Chapter Text
He graduated from the Academy at the age of five. Made Chūnin at the age of six. Promoted to Jōnin at ten. By thirteen he’d earned his bingo book entry, his ANBU tattoo and the moniker Copy Nin (Friend Killer). By fourteen he had lost everyone who had ever mattered to him.
And now at fifteen he’s being told that he is a father.
Like most things on that list, it was being thrust upon him. Unasked for. Unwanted. Albeit quietly, reluctantly, from the somber arms of a girl he didn’t remember from a night he couldn’t remember– from the endless string of nights that he could not remember– where he’d gone to any number of bars filled with other nin just like him who had failed to die in the Third War, just like him. He would drown himself in alcohol, then stumble to a quiet corner (a back alley, a bathroom stall, a roof, a bench, a tree) with any willing body to drown himself in sex.
The alcohol was to numb the mental pain of surviving.
The sex to remind a numb body it was still alive and not just a walking corpse.
For the last two years Kakashi’s life has been and endless parade of fighting and fucking (he was man enough to kill, he was man enough to fuck), and while he was required to be painfully lucid while doing the first, he got to be blissfully inebriated while doing the second.
The babe being presented to him made a lie of those beliefs. Once again he was reminded that for all his rank and abilities, he was no more than a boy forced into the mold of a man.
“I understand if you want a paternity test,” the girl (redish-brown hair that makes him sick just to look at, eyes a murky green. She’s older than him, but not by much. Of an age where adults liked to call her woman on paper, when in reality she was no more a woman than he was a man. Kakashi wouldn’t have been able to pick her out of a line up. Would have walked past her– probably had walked past her– unknowing in the street) tells him with zero challenge in her tone, with completely undeserved understanding, “It was one night, and it’s not like we exchanged names or anything. A complete fluke. I had to ask around a bit to figure out who you were, or I’d have done this sooner than…this.” She’s being terribly reasonable about it, and instead of easing his tension it makes his muscles twist tighter into hard knots. Makes his teeth grind in his clenched jaw. Makes his heart pump in fight or flight. Makes him clench his fists, “The hospital offers a test, but it takes a few days for the results.”
Staring down in numb revulsion at the sleeping bundle in her arms, he shakes his head in the negative. He doesn’t need a test to tell him that it’s his. He can smell it. Under the smell of baby and milk, he can smell their shared blood.
Redredred blood, his father’s blood, soaking the tatami, reaching for him, Obito’s blood, Rin’s blood, Senei’s blood–
“No,” he manages to get through his tight throat, so tight he feels like he’s being strangled, like he’s being suffocated, “It’s not…necessary. I can. Tell.”
She takes a slow steadying breath, readjusts her hold on the sleeping infant, and offers him a grim smile, “Well. Alright, then. Just know it’s an, it’s an option. I’m not telling you this because I expect anything from you. I want to make that clear. This isn’t me trying to make you…make you do anything you don’t want, alright? This isn’t me trying to force an obligation on you, understand? I’ve– we’ve– got no needs that we require you to fill.This wasn’t love and this wasn’t planned on either of our parts. But if you want to be involved, I won’t turn you away. In whatever capacity you want,” she shrugs awkwardly, not knowing exactly what to say, “She’s half yours too, if you want her.”
Kakashi is already shaking his head in the negative, “No,” he says firmly, swallowing hard around the panic and deep seated aversion that wells up at her words, “I’m–”
–too young, too fucked up, never going to want this, his name was supposed to die with him, one mission away from being back with his team he just keeps not dying–
“–not around, a lot. Missions. It’d be better– for it– for her– if, if I wasn’t involved. I’ve got a lot of…enemies, from the War and–”
Her understanding (expectant, unsurprised, he’s a lot younger in the daylight, gangly limbs that haven’t quite caught up to his height) smile ends his pathetic stream of stumbled excuses, “I understand. I just wanted you to know that if you ever do want something with her, that the door is always going to be open. But until then, until you’re ready, you can be anonymous, okay? We won't be seeking rights. There’s no need to put your name on anything, for her.”
He feels the killing vice of desperation squeezing around his lungs loosen, and nods jerkily, his eye now avoiding the two before him, “Yeah. Maybe…in a few…years,” he’s grasping for words– whatever words will end this, whatever words will get her too knowing too steady eyes off of him, whatever words will make it so he can walk (flee) away and pretend that this never, ever, happened.
