”Well, why don’t you introduce yourselves first?”
Kakashi let his gaze sweep over the three children sitting in front of him. They were an interesting bunch, to say the least. Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke. He smiled friendly at the three of them, and received a gaping stare from the blond, while Sakura returned the smile with a confused one of her own. Sasuke just glared at the floor. He could practically feel the disappointment radiating from the boy; his first appearance had obviously not left a very good impression on him.
Well, good. It wasn’t supposed to.
“Introduce ourselves? What do you want us to say?” Sakura said, blinking a couple of times, before she threw what she probably thought were a discrete glance in Sasuke’s direction. Kakashi felt a strong urge to roll his eyes. As if this wouldn’t be hard enough on him without a lovesick twelve year old girl on the team.
“Hm… What you like, dislike, your dreams the future? Your hobbies? Something like that,” Kakashi suggested with a nonchalant gesture.
“I think that you should introduce yourself first, sensei,” Naruto spoke up.
“Me?” Kakashi asked. “I’m Hatake Kakashi.” He leaned back a little, fixing his eye on the sky while he continued. “I have no intention of telling you what I like and don’t like. As for my dreams…” He trailed off, lifting his chin higher as he followed a bird’s flight with his gaze. He were very happy about his great control of his facial gestures, otherwise he’d have a hard time not smirking right now. “I don’t really have any hobbies,” he finished, scratching the back of his head thoughtfully.
The three of them stared at him for a moment, before Sakura turned to the boys and whispered in a sulky voice; “So all we got was his name, huh?”
“Yeah,” Naruto agreed.
“Now it’s your turn,” Kakashi said, motioning towards Naruto. “You first.”
“I’m Uzumaki Naruto!” the boy declared with great enthusiasm. “I like cup ramen, but I like it even better when Iruka-sensei treats me to Ichiraku. I don’t like it that I have to wait three whole minutes for the ramen to finish after I’ve warmed the water.”
This guy really has a one-track mind… Kakashi thought tiredly.
“My hobby is to eat different kind of cup ramen to find out which is my favourite!”
Oh god…
“My dream is to become stronger than the Hokage so that everybody will acknowledge me.”
Kakashi nodded. He’d grown up to be an interesting kid, despite all obstacles. Well, at least the brat seemed to have something else in his head than ramen.
“Okay, next,” he said, averting his gaze to Sakura.
“I’m Haruno Sakura!” she said happily. “I like…” she hesitated, blushing. “Well, the person I like is…” More blushing, and another one of the “discreet” glances at Sasuke. “My hobby is… Eh… And my dream for the future…” Here, she interrupted herself completely, squealing embarrassedly.
Kakashi didn’t even bother to hide his bored expression. Hopefully, the mask would hide it well enough, and if it didn’t… he didn’t care that much anyways.
“And? Is there anything that you dislike?”
This time, there was no happy, high-pitched voice, and no hesitation. “Naruto,” the girl said flatly, scowling. Beside her, the blond slumped.
He’d been right about her. She’d definitely be a burden for them all before she managed to let go of that obsessive crush of hers.
…he felt bad for Sasuke.
“And you’re last,” he said to the young Uchiha boy.
“…my name is Uchiha Sasuke,” Sasuke mumbled into his hands, his eyes leaving the floor to meet Kakashi’s. “I like training and taking walks. I don’t like it when weak people hold me back.” Here, he threw a quick glance at both of his teammates. Oh, so he’s so certain that he’s better than the other two? Kakashi thought, amused. …he’s probably right. But that attitude of his… We need to work on that.
“My dream is to become stronger than…” he hesitated for a moment, and Kakashi almost thought that he could see a faint blush tinting the boy’s cheeks. Hm. Interesting. Of course he knew who Sasuke’s brother were, and how insanely strong he was; he’d worked together with him in ANBU after all, and as he looked down on the young boy, he suddenly understood that Sasuke must feel like even though he was constantly put in the spotlight because of his Uchiha-name, he himself probably felt it mostly like he were always put in the shadow of his own brother’s amazing abilities.
Very interesting, indeed. It would be fun to see just how far the wish to surpass Itachi could push Sasuke.
“My dream is to become a strong shinobi who honours my clan,” Sasuke finally said, and Kakashi hid a smile. A standard reply for every new Uchiha-genin. An easy escape for those who weren’t really motivated to be a shinobi.
