Chapter Text
“All right, team, we've done a great job today so far!” Kakashi gave his students his signature smile, clapping his hands together as the tired, slumped over bodies of his cute little students sent him adorable little glares.
The closest comparison that Kakashi could compare the look to was when his ninkens were still growing puppies, and first trying their little paws at growling. Much to their consternation, however, they ended up making heart-wrenching barks instead.
Well, Kakashi mused, he supposed that to normal civilians, the glares his students were sending would perhaps look downright terrifying, but it was a pity for his students that he was a certified Very Qualified Shinobi, and their glares were something akin to tiny pinpricks to a seasoned shinobi such as he. Well, according to the testament of other shinobi—including his very own comrades-in-arms—that was.
Kakashi continued, “Because we've worked very hard so far today, I—”
Naruto jumped up from where he was lying face-down on the dirt ground and pointed an accusing finger at Kakashi. It was rather unsanitary considering they were in the main streets, but hey, Kakashi was a shinobi; he'd seen and done worse things, with one prominent example coming to mind being bathing in his enemies’ blood. After all, he did specialize in assassination when he still served Konoha as an ANBU. In any case, he couldn't exactly judge his blond student for laying on the dirty ground, when the aforementioned was a regular occurrence for him. “‘We?!’” the boy screeched loudly.
Kakashi kept his smile pasted on his face—not that they could even see it under his age-old trusty mask—but he could feel phantom blood dripping down his poor, desecrated ears.
The blond boy inherited a lot from his mother; Kakashi could compile a whole list and a normal-sized scroll wouldn't fit everything he'd want and need to put down. Unfortunately, over the past few weeks that Team Seven had been operational, he and the other members of the team were quickly learning first-hand that her lungs were another thing to add to that horrendously long list.
Kakashi sometimes wondered how the quiet, calm Minato-sensei took part in making such a loud being. He wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that Naruto was in fact 99% made up of Kushina, and only 1% of the boy's genes—his colouring and the y-chromosome, to be more specific—originated from the elusive genes of the deceased Fourth Hokage, may his soul rest in peace (at least, as much as it could considering where he was) inside the Shinigami's stomach. Everything else originated from the infamous Red Hot-Blooded Habanero. Kakashi was partly convinced Naruto was some sort of experimental clone. It would definitely explain why he, himself, was such an expert at making shadow clones.
To be frank, Kakashi wasn't sure whether he should be scared or impressed with how much his sunshine-haired student took after his mother. He was starting to see why people feared the Uzumaki clan. If just their DNA was this fearsome and powerful, he shuddered to think about the reason for their actual infamy. Unless, of course, a part of their infamy came from their DNA itself—in which case, Kakashi wouldn't be entirely surprised.
Kakashi turned his attention back to the complaining blond. He could see Naruto's mouth moving, but Kakashi couldn't hear what he was saying. It must've been the hearing damage from hanging around Uzumaki and loud-mouthed special-case Uchiha and taijutsu experts with atrocious, eye-burning, criminally bright green fashion sense.
Kakashi wanted to know why and how someone as quiet and peaceful as him was attracting so many loud people like moths to flames. He wasn't sure what kind of scent-attracting pheromones he was exuding, but once he found out, he'd make sure to rid himself off of it if possible, and douse himself in some deterrent as well, just to make sure he could prevent more strange people from flocking and frolicking about. His energy and social levels could only take so much, after all.
“... So, yeah, in conclusion, you totally did nothing, Kakashi-sensei! You made us do all the work!” the blond continued screeching, hands perched on his hips in an akimbo as sky blue eyes and high-pitched voice respectively and fiercely glared holes at Kakashi and his eardrums.
Naruto was lucky the dirt across his nose reminded him of his cute little ninkens when they were puppies, or else Kakashi would have long since taped his mouth shut as part of his yearly quota of community service.
He would have probably done it on the first day, too—nay, the first ten minutes of suffering in the loud blond's presence. Kushina would probably haunt him from her grave (or—knowing the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero's propensity for hunting down her prey—would hunt be a more apt word?), but it wasn't like his deceased loved ones weren't already haunting him from their graves, so it wasn't anything new for Kakashi. He was sure he could deal with it if Kushina did indeed decide to haunt him.
