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(I don't own any characters etc etc)
In their respective homes, the five members of Team 7 looked out their windows at the sky, and sighed.
"Storm clouds," they all grumbled. "Maybe it will pass before tomorrow..."
And with that hope, they went to sleep.
___
The next morning, they woke, and looked out their windows, again.
And sighed, again.
"Rain," they grumbled. "Today of all days?! Maybe it will end before we meet up..."
And with that, they started to get ready for the day.
___
A few hours later, they were standing together under the shelter of a poncho Iruka and Kakashi were holding over their heads.
They collectively sighed.
"Of all the days for heavy rain," Naruto complained. "Why today?!"
"Well," Iruka said, "we should be grateful we even get to do this."
"Can't we ask for another day?" Sakura sighed.
"Or a rain delay?" Sasuke added.
Kakashi shook his head. "They're doing events like this over a three week period to take into account missions and the like. And we were on a mission last week, so this was the day we signed up for when we got back. We can't switch days."
"After all," Iruka agreed, "this sort of thing happens on missions."
They continued to look out from underneath the poncho, glumly.
"Of all the days for the obstacle course!" Naruto sighed.
______
"Remember," Iruka said as they trudged through the beginnings of mud, in the rain, uncovered, to the start line. "We move as a team, as slow as our slowest person. This is just the first formal event, and we'll probably do it later in the competition again to see how we've changed. Be safe, have fun, work together."
"Maa, sensei, you're treating them like children," Kakashi complained. "They have to learn how to work as shinobi in all types of weather," he said, stepping over a large puddle.
"They are children," Iruka said, rolling his eyes and fixing his hair as it dampened with the rain. "And I did train them at the academy in inclement weather..."
"It just usually wasn't as bad as this," Sakura said, raising her voice as the rain intensified. "I'm glad we all decided to wear dark clothes today, mud is too hard to get out of my red clothing!"
"It's getting harder to see," Sasuke said, wiping his face.
"This is terrible!" Naruto shouted.
"We can do this!" Iruka cheered.
"If you wimp out, I'm kicking you off the team," Kakashi said.
"Sensei!" the genin yelled as they stopped next to a red flag, flapping violently in the wind.
"What?" Kakashi asked, shrugging.
"Team 7!" a judge, from their dry shelter, shouted. "Are you ready?"
Kakashi saluted.
"Get set!" the judge yelled. "Three....two....one...begin!"
And with that, they set off.
The obstacle course started off, as many do, easy enough. Or, it would have been, if it weren't for the mud and rain.
They easily jumped over a three foot pool of water, but the genin slipped on their landing, as it was slick wood.
Iruka and Kakashi steadied them, and Kakashi took the lead, Iruka bringing up the rear.
They hopped up onto balance beams, rectangular pieces of wood that were fairly simple, moved to the end, and jumped down to run a short distance to a rope climb.
Kakashi flew up, and Naruto and Sasuke went up the two ropes at similar paces.
Once they were halfway up, Sakura and Iruka began, Iruka keeping pace with Sakura, who was moving at a good speed. After they were all on the platform, a judge pulled out shuriken for them to throw at targets below, at varying distance.
"At least one in each target before you can move on," the judge said, and watched as Iruka and Kakashi had the genin throw the weapons, helping to show them how to better grip the metal in the rain, and reminding them to account for the winds.
The genin got the five closest targets, including the two that were second farthest from the end, and their adult team members encouraged them to try the farthest.
They tried once each but were unable, and exchanged a look.
"Senseis, you do it!" Sasuke yelled. "We're losing time!"
Iruka and Kakashi looked at each other and nodded, grabbing a shuriken each.
"You take the left, I'll take the right?" Iruka asked, and Kakashi nodded, before each man took aim and paused, letting their weapons fly.
The genin squinted to try to see the far targets in the rain, and a yellow flag was raised at the end of the obstacle, signifying they had completed it.
The team cheered, and Iruka ushered them along.
"That was great!" Naruto said as they jumped off the platform. "I can't wait to do that myself!"
"I just wish the skies would stop raining!" Sakura grumbled, running alongside her teammates, who nodded.
They ran over and under some tree limbs in the next obstacle, before coming to an eight foot tall wall.
Kakashi jumped up and landed on top in a crouch, and the genin stared at him.
"It's so tall!" Sakura said. "What do we do?"
"One at a time, get a running start and jump up, seeing if you can use chakra control to get up. If you can't, I'll grab you from up here and will help pull you up, Iruka-sensei will help from below," Kakashi instructed them, and they did as told.
