Chapter Text
He warned them. Repeatedly.
Kakashi didn’t want a genin team. Kakashi had no idea of what to do with a genin team. He was self-aware enough to know he wasn’t quite right in the head. He was the last person in Konoha - well, second last, Danzō was still around - that should be trusted with a bunch of children.
But did the Sandaime hear him? No, because the Sandaime wasn’t Minato-sensei, and the old man never listened to him. And he went ahead with the brilliant idea of saddling him with his dead sensei’s son, Itachi’s little brother, and a kunoichi who was so much a cannon fodder that she had a literal target on her bright red dress.
Kakashi couldn’t do it. He seriously couldn’t do it. He was too fucked up in the head to be responsible for three kids that needed more than a little help. They needed a shit ton of help. More help than maybe even he needed back at their age.
Ha, who was he kidding? He was already a jōnin at twelve. He had already buried some of his most beloved people. His sensei had sent him to ANBU because he needed a 24/7 suicide watch, and the black ops was the only place where he would get that. At their age, Hatake Kakashi was already fucked up beyond any help. At their age, Hatake Kakashi had already become a master of his two greatest skills: survival and assassination.
Kakashi was good at surviving. Kakashi was good at killing. He was also passable at pretending to be normal. Those were the only skills he could confidently pass on to his students. Surprisingly, after reading their academy files, that thought calmed him down a little.
Sasuke needed to know how to survive; that was plenty clear.
Sakura needed to know how to kill, or the classist shinobi system would eat her alive.
Naruto desperately needed to learn how to pretend to be normal, or he would be taken advantage of at every turn.
'Motherfucking Danzō was still very much alive, wasn’t he?'
Again, Kakashi was very aware that he was not about to become a good sensei, not by Konoha's current standards. Iruka was a good teacher, but he was soft. There was no rush to graduate students and send them to the front lines, not like when his generation was in the academy. Kakashi couldn’t do what Iruka, Kurenai, Gai, or even Asuma could. He couldn’t - and wouldn’t - treat them with the care a child needed. If this trio of improbable disasters managed to pass the bell test, he would teach them how he was taught. Not by Minato-sensei, who, despite his failures, couldn’t help but love the three students he welcomed to his home and family. Not like his own father, cautious of Kakashi’s young age and focused on the Hatake clan’s traditions. Not even how his ANBU instructors had sharpened him to a lethal blade. Oh, no. None of that.
If the unfortunate trio made it through his bell test, he would train them as Kakashi had trained himself.
And they would survive. They would kill. And they would learn how to pretend to be normal.
Or they would die, like Obito and Rin.
It was as simple as that.