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Hashirama is smiling the entire time the kids start to gather around him. It takes a few minutes, with Danzou and Saru arriving first, followed by a grumpy Kagami sporting a new bruise on his face from yesterday's practice, and then Torifu. By the time Koharu and Homura appear, the Hokage is the image of excitement, all too wide grins and stretching his body by shifting side to side.
Hashirama counts them out, pointing at each of them as he goes through all six. "Alright," He said cheerfully. "As you can see, I'm not your regular teacher. But Tobirama had to be pulled from the roster to go on a short mission outside of the village, and it was too high of rank to take you all. So I volunteered to take over your training for today."
None of the six genin seemed all too impressed by that fact. Kagami crossed his arms, jutting out his chin, and gave a sideways glance to his teammates. Really ? Him? He mouthed, vaguely gesturing with the tilt of his head at the tall man. Hashirama paused, observing their reactions, and glanced at his own appearance in confusion as six sets of judgemental eyes burned into his flesh. He was-- was fine, right? Hashirama wasn't wearing anything out of the ordinary, just his usual day clothes. A headband across his forehead to try to appear more sensei-like .
Was it the hair? Maybe it was the hair, because they'd never seen him pull it up, right? But Tobirama had warned him against letting his hair remain loose around his students, citing their combination of uncontrolled fire style and vicious hair pulling. The Hokage hesitated, touching his ponytail for a moment, before he clearly tried hiding his obvious dismay by powering through their uninterested silence.
One hand raises quickly.
"Hokage-sama?"
"You can call me Sensei!"
The boy nods, "Right, well Hokage-sensei--" the Akimichi begins, making the adult flinch. Hashirama offers a weak smile, shaking his head.
"Not what I meant, but a good try."
" Hokage-sensei ," Torifu reiterated the butchered name. "Usually when Tobirama-sensei goes on a mission, we just dismiss practice? So maybe we should just not do this?" The boy gives him a strange look, almost desperate and far too worried for his own good. He glanced at his teammates pointedly for a second, using the corner of his eye, and then back at Hashirama.
A warning? No, that's a little too ominous. Just a bout of cold feet. Hashirama claps the boy on the shoulder, offering a little comforting shake. Torifu slumps, his shoulders falling as his head hangs, and something in his stomach twists at the motion.
"I know you all want a day off, but I promised my cute little brother that I would work with you all. But don't worry! We won't do anything too difficult, and I'll buy everyone lunch afterwards, okay?"
(Which to be honest, had been difficult to do! Tobirama had been absolutely adamant that Hashirama should not try to teach his squad. In fact, Tobirama had warned him extensively that these children were difficult, heartless, and should be approached as if they were corned rabid animals. Which seemed like a stretch and was a tad overdramatic, which was strange for his brother. But Hashirama assumed it was jealousy, to try and keep him away so his students didn't decide to favor Hashirama over his brother.
I can barely handle them, Anija. They will destroy any faith you had in this village if you attempt to be around them. Do NOT train them, for your own safety.
But Hashirama was just as stubborn. And he was the Hokage and was more than willing to use the title to get his way, so here he was! Hashirama had always wanted to be a teacher, even for a day. Which was why he was here, against his brother's advice.)
Torifu gives him another pitying look, shaking his head. "You don't understand, Hokage-sensei. You should really cancel practice." He said mournfully, pushing off his substitute teacher's hand before he walked back towards the other five kids waiting for instruction.
Hashirama blinked dumbly at the reaction, but tried not to let it get him down because of course the kids tried to take advantage of him. He would have done the same thing when he was about their age if it meant a day off away from his sensei's prying eyes and harsh instruction. But Hashirama had every intention of being fair and kind and to really educate them, and perhaps even be seen as a better instructor than his brother, so he couldn't let this opportunity pass him by! How often did Hashirama get to leave his stuffy office (besides his sake breaks, his trips to the gambling house, his lunch break, and his secret second lunch break) to go outside and reconnect with nature?
"Alright," Hashirama clapped his hands to get their attention, far too cheerful. "So, let's start with a warm up, alright?"
Saru bounds forward, throwing his arms above his head leisurely in a mock stretch, a pleased glint in his eye. Although, Hashirama noticed thoughtfully, the boy's smile was a little strange. It didn't resemble the usual crooked grin he gave Tobirama on occasion, instead it was pulled too tight at the edges and was almost mischievous. Huh!
