Chapter Text
Hatake Kakashi is exhausted.
It's only been a few weeks since the chunin exams have ended, and a migraine is already starting to creep into his head. Reluctantly, he puts down his book and looks over to where his troublesome genin are arguing about something or other, Sakura trying her best to stop them to no avail.
"You're such a scaredy-cat, Naruto," Sasuke goads provocatively, and Kakashi sighs inside as his blonde-haired student rises to the bait.
"Oh really? Who was the one who beat Gaara, huh? That's right, it was-" Well, it was nice while it lasted. Kakashi might be cruel, but he's certainly not cruel enough to set Sasuke off on an angsty tirade, especially since he's just gotten beaten up by his brother in a one-sided fight which, well, wasn't really a fight.
Not that Kakashi can talk. He shudders a little as he remembers the feeling of getting stabbed for three days straight, then tucks it away into the back of his mind for another, surely more fascinating morning.
"Mah," Kakashi interrupts their squabbling. "I was under the impression that you wanted a C-rank mission after being in the village for so long, but perhaps you're... just not ready."
That stops them all in their tracks. Sakura looks up at him, a little terror in her eyes, no doubt remembering their disastrous mission in the Land of Waves.
Well, he's got to scare his genin sometimes, hasn't he?
"No, wait, Kakashi-sensei-!" Naruto pleads, afraid that they'll be left to yet again do another D-rank. "Come on, we're really tired of being stuck in this tiny village!"
"And I'm tired of you," Sasuke declares, crossing his arms across his chest. That sets them off again, both picking up the pace as they argue whilst he and Sakura trail on from behind.
Kakashi wastes no time in burying his nose right back into his book, as if willing himself to be pulled into the world of Make-Out Tactics or anywhere further away from here. By now, he's pretty desperate - he'll take anything.
"Kakashi-sensei..." Sakura whispers to him dubiously, eyes darting from the boys towards him.
He looks back up at her worried face. "I'll let you in on a little secret, Sakura," Kakashi eye-smiles at her, placing the book back into his pocket as he secretly laments the loss of his reading time. "I'm not actually going to give them a C-rank. Don't worry, it'll just be fence painting and babysitting for the next week or two, at least until Sasuke's cleared for anything more."
Relief floods Sakura's face. "You know, sensei, I'm not sure that they're... okay," she confides, voice becoming hushed. "What exactly happened that day?"
Sakura has always been perceptive, more so than the boys - and it shows. Kakashi pushes down the guilt that's bubbling up in his chest and tells her, "Nothing to worry about, Sakura. Nothing to worry about at all."
.
.
.
If only he'd known how wrong he was.
Standing in the middle of Sasuke's Chidori and Naruto's Rasengan, Kakashi doesn't exactly have much time to think about where exactly he's messed up. Both of the boys crash into opposite water tanks as Kakashi mourns yet another peaceful afternoon of reading his book.
"Both of you, honestly, what were you thinking?" he scolds them sternly, a little more than disappointed in their behaviour. "Naruto, were you really aiming to kill him?"
The blonde-haired jinchuriki has the decency to look abashed, but Sasuke stares stubbornly at the ground which seems to grow more interesting by the moment.
"Sasuke, grow up. Your misplaced sense of superiority won't do you any good in this line of work." The Uchiha only grits his teeth and clenches his fist into a purply red, and then Kakashi realises what it's all about. "Is this because of your meeting with Itachi?"
Sakura stares at him, wide-eyed. "But that - that's your brother, Sasuke..." she says, face contorting into surprise.
"Shut up." The words are delivered by a shaking voice, but it doesn't make them any less aggressive.
"Now, now," Kakashi waves his hands. "I see I have significantly miscalculated how far along in teamwork you really are. All of you, now, come with me."
.
.
.
If life worked the way Kakashi wanted, he really wouldn't be standing in front of the Hatake compound again. But as it is, he still hasn't cleaned out anything since he's last been here, and no matter how much he puts it off, he's always known he'll have to do it at some point.
And what better than to make his genin do it for him instead? Kakashi almost applauds himself at the idea.
"Where are we, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto voices, gawping at the large, timber-framed house.
Sakura peers at him intently, a little too knowing for her own good. "Is this your home, sensei?"
"How could you know that?" Naruto asks, and Kakashi notes that Sasuke has stopped his sulking to look vaguely interested in the answer.
"There-" she points at a patch of farmland right next to the house, with a small stick figure barely visible from here. "There's a scarecrow there, so I immediately thought of Kakashi-sensei."
"Correct," he confirms as Sakura's face brightens up. "I used to live here when I was a child, but I haven't been back here for a while." More like over a decade, but who's counting?
His genin team's expressions grow more and more interested as they wonder about the house that their sensei lived in when he was younger. Kakashi can only imagine their nosiness as they snoop around his stuff.
"What are we here for, sensei?" Sakura asks curiously.
"Mah, I have a few bits and pieces I never really got round to sorting." Kakashi casually replies, seriously downplaying his extreme hoarding tendencies. "Anyway, cleaning that up will be your mission for today. Have fun."
"Another D-rank!" Naruto screeches loudly. "I thought you said that we were going to do a C-rank!"
"Ah." Kakashi scratches the back of his head, smiling. "I lied."
.
.
.
His genin really underestimate him.
"How much junk can one man really own?" Sakura voices doubtfully as Kakashi leads them to the storage room at the back of the house.
Kakashi opens the doors, knowing full well the disaster that it holds behind it. "Never say never, Sakura," he tells her as a large mountain of trinkets and other assorted knick-knacks comes crashing down onto the floor, sweeping the genin away from the storage room.
"You knew that would happen," Sasuke grumbles, annoyed, and Kakashi rewards him with a smile in return.
