Summer blossoms and formaldehyde
The chunin exams came upon Konoha in the haze of high summer. An uncharacteristic wave of activity cutting through the persistent acrid scent of smoke from the summer fires, and the sweetness of the climbing flowers that bloomed when the year was hottest. Konoha soon found itself overwhelmed by a wave of suspicious foreign ninja, bureaucratic screw ups, and desperate posturing. Bloody inefficient three ring circus that they were. They were always more a show of strength than anything else, which was why no self-respecting ninja village would ever refuse to host them, no matter how much paranoid isolationism they were indulging in. The exams were an organisational nightmare, a dangerous security hazard, and a massive disruption to the day to day operations of a ninja village, and no-one could afford not to hold them when their number came up. That would look weak, and that was something no hidden village could afford.
Of course the fact that Konoha was hosting meant they really needed to make a good showing, lots of teams in the running, lots of promotions, lots of crushing of foreign ninja. The theatre of it made Kakashi sigh inwardly. Hardly anyone actually got promoted in foreign chuunin exams, in fact hardly anyone got promoted in chuunin exams at all, unless they were already slated for a promotion. And yet still villages sent teams of genin to prove their strength and try to embarrass the host village on their home turf.
He hesitated before nominating his students, he really did. Promotion exams would always carry the memory of fear and blood for him, of half the class graduating on the bones of the other half, but this was a Konoha exam, a public Konoha exam, they traded a lot on their reputation as the nice village. It wouldn’t be like Kiri, they wouldn’t kill his students. There was no reason to be paranoid.
In the end he did nominate them. None of them was actually up for promotion, but it would be good experience, would put them up against ninja from other villages in a relatively controlled environment. Not safe, genin could and did die in chuunin exams, but not outside what his kids could handle, after all the enemies were only genin, his kids were good enough to fight them on equal terms. And anyway it had been strongly hinted to all the jounin sensei that as long as their students were competent enough not to embarrass Konoha, they really ought to enter them, if only to make up numbers. His kids were still too green for a promotion, but they were tough and had obvious potential, it would be strange not to enter them, when they would be such a good showcase of Konoha’s upcoming young talent.
He hadn’t expected the chuunin sensei to speak up. It was bravely done, if unwise, speaking out of turn in a roomful of ninja stronger and far more dangerous than he was. Yet another Konoha nin showing strength when it mattered. Iruka sensei loved Naruto, loved all his kids, and was willing to challenge his superiors to protect them. It changed nothing of course, but sometimes that wasn’t the most important thing. Kakashi had learned the hard way that sometimes the most important thing was to try.
They should have listened to him, although really no-one could have predicted the clusterfuck that was to come. Still they should have listened.
…
Sakura knew who Orochimaru was. She knew he was famous, and she knew why, what he was capable of, what he had done, she knew he was enough to give hardened jounin nightmares. She realised who he was and she grabbed Sasuke and ran. For all the good it did them. Kakashi sensei had trained them to deal with killing intent, how to run and hide when most people would simply freeze, but how could they run and hide from someone so much faster, so much better, who had their scent, who wanted Sasuke. She’d run anyway, fallen back on her training when fear left her unable to think. Later Kakashi would say he was proud of her for that, it had been a bright point in a very bad day.
They’d been caught of course, had been trapped by an enemy that smelled of formaldehyde and dry scales, and felt like death. Sakura had never been so afraid. And then Orochimaru had bitten Sasuke in the neck and left a strange mark and then he’d let them go. Part of her, the innocent civilian born part had just been so relieved it was over. But the rest of her, the rest of her had paid attention, had been listening to Kakashi sensei’s lessons in the harsh realities of the world, and Kakashi’s student knew that nothing was ever that simple. If he’d let them go it wasn’t for any reason they should welcome.
When the sound genin had jumped them Sakura had been ready, and she hadn’t been too proud to play helpless victim, right up until she twisted, the way Kakashi sensei had taught her and knifed the closest one in the throat, at the same time as she pulled the thread on the razorwire trap she’d set up. Her first three kills in under a minute. Part of her wanted to break down or throw up or something, but she couldn’t afford to, not when she was the only thing protecting her helpless teammates. So she pushed it down and kept moving, ignored the tacky feeling of the blood drying on her hand, and the choking taste of metal on the air, and the blank, blank eyes of her dead opponents. She remembered Kakashi telling them…
“It doesn’t take flashy ninjutsu to kill you know. All it really takes is a decision, that you are going to walk away from the fight, and they’re not. Everything else is just details, you can use a flashy jutsu, or a kunai, or a pointy stick. It doesn’t matter what weapons you use or how strong you are, in the end, almost anything can kill you. The end result is the same. Just so much meat. People die easy.” She hadn’t really understood what he meant until that moment, when she realised she’d killed three ninja who were stronger and more dangerous than her, because she’d been serious and they hadn’t. Now she was a living breathing Kunoichi with blood on her hands, and they were empty piles of slowly cooling flesh and bone. She wished she didn’t understand, but some lessons can’t be unlearned.
