes to greet him. The civilian that arrives must be in his forties, with a badly scarred face and dark, haunted eyes. All in all not the kind of person wants to leave his hair at the mercy of.

The man doesn't ask any question, doesn't even remark upon their appearance (they're still wearing their Konoha jackets and headbands). Instead, he grabs a pair of scisors, a brush, and goes to stand behind Naruto's teacher, his gaze growing blank and all expression disappearing from his face.

Then, Kakashi-sensei sits a bit straighter and starts to make strange movements with his hands. By now, Naruto is used to it, the jounin does this almost every day. What he's not used to, however, is the way his face starts to change as he swipes his fingers in the air.

"What the-..." Sasuke yelps.

In front of their eyes, their sensei's cheeks start to grow rounder, his eyes duller. His hair, originally white and spiky, turn black and slightly wavy before suddenly being cut much shorter. His smooth, pale skin becomes darker, a few scars appear all over his face, his nose grows two sizes.

And, through it all, the haircutter doesn't move one inch.

Once he seems to be happy with all the change, Kakashi-sensei (or at least, the man he became), turns to them and says, in a voice that's much more deeper than his regular one :

"And don't forget to [Save] your current appearance. It's going to be really hard to come back to it if you don't."

With that, he rises to his feet, taps the air a few more times and his ninja clothes disappear, replaced by a dark blue kimono and, for some reason, sports shoes.

"Why can't I dispel it?" Sakura mutters as he walks away.

"Hum... Sakura ... I don't think that's a genjutsu." Naruto points out.

And, of course, he's right.

Chapter Text

"Hey Kakashiiiiiiiiii-..."

Obito closes his mouth with a snap, too shocked by what he's seeing with his own two eyes to think of anything more to say to his teammate. Today is the final day of their capture mission, and they're supposed to bring down a Kumo missing nin that kept attacking Konoha's lines. As always when they're on a mission, he was expecting nothing but professionalism from his ten years-old teammate but it seems like he was setting the bar a bit high.

"What're you looking at?" Kakashi growls, fire in his eyes.

The Uchiha wisely looks away, trying his best not to make his astonishment too noticeable. If he does, he's pretty sure Kakashi will punch him.

They stand in awkward silence for a few more minutes before Rin finally returns from where she was interrogating one of the genin they had managed to kidnap the night before. Unlike him, she wasn't trained by years of living in a family less emotive than a bunch of rocks and she can't quite stop herself from gasping when her eyes land on their teammate.

"Oh no Kakashi, what happened to you?"

The boy glares at her, crossing his arms and not bothering with an answer.

"Can we focus on the mission?" he sighs.

Rin looks like she's about to say something but Obito, ever the diplomat, cuts her off before she can cause a brawl between her and Kakashi.

"Yeah sure, Jirou's supposed to be at the interception point in one hour, we've got some time but we can't waste much time."

"Let's not then." the other boy nods.

"Does that mean that you aren't going to explain what happened to you?" Rin tries again.

Obito shushes her and they get moving.

Keeping track of where they're going and staying alert in case of an ambush proves to be quite difficult for the simple reason that Kakashi, who is, by far, the fastest out of the three of them, is running in front of him. And it's not even Obito's fault, it's just that the way his pink coat swirls when he jumps from tree to tree is really distracting.

They stop quietly, a few meters away from where they're supposed to ambush their target and his group and, by now, the Uchiha is frankly a bit disturbed by the fact that, despite him wearing a horrendous coat and bright yellow goggles, it seems that no one has detected Kakashi yet.

When he asks him in a whisper how he managed to do it, the boy sighs.

"I've got [Assassin's Shoes] that's why."

He finishes his sentence with a deeply unimpressed look, no doubt thinking about how stupid Obito must be for not wearing his own pair of Assassin's shoes. Since said shoes are made out of leather, pointy and very ugly to look at, he's not feeling too bad about not owning them.

"That doesn't mean shit," he hisses, because it really doesn't.

"Your face doesn't mean shit," Kakashi answers.

"Oh fuck y-..."

"Guys, shut up!" Rin yell-whispers at them, hittinh them both on the head with the palm of her hand.

Turns out, even even if they are only whispering, they're loud enough for their target to detect them and decide to try and murder them. It's not their first time facing a jounin, however they usually do it in their own terms. Getting busted because of name-calling is probably in the top ten most stupid things they have done but, at this point, they have other things to worry about.

"Why do Konoha always send kids? You guys are almost as bad as Kiri." The man says in the middle of trying to kill them.

"Don't talk about Konoha!" Obito immediately answers.

He dodges a kick that would probably have broken some of his bones by pivoting his hips, and uses his momentum to follow up with a punch to the back of the man's head. Obviously, his attack is dodged easily but it leaves a window big enough for Kakashi to jump out of the ground, where he's been hiding, burried deep inside of a doton jutsu, and grab the jounin by the legs.

While the Kumo shinobi is incapacitated, Rin starts sending senbons in his direction and Obito tries to stab him in the kidney.

He's sent flying a few meters away but one of Rin's weapons burries itself in their opponents left eye.

The Uchiha, instead of keeping on rolling on the ground, mamanges to plant his hands on the ground and give himself enough of an impulsion to twist and fall back on his feet. He's about to jump back into the fight before he notices that Kakashi is already dealing with the hand-to-hand part of things.

It's kind of weird, in fact, the kid looks like he's much faster than he usually is.

And stronger, too.

Uh.

Without breaking a sweat, the ten-years old parries the much, much older man's kick and pushes him back before jumping so fast his body starts to blur, and slamming a fist in his plexus. There's a noise, the sound of metal creaking, breaking, and then, suddenly, Kakashi's fist is going through the jounin's torso.

"What the-..."

Obito doesn't have time to finish being astonished before his teammate starts making the handsigns for what he knows is one of Konoha's most chakra-demanding fire jutsu. Once again, he doesn't hesitate and launches his attack.

The blue fire that comes out of his mouth burns the jounin so badly that, in the middle of the flames, the Uchiha can actually see some of his members starting to fall into pieces. The technique lasts for a few more seconds before the fire disappears and, when it does, the Kumo nin is nothing but ash.

Kakashi is still standing, looking a bit out of breath but nowhere near chakra-exhaustion.

"Wow," the kid says, "that was a bit overkill. Guess I didn't really need that gear, uh."

