“You told my brother that the Hokage explicitly ordered you to accept him as a student.” Kakashi had never met anyone able to pack so much nuance of meaning into so few words. No one slept in those T&I escapees masquerading as “beds” who didn’t have to. That would have thrown them off, and he knew for a fact that the big lug was out of the village with his little monsters. Itachi found him trying to bury his sorrows under a pile of smut and the kitchen table he’d scavenged from the remains of Minato-sensei and Kushina-nee’s apartment after the Kyuubi attack. you didn’t fail your genin-test?”Īnd that was the cherry on the top of the worst day of his life.

She couldn’t possibly be implying that-she just blinked at him. Sasuke pushed out of her arms and stared at his mother, vibrating with shock. But it’ll be alright, the Academy genin corps-” “Jounin-sensei have the final word on whether they accept a team or not, love. Otherwise, what was the point of being The Uchiha? “Can’t you fix it?” Surely her and father would have some sway over jounin-sensei assignments. Sasuke tried to dodge her hug, but his mama had been a jounin before she retired to the Military Police. “Oh, Sasuke-chan, I’m so sorry,” she said. The Uchiha compound guards didn’t say anything when he passed them, but they must have sent word ahead to the main house somehow because his mama opened the door before he even got a chance. Sasuke beat out all of them in the Academy rankings! And Kiba was a spare too, just like Sasuke, but somehow he got a genjutsu specialist-Sasuke was the one who was going to be good at genjutsu! Just as soon as he could finally activate his sharingan. Maybe it’s because they’re all the heirs to their clans, but still. Ditzy Ino, lazy Shikamaru, and slow fat Chouji got Sarutobi Asuma, after all, the Hokage’s own son. Fujio hadn’t been allowed to babysit him again. “It doesn’t need you too.” His mama found him, later, just angry and definitely not crying. “The village already has Itachi,” he’d said. He’d babysat Sasuke once when Itachi and Shisui were busy with something that Sasuke was pretty sure involved ANBU-because of course his brother would have to be ANBU, too, on top of everything-and told Sasuke he should just give up on being a shinobi while he still had time. “You knew this was going to happen all along.” The voice sounded a lot like his cousin Fujio, which was dumb because Fujio was just a paper chuunin, so it wasn’t like he knew anything anyway. “Oh, but they can,” a voice sing-songed inside Sasuke’s mind. He was never going to catch up to Itachi like this! They couldn’t do this to him, saddle him with dead last Naruto, some pink-haired civilian-born girl, and most especially definitely not with this white-haired, porn-reading, lazy clanless no-name joke of a jounin sensei. But Sasuke was still an Uchiha, wasn’t he? Part of the main family, no less. No, he wasn’t able to use his sharingan yet, like Itachi-but! But that wasn’t fair! Itachi got to fight in a war when he was Sasuke’s age, of course he was stronger. No, he wasn’t the Uchiha heir, like Itachi. They couldn’t do this to him! No, he wasn’t a prodigy, like Itachi.

Konoha needs more soldiers, grabbing anyone who can fight, especially those who can't say no.Sasuke stomped off the training field, furious beyond belief. We would be remiss to overlook her potential based upon that alone.” “She has two parents who are successful ninjas. “We are still under wartime policy,” the recruiter had told her parents. Your move, instigator (draw your weapon and hold your tongue)

The tale of the utterly gutsy shinobi