legacy | hatake kakashi

[ six ] chūnin exam. [pt.1]

          IT HAD only been three months since team ten had even become genin, but as the Konoha's chūnin exams rolled around, Misuo knew his team was ready to give it a crack. He had called his cute little team to training ground four, lazily laying in a nearby tree as he waited for them to arrive, already knowing who was going to be late and who was going to be early and on time.

Natsumi was a rule follower through and through when it came to time, so of course would be there early, Kiyoko believed that being on time was the best and that people who were early were rude, and Kazuki would, like always, be late. The boy always ate two breakfasts and always slept in and Misuo was quite honestly surprised the kid had made it to their graduation on time... kinda.

His little team had gone above and beyond their mandatory mission count they would have needed to reach to get the chance to become chūnin and had almost doubled the required missions. They had just completed their 124th mission, his team now rarely doing D-ranks these days. Misuo was proud of them for how fair they've come - not like he would tell them that just yet - and knew they would be okay to be going on missions without him now. They had completed 45 D-rank missions and 79 C-rank missions now and had been in their far share of skirmishes, thankfully the majority had been against other low ranking enemy nin, which resulted in minimal injuries. Although, his team held their own pretty well against the higher ranking nin.

Team 10 was making a name for themselves as a rookie squad, they were often called, "the powerhouses" because of how many missions they powered through in the short months the team had been formed. Kazuki would puff out his chest proudly, cockily saying it was all him that was carrying the team.

Misuo yawned, seeing the time was 7:45 a.m. and knew the first of his kiddies would be arriving soon and decided to get a little shut eye until he could hear them carrying on. Natsumi was the first to arrive, of course, and had made the decision to practice her taijutsu skills on the nearby dummy until the others arrived. 8 a.m. rolled by and there was no sign of Kiyoko, which caused Misuo to perk up a little at her strange behaviour.

The youngest member of his team just turned 8 the month prior, could she be going through some weird puberty already? Is his most pleasant student turning a new leaf of turbulent, unruly behaviour?!

8:05 a.m. How strange, he was certain he had told her to arrive at 8 - which was proof by Natsumi being 10 minutes early, as usual.

Now kneeling in his tree, too curious to continue his nap, Misuo was now squinting off in the distance where he had begun to see a dust cloud form in the sky, on the other side of the village. Strangely, he could also see lightning bolts in it - which quickly separated itself from the cloud of dust and accelerated in their direction, now closing in at an alarming pace.

Misuo blinked and saw his youngest student skidding to a stop in the middle of the training ground, bouncing around on her heels with a victorious smile on her face. Almost 30 seconds later, the dust cloud (also known as Kazuki) arrived, red in the face and wheezing as he gasped for breath.

"You cheated!" Kazuki exclaimed hoarsely, holding up an accusatory finger to Kiyoko who gave him an innocent shrug. Misuo let a fond smile take over his face as he observed the pair, who developed a sibling-like bond over the past months. Natsumi had formed some sort of nurturing role, being the oldest of them all, although her hot-headed nature often got in the way of it.

"We can race again but it'll be the same result, slowpoke!" she teased back, sticking her tongue out at the boy. Kiyoko, Misuo noticed, had come out of her shell an awful lot since the team first got together. He reminisced on the team photo they took together, fondly thinking back to the day.