"W..."

Obito shakes his head.

"What the fuck man?! What was that?!"

Kakashi shrugs.

"I know, sorry. I guess you guys were right keeping your normal [Equipment], I shouldn't have bothered with all this."

While Rin is joining them, Obito manages to ask :

"What do you mean 'all this'?"

To which, the white-haired asshole answers :

"Well you know, the [Coat of Wrath], the [Goggles of Eternal Darkness], the [Lightning Mini-shorts] and the [Panda Fire Earrings]."

"Did you give names to your clothes?" Rin wonders.

"Who cares if he did! Are your clothes magic?"

"I mean. They pretty much named themselves. And no, they're not [Magic], they're [Legendary]. [Magic] gear is useless at this point, I wore that when I was a genin."

Rin smiles.

"Well at least we agree on something, your outfit is legendary," she grins. "But why did you call your goggles 'Eternal Darkness' if they're yellow?"

"It's because I got them from beating the Demon King."

"Where did you even fight a Demon King?" Obito asks.

Kakashi thinks about it for a time before answering :

"In the sewers."

That asshole.

Chapter Text

Kakashi was a pretty cool guy who didn't give a shit about what others thought of him or about what was considered socially acceptable. At least, that's how Gai knew him and, until now, one of the reasons he considered him to be the absolute perfect Rival™. While he represented the passion, the energy and the love of youth, the younger jounin represented the calm, the patience and the strategy that came with experience and a lot of years in the force. They were complementary, made to be Rivals™, adversaries and friends. It was how it was and it was how it always would be.

Except...

Except that, sometimes, Gai would have liked Kakashi to be as enthusiastic as he was about life. He would love to spend horus with his Rival™, each morning, running laps on his knees around Konoha. He would love to train for hours with him under the rain. he would love to watch romantic comedies with him, not as a simple Rival™ but as a friend also.

As cool and impressive as Kakashi was, sometimes, he wanted him to be passionate, to understand the fire of the youth, to be inhabited by it. To be a little more ... well ... like him.

For obvious reasons, he thought that it would never happen that his Rival™ was unshakable, forever calm and composed, able to give an explanation to even the msot ridiculous of situations, able to get out of trouble without breaking a sweat or appear distressed even once. It was this calm, this attitude that had pushed Gai to surpass himself, to train beyond his limits and he was grateful for it. He knew that things with Kakashi would never change so he didn't push the issue, didn't even bring it up, until...

Well until their first A-rank mission together happened.

They were both in Anbu when it happened and Kakashi had taken his first break from training his new apprentice. Gai himself wasn't that good of an Anbu agent, he was too strong of a taijutsu master not to be recognised almost instantly, but a year or more in the Special Ops was the unofficial requirement to reach the higher grades of the jounin rank. And he didn't want to be a normal jounin, he wanted to be at the top, to reach for the stars. So he went in, accepted his bear mask, the one of a taijutsu specialist, and accepted his new missions.

And now, he had, finally, be given one alongside his Rival™. This was a sign from the gods. An opportunity for him to discover that, not only was his rival a wonderful friend, he was also a great fighter and, unlike what he had thought before the assignement, a true defender of youth and passion in Konoha. Shame on him for believeing that Kakashi wasn't as passionate as him. Shame on him for, as they sat there, planning their next move on their assassination target, the young jounin was practically frothing at the mouth.

"You look so PUMPED my dearest Rival™!" He yell-whispered into the other boy's ears, "I can't wait to fight with you and share your passion with the world!"

"Shut up!" Kakashi hissed, "I'm fucking sick of hearing the same fucking thing over and over again."

"So Energetic!" Gai admired, "So Expressive!"

His Rival™ glared at him so, to cheer him up and encourage him in his most Youthful ways, he gave him a thumbs up, watching with interest as Kakashi's face became even sourer, far away from his usual aloof persona.

"Why is this dialogue unskippable ?" the boy complained, "Why are you like this?"

Gai shrugged.

"Because our friendship, my dear Rival™, is unskippable too. Our bond is made out of our Love and Respect for each other and-..."

"That's it, I'm out."

Kakashi jumped down of the tree they were sitting in and landed a few dozen meters below, right in front of the woman they had come to assassinate, a S-ranked missing nin from Konoha and former Anbu commander back in the second ninja war. By all account Konoha should have sent more than two jounin to kill her but, considering that Kakashi himself was a S rank and that Gai was noted as A+ in several Bingo Books and well on his way to achieving the S rank as well, their Anbu commander had decided that they would be enough.

"Oh?" said their target as soon as the two Anbus landed in front of her, "So Konoha tries again to get rid of me, uh? Guess they'll never learn."

"Oh my GOD!" Kakashi yelled, "Will you stop saying the same thing every single fucking time?!!"

As if she had not heard him, the missing nin continued (which was, by the way, a pretty effective power move) :

"I'll have to cut you two down... Such a shame. Two young, strong men like you ..."

With flourish, she reached behind her and took out a gigantic cleaver, that had no doubt be sealed on in her back. Its blade shined faintly red and Gai remembered their mission briefing, in which their superior had explained to them that the woman they were after was the greatest Katon master since Uchiha Madara. They would have to be careful, especially him, with his Taijutsu specialization. He was trained in dodging ninjutsu but still...

Once the former Anbu commander was done taking her position, Kakashi let out a groan and, after a few more curses, jumped on her.

Which was ... not the strategy they had established.

Kakashi was supposed to attack the woman from a distance, to stop her from using elaborate ninjutsus and come in only when Gai had managed to make her guard fall, in order to cut her down with his sword. As youthful as he was being by slamming his fist into their target's head, his Rival™ was certainly not following their plan and that was a very dangerous decision. He trusted his friend but in this situation, he seemed to be making all of the wrong decisions.

"Kakashi, we-..."

Gai didn't have the time to finish his sentence : a wave of blue fire almost burnt him to a crisp as he was talking and he had to sunshing himself away to dodge it then roll on the side to avoid a few kunaïs, each of them engulfed in flames. A few meters away from him, Kakashi was meeting the woman's cleaver with his own blindingly white chakra blade. As the weapons clashed, flashes of fire and chakra went flying all around them, some landing on the forest floor, which was starting to smoke.

Sage, they were going to cause a forest fire.

This was really, really bad.