He must be excited to get to train under a different instructor. Hashirama felt a soft bloom of pride in his chest at the thought, trying not to let the excitement get to his head. Kagami follows close behind the Sarutobi boy, pressing his arm around the other genin's shoulders.
"I'm so happy you're in charge of us today, Hokage-sensei." Kagami tells him. Hashirama brightened at his words even further, already wondering if he could convince his brother to let him be their full time leader.
He was the Hokage, after all, right? If he demanded these genin be his students, surely Tobirama would respect that, right?
(He would not.)
"Oh." Saru pressed his fist into his open palm. He tilted his head curiously, glancing around at everyone. "Hokage-sensei, we should do the bell test!"
Kagami is beaming at the thought,"You know what the bell test is, right, Sensei?"
Oh! Oh, that was familiar! Hashirama nodded his head, because the concept was familiar enough to him, because his brother had sat down with him with the concept before he had become a teacher. In theory it was a wonderful way to gage a team's level of skill and teamwork, but Tobirama had been barbaric about it. His test had lasted nearly six and a half hours, against six nine year olds, and he'd nearly drowned two of them. Nobody had managed to get close enough to even touch a bell, most of them had been tied to posts in the middle of the training field like a bout of public humiliation, and Hashirama had been forced to step in when his brother threatened to leave them there all night.
"But why the bell test?" He wonders aloud.
Koharu pipes up from her place beside Danzou, where she had a hand pressed against his arm for some reason. "You've never trained with us before, so you'll need to get a scope of our abilities." She explained reasonably. "It's a good idea."
Well that made sense, sure. It was better than Hashirama's original idea of just I'll make it up as we go -concept, and it would kill plenty of time until lunch. He stretched his arms out, and inside his palm he crafted three pieces of wood into the shape of bells. Using his own sash, he tied the pieces of wood onto his side, letting them dangle from the lower edge.
"Alright." Hashirama agreed, pleased by their enthusiasm and thoughtfulness. "Stretching first, and then bell test."
Torifu gives him another pitiful look.
___
Kagami regroups with his teammates, the taste of soot on his tongue as he dives down into the trees, landing beside Hiruzen.
"I don't think Hokage-sensei is having much fun."
He glances back up at the flames that he caused, and to the flailing Hokage as he tried to put them out in between Torifu's expansion technique sending rocks at his head. The Hokage let out an undignified cry, throwing himself out of the way, and the fire began to spread across the thick roots and greenery sprouting from the ground.
"I almost feel bad." Kagami notes. " Almost. So what else can we do to him? Any ideas?" He glanced around the little group huddled up around him. He heard another noise, a cross between a sob and a laugh, and decided that Hashirama-sensei would probably leave a negative review about their team to their actual sensei.
"Tobirama-sensei told us to behave when we train with different people," Danzou grumbles, always the one to spoil any situation that might upset their teacher.
"Oh shut up, Dan! We are behaving. This is how we act around Tobirama-sensei. The only difference is that Hashirama-sensei trusted us. Tobirama-sensei would never fall for that."
Koharu nodded thoughtfully, "True. And Tobirama-sensei wouldn't be trying to put out the fires Kagami and Hiruzen started. He just blames it on another team later so they have to deal with the damages." She added, glancing back up. Her gaze softened. "I think Homura just tried to punch him. Oh-- oh! Hokage-sensei punched him back. Okay, well let's wrap this up, what else can we do to him?"
"You're all terrible." Danzou grumbled, as if he hadn't been the one to smack Hashirama in the face with a wall of mud ten minutes earlier when the man was trying to get them to calm down.
"I don't know." Hiruzen says honestly. "Give me a second to think it over."
"Maybe we're going too far?" Danzou suggests, frowning. He glanced across the field with the rest of them as Hashirama-sensei tried beating the fire out with his bare hands, only to be met with Homura's flash tag, making him jump. "Nobody's even trying to get the bells. We're just trying to make him cry."
"Oh!" Kagami startles gleefully, shaking Hiruzen's arm. He stands up, strutting, far too pleased by whatever was going on inside his head. He bulked up like a preening bird. "We could poison him!"
"Poison?" Danzou whispers, aghast.
Kagami pats his shoulder comfortingly, "Lightly poison." He corrects, as if somehow that made a difference at all while they're all plotting different ways in which to terrorize the man.