“You shouldn't be talking, Naruto!” Sakura raised a fist at him, waving it in the air from where she was heavily breathing and tiredly leaning on a wooden fence, still recovering from the physical exertion of their previous mission. Or, should Kakashi say, missions?
Naruto pouted, anger melting away from his shoulders as he turned to Sakura. “What do you mean, Sakura-chan!” he whined. “I wasn't lying around, reading stupid degenerate books like Kakashi-sensei was doing!”
Naruto pointed an accusing finger at Kakashi for the nth time of the day. Kakashi considered keeping a tally just for funsies, but he was afraid he'd run out of space if he kept a tally on a chalkboard.
Then, registering what the blond genin said, Kakashi frowned, feeling a very strong and compelling urge to defend his favourite genius erotica—err… romance literature series to a twelve-year-old child, but before he could interject, another voice piped in.
Beside Naruto, Konoha's last Uchiha crossed his arms as he glared at his orange-clad teammate. “Don't forget you planted all the vegetable seeds in place of the flower seeds. We took twice as long as we should have just because of your mistake, you idiot dead last.”
Naruto turned bright red in anger. Or embarrassment, Kakashi wasn't entirely sure. “Shut up, bastard! My clones did way more work than your pasty self did! I mean, who gets sunburned in this weather?! It's not even summer yet! Or spring, for that matter! It's literally cloudy, I didn't see a single sunray in sight the whole day. Are you sure you're a native of the Land of Fire?”
Naruto casted an exaggerated dubious look at the Uchiha like Sasuke didn't have the emblem of one of the village's founding clan—as well as one of the oldest clans hailing from their native land, in general—stamped on his back like glaring neon signs.
Kakashi didn't know how it was possible, but Sasuke glared at the other boy even harder. “First of all, UV rays are present all year round. You would know that if you weren't such an idiot dead last. Second of all, your clones did far more damage than help, you delusional loser! And I only took less than five minutes to apply a healing salve and sunblock. Less than three, actually. You, on the other hand, planted hundreds of vegetable seeds that we couldn't find in the wrong section of the garden ! Some help your clones did,” he sneered at his teammate.
If possible, Naruto turned even more bright red, to the point Kakashi could practically see steams of anger (and embarrassment, Kakashi was sure of it now, but Naruto would definitely vehemently deny it) billowing and blowing from his ears.
Before Naruto… or, really, before any of his cute little ferocious students could open their mouths to continue the argument further—because he could see Sakura in the corner of his eyes opening her mouth to join in the conversation (probably to valiantly defend her precious, princely Sasuke-kun like some sort of knight in shining armour)—Kakashi decided to step in like the excellent and benevolent and intelligent teacher he was.
“Maa, please calm down, everyone,” he stepped up, smiling and reassuringly holding his hands up as a sign of peace. “Teamwork, remember? I'm not seeing a lot of that right now.”
“Jeez, sensei, I wonder why,” Sakura groused, crossing her arms at him as her jaded eyes (and Kakashi would be lying to himself if he said he meant the colour jade and not the adjective) honed in on him.
It seemed she'd found her next target. Naruto and Sasuke should feel lucky having him as a teacher, putting himself in the line of fire like this. Oh, the sacrifices he made for his precious students… “We were only following our esteemed teacher's example. He was doing a very convincing show on how to help strengthen his relationship with his teammates.”
Her eyes narrowed as she pointedly looked at him. “...By sitting around watching everyone else suffer.”
“I pointed out where some of the seeds were,” he protested weakly, starting to sweat bullets. Then, he inwardly shook his head—what was he doing, arguing with twelve year olds? His twelve year old students, to boot. Need he reiterate? He's an adult: a certified and qualified shinobi, at that. A Very Scary Shinobi, as shinobi from all over the countries had testified. He didn't need to explain himself to children; his face wasn't on the bingo book for nothing, after all. So, he glanced away and powered on changing the topic. “Anyway, as I was saying—”
“Don't change the topic!” the genin squad shouted at him simultaneously, interrupting him. Perhaps he would find it endearing if only they weren't interrupting him.
“Well, would you look at that,” he smiled clapping his hands together. “The strings of D-ranks we've been doing all day have you three commiserating with each other and working together to complain! See, you're already building up your teamwork skills! Isn't that nice?”