"Kakashi!" he tried again.

But the boy ignored him, focussing instead on his opponent. And, as Gai watched him going toe to toe with the woman, he noticed how atuned the other jouning seemed to be with his adversary's movements. He seemed to be able tor ead her even better than he usually did other people, anticipating her moves and dodging at just the right time. If he didn't know better, Gai would think that he had fought her before, and a great many times.

Finally, the two fighters broke apart, their target landing on one of the trees' trunks, her feet planted firmly on its bark and Kakashi crouching next to Gai. Both of them were breathing hard, both of them were covered in minor injuries and bruises. Barely a minute had passed since the beginning of the fight.

"You're good kid, I'll admit that. They didn't give you a S-rank for nothing."

"Hurry up, let's finish the cinematic and end this once and for all." Kakashi growled.

"I see that I will have to use my full power to defeat you. Too bad, I quite liked you..."

With that, the former commander slowly slid her hand up her weapon, lighting it with a deep, blue fire. Instead of staying on the blade, the flames started creeping up her arms, then on her back and legs. Soon, only her face and torso was free of them. Even from a distance, the heat was almost unbearable and, seeing her standing here, shining bright, Gai understood just how much stronger she was compared to them.

"Kakashi, we have to..."

"JUMP!" his Rival™ yelled.

By reflex, he obeyed, barely avoiding a cleaver attack that would have cut him in half had he not jumped above it. He didn't have time to question how Kakashi saw this coming, too busy trying to dodge the next attack from the missing nin, whose speed had greatly improved since she had been engulfed in her own flames. He had no choice, to keep up with her, he would have to open some of the Gates and-...

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

Burning.

With horror, he looked at his right arm just in time to see it crumble under the heat of the flames that were licking it. This woman's fire was not natural, it wasn't the usual Katon jutsu, it was...

The flames reached his face.

Pain.

Black.

Nothing.

---

Kakashi was a pretty cool guy who didn't give a shit about what others thought of him or about what was considered socially acceptable. At least, that's how Gai knew him and, until now, one of the reasons he considered him to be the absolute perfect Rival™. While he represented the passion, the energy and the love of youth, the younger jounin represented the calm, the patience and the strategy that came with experience and a lot of years in the force. They were complementary, made to be Rivals™, adversaries and friends. It was how it was and it was how it always would be.

Except...

Except that, sometimes, Gai would have liked Kakashi to be as enthusiastic as he was about life. He would love to spend horus with his Rival™, each morning, running laps on his knees around Konoha. He would love to train for hours with him under the rain. he would love to watch romantic comedies with him, not as a simple Rival™ but as a friend also.

As cool and impressive as Kakashi was, sometimes, he wanted him to be passionate, to understand the fire of the youth, to be inhabited by it. To be a little more ... well ... like him.

"Gai!"

Gai flinched, violently taken out of his thoughts by his Rival™, who was staring at him, an annoyed look on his face.

"Yes, my Eternal Rival™?" he asked, voice only trembling a little from the shock and dropping, by reflex, into a thumbs up pose.

"Stop thinking about how you want me to be like you, we're going."

"Going but... going wh-..."

Kakashi took a deep breath then said, very quickly and with a very angry expression :

"I'm done with this boss. I've tried twenty four times to kill her, I've used all of my buffs, all of my strategies. I've tried to summon, I've tried to use my Ultimate. I did everything I could. I'm fucking done. We're going."

"But... my Eternal Rival™, we need to-..."

"We're doing a few sidequests then coming back when we're higher level, hopefully this will be enough."

By now, Gai knew that what Kakashi refered to as "sidequests" were usually small tasks that civilians and, more rarely, shinobis gave him randomly, usually when he was walking down the street or going to buy groceries. As wonderful as he found it that his Rival™ would spend most of his very valuable time helping others and receiving nothing in return, he was also a faithful ninja, sworn to obey his village. They had a mission, given to them by the Anbu commander and not doing it could be considered treason. He had to talk sense into his Rival™.

"Kakashi, we have to-..."

The white haired boy shushed him and started waving one of his hands in the air, looking as annoyed as ever.

"What do you think about rescuing a bunch of orphans?"

"Kakashi, we..."

"Oh or what about finding a gemstone that can control the elements?"

"My Rival™..."

"Ah, I know! Delivering a letter to the Water daimyo!"

"Kakas-.."

"Let's do that."

His Rival™ mimicked pressing a button in the air and, suddenly, not finishing the assassination mission right now did not seem like such a bad idea to Gai. In fact, it seemed quite logical. After all, delivering that letter to the daimyo of water country was the most important thing to do right now, it absolutely could not wait.

"My Rival™!" he yelled, "We have to hurry for the water lord won't wait for us much longer!"

He jumped down the tree they were sitting here, landing right in front of a woman, who was staring in the distance, perfectly still, and patiently waited for his friend to follow him. Kakashi did sparing a glace at the strange woman as they walked past her. There was a strange feeling in his eyes, something that looked suspiciously like anger.

Gai did not ask him why he seemed to hate this stranger so much, this was not his business.

After all, how could he know that Kakashi had been trying to kill this boss for three years now?

Chapter Text

Kakashi was strong.

Obito ... was not.

Well, Obito was not not strong, he wasn't the dead last after all. In fact, he was one of the three best students in his class, thanks to his talent for taijutsu and his extensive knowledge of traps and basic sealing. He was a pretty good blue genin but he was nothing compared to Kakashi.

The brat was two years younger than him but he could take both him and Rin on while using no ninjutsu, genjutsu or any kind of weapons. He was an absolute monster and had apparently been made chunin a few years before they even met. To make matters worse, he had an unsufferable attitude about it, taking their inhability to defeat him as something that was obvious and saying things like 'you're not the same level as I am'.

Just how above them did he think himself to be?

Bastard.

For the first three weeks of their training under Minato, Obito tried his best to ignore both his younger teammate and the fact that he was stronger than two kids older than him by a couple years and a chunin to boot. And, for the first three weeks of their training under Minato, he miserably failed at ignoring both his younger teammate and the fact that he was stronger than two kids older than him by a couple years and a chunin to boot.

May Uchiha Madara turn his life to ashes, he wanted to die.