"Of course I did. Now," he rubs his hands. "You three are going to tidy this up, and I am going to read my book in peace."
He swears he hears someone mumble 'lazy' at his back, but he whips around to stare at them threateningly and they all get to work.
His students are learning.
.
.
.
It's small things like these that'll help his team bond.
Kakashi casts his mind over to many years ago, when Minato-sensei forced him and Obito to do dozens and dozens of errands in a futile effort to kindle a friendship between them. It was too late, of course, but then Kakashi was much younger and much more arrogant then.
Now, he vows that he won't repeat the same mistake with this team. Slowly, he pries Naruto and Sasuke away from each other before they can start fighting again and destroy things he'd rather not have damaged.
"You'll find," Kakashi says cheerfully, "that it'll be incredibly difficult to finish all this in less than a day unless you all work together." He emphasises the last two words, but his students all narrow their eyes at each other, the sentiment clearly having gone over their heads.
"It's too much, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto groans dramatically, collapsing into a pile of papers.
"You haven't even started, Naruto!" Sakura scolds him. "Also..." she looks at Kakashi quizzically, "why haven't you sorted this stuff out sooner? There's stuff here from even before the Second Hokage's time!"
"Just never had time to get round to it," Kakashi brushes off blithely. "Some of it is from the previous generation of shinobi, not just mine you know."
"You- you've got white hair!" Naruto points a finger at him. "How do we know you're not lying?"
"Yeah, you could be as old as the third Hokage," Sasuke joins in lamely. Kakashi raises an eyebrow at him, and the boy flushes. At least he looks like he's in a stable mood, but Kakashi can really never be sure with Uchiha.
"First of all, my cute genin," he tells them theatrically, "this is silver hair, not white. And it's genetic, meaning that I was born like this."
His students look unconvinced.
Kakashi claps his hands together. "Tell you what," he says, changing the subject. "There may or may not be scrolls with some Hatake-specific jutsu in them-" he points at the items left to sort, "- so if you do end up finding one, I'll teach it to you." Each one of them perks up at his words, but Kakashi relaxes into the wall he's leaning on, unconcerned.
There are no jutsu.
It'll be a while.
.
.
.
It does take a few hours, but slowly the mountains of clutter begin to sink into a manageable looking pile. Sakura has already taken charge, ensuring that each item is sorted in its appropriate location and anything that needs to be thrown out is ready to be shredded. She really will become a great shinobi some day, Kakashi muses.
Naruto and Sasuke... well, he'd rather not think about that.
The three of them work together for another hour (thankfully), before Sakura suddenly stops, holding out a scroll towards him.
"Kakashi-sensei," she asks, a little uncertain. "What's this?"
Outwardly, it looks like a simple scroll, but Kakashi knows better. He stares at the words written on it, as if he's unsure of whether they even exist.
"Kakashi-sensei?"
In which universe would he not recognise Minato-sensei's handwriting, not when he'd gazed at it for hours on end after his teacher's death?
"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura looks a little disturbed. Kakashi finally snaps out of his trance.
"Ah... the thing is, Sakura... something from the Fourth Hokage has probably gotten mixed in with my stuff and I've never really noticed it."
"The Fourth Hokage?" Naruto pauses from his work, surprised. "Did you know him?"
"Well... yes," Kakashi says, rubbing his eyes blearily. "He was my jounin-sensei."
"What!?"
.
.
.
After answering precisely none of his precious students' questions that follow, Kakashi wrangles the scroll from Sakura and checks it for any traps his old teacher could have placed on it before he died. Once he's satisfied that there's nothing that poses a direct threat to their lives, he unravels it with a little curiosity of what his teacher could have left behind.
It's a seal. A beautiful, intricate seal which leaves absolutely no doubt that it was inked from Minato-sensei's hands himself. Kakashi's breath catches in his throat and he whistles when he sees the lines, each one eloping with another expert brushstroke.
"What's so good about this anyway?" Naruto asks, peering over at the writing. "I've seen something like this before and it just looks like a normal seal - is it one for summoning?"
"No," Kakashi disagrees. "This one's too complicated for that - these lines here aren't conducive to summoning at all."
Sakura's eyes narrow at him. "Can you tell what it does, Kakashi-sensei?" she questions, straight to the point as she always is.
He sucks in a breath. "I would say that I somewhat know my way around sealing, but the Fourth Hokage was definitely something to behold. Unfortunately, I can't make head or tails of it," he admits.
His students' faces look a little confused - after all, Kakashi is their teacher and they've never seen him not be able to do something. It's an entirely new concept to them, for someone who makes enemy ninja run away with fright at a single mention of his name.
Kakashi glances at Sasuke but the boy looks away from him, quickly plastering a mask of disinterest over his expression. Sakura furrows her eyebrows in concentration, as if thinking about it any harder will help her figure it out.
"Hmm," Kakashi mutters, hand resting on the edge of his chin. He looks at Naruto, vibrating with energy, a disaster just waiting to happen. "I would say the seal is perfectly safe... but then, you never really know with the Fourth Hokage."
"Huh?" Sakura turns to him, puzzled. "Can you contain it in some way, then? Didn't you already check it for traps?"
"I did," Kakashi says, and he takes a brush in his hand. He dips it into an ink pot, generously. "Minato-sensei... he really was something else, you know. I'll put a few precautions on this, just in case there's something I've missed." He can never be too cautious, especially knowing the trouble his students get up to.
Slowly, he raises the brush, and puts it to the paper. The lines of the seal twist, as if they are conscious of his presence, and Kakashi's eye widens.
"Kakashi-sensei-!"
Then there's a blinding flash, and everything goes dark.