Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Alright kiddos! Now that you’ve all made it this far it’s time for me to give you your assignments. I’ve been told that they’ve changed up the system for this year and although you will all be on separate teams you will still be working closely with each other. Lord Hokage asked for my opinion on your relationships and capabilities, because of that, your assignments may come as a shock to some of you. I guarantee these decisions were not made lightly, and your best interests were in mind during this whole process.” Iruka’s eyes flitted across his students, noticing that he actually had all of their individual attention for the first time since he’d been paired with this bunch, “Team Seven, led by Kakashi Hatake, will be comprised of Shikamaru Nara, Sakura Haruno, and Sasuke Uchiha. Your team's general focus will be reconnaissance, and for those of you that weren’t paying attention, that means that you will most often be gathering intel.”

“What happened to Ino-Shika-Cho? We were supposed to mirror our parents' formation because it was so effective and their focus was also recon.” Shikamaru, surprisingly, spoke up. His eyes were narrow and the pen in his hand was spinning circles around his fingertips.

“Like I said,” pausing to lick his lips and think before responding in full, “things are being done differently this time around. My understanding is that that was the plan originally but I felt that you and Choji would just enable each other’s less than ideal habits, Ino agitates you and makes you even less cooperative than you are on any given day, every team exercise that we have done in class where you would work with either Choji, Ino, or both of them, your team would consistently score the lowest in the class. There was almost always arguing and there was always failure. I told the Hokage my observations when he requested them. Take it up with him, but keep in mind that your genin team assignments are final. Can I continue with the assignments now, or do you have any other questions for me Shikamaru?”

His eyes dropped and his pen froze, “No, sensei.”

“Okay! Under the tutelage of Kurenai Yuhi, Team Eight will be made up of Choji Akimichi, Hinata Hyuga, and Shino Aburame. Your focus will be tracking. ” He rattled off a few more names and then, “Ino Yamanaka, Naruto Uzumaki, and Kiba Inuzuka. You will be training for the front lines under Asuma Sarutobi as Team Ten, I believe it was because of your stamina.” About five minutes later, he was done with the assignments and he seemed genuinely proud to finish the year off with so much potential in one room. With a beaming smile he said, “Congratulations! I wish you all the best of luck with your new teams, your new sensei will be here to retrieve you within the next hour. Get comfortable with your teammates, you’ll be spending a lot of time with them,” and with that he grabbed his things and took his leave.

The sudden silence in the room was deafening and none of the students wanted to be the first to do anything. Ino though, had always been more brave than the other students in the class. She turned towards Shikamaru and with all the manners she knew, says, “So it’s your fault then? What am I supposed to tell daddy? ‘Shikamaru was too much of a lazy jerk so the Hokage wanted to keep him separate’ somehow I don’t think that’ll go well.”

“From what I could tell, he was saying that you were too uncooperative with me and Cho. Guess we’re both the problem,” he hadn’t looked up from the pen he’d been messing with since class started (Ino thought that he was trying to keep himself occupied until he could take a nap, there was a reason he was always sleeping or sneaking out. Hard to keep his attention with subject matter he already knew).

She shakes her head, “Whatever. Probably won’t be that bad anyways, I’ll just fake some tears and he’ll drop it like usual. Anyways! This’ll be perfect, you can be my inside man, y’know get me the scoop on Sasuke and keep Sakura off him,” Sasuke looked up from his spot near the window with something akin to hope, “Y'know like a good friend. Right Shika?”

“Why would I do that for you?” 

Sasuke stood so fast his chair fell over. It took him all of two seconds to close the space between him and Shikamaru and he planted his hand firmly on the desk between them, “Can you? Keep Sakura off of me?” 

Sakura squealed when he said her name, making both Shikamaru and Sasuke roll their eyes. Shikamaru simply repeated himself and Sasuke, unlike Ino who had resigned herself to her friend’s general apathy, pushed the subject even further. “What do you want? I could get you anything. Free food? What’s that game I’ve heard you talk about, shogi? I could get you a new board? Anything, I’ll do anything.”

“Don’t worry about it, as long as you’re in my general vicinity I’m pretty sure she’ll leave you be. For the most part anyway. She’s not exactly my biggest fan,” he smirks, “A shogi board sounds nice though. You know how to play?”

Sasuke releases a sigh of relief, “Not really.”

Shikamaru chuckles a little and says, “Okay. I could teach you, we got some time, probably.”