But no, his famous ancestor would not come down from the skies to turn him to cinders in a gust of fire. Instead, he would have to keep on living, knowing that he couldn't resist, knowing that, after three weeks and two days, he had finally given in and had followed Kakashi home to spy on his training and discover how he was able to master jutsus so quickly. After all, he was the Uchiha, he was supposed to be the fastest when it came to learning new techniques.

If he had his Sharingan that is.

So yes, here he was, crouched behind an overflowing bin and trying to follow the unsufferable kid without getting noticed. Considering that Kakashi stopped every two steps to talk with random civilians, it was a pretty annoying task but, after half a dozen detours and more than twenty minutes spent listening a eight years old talk to strangers about their various problems, he finally managed to sneak into the Hatake Clan's house's backyard.

As he was walking by one of the house's windows, he noticed what looked to be a ceiling-high pile of cheese wheels stacked next to the glass but, not wanting to get caught staring at the inside of Kakashi's house, he decided not to investigate it further.

Obito crawled between the tall grass that had obviously not been cut for a few years and settled to spy on his teammate, secretly wishing that he had managed to activate his Sharingan. He watched as the kid stepped in front of one of his beaten down training dummies, noticing that he hadn't gone through any kind of warm up, and opened wide eyes when Kakashi used the jutsu Minato had showed them earlier this afternoon.

Said jutsu was a earth technique that consisted in raising the ground under the opponent's feet to make them lose their balance and open them for an easy attack. It was only D-rank but it required a great deal of precision and concentration, none of which Obito had. He would have thought, however, that it would have been the perfect jutsu for Kakashi, who was always extremely focused on everything he was doing but, as he laid there, hidden in the grass, he saw that his teammate was doing as badly as he himself had when he tried to use the jutsu under Minato's supervision.

Kakashi was failing at using a ninjutsu.

Kakashi.

Being bad at ninjutsu.

No way.

The brat was always so perfect in his techniques, he mastered them all in less than a day ... he was a prodigy! How come he was as bad as Obito when he tried it for the first time? What kind of training did he have to go through in order to go from this level to the one he would no doubt have the next morning, when Minato was going to ask them if they had made any progress with the technique and he would have already mastered it because of course he would, that complete asshole.

Half-expecting Kakashi to start analyzing the jutsu like the genius he was, or even start meditating, Obito watched carefully as the kid frowned at his imperfect technique and...

Slammed his hand in the ground to try again.

In front of the Uchiha's belwidered eyes, the boy started doing the jutsu again and again and again, never stopping to start thinking about how the chakra flew in his body or about the hand signs, like they were supposed to do when they were learning a new technique. There was no analysis, no reflection, just Kakashi hitting the ground repeatedly and failing at using a D-rank jutsu.

After a dozen or so tries, his teammate started waving his hands in the air in front of him and somehow managed to summon an apple, which he ate so quickly Obito didn't have time to see his face, not that he wanted to, it was probably ugly, before starting his routine all over again. Slamm the ground with his palm, use the jutsu, fail, repeat.

And he did that for nearly one hour, as if he was completely immune to chakra exhaustion, as if the apples he kept summoning ever ten or so minutes were enough to keep him going through these jutsus.

By now Obito was seriously starting to wonder how he was still able to eat. With that much fruit inside of him, his blood must have turned into apple sauce!

And that was not the weirdest thing about what was happening in front of him.

Because, despite the utter ridiculousness of his actions, it seemed like Kakashi's "training" was actually working. After the first twenty or so times he used the jutsu, there was a clear improvement in its effects and, after one hour, it seemed at least half as effective as the version of it Minato had shown them. It had by no way been mastered but it was still usable.

How?

He would probably have kept pondering and wishing for Madara to come turn Kakashi's life to ashes if his teammate, while eating an apple, hadn't suddenly turned and started walking in his direction. As the kid approached him, he considered running away but, knowing that the boy had just learned to use a jutsu that was specifically used to make people trip, he didn't want to try his chances.

Maybe if he pretended Minato had sent him to ask a question or give a message he could get out of it with his pride intact. After all, Kakashi could only have detected him recently, there was no way he would have allowed him to spy on his dumb training if he knew he was there, right?

"Hiya Obito." Kakashi deadpanned, still munching on a bite of apple.

The Uchiha shuddered but still managed to answer, in a voice he hoped sufficiently hostile : "Hiya Kakashi."

It had not been hostile at all. Or, if it had been, his teammate did not seem to notice as he suddenly crouched down in front of him, looking perfectly calm.

"How's your training going?" the boy asked.

"My ... uh ... my training?" Obito stammered, confused by the whole situation.

"Aren't you grinding [Stealth]?" Kakashi wondered.

Jumping on this excuse and ignoring just how little sense it made, Obito nodded as confidently he could considering that he was stll laying in the grass and that Kakashi, despite his age and the fact that he was crouching, was currently taller than him.

"Yeah I'm grinding. Grinding. So useful for stealth. Do you grind often?"

His teammate frowned, looking as confused as he was feeling.

"I've been grinding for the past hour. You should level up your [Observation]"

"Yeah uh ... maybe I should... grind that?"

For one moment, he thought he had said the wrong thing as Kakashi suddenly looked away but, in a few seconds, the kid's eyes were back on him and he was saying :

"You know, it's actually pretty easy."

The brat knelt down to get at his level then pointed at a nearby rock, making sure that Obito too was looking at it before he ordered, in a confident tone :

"Now, [Observe] this."

"What? It's just a rock!"

And it was just a rock. But for some reason, Kakashi didn't seem to be very happy with his answer.

"You are really bad at this! Don't you ever [Observe] things?" the child complained.

Obito, now fed up with the whole situation, jumped to his feet and kicked the grass in frustration. He glared at his teammate as the boy too rose to his feet, and turned sharply on his heel to get out of the backyard before Kakashi could try and make fun of him in any other way. Clearly, he was not being taken seriously and, if the other kid wanted to use make up words to make him feel like an idiot, then he could do it, but he would do it alone. There was no way he would stay there any longer.

As it was expected, Kakashi did not try to stop him as he left and, by the time he was back on the nearest street, he could hear the sound of the earth jutsu being used in the boy's backyard. He really did not matter for him. What an asshole.

He was still walking angrily, progressing down the street that led to the Uchiha compound, when his eyes caught on a seemingly normal rock. Before he could stop himself, he frowned at it, observing it to see if there was anything unique that he had missed at first glance.