“Sure, in a few years,” her light tone says she believes his words as much as he means them (she was a shinobi once, too. She can see the signs that he’s more likely to step into the path of the next kunai headed his way instead of dodging it), takes pity on him and ends his suffering, “Well, we’ve got to be going then, we’ll see you when we see you, ne?”
She tells him where he can find them.
She tells him to take care of himself.
She tells him the baby’s name.
He doesn’t watch her leave. Doesn’t watch her walk away. The crushing relief that floods his body as her presence disappears from his range of perception makes him light headed. Nearly takes him out at the knees.
It is consumed by the ever present self-loathing that’s been his constant companion for these last two years.
February 28th – Genin squad assignment day – Hokage’s Office
“There’s twenty-seven candidates, a surprisingly good number for this round of graduates,” Sandaime-sama rumbles to the jōnin assembled before him.
Kakashi listens with half an ear.
Another year.
Another unassuming set of files.
Another team he’s going to refuse to pass.
It is a familiar, albeit completely unwanted, annual obligation he has resigned himself to attending in the stretch of years since the Hokage (in his infinite wisdom) had handed him his reassignment papers, relegating him from being a Taichō amongst the ANBU, back to the simple rank of Jōnin. Consigned to a world of regulation blues and greens that did shit-all to conceal blood. A world of tame A rank missions, with zero chances of being sent after S-class missing nin or missions so dangerous that the likelihood of him dying was statistically high enough that Kakashi went to work every day with a grim hope filling his hollow chest.
The Hokage had couched it as a positive reallocation of his skills. A promotion of sorts, benevolently handed down, a gentle transition for one of his most loyal dogs of war. A chance to grow old and enjoy more time off around the village.
Kakashi had seen it as a demotion.
The very first file of genin hopefuls handed to him had cemented that belief and felt like an additional punishment for poor performance.
Adjustment had not been smooth, to say the least. Professionally and personally. As Hound he had performed each high-stake assignment silently and unquestionably. Under his command Team Ro had been forged into the village's most reliable kill squad. Faceless, nameless, ruthless. After years of silent, exacting service, he didn’t have the disposition needed for dealing with clients that expected coddling and schmoozing. Kakashi had been the cause of death for daimyōs, the downfall of virginal princesses, and the reckoning of false gods. Like hell was he going to cosset some jumped-up boarder lord who wanted to feel special by paying an obscene amount of money to have the Copy Nin himself guard his room while some tired prostitute faked her way to a handful of ryo for two minutes.
Kakashi would whore himself for his village, but there was whoring and then there was whoring.
Needless to say, there had been more than a few complaints based on his professional demeanor (He kept copies of all the best ones in a scrap book that he used as bathroom reading material).
And he was most definitely responsible in those early years for more than one bright-eyed Academy graduate deciding that joining the shinobi ranks was not, in fact, the career path they should be pursuing.
But for whatever reasons, those first few failed teams hadn’t stopped the old man from ordering him to attend this yearly assignment, and the event had become another unwanted constant that his calendar flowed around to mark the mindnumbing passage of time. Like the day his father killed himself, his annual physical, and Tax Day, The last day of February heralded another file of brightly smiling faces full of hope and exuberant ideas of greatness that Kakashi would crush expeditiously into bitter nothingness. He was doing them a favor, really.
Internally sighing to himself, he absently flips the folder open to peruse the unlucky trio, and instantly knows that this year, this year would be different than all the others, when the blue eyes of his long dead sensei stare back at him from a glossy two-by-two.
The droning of the Hokage fades to a muffled ringing noise that steadily grows louder as he flips to the next candidate profile and finds the haughty features of an Uchiha, the clan head’s second son, and when he turns to the final one, he stares at the eerily familiar face in unrecognition for a long moment before the name on the page has his limbs going heavy, his face going numb, and his heart stutter-stopping before it lurches against his ribs in a hard gallop.
Haruno Sakura, age eleven.
He may not know that face, but he knows that name. And he knows that distinct hair. It’s imbedded into the back of his psyche, just like his shinobi identification number, like every jutsu he’s ever copied, like the smell of chidori cauterizing flesh, the feeling of his fist going through Rin’s chest–
–The statistical improbability of another child with that hair, that age, that name–
Kakashi stares into the piercing green eyes of the daughter he forgot he had.