Sasuke weren’t like that, he could tell.
“Laaaame…!” Naruto yawned. Sasuke whipped around towards the boy.
“Shut up, usuratonkachi,” he said, grinding his teeth together. The two of them glared at each other for a moment, and both Sakura and Kakashi could almost see the gusts of lighting and hate that each boy was shooting at the other through his eyes.
Kakashi watched the scene with growing amusement. He’d watched the accidental kiss from the Hokage’s office, and this was definitely promising. Promising as in he’d probably not be bored straight away with this new team.
“Okay, that’s enough of that,” he said lightly, interrupting Sasuke’s and Naruto’s small war. “We’ve all got unique personalities, which is good. I like that. Now on to business; we’re going to begin in a mission starting tomorrow.”
“Heh! What kind of mission?!” Naruto asked, once again sounding very exited.
“Well, first we are going to do something that only the four of us can do,” Kakashi begun, only to be interrupted by the boy once again.
“What? What, what what?!”
If he hadn’t been so amused by this little group, he’d probably had gotten annoyed. As it was, he decided to let it slip in favour of continuing to explain things and get them it done with.
“Survival training.”
“Survival training…?” Naruto asked in a confused voice, obviously expecting something different.
“Sensei,” Sakura said, raising her hand. “You said that we were going on a mission; why are we going to be training. We had plenty of that in the Academy.”
“Oh, but this isn’t normal training,” Kakashi explained.
“What kind of training is it then?” Sasuke asked. He were the only one of them who appeared uninterested, but Kakashi could tell from the way his eyes never left the Jounin that it was just a façade. He was just as anxious as his new teammates.
He chuckled. An interesting bunch, indeed.
“What’s so funny, sensei,” Sakura asked, looking sour as she drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them.
“Let’s just say that I’m fairly certain that you’ll all be surprised,” Kakashi said, smiling. He could almost see how the three of them shivered in anticipation as he lowered his voice and summoned his best “mysterious and scary grown up”-look to his face. “Out of all the 27 students who have graduated, only nine will proceed to become real genin,” he added slowly, locking gazes with them one at a time. “The other 18 will be sent back to the Academy.” The children seemed to take their time to register this. “In other words, this training is going to be a very hard test with a sixty-six percents dropout rate.”
Naruto looked like the world just had flipped upside down. Sakura stared at him as if she thought that he was joking. Sasuke straightened up, his hands dropping from his face, his eyes widening for a short moment before they narrowed again.
Kakashi smiled and tilted his head. “See? I told you you’d be surprised!”
Naruto finally found his air again. “No way!” he yelled. “I’ve worked too hard to get this far to be cropped out now! What the hell was the final exam for anyways?!”
“Hm, that? It still serves his purpose; it picks out the ones of you who are best suited to become genin. It’s just not the final final test, is all.”
“Whaaaat…?!” The brat had his charm, he had to admit that, but right now, he was beginning to become a little annoying.
“Anyway, the examiner for tomorrows test will be me. Wither you pass or not will be based on my opinion, and mine alone. Flattery, or any try to show off, will be useless; I’m interested in your skills as shinobi only.” He rose from his casual stance against the railing. “Bring your equipment and meet me at the north training grounds.”
He looked over his shoulder, surveying the three children. Naruto was shaking all over, staring at the ground intently. The fighting intent was so strong he could feel it all the way over where he stood. Good, he thought, he seems to be motivated enough. Sakura were clenching and unclenching her hands in front of her, for once she didn’t throw sideway glances at the young Uchiha, but Kakashi suspected that her thoughts were still centred on the boy. Once again, he could feel a wave of sympathy for Sasuke; there was more then one reason why he’d never really dared to lay off the habit with the mask through all his years, after all.
Sasuke himself were silent. He had once again averted his eyes to the ground, while his nails were making small crescent marks in the skin on his hands. Wow, he must have really gotten them all riled up.
Perfect.
Hatake Kakashi really was a sadistic bastard sometimes.
“By the way; you’d better not eat any breakfast tomorrow,” he added, before beginning to form the seals for a teleporting-jutsu. The last thing he said before disappearing in a puff of smoke was a dark: “You’ll throw up if you do.”
Okay, so he was a sadistic bastard most of the time. So what?
Owari
oooo