Chalk dust and weapons oil
Namikaze, Kakashi thinks, would not have asked this of him. The Yondaime had known him too well to ask him to teach children. But the Sandaime understood too little. Or maybe he understood too much. After all he was so much older than Minato ever got the chance to be, with the brutal cunning that marks all old ninja regardless of village. It’s entirely possible he was asking for the exact same reason that the Yondaime wouldn’t have asked.
“I won’t treat them as children.” Kakashi had warned. “I won’t be able to, I don’t know how.” The Sandaime had given a slight nod.
“I know. I’m asking you to take them anyway. Will you at least give them a fair chance?”
“I’ll judge them on their own merits if that’s what you want to know. If they pass my test I’ll teach them what I can. That’s why I’m asking you now, knowing who I am, what I can’t help but teach them, are you sure you want me teaching these genin.” The Sandaime suddenly looked very old and tired.
“Yes. I’m sure.” He smiled humourlessly. “Necessary things. I’m sure you of all people understand.”
…
Old he might be, but the Sandaime’s judgement was still as viciously sharp as ever. Out of all the teams that graduated that year, team seven is the one he would have chosen. And not just because Minato and Kushina’s son is on it. The other teams were still children, still innocent in ways Kakashi has never had a reference for. Team seven were still children too, but… less so than the others. Out of all the students in that graduating class, those three had the shadows in their eyes that said they’d already learned that the world can be cruel. Out of all of that graduating class, those three were the only ones he understood.
The academy smelled of chalk dust and weapons oil, oddly innocuous scents for a place where killers were trained, but then, Konoha has always been good at making the brutal seem kind. (Kiri’s academy had smelled mostly of blood and stale fear, Kakashi was always glad he hadn’t had to spend more than a year there.)
He turned up late of course. Part of the quirky persona Kushina had suggested he cultivate, at least, that’s the surface reason. Deep down, underneath the underneath, in the carefully guarded parts of his soul where he hates what he is, the orders he lives by, hates the whole shinobi system, that he hates and loves and depends on, for that part of him turning up late is about control, about rebellion, about freedom. He’s a traitor, and a defector, and for lack of a better word a heretic, but still he’s a good shinobi, except in this one thing, he goes where he’s told, and kills who he’s ordered, but always, always in his own time, when he chooses. He’s a jounin, he’s allowed to have quirks and if he uses his to claw back some vestige of control over his own life, well he knows enough to blackmail the Yamanaka into silence about it.
The kids were not impressed. It was a funny combination of disappointment and irritation. He’d feel bad, but honestly it was for the best. Better that they learn early that authority figures would always disappoint them. Better that they develop some cynicism early, rather than having to learn it the hard way when they were faced with the brutal realities of the world they lived in. Besides messing with the brats was actually really funny, they took themselves to adorably seriously.
“My first impression is… I hate you.” And the look on their faces was priceless. “Meet me on the roof in five minutes.” Run little minions run. He suppressed a gleeful cackle. He would say the sadism was just his Kiri roots showing through but… well, he’d met Anko.
He did consider asking them to introduce themselves, but honestly he knew everything he needed to from their academy files, and there was no point humanising the brats until after they’d passed his test. Besides, scaring the shit out of them would be easier if he kept it impersonal.
…
“So, little genins.” Sakura was feeling more than a little nervous. She wasn’t sure how the jounin was exuding that aura of menace, but she was really starting to wish she’d tried harder to keep Naruto from pissing him off. “You think you’ve graduated, do you.”
“Of course we did. We’re awesome dattebayo.” Sakura resisted the urge to strangle Naruto. He was going to get them all killed. She didn’t want to die, she hadn’t had a chance to marry Sasuke kun yet.
“Hmmm, no you didn’t.” And now the jounin seemed amused, which was in it’s own way even more terrifying.
“Hn, we passed the academy exam.” And now Sasuke kun was trying to get them killed too. She loved him, but she was starting to wonder if she was the only person on the team with any kind of self-preservation instinct.
“Hmm, yes, I read over the academy exams. I wasn’t particularly impressed. Luckily, the jounin sensei’s get to administer their own test to decide whether or not you brats make the cut.” Sasuke actually seemed annoyed at that statement.
“I was rookie of the year. I was the best in the class, I fail to see how I could have done better.” The jounin smiled a bit. It was surprising how an expression that showed on such a small piee of face could be so creepy.
“Oh you misunderstand. I wasn’t impressed with the exam.” Sakura almost forgot fear in favour of confusion. “I looked over it, and well it seemed a bit… soft.” The jounin continued. “When I took the exam, we had to kill one of our classmates to graduate. Kill or be killed, old school, law of the jungle and all that.” He smiled wistfully, seemingly oblivious to the horrified expressions on the genin’s faces.