“What kind of bullshit is that?!” Naruto staggered in disbelief.
“Is that your excuse, Sensei?” Sakura deadpanned.
“Hn,” Sasuke grunted, crossing his arms as he glared at Kakashi. A true-born Uchiha, indeed. If there was any doubt whatsoever about his heritage, they’d be dashed away after that eloquent, verbose sentence Sasuke just said.
Nevertheless, Kakashi soldiered on, just like he was taught to (although this situation probably wasn't what his instructors had in mind when they taught him endurance and perseverance).
“As I was saying before I was not-so-graciously interrupted, we have one more D-rank coming up today—” the chorus of groans that responded was like music to Kakashi's ears after those rounds of unholy screeching, “—and then, and only then, can we can go home.”
“But Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto whined. “D-ranks are so boring!”
“Yeah, you owe us! There shouldn't be this many D-ranks in one day. I went over to the registrar and checked the average D-ranks in a day, and we're way past the average and the limit! You're working us like mules,” Sakura exclaimed. She crossed her arms, squinting up at him in suspicion. “How did you even get past the cap that they put on the amount of D-ranks a genin could take in one day?!”
Sasuke grunted in agreement, arms still crossed.
First of all, Kakashi was a bit offended. Why did his little student go to the registrar to check the maximum amount of D-ranks genin teams were allowed to take? Did she not trust her superior? Genin these days, he swore.
He supposed her suspicions had merit considering it was maybe perhaps true, but hey, it's the thought that counted, and what Sakura thought was that her teacher couldn't be trusted.
Second of all, Kakashi had a secret. You see, when he was nothing but an itty-bitty tiny genin, he took on a lot of D-ranks missions. More specifically, he was the reason why there even was a cap on D-ranks. His religious working was a part of why he was promoted to chūnin so fast. He supposed the mission office got tired of him eating up all the D-ranks, and that was why they decided to set a limit.
What could he say, he was a hardworking little boy wanting to do good in his lovely village, and totally not a workaholic that did endless back-to-back jobs to distract himself from dealing with his other problems.
All that was to say, for the past few days after the team's inception, Kakashi had been giving Team Seven the same amount of D-ranks that he took on during that period in his life.
Well, the amount of missions he took on with his old chūnin team, along with the optional ones—which has since been prohibited because of, three guesses and the first two don't count, that's right, a certain masked, silver-headed little boy—you were allowed to take back then. However, he was one person and this was a three-man squad. He thought if he could do it as one person, then why couldn't his cute, determined kids do it, too? He could see now that he was wrong. Not everyone was a workaho—err, a sweet, hardworking child that loved their village very much, after all. Hmm, maybe Kakashi could still feel a little guilt in his cold, dead, shriveled-up black heart.
As for how he managed to take missions past the limit? Well, he wouldn't be a very good shinobi if he didn't keep some secrets, now, would he?
“Maa, fine. As a job well done, I will be treating the three of you today after we finish the last D-rank mission on our list,” Kakashi said as an offering. “How about that? Aren't I just the best sensei?”
“Yes!” Naruto cheered, punching the air. Kakashi was sure the genin wasn't agreeing that Kakashi was the best sensei, but he would nevertheless be taking it as the blond agreeing. “Let's go to Ich—”
Kakashi quickly interrupted before anything could be said. “I'm thinking yakiniku barbecue. Any objections? No? I don't see any objections. Look at that, I guess we'll be having barbecue today. I'm looking forward to seeing you doing your best, team!”
Ever since Team Seven was formed, Ichiraku had been their food spot, and Kakashi was tired. More specifically, his stomach was tired. It simply couldn't handle another noodle.
He'd almost forgotten the scope of the Uzumaki clan’s obsession with ramen. Even after more than a decade, Kushina's shining record still remained unbeaten, and an aging picture of her surrounded by an unholy amount of empty bowls of ramen was still plastered on the wall of the ramen shop with what seemed to be golden frames. Probably bought with the same pocket change that remained from the earnings they got from when the red-headed woman endeavoured for said unbeatable record.
“Yes, let's do that,” Sasuke and Sakura quickly agreed, clearly as tired of ramen as Kakashi's poor, abused stomach.
At least he had some allies in this, even though they were ganging up on him just seconds ago.