He didn't know it yet but he would keep that habit of staring at the décor for his whole life, a trait that would prove useful in more than one fight since it gave him a great situational awareness. Clearly, Kakashi's "grinding" training method had some merits after all as even he would come to admit that Obito was, by far, the best at using [Observation] in Team Minato.

Chapter Text

Konoha was a shinobi village.

Konoha was a shinobi village and it meant that gravity defying stunts and overuse of secret powers happened on a daily basis and in every part of town. That old lady down the street who sold flowers? She could breathe out fire balls the size of a house. That kid playing with his friends under the tree? He had the ability to kill you barehanded in less than a minute. In a secret village, everyone could be a spy, an Anbu agent or a ninja dressed as a civilian everyone, including Kakashi's teacher, had the potential to be an undercover S-rank. In fact, Minato himself was not that far away from becoming a full-blown, not undercover, S-rank.

By now, the man's abilities were well known by Kakashi, who had been his student for a few months and, despite his strength and the fact that he was all but a legend in the making, the boy was sure of one thing : Minato was a genius, sure, but he didn't have the ability to fly.

Except, apparently, he did.

It happened when they were training, practicing a new Katon jutsu the man had deemed useful. One second, the jounin was talking to him calmly, the next he was swimming in the air, seemingly completely unaware of the fact that his feet were not touching the ground anymore. Too stunned to do anything other than gape at him, which was made hard to detect by the mask he had on his face. As such, his sensei did not notice his stunned expression and kept on talking, floating in the air and kicking his feet beneath him, as if he was trying to keep afloat in a river.

"You have to focus more on the Katon part of your chakra, try to feel the difference between it and your Raiton chakra. Maybe ... with a mental picture?"

Tuning Minato out, Kakashi let himself fall from his sitting position to lay down on the grass. Not only did he have to deal with the fact that his father was dead (which he was handling perfectly fine, thank you) but now his teacher and unofficial guardian had been contaminated by the strange illness that had overtaken more than half of Konoha.

It was more of a behavioral anomaly than an illness, really and, considering the timing, it was obvious that it was due to his Kekkei Genkai, which had been activated right before he started to notice the strange actions of his fellow shinobis and of the civilians he was supposed to protect. Afraid at first and after seeing someone being launched at the sky after being kicked by a child, he had turned to the Hokage office. However, he had quickly realized that going to him who serve no good since, as he was waiting for the Sandaime to come out of the tower, he saw him walk out ...

... of a wall.

He had finally decided to talk to Minato about the strange actions that only him seemed to notice and judge abnormal since, until now, the jounin had looked untouched by the epidemy. But, as he was sitting there, watching him swim around a tree, talking about the benefits of Katon jutsus, he realized that he had been dead wrong. There was no hope. He was the only one in Konoha who had not been contaminated, he was the only one who could see just how utterly wrong things were now.

He was the only one to know that and yet, he could do nothing about it.

Disappointed, he rolled on his back and glared at the cloudless sky. It was such a pretty day that he felt like the world was mocking him by showing him all this blue sky and bright sun and Minato swimming above him.

...

Wait a minute.

Minato.

Minato was swimming above him.

Minato was swimming way above him : he was now higher than the Hashirama trees around the training ground and Hashirama trees were huge. Even worse, it looked like he had no intention of stopping, swimming higher and higher in the air and still talking in a monotone voice, so distant the words were unrecognizable.

Now, you see, Kakashi had witnessed random civilians swimming to their death before. He had even watched a blacksmith walk through every machine and items in her shop to land directly in her own fire. He had tried to stop it at first but, since no one seemed to care and it was almost impossible to stop it once it had begun, he had slowly started to get used to it, looking the other way when someone's head spontaneously detached from their bodies or when a ninja got stuck in a wall by passing through it too often. However, this time, it wasn't a random civilian or a ninja he didn't know.

This time, it was Minato.

Minato who was now swimming in the direction of the village, completely unaware of what was happening to him.

His initial shock all but forgotten, Kakashi jumped to his feet and started running up the nearest Hashirama tree, hoping to catch his teacher before he went too far away. Channelling as much chakra his body could endure into his legs, he jumped as high as he could, reaching up to grab Minato's leg and...

Failing miserably. He was too short, his jump way too small. He missed his teacher by a few good feet and fell back to the forest beneath him, getting hit by half a dozen branches in the process and completely tearing up his clothes. Twisting in the air, he managed to grab hold of the bark of a tree by making one of his hands sticky with chakra and slamming it on it. The strain of having to stop his fall with only his one hand made his skin split open, blood staining the leaves around him. The pain, however, was not enough to distract him.

Jumping would not work, he was too small, his body not trained enough for him to reach Minato. And it was not like he could ask anyone for help : no one other than him was able to see the crazy stunts everyone was up to constantly! He would have to find a way to get the jounin down all by himself, or he would be lost to the sky, just like so many other shinobis before him.

And ... he had an idea of what to do.

Shunshining at his highest speed, he tore through the streets of the village, landing in front of one of the equipment shops in a hurry. His speed was so great he almost feel flat on his face but managed to catch himself at the last second, running inside the building after kicking the door open and almost jumping on the shopkeeper.

"Hello! Welcome to Murder & Co, we hope you're having a good day!" the woman being the counter sing songed.

"Pass!" he yelled.

The civilian beamed at him.

"Are you interested in A) Seeing our merchandise? B) Selling items? C) Talking? D) Leaving the store?"

"The merchandise! Hurry up!"

This was taking too long, he had no time to lose! As they spoke, Minato could be swimming even higher. Soon, he would have no way of catching up to him and he had no guaranteed on when he would stop acting like this. If they were unlucky, this behaviour would last for more than a few days! If they were very unlucky, Minato could end up like old Takashi, who had kept repeating the same words over and over again ever since Kakashi had accepted to help him with his goat problem.

Navigating through the store's inventory, he finally found what he had come to buy. Without any hesitation, he handed over his gold and, instead of putting the item in his inventory like he usually did, he kept it in his hands, using his [Crafting] as he was running, tying the rope to make sure he would be able to catch the jounin, who was, thankfully, not swimming very fast.

His lasso finished, Kakashi set on finding Minato, scanning the skies above Konoha for a good half an hour before he finally discovered him, thirty feet above the Hokage Tower's roof, swimming in circles.