Like the universe lived to prove people wrong, the door opened and in walked a woman with black hair and red eyes. She introduced herself as one Kurenai Yuhi and smiled, “I’m here for Team Eight, if the three of you could come with me please.”

Choji, Hinata, and Shino all stood from their seats, where they had previously been simply observing the conversation happening in front of them, a conversation between two of the most quiet kids their age, which was. Odd. To say the least. The trio walked towards their new sensei, Choji lagging behind a moment to rest his hand on Shikamaru’s shoulder, his own version of ‘See you later,’ and then they were gone. 

The jonin Asuma Sarutobi was next, and with him went Naruto, Kiba, and Ino, marking easily the loudest of the genin all as one unit. Joy. Asuma’s reaction to the three shared the sentiment it seemed, if the vein in his forehead had any merit. Hours had passed since then, all the other genin had been grabbed by their sensei, leaving only Shikamaru and his supposed teammates. 

Shikamaru’s father had been dropping hints about what happened after graduation. Nothing explicit but Shikaku had been known to give his son riddles and mysteries in an attempt to engage him and prepare him for any challenges he might face. As a result of this habit, Shikamaru would often overthink things that just seemed too easy and their ‘exam’ was absolutely one of these things, so he wasn’t entirely sure how long this assignment would last and he wasn’t entirely confident in their ability to pass it, either. Sakura had taken to watching Sasuke with hearts in her eyes, and Sasuke hadn’t said a word since Team Eight had left. Not exactly inspiring.

Shikamaru felt it was best to not be asleep when his new sensei made an appearance. He was far from enthusiastic about living the life of a shinobi but it was something that he had to do, and it was best he not be asleep for the start of it. There’ll be time for a nap later.

At least, he was trying to convince himself of that. It was getting more and more difficult to keep that ideology the longer his sensei took to make an appearance. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.

A good thing then that the door opened a moment after the thought, again with the cosmic hilarity of proving people wrong and whatnot. A tall man with silver hair and an eye stuck in one of those books his dad keeps hidden in the floorboards, slouched into the room and leaned back onto the doorframe.

“Yo. Meet me on the roof,” and he was gone.

Silence.

Okay then. 

‘Five minutes and twenty-three seconds,’ Kakashi puts the newest edition of the Icha Icha series into his pocket after Shikamaru finally sits down, having taken the longest of his team to get there, and starts his scripted and boring speech. Along with the changes in team arrangements, the Hokage had been making changes to the way the genin are taught, probably so they wouldn’t be as hopeless as last year’s bunch. All but one of those teams, Gai’s being the exception, found either death or failure and it really pushed the higher ups to do some self-reflection. Didn’t mean Kakashi had to like it. Pulling the paper out of his least favorite pocket, where it belonged, he opens his mouth and-

“What is that?” The highlighter talked instead, what was her name again? He’d only been given their files this morning and he felt it was more important to meet them before he read all about them. First impressions and whatever.

“A new recipe. Cooking is how I bond.”

“Really?”

“No,” Kakashi cleared his throat and unfolded the sheet, “Hello. I am Kakashi Hatake, jonin of Konohagakure, and your new sensei. We, Team Seven, will be training for and focusing on reconnaissance, provided you pass my test. To break that down for you that means I will be providing you with the skills necessary for undercover assignments, assassinations, torture and interrogation, and the like. If any of you feel you are unable to handle that please say so now, dramatic pause - it really does say that kiddos, I know. I didn’t write this. And finally it says, Figure it out, Dumbass!” He crinkles his eye in a faux smile, “Alright, I think we can all assume we’re familiar with our names by now so let’s get to the good stuff. Based on the observations noted by my close friend Iruka, I think I know exactly what you should all focus on but before I share with the class, I want you to tell me what you’re good at,” he turns and looks to the leftmost of his team, Sakura.

Sakura takes the opportunity and amidst a slew of giggles and blushing, “I would be a really good girlfriend.” 

All three of the men in her company rolled their eyes and Kakashi spoke for all of them when he said, “That’s not what I meant. Please answer the actual question.”

“Oh! Sorry sensei. I have a really good memory and the best chakra control in my whole year!” 

“So I’ve been told. That’s good because I want to get you into medical and would like for your focus to be genjutsu. It wouldn’t be a waste for you. Up next, Shikamaru. Go.”

“It’s a drag but my dad says I’m better than average with my shadows and I’ve been playing shogi with him since I was little. I don’t know.”