Kakashi patted Naruto's disappointed, slumped over back as he walked past his student on the way to their next D-rank mission. “On we go!” Kakashi cheered.
As much as he loved his cute little student, he couldn't bear to even look at another pasta without vomiting.
How did Minato-sensei do it, he wondered as he led his team to their next mission, but then remembered that beneath his kind, benevolent façade, therein lies a man that was just as insane as his wife.
People say the Fourth Hokage and his wife formed a relationship where opposites attracted; the calm and the wild, the loud and the quiet—but Kakashi begged to differ.
Those two were a case of likes attracting likes, two insane people coming together to create an even more insane child.
At least, that was what Kakashi had theorized. He'd already caught glimpses of it in their unholy combination that was Uzumaki Naruto. Kakashi imagined Konoha's resident Number One Hyperactive, Knuckleheaded Shinobi as an adult, and felt shivers going up his spine just at the mere thought of it all.
Naruto would probably either cause Ragnarok, world peace, or something à la world-changing—whichever he was feeling that day. Kakashi wasn't one to regard one's parentage as something determining, but he just knew it was in the boy's blood and just hoped the blond didn't wake up on the wrong side of the bed come that fateful day.
That would be years away, though. In the meanwhile, Kakashi took his beloved, well-worn and well-read book out of his pouch. In the meanwhile, he would be relaxing.
Okay, Kakashi conceded. Perhaps it was not years away, but in fact, less than an hour away.
It all started when they got to the scroll storage building.
“No way, we're rearranging this whole building?!” Naruto's jaw dropped as they walked through the halls, glancing at each door that they passed through, eyes growing wider with each door they passed. “How could we possibly finish this all before dinner time?!”
“Nope, just this one,” Kakashi stopped at one door, turning around to face the genin team after stepping through said door, the thumb of the hand not holding his beloved book pointing back over his shoulder and into the room. Not once did he look away from his precious book.
This time, the jaws of Naruto's fellow teammates fell along with his.
“Kakashi-sensei, this is the biggest room in the building! Probably bigger than all the other rooms combined!” his most outspoken student, Naruto, predictably exclaimed. “We couldn't possibly go through all of the scrolls here before dinner time!”
Kakashi peeked out from under his book, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, I guess you three are going to have your work cut out for you, wouldn't you? Because if you don't finish this in—hmm, let's say three hours—” he smiled at them ominously, “—there will be no barbecue for you, I'm afraid.”
“B-But Kakashi-sensei! I'm pretty sure this is a mission that takes a team one whole day!” Naruto stuttered.
“I'm telling you, he's a slave driver!” Sakura whispered in horror at the person beside her. Sasuke—who was also coincidentally staring at Kakashi with the exact same expression she was making: like he wasn't a real person—didn't say anything in response, looking like he was too shocked to even think of what to say.
It looked like her trepidation momentarily dissipated the shyness she felt with her lone-wolf of a teammate. That would definitely be something Kakashi would shelf and keep in mind for the future.
“Hm, did you two say something? I couldn't hear you over the clock ticking,” Kakashi questioned pointedly as he lowered his book to look at his students.
At that, the Uchiha finally belatedly nodded faintly at his pink-haired teammate's remark, expression completely dumbstruck.
“To reiterate so we're all on the same page and don't make mistakes that take us hours to fix,” at this, everyone either pointedly glanced (Kakashi) or glared (Sakura and Sasuke) at a sheepish Naruto rubbing the nape of his neck in embarrassment, “the mission objective is to take all the scrolls in this room, look over them, and figure out which ones are defunct, useless, in good condition, et cetera, et cetera—you get the gist.
“This will be fairly easy for you because there are identifiable marks inside each scroll that tells its status: a red circle for defunct, blue for useless, yellow for in-the-works, orange for need-to-be-improved-upon, and green for good-to-go.
“Many of the scrolls will be red or blue. The mission requires us to put them together in their own separate heaps for seal inspectors to look over to either figure out why they don't work or why they no longer work. The greens will also be taken away to be stored into another newer storage room, so make sure to make another separate pile for that.
