Chunin Exams Oneshots!

Lost on the Path of Life

"The Sixth Hokage is dead," a single chunin had choked out to Tsunade, vest covered with blood and rips and burn marks from the mission. It was a bleak greeting to both his home and everyone living in it.

The former Hokage's eyes moved from the report towards Naruto's frozen figure. His hands were balled tightly into fists, his nails digging into the palms of his hands.

"You're lying. Kakashi sensei wouldn't die so easily." Naruto growled.

The grim look on the ninja's face said otherwise, but he ignored it. "Grandma Tsunade, what mission was so important that the Sixth Hokage himself had to do it?" Naruto raged on. "Where is he, I know he isn't dead. I'll go and bring him back to the village myself-"

Tsunade stood up abruptly, slamming her hands on her desktop. "Listen to me you little brat, you will stay in this village wait until further instruction. I don't care that you went up against Kaguya during the war. Use your head, you have no chance against an enemy who may have killed Kakashi! Understood?"

With a slam of the door, Naruto stormed out of the office. This didn't feel right to him and if Tsunade knew Naruto at all, he wouldn't let this go so easily.

———
The funeral was grand, as it should have been for the Sixth Hokage. Everyone including the sky mourned on that day. In the front row stood Team Seven as they stared at the picture of their childhood sensei atop a closed casket.

None of it felt real, yet here they were.

Kakashi Hatake has—had—always been a sort of larger-than-life figure despite everything in his life tearing down what he was—still a powerful and skilled shinobi without the Sharingan, still an important part of his own team even with his protégés surpassing him, and most importantly, still a very good friend to everyone despite most of his closest dying painful and horrible deaths.

And of course, the latter made the situation even worse—almost everyone in the village showed up.
——
The rain had let up hours ago and most of everyone had already left. It had been mostly silent except for the almost tragic crunching of Choji's chips between his teeth.

"So, are we done here?"

Sasuke Uchiha, despite beginning to recover from years of emotional stuntedness (the fact that he had even appeared at the funeral was a surprise) was still as blunt and seemingly uncaring as ever.

Thankfully, everyone had changed to become a bit more accepting of it.

"Yeah, you can leave," said Shikamaru with a wave of his hand. "Not one to hinder you from your mission, anyway."

Without another word, the Uchiha then disappeared in a cloud of white smoke.

"A shadow clone," Naruto mumbled to no one in particular. "I should've known."

Sakura stared blankly at the spot where Sasuke's shadow clone had disappeared.

How could I have expected anything more?

She sighed and rubbed her forehead—she remembered it like it was yesterday: a gentle tap, that small smile, "maybe next time"—

"We should go back. It's pretty late, you guys," Choji said, stuffing the now-empty tragic chop bag into his pocket. Rock Lee nodded solemnly and helped Gai sensei to his feet.

Right as they were about to turn and leave, a figure walked up to the group.

"You guys see an umbrella around here? I think I left mine somewhere here..."

"Who are you again?" Naruto asked, a look of confusion etched onto his face. Although the newcomer wore a chunin vest over a dark blue jumpsuit, and wore a Konoha headband, he has never seen her around the village before.

"The name's Fumo," she replied, tugging at her ponytail. "Been in and out of the village ever since I became a jonin. I haven't really known Kakashi all that well, actually, but I wanted to pay my respects."

She gave a faint smile to the group, pushing greying bangs out of her eyes.

"Seems like you guys knew him way better than I did. The one time I met him I was taking the place of his usual sensei in the academy one day..."

——

When I first met him, it was when he was this small, still attending the Academy. Maybe around seven or eight years old, I think?

Anyway, the one time I had to substitute for his class. Basically it was pure and unrelenting hell. From what the sensei had told me, I knew Kakashi was a really popular kid and always had a gaggle of fans flocking around him.

So I'm expecting a perfect, diligent kid, right?

It's almost funny how wrong I was.

The first thing he said to me after walking into class the second I finished giving my introduction—which was five minutes into the class, by the way—was,

"Sorry, sensei, it seems like I got lost on the path of life. Did I miss anything?"

And then he proceeded to dump himself at the back of the classroom, put his feet on the table, and started reading some really thick book about ninja etiquette. The sheer ridiculousness and irony of the scene was enough to make me double over with laughter.

There was this brief period of silence when I was kneeling over, wheezing with an emotion I haven't felt since I was their age while everyone stared at me.

And then this kid sitting in the front with an Uchiha jacket and orange goggles stood up and started yelling at him, calling him "Bakashi" (cue more laughter) and ranting about how he shouldn't be considered a model student if that was how he treated his superiors.

And then the whole class burst into chaos seeing as the sensei was probably not going to stop laughing. Anarchy grabbed hold of this large group of children as fights broke out, crumpled papers flew, and all the while Kakashi sat there in the back reading his book with a deadpan expression on his face.

Anyway, it was definitely one of the funnier moments of my life, considering how I got sent out on so many serious missions back in those days.
——
"I wasn't there to see him appointed Sixth Hokage, so I always wanted to meet him again some day and say something like 'hey, remember me? I'm the old sensei who taught your class for one day that you made laugh uncontrollably'. It's really sort of morbid to see him again at his own funeral, huh."

"Uh...your umbrella's right there next to the tree, Fumo-san," Sakura said, pointing at the base of a tall pine, a small black umbrella sitting next to its roots.

"Oh, thank you. Well, it's best I'll be going now-"

"Why did you tell us that?" Naruto asked.

"What?"

"I just thought that it was always nice to hear stories about your sensei when they're younger, no?" Fumo replied, and then walked off leaving the group to ponder with their own thoughts.

Suddenly, someone stumbled out of the trees and collapsed in front of the group.

His jacket was missing, he was covered with burn marks, normally spiky hair soaking wet with water, but-

"K-Kakashi sensei?" Sakura mumbled in disbelief while Naruto ran over to help him up in a panic.

"Sorry for being late, you guys," he drawled, eyes half-closed from exhaustion. "I got lost on the path of life."

Those were the last words that Kakashi before his body went limp in Naruto's arms.