“Well, Iruka said that you excelled in your stealth training and the notes from your graduation exams would suggest that not only are you better than average with your shadows, you are better than average with your jutsu overall. I’m going to be teaching you what I know about fuinjutsu and adding onto your ninjutsu repertoire. Sasuke’s turn.”

“I excel in ninjutsu and taijutsu.”

“For a genin, yea. In fact, your skills as a shinobi have the potential to be exceptional, although it was noted that your teamwork needs a lot of help, so the priority for you is actually gonna be that instead of any of the ninja arts. In fact, the same could be said for all of you. Teamwork is a bit lacking here.”

“Yea, but that’s only if we pass your test right?” 

“Nara men annoy me, they always think they know everything.”

Dark eyes flit over to the Nara boy, “Iruka-sensei never said anything about another test.”

“I don’t think he was supposed to. My dad said something this morning about needing my energy for later though, and he wouldn’t’ve done that for just assignments. Waste of time.”

Kakashi muttered something under his breath, “Okay. Well I did have something in mind, but now I need to go belittle my superior for ratting me out to a twelve year old. Meet me at training ground three in two hours.” The leaves of the typical Konohagakure shinobi’s shunshin lifted off the ground and began to swirl.

“But it’ll be almost dark out!”

The leaves paused in the air and Kakashi’s shoulders slumped even more than usual, “Why’d you have to interrupt that? It was gonna be a cool dramatic exit and you just had to ruin it for me. I mean come on Highlighter, you decided to be a shinobi and instead of just accepting that you would have to do things in the dark you want to argue it? Yes, it will be dark out for our exercise and while I have several reasons for that, you are going to accept knowing nothing. See you three at the training ground,” and with that he was gone.

Chapter Text

“He did say two hours right? Why isn’t he here?”

“I don’t know,” he so badly wanted to tell her to shut up, but he was supposed to work with her now and if Kakashi-sensei was ever going to teach him anything tangible he had to be cooperative with the loud-mouth banshee (that is what he said earlier, right?). At least she wasn’t Naruto.

“Well, at least that gives us a time to talk about our future! Especially since the bum is out cold. How many kids do you want? What’s your favorite food? Deepest, darkest secret? Any kink-” 

Really? Not that cooperative, we’re twelve, “Oh-kay. I actually prefer the quiet, Sakura.” 

“But it’s been so quiet for so long and I’m bored.”

‘ Why is that my problem, ’ he turns his head towards his slightly less annoying teammate. “Then wake Nara up,” his arms folded behind his head and eyes turned towards the stars, the Nara’d been ‘resting his eyes’ since he’d gotten to the training ground. He hadn’t moved in hours, mumbled something about the sun being down so he should be too.

“I don’t want to talk to him though he’s boring and mean and to be honest he’s not cute enough for me to ignore it. Well, that’s what all the other girls say and I can’t be seen talking to him any more than I have to, my reputation can’t handle it.”

“Well, I guess that just leaves shutting up then.” 

“I’ll ask questions and we can both answer them! Favortie color? Mine’s red.”

“Nara. Wake up.” Please. The Uchiha reaches over and knocks on the sleeping genin’s shoulder. Thankfully, his eye lashes flutter open, albeit slowly and there is an annoyed squint to them but he is awake! Sakura won’t talk to him if he’s talking to Shikamaru, ‘ her reputation can’t handle it .’ “You said, you’d be willing to teach me how to play shogi. We don’t have a board but could you explain it to me?”

“It’d be kinda annoying re-explaining everything when we do have one, so no. Was there a reason you woke me up?”

Sasuke’s dark eyes look towards the nosey girl who happened to be occupied with some nailpolish that she conveniently didn’t have when the Nara was still sleeping, “She’s interrogating me.”

“Looks like she’s minding her own business now, so if you don’t mind,” he turns away and closes his eyes again. The girl takes advantage of his laziness and immediately starts up again.

“Is it blue? You’re always wearing blue, and that’s the reason I’m always in red because it’s my favorite. Oh my god! Your favorite color is blue! That’s so cute!”

“Sakura, will you shut up?” Yes! Shikamaru sits up, nap officially over, “Why does it matter what his favorite anything is?”

“You just don’t get it, you’ve never loved anyone like I love Sasuke! Ino told me you don’t love anything.”

“If you really loved him, wouldn’t you already know the answers to the questions you’re asking? Or at least respect the fact that he doesn’t wanna talk right now? Also, Ino’s a lying witch and you of all people should know that.”

