Theory and practice
There was something a little unnerving, and yet morbidly amusing, about Reborn getting a genin team. Kakashi remembered that horrifying incident when Reborn had volunteered to offer student mentoring to the younger classes back at the academy. He was just glad he’d already graduated and therefore couldn’t be held responsible for the whole study group ending up in the middle of the forest of death. He hadn’t been there, but Genma had gleefully filled him in on the way that Reborn had got all the kids swallowed whole by a giant leech. Deliberately. So they’d learn how to activate explosive tags while being digested.
It had been pretty funny from a distance actually, and by that point Kakashi was already a Chunin, and therefore at a very comfortable distance indeed, so he was able to enjoy the mayhem without being held responsible for any of it. The idea of having Reborn as his co-instructor was a little less appealing. For one thing whatever else anyone could say about him, Reborn did work hard, especially at teaching, and he got results, quickly. If Reborn got too much attention people might start pressuring Kakashi to work hard, and get quick results. He shuddered in horror at the thought. Kakashi was very much a fan of student led learning, and self-study. He felt it delivered a more independent, and self-motivated ninja, as well as being far less work for him. Besides the looks on their little faces when they saw him relaxing with a good book while they tried to subdue Tora the demon cat again was absolutely glorious.
Reborn was more a fan of the training from hell approach, tempered with a truly sadistic sense of humour. Sort of like an unholy cross between Gai and Anko. Reborn actually made lesson plans, and made sure they were followed. He organised events to test his students skills, he put effort into motivating them. Admittedly he did it all with a kind of vicious manipulation that even Kakashi could admit was amusing but still, that was a lot of effort to go to to torment kids that could probably manage to traumatise themselves given a few basic tasks and enough rope to hang themselves with.
And of course it wasn’t just Reborn. Whatever Reborn did he always somehow managed to drag other people into it, particularly his yearmates. Kakashi didn’t know how every jounin of that year group had managed to score a genin team, and not only that but the specific genin team they wanted, he wasn’t sure he even wanted to know. All he knew was that they’d done it, which meant thing were likely to get… exciting fairly quickly. Because of course, that meant that Fon also had a genin team, and Fon and Gai having genin teams at the same time was just a recipe for competition. Fon might seem laid back, but he and Gai really had far too much in common. Kakashi still remembered the famous dumpling eating contest that had ended with a draw when both contestants had to get their stomachs pumped.
Kakashi had done a little recon on Reborn’s future team, just… for information purposes. It was a good team honestly. Certainly a lot better than his had been, for starters they all seemed to be friends already, and used to working together, no fangirls, no out of control rivalries, Kakashi was almost jealous. Although the way the mini swordsman and the Nara’s worst nightmare acted almost like bodyguards to the fluffy one was a little worrying. He’d have said there was some kind of bullying issue except for some unfathomable reason Sawada Tsunayoshi seemed to be the most popular kid in the class.
At any rate it was overall a good team, which made Kakashi even more suspicious that Reborn had done something to manipulate the assignments. Genin team assignments were one of the few opportunities the desk chuunin had to get revenge on the jounin for shoddily filled out paperwork, and they took full advantage of that. They were absolute masters of creating teams with nightmarish personality clashes, that were also an excellent match in terms of skillsets so the Jounin sensei couldn’t complain. Reborn had to have bribed someone to get a team that actually got on with each other. Kakashi just wished he’d thought of that.
The kids were of course all insane, Kakashi really expected nothing less from Reborn’s students. It wasn’t like Kakashi’s students were models for mental stability. Nor were Gai’s kids for that matter, now that he came to think of it, he couldn’t think of any reason a sane child would become Gai’s mini me. He hadn’t got as much data on Fon’s team, but he was sure they would be just as low key crazy as their mentor, Fon was like that. He seemed normal, right up until you realised he was actually just a softly spoken maniac. There was probably going to be chaos, the kids were all crazy and their teachers would probably only encourage those tendencies, himself included. Crazy kids were so much more entertaining than sane ones after all, and he had to get back at the Hokage somehow for making him babysit the brats. And it wasn’t like any of them was going to let the others outdo them when it came to creating violently unstable chibi monsters, they were all far too competitive for that.
Sometimes Kakashi did wonder if the Hokage was going senile, encouraging all four of them to take on genin teams at the same time. Did he not remember the notorious Tea country diplomat body guarding incident? The desk nin were still trying to make sense of those mission reports, trying to figure out what had been going on with the bandits, and the assassination plots, and the travelling circus, and the dancing bears. After that incident the Yondaime had put a note in all their files saying no more than two of them were to be put on the same mission at the same time, due to the risk of challenge escalation.
At some point, someone, probably Gai, was going to suggest a joint training session. Kakashi fully intended to be very very late for that meeting. He was sure the chaos would be wonderful to watch, from a distance. Maybe he should set up cameras in advance. Of course it might damage his plausible deniability, but he could make a fortune selling the recordings on the black market.