@rayshippouuchiha Congratuations, you won my insomnia’s hyper fixation for the night.
There was one big benefit to working at the REPO organization, Assistant Necromancer R.D. mused, standing at the side of the big vat of ‘mysterious red fluid’ (Probably the Hemo-divisions spare blood they stole from medical storage. Or janitorial returning lost fluids again. One of them. Until he had a Blood Mage step in and check, he wasn’t planning to touch it.)
R.D. took a deep swig from the oversized coffee mug in his hand- shaped from the bones of one of his earliest failed experiments, the sealed skull of a fire demon kept the chai latte perfectly warmed, without being scalding.
Where was he?
Right, big benefit of working at REPO.
The dress code, and the loose definition thereof. As long as it was mildly modest, wasn’t an active safety hazard, and didn’t flash unmentional bits at random people who didn’t want it, meant that being called in, literally from his bed, meant he only had to grab his non slip work shoes and a lab coat before getting summoned in.
He glanced down at his vibrant fuzzy pajama bottoms: covered with the gaudiest blue, green, and teal shark print, and the loose black and gray lab coat and black band shirt that completed his ‘3AM’ appearance and then looked back up and took another swig of chai.
“Boss!” looking over, R.D. tracked his personal assistant: Benny B. Ones, the gleaming white bone and carved enamel designs flickering as the skeleton tumbled and jogged around the room, ducking around a cart of bone fragments that an apprentice osteo member was transporting.
“Benny. Why am I here before noon.” The skeleton reached into his ribcage and flicked through a binder that was stapled to the left side of his spine. “We’ve got several memo’s from upper management, specifying both intern policy, recruitment drives, and the plans for the Inevitable Lich Conversion Drive.”
“The ILCD is still on standby. Fatality rates are low enough that we don't need it yet.” R.D. flipped through the memo’s with only mild concern. “And if we don’t get enough Interns, those rates aren’t gonna stay steady. Medical keeps taking anyone with general healing abilities and the flesh crafters, considering they run the HRT and Body Customization wing, which is making the reconstructive procedures for the actual dead people a nightmare. Trying to get three Necro-specialists to work on the same problem at any point in time is a bitch.”
Benny nodded, and rummaged through the various pouches and files in his chest, before pulling out what was very clearly an incident report: considering the edges of the paper were laminated with bright yellow and black hazard print.
“And there’s also this!”
Taking the report, R.D. gave it a long look, skimming over the basics until he hit the actual ‘Incident’ description… before pausing.
“Why the hell do we have the reconstructed remains of six T-rexes in the first place? And who let the Bone Crew at them?”
Sighing, R.D. folded the paper up and started marching through the hallway towards the Graveyard warehouses, gaudy Pj’s leading the charge while his labcoat gave a melodramatic ‘swoosh’ behind him.
“I swear, it’s always something here.”
This is for @Rayshippouuchiha, as a bit of a catch all for what I imagine Ichigo looks like in her fics, as a girl, obviously she’d look the same as canon as a guy. Please don’t @ me about this, it’s just for fun! I hope Ray likes it! Also forgive the scanner quality, it’s a printer scanner combo.
The silence that falls between them is as easy and warm as always. Vision’s brush stroking carefully across his canvas a soothing sort of background noise for Tony.
First time Naruto takes the ninja exam and fails due to not being able to do the clone jutsu the Hokage sees the result and pauses thinking “Kushina couldn’t do that jutsu either for the same reason. She never could even as an adult so technically Naruto passed because we don’t hold those back who can’t pass a certain portion of the exam due to a bloodline and technically between Mito, Kushina and now Naruto this probably counts as a bloodline...”
And so he calls Kakashi in because Kakashi was always gonna get Naruto due to his father’s legacy and he’d just been looking for a reason to pull the broken nin out of ANBU.
So quickly the Hokage stamps passed on Naruto’s report by reason of bloodline exception and takes little ten year old newly minted ten year old Naruto to twenty-four year old Kakashi’s house at the edge of town adjunct the Inuzuka clan because where else would Kakashi live with 8 nin-dogs.
Officially like Naruto’s father before him Kakashi is taking orphaned Naruto on as an apprentice not a student because the Hokage’s not blind to Naruto’s poor living situation he just didn’t have an above board way of fixing it before this.
Kakashi’s more than a little overwelhmed with the tiny ninja on his hands especially because while Naruto may have passed the exam he’s woefully unskilled by Kakashi’s standards. The absolute best advice however comes from Pakkun who looks tiredly at all that energy and advises Kakashi treat Naruto as he would any ninja puppy. Kakashi balks at that but it does calm him down. Puppