Chapter Text
What, did you expect for his genius to spark through the cloud of responsibility and allow him to remain Rookie Number One? Fuck no. Sasuke, at eight years old became a single parent to his three year old cousin, suddenly moving from working like a dog to gain a legal right to her, to working like a dog to take care of a three year old . AND get a 75% average in his class ... He became the master of multitasking; teaching Hansha to speak by reading out difficult parts from his textbooks, chopping ingredients with kunai so he could practice throwing them afterwards, learning basic trap styles by toddler-proofing their home with cushions and foam, and using his taijutsu kata to entertain his cute little cousin.
(He wasn't sure if he should be proud of, or find humour in the expressions paper work ninja made when they 'dropped by' their home. But he had gone through the regulations with Inoichi-san, as duel head of torture and interrogation he knew the ins and out what what people said versus what they meant, so all surprise inspections were bust.)
And even then he was barely keeping up with his average, because unlike every other orphan shinobi-track child caring for a younger sibling, Sasuke was also head of a clan, and while he had finally managed to find someone to work as a regent for the non-mandatory clan head meetings (he still sometimes buried his head into his pillow and cackled over this), Sasuke still had to travel to the hokage complex at least once a week to sit through five hour budget meetings. Thank god for Naras.
Often he would finish caring for Hansha and just fall asleep next to her cot - hell after he had woken up in Hansha's room, a month in sleeping on his mattress (which sleep-deprived and perpetually grumpy!Sasuke had dragged from his room into hers) he had just given up all hope and moved in. He had once heard civilian mothers laughing about how one had been unable to 'cut the cord' and was babying their grown child too much and he had two words fro them; 'Fuck you'. Luckily Shikaku-san had stepped in early to ensure he wouldn't attack the poor little housewives, but still was nearly weekly confronted with Sasuke's raging - and would just grunt 'civillains' and roll his eyes. (Sasuke had agreed with him, what was the point of a ninja marrying a civilian? They just didn't understand ... Until the day he realized that Yoshino-san was a kunoichi. That day he had seriously reconsidered the merits of a civilian housewife.)
But apart from his weird placement, his sleeping was mostly disturbed by nightmares. They were ... well, not better, but easier to deal with and acknowledge after the first two months of waking up gasping at the sight of his mother's neck slicing open and blood pouring onto the old tatami mats he had grown up on. It had only gotten worse after he had managed to get Hansha-chan.
(Some nights he would wake in a terror that she had died, either by that man's hands or, worse, because of his actions. Because he was a child and he had adopted a three year old and he had to teach her and make sure she was healthy and happy and oh god why. He would spend nights like those sitting on his mattress watching her tiny little chest rise up and down as she dreamt pleasant dreams.
Her nightmares were another situation entirely.)
So, now at twelve, he had elevated from parenting a three year old (whose greatest interests seemed to be a combination of the nightly taijutsu puppet show and her own toes) to parenting a seven year old, who had just entered the ninja academy despite Sasuke's attempts to bargain with the universe. (Yes, he understood that Hansha would be safer if she could protect herself, but there was a difference between learning how to protect yourself and learning how to protect yourself because you were going to be a ninja.) She had also decided that taijutsu was the Best Thing Ever (he dearly regretted substituting story time with Uchiha taijutsu stances) and now his baby sister wanted to be a close-quarters combat type.
Graduating from a ball of stress to a whirlwind of freak out was ... not good. (The only one who was seemingly oblivious to the impending freakout-of-doom was little Hansha-chan, who had taken to attempting to follow around konoha chunin to learn 'cool adult stuff'. When those words came out of her mouth Sasuke had rapidly turned purple and gone to go punch his regent in the face - the hit never even landed, but the thought counts, right? Before explaining to her in no uncertain terms was she to ever approach a chunin she did not know. Incidentally this was not the best advice.)
Genin team meetings were very off canon.