“Um, I never heard about that.” Sakura wasn’t sure what suicidal impulse had driven her to speak up, and she cringed when he turned his attention on her. Luckily he seemed more amused than irritated at her.
“Hmm, well I guess you wouldn’t. That was in Kiri, of course. Konoha doesn’t do that sort of thing.” Then he thought about it for a second, before musing, “At least, not where anyone might hear about it.” He shook his head before continuing, “Anyway, I’ve been told I’m not allowed to make you kill each other. Apparently it messes with teamwork or something. And I’m supposed to try and avoid killing you myself if I can.” He paused to consider, “I’m really not sure if I can. I’ve never really sparred with genin, it might take a while to figure out what you can take. Oh well I’m sure I’ll be forgiven if there’s a certain level of attrition. All part of the learning process.” He smiled again. Sakura tried not to shiver, she had the feeling showing weakness to this man could be very dangerous. She noticed the boys were both being uncharacteristically subdued. Good, there were some survival instincts in their testosterone laden skulls. She weighed up the risks and decided to speak up again.
“So, you said there was another test?” She had a horrible feeling it wouldn’t be a nice safe written test, but knowledge was power and it was better to know than not know. It was. Even if it sometimes felt more like ignorance was bliss.
“I’m so glad you asked pinky.” He sounded… gleeful, “I can see you’re the smart one. Just for that, you get an extra five minute headstart.”
“Headstart.” She didn’t stutter, she didn’t dare.
“We’re going to play a game of hide and seek. Wait, wait…” he grabbed Naruto by the back of the neck as he tried to make a break for it, “I haven’t finished explaining the rules yet, orange chan. That’s a very bad habit to get into. What if you were given a mission and ended up assassinating the wrong target because you ran off before hearing all your orders. Now where was I?”
“The rules sensei.” Sasuke answered this time, his face eerily blank. If Sakura hadn’t spent months stalking him she would have missed the nervous tension behind the expressionless mask.
“Ah yes. The rules. Well, rule number one is, you run and hide, and I’ll come after you. Rule number two is when I find you I’ll fight you, rule number three if you die, or have to be taken to the hospital you fail, rule number four it’s not over until all of you fail, or I get bored. The whole village is fair game to run to and I won’t hold back. Now you have ten minutes. Except for pinky, she has fifteen minutes. Run little genins, run.” They took one look at each other and ran.
…
The kids scattered, and Kakashi wondered if he’d gone too far again. He’d thought he’d learned the limits over the last ten years, but then, he’d spent most of those years interacting with jounin, and Anbu, and the occasional chunin, not genin, not children. The pink haired one had looked just short of a heart attack. He’d warned the sandaime, he didn’t have it in him to be kind to them, not the way Konoha jounin were kind to their students. He wondered idly what Asuma and Kurenai were doing with their new students. Probably nothing this brutal, but Kakashi knew all too well how hard the world could be and he had to know they wouldn’t break. Had to know they wouldn’t let it twist and warp them the way so many of Kakashi’s old comrades had twisted. The ninja world was full of monsters, he refused to help create more.
…
Sasuke ran. Not too fast, not too slow. Just like he’d learned at the academy. If you ran too fast, too close to your limits you got sloppy, left too much of a trail, and if they caught you you’d have no energy left to fight with, if you ran too slow you’d just get caught.
He dodged between the trees trying to obscure his trail, desperate not to get caught, if this was a test then he wasn’t prepared to fail, he couldn’t afford to fail, not if he was going to kill Itachi. If it wasn’t just a test, if the jounin really was mad enough to make the test lethal, well he could afford that even less. Unless you were living in one of the old spirit tales, dead ninja didn’t get to take vengeance. It wasn’t because he was afraid, it wasn’t.
Suddenly an orange blur crashed into him, dragging them both to the floor. Sasuke scowled as the blur resolved itself into the unfortunately familiar form of Naruto.
“Watch where you’re going dobe.” He snarled, trying to cover up his fear. The idiot had the gall to laugh nervously as he apologised.
“Eh, sorry Sasuke. Didn’t see you there.” Sasuke just grunted.
“Whatever. Did you see where the jounin went?” Sasuke doubted it. From Naruto’s slightly battered and leaf strewn appearance, he’d gone for more of a headlong dash than a calculated retreat.
“Nah. I was a bit too busy trying to get some distance. Just so I could get some space to use my awesome techniques you know.” He looked away, and it occurred to Sasuke that for all Naruto’s bravado he was probably just as scared as Sasuke was, if not more so. After all, Sasuke had been top of the class and he felt out of his depth, Naruto had barely graduated a test that this jounin had dismissed as soft. Despite himself Sasuke found himself sympathising. He knew what it was like to not be good enough, no matter what you did, to have your own limitations leave you helpless and outclassed and afraid. And all of a sudden he was angry because what this strange jounin was doing, to him, to Naruto, to all of them, was exactly what Itachi had done to him and he was sick of it. Before he knew what he was doing he took Naruto’s hand.
