Chapter Text
Umino Iruka is a bit frustrated.
Well, a lot frustrated.
This entire situation is bullshit on so many levels.
“Iruka-senpai?”
“Hm?” he turns to his teammates. Kannonji Suika and Funano Kosuke. Thirteen and twelve respectively but sometimes they make fourteen year old Iruka feel very, very old.
“How do we do this barrier jutsu?”
It’s been eight months since their jonin instructor was injured. Eight months of nonstop D-ranks like working in the post office and walking dogs.
Iruka’s friends have all graduated to chunin by now and Suika and Kosuke haven’t had any missions to give them actual experience. But Iruka isn’t sure what the protocol is in this situation. He expects they’ll be assigned a new jonin instructor. Or maybe Akemi-sensei would get better.
He supposes he could talk to Sandaime, but one temporarily unsupervised genin team seems like something beneath him.
So until then, Iruka will do his best to help his less experienced teammates.
“Let me see,” Iruka sits cross-legged, looking at the notes. “Alright, so I think if we practice like this…” he lays out the formation, grateful that barriers are one of his few skills.
His clumsy attempts at teaching his fellow genin are exactly that: clumsy.
Sure, he was a genin for two years before Suika and Kosuke graduated, but that doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing. The Academy only graduated him when they did because they were sick of his shit and wanted him gone. He’s also not much older than either of them yet he feels like it.
He was the youngest of his entire graduating class and his jonin instructor had no idea how to handle him. A grizzled weapons specialist versus a reprobate with advanced chakra control, a fondness for barriers, and general likability when not being chased down for covering someone in goo. And a dislike of weapons.
His teammates and close friends, Kamizuki Izumo and Hagane Kotetsu, thrived under the weapons training. Iruka had not. They had done their best to help him but Iruka and weapons weren’t friends. He didn’t like how personal weapons were. If he had to kill someone, he’d prefer to do it from a distance. Lock them in a barrier with an exploding tag and boom, nothing more than a red stain on the ground.
Iruka washed out of the Chunin Exams just a few days before his fourteenth birthday but Izumo and Kotetsu passed. After that, their jonin instructor had shoved Iruka off onto another jonin who had one of her genins be banned from becoming a shinobi in general after he tried to kill a civilian in a rage.
Which is how Iruka ended up in this situation.
Standing in line at the Mission Desk to pick up yet another D-Rank for his unsupervised and inexperienced genin team that he’s had to basically lead for eight or so months.
“Ah, Iruka-kun, here for another mission?”
“Yes, Suzume-san”
“D-rank, right?” Iruka nods, “you kids sure do a lot of D-ranks. How is Akemi-san?” she hands him a scroll.
“Good,” Iruka says. And it’s true. They had just visited their jonin instructor the other day and Akemi-sensei was finally awake. “Thank you, Suzume-san”
“Bye Iruka-kun!”
Iruka glances at the mission and sighs.
Farming. Exciting.
His initial assessment of temporary had been very wrong.
Before long, it’s been an entire year and Iruka is turning fifteen. Akemi-sensei had a mental breakdown and was sent to T&I and Iruka and his team are just…forgotten. And since genin can’t take anything above a D-rank without a chunin or jonin present, they’re fucked.
So they fall into a messy routine of sometimes taking endless D-ranks out of boredom and then using what little time is left for training. But training isn’t easy when you don’t have anyone telling you what you’re doing wrong, or showing you how to do techniques beyond what you already know. Iruka knows Suika has developed a bad habit when throwing shuriken but he’s not sure how to correct it since he doesn’t exactly know what the bad habit is.
Some days they just don’t even meet up. Iruka, as the experienced genin, is the one trying to get their shit together but he doesn’t even have his own shit together. And he’s definitely never led a team.
He can tell Suika and Kosuke are getting frustrated as their friends tell them all about the interesting missions they’ve gone on and the things they’ve done and for them it’s been nothing but an endless and vicious cycle of dog-walking, weeding, painting, farming and babysitting.
Rinse, repeat.
