Chapter Text
It had been a long month for Team 7. Their first C-Rank, with the ensuing invoking of the legendary ‘Genin C-Rank curse’ mixed with the confirmation of the just as old ‘Team 7 Luck’ still being well-and-truly a thing, had left them in a shit situation.
Kakashi wasn’t even sure if his own first C-Rank had screwed up that bad, and that had been during war-time. (Though he may have suppressed that particular incident, it had been pretty embarrassing for the genius and everyone else involved.)
Kakashi could only be thankful to his past, chakra-drained self for remembering to teach the genin to tree walk. It made the trip back to the village faster with all present being capable of the time-honoured Konoha-nin travel technique of tree-hopping.
A yelp and a louder rustle of leaves and twigs sounded behind him for the third time in ten minutes.
Kakashi sighed and pulled back his speed. Just because they were capable of it didn’t make his cute little genin masters of the technique, or make them able to keep up, in chakra or endurance, with the pace he was used to moving at while outside the village.
“You alright, Sakura-chan?” Naruto asked at a volume that irritated Kakashi’s ears, despite the boy having kept pace with the girl as she started to tire.
“I’m fine, idiot.” She replied as Kakashi stopped and turned to look at the two, now a ways back and nearly hidden by the leaves. The Uchiha stopped just ahead of Kakashi as she continued. “Leave me alone, you’re annoying me.”
Kakashi winced, and not just at the volume this time. He knew the boy was just trying to look out for a teammate, the only one of the genin to try and follow through on Kakashi’s words from their first day together as much as he could.
The Hatake took stock of the genin’s condition, then how far his instinctual map put them from Konoha. If they were to continue at the pace he had been setting for them, they could get back to the village in the next few hours. But in the condition that Sakura was in, he would need to be carrying her most of the rest of the trip, and Sasuke, despite his attempt to cover it up was just as exhausted. Even the hyperactive ball of blonde energy had been oddly quiet and reserved for the past hour, despite being the only one of the genin not showing much trouble keeping up.
Kakashi mentally reminded himself that this was not an anbu mission, all enemies from the mission behind them had been neutralised and couldn’t be following them, they were deep enough in Fire Country not to be easy targets, and there was no pressing reason to get back to the village as fast as physically possible. At least, no reason that didn’t involve him being able to get away from the genin for more than an hour of peace and quiet.
In fact, it was close enough to noon that they could probably stop, eat and let the genin rest without him getting whined, or glared, at for going easy on them. A plan that came with the added benefit of getting back to the village before dark at the pace he was setting without having to deal with the shrieking directly into his ears from whoever he was forced into carrying.
He made a point to visibly look up at the sky, as if checking the sun’s position, before starting off again with a swift glace at Sakura’s regained balance.
“Keep an eye out for somewhere to stop for lunch.”
Three very different acknowledgements to the order followed him, alongside the same sounds of inexperienced tree-hopping he had become intimately familiar to him since leaving Wave. These remained the only sounds for a blessed five minutes as his tired genin focused on their new task, on top of staying in the trees.
“Sensei,” The Uchiha-stiff grunt from his right brought his attention from scouting ahead of them to the dark-haired boy.
When Kakashi stopped and turned at the annoyingly familiar tone, he noticed the boy’s red-tinted eyes were focused further off to the right of the route he had been leading them. He sighed and lifted a hand to signal a stop to the two still following a bit behind. He also added unnecessary chakra use to his list of things that his genin were prone to do.
(A list that included such things as try to kill each other; alert anyone, within two miles of their position, of their position; and botch any kind of stealth mission, or exercise, they were assigned as a team.)
Following the dark-haired boy’s gaze, he noticed a brighter patch of sunlight through the trees. A clearing, probably. Nice catch, he doesn’t say as the others catch up and stop in the trees slightly behind them.
“That way.” Kakashi tipped his head in the same direction Sasuke was still looking, for the benefit of the new arrivals, and leaped toward it. He kept his pace slow enough that all of them were right with him until he signalled a stop, close enough to survey what was indeed a clearing from the cover of the trees.
It was quite large and, oddly for Fire Country clearings, had a mostly stone floor. Kakashi would have been suspicious that it was the result of some sort of earth jutsu that for some reason hadn’t been cleared away, but even if it had been it was obvious that it had been created a very long time ago, as it was covered in moss, stones and boulders. The edges, of what might have once been a stone platform when it was created, warn away to smooth curves by the elements. It was also littered by large cracks in places, like the roots of the mighty Fire Country trees had decided to push up on the stone in a battle for room as they grew around and under it.
There were even shallow ditches that ran through the top of the stone, as if water had carved out mini rivers in places of least resistance over the course of many, many years. Though many of these curving drains had seemed to have been covered over in the years since they were carved, with stones, boulders and the occasional fallen branch or tree. And even more seemed to randomly stop for a time, as if the elements had warn the sides of shallow water carvings down until they vanished.
(He ignored the part of his brain that insisted that there were half-familiar patterns in the lines the carvings formed. His brain was good at patterns and all too often found them where there were none. Even if, just as often, these recognised patterns were what had saved the lives of his anbu squads and himself.)
