Chapter Text
Kakashi was ready to fail another group of Genin. Honestly, it was Hokage’s fault. That old man knew that he would just fail all little kids he sent his way. Even if it was the last Uchiha, the host of the Kyuubi and some civilian girl. Even if said host was his sensei’s son. Even more of a reason to fail them. He had been forbidden to interact with Naruto for his whole life and suddenly they expected him to become a good teacher to the boy.
He sighed. Hopefully this would be over quickly.
As he stepped into the classroom a pie hit him straight in the face. He hadn’t even seen it coming. Shit. Maybe he was getting out of shape since leaving ANBU. No matter. He wiped the pie of his face and looked at the kids without letting an emotion slip of his masked face.
Naruto looked a little disappointed in him. Sasuke looked like he was fighting a smile, which certainly did not fit with his profile. Sakura sat on her desk and ate a piece of pie, but she looked a little disappointed as well.
“Meet me on the roof in five minutes.”
And he disappeared in a shunshin. Exactly five minutes later the children marched on the roof (is it normal for Genin to be that fast and punctual? He didn’t know any, so probably yes). Naruto in his horrendous orange jumpsuit and a playful grin on his face. Sasuke looked very angry at nothing at all and Sakura had a hard time looking away from her shoes, head held low and arms clasped behind her back.
That seemed a little more like what he had expected of them. Maybe he should have read more than just the first page of their files.
“Great, why don’t you introduce yourselves.”
Naruto piped up. “Why don’t you give us an example Sensei?”
Urgh, this is gonna be horrible.
“My name is Kakashi Hatake, I like some things, dislike others. I have hobbies, but I won’t tell you about them.”
The blond boy grinned as if he had expected that answer.
“My name is Naruto Uzumaki and I will be Hokage one day. I like umm…” he looked between his two teammates as if they could remind him, but they just shrugged, “ah yes, ramen. I love ramen and I hate the five minutes it takes for ramen to cook. My hobbies are seal…umm read…no, umm…”
Sakura stopped his rambling by hitting the back of his head lightly. Sasuke shook his head when he looked at his blond teammate.
Naruto laughed sheepishly and continued. “My hobby is planting. Yeah that’s good. Oh and pranking, I guess. Oh wait I didn’t say that. I will deny every prank you try to pin on me.”
Sakura buried her face in her hands and groaned. Then she looked up at Kakashi, gave him a smile, like ‘do you see what I have to deal with?’ and started her own introduction.
“My name is Haruno Sakura, and one day I will be the wife of Uchiha Sasuke. I like Sasuke, I mean look at his…hair. And face. Yes, totally. I dislike people who don’t like Sasuke and my hobbies are fangirling over Sasuke.”
She said all of that with a straight face while looking Kakashi in the eye. Without even looking at her teammate. Said teammate murmured in a low tone “That’s a bit much don’t you think?”, while she answered in an equally hushed tone “shut up and do better.”
Sasuke cleared his throat and said in a very dramatic tone: “I am Uchiha Sasuke. I don’t like anything and I dislike everything and my dream is to kill my brother who definitely murdered my whole clan all on his own.”
Kakashi looked between the three kids in front of him. They all stared at him expectantly. Something was wrong. They were messing with him. But all they had said fit exactly with what little he had read of their profiles. The dead-last, the avenger and the fangirl. And yet he felt like they were reading of a badly written script.
It didn’t matter. They would fail his test tomorrow and Kakashi could go home and continue to live his life in misery and hate. Great.
“See me tomorrow at training ground seven at five in the morning. Don’t eat anything, you’re just gonna puke.”
And he disappeared in another shunshin, leaving behind three very unimpressed Genin. What was Iruka teaching these kids nowadays?
He went home and actually read the files he had been given. Something was going on here. But the rest of the files didn’t contradict what he had guessed from the first page. He was supposed to have three idiotic kids and not…whatever he had gotten. No. He was not gonna figure out what had happened. He would fail these kids and shove them unto the next unsuspecting Jonin-sensei. Who cares if he was the last person who could teach Sasuke about the Sharingan. Or that that was his sensei’s son. Nope. He was not intrigued at all. This was not his job at all. (Except that it was.)
The next morning he woke up at 6:30 and wondered if the kids had actually waited this long. He got ready and arrived at the training field at seven. The three of them were there, playing cards. Sakura looked in his direction for less than a second, but there is no way she could have sensed him. Must be a coincidence, since the three of them continued playing cards.
Kakashi let them wallow for a little while, visited the memorial stone and finally resigned himself to grace the Genin with his presence an hour later.
His appearance was met with three kids looking up at him eagerly, not even slightly mad about him being almost three hours late. At least until both Sakura and Sasuke shot Naruto a glance. The blonde boy looked between his teammates, then at Kakashi.
“Sensei how dare you be late to our first training. I mean that is just rude. Shouldn’t shinobi be more punctual?”
Sakura nodded and gave Kakashi a disapproving look.
“Maa well, I had things to do, help an old lady cross the street, get a cat out of a tree, you know how it is. Now then, it’s time for your test. I have these two bells. Those who get them will pass, those who don’t get sent back to the academy.”
All he got as an answer was a “hn” from Sasuke.
“Great. Let’s start.”
And he disappeared. From his hiding place he saw Sasuke hiding in bushes (badly) and Sakura hiding behind a tree (also badly) and Naruto standing in the middle of the field, grinning like a madman.
Naruto held up a sign and hundreds of shadow clones started attacking Kakashi. Hundreds. The boy may be a Jinchuuriki, but even then, it was a bit much. Maybe he was just immune to chakra exhaustion. But even with hundreds of Naruto, he managed to find the real one and managed to tie him to a post without much effort. The boy barely seemed to be struggling. Was he even taking this seriously?