“So you do like someone? Who is it? It’s Ino is’t it. She always gets all the attention, that pig!” 

His eyes squinted shut and the sneer on his face was so quick to form it could’ve only been genuine, “Not like it matters, but no. I do, however, love the quiet, so maybe stick to painting your nails if you don’t wanna do anything useful.”

“Now, now, kiddies, there's no need for all this hostility,” he appeared like a ghost. Book in hand, eye shut in a (probably fake) smile, and his left hand raised as if to ease the tension. Doesn’t matter how peaceful he tried to appear though, because Sakura screamed anyway, “Ya’know, you really shouldn’t scream like that. Did you not hear me coming? I told you I’d be here.”

“Yea, three hours ago. Aren’t shinobi meant to be punctual?”

“I’m testing your patience. You never know how long you’ll have to wait for your objective to actually show at the promised location. Small critiques; you do have to stay awake while you’re waiting,” Shikamaru slouches a little where he sat, “stay quiet, and stay calm under pressure, regardless of how insignificant it may seem to you at the time. Now stand up, I’m gonna explain the rules of our first game night.” 

“Game night? Waiting was the whole test? So we passed! My mom is gonna be so proud of me! I’m officially a genin.”

“When did I say that? I was trying to be clever. Now stand up and stop interrupting me, this is the second time today,” he gives them all a moment, “I assume you’ve all played hide and seek, well this is kind of like a messed up version of that where you three don’t sleep for the night. Essentially, you are to treat this as if I am your enemy. You are not to attack me or make contact with me, you are only to find me and trail me until dawn. Once the day breaks I expect a full rundown of my actions and my movements, regardless of how small they may seem. In the real world, your objective may be a sensor so there is an additional rule. No chakra use will be necessary for the success of your team. Oh! And one more thing, if I catch you following me, you have failed your test and will be returning to the academy for a remedial year. Good luck!”

With that, he was gone (furthering the ghost theory). Why’d he get stuck with the weird one? 

“Sasuke! This means we get to work together! Aren’t you excited, I’m excited!”

“He just explained that we had to be quiet. Gods, you’re so troublesome.”

“Shogi’s a strategy game, Nara. You any good?”

“I’ve never won a game,” he scratches his neck and a small huff (so close to laughter but not quite) escapes him, “My dad says I’m getting better but if I’m bein' honest, I’m not any closer to beating him now than I was five years ago.”

“Is he the only person you’ve played against? Your dad’s the Commander isn’t he?”

“He is. And yea. I’m not good at the things that he is, I know he’s my dad but I’m not really that much like him.”

“I’m not expecting you to be, but you probably have a better idea on how to do this with everything he’s taught you. Better than me and Sakura at least.”

“Hey! I’m smart too ya’know and I’m less likely to take a nap the second things slow down.”

Sasuke turns and makes direct eye contact with her, “Where do you want me to go, Sakura?” The boys cover their ears to protect themselves from her screech, “Just, listen to what Shikamaru says and say something if you think it won’t work. I’m not a strategist and I honestly haven’t paid any attention to what you guys can do so I won’t be good at this.”

“This is such a drag. I never agreed to anything, in fact I’m pretty sure I said I was bad at this.”

“You did and no offense but I won’t listen to you! You never even showed up to the academy, and the only people that scored lower than you in class were Kiba and Naruto, which isn’t exactly leader material. Why does someone have to be in charge anyways, can’t we just walk around until we find something?”

“Yea, I’m kinda with her on this one Uchiha. Only kind of though, we definitely aren’t gonna get anywhere just walking around. Kakashi-sensei obviously wants us to find him, if he didn’t want to be found we would have no chance. There has to be a trail or he left us some kinda hint and we just didn’t realize it, but either way he made sure we would be able to succeed. He’s not going to give us a test that we can’t pass, not with two clan kids, clan heirs especially, the Hokage wouldn’t let him.”

“I don’t think he said anything to help us, just the rules really.”

“So he left something, somewhere to at least get us started. Maybe he dropped it before he revealed himself to us? So he could just go…Man, I don’t know, that’s kind of a stretch.”

“I mean he told us to stay quiet, patient, and calm. He cut us off before we could start yelling, he asked Sakura not to scream, and aside from the sleeping thing it was the first thing he brought up. The only critique meant for all of us.”

Shikamaru crouched down and touched his fingertips to each other, “You think he left us an auditory clue? What, like a bell?” 

