I already knew our jonin sensei was going to be a problem.
First clue: he was late.
Second clue: he was more late than Naruto.
"Where is this guy?" Naruto groaned, face mashed against the desk. "He's a jonin, right? Jonin are supposed to be cool. Cool people aren't late."
"Cool people are always late," I said, shading a tiny doodle in the corner of my notebook. "They weaponize everyone else's time."
He lifted his head just enough to squint at me. "What does that even mean?"
"You'll understand when you're older."
Naruto paused, stuck in thought; or rather, stuck like boot in mud desperately trying to get free.
"What does THAT mean?!"
Across the room, Sasuke sat with his arms crossed and his eyes closed like he was meditating on vengeance or whatever he did for fun. His chakra felt compact and sharp, like someone had wound him up and forgotten to let go.
Naruto's, by contrast, buzzed restlessly against my senses. He'd been vibrating since Iruka announced the teams. Team 8, Team 10… Team 7: Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, Sylvie.
Naruto had yelled. Sasuke had grunted. I had sighed and quietly rearranged my mental predictions for "ways I might die before twenty."
Now we were stuck in an empty classroom, waiting for a jonin who existed only as a concept and a growing sense of insult.
Naruto suddenly straightened. "Okay, that's it. If he's gonna be late, we're at least gonna get something out of it."
My stomach did a familiar, preemptive "oh no." "Define 'something.'"
He'd already hopped up, dragging a chair to the door. "Help me with this."
"Absolutely not," I said, which in Naruto-speak means "I will help you in approximately ten seconds."
He teetered on the chair, eraser in hand. "I'm gonna balance it right here," he said, pressing it carefully on top of the door frame. "So when he opens it—"
"Chalk explosion," I finished. "Classic."
"Exactly."
I put my pencil down and walked over because someone in this room had to care about basic visual standards.
The eraser was crooked. Of course it was.
"If you're going to die," I said, reaching up to nudge it into place, "at least make the prank clean."
He grinned down at me. "Knew you'd help."
"I'm an accessory to so many crimes already," I said. "What's one more?"
We got it balanced so the chalk dust sat in a nice, even layer. Symmetrical. Elegant. Lethal, in a "mild eye irritation" kind of way.
Naruto hopped down, chair scraping. "He's gonna freak out," he said, practically glowing. "He'll be like, 'wahh, my hair,' and then we'll know if he's cool or not."
"Sasuke," I called, turning back toward the rows of desks. "Your thoughts on committing instant career suicide?"
Sasuke cracked one eye open, glanced at the door, then at Naruto, then at me. His chakra didn't shift at all.
"Hn," he said. Translation: "If you get executed, I'm not cleaning it up."
Naruto flopped back into his seat, humming with anticipation. I slid into mine, heart beating a little faster than I wanted to admit. Pranks with Naruto always did this—like standing on the edge of a high diving board made of bad decisions.
We waited.
The clock ticked. Dust motes drifted. Naruto crumpled and uncrumpled a scrap of paper so many times it looked like it had survived a war.
"Sylvie," he muttered eventually, "what if he never shows up?"
"Then we've learned an important lesson about adult reliability," I said. "And about how long chalk dust can cling to a door frame."
He made a face. "You talk weird."
"You're welcome."
The handle finally clicked.
Time slowed down in that hyper-specific way it does right before something terrible and hilarious happens.
The door slid open.
The eraser dropped.
White dust exploded down onto a shock of silver hair and a relaxed-looking forehead protector.
The man in the doorway froze, half-stepped into the room, eraser now perfectly balanced on his head.
Naruto broke first. He wheezed, clutching his stomach. "PFF—HAHA—LOOK AT HIS—"
I bit my tongue to keep from joining him. The new guy was tall, slouchy, and had one visible eye currently half-lidded in the universal expression for "I already regret coming here."
He lifted a gloved hand, plucked the eraser off his head, and regarded it like it had personally betrayed him. Chalk dust sprinkled onto his flak vest.
"…First impression," he said mildly, "you're all idiots."
Naruto only laughed harder. Chalk puffed off the man's hair as he ruffled it absently.
He looked at Naruto. "I dislike you."
Naruto's laughter hiccuped. "Wha—? Hey!"
Then the man's eye slid to me.
Up close, his chakra felt… strange. Lazy on the surface, like still water in a pond. But underneath, something deep and fast moved, like a current you only saw when it dragged a log under.
He had the same slouch Shikamaru did, the same "I could not care less" posture. But Shikamaru's energy was quietly calculating. This guy's was tired. The kind of tired that didn't go away with a nap.