"Where are we even going to get poison? Unless Kagami has some stashed away." Danzou gave him a weird look.
The Uchiha shook his head, "Tobirama-sensei confiscated it after the Uzumaki incident. Apparently we still owe them for that."
"That was a mess."
"You shouldn't have done that to the poor delegate. It became an international incident, remember?"
Kagami shrugged, undisturbed. "I can't change it now." He waved them off. "He took my darts too." He said mournfully.
Koharu perks up, "Well, we learned how to make poisons out of plants in my kunoichi classes. I think I still have the pamphlets…?" She offers, jumping to her feet. She goes through her pouches, digging through her stuff.
"We're not poisoning anybody!" Hiruzen told them, glancing around at the group. "Kagami, stop suggesting that. We're better than that, okay? Besides, I don't think poison works on Hokage-sensei."
Kagami pouted, arms crossing over his chest. He glanced back out at the flailing man, shaking his head in disappointment.
"How long are we going to drag this on?" Danzou questioned. "When Tobirama-sensei gets back…" He trailed off, unsure of the situation at hand. Either their teacher would decide their behavior was so miserable and inappropriate that they deserved some sort of punishment. Or Tobirama-sensei would disapprove quietly, and just be thankful they were monsters to somebody else for a change, maybe even amused it was his brother.
"Until it isn't funny anymore." Koharu answered. "Look at him! Our Hokage's nearly in tears!"
Hiruzen grins, bouncing onto the heels of his feet. "It's never going to not be funny. Ooh, what if we cut his hair?"
"That would be too far." Danzou protested weakly.
"Exactly, let's do it." Kagami replied cheerfully.
He glanced up at the flailing man again, just as a cry broke out.
"I give up!" Hokage-sensei cries out. He waves his soundless wooden bells in the air. His arms are high above his head, and he's glancing around as if he expects them to come out of the shadows when he isn't paying absolute attention. "Come get the bells, I give up! Here! I'll lay them out here for you! I'm done! Please!"
Kagami's smile is pitying.
"Aw," Kagami cooed out, shaking his head as he started pulling out rigged explosive tags. "He still thinks this is about the bells."
"I would like to apologize." Hashirama says, when his brother lumbers into their shared dining room. His brother gives him a tired grunt, waving him off. It was dark outside, far too late to be awake, though all the oil lamps in the house were lit. Tobirama didn't acknowledge him as he began to systematically begin to strip off his heavy armour and fur.
It smells faintly of smoke, but the younger doesn't acknowledge that. It isn't surprising, his brother was a klutz in the kitchen, and he'd managed to burn water before.
Tobirama puttered around their house, not acknowledging his brother as he settled his sandals neatly at the door. He put his things away, in the unused walkway outside the kitchen door. Tobirama slouched against the counter in the kitchen for a moment, rubbing at his eyes where dark bruises were beginning to form from sleep deprivation, before willing himself up to search for a meal and a drink. He lit their stove automatically, moving the tea pot onto the flame so it began to boil. He goes to the cupboard to get rice out, but stops as his mind seems to process.
His hand lingers in the air. His whole body froze.
"What did you say, Anija?" He said, very slowly.
Hashirama is sitting at the kitchen table, on his knees. A cold cup of tea clutched in between shaking fingers, and he shook his head before the words came back out. Words that had never been said to his brother in their entire thirty years old life, even when he was ridiculously wrong or made a miserable mistake.
"I would like to apologize." Hashirama murmurs. "You were right. I'm sorry."
Tobirama spun on his heel to examine his brother, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. His eyes trace over every of his brother and-- oh . Hashirama's hair is cropped short, with blacked pieces throughout the usually brilliant chestnut brown. There are no physical injuries, of course not when the older Senju had an astounding healing ability, but the look in his eyes is enough to emphasize his turmoil. Haunted, pained.
Broken.
Tobirama crosses his arms, "You tried to train my students, didn't you?" He questioned, unsympathetic. "After I told you not to."
"I'm sorry!" Hashirama cried out pathetically. "They're just kids . I didn't know they were like that-- look what they did to my hair! Sarutobi set it aflame, I had to cut it off. But it still smells like smoke!"
" Anija ."