Climbing to the top of the Tower was a risky business as he was only a Chunin and the son of a traitor at that but he had no choice, he could only hope that the Anbus would not catch him before he reached his teacher. Ignoring his fear, he planted his feet in the wall and started running up the building, only stopping to put more chakra in his legs once he reached the top in order to jump higher. As his feet left the surface of the roof, he readied his lasso, trying to remember how the heroes of the movies Minato made him watch used it, and let it go, aiming at the jounin swimming above him.

And, once again, he failed.

[New Skill gained : Lasso - Level 1/10 : Amateur

You are terrible at lassoing stuff but it's fine, at least you're trying.

1% chance of catching intended target, 1% chance of tripping and breaking a bone]

"No ..." he muttered.

Horrified, he tried again and again to use [Lasso] but, just as the [Interface] said, he truly was terrible at it and, even though using it a few times made him gain some experience points, it was not nearly enough to catch his teacher and, soon, the Anbus were on him, dragging him back to the ground despite his pleas and desperate attempts to free himself.

In the sky above him, Minato was swimming happily, still talking about Katon chakra, still unaware of his situation.

Needless to say that, after this incident, Kakashi became extremely proefficient at lassoing people down from the sky. Obito had a tendency to wander off by himself whenever they reached a forest.

And to say that his teammates had the nerves to call him "weird"! At least he wasn't the one who needed lassoing every few weeks to keep from joining the clouds!

Chapter Text

Finishing a mission always felt amazing. For one, you had the relief that you were not going to die -or at least were less like to- and, after that, you also had the knowledge that you would soon get payed and get one or two days off to recover before being sent in the field again. Finishing a mission was a bit like finishing your homework, except even better because you didn't have the boring day in school that came afterwards.

Of course, there was always some danger to finishing an assignement. Shinobis who were done with their tasks could become careless, rushing home instead of carefully planning their escape. A lot of soldiers died on their way back to their hometown or military base, by now, it was well known.

Minato-sensei had made sure to teach his team not to drop their guard once they had accomplished their mission's objectives since he had apparently lost quite a few friends to this kind of behaviour. Obito was proud to say that he, despite his young age, was way more careful and thoughtful that most of his fellow shinobis when he came home from a mission. In fact, he considered that his mission wasn't over until he had reached the gates of Konoha. That's how careful he was.

Even then, in the peaceful village they had elected to stay in for the night, one which was affiliated with Konoha and, therefore, was not full of civilians trying to plot their demise, he did not dare to drop his guard. His two teammates and him had decided to sleep outside, in order to escape more quickly if they had to, and he was very intent on staying awake, at least until Kakashi came to relieve him and let him sleep. He would protect his teammates as they rested, he would watch the night for them, using his sharingan if he had to, he would...

A rustling sound.

A shadow, moving in the dark.

By reflex, Obito's hand came to rest on one of the kunaïs attached on his belt. He didn't draw it yet, unsure of what was sneaking around. His heart rate picked up, all of his senses in alert. If he had to strike, it would have to be lethal, he could not afford to waste any time.

He considered waking his friends up before deciding against it. The situation was not out of his control yet, this could just be an animal, maybe a fox, a dog or a-...

With another rustling sound, the shadow suddenly broke off from the bushes it was hiding in, running in the direction off the sleeping ninjas. It was too small to be another shinobi but Obito had dealt with a wide range of nin-animals during the years and he was not willing to take any chances. In an instant, the kunaï was out of his hand and embedded in the thing's body. He had put such strength in his throw that the shadow was propulsed backwards, landing on the grass a few feet behind it, twitching slightly, not dead yet.

Next to him, Kakashi woke up with a start, quickly followed by Rin. Both of them were so accustomed to the sound of kunaïs and shurikens that they weren't able to stay asleep anymore once one was being used near them. It only took a few seconds for them to understand that there was no immediate danger and that the threat had been dealt with. However, instead of relaxing,the youngest member of Team Minato tensed as he realized what had just happened.

"Obito!" he whispered, "What have you done?"

Obito, who had been busy crawling up to the thing he had just killed to check and see what it was, turned back to him and shrugged.

"I guess I killed a chicken."

He didn't feel too bad about it, even if the chicken had been harmless, taking the risk of it being a trap of some kind would have been a rookie mistake. He had to keep his reflexes sharp and not allow himself to doubt. Surely the civilians of the village could afford to lose one little chicken. It wasn't like it was winter or anything...

Speaking of the civilians, some of them were suddenly lighting candles in their house, the yellow glow visible through their windows. That, however, was probably just a coïncidence. They were not trained shinobis, there was no way they could have heard him throwing the kunaï.

"I know!" Kakashi groaned. "You killed a chicken. Like a complete moron!"

"Hey calm down asshole, it's just a chicken. It's not like I killed your mom."

There was an uncomfortable silence during which Obito remembered that Kakashi's mother was already dead.

"You know what I mean..." he mumbled, trying to salvage whatever he could from the conversation.

"No I don't. We were supposed to stay out of trouble and you went and killed a chicken. That's almost as bad as punching a kid in the face!"

"How is that almost as bad?! What's the deal with you and chickens?"

"Umm ... guys?" Rin tried to intervene, unfortunately ignored by the both of them.

"The deal is I wanted a good, calm night and you went and messed it up!"

By now, they were not whispering anymore, not even Rin when she yelled at them, trying to get their attention : "Guys!"

"Was that chicken your lover or something? Did you want to marry it?" Obito asked, pointing at his teammate.

"That's not the point!"

"Well you know what you-..."

"GUYS!"

Rin ponctuated her exclamation with a whack behind both Kakashi's and Obito's head. Not leaving them time to rub it and try to sooth the pain, she grabbed them by the collar of their shirts and turned them in the direction of the village. There, walking in the streets, were a bunch of civilians, several of them sporting torches in their hand and more than half of the other armed in some way.

"What the-..."

"Way to aggro the entire village, idiot!" Kakashi snarled before jumping to his feet. "Now we'll just have to kill them all."

"Kakashi, no." Rin protested.

"Yeah Kakashi, don't kill them. It's probably not for us... I mean all we did was kill a chicken, there's no way that's going to-..."

"You are seriously overestimating the algorythm," Kakashi pointed.