“The last thing is that we will be arranging each scroll from the remaining colours into their very own sections. So one section will contain yellow scrolls, another section will contain orange, and so on and so forth. These will be put back on the shelves for aspiring sealmasters to crack and work over. So remember, other than the scrolls marked with blue and red—which will be combined into their own section—separate the scrolls to their own section depending on their colours.
“Hopefully, there won't be anymore mistakes so we can get a treat later tonight, so chop chop and get working, everyone!”
Kakashi gave his students a beaming smile, then looked back at his book, resuming his reading. He glanced up when he was met with stunned silence and looked up to meet the horrified look his students were sending him. He gave them an award-worthy beaming smile, snapping his fingers twice. “Well, what are you three waiting for? The clock is ticking, and that barbecue place won't be open all night!”
Devastated, his students went to work.
“What a bastard, changing and adding to the conditions,” he heard Naruto grumble under his breath as he formed the signature hand sign for his favourite jutsu.
Kakashi internally laughed. This sensei thing sure was better than he thought it would be. He wondered why he didn't teach a genin team sooner. He'd make sure to thank the Third Hokage later for forcing his hand. And Guy, of course, for recommending him as an instructor.
Surreptitiously, he glanced up at his students, seeing Naruto and his clones arguing already as Sasuke and Sakura grumbled and did their best to ignore their rambunctious teammate and the ruckus he was causing with his clones. Kakashi smiled under his mask.
Ah, well, his team was a bit of a special case. He didn't think he would be having this much fun with any other genin team.
With that thought sticking to his mind, he turned his attention back to his beloved book.
“Watch it, idiot!” Kakashi heard Sasuke hiss, making him glance up from his masterpiece of a book to see Sasuke elbowing Naruto away from him.
“You watch it!” Naruto exclaimed, pushing him right back, only more aggressively.
“Here we go again,” Sakura grumbled under her breath, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Kakashi could commiserate. Sasuke and Naruto fought like Obito and Kakashi once did. Or, should he say, like cats and dogs? Kakashi, being the dog, was pretty self-explanatory. As for Obito, well, a lot of the Uchiha had liked cats, and Obito, black sheep he may be, was one of them. Kakashi had a theory that the evasive animal breeds' close relations with the Uchiha was because the Uchiha could relate to them the most out of every animal from the animal kingdom in terms of attitude, so to them, talking to a cat would seem like talking to another Uchiha. Then, over the generations, cats had just somewhat assimilated as part of their clan.
Looking at Naruto and Sasuke arguing, Kakashi wondered how Minato-sensei dealt with him and Obito. Suddenly, a lightbulb pop up in his head.
“Naruto, Sasuke,” he said, turning back to his book and idly flipping to the next page. “Be careful around these scrolls. Remember, a lot of them are untested so if you accidentally get yourselves dismembered or lost in some unknown dimension, remember I warned you.”
He glanced up from his book to see all his students trying and failing to suppress a full-body shiver of fear, and gleefully grinned in response. Another day, another job well done for the illustrious Hatake Kakashi-sensei.
He didn't lie, per se; he had no doubt some of those scrolls could potentially do those things. Why was this a job intended for newly minted genin with all those dangerous repercussions, you ask? Well, Kakashi was wondering the same thing, too.
He internally hummed, he supposed it'd be good practice for his students to realize early on to be more careful during their missions.
From his peripheral vision, he saw Sasuke and Sakura get back to work, albeit more cautious and alert, while Naruto picked up his jaw from where he dropped it on the floor.
He saw Naruto open his mouth in some sort of protest, but before the blond could say anything, he caught a glimpse of Sasuke in his natural habitat, and as he was wont to do, he went to yell something at the Uchiha boy.
“Hey!” Naruto said, pointing an accusing finger at Sasuke.
Sasuke glared at him from the corner of his eyes, one hand on its way to a scroll from the bookshelf, then seemingly decided he didn't want to derail their time in the storage room like he always did whenever he argued with Naruto and turned his attention back to the scroll.
“I said, hey!” Naruto said, veins throbbing on his forehead. “You're in my section!”
Sasuke shot him another annoyed glare and turned back to the scroll and grasped it with his hand. “There's no assigned ‘sections’. You would know that if you actually listened to instructions properly, dead last.”
Another vein throbbed on Naruto’s forehead.
Kakashi refrained from dragging his hand on his face in exasperation like he saw Sakura surreptitiously doing in the corner of his eyes.
