Chapter Text
Genma picks his way through the ANBU training grounds, Raidou at his side as he maneuvers around sparring teams and pairs, circumventing deep craters and jutting rocks, scorched patches and spontaneous rivers. They’ve been assigned a new team, or rather Raidou has as team captain, and the Yondaime was particularly unforthcoming in regards to the details.
“Careful,” Raidou murmurs, a hand on his elbow tugging him out of the way of a stray fireball.
Genma flashes him a quick smile. “I saw it, no worries.” He very carefully doesn’t say, Are you sure about this? They're kids.
Raidou looks back at him, and in the arch of his brows Genma reads, So were we, when we started.
To be fair, though, Genma remembers Uchiha Obito from the chuunin exams. The kid had almost died on a piece of candy, and that’s a first impression that’s going to be hard to overcome, much as Genma prides himself on being a fairly open-minded individual. Hatake Kakashi is a genius, but that’s not exactly comforting, either. Teams have to be able to work together flawlessly, and Genma knows, at least peripherally, Kakashi's standoffish attitude. Optimistically it won't be a problem, but Genma remembers the rule-bound, kind of bratty kid Kakashi used to be too well to have much hope.
“Fuck,” he mutters, pausing to let a Futon jutsu gouge a deep trench in the ground in front of him.
The look Raidou shoots him manages to be longsuffering, resigned, and amused all at once, but the older man says nothing. They sidestep the trench, and from there it’s only a few more meters to Training Ground Twelve.
To Genma's surprise, Yamashiro Aoba is there, lounging against the trunk of a tree. The other jounin raises a hand in greeting as they near. “Yo,” he says brightly. “Back from Kumo already?”
Genma arches one blond brow at the man. “Classified,” he drawls in return, as soon as they're close enough not to shout. “As you should already know, gossip hound.”
Aoba just grins. “Well, you got back just in time for the new assignments. Got stuck with the wunderkind pair, too, huh?”
“They're supposed to be good,” Raidou offers after a second. His eyes flick over the training ground, settling here and there, and then he shrugs. Genma snorts softly, because Raidou is of the opinion that no one really knows the worth of a team until the end of the first mission. Of course, Genma can't say he disagrees.
Apparently reading the same thing Genma does, Aoba rolls his eyes. “So they are,” he agrees dryly.
“You think so, too?” Genma asks, curious as to the interrogator’s opinion. He and Raidou have been on deep undercover assignment in Kumo for four months now, which isn't usually long enough for any new ANBU members to earn a reputation, good or bad.
Aoba nods towards the other side of the grassy clearing, and Genma and Raidou follow his gaze. “Guess you’ll find out shortly. Looks like the gang’s all here.”
It’s hard to be a Konoha shinobi and not at least know of Hatake Kakashi, the genius who finished the Academy in one year. Genma surveys the lanky boy emerging from the trees, white hair like a beacon in the shadows. The hitai-ate tilted down across his left eye is new, but beyond the handful of inches he’s gained vertically—and the fact that he’s wearing an ANBU uniform with a dog-mask strapped to his belt—not much seems to have changed. Therefore, it’s a complete surprise to see the Uchiha boy walking beside him say something and Hatake actually turn his head and respond. Genma's encountered him enough times, even if at a distance, to know that the genius is usually standoffish and aloof, rarely deigning to say so much as a word. To see him answer so easily is…surprising.
“He’s friends with the Uchiha?” Raidou murmurs, eyes narrowing faintly. “Most of them—”
“Go into the police force, yeah,” Aoba finishes for him. “This one’s different. He and Hatake have been attached at the hip since day one, too, and I didn’t think the Uchiha did friendship.”
That, at least, is one of Aoba’s expected exaggerations, so Genma tunes it out and turns to study the boy in question—no longer quite the boy he was during the chuunin exams, admittedly, and Genma should probably stop thinking of him like that. He’s Kakashi's age, standard Uchiha looks with dark hair and pale skin, slim and fairly short, with deep scars twisting the right side of his face. There's a simple black patch over his left eye, which is surprising—transplants are common enough, these days, and to make it into ANBU with such an obvious handicap the kid must be good. But there's something about the way he holds himself, about the way both boys seem to gravitate towards each other, that makes it obvious that Uchiha restraint or not, this friendship is real. Also new, if Genma's memory of the rather divided team he, Gai, and Ebisu faced in the exams serves him correctly.