As if to confirm what he had just said, one of the civilians grabbed a pitchfork that was just laying there, on the street, and threw it at them, clearly intending for it to hit them.

"Ok Team Minato, it's murder time."

"Oh my god no you absolute psychopath!" Rin yelled, grabbing Kakashi's arm and dragging him towards the forest.

They ended up outrunning the civilians quite easily as they were, in fact, just civilians and therefore pretty weak. Despite not getting the rest they had needed this night, Team Minato (or at least its most important member, Uchiha Obito) had learned one very important lesson.

Never attack the chicken.

Chapter Text

Kakashi is fourteen when he first sees the book.

It's been three months now, since Rin's death and Obito's defection, three painful, lonely months spent avoiding everyone he once held dear and taking on more and more dangerous [Quests], hoping that they might help him become stronger, strong enough to take on his old teammate and to, once and for all, force him to come back to Konoha. His life is nothing but a blur of fights and dialogues he has no energy to sift through, a grey mess devoid of feelings and of interest. He feels ike a stranger in his own body, like he's going through the motions.

The only thing he knows, the only thing that matters, is bringing Obito back to Konoha.

He needs him.

He needs him like a man needs water and like a child needs affection, he needs him like he needs air to breath and light to see. His questline is the last thing that keeps him grounded, that stops him from joining Anbu and going completely ballistic. So what if he doesn't have a life anymore? What if he hasn't laughed since two days before Rin's fated mission? Once Obito is back, this will all be fixed, all that he has done will have a reason behind it, a motive.

Kakashi is fourteen when he first sees the book.

He's destroyed mentally and physically, almost crushed by his exhaustion and his grief, but he keeps going forward anyways. He's depressed and lonely and so close to his breaking point that it's becoming hard not to take the easy way out, like his dad had. The memory of his treacherous teammate is the only thing that anchors him to this life.

It's four in the morning and he's waking up from another nightmare, filled with a swirling, corrupted Sharingan and the memories of his best friend choking on her own blood. There are tears àn his cheeks and his hands are shaking, he's ready for his first round of training of the day.

He gets up and, before he can go far, he trips on something and falls flat on his face.

The flash of surprise cuts through the fog of grief in his mind just long enough for him to feel something akin to interest resurface. Curious despite himself, he sits up slowly and grabs the thing that has made him fall down, the same exact thing he is absolutely sure wasn't in his room the night before. He rests his right hand on its cover, brushes one of his fingers on its side. It's rectangular, heavy and it smells a bit like vanilla, for some reason.

It's a book.

He turns on the lights and opens it.

It doesn't take him a second to figure out that this book is, somehow, related to his Kekkei Genkai. First, its cover is decorated by thousands of small lines of numbers, 0 and 1, the same he sometimes sees when he looks at the sky for too long or when he almost dies and then decides that he's not done with his life yet. It's a huge thing, bigger than the encyclopedy he once read on a dare, and, as he touches it, he realises that it's one of the very few manuscripts he's not able to absorb the content of just by touching it.

Interesting.

Better your Life™

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Table of content :

 1. Cosmetics

2. Equipment and Weaponry

3. Jutsus

4. NPCs

5. Enemies

6. Quests and Lore

7. Locations

8. Game Mechanics

9. Graphics

10. Misc

Slightly confused and, for the first time since Rin's death, now fully invested in something other than curling into a ball and crying, Kakashi reaches to tap [1. Cosmetics] with his index fingers. Immediately, and without him having to touch anything else, the book's pages start to turn, bringing him to what looks to be a section taken straight out of a beauty magazine, with a lot of pictures of various haircut, tattoos and other items, all of them somehow including him in them.

He blushes at a particularly daring illustration of him wearing something that looks like a bikini, feeling a bit weirded out that, somewhere, someone has deemed it necessary to include this into his life. He's fourteen! Sure, he's been an adult for years, by ninja standards, but this is still more than a bit uncomfortable.

As he flicks through the pages, he can't help but stop at one specific article. It's smaller than the rest of them and it depicts him wearing the most ridiculous outfit ever. It's a bunny suit, but not the sexy kind one could find at a civilian brothel, no. This one looks like a cross between a pyjama, a very loose and fluffy body-suit and an actual rabbit. It's big and cute and not at all something a ninja should wear. He falls in love immediately.

He remembers being a kid and messing with his teammates by exploiting the fact that only them were able to notice his [Skins] and [Accessories] and a wave of nostalgia washes over him. Before he fully realises what he's doing, he has already tapped on the bunny picture and has allowed the book to download it into existence, making it appear in the [Customization] section of his menu. He switches out his black mourning robes for the bunny suit and sits in it for a few moments, taking in the effects of the book currently on his lap. Apparently, it can download things into reality, things that aren't patches or dlcs. It's powerful, without a doubt, and he feels even more curious becose of it.

He switches over to the [2. Equipment and Weaponry] chapter and downloads a strange object the book calls a [Gun] as well as a sword shaped like a duck with a very long neck. He quickly attaches it to the belt slung accross his bunny outfit and messes with the [Gun] long enough for most of his room to become riddled with holes and destroyed objects. Just like most of the things he owns, this particular weapon looks to be very dangerous.

In the [3. Jutsus] chapter, he downloads a technique called [Thousand Years of Pain], which causes so much damage when use it's described as a S-rank jutsu in his menu, and one called [Talk no Jutsu] that is described as [the most powerful and destructive jutsu of them all, able to defeat Kages, missing nins, and even gods.] In [4. NPC], he installs a small, talking unicorn that is supposed to accompany him wherever he goes and he also almost installs a female version of Minato but quickly decides against it, fearing what Kushina would do if she found out about it. Once he's done feeding his new unicorn the few salt and vinegar chips he has left in his cupboards, he opens [Enemies] and decides it would be fun to replace some of the chests in the area by deadly monsters camouflaging themselves as one, and he also makes sure that all Suna shinobis change their uniform to a short kilt and a tank top, as well as a large brimmed hat. 

He doesn't bother adding any [Quests] in the game and instead downloads an entire village filled with flying, talking dogs, fifty kilometers north of Konoha, and a city that floats in the sky and drifts between the continents. By browsing [Misc] he manages to add fifty flavours of chips to his pantry as well as an entire new language, that no one but twenty people in Tea Country can speak, and one weekly breakdancing event in the center of Konoha.