To say that Hiruzen is not surprised to see Kakashi standing before his desk immediately after he dismisses the elected jōnin-sensei at the end of the genin team assignment, would be a gross understatement. He had, in fact, been anticipating this moment since reviewing the names on the Academy’s intake roster six years prior. When he’d pulled some strings to make sure a certain child born too close to the admissions cutoff date didn’t fall victim to a ‘clerical error’ three months after the fact. Put a mental pin in it, then absently counted down the years. There is a reason he’s been forcibly placing the Copy Nin with potential genin squads since removing him from ANBU while not kicking up a fuss at every consecutive failure, and it has everything to do with two of the children currently in the folders the younger man clutches at his side in a white knuckled grip.
Neither of whom possess the Sharingan.
Uchiha Sasuke is just added insurance to stick beside the Jinchūriki. A necessary one, though. There was no way either the Konoha Council nor the Shinobi Clan Council would allow both the Kyūbi vessel and a clan head’s child to not successfully graduate onto a genin squad. Theirs is a team ensured a jōnin instructor based on politics alone, regardless of if the particular jōnin found them worthy or not. And not just any jōnin sensei would do. Oh no. One with all the credentials and prestige equal to those weighty names would be required to hone them. Their third, whomever it was, would be getting a pass on their teammates status alone.
Haruno Sakura, with her no name, no clan, civilian background and stellar academic record fit the bill of unimportant but skilled enough to not hinder her more valuable teammates. Guaranteed to not slow them down, guaranteed to not pull focus off of them from their sensei, guaranteed to fade into the background. A necessary element that wouldn’t inhibit their eventual advancement to chūnin, unlike the other potential candidates from the graduate pool. As far as the Councils were concerned, she was a body to fill a requirement, and nothing more.
Hiruzen let them think that.
“You’re dismissed,” Hiruzen says blandly with a glance at Iruka and the other chūnin-sensei helping with the meeting in the wake of Mizuki’s treason. They leave without fuss, Kakashi’s extreme aversion to taking on a genin squad so well known amongst the ranks that none of the men even pay notice to the tense shoulders and laser sharp focus of the shinobi standing before the desk.
“Hokage-sama–” the man bites out before cutting off and darting his paranoid eye to the dim corners where ANBU guards mutely observe.
The Third waves negligent fingers, as though shooing an errant gnat, “Go admire the spring buds,” he rumbles, and his shadows soundlessly slip from the seal protected room, leaving the two men alone in heavy silence.
“Hokage-sama–”
“You will not be permitted to fail this team, Kakashi,” the old man calmly cuts him off. Best to get that out of the way before the boy built up hope.
Hiruzen fancies that he can see Kakashi’s teeth grinding to dust even through his mask.
“I understand and can accept that the boys will be under my tutelage,” Kakashi says with admirable false calm, “but the girl– I respectfully request that the third candidate be replaced with another.”
Hiruzen stares steadily at him, picking up his well loved pipe and begins the meditative process of packing and lighting it, “Oh? Which student did you have in mind?”
“None. Any of the rest will do,” Kakashi flicks an agitated hand towards the large window that stares down on the Academy.
“I see,” and Hiruzen does, but he is the Hokage, and his job isn’t to do what is easy, it is to do what is necessary. Hiurzen has spent too long doing the opposite, “Denied.”
In a sudden instance of fury breaking through rigid control, Kakashi lunges forward, slams his hands and the files down onto the desk and snarls, “Why?” his gray eye, filled with an impotent rage, stares piercingly into his own, “You of all people kno– just tell me why?”
And the Third Hokage, an old man who has worn the hat for far longer than any shinobi ever should, whose head is weighed down more each year by its colossal burden, stares unflinchingly back into that eye; sees the fear that the rage hides, and says simply, “Because this is the only way you will ever come to know your daughter.”
Kakashi flinches, covers that up by shoving away from the desk, runs a trembling hand through his hair in impotent frustration, “I never should have told you,” he growls.
Hiruzen snorts, remembering a day long ago when a much younger Kakashi, a boy in years if not anything else by their harsh society’s standards, had stumbled, shell-shocked and terrified into this very office nearly a year after Minato’s death and choked out in deep shame and bitter desperation that he had fathered a child. An unwanted child, unacknowledged but a Hatake child by blood nonetheless, which meant that certain provisions would need to be made, legally. He’d choked it out like a man making his last confession.