“That bad?” Genma asks, still taking careful note of body language. It’s only after a second that he completely understands what he’s seeing, watching the two survey the clearing: they're covering each other’s blind spots. Uchiha's missing eye and Hatake’s covered one—they're accounting for those and canceling out the vulnerability. They trust each other enough to separate responsibility and watch each other’s back.
That’s the kind of thing Genma and Raidou do, and they’ve been partners for almost two years now.
Aoba doesn’t answer, because the two boys are approaching, a tight two-man formation that looks natural rather than planned. Kakashi looks them over and offers a lazy nod—also new. Obito is all but vibrating with tightly wound tension, but is surprisingly contained given the loudmouth he used to be.
“Captain Namiashi, Shiranui-san,” the Uchiha offers with a bright smile. It’s surprisingly…kind, actually—especially so for an Uchiha.
Raidou doesn’t hesitate as he nods back. “Hatake, Uchiha. It’s good to have you on the team. I thought we could spar, get to know each other’s styles a bit. Ready?”
Kakashi and Obito exchange glances, eyes meeting, and there's a thousand words in every minute twitch of a lip, an eyebrow. They're motionless for a moment, and then Obito snorts and nods, stepping back. “Limits?” he asks. Kakashi shifts slightly, and if Genma were on ounce less observant he’d miss the way the white-haired boy shifts his entire body towards Obito. It’s subtle, but definitely there.
From the sudden sharpening of Raidou's gaze, he sees it, too. He glances at Genma, who nods back and drops a hand to his senbon pouch. “Right,” Genma says cheerfully. “Limits, Captain? Am I going with nasty incapacitating venom, slightly less nasty all-around poison, or harmless but embarrassing paralytic?”
Obito chuckles, and Raidou rolls his eyes faintly. “Genma,” he sighs.
Genma grins at him, tossing a wink at the Uchiha. “Paralytic it is,” he agrees easily, pulling out the correct bundle, wrapped with a green ribbon. “Non-lethal attacks only, right?”
“Agreed,” Kakashi says, shifting his weight again even as his gaze flicks over towards his partner. Obito meets it with an aggrieved look, but tips his head like they’ve just come to some kind of agreement and drops into a crouch. “I take it we’re in teams?”
Raidou nods and turns to Aoba. “Since you're just killing time, mind doing the honors?”
“I'm spectating,” Aoba protests. “Where would you be without my witty commentary and sharp insight?” Apparently recognizing the long look Raidou shoots him as one that promises passive-aggressive retribution at its finest, the tokujo sighs in wounded surrender and lifts his hands. “Fine, fine. Places, please. And…begin!”
With the ease of long familiarity, Genma moves at the same moment as Raidou, lunging forward at Kakashi even as the captain goes for Obito. He flicks three senbon out, feels the whirling burn of a fire technique off to the side, and thinks that maybe this match will be over quickly.
Then the air in front of him blurs with speed, a flicker of chakra, and instead of Kakashi he’s bearing down on Obito, who’s wearing a grin. The Uchiha's eye is spinning, a black and crimson pinwheel, and Genma knows better than to look into it. So he focuses on his senbon, letting another handful fly, and looks up slightly to make sure they find their target—not that he’s worried, because he’s been training with senbon since he could walk, became a tokubetsu jounin on that skill alone, and—
Obito doesn’t even attempt to dodge. The senbon fly true, striking him square in the chest, the neck, and then just…pass straight through. Like he’s a ghost. Genma hears them thud into the ground behind the Uchiha, curses, and brings his hands up, already starting the signs for a Katon jutsu.
But it’s too late. Obito's already got his hands up, fingers twisting into the snake seal, and he cries, “Mokuton: Underground Roots Technique!”
Genma's eyes go very, very wide. “What the fuck—” he manages, half a heartbeat before he’s swallowed by a writhing, twisting mass of roots and entirely immobilized.
From outside the cage of wood, he hears Raidou swear, and then two overlapping voices—one of them Raidou's, the other possibly Kakashi's—cry out the same attack. There's a rush of footsteps, a cacophony of fluttering wings and shrieking crows, the dull thud of striking limbs, and then silence.
