Chapter Text
He was halfway back to his tiny apartment when the implication of what he had done truly hit him. He passed a genin team. He had to teach a genin team. He didn’t know how to teach! And they were genin, peacetime genin at that! Most shinobi barely considered genin ninja at all, especially not genin so green they’d probably grow if you stuck them in the ground!
Though Sasuke didn’t when he used that headhunter jutsu on him... perhaps he should be in the ground longer. Wait, no, bad Kakashi. Joking does not count as coping. According to Inoichi at least. Moving on.
He was supposed to train his sensei’s son, keep him safe, teach him (he was going to fail again, be alone again, he will break again and nothing will put him back together—).
No. No. He would keep them safe this time, he would, (he had to, he couldn’t pick himself back up again, not again—). No, stop it, stop panicking—breathe. Stop thinking and breathe. He couldn’t have a panic attack in the middle of the street or Gai will hover for a week, breathe. Breathe. Home first. He could panic there and Gai wouldn’t even have to know. Home first, and then panic. And then plan—stop. Breathe.
Once he was home, he shoved himself into the back of his closet and let go of his fraying threads of self-control.
After the panic faded a little and he could push it back into its little box, he slept. By now it was late and panic attacks were tiring. The nightmares wouldn’t let him sleep more than a couple of hours anyway.
//
Sleep helped push the panic away a little more. Enough, at least, that he could think. Okay. He could do this. Make a list, like Inoichi says. Make a list of what you know and make a list of what you don’t know. Okay.
He was assigned a genin team. Fact. He passed a genin team. Fact. Therefore, he was a jonin-sensei. Fact. A jonin-sensei’s job is to teach their genin team. Fact. He had to teach the genin team he passed. Okay. Breathe.
He didn’t know how to teach genin. One problem. One very big problem. The closest thing to teaching he had ever done was drilling ANBU recruits!
Even Tenzou hadn’t needed much guidance, at least not from him. His practical skills were on par by the time he was assigned to ANBU and interpersonal questions were much better handled by Gai or literally anyone other than him.
Really, assigning him a genin team was an awful idea.
//
He was late to Team 7’s first training session. Even by his standards, he was late.
He was only planning on being maybe half an hour late, an hour tops, but... he may have had another panic attack? (They were just so young and small and oblivious and his responsibility—)
This one wasn’t as bad, honest! But it was best that he got himself back together before going out in public, really, that incident does not need repeating.
In the end, he chickened out and had them do D-ranks all day while he pretended to laze about with his book, internally struggling to rein in his panic.
He continued to chicken out for a solid week. Every morning, he would freak out. (They were supposed to be his, be his pack, what if—). Then he would steel himself to arrive hours late to training with some idiotic excuse—and do missions the rest of they day. Rinse and repeat.
Today... was different. His nightmares woke him early, of course, but instead of Rin, Obito, Minato-sensei, his father, and the countless other occasions he had failed filling his dreams... it was the genin. Watching his new team die because he failed them (again, he would just fail again—). His new team that he hardly even knew, that he hadn’t taken the time to get to know. His new students. That he was supposed to teach. Teach so that they would live. Naruto. Sakura. Sasuke.
And he was failing them. That part wasn’t a nightmare. That was reality. That was what was happening.
He could change that. This was the one situation that he still had time to fix. He could still fix this.
Rin, Obito, Sensei... they were gone. He couldn’t change that. But his genin (and they were his, were pack), he still had time to save them. To train them. To teach them. Like Minato-sensei taught him.
In the early, dark hours of morning, he dug out weapons and supplies that he hadn’t needed since ANBU. And he prepared for something that was more difficult, stressful, and impossible than any ANBU mission.
As the sky began to lighten, he sat, going over every lesson anybody had ever tried to teach him. His father. Minato-sensei. ANBU drill sergeants. Even Gai. And above all others, one lesson that Obito died to teach him. Those who break the rules are trash. Those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.
And as he set out for the training grounds, on time for the first time in years, he didn’t panic.
He didn’t panic, because today, he knew exactly what he was going to do.
He was going to train them like ANBU recruits are trained. He was going to put them through hell, push them past their breaking point and push some more. He was going to break them down and build them up again, stronger than before and closer to each other than brothers, so that they would rely on each other always.
He was going to train them like Minato-sensei trained him. He was going to train them like every situation they went into was going to be so far out of their skill level it was practically a given that they wouldn’t come back.
He was going to train them for war, so that maybe, this time, someone would outlive him.
//