Hiruzen had calmed the boy down, (yes it was a shock that this specific fifteen year old was a father–(and while there were many methods for his shinobi to avoid situations like this)– amongst the civilians of Konoha, fourteen was a marriageable age. Kakashi was not the youngest father in his village) and together they had filled out the necessary documents that would make that unwanted child the heir to the Hatake Clan holdings in the event of Kakashi’s demise. Those documents had been signed, and sealed to only be opened upon the boy’s death, for the Hokage’s eyes only.
The Third had agreed wholeheartedly with the complete secrecy surrounding the incident, at the time. Kakashi had been barely functioning, much like many of the shellshocked young nin who had survived the War. The last Hatake was in no mental state to be a healthy parent, yet. Disregarding his losses of the last decade and his position amongst the ANBU, the War had left their village vulnerable. Much of the same reasons for hiding Naruto also applied to the girl. There were holes in the Village’s defenses that skilled enemy nin could and were exploiting, slipping in and out under the exhausted eyes of their stretched forces. It had not been a safe time for an infant to be known. Hiruzen knew without the shadow of a doubt that the Clan Council would force Kakashi’s open acknowledgment of the babe if not outright marriage to its mother in their post War push for re-growth in the shape of a baby boom. The continuation of the Hatake Clan– a shinobi clan renowned for its sheer skill alone lacking both kekkei genkai and hidden clan jutsu– was too important to let even a child mothered by a pedigreeless civilian slip into obscurity.
But he’d miscalculated.
While he hadn’t expected Kakashi to seek the child out in the immediate, he also hadn’t expected him to use the last dozen years to intentionally and actively forget that child so completely.
“That may be,” The Sandaime hums, “but it’s twelve years too late for that,” he leans back in his chair with a tired sigh, and sees that defeated fifteen year old boy where the defeated twenty-six year old man now stands.
His joints ache, rain must be on the horizon.
“I thought that, given enough time, you would eventually seek her out on your own. You were alone in the world, grieving your losses. A young man alone, from a clan that prizes familial ties. I believed, back when you first came to me, that given enough time you would come to desire a connection to your child. Your flesh and blood. I can see now that I was wrong, and this is how we correct.” he stares steadily into Kakashi’s angry eye, the man poised as if for battle, his rigid, hard-won self control keeping him in place.
“And if I refuse?” comes the low demand.
“We both know the Council will not allow you to. Naruto is too important to not be trained by the best, specifically someone with the Sharingan, and the Uchiha will consider it a slight if their head’s son is not afforded that same distinction. And you, unfortunately, happen to both have the Sharingan and be the best.”
“I’ll resign,” comes his desperate threat.
The Hokage gives that bluff the look it deserves. They both know that Kakashi will one day die with his hitai-ate on. It’s all he has, after all, “Please, Kakashi. Let us not stoop to such juvenile tactics. What’s next– you threaten to reveal the girl’s connection to you to the Council in a bid to get out of training her under the family clause? We know you would never, so let's not. It’s demeaning to us both.”
Kakashi aggressively paces away then turns tightly and paces back. The rage has drained enough to leave him bitterly resigned to his fate,”Is there nothing I can say that will get you to exchange her for someone else– anyone else?”
“No.” The Third is not immune to the desperate defeat in his tone, but he will not change his mind, “I am a man of many regrets, Kakashi, but none so great as my relationship with my sons,” Hiruzen feels that familiar pain coursing through his heart, at the thought of his sons, and has to pause to catch his breath from the acute sharpness of it, “I allowed duty to come between us. Long hours. Disagreements. Their wants, their needs, had to come second to this village. There was always a battle that was more important. A council meeting, a mission report, something that needed my specific attention. I set them aside, to be dealt with later. I thought that I had more time. To bridge the distance my absence caused, to fix what I had allowed to be broken, when I handed over the keeping of the Village to Minato-kun.”
Hiruzen stares, unseeing, past the man who now stands still before him. Stares deep into the past he would sacrifice much to change, had he the chance. But all he has is the future to correct, “And now look at me Kakashi. See what I have wrought. One son dead, lost to me before I could heal the breach. Words left unsaid, with only my bitter few memories and a grandson being raised by servants to remind me of him. Asuma yet lives, but is still also lost to me. Without the glue of their mother holding him here, he took himself far from this village to get away from me, and can barely manage being in my presence now that he’s returned even years later. He is content to be a perfect stranger beyond duty.”