Well, Genma thinks to himself, entirely resigned to his fate as he tries not to breathe in too much dirt. That’s probably the fastest two new recruits have ever taken down a captain and a senior squad member. I wonder if Yondaime-sama was trying to tell us something. Like maybe that our heads were getting too big.
That, at least, is a sort of comforting thought, since it means other teams with swelled heads will be getting this same treatment, too.
With a rustle, the roots recede, and Genma gratefully accepts the hand that Obito holds out to him, allowing the Uchiha to pull him to his feet. “Nice,” he says with complete honesty. “But really, what the fuck? Mokuton?”
Obito laughs a little sheepishly and scuffs a hand through his shaggy black hair. “Ah. Well—”
Before Genma can even blink, Kakashi is right there, all but wedged in between the two of them, and while it isn't quite a glare he levels at Genma, it’s not all that far off, either. “Your partner could use some help,” the boy says coolly, tipping his head to the left.
Genma follows his gaze to where Raidou is sprawled out on the ground, dazed and groaning. It only takes his a second to recognize the aftermath of Raidou's combination Scattering Thousand Crows Technique and his knockout taijutsu attack, though Genma's never seen Raidou on the receiving end before. He looks back at the young genius, brow rising, and barely keeps from faltering when he finds two eyes staring flatly back at him. One is the familiar dark grey, but the other…
Genma looks between his two new teammates, taking in the identical markings in their twin Sharingan eyes, and begins to understand just why they're so very codependent. It’s just…something on that level is truly hard to fathom.
“Never should have taught you that technique,” Aoba mourns, meandering up to Raidou's side and bending over him with a sad shake of his head. “One hit, Raidou. I'm unspeakably ashamed of you. Really. I'm never going to talk to you again.”
“Oh, good,” Raidou says, sitting up with a groan, and geez, even after two years Genma still can't tell it that’s a real, honest response or if Raidou didn’t actually hear what was said and is just pretending to have listened. The captain shakes the fogginess from his eyes and pushes himself to his feet, staggering a step before he steadies as he makes his way over.
“Good job,” he tells Kakashi and Obito. “That was…enlightening, definitely.”
“What the fuck,” Genma repeats, because he really feels that can't be overstated.
Aoba laughs at both of them, clapping them on the shoulders. “Good job lasting all of twenty seconds against Copy-Nin Kakashi and the Shodaime’s Ghost,” he says blithely. “No, really, you guys suck.”
Raidou blinks for a moment. “Shodaime’s Ghost?” he echoes a touch weakly.
Obito grins at them both, dropping to the ground and stretching one leg out in a low runner’s lunge. “People aren’t that creative,” he says cheerfully. “My Sharingan lets me go intangible for a handful of seconds at a time, and with the Mokuton…I guess they just went with the most obvious thing.”
“Doesn’t fit as well as my idea,” Kakashi says dismissively, stepping back and reaching into his kunai pouch. He pulls out a book with a bright, almost lurid orange over, flips it open, and starts to read.
Icha Icha Paradise.
Fuck. Genma has somehow ended up in an alternate dimension and he’s only realizing it now. What the hell.
“Oh, fuck you too,” Obito retorts, though he keeps stretching and doesn’t even look up at his partner. “As if any respectable shinobi lets someone get away with calling them ‘The Crybaby Ninja’.”
“Ma, if the shoe fits…”
“So then I guess you're going to be ‘The Bastard Ninja’ for the rest of your life? Actually, wait, hold on, I think I like the sound of that—”
“Obito, if you don’t shut up you’ll be homeless within the next five minutes.”
“So we’re pretending that you actually know how to cook and survive on your own now, without Minato-sensei and Kushina-san looking over your shoulder every few hours? That’s cute, Kakashi.”
“Shut up, Obito. I can cook—”
“Ramen. You can cook ramen and heat up take-out. How is it I wasthe hopeless one when you don’t even know essential life skills beyond campfire cooking?”
“Because I'm actually a ninja—”
“Who can't even do the laundry—”
Raidou meets Genma's eyes, laughter just barely contained. Genma doesn’t even bother trying to hide his grin as he drawls, “All right, I give up. How long have you guys been married now?”
The twin looks of affronted outrage he gets are absolutely priceless.