First was Sakura, who showed good chakra control to get a strong foothold, followed by Sasuke, who had a higher jump, and Naruto, who put more effort into his, shaking the wall.
Kakashi looked down at Iruka and winked.
"Need a hand?"
"Thanks," Iruka laughed, wiping rain off his face, "but I'm good."
He jumped up and landed next to Kakashi, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Let's see the other obstacles real quick," Iruka said, and pointed to one or two, leaning into talk into Kakashi's ear. The genin watched them plan briefly before they jumped down.
"Just looking ahead," Kakashi said with an eye smile, and they took off again, this time to large round balance beams, tree trunks that were slick from years of use and the rain.
"I think they oiled these," Iruka laughed, as the genin slipped repeatedly. They had sandwiched the adults between the genin so that they could reach out and steady the children, or the kids could reach out to steady themselves.
"Oh no!" Naruto said from behind Iruka, as his foot slipped.
"Chakra control, Naruto!" Kakashi and Iruka both yelled, and Iruka reached out for Narutu behind him, as the blond fell off...landing in a big mud puddle.
The others couldn't help but laugh as they finished and Naruto stood up, wiping mud off his face and frowning.
"This is gross!" he shouted, trying to wipe himself off.
"I got you," Kakashi said, running through some hand seals and sending a fierce water dragon at Naruto.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto shrieked. "Why did you do that?"
Kakashi shrugged, pushing wet hair away from his visible eye. "You were wet anyway, but now you're not as muddy. You're welcome. Let's keep going, shall we?"
Iruka shook his head and smiled and they set off again, climbing up and down walls of netting, pushing large and heavy items to a set location together, and going on their hands and knees under low-hanging vines.
Standing up from that obstacle, Iruka sighed.
"I guess we're all muddy, now," he laughed. "That would have only been a dusty obstacle if it wasn't raining so much. But hey, we're almost done!"
"But the next one is hard," Sakura sighed, warily looking ahead as they ran in the sodden grass, passing a small raised shelter hosting a judge.
Monkey bars over deep, muddy water stood ahead of them.
"You're already wet, you can't get much wetter," Kakashi commented, and walked up the short ramp to the start of the obstacle. "Who's up first?"
Sasuke frowned and ran up, jumping up and starting to move across the bars.
"Sakura?" Kakashi prompted once Sasuke was halfway done, and she nodded, jumping up and moving, a bit slower and more cautiously than Sasuke.
"Naruto," Kakashi instructed, once Sasuke was almost done and Sakura was about halfway.
"No problem!" the blond said, jumping up and starting. "I can go even faster than Sasuke, watch me!"
"Naruto!" Iruka called out, standing next to Kakashi. "You can't go too fast, Sakura is ahead of you still!"
Unfortunately, the adults could only watch as Naruto rushed, moving wildly from one bar to the next, one hand on each, a vastly different approach from Sakura's method of two hands on each bar before moving to the next.
"Look out, dobe!" Sasuke called out, and Sakura made the mistake of trying to look behind her, only to feel Naruto swing into her, and they both plummeted down.
Iruka and Kakashi flinched as a loud splash was heard, two-thirds of their genin sputtering in the muddy water.
"Naruto!" Sakura shrieked. "I was almost done!"
"But Sakura!" Naruto whined, "I was moving too fast, I couldn't stop!"
Iruka shook his head, watching the scene.
"Well," he said to Kakashi, "at least they're working as a team to get out of the water."
Kakashi followed his gaze, to the other side where Sasuke was holding onto a vertical beam on the obstacle with one hand, pulling his teammates out with the other.
"Maa, all good," Kakashi said. "After you," he said to Iruka, gesturing across the water.
"Thank you," Iruka laguhed. He jumped up and set off, and Kakashi watched him gracefully move across the obstacle, one hand on a bar before swinging to the next, at a steady but firm pace.
Kakashi nodded to himself, approving of the man's technique.
"Chakra?" he called out, and Iruka jumped down to the other side and shook his head.
"Just brute strength," he laughed. "But it is slippery..."
Kakashi nodded and took off, swinging gracefully and arriving next to the other man in a few seconds.
"And that's how it's done," he said to his soggy team, who rolled their eyes. "Next!"
Two more obstacles later, they were at the creek crossing. They stared at it, eyes wide.
On any other day, it was a rope crossing, of sorts, with one rope a few feet above the water, crossing the creek, and another a few feet above that, with the intention that a person would stand with their feet on the bottom rope, hands gripping the top, and shimmy sideways over the water.