By the time he's done, it's nine in the morning and he has a grin on his face, unable to stop himself from snickering at imagining the look on Mnato's face when he finally noticed that something had gone wrong with his village. Not to mention the fact that he had found a program that suppressed the "swimming glitch", as he liked to call it, so he wouldn't have to worry about bringing his lasso everywhere anymore.

He sits in the middle of his room for a while, a small, rainbow colored unicorn munching on grassgopper flavoured chips next to him and his bunny costume soft against his skin. From the windows, he can hear the start of a fast-paced song, as well as the screaming of a crowd. Apparently, the breakdancing has started.

He laughs and, for the first time in three months, he feels like things might not be so dark after all. There's still some fun to be had in this dark, dreadful world. He just has to make sure he never forgets it.

Chapter Text

"Sensei, can you remind me why we have to do this again?" Sakura asks.

Her limbs are aching and her hair is falling messily around her face. She knows she should have cut it shorter before leaving the village, there's nothing to do about it now. She will not resort to using a kunai. She isn't a barbarian no matter what Naruto says.

"It builds character," her teacher replies, kicking the trunk of his own tree with enough force to send a grown man flying.

As soon as his foot leaves the bark, a perfectly cut log of wood slides out of the trunk, as if it had been summoned. Unfortunately for her sanity, Sakura knows very well it has not been and this is simply yet another effect of the jounin’s odd influence on reality.

"I don’t think it builds much of anything," Sasuke whispers from a few feet behind her.

He sounds bitter, he usually does whenever they ended up pursuing something that doesn't allow him to grow stronger. Although she often feels like rolling her eyes at his bad moods, she does agree with him on that specific day. What they are doing is completely pointless and the fact Kakashi-sensei insisted on having Tazuna tag along only makes the situation more annoying. Apparently the civilian has a few specific lines related to wood cutting. None are any less annoying than his usual drivel and he has repeated each of them an average of twenty times every hour.

"What are we even getting this wood for?" She complains. A log finally falls from her own tree trunk after she kicked it a dozen or so times. "I didn’t see any D-ranks asking for wood."

"That is, my dear duckling, because we are not on a mission for the village." Kakashi beams at her, stuffing an entire pile of cut wood into his jacket’s pockets. It disappears into the mysterious dimension he keeps his equipment in. He does not use sealing scrolls, they checked. "We are on a mission to find ourselves."

"I am not finding anything other than murderous rage right now," Sakura deadpans, kicking at the logs laying around her feet. Unlike their teacher, none of them have access to their own pocket dimension. Perhaps one day he will teach them his trick.

"The wood used in my bridge is the finest across the Lands!" Tazuna informs them in the distance, not bothering to struggle against his bonds. The best way they have found to deal with his presence is to keep him tied up to nearby trees and hope Kakashi will forget him when they leave. "It will stand against typhoons and earthquake. A monument to the resilience of-" He abruptly falls silent, his mouth closes slowly and his gaze falls to the ground.

Sakura never quite got used to how unnatural he looks when he’s [Muted]. She can’t blame her teacher for doing it though, Sasuke has been patting his kunai pouch for an hour now, murdering their own client would not be a good look for Konoha. She turns away from the [NPC], as Kakashi calls him, as quickly as she can. His empty eyes and slack face are disturbing. Even now that she has seen enough horror and action to last her a lifetime, his blank stare haunts her dreams.

Maybe kicking that tree isn’t so bad, it keeps her from looking at the soulless husk of a bridge builder standing ominously behind her. When did he get untied? Oh Sage, he’s right behind her shoulder, she can feel his breath on-

"Next time, let’s leave him at the inn." She whispers.

Her voice is not shaky. Sakura is not scared of a stupid civilian. She could kill him in ten different ways with only her pinky. She’s a ninja, trained since she was a child to fight and win and-

"Agreed." Sasuke sounds a bit unsettled himself. His eyes are looking straight ahead and he is breathing faster than usual.

She understands his pain.

"Why do I hear talking, my sweet little students?" The monster pretending to be a reasonable jounin teacher sing songs. As usual, he’s completely unaffected by the horrific, soulless creature standing beside him. 

Sakura shudders. Sometimes she wonders if the man is even human.

"Can you [Unmute] Tazuna-san, please?"

Kakashi-sensei frowns, rubs his chin thoughtfully and then delivers a powerful kick to the ancient oak he has been beating up. A blow like that should have destroyed the tree but, miraculously, it stays perfectly whole and drops a single log of wood. Again. Her grandfather is an arborist, a very respectable civilian position in Konoha. Between that and her on and off again friendship with Ino, she knows this should not be happening. Even without that background, anyone with half a brain cell would think they were hallucinating if they came across such a scene.

Tazuna has less than half a brain cell most days, what with his constant, repetitive commentary. In this state, he has less brain cells than an empty bag of chips.

She could go for a bag of chips right now, she thinks, watching as Kakashi-sensei tries to insist that Sasuke is the one who wanted the civilian [Muted] in the first place. She killed someone with a bag of chips before. She could do it again. Maybe she should.

"It’s alright, sir. You can do as you want, sir."

Sasuke makes a decent try at a serious military posture. It’s slightly ruined by the fact none of them have interacted with any Konoha agent outside of their teacher in months. She thinks it’s a solid effort, and his insistence to act as the perfect chunin, going as far as to wear his vest wherever they go, is sort of cute in a weird duckling kind of way.

Sometimes she misses the crush she had on him a few months back. Her life had been easier when she still thought only two of her teammates were idiots. Now she has come to the sad realization that, out of all four, she is the only sane one.

"He said it’s alright." Kakashi-sensei nods with a smile. "Really Sakura-chan, you complain too much about poor Tazuna, I think you might hurt his feelings."

Tazuna does not look like he has any feelings to be hurt. His eyes are empty, blank slates free of any thought or emotions. Not for the first time this week, she wonders if she can get away with trapping him in a well or a cupboard somewhere. He wouldn’t struggle much and technically it wouldn’t be murder.

"Now stop plotting murder and get gathering! We need to hit the mines before it gets dark or we won't have enough materials to [Craft] a shed to sleep in!"

She has long given up the hope of ever understanding her sensei. All she can do is turn back to her tree and punch.

A log falls down. She picks it up and adds it to her pile.

Fifty done, three-hundred more to go.