…
Of course his team was in the middle of it all. He didn’t know why Orochimaru wanted Sasuke, he wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to know, ninja with that kind of power could get away with all kinds of perversions simply because they were too strong for most people to stop. All he knew was that in the space of about twenty four hours things had gone from a fairly standard piece of military posturing, to hell in a handbasket. Kakashi was afraid, was sick with it, the sour taste of bile at the back of his throat whenever he thought of just how wrong everything had gone. And if Orochimaru’s involvement wasn’t enough on its own to give him cold chills down his spine, then the lineup for the combat section of the exams would have done it.
Sakura at least was out of it. Double knockout in the prelims against her Yamanaka classmate. Not the most dignified showing, but Kakashi was well past caring about that. She’d just made her first kill, it was understandable for her to lose her cool. He’d schedule her in for some counselling with the psych nins once she’d had time to process, at least for now she was ok. Upset over her first kill, but no-one ever died from that that he knew of, and for now, until he could find time to talk her through it properly that would have to be enough. She was a brave girl, she would be ok.
Naruto… was probably going to get the crap beaten out of him to be honest, Gai’s student was one of the ones actually scheduled for a promotion, as long as he didn’t do anything stupid, and he was good. Kakashi wasn’t too proud to admit that, he was a year older than team seven, and Gai had trained him well. But a beating wouldn’t kill Naruto, wouldn’t even put him down for long with his nine tailed passenger, and Neiji wasn’t nearly stupid enough to actually kill a fellow Konoha nin on purpose, that was the sort of thing that could kill his career before it started. Naruto would be fine, a bit bruised and humiliated, but honestly he probably needed the reality check anyway. It wasn’t Naruto Kakashi was afraid for.
Sasuke though… Kakashi had seen the kid he was up against. He hadn’t seen that sort of bloodlust on a genin since Zabuza graduated. It had taken weeks for them to get all the blood out of the academy arena, Kakashi had been on one of the genin teams assigned to the cleanup. He’d had nightmares for years after, until the blood he’d spilt himself replaced it in his dreams. Sasuke’s opponent was dangerous. Not just strong, but mad, the kind of mad that would paint the world red and rule it from a throne of rotting corpses. Rabid, as his dogs would put it. He’d seen what the boy had done to Gai’s student, and he’d seen that he would have done worse if he hadn’t been stopped. Sasuke couldn’t beat him, he knew his student, knew his strength and potential, and he knew he couldn’t win. And then there was that seal on Sasuke’s neck, Orochimaru’s work, and Kakashi had no idea what it was doing to his student, but it was yet another bad variable in a fight that was full of bad variables.
He should have just told Sasuke to forfeit, would have done if he’d thought Sasuke would listen, but Sasuke was fairly mad in his own right. Itachi had broken something in him. His survival instinct possibly, or maybe just his ability to back down. He didn’t understand how to face his own limitations, how to recognise a fight he couldn’t win. His fight or flight instinct was permanently stuck on fight. Sasuke wouldn’t forfeit. It was probably going to kill him.
Kakashi wasn’t a Kage, wasn’t a magician, or a god, he couldn’t wave his hand and stop the fight, disappear Sasuke’s opponent, vanquish Orochimaru, fix Sasuke’s head, make everything ok. He was just a ninja, just a jounin sensei. He couldn’t protect his student. In the end he’d never been able to protect anyone, he’d known that when he took team seven on despite his doubts. All he could do was try and teach them to protect themselves, and hope that would be enough.
He dumped Naruto on Ebisu who owed him a favour. He’d have to make it up to him later, but Sasuke needed him more, and anyway Naruto could do with some review of the basics. He dumped Naruto on Ebisu, assigned Sakura some reading to keep her out of trouble, and he took Sasuke out of the village. He couldn’t save Sasuke, but he had a month to try and teach him to save himself, and he couldn’t do that where he might be watched or overheard.
…
“The thing is.” Kakashi sensei told him, half casual, half serious. “You’re probably going to die.” Sasuke bristled at the implication.
“I’m not weak, I won’t die that easily.” Kakashi sighed.
“I didn’t say you would die easily. But the fact is that Sabaku no Gaara is stronger than you, and he’s rabid. I’ll teach you what I can to try and help you survive this, I’ll train you into the ground for this fight if you want, but in return I want you to think very hard about things worth dying for, and whether pride is one of them.”
“I’m the strongest in my year…” Kakashi didn’t let Sasuke finish, interrupted with a subtle note of anger that Sasuke almost missed.
“You are a genin. A green, new minted genin. Yes you are talented, but mark my words and mark them well there are fights that you cannot win. I am a jounin, I am ex-Anbu, I am a prodigy and a genius, and I’m in the bingo books of all the major villages, and there are still fights I cannot win. If you do not know your limits you cannot hope to surpass them.”