When Kakashi finally made it to the academy's classroom he was greeted by a head full of chalk dust, a grumpy blonde kid that was a mix of his sensei and Kushina-bachan, a grumpy pink haired girl who acted like Rin-chan and a note from his third student. (While he did fake his surprise to the two remaining genin, he had actually been informed by one of Sasuke-kun's ANBU guards that the boy had left early because, and he quotes, "Fuck this shit, Hansha-chan has been at the Hyuuga compound for a full hour without supervision." And had wrote a note that ANBU Inu had snickered about but not told him the contents of. And instead of being petty to little Yamato-kun, he had left it at that ... but not before 'accidentally' breaking the branch Yamato had been hanging off of. The betrayed yelp had been surprisingly satisfying.) So after disappearing to the rooftop with his scroll, he now had all the time in the world - well the time it took genin to go up five flights of stairs, which was pretty much the same thing - to read his letter from one of his cute students.
Hatake Kakashi-sensei,
Because of previous appointments I have been unable to greet you in person. I humbly apologize for this grievance, and will make sure to extend my allotted time with this team at our next meeting.
As for current missing information, please leave a message with my new teammates or any patrolling Uchiha Military Police Officer, and I will endeavour to keep up to date with any future meetings.
Regards,
Uchiha Clan Head
Head of the Military Police
Genin of Konohagakure
Uchiha Sasuke
Kakashi rolled up the scroll, frowning in confusion. There hadn't been anything wrong with the letter. Why had Inu laughed so hard at it?
(What Kakshi would soon learn was that Sasuke had been taught at Inuzuka Tsume's knee how to talk the political talk. Tsume, as Alpha of the Inuzuka clan, held the unenviable position of both playing devious clan head and brash, powerful pack leader, meaning that sometimes these two identities clashed. And more often than not it was the clan head position where she seemed weak. The Inuzuka were notoriously aggressive and animalistic, making outsiders assume that they were also quick to anger and unintelligent. Often those same people attempted to insult/profit/manipulate their clan by slipping one thing or the other into the clan head's weekly meeting agenda. And it was Tsume's job to uphold the stereotype of her clan but also protect it from the outsiders. There is a reason why Tsume has been clan head since she turned sixteen and defeated the previous clan head, straight after her jonin exams, other than her enormous skill.)
When his other students came up to the roof (with Naruto noticeably behind Sakura), Kakashi fixed a smile to his eyes and said, "First impression; I hate you all."
Because really, not that much had changed for Kakashi ... Yet.
TTT
The next morning found Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke waiting on training ground 5 for their erstwhile sensei.
"Hey hey Sasuke-baka, why do you skip the meeting? That kind of stuff is important, dattebane!"
Sasuke, typically monosyllabic at this time in the morning, grunted out, "Cousin." Before returning to his scroll, taken from the Uchiha archives which listed the old laws binding the Uchiha police force to the village. The next clan head meeting Sasuke would be proposing a bill to get rid of the more stuffy regulations on the need for the police force to be ninja so he could start hiring civilians for jobs Chunin and Jonin should not be doing. (And maybe in the future they could have an integrated police force ... He nearly sighed wistfully at this thought, dealing with the number of Jonin he had to on a regular day was not good for his health. Especially those who had been signed to the force as punishment for reckless behaviour.)
"Baka! That's not a good answer," Naruto snorted, and when Sasuke-baka didn't look up from his boring scroll, "Hey Dobe! Don't ignore me!!!"
Sakura had it up to here with Naruto's morning voice, "Naruto-kun shut up."
"But he's ignoring me!"
"For a good reason, Sasuke-sama is clan head! He probably didn't plan to have to wait five hours for our Jonin Sensei."
(Let it be known that one day when Sasuke and Hansah had gone out to celebrate Hansha's birthday, Hansha-chan had pointed her little finger at Sakura (who had either coincidentally been there or was stalking Sasuke ... again) and said "I wanna be her". Sasuke had fainted. He then had proceeded to flip out at Sakura, and in between the swear words and the "you have defiled my baby's future" she had heard this, " its not like the Uchiha clan head would be able to marry anyone under Tokubetsu Jonin ". Her routine changed. Rapidly. Sasuke never noticed, attention solely fixed on Hansha-chan.)