“You’re a trap specialist right? I saw your pranks at the academy. How much space do you think you need to set something up?” And he could see his words having the desired effect, banishing the encroaching panic in Naruto’s eyes, replacing it with a familiar mischievous grin. And if the feeling of Naruto’s hand in his, gave Sasuke a slight warm glow in his chest, well who was to know.
“Well if we can get over to training ground twelve I have a couple of ideas.” Naruto was back to his usual enthusiasm. Honestly Sasuke hadn’t expected Naruto to actually come up with a plan, he’d just wanted Naruto to stop panicking. Panic killed, even if they did have good reason to be scared they still needed to keep their heads, the academy teachers had been very sure to try and hammer that through their heads. Still if Naruto actually did have some ideas that was all the better, Sasuke had some vague memories of pranks that had been able to snare their chunin senseis and everyone knew pranks were basically just traps set for comedic effect, so he must have some skill in the area. It was a better plan than running blindly.
They tried to be subtle as they made their way through the woods. Or at least as subtle as a ninja dressed in bright orange could be. Sasuke found himself seriously resenting Naruto’s wardrobe choices, even if the idiot was better at moving silently than his academy scores would indicate. They were making good progress until Naruto saw a flash of pink hair, followed by silver, in the opposite direction to the one they were aiming for. Naruto turned to him and Sasuke had a sinking feeling he knew what he was about to say.
“We have to help her.”
“We can’t. He’s already chasing her, we’ll never be able to get her away without him going after us.” Sasuke argued, but he could tell from the stubborn gleam in Naruto’s eyes that it wasn’t going to work.
“We can’t just leave her like that. She might get killed.” There was no arguing with the determination on Naruto’s face. Sasuke sighed,
“Fine. But we’ve got to be smart about this. If we don’t get away clean we won’t have time to set any of your traps, we’ll have to face him head on and then we’re all in trouble.”
In the end it boiled down to sending a clone out somewhere the jounin could catch a glimpse but couldn’t see it clearly, and hoping that he fell for it. It worked far too well. Sasuke really should have been more suspicious of that, but he was too busy being relieved as Naruto grabbed Sakura by the wrist and furiously whispered the plan as they headed for their destination. She was crying silently, too terrified to argue or cause trouble, which Sasuke thanked his lucky stars for, because they really did not need the sound of an argument to draw their insane jounin sensei down on their heads. He’d honestly thought they’d got away clean, that they’d managed to earn themselves a breather, time to lay some traps and work out their next move.
Then the jounin appeared in front of them in a swirl of cold mist that sent chills down Sasuke’s spine. It was only pure reflex that allowed him to take up a defensive position before the jounin struck, too fast for Sasuke’s eyes to follow. The force of it drove him back into a tree, and the nebulous fear that had been biting at Sasuke since the jounin had first appeared in their academy classroom suddenly coalesced into something very sharp and immediate. Sasuke knew in that moment that this man could kill them all without blinking. He should run. They should all run. If they scattered there was a two in three chance he’d go after one of the others first. He looked over at Naruto’s wide blue eyes, and the shaking pink haired form of Sakura next to him. He remembered Naruto’s hand in his, and Sakura’s frightened tears and he made a choice.
“Run.” He said. “I’ll slow him down. Do the plan, make him pay.” And then there was nothing but a blur of strike, and too slow counter strike, and pain. He thought the others had got clear. He hoped so as the world faded to black.
…
Naruto snarled as he ran. He’d never felt so angry, or helpless, not even when Mizuki sensei had turned traitor and left Iruka sensei bleeding on the ground. Had that only been one night ago? It felt like he’d been running through those woods forever. He wanted to turn around and rescue that bastard Sasuke, but he doubted anything he could have done would have helped. Besides Sakura’s hand was still in his, and he couldn’t just abandon her either. He snarled because he couldn’t cry, couldn’t afford to fall apart. Sasuke bastard had told him to run, had told him to trap the hell out of that jounin bastard, and Naruto had to make his sacrifice mean something.
He liked to think he’d done a good job of turning training ground twelve into a deathtrap. Well as good a job as he could have done with the limits on time and materials. Sakura had even pulled herself together enough to help, she’d managed to put some pretty clever genjutsus in to disguise the triggers and tripwires, that he’d never have been able to manage.
It wasn’t good enough though. When it came down to it he wondered if anything would have been good enough. The man was clearly a monster, and they were just newly graduated genin. He took comfort in the fact that he heard a couple of the traps go off before darkness fell. He never even saw the man hit.