Iruka hasn’t even bothered to talk about missions with his friends who don’t get why he’s still a genin when literally every one of them is chunin or tokubetsu jonin.
Iruka decides he needs to do something when the Chunin Exams roll around.
They don’t have a jonin instructor to nominate them. And even if they did, their current skill level is not much higher than it was a year ago when they first ended up on their team.
Seeing Suika and Kosuke staring sadly at their classmates enthusiastically chattering about the upcoming exams is finally what makes him angry enough to act. He decides that if he’s going to be their team captain and actually do something to help instead of being a useless lump, he needs to get his own shit together first.
Starting with a training plan.
He’s never made a training plan, but his memory is excellent and he remembers Eisho-sensei’s plans.
He spends an entire weekend in the library trying to come up with a plan, realizing it’s a lot harder than it looks, giving up and eating ramen, returning to the library to stare like a zombie and maybe cry a little in frustration.
But by Monday, a severely sleep-deprived Iruka is sitting cross-legged at his favorite training ground waiting for his team and copying the messy draft onto clean sheets of paper for them.
“Aren’t you a little old to be a genin still?”
“Aren’t you a little young to be an asshole?” Iruka fires back without bothering to look up at the obnoxiously familiar voice.
The silver-haired ANBU who likes to stalk him drops from the tree and cocks his head to the side.
“Your jonin instructor didn’t nominate your team for the Chunin Exams?”
“None of your business”
“Who is your jonin instructor anyway? I never see you with anyone”
“Also none of your business,” Iruka isn’t going to admit to this stupid ANBU that he doesn’t even have one. He already thinks Iruka is a loser anyway.
Hound and Iruka have always had a tumultuous relationship. Neither friend nor enemy, they’ve picked on each other and bickered ever since Hound stopped him from splattering Sandaime with paint and Iruka had retaliated by sink-holing the ANBU staircase.
“I feel sorry for them,” Hound scoffs, leaning against a tree. Iruka makes a rude gesture. “What’s this?”
“Give that back!”
“A training schedule?” Hound hops backwards onto a branch holding the paper, “shouldn’t your jonin sensei be the one doing this?”
“Hound, I’m serious, give that back!” Iruka begins to panic. He worked hard on the training schedule, doing his best to make it look like his old jonin instructor’s, if it got damaged or lost he would have to start over. He cannot handle another weekend like that. He’d probably check himself into the ward next to his erstwhile jonin instructor.
Something in his face or his tone must have resonated with Hound because the ANBU holds the paper back out carefully.
“My turn to be serious,” Hound lands silently in front of Iruka, “who is your jonin instructor?”
Iruka opens his mouth when he hears Suika’s voice calling out.
“We’ll talk later,” Hound jumps back into the trees moments before Suika and Kosuke reach him.
“What are we doing today?” Suika asks.
“Come on, let’s talk while walking,” Iruka ushers then away from Hound. He doesn’t need the stupid ANBU to see how pathetic they are. He holds out his training schedule. “It can’t hurt to take a mission, so I figured we could rotate who goes to get them. And whoever picks up the mission is the one who has to write the report”
“But I’ve never written one,” Kosuke frets.
“It’s okay,” Iruka says, “I can show you. After our mission, we should do some training. Just because everyone else gets to take the Exams doesn’t mean we can’t train like we are. I’ve scheduled it out like this. Today and tomorrow we focus on weapons, then the next two days ninjutsu, the next two days taijutsu, then one day is rotational”
“Wow, Iruka-senpai is amazing,” Suika hugs him tightly. Iruka blushes.
“Senpai?”
“Hm?”
“Who picks today’s mission?”
Iruka glances around and picks up a stick. He breaks it into three pieces; one long, one slightly shorter, one shortest.
“We draw sticks and then go by length. Shortest picks today, then next shortest, then longest. That will be our schedule”
Kosuke pulled the shortest and Iruka was left with the longest which suited him just fine. He’s been the one picking up their missions up until now.
The younger boy fidgets nervously as he stares at the entrance to the Mission Room.