Yes, the Third has many regrets, but none so great as his failure to be a father, “The history books call me The Professor, teacher of the Sannin, prized student of The God of Shinobi. But I tell you this, Kakashi. With all my heart, I would trade every ounce of my greatness to spend one day with my sons, to have them simply beside me, to bask in their presence.”
Hiruzen sighs, tired. So very tired and yet there is no one worthy to pass the hat on to, “You will do this, Kakashi. And while you will not thank me, some day you will understand why I’ve done what I’ve done.”
After his meeting with the Hokage Kakashi retreats directly to his apartment, presses himself into the back corner where he could see all the entry points, and proceeds to suffer through the worst panic attack he’s had in thirteen years. Not even Pakkun and the rest of the pack can help alleviate it and they eventually banish themselves to give him space. It had taken hours to work through, and by the time it’s over he is an exhausted, sweating mess. His muscles had screamed from being stuck frozen in hard knots. He dragged his aching, weary body to the shower, attempted to drown himself in the hottest water he could take until it ran cold, slipped into his least abrasive lounge clothes, and then went through the ritual of making himself tea.
He’s been sitting at his narrow table, head in his hands for the last hour and change, staring down at the files before him.
Trapped. He’s fucking trapped.
The tea in his cup has long gone cold. Not a sip drank, as he wasn’t thirsty. Not for tea anyways. His youthful indiscretion had put fear into his soul and halted what had been a fast slide into chronic functional alcoholism, but the old urge to numb himself in times of deep emotional stress even a dozen years later still remained. He’d never been one to abuse drugs. He’d seen enough sweaty, strung out nin thinking nobody could tell they were flying high to know that that was not a path his weaknesses would lead him down. Sex, something he’s rarely indulged in since his exit from ANBU, was out. He didn’t want to be touched on a good day and this…this was not a good day. His fight or flight had been triggered, and that was not a good thing to bring to sex, not for him. He’d been trained to kill the things that made him feel that way. Gai was off on a mission with his own genin team, so fighting his emotions out against someone who was guaranteed to survive him was also off the table. That left tea. He’d made it in a bid to make the file seem like any other file he’d looked at before. Basic cup of tea, basic file.
It wasn’t working.
He stares at it some more. Like if he did it long enough the contents within would change. He knows it won’t and he’s just drawing out the inevitable.
Kakashi is many things, but he is not a coward.
“Fuck it,” he flips the cover open, and once again is presented with painfully familiar blue eyes and blond hair. Though, with the girl being forced upon him, this one doesn’t pack as much of a punch the second time around as it initially did. Uzumaki Naruto was a pain he could and would endure, by comparison. From what he’d seen of the kid out of sheer proximity, he took after Kushina-nee more than Minato-sensei. It was still going to fucking hurt, like a godsdamned broken rib stabbing into a lung, but it would be slightly more bearable.
Hate for the Sandaime Hokage, for making him do this, flushes through him once more, like hot poison, before flowing away. This is not the first, or even the fifteenth, distasteful assignment he’s ever been ordered by his Hokage to complete, it’s just an extremely personal one.
Loud, brash, and larger than life. The gaki could be heard clear across the village at any given time. Zero indoor voice. Didn’t have a subtle bone in his body, and yet sneaky enough to habitually lose his ANBU tail and set up complex traps. A doer, judging by his Academy stats. He was the opposite of a paper nin, and that was putting it nicely. It was clear that the boy hadn’t had any adults to instill common sense thinking processes, productive habits, or train him outside of instructional hours. His never-ending well of chakra and lack of fine control meant he brute forced his way through techniques that did better with finesse. Impulsive, rash, and impatient. Yet tactically creative when something engaged him. A front line wrecking ball if there ever was one. Kid was a poster child for ADHD. Kakashi was going to have to beat the bad habits out of him, teach him to look before he leapt, and build him back up or he wouldn’t make it to see thirteen.
He was going to see thirteen. Even if Kakashi had to drag him there.
The next dossier was almost a palate cleanser. A break between bad and worst. Uchiha Sasuke. It was strategic of the Hokage to put a son of the clan head on Kakashi’s team. He can begrudgingly admit that. It ensured that he would actually have to teach the brats, with their red gazes watching him for any sign of negligence.
