Chapter Text
“Tenzo. Didn’t expect to see you here.”
Yamato had just entered Kakashi’s hospital room, silently closing the door behind them. “I came as soon as I received your message. And please, refer to me only as Yamato while I’m acting as the captain of Team Kakashi.”
Kakashi sighed, unwillingly putting the special edition of Jiraiya’s newest “romance” novel face down on the hospital bed in which he had been comfortably reclining. “Aight, Yamato. I hoped you’d be a bit late.”
“The message stated that you had urgent matters to discuss with me, and that I need to visit as soon as possible.“
“I know, I wrote it. But of course, precision is to be expected of Team Kakashi’s new captain.” He tilted his head more to his left in order to get a better view of Yamato with his good eye. His face and Sharingan were, as usual, covered. Although Yamato knew it was childish, some part of him had always been itching to see more of his skin. For Kakashi, the mask always did most of the work when it came to obscuring emotion and intent at all times. Such effortless nonchalance Yamato partly envied even though he himself had a natural talent for keeping a poker face. “I need your help with training Naruto.”
“Help in which way,” Yamato asked, his blank face doing nothing to betray his surprise at Kakashi’s request.
“You may not believe it, but I didn’t spend the past week bedrotting. I devised a plan to get Naruto to the highest level of ninjutsu in the shortest time possible, given that the Akatsuki are on the move again.”
Yamato waited for the “but” which inevitably followed all plans of this sort.
“But, there is a risk of overexerting Naruto’s chakra and activating the Nine Tails transformation. Jiraiya informed me that Naruto lost control of it once during your mission, so I’m sure you understand why that mustn’t happen again.”
“Of course,” Yamato hummed in agreement, already understanding what Kakashi needed him for. “I’ll help you supervise the training. If anything happens, I’ll intervene with my containment jutsu immediately.”