"Hmm," I said under my breath. "Laid-back? Appears to take nothing seriously but definitely does? Suspicious."
His eye narrowed just a fraction.
"Everyone meet on the roof," he said, as if no prank had happened at all. "I'll be waiting."
He vanished in a blur of leaves.
Naruto stared at the empty doorway, then at me.
"…Did we win?" he asked.
"I don't think we were playing the same game he was," I said.
Sasuke stood, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable. "Come on," he muttered. "We're wasting time."
He headed for the stairs.
Naruto scowled, then shoved his hands behind his head and followed. "Man, I can't believe our sensei's a grumpy old scarecrow," he said. "I thought jonin were supposed to be cool."
"You're just mad he didn't scream," I said, grabbing my bag.
"That was premium prank work!" Naruto protested as we climbed. "You saw that eraser drop!"
"I saw gravity do most of the work, yeah."
"Traitor."
I smiled, despite myself, and kept climbing.
If this was how Team 7 started, I had no idea how we weren't all dead by thirteen.
Kakashi got to the roof first, mostly because it would have been embarrassing if he hadn't.
He leaned against the railing, hands in his pockets, face tilted up to the sky. From here he could see the village spread out below—the red tiles, the winding streets, the Hokage Monument still faintly scuffed where someone had once painted a truly unfortunate beard.
That "someone" currently had chalk in her hair.
Interesting.
He'd read the files. Uchiha Sasuke: sole survivor of the Massacre, top of the class, Sharingan potential. Uzumaki Naruto: orphan, discipline problem, jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails.
And Sylvie.
No clan. No family. No birth records.
Found half-dead near the village border years ago, chakra pattern initially flagged as "unusual" by the medics and then promptly buried under a stack of more pressing crises. An orphanage kid who'd somehow acquired ink skills, fuinjutsu basics, and a reputation for getting dragged into Uzumaki Naruto-related nonsense.
Kakashi had met a lot of unusual kids in his life. They rarely stayed "unusual orphan in the background" for long.
The door to the roof banged open.
Naruto burst out first, of course, arms flung wide. "We're here!"
"Yes," Kakashi said. "I can see that."
Sasuke followed, quiet and efficient, gaze sweeping the roof once before settling on Kakashi with measured hostility. His chakra was a compact ball of pressure, like a storm that hadn't decided where to break.
Sylvie came last, closing the door behind her with more care than necessary. She hovered a little closer to Naruto's side than Sasuke's, eyes flicking between Kakashi and the village below, as if measuring something only she could see.
Up close, her expression was calm, but her chakra had an edge. Precise, too controlled for a kid her age.
"Okay," Kakashi said. "Let's start with introductions."
Naruto frowned. "Introductions?"
"Name, likes, dislikes, dreams for the future." Kakashi shoved his hands deeper in his pockets. "That sort of thing."
"Why don't you go first, sensei?" Sylvie asked pleasantly.
He eyed her over the mask. "I'm your teacher," he said. "You go first."
"I want to build a world where kids don't have to be strong just to survive being small. Where no one ends up alone because the adults screwed up."
Kakashi raises an eyebrow, Sasuke scoffs, then Naruto stands up and yells, "Yeah! And I'll be the Hokage of that world!" Then turns and points at Kakashi, "You just don't want to say anything!"
Kakashi shrugged. "Maybe."
He watched them squirm for a moment longer, then decided he'd had enough fun. …For now.
"Fine," he said. "I'm Hatake Kakashi. I have no intention of telling you my likes and dislikes. My dreams for the future… I haven't really thought about." That was a lie, but they didn't need to know that. "As for my hobbies… I have lots of hobbies."
Naruto, Sylvie, and even Sasuke stared at him.
"…That told us nothing," Sylvie said.
"Exactly," Kakashi replied. "Your turn."
He nodded at Naruto.
Naruto hopped to his feet like he'd been waiting his whole life for this moment.
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" he announced, loud enough for half the district to hear. "I like instant ramen, and the ramen Iruka-sensei buys me, and pulling awesome pranks—"
Kakashi pictured the eraser, the paint on the Hokage Monument, the long list of property damage in Naruto's file. "Yes," he said dryly. "That checks out."
Naruto barreled on. "I hate people who look down on me! And my dream is—" He jabbed a thumb at his chest. "To become Hokage! Then everyone will have to acknowledge me!"
His chakra flared with the declaration, bright and raw. For a second, Kakashi saw a flash of Minato's stubborn set of the jaw, Kushina's blazing eyes.
He looked away.
"Next," he said, nodding at Sasuke.
Sasuke didn't stand. He just uncrossed his arms, eyes hard.