A Uchiha was a Uchiha, in the scheme of things. They adhered to rules and strove for perfection, in the wake of old history that wouldn’t be forgotten. Rookie of the Year was practically a given, considering the high standards of the clan, but the boy wasn’t a prodigy. He was the second-born son who came after a prodigy, which honestly was going to make him worse to deal with. Massive fucking shoulder chip and all. Kakashi could practically smell the kid’s inferiority complex wafting off the page. And while the statistical probability of this Uchiha developing the Sharingan was high (he was the son of the clan head and, more importantly, Itachi’s little brother. Genetic history as selectively bred as theirs was pretty predictive), it didn’t make the kid an outlier. It made him predictable. It made him practically common. Barring a few variables, this kid would be as cookie cutter as the rest of the clan when it came to temperament and abilities. Ambitious, driven, and a dedication to duty. If nothing else, Kakashi was grateful for the Hokage giving him one easy case.
He braces himself for the last one.
It doesn’t help.
He avoids looking at her picture by keeping it strategically covered with Sasuke’s file, and it makes it somewhat easier to bear. Easier to pretend that this was just some random kid, which she essentially was. He’d set out to forget her existence as quickly as possible, after that initial nightmare meeting, and he’d done an admirable job of it. Other than sending him a cordial notice of marriage and adoption of the girl by the new husband less than six months after she’d presented her, the girl’s mother (Mebuki, according to the file) had never tried to reach out to him again. The notice had freed him of any lingering burdensome feelings of duty he might have felt to ensure, if not the girl’s care, then at least her continued survival via a monetary obligation. She was clearly being provided for, thus there was no need for his involvement in any form.
Kakashi had always been a natural overachiever. After the first year, she’d been relegated to no more than a name in a forgotten corner of his mind. To achieve this, he became even more of a reclusive workaholic. Not that that was hard. He’d been a depressed child soldier living in a post-war country where everyone he’d loved had died, at least half of their deaths caused by him. Work was all he’d had. Proving his usefulness to the Village had been the only metric of his worth.
He stuck to shinobi only spaces when he could. He avoided being in the village proper as much as possible. Took the high road as it were over the tiled roofs as opposed to the warren-like pathways through the sprawling village. Leery of catching sight of pink hair in a sea of thousands. It was such a unique hair color in Hi no Kuni that if he had ever ran into a little girl during his rare down time in Konoha with that particular shade of bubblegum the chances of her being her were pretty much a given. In the early years, keeping his nose buried in a dirty book was more than just a way to deter the masses from trying to interact with him; it was also to avoid his eye wandering, apprehensively searching against his will.
These isolating practices and coping mechanisms that had replaced his alcoholism helped in banishing her memory. Rigid control of himself and his environment kept him functional. What was one ten minute meeting with a sleeping swaddled infant stacked against two decades of near exhaustion and a lifetime of untreated complex PTSD with a heavy dose of suicidal ideation? He ran himself into the ground for years until he was forcibly removed from his Taichō position. By that point, he couldn’t even be called a functioning human being, more a machine made of flesh. The recent years had been a struggle of self-rediscovery, brutal repression, tactical avoidance of self-destructive habits, and a careful balance of living steeped in survivors guilt while finding peace in small moments. The girl had been relegated to nothing more than an unexplainable aversion to a specific shade of pink by the time this file was unfortunately thrust upon him.
The compiled academic information is both more than he wants to know and simultaneously not enough. A morbid curiosity takes hold of him. A diligent student, one of the youngest in the class, born right around the cut off. Noted as being right handed upon intake but by the time she reached year three she’d been listed as functionally ambidextrous. Unlike Naruto’s, her file was absent of any disciplinary reports. A noted pleasure to have in class. Easy to teach, wasn’t a distraction to other students and required minimal help on assignments. Often assigned to help students who struggled. Competent, and showed promise. She’d been Top Kunoichi, in a class of post-war baby boom clan heirs, and if it wasn’t for clan politics, could have been a serious contender for Rookie of the Year, based on a side-by-side test score comparison with Sasuke. The Uchiha had edged her out in taijutsu, as was to be expected from a member of that clan, but her ninjutsu scores had been slightly higher when it came to technical execution and performance. She was noted as having exceptional chakra control, and Sasuke was currently just a well-trained boy without the Sharingan. His name just carried a weight of expectation that hers didn’t.
He uncovers her picture.
Forces himself to look at it for five seconds.
Closes the file.
He is extremely late in meeting his new team.
Not for any reason other than that he doesn’t want to.
Grossly late, even by his standards.
Nearly dancing with the line of insubordination.