“It’s okay,” Iruka reassures him. Kosuke is an anxious kid by nature, something that was made worse by their aggressive former teammate. It’s slow going, trying to get Kosuke to be more confident and he wonders if he should include something in his training plan. “Do you want me to go in with you?”
Kosuke nods.
The barely thirteen year old clings to Iruka’s sleeve as Iruka pushes open the door.
“See, we just stand in line like this,” Iruka says reassuringly, “hey, wanna see something fun?” Kosuke nods. Iruka pulls a rock from his pocket and balances it on his knuckles. “Watch,” he winks and uses his exceptionally fine chakra control to make the rock dance around his fingers.
Kosuke looks delighted as the rock flips and twirls as Iruka spins and waves his hands in smooth patterns. Other chunin and jonin are watching him with amusement and no small amount of impressed surprise.
“That was a fun trick, Iruka-kun!”
“Hello Suzume-san,” Iruka greets the chunin, “this is Kosuke. He’s my teammate and will sometimes be picking up missions!”
“Hello Kosuke-kun”
Kosuke grips Iruka’s shirt and shuffles a bit behind him.
“…hello,” he bows.
“If you’re ever confused or frightened, ask Suzume-san, she’ll help you,” Iruka pats him on the head before nudging him forward. “I’m going to leave, alright? You pick the mission”
“Iruka-senpai-”
“You can do it, Kosuke!” Iruka grins and pumps his fist, “you’re a shinobi!”
That seems to strengthen Kosuke’s resolve cause he nods. Iruka trots back out of the room to where Suika is leaning against the wall.
“Ru! What are you doing here!”
“Anko!” Iruka wheezes as Mitarashi Anko squeezes him tight, “…air…”
“Are you picking up a mission?”
“Yeah, one of my teammates is”
“Ne, Ru, are you taking the Chunin Exams this year and finally joining us as chunin?” Anko tilts her head. Iruka shakes his own.
“Can’t”
“Oh,” Anko frowns, “Akemi-sensei still out of commission?”
“Yeah,” Iruka blinks, “but that’s okay! Just because we can’t take the exam, doesn’t mean we can’t train like we’re going to!” he grins, hiding his insecurity and embarrassment behind his charming grin.
Anko had made chunin several years before. Kotetsu and Izumo and Mizuki had made chunin the following year. Iruka was the last of their friend group to remain genin.
“Iruka-senpai! I did it!” Kosuke runs out, waving the scroll.
“Senpai?” Anko mouths. Iruka blinks once.
“Great job, Kosuke!” Iruka beams, ruffling his youngest teammate’s hair, “we should get going”
“Bar this Friday?” Anko grins.
“You know it!” Iruka grins back, flashing a peace sign at Anko as he herds his teammates out. “What did you get?”
“It was either weeding or Tora”
Iruka crinkles his nose. “Please tell me-”
“Weeding”
“Oh thank god,” Suika and Iruka exhale in relief.
“Let’s hurry up and finish this mission so we can go train!” Iruka says, trying to keep his enthusiasm up so his other two teammates don’t get discouraged. “We’re gonna be working with shuriken today!”
Suika and Kosuke seem to cheer up a bit after that.
Their weeding mission is short and easy. They’ve gotten good at it, so good they have a whole system down. Rather than shower, Iruka drags them to a training field and pulls out a book he rented from the library.
“What’s that?” Suika peers over his shoulder.
“Shuriken techniques!” Iruka opens the book to the pages he marked. “I did some research this weekend. Suika, you know how yours is always going too wide?” Suika nods, “according to this, you’re not putting enough wrist movement into it,” he scrambles to his feet.
Iruka carefully picks up a shuriken and tests the weight.
“I think…” he adjusts his elbow slightly before flinging his arm wide. “See? I didn’t use my wrist at all, I just flung it. That’s what happens to you, right?” Suika nods, “so instead, try like this…” he barely moves his arm and instead flicks his wrist.
It’s not perfect, but it hits the wood.
Iruka hands them both shuriken and they spend the afternoon practicing with suggestions from the textbook until the sun begins to dip low.