“It's unspoken!” Naruto said, teeth grinding together in annoyance.
“There's nothing unspoken,” Sasuke said dismissively. Turning back to the scroll in his hand and putting his thumb through to open it.
“Well, you're all up in my space,” Naruto said. “Why don't you go over there!” He pointed at the other side of the room.
Sasuke glanced at where the blond was pointing and turned back to Naruto. “That section is finished,” he said drily.
“Well, go somewhere other than here! I can't work with your snooty and broody energy distracting me.”
Sasuke's eye twitched as his head slowly turned to Naruto, glaring. “This is where most of the unchecked scrolls are. But I guess that's to be expected since it's your ‘section’.” He turned back to his scroll, opening it to check for the colour.
“Sasuke, you bastard…” Naruto growled, once again grinding his teeth together. Kakashi felt a distant concern for the whiskered boy's poor molars rising up in his chest.
The aforementioned boy stepped towards Sasuke menacingly, but it wasn't really menacing—though that could just be because Kakashi, a seasoned shinobi, had seen far more menacing things. It also didn't help that as Naruto went to grasp Sasuke's collar, he stepped on an errant scroll and tripped, dragging the Uchiha down with him, and inadvertently cutting off the dark-haired boy's ‘let go of me, you stupid idi—’.
Kakashi sighed, putting his book back in his back pouch as he headed to his groaning-in-pain kids. He saw Sakura also doing the same.
“Any missing hands? Legs?” he asked with a smile. The two went dead silent, pausing their argument before frantically checking around for any misplaced limb. They both sighed in relief, shoulders slumping over in relief as they found everything in their rightful places. Then glared at each other once again.
Suddenly, Kakashi noticed something.
“Sasuke, let me see your han—” he was cut off by Sakura's concerned voice.
“Naruto, you're bleeding!”
Everyone's eyes turned to Naruto, just in time to track a droplet of blood from his bloodied nose dripping right down into the paper.
For a brief moment, the room was dead silent.
“Huh?” Naruto's head tilted in confusion.
“Your nose, idiot,” Sasuke said, disbelief marring his features.
Naruto's hand shot to his nose and he winced as he touched it, hand coming up to inspect the flowing blood.
“Ah, I hit it on the bookshelf, but I think it'll be fine. I'm a fast healer, after all,” he said, smiling at them reassuringly.
“That's not it, dumbass,” Sasuke said as Kakashi shook himself out of his stupor, hand quickly snatching the scroll off the ground. “I think it dripped into the scroll.”
Kakashi's lone eye inspected the scroll, relief taking away what seemed to be the weight of the world off his shoulders as he saw the red and blue circles on the corner of the scroll.
“So?” Naruto asked, obliviously.
“So,” Sakura interrupted. “Blood is commonly used to activate scrolls, and since nothing seems to be happening, you're lucky you didn't, as Kakashi-sensei puts it, ‘lose a limb’.”
Naruto shivered and turned to Kakashi, eyes desperate and pleading. “Kakashi-sensei! I'm not going to lose any limbs, am I?!”
“No, but you and Sasuke are lucky this scroll is both defunct and useless,” he said, eye repeatedly skimming the scroll to make sure he didn't miss anything. “Because if it wasn't, you'd probably be a fetus. Or wiped completely from existence.” He shivered in fear, “Or, worse of all, a screaming toddler.”
“A what?!” Naruto screeched.
“‘Sasuke-kun’?!” Sakura gasped.
“What do you mean Naruto and me?” Sasuke asked in disbelief. “I didn't get any blood on it.”
Kakashi looked up from where his eye trailed a tiny streak of blood starting from the very edge of the scroll, a very far distance from the blob of blood from Naruto's nose. He gave the boy a sweet, close-eyed smile, “Hmm, you've got a papercut over there, Sasuke-kun.”
Sasuke's head snapped down at his hand in disbelief and noticed a cut on his thumb that was on its way to opening the scroll before Naruto dragged him down. He instantly shot a scathing glare at Naruto.
Kakashi shrugged, “Hey, at least you two didn't curse your family line for generations to come.”
“But, Sensei, what did you mean by they will turn into fetuses?” Sakura asked in a horrified tone.