As he stalks down the worn hall he is uncomfortable in his jōnin blues and vest. The familiar uniform he’s worn every day for over half a decade feels abrasive against his skin, feeding into his agitation. Even his mask feels wrong. Smothering instead of the usual comforting barrier. The weight of his hitai-ate is unbalancing. The well-worn leather of his gloves makes his palms sweat. The godsdamned vest is a straight jacket he wants to rip off and throw across the room. His body screams for something to fight, only there’s nothing he can fight.
He’d spent the entire night before stewing in dread, finally giving up on the delusion of getting any sleep whatsoever as the dark of night shifted into the dim gloom of dawn.
Carelessly throwing on clothes, he’d fled his oppressive apartment to the open space of the Memorial Stone, hoping to find some semblance of balance as he stood before it in grimly silent contrition. The spring fog that shrouded the field allowed him the illusion that he was separate from the unwanted reality that awaited him; himself just a statue collecting dew. The steadily rising sun had served as the timepiece ticking down to his doom and then past the hour, long after the heat of the day burned off the mist and the damp that had collected on his numb skin and warmed his cold flesh, turning the statue back into a man, until he couldn’t put his duty off any longer without risking some sort of repercussions.
Then, when he’d finally forced himself to the Academy, he’d had a run-in with a disapproving Umino Iruka, who had let him know in no uncertain terms that he did not support the Hokage’s assignment of him as jōnin-sensei not just in general, but specifically to these three students. His supposed genius didn’t mean he was qualified to shepherd students into being successful ninja, as far as the chūnin was concerned.
Kakashi, who had trained scores of green ANBU operatives into highly successful weapons of covert destruction, took offense at his capabilities being questioned, completely ignoring the fact that he personally felt the same way. The fuck not was some Academy chūnin going to get away with saying it, though, and to his face no less. He’d drawled some pithy comment about the man being a glorified babysitter, then prowled past the fuming nin.
And now as he approaches the door that his extremely unwanted team was waiting behind, instead of grim dread he is filled with a smouldering, impotent, resentment.
He briefly contemplates the life of a nuke-nin.
Dismisses it.
Serving Konoha, his dogs, and porn is literally all he lives for, and the last two out of the three alone is not enough to sustain his will to live, unfortunately.
The chalk filled eraser that explodes upon impact with his head when he sweeps the door open is just the cherry on top of his shit sundae. Naruto’s cackle, so similar to his mother’s, is a kunai twisted in his heart.
“Based on my first impression, I’d have to say…I hate you,” he says into the universe. Because fuck his life.
Keeping his eye leveled above the tops of their heads, he commands, “Meet me on the roof.”
He shunshins there himself, picking a spot against the rail that puts his back to the afternoon sun, and the glare of it in their eyes, helping to further obscure what little of his expression they’ll be able to see. He shoves his hands into his pockets to hide that they're tense fists, and uses the time it takes the three of them to join him to get a semblance of control over himself. Or at least the appearance of it.
Fuck, he doesn’t want to be here.
The windows of the Hokage’s office stare down upon his back. Looming like his executioner. He controls the juvenile urge to toss whoever’s watching him (and he knows he is being watched) a particularly vulgar hand gesture.
It takes the brats a few moments to make it up there via the stairs.
Inability to utilize chakra to scale surfaces, he clinically notes to himself, fighting his anxious energy to not shift and fidget as he waits.
He hears Naruto’s loud voice first, followed by the tromp of their combat-sandaled feet echoing in the stairwell. They haven’t developed the subconscious muscle memory to walk silently yet either it seems. Glorified babysitters indeed, he thinks critically of the Academy staff. Can’t even drill stealth into the students. What have they been teaching them for six years?
He keeps his eyes on the budding green trees and rhythmically clenches then releases his jaw as the three fresh genin–
They’re tiny. Pocket sized. Easily broken. So fresh the pristine surfaces of their brand new hitai-ate shine brightly like beacons just asking to get them beheaded–
–find seats on the low cement steps. His– The girl has situated herself on his blind side, and he stringently keeps her in it. Keeps her a blur of mutely colored clothing topped with offensively bright pink hair in his peripheral.
He wasn’t ready to meet her at fifteen and he still isn’t at twenty-six.