“Let’s all go to Ichiraku’s and I’ll help you write the report, Kosuke!” Iruka whoops as he packs up his bag, trying to keep them motivated.
“How do you have so much energy?” Suika whines.
Iruka laughs, scratching his scar. “Because, today was a successful day, wasn’t it?”
Suika and Kosuke exchange glances before shrugging.
They end up clustered in the corner of the stall, Iruka and Suika on either side of Kosuke as he struggles to fill out the report.
“You fill out here first…” Iruka points, “and they like if you list our names in alphabetical order”
“Who do we put for jonin instructor?” Kosuke blinks.
“Ah,” Iruka scratches his scar, “I still put Akemi-sensei. Nobody’s ever asked…now here is where you describe the mission. Like, what we did, where, who for…”
It takes roughly an hour for Kosuke to fill out the report in his clumsy, blocky handwriting and he looks anxious at the prospect of handing it in.
They’re traipsing back to the Mission Desk when the way is blocked by an unpleasantly familiar face. Kosuke curls into himself at his former Academy bully. Iruka’s temper flares.
“Still a genin?” Tokara Eiji mocks, “poor little Kosuke, scared of his own shadow. You’d never make it in the Chunin Exam”
“Back off,” Iruka steps in front of Kosuke. Eiji looks a little worried. Iruka’s reputation certainly precedes him and despite being younger than Iruka, Eiji is acutely aware of his penchant for terror.
“You’re not much better,” Eiji crosses his arms, “how long have you been a genin? No one is gonna take you seriously”
“Oh yeah?” Iruka smirks, reaching into his pocket. Everyone tenses.
Suddenly, a clawed hand covers his own.
“Stop”
Hound. Iruka glares at the ANBU but the older boy is looking at Eiji.
“You won’t make it to chunin with an attitude like that,” Hound says in a bored tone, “people who look down on their comrades don’t make it very far”
Eiji splutters, turning purple in both fear and shame.
“Thanks…I suppose,” Iruka mutters as Eiji scarpers. Hound tilts his head in a way Iruka knows is amusement.
“I’m not about to let you destroy the street either”
“I wasn’t going to,” Iruka glares, “it’s just a glitter tag”
“Is it one of your self-replicating ones?” Hound cocks his head to the side.
“Iruka-senpai…”
“Hm?” Iruka looks at Kosuke, who is clinging to his shirt again. Even Suika, usually not shy, has moved closer to him at the sight of one of Konoha’s elite.
“Are you friends with an ANBU?”
Iruka looks at Hound. Are they friends?
“I…guess?” Iruka shrugs. Something in Hound’s posture shifts, “he regularly annoys me, I regularly annoy him. So I guess you could consider us friends of a sort, insofar as you can be friends with someone you can’t know anything about”
This seems to answer Kosuke’s question. But now him and Suika are staring at him with the edges of heroworship in their eyes. It makes Iruka a little uncomfortable.
“That’s your metric for friendship?” Hound’s voice has an odd tone. Iruka shrugs again.
“I don’t hate you,” he gestures vaguely, “and we talk kinda often, so, yeah, why not?”
“You don’t want to be friends with me”
“Hey,” Iruka glares, “I’m sure you’re a perfectly good friend. Besides, shouldn’t I get to decide who I wanna be friends with?”
Hound’s posture shifts again. It’s subtle, but Iruka’s spent enough time with him to pick up on these things.
“I’m not a good friend,” Hound says quietly and Iruka feels a pang of something like sympathy.
“Well. Too bad,” he crosses his arms, annoyed that this stupid ANBU is trying to tell him who he can and can’t be friends with, “good or not, you’re my friend…” he glances at the clock, “shit, we gotta go, we have to turn in the mission report before it closes!”
Suika looks panicked and Kosuke takes off.
“Bye Hound!” Iruka calls, dashing after his teammates.
It’s only that night as he’s laying in bed that he realizes he declared himself friends with the ANBU who annoys the hell out of him simply because he’s too stubborn to admit defeat.
Oh well. Nothing to do about that. It’s not like Hound would take him seriously anyways.