…
Sakura dragged a bleeding Naruto with her through the woods. He was clammy, and far too cold and she didn’t know what to do. He could die, and there was nothing she could do about it, his injuries went way beyond what the standard academy first aid course covered. She stopped and propped him up against a tree. If she could get him to the hospital, he’d be fine, failed of course, but alive, and she was increasingly convinced that a passing grade was not something worth dying for. She needed to get him to the hospital, but the hospital was halfway across the village, and he weighed more than she did. There was no way she could make it without the jounin catching them. Even if he wasn’t chasing them she wasn’t sure she could do it, not with how cold Naruto was. He needed help quickly.
She didn’t even like Naruto. He was annoying, and unprofessional, and once he’d dyed the hair of all the girls in the class the same orange as his jumpsuit. That wasn’t the kind of thing pre-adolescent girls forgave easily. But she didn’t want him to die. And he’d helped her, he’d risked getting caught to help her, and he’d dragged her along with him even when she was being utterly useless, and he was going to die in her arms.
She refused to cry. She knew too well that crying wasn’t going to help anything. Instead she thought. She was clever, it was the main reason she’d ended up the top kunoichi in class. If she just thought calmly and analytically, there might be a way to save him.
She heard the jounin off in the distance, still trying to find their trail, and she knew what to do. She stepped out of cover and spoke clearly, in a voice she knew would carry.
“I surrender. Please take my teammate to the hospital.” The jounin appeared and as everything faded to black, she thought she heard him speak.
“Well done.”
…
When she woke up they were all still on the roof of the academy building with not a scratch on them.
“Genjutsu.” Sasuke snarled, to the jounin’s apparent glee.
“Well spotted Sasuke chan.” Naruto seemed confused.
“So… it wasn’t real.” The jounin raised his hand and tilted it from side to side.
“Hmm, depends on your definition of real really. I mean it was a real test. It didn’t take place in the real world, because I couldn’t push you that far in reality without risking you all getting actually hurt, and that wouldn’t be ideal. But it is still relevant to whether you get to be my cute little genin minions, or sent back to the academy in disgrace.”
“Oh” Naruto slumped, “We still failed then.”
“Actually, you guys… pass. Full marks well done.” For some reason his smile wasn’t nearly so scary this time.
“But we all got caught.” Sakura pointed out.
“Oh my sweet innocent little genin. You need to learn to look underneath the underneath. I’m a ninja. I lied. The point of the test wasn’t for you not to get caught. It was to see if you’d follow your conscience even when you knew you’d suffer for it.”
“Huh?” Even Sasuke looked confused.
“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Hatake Kakashi, and I was born in the village hidden in the mist.” Naruto and Sakura just stared in disbelief, but Sasuke looked considering.
“So that’s why you used the Kiri shunshin variant, not the Konoha one.” The jounin, Hatake, beamed and ruffled his hair. Sasuke looked like he was trying very hard not to flinch.
“Correct. Now if any of you were paying attention in class you’ll know that they call Kiri the bloody mist. I’ve seen all too many ninja become monsters. I refuse to train more.” This time it was Naruto who seemed to be considering his words.
“So Sasuke passed because he sacrificed himself to let me and Sakura chan get away.” He said slowly.
“Yes. And you passed because you were willing to risk getting caught to try and rescue Sakura chan.” Hatake nodded.
“What about Sakura then.” Sasuke asked bluntly.
“Ah, Sakura chan, well she had both the hardest and the easiest choice to make, didn’t you Sakura chan?” Hatake said softly. Sakura glanced away before setting her shoulders and looking him right in the eye, she was not ashamed of her choice.
“Not so hard. Naruto was dying, so I chose to surrender in order to get him medical treatment.”
“And I’m very proud of you. All of you. So congratulations, you are all now my cute little genin minions. You can call me Kakashi sensei. Training starts tomorrow, and it’s going to be fun.” Sakura wondered fleetingly if maybe she’d have been better off failing.
…
Kakashi watched as his new genin team dispersed and tried to shake the bleak sense of fear that was creeping over him. He’d tested them and they’d passed fairly, even if he hadn’t wanted them to, and now he had three virtually helpless children depending on him. Tiny little hostages to fate that needed emotional support, and age appropriate training. He wasn’t equipped for this. What if he broke them. He halted his panic and remembered what Kushina had said, “They’re strong where it matters.” He thought of how very brave they’d been under his genjutsu, and he knew those words were as true for this new generation of Konoha nin as they’d been in Kushina’s time. Maybe he could do this. Namikaze wouldn’t have asked it of him, but Namikaze was dead, so all he could do was try and teach these children the things that he’d had to learn the hard way, and hope that they didn’t break.