On any other day, it would have been as designed.
Today, however, with all the rain, the creek was more like a raging river, overflowing onto its banks by several feet on either side, and the bottom rope was nowhere to be seen.
The team looked at each other.
"I think a new plan is in order," Kakashi said. "You take one, I take two?" he said to Iruka, who nodded.
"What are we doing?" Sasuke asked, wiping rain off his face.
"How about, you and Naruto hop on my shoulders," Kakashi said, "Sakura, you with Iruka-sensei. The rope is pointless, and we're not supposed to just justu over."
"And it's a bit too fast for walking on top," Iruka said. "The old-fashioned way it is, then."
"The what?" Naruto asked, but the adults had crouched down and scooped the genin up.
The genin watched wide-eyed, and hanging on for dear life, as the adults walked forward, ankle deep into the water, and kept going, until they were submerged to almost their chests, the genin scrambling to get tighter holds.
"Everyone okay?" Iruka called out, keeping his focus on the other side of the bank, his grip firm on Sakura.
After what felt like hours, they had crossed the racing water and were now on a road, where a large arrow pointed to their right.
"We have to run back to the start line to finish," Kakashi said.
"Race you?" Iruka suggested, and before Kakashi could answer, he took off running. "Hold on, Sakura!" he shouted, and she squealed with laughter as they ran.
"Oh no you don't!" Kakashi roared, and took off, Naruto and Sasuke cheering him on.
They closed in on Iruka and Sakura, and had just barely taken the lead when they crossed the start line, bending down so the genin could jump off.
Iruka and Kakashi paused to catch their breaths, the genin chattering and laughing, waiting to see how they had done.
"Twenty three minutes and thirty eight seconds," a judge announced, just as the rain stopped and the sun came out.
The team cheered and looked around at the mud, their wet clothes, and the bright sunlight.
Sighing, they squeezed the water out of their clothes but praised each other, and headed out of the training ground.
"What happened to you?"someone shouted as they walked, and they turned to see Team 10 coming out of a cafe together.
Iruka and Kakashi exchanged a look as Asuma stared at them in surprise.
"Obstacle course," Kakashi explained with a shrug. "Why?"
"You look like a drowned rat," Ino said to Sakura. "I bet our team was faster!"
"Well, it was our first time, and it was raining," Sakura said, rolling her eyes. "And we did it together, so that's what counts!"
Sasuke nodded and Naruto grinned.
"I'm tired just hearing about it," Shikamaru drawled. "Actually doing it once was enough for me."
"You'd better go home and dry off," Inoichi said, joining them. "Can't have you catching a cold and making our victory too easy for us!" he laughed, and the others shook their heads.
"He's right, though," Iruka said. "Let's get going."
They waved goodbye and left, discussing going out for lunch later after they were in dry clothes and rested.
"Don't be late," Iruka warned Kakashi, who shrugged.
"Me?" he asked, making Iruka laugh and roll his eyes. "Never!"
________
True to his word, surprisingly, Kakashi was not late, and they had a pleasant meal together, the genin almost falling asleep into their food by the end.
"They did well today," Iruka said to Kakashi, smiling, and the copy nin nodded.
"They had good support," Kakashi said. "I'm glad they picked you for our team."
"Thank you," Iruka said with a smile. "I think we make good partners, you and I."
"I agree," Kakashi replied, with an eye smile. "Regardless of what happens this summer, I look forward to working with you, and getting to know you better. I've heard a lot about you from the kids."
Iruka felt his face heat slightly at the kind words. "Me too. And thank you for not pulling out your book today," he laughed.
Kakashi shrugged. "It would have gotten wet in the rain. But, if you'd like to head somewhere else, we could read together? I have all of Jiraiya's books..."
Iruka laughed and rolled his eyes. "Another time, perhaps. I think we should get the bill and get these guys back home."
They ensured the genin got home, sleepy even though it was the afternoon, and walked a short distance themselves before reaching their separate streets.
"Have a good rest of your day, Kakashi-sensei," Iruka said. "See you later."
"Maa, we're on the same team, when it's just us, Kakashi is fine," he said, and Iruka nodded.
"Take care, Kakashi," Iruka said with a smile, and Kakashi waved as Iruka turned away.
Kakashi watched Iruka walk a short distance before he turned a corner and was out of sight. "Time together just us...another time indeed, sensei," he said, as he turned to walk home himself.