"Just kids." Hashirama repeats, shaking his head frantically. He reached up, clutching at his brother's sleeves, keeping Tobirama as close as he could. "They were just kids. I gave them the bells, Tobira." He whines out, glancing around as if he were waiting for them to appear. "I threw it at them! Why would they keep going if I gave them the bells? They had already won, but--"
"They didn't accept that?" Tobirama took his cup of cold tea, sipping at it with a grimace. He gave it an offended stare, as if it had personally ruined his night.
"They kept trying to go combust me! With the tags that you gave them-- why would you give them those?" Hashirama stuck his finger in his brother's face accusingly. "Who gives those monsters explosive tags? Who let them become genin?"
Tobirama scoffed, "You should count your blessings that I managed to take away Torifu's axe and Kagami's darts. That is as far as I wished to fight with them over what they can and cannot have."
"Kagami's darts…?" Hashirama said breathlessly, as if he were afraid of the question and of the answer. As if he needed more nightmare material about those devil children.
Tobirama shrugged boredly. "Kagami liked to throw poisoned darts at people-- remember the Uzumaki incident? Nevermind, it doesn't matter, I took them away from him." But even knowing the Uchiha boy was without those, there was very little comfort to be had from that, for either of the Senju.
"Well-- they took my gambling money, too! They set my hair on fire, and then they tripped me up into the river and held me down so I would drown, and they stole my headband and all of my money!"
Tobirama raised an eyebrow.
"You were robbed." He repeats in amusement. "By children, I want you to remember that."
" Your wicked children. They took my money. I was going to buy them lunch with some of it, and they just took it." Hashirama spit out.
Tobirama hides a smile beneath his palm, "I'm sorry my students stole your lunch money, Anija."
"Don't say it like that!" Hashirama wailed. "Don't mock me after what they've done. They set my hair on fire. My hair, Tobirama."
"Hair grows back."
"My dignity does not." Hashirama argued. He sunk down lower, head in his hands. "I just wanted to be Hashirama-sensei-- and they couldn't even call me that! That's how mean they are!" He groaned, sinking lower onto himself. "They even made fun of me."
"Made fun of you? Anija, they're children. Is your self worth so low that you are hurt by the cruel words said by actual children. You are a grown man and the Hokage."
Hashirama shrunk in on himself, sulking dramatically. "They made fun of my ears, you know I'm sensitive about that. That's it. I'm taking you off the roster. You aren't allowed to have any missions without your team. Nobody else should ever be allowed near those monsters."
"I'm in so much pain." Tobirama replied, without a trace of emotion on his face. "How could you insult my students like that?"
"You didn't tell me they were like that!"
"They've caused two international incidents with Uzushio, why would you assume they weren't terrible?" Tobirama replied, sipping at his cold tea. He scrunched up his nose. "Is this the new modern brand? I don't care for it."
"I didn't make it for you." Hashirama replied, grumpy. He laid his cheek against the table, squeezing his eyes shut. "How do you handle them? Why do they listen to you?"
"Because they know if they don't, there will consquences. It took one or two times of throwing them them off the Hokage monument. It's really about being more frightening than they are." Tobirama replied steadily. "And sometimes, on their worse days, I turn their attention onto each other. It's safer to let them go after each other's throats than my own."
"That's such a good idea." Hashirama said in astonishment. "Why didn't I think of that? I should've-- should've done something. One of them shoved dirt in my face. And then they took my Hokage hat, and I wasn't even teaching them at that point. I was back at the office trying to work. Do you...do you think I'll ever get my hat back?"
Tobirama paused, considering the question. He drummed his fingers against the table in amusement.
"Depends." He replies. "Which one took it?"
"Homura."
"Absolutely not. You should request a new one." Tobirama replied evenly. "It isn't worth the fight to take it away. He's a biter."
Hashirama rubbed his arms in phantom pain, though there were no marks. "Oh, I know." He mumbles, whining. "And I keep thinking I see them! I can't sleep, knowing they're out there. They told me, when they took my Hokage hat and put paint in my chair, they said they would be back for me. It isn't over!"
"I'm sure they're done tormenting you by now, Anija. They're only twelve, I'm sure they've forgotten about it by now. They have very poor attention spans." Tobirama replies, although it isn't said comfortingly. He stood up, dumping out the cup into the new modern water basin his brother had installed. He turned his attention away from his panicking and teary-eyed brother, fiddling with the kettle.
"No, they aren't." Hashirama replied, glancing out the window in the darkness outside. "They're just waiting."