No matter. Next up was Sakura. All he had to do for her was show her a simple genjutsu of Sasuke being injured. It worked like a charm…somehow.
Sakura saw the genjutsu, her hands twitched into the release seal, before she thought better of it.
“Oh no, Sasuke this is so horrible. Eek.” The supposed scream was pitiful. She didn’t even scream. She just said eek out loud and laid down on the floor. Did she…pass out? Yes? Maybe? No matter. Another win for Kakashi, yay.
Last but not least. The avenger. The last Uchiha. Once he found Sasuke the boy offered up a bit of resistance at least. He threw a few kunai, a katon jutsu, and a bit of passable taijutsu. But even he was beaten rather easily. Must be because they are Genin, right?
Kakashi had never really been a standard Genin, and hadn’t had contact with normal Genin either. His own team didn’t count, it was wartime and things were different back then. Maybe he should have asked about power levels in Genin. Well, now it was too late.
He officially told them the test was over, which didn’t seem to rattle the three of them too much. Weird kids. Then he told them not to share any food with Naruto.
He didn’t even need to walk away. As soon as he had spoken those words, both Sakura and Sasuke pulled out an extra lunchbox and started feeding it to Naruto. While looking Kakashi in the eye. They were smiling.
Cheeky little brats.
It seems even if they could do nothing else, at least they had teamwork. He didn’t know how or why, because they definitely shouldn’t have any teamwork at all. But they had. And they were weird, and Kakashi was bored, and shit. He realized that he was actually going to let them pass. This would probably be the worst decision of his life. Then again, his entire life had been bad decisions.
So he passed them.
And for the first times it seemed like their reaction of joy was real.
Asuma knew what he was getting into. The new Ino-Chika-Cho trio. They should already have some teamwork at least and Asuma was familiar enough with their formation that he could teach them easily enough. Being a Jonin sensei couldn’t be that hard. He actually wanted to do this he wasn’t Kakashi after all. Still, his kids seemed just a little bit weird.
“I’m Asuma and I will be your sensei. Why don’t you introduce yourselves?”
First weird thing. All three of his students looked at him like they wanted to tackle him into a hug, cry, and then wrap him up in blankets and put him somewhere safe. Weird enough.
Second weird thing. The Nara started introducing himself. He should be last. The lazy one of the team.
“I’m Shikamaru. I like cloud watching and dislike working hard. My hobby is cloud watching. I look forward to working with you.”
Asuma nodded politely and looked at the Akimichi and the Yamanaka.
The Yamanaka went next.
“I’m Ino, and I look forward to working with you as well. I like…Sasuke…because I am most definitely straight. Haha. I dislike people who trample our flowers. My hobby is gardening.”
That was weird thing number three.
Shikamaru just muttered a very silent “troublesome”.
Last one was the Akimichi.
“I’m Choji. I like eating and I dislike expired food. My hobby is eating.”
"Was that sarcasm?" Asuma asked.
"What? Me? Sarcasm? Noo."
“Great. Next up we will do a little test and if you pass it you will officially be under my tutelage until you become Genin. Let’s do this.”
Weird thing number four: All three kids moved almost rehearsed. They weren’t bad per se, but their movement was stiff. They passed the test alright, but it was almost as if they had a solution to the problem and would only choose that one way to do it. That didn’t seem like something a Nara would do. Then again these were kids. And he hadn’t been a Jonin sensei before.
How weird could it be?
Kurenai looked at her cute little students. This would be her first time teaching kids, she was a little nervous. But it would be fine. Weirdly enough, Kurenai looked more nervous about the test than her Genin. And they were the ones who wanted to be promoted. She had nothing to lose here.
But she didn’t get to Jonin rank by backing down from a challenge. So she smiled at the kids and introduced herself.
“I’m Yuuhi Kurenai, and if you pass my test, I will be your sensei. We will spar a little and I will test your capabilities in other areas as well. I like the colour red and dislike people looking down on me.”
The Inuzuka boy was the first to introduce himself.
“My name is Kiba, and this is my partner Akamaru. I like playing with Akamaru and dislike having to clean at home. My hobby is drawing.”
He smiled at her and then clapped his female teammate on the back. The Hyuuga.
“I’m Hinata. I like reading and dislike slavery seals. My hobby is writing.”
One of those was not like the other. But the girl’s smile didn’t betray that she had said something weird, even if Kiba looked as if he was trying to stifle laughter.
The Aburame interrupted before anyone could ask Hinata any questions.
“I’m Shino. I like spring, dislike bug spray and my hobby is discovering new insects.”
Kurenai nodded and got up to conduct her test. The kids were a little weird, but they were gonna be shinobi, so that was basically a prerequisite. The other teams were probably like this as well…right? She would ask later. For now she had a team to judge. But she had no doubt that she would pass them.
Gai was ready for another day of youthful team mission. They had a few D-ranks today, but that would serve as a great lesson and even works for the benefit of Konoha!
Something did seem a little weird though. His students were listening to him. They didn’t interrupt him. They didn’t complain. They didn’t fight one another.
They must have finally found their spirit of youth!
Somewhere in the village of Sunagakure, Baki looked suspiciously between his three students. The siblings were…talking. That didn’t seem right. Why hasn’t Gaara tried to kill them yet? Why weren’t Temari and Kankuro running away in fear? Something must be up.
Then again, actually working with them had been so much easier. Maybe he would let things be for a while longer…
Somewhere deep under Konoha an old man was stabbed by a pale boy with a genuine smile. The village would be none the wiser.
If someone else would take up the mantle of the elder…maybe it would even be better for Konoha.
In the hideout of the Akatsuki, a man opened his eye and prepared for a better future.