“Teach me then. Help me get stronger.” Sasuke didn’t understand what Kakashi was trying to get him to do. Did he want him to forfeit? But if he did that how could he progress? How could he ever defeat Itachi if he couldn’t even beat one foreign genin. Kakashi sighed again, and tried a different tack.
“Why does this fight matter?” He asked lightly, and if Sasuke hadn’t known better he would have thought him unconcerned. “What do you gain if you win, what do you lose if you don’t? Answer me this Sasuke, is this a battle worth fighting?”
“How weak do you think I am, if I can’t even beat some genin? How am I to grow stronger if I don’t challenge myself?” Sasuke snapped back, defensive for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate to himself.
“You are not a fool Sasuke.” And Sasuke twitched at the way Kakashi’s tone shifted to something as hard as steel and as sharp as the edge of a blade. “You are not a fool Sasuke, so please stop acting like one. Genin that boy might be, but if he is it’s only because he’s too unstable to be trusted. He has power that you will never have and he knows how to use it. There are some people in this world that you shouldn’t fight unless it’s something worth dying for, and I tell you now that he is one of them. So think, is there anything about this fight that is worth dying for.”
“What are you talking about?” Sasuke was missing something, he knew he was missing something. Something he should have seen, something he should have known, and the disappointment in Kakashi’s eye bit deeper than he’d ever expected it to.
“You are not a fool Sasuke. Tell me who your teammate is.” Kakashi’s gaze was deadly serious, in the way it was when he was trying to tell them something cruel and true and important.
“My teammates are you, Sakura and… Naruto.” Sasuke trailed off, there was something in that. He remembered the aura of the sand genin, chakra that tasted of pure malice, that thickened the air with the scent of electricity and blood. He’d felt it before, he realised, he’d felt it in wave, and instinct told him it mattered. Something cold and sickening trickled down his spine. “Naruto. This has something to do with Naruto.” Kakashi’s eye curved up in a bleak smile.
“Aa.” He said softly, and waited patiently for Sasuke to puzzle it through.
“There’s something about Gaara that’s like Naruto, some kind of power, or bloodline ability. No it’s more than that…” he thought out loud. “The adults all know what it is don’t they?” He asked suddenly with a flash of cold clarity. “There’s something they haven’t told us about Naruto.” He felt as though he was standing on the edge of something, like a cliff or the blade of a knife, on the edge of a realisation he wasn’t sure he wanted, but there was no mercy in Kakashi’s expectant look, so he had to step forward anyway. “What aren’t they telling us Sensei?”
“When is Naruto’s birthday Sasuke?” And with that the pieces that Sasuke had been refusing to acknowledge finally came together. He could tell that Kakashi saw when the truth finally dawned on him. He felt… cold. Kakashi sensei had told them, had warned them what hidden villages were, the lies they were built on, the bloodstains under the carpet, but being told there were secrets was an entirely different feeling to being confronted with one of those secrets, more visceral, more real. He remembered wide frightened blue eyes, a hand in his, a promise of friendship, he remembered the old books in the Uchiha library that he’d read when there was no-one left to tell him what he could and couldn’t read. He remembered reading about jinchuriki, human weapons with monsters sealed inside them. He remembered power that had poisoned the air in wave. Bloodstains under the carpet, and once you know they’re there you can’t forget, no matter how much you might want to. Kakashi nodded in satisfaction as Sasuke tried to process.
“You understand now, why Gaara concerns me.”
“But I can beat Naruto and he’s…” Sasuke spoke desperately but without conviction. He knew the truth and Kakashi confirmed it.
“Naruto doesn’t know how to use the power inside him, from the looks of things Gaara does, that makes a difference. And besides…” Kakashi looked pensive. “I don’t trust Gaara’s seal.” Sasuke blanched.
“You mean the bijuu might escape?” Sasuke had heard the stories of the Kyuubi attack, had seen the nightmares of ninja older and more seasoned than he was. He knew that was no light concern.
“Maybe. I have no proof, just a feeling. But I’ve seen faulty seals before and that boy worries me.” He shook his head free of the dark thoughts that clung to them both, and continued in a more casual tone. “Anyway, enough of that. Your opponent is fast, so I guess we need to work on your speed training.”
“I thought you wanted me to forfeit?” Sasuke asked in confusion. Not that he wanted to forfeit but the about face was disconcerting.
“I think, that there’s a momentum to all of this that isn’t going to be derailed by me knocking some basic self-preservation into your head. I’d like for you to forfeit but on the off chance that things don’t work out that way more training might just save your life.”
“I thought you said that trust would save our lives?” Sasuke quipped, in an effort to break the tension. It wasn’t nearly as funny as he’d intended it to be.
“Lots of things can save your life, just like lots of things can take your life. As a ninja it is wise to be aware of all of them.” There was a dark resignation in Kakashi’s tone that Sasuke didn’t like. He didn’t want to forfeit, but Kakashi sensei had never lied to him, to any of them, had never been other than brutally honest. That deserved a measure of trust Sasuke thought, so he would trust Kakashi’s judgement. He would forfeit.