“I am Hatake Kakashi,” he stonily drawls, aloof gaze still set high over their heads, “your Jōnin-sensei for the foreseeable future. I was specifically selected for this team by the Hokage, as he has great expectations of you,” he lies through his teeth, their little bobble heads perk up at the perceived notice of their illustrious leader, “It is my job to see that you not only meet, but exceed them. If you follow my instructions, and perform to the best of your capabilities,” gods willing, “the time between now and your chūnin promotions will go quickly. If you don’t,” here he smiles a chilly little threat, “expect a lot of pain.”
Naruto audibly gulps while the other two shift in discomfort. Kakashi expects he’ll hear something from some Uchiha about using passive intimidation tactics when this gets back to the clan and offending the delicate sensibilities of their honored second son or some other bullshit, but he honestly gives zero fucks at the moment (more than likely a gentle scolding from Itachi. His former kōhai would never presume to tell him how to train anyone under his command, but he’d most likely remind him that his beloved otōto was sensitive or something). He’s going to set the tone of how their interactions are going to be from the start. Kakashi could be a passive aggressive asshole (his standard mode of operation), he could be a chronically absent Sensei to get his point across the the Hokage, he could ignore them and train them the absolute bare minimum, but that would just be hurting himself in the long run by forcing him to have extended contact with the brats. Kakashi wasn’t the type to cut off his own nose to spite his face. To get free of them, they all needed to achieve promotion on their first try. He will be their Taichō. They are his subordinates. Kakashi will train them to be proficient enough to pass their chūnin exams. Failure of this is not an option. That’s his job and he’s not planning on having them underfoot for no more than a year, eighteen months, max. He is not their friend. His is not the soft touch they’ve been nurtured by for the last six years. Best to get the point that he’s a hardass across from the first.
“Now, tomorrow morning there will be a skills assessment at training ground three. Arrive promptly at oh-six-hundred prepared for it. I’d suggest you not eat breakfast, as my last few squad hopefuls ended up puking their guts out before the end of it. Any questions?” he finishes lackadaisically, shifting against the rail, preparing to make his swift exit.
“Ano sa,” Naruto hesitantly asks in that squeaky voice boys get right before puberty hits, scratching his chin in an uncertain manner, “Don’t you want to know anything about us, Sensei?”
He would rather ask Aoba for an in-depth report of his last espionage mission– and his mark had been an eighty-seven year old minor lord with three sagging chins, crepey skin, and a fondness for foot massages that ended happy.
Kakashi sighs, so close to freedom, and sinks back against the rail, “Sure, I guess. Tell me your likes, things you hate, dreams for the future.”
“Alright! Me first! I’m Uzumaki Naruto! My likes are ramen! Specifically, Ichiraku ramen! But ‘specially when Iruka-sensei buys it for me. That’s the best. Oh, and Sakura-chan, she’s the best too,” he shoots the girl in question a quick teasing grin, “I hate the three minutes it takes for the ramen to be ready, and a certain teme,” here he cuts a glare at the Uchiha, “and my dream is to surpass the Hokage, and then have all the people of this village acknowledge my existence, dattebayo!”
The obnoxiously heartfelt words send a spike of pain through his heart so sharp that it temporarily steals his ability to speak, so he just gestures a negligent hand at Sasuke for him to go next.
“Uchiha Sasuke,” the dark haired boy introduces with succinct arrogance, “I like training, and bringing honor to my clan. I hate loud-mouthed usuratonkachi who shouldn’t have graduated, but somehow did anyways. My dream is to bring continued honor to my clan.”
Absolutely no surprises there. Kept it short and to the point, something Kakashi appreciates.
Without looking at her, he says, “And last but not least.”
In his peripheral, he can see her hugging her knees to herself, ridiculous pink hair falling in a curtain over her shoulder, and when she speaks, Kakashi hears the voice of his daughter for the first time.
“I’m Haruno Sakura,” it is a…nice voice. Young, but carries a depth of maturation, girl but not quite anymore, and it is surprisingly solemn, lacking the overly-sweet tones he associates with females of her age. It has the eye under his mask twitching, his jaw so tight he might crack teeth, and his short nails digging into the leather covering his palms, “I like learning new things, and reading. I don’t really hate anything? My dream…I guess it’s to be the best kunoichi I can be,” she shrugs lamely at the end.
“You’re already the best kunoichi, Sakura-chan,” Naruto reassures her while Sasuke scoffs and rolls his eyes.
Well, he thinks stonily to himself, at least she’s not a fangirl.
How is he supposed to train her if he can’t even look at her?