"Eh???"
Sakura sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, "Clan heads have to do a lot more than we do, and he's raising his cousin, so unlike us he doesn't have time to wait back," a glance showed Naruto's uncomprehending stare, so she switched tracks, "or go eat Ramen whenever he wants. He has to plan ahead and schedule it."
"What!?!? Sasuke-baka can't eat ramen!" His eyes turned and suddenly he felt really really bad for the dobe, "that's so sad."
Sakura gave up, "Yeah ... It really is sad."
For a moment the two considered the young clan head in silence.
"Oh!" Naruto shouted. Right into Sakura's ear.
"Baka," she snarled, "what was that for?"
Naruto mumbled.
"What?"
Naruto mumbled again, a little bit louder.
Sakura paused for a second, considering, "You know what that's actually a really good idea!" She paused, "Although maybe we should switch it up next week, okay?"
(So now, every week Kakashi's genin team would gather at the Uchiha clan head's location and eat ramen together. This little traditional eventually expanded to include Kakashi, and went on until they were all Jonin. Sakura never managed to convince Naruto that they should switch up the menu, though.)
TTT
When Kakashi had told them the bell test Sasuke’s expression had flattened and he turned stone cold eyes on his new teammates, “I cannot fail this test, decide among yourselves which one goes back to academy.”
“Baaaka!” Screeched Naruto, “You can’t just tell us to fail!”
Suddenly Sasuke wa sin Naruto’s face, his fist gripping his orange jumpsuit neck, “I need to make genin.” His expression was fearsome, but his fist was shaking, “You know how much it costs to be a clan head?” And now that Naruto was really looking he could see tears in his eyes, “I need the money.”
Sakura felt for Sasuke, but … she needed this promotion, she needed to be better, there was only so much she could learn from the civilian and academy student section of the Konoha library (in fact, she was twenty five books away from having nothing left to read ). “How about we argue about who gets the bells, after we have them?”
The sly expression on Sasuke’s face was one she would get used to seeing, “Whoever does worst goes back to academy.”
The three teammates side eyed each other and out of view Kakashi’s hand twitched, he only managed to delay facepalming because of his years of experience dealing with ANBU members trying to act normal. His cute genin had just grasped the idea of ‘teamwork’, beat it up, tied it in chains and threw it out of a window … into a pit of spikes.
The following fight was a disaster, and as all the members of the soon to be dissolved team sat together tied to a post, Kakashi was given a letter from the Hokage’s ANBU.
If you do not pass this team, Kakashi-kun, I am assigning you as a Chunin Instructor at the Academy.
If they had been looking, Team 7 would have seen the air Kakashi’s genjutsu was located in shiver.
He turned back to regard the team, surprisingly enough Naruto was the first one to have gotten out of his ropes - having become very used to it through generous practice with Iruka-sensei - and had gone to help Sasuke and Sakura out of their ropes. He watched as they stood rubbing their rope burns, glancing at each other.
“We’re all going back to academy, aren’t we?” Sasuke’s voice was devastated.
“Looks like it.” Murmured Sakura.
As one all their shoulders drooped.
“Hey hey, let’s eat Kakashi-baka-sensei’s lunch! As like revenge dattebane!”
Sakura and Sasuke’s gazes met before Sakura shrugged and set into eat their teacher’s food.
When Kakashi promptly shushinned to his cute new students and shouted, “You passed!” All three threw their lunches at him.
TTT
Once Naruto asked why Sasuke doesn't just hire a genin team to look after Hansha-chan, and Sasuke has proceeded to flip the fuck out, ranting about the average price to hire a genin team, the inaccessibility of these services from those who needed them, the judgment a clan head got from being unable to care for a child in-clan, and the average incompetency of a genin team, anyway. What if a kidnapper appeared??? What would they be able to do? (And yes, Sasuke still didn't know about the ANBU escort, and wouldn't know about it until he activated his sharingan and proceeded to have a mini-heart attack when an unknown presence was following Hansha around .)