“Maybe. From the few minutes of conversation we’ve had with him so far, it seems like everything he does is either insanely intentional or complete nonsense.”

“‘How long it takes to actually show,’ he was here for a while before he said anything, wasn’t he?”

“Oh, yeah! ‘Did you not hear me coming?’  he had to’ve done something before he let us know he was here ya’know.”

“No, I don’t think he did anything I think he was waiting for us to notice him, and figured he’d rush it along when we started arguing with each other. Actually, the more I think about it, I could hear something in the wind but it was really faint and I kinda just assumed it was a bird or a bat, people don’t train out here this late, the hospital’s too far and it’d be too long before someone found you for it to be safe. Uchiha, you’re paranoid right? Did you notice anything or get a bad vibe or see something unusual? He did something to get our attention and we just didn’t notice him.”

“I’m not paranoid. And no, I didn’t notice him, I was too busy trying to not get confrontational,” he points at Sakura, “She wouldn’t shut up. It was hard to focus on anything else.” 

Sakura’s eyebrows furrow and from the look in her eyes she was about to go all harpy on him so Shikamaru moved quick to temper her upcoming tantrum, “And you, Sakura? Did you notice anything weird? From what I remember, you can be pretty observant when you’re not hyperfocusing on Uchiha or arguing with Ino.”

“I mean, now that I think about it, I think I heard those birds too. At least, I heard little chirps. It was kinda weird, I only heard them with the breeze.”

“Which direction were they coming from, do you know? It seemed like it came from my left while I was laying down.”

Sasuke stood up and walked towards the trees Shikamaru would’ve heard the noise coming from. He disappeared in the branches for a moment and reappeared with a small golden bell on a red string, “You were right, Nara. It was a bell.”

“More than that, it’s a bell you buy in pairs,” he reached out his hand and waited for Sasuke to pass it over, “yea, see? The string is kinked, there should be a second one. He probably took the other, and that’s how we’re supposed to find him.”

“Oh! That’s pretty clever, actually. Doesn’t help a whole lot though. It’s a small bell, it’s not going to make much noise.”

“Which he knows. We’re gonna have to be silent in those trees to hear him. Good news though, we know what we’re looking for,” he shakes the bell, “remember that sound, we’re gonna have to put this in someone’s pocket or bag or something to keep the sound muffled or he’d be able to find us too. Did you guys pay attention to the basic sign language Iruka taught us? We could separate to make a little less noise, but stay in eyesight of each other and communicate that way, whoever has the best hearing can take point, they’ll be more likely to notice a bell that faint.”

“Do you know the basic sign language? Last I checked Shikamaru, you weren’t there that week, you were skipping with Kiba, Choji, and Naruto ya’know.”

“My dad’s the Jonin Commander, I was taught them before I even went to the academy as a safety precaution, he’s important and I was vulnerable. I wouldn’t bring it up if it wasn’t a viable option for us to communicate, Sakura.”

“Really, Nara? You ditched a whole week?”

“Oh yeah, all the time.”

“How did you graduate?”

“I test well. Anyways, do you? Know them, I mean?” They both nodded their heads and waited for the Nara to stand with them, “Alright then, Sasuke, you take the back if he notices us you’re faster than we are, you can get away, keep us in the game, and we’ll regroup where you found the bell after we ditch him. Sakura, you’re observant, but you’re easily distracted. I’ll believe you but you need to be honest, do you think you can take point or do you need to follow to stay focused?”

“Kakashi-sensei said he wants me to train to be a medic, we should probably get comfortable with someone else on point, I think.”

“Alright. Each of us needs to take a side of the clearing for now. If he wants us to track the bell, he’s close enough for us to hear it.”

“If he’s close enough for us to hear, then he heard our whole plan, Nara.”

“I know, but this isn’t a real mission, he’s testing our deductive skills and our tracking. If it were real, we would’ve had this conversation before we even left for the mission and he knows that. This test starts the second we leave this clearing. You hear the bell, say something and from that point forward, no more speaking - hand signs only. Understood?”

They sat silently for roughly fifteen minutes until a quiet chime was heard northeast of the clearing. Sasuke spoke up, “This way,” and with that they were off. Sasuke and Shikamaru took to the trees, Sakura stayed on the ground and they ran as fast as they could as they kept quiet. Shikamaru directed them further east as they heard another chime and it only took four and a half minutes for them to see that shock of silver. Shikamaru held his hand up, and from their perspectives they all watched the jonin sit down and open his book.