In the centre of the clearing, there stood a large boulder. Big enough for the whole team to sit around a small fire without sitting on top of each other. This boulder was surrounded in most directions by other boulders, smaller but still big enough for someone his size to take cover behind if he needed to, more than enough for the genin to do the same.
He quickly added the clearing to his mental map of this part of fire country and leaped forward until he reached the central boulder, observing the lines of sight available. Then signalled to the three genin and paused as they landed stably enough on the boulder around him.
“Wait here,” He told them as he quickly scanned the surrounding clearing. “I’ll see if I can find something quick.”
“But…” Naruto started to whine.
“Stay.” Kakashi ordered, not in any mood for having any debates about what the genin could, and couldn’t, do and leaped into the surrounding trees before anything else could be said. He could feel the scowls on his back like a physical force. It had been a long month.
He had managed to locate a well-stocked bramble of berries, and had collected quite a bounty, before the now familiar shouting reached his ears. At least the mission had given him a wide range of experience in the different tones of shouting his genin were capable of, so he no longer felt the sudden need to jump into defence at every squabble.
Kakashi sighed and took maybe a little more time than was absolutely necessary to pick up, de-kunai and seal the three rabbits he had caught when they had spooked at the unexpected sound. Then causally picking up the scroll he had been using for the berries and stuffing them back in his many pockets before heading back to where he had left his team.
He cursed the Hokage again for throwing this particular dumpster fire of a team at him, as he shunshined in to the clearing and grabbed the boys by the scruffs as they began to jump at each other. He looked down at where they now hung from his grip before he looked up and raised a mostly hidden eyebrow at Sakura.
“The idiot wouldn’t leave Sasuke-kun alone.” The girl rushed out breathlessly from her stance on the vertical side of the boulder, watching the boys struggles slow as they realised their current circumstance. Good cubs, they were learning.
Kakashi took in the blonde’s angry expression and the red tint in the darker boy’s eyes. He sighed yet again, and dropped both boys over the side of the boulder. What had possessed him to think he could get a clear answer from the fangirl?
“Ouch.” Naruto’s pulled forced him to look down at the boys.
Sasuke had landed well on a flat section of ground. But Naruto hadn’t been so lucky. He seemed to have landed on an uneven section and fallen backwards before he could get his balance. He sat there looking at his hand and the line of blood there, cut on one of the sharper rocks that littered the clearing floor.
“Naruto,” Kakashi started, not even realising the he had started to walk down the boulder toward his sensei’s son and that Sakura had walked around from her place to stand beside him.
“It’s nothing,” the boy waved it off before attempting to use his injured hand to push himself up.
But before he could get past the process putting force on his hand to lift his body, the ground beneath it started to glow blue.
The entire team looked down at the odd light in confusion (for too long, even if it could only be counted as a few seconds, Kakashi would think later) as it began to spread out from the first point of contact. At least, they did until the light reached Sasuke, his eyes still spinning red, and he gasped and fell to one knee, kicking Kakashi into motion even as the glow started to spread faster.
“Sasuke!” Both of the other genin called for the third. Naruto tried to pull himself up, but his hand wouldn’t budge.
On instinct, Kakashi grabbed the scruff of the cub beside him, grabbing a bunch of pink hair in the process and readied a shunshin down to the boys. Not fast enough. The glow reached them just as he was about to activate the jutsu and there was a tug at his chakra, disrupting the technique. The tug on his reserves remained insistent. At the same time, the girl in his grip gasped and when limp.
“Sakura!” Naruto called out, now fighting to push himself up.
She lost her chakra-grip on the vertical face of the boulder and forced Kakashi to jump down to the ground to stop her from swinging out by the scruff, or just straight out falling to the ground. He landed beside Sasuke who attempted to glare at him from the edges of consciousness, sharingan fading to black in his eyes.
Kakashi noted vaguely that the glow began to resolve into lines and patterns that seemed even more oddly familiar, but he couldn’t quite place. They seemed to be following the lines that he had noted earlier to have been carved into the rock of the ground, though they now ran though and over the obstructions of the pattern.
He didn’t have long to focus on this observation though as the tug on his chakra began to grow stronger and he realised how low on chakra he now was.
“Sensei! Sakura! Sasuke!” Naruto was now calling for them all as he kept pulling at this hand as vicious red tinged his aura. Kakashi could smell the panic in the air from where he now knelt between two of his cubs, even as his senses began to dull.
No, not now, he told himself as he felt the familiar stirrings of chakra-exhaustion-induced unconsciousness. Danger. Cubs. Two unconscious, one panicking. Unknown effect. Dangerous. Cubs… Not now.
A growl in the back of his throat as he tried to shake it off. Tried to find a way to sooth the panicking cub.
Sensei’s cub. His pack.
His cub.
Can’t fail him too.
But his voice wouldn’t work. All he could do was listen to the panic continue as his senses started to shut down.
Could only feel angry, vicious chakra flare strong amid the screams for him and light to flash before there was only darkness.