“Oh, just that the scroll was designed so that anyone whose blood dripped into it reverses the body's time. If you want to be more specific, it targets the chakra, but since no two people have an identical chakra, it ultimately would be targeting a person's body. It seems like it's in its beginning stage, though, because the writer hasn't written an exact set time for exactly how much the caster's body regresses in age—which, in my personal opinion, should've been one of the first things they should've done—so theoretically, whoever uses this scroll could blink out of existence.”
He watches the kids’ faces pale.
“So… just to be clear, we won't be blinking out of existence, right?” Naruto asked in trepidation, voice shaking like a leaf.
“Nope!” Kakashi smiled cheerfully. “It says it's defunct and useless, so we can assume that you won't disappear into the ether!”
“Isn't chakra required for anything to happen?” asked Sasuke, face ghostly pale.
“Not in this instance, no,” Kakashi said, rubbing his chin in thought as he inspected the scroll. “This one is designed specifically so that it activates after contact with the required blood.”
“But why?!” Sakura asked, gripping her hair in horror and frustration. “If there's a possibility of blinking out of existence, why aren't there any better precautions set up?! And also, why are genin allowed to be near such dangerous artifacts?!”
Kakashi would like to know the answer to those questions, too. But then again, it was marked defunct and useless, so it wasn't like anything would happen to them.
He opened his mouth to tell her just that, but then the scroll in his hand started shaking. Light was emitting from where the streak and blob of blood were, and both light emitted were both slowly getting brighter.
With the reflex and instincts of a veteran, Kakashi threw the scroll to the area farthest away from the door and hauled his students in his arms and out the exit door.
Just as he was doing this, Naruto was screaming, “AAH, I DON'T WANT TO DIE. SASUKE, YOU'RE A BASTARD, BUT I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE EITHER. I'M SORRY FOR TRIPPINGGG!!”
He dragged out the syllable of his last word until the light that they could see from the opening of the door got so bright they could barely see anything.
With Kakashi's back against the wall and his arms securely around his students, they closed their eyes and waited. Kakashi tightened his arms against his students in nervous anticipation, praying to whatever gods were above that he wouldn't lose them like he did everyone else.
As the light died down, and his genin team were all still safely tucked in his arms, he started to slowly untense.
“Is everyone fine? Any missing limbs? Feel any curse upon your generational line that feels like impending doom?” he asked them, still not letting the genin go.
All three of his kids shook their head in negative, grumbling and sounding a bit disoriented from how fast he hauled them out the room.
Suddenly, they heard an unfamiliar voice, making them freeze.
“Wake up, Aniue! Please wake up!” said the voice, sounding nervous and young. All eyes quickly snapped to the door they just exited, which just so happened to also be where the voice came from. The kids turned to look at each other, but Kakashi kept his eyes on the door.
Aniue? Kakashi thought. Who still calls their older brother that in this day and age?
“Stay right here,” he quietly commanded his team as he got up and slowly inched toward the doorway to the scroll room.
There was grumbling from a groggy voice, “Asura, please… give me just a little bit more time. I did not get much sleep last night from studying with Father.”
“But… but we just disappeared somewhere,” ‘Asura’ said, voice shaking. “I woke up and, and I was about to head to the canteen, but then there was a bright flash of light, and suddenly, we appeared here! Please, Aniue, I-I'm scared.”
There was some rustling sounds and the other voice, this time more clear and less groggy, spoke with concern laced in their voice. “My apologies, Asura, I was half-asleep and did not realize. Come. I believe you said we disappeared in a flash of light?”
Before the ‘Asura’ could answer, Kakashi peered over the doorway and saw two brown-haired children.
That's strange… he thought. He was sure he read the scroll right. Kakashi made sure to reread its contents several times to make sure Naruto and Sasuke would be alright. And for all that he couldn't lit a match to the likes of seal masters like Uzumaki Mito and Uzumaki Kushina, he was still exposed to and learned under one such renowned seal master, Namikaze Minato. It was inevitable that he'd pick up a few things, and he was indubitably sure of the scroll's contents.
...So, therein lies the question of why did the scroll summon two brown-haired boys instead of transforming his students into younger forms of themselves?
His team definitely was special case was the only thought circling around his head as he stared at the mess in front of him.