"I'm Uchiha Sasuke," he said. "There are many things I dislike… and not many I like."
Naruto made a face.
"I don't have time for hobbies," Sasuke went on. "And my dream…" His fingers curled slightly. "No. My ambition is to kill a certain man."
The air went colder.
Kakashi studied him for a moment, then mentally filed away: "Obsessed avenger," underlined twice. Not exactly subtle.
He turned to Sylvie. "You're up."
She hesitated, then pushed herself to her feet, dusting chalk off her skirt.
"I'm Sylvie," she said. "No last name. Yet."
Naruto blinked at that. Sasuke didn't, but his focus sharpened a fraction.
"I like… learning," she continued. "Ink. Seals. Good food." She shot Naruto a look. "Not dying in dumb ways."
"Boring," Naruto muttered, but there was no real heat in it.
"I dislike bullies," Sylvie said, voice flattening slightly. "And adults who hide behind 'we're doing this for your own good.'"
Kakashi felt the hairs on the back of his neck twitch. That phrasing…
Her chakra didn't spike, but it tightened, like she'd stepped on an old bruise.
"And your dream?" he asked lightly.
She looked past him, out over the village.
"I want to figure out how this world's rules actually work," she said. "And… maybe bend them a little, so fewer kids get crushed under them."
Naruto stared at her. Sasuke's eyes narrowed the tiniest bit, thoughtful.
Kakashi's easy slouch didn't change. His chakra, however, prickled.
"'This world's rules,' huh?" he thought. Not "this village's." Not "this country's." This world.
He'd heard similarly odd turns of phrase from missing-nin who'd spent too long at the borders, from people who'd seen too much war, too young. From… other places.
Nothing in her file mentioned travel. Nothing in her file mentioned much of anything.
Interesting.
Aloud, he just nodded. "Ambitious," he said. "Borderline troublesome."
Sylvie smiled, thin and crooked. "So I fit right in."
Naruto snorted. "Yeah, you do."
Kakashi let his eye crinkle. "Well. Now that we've all shared our hopes and dreams, I have good news."
Naruto leaned forward, practically bouncing. "We get a mission?"
"We're going to… have a survival exercise," Kakashi said.
Naruto's face fell. "That's not good news!"
"Out of the twenty-seven graduates," Kakashi continued, cheerfully ignoring him, "only nine will actually become genin."
Naruto, Sylvie, and Sasuke all froze.
"Wait," Sylvie said slowly. "I thought we already graduated."
"You all passed the Academy's test," Kakashi said. "Now you'll take mine."
He pulled three bells from his pouch, letting them jingle softly.
"Meet me at Training Ground Three tomorrow morning at five. Don't eat breakfast."
Naruto squawked. "Five?! Why so early?!"
"Because I said so," Kakashi replied. "Oh, and bring everything you've got. This exercise has a… high failure rate."
He tucked the bells away and stepped onto the railing.
Naruto pointed furiously. "You can't just—hey! Come back and explain—"
Kakashi gave them a lazy wave.
"See you brats tomorrow," he said, and vanished in a puff of leaves.
I stared at the empty spot where our new sensei had been.
"So," I said. "Our jonin is a cryptic scarecrow man with no clear hobbies who schedules tests at five in the morning."
Naruto groaned and collapsed onto his back. "He hates us already," he moaned. "We're doomed."
Sasuke stood, gaze still on the skyline where Kakashi had disappeared. "If we can't handle one jonin's test, we're not worth much anyway," he said.
Naruto shot up. "Speak for yourself, teme! I'm gonna pass no matter what! Then I'll become Hokage and rub it in his face!"
I rubbed my temples. "I'm going to need more ink."
Naruto blinked. "For what?"
"For when this inevitably turns into some kind of psychological torture exercise disguised as 'team training,'" I said. "I'd like to have at least three smoke tags ready."
He grinned. "Nice. We'll prank him again!"
"Or we'll die trying," I said. "Either way, it'll be an experience."
Sasuke started toward the stairs. "Don't be late tomorrow," he said without looking back.
"Don't tell me what to do," Naruto muttered.
I watched them both—the walking trauma project and the emotional supernova—heading down into the village that had made us all, one way or another.
Kakashi's chakra signature was already long gone, but the faint itch it had left behind stayed.
Laid back. Tired. Dangerous.
And, annoyingly, kind of exactly the sort of person we probably needed.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and followed them.
Whatever this bell test was, it was clearly more than just snatching toys from a jonin.
But then, nothing in this world was ever just what it looked like on the surface.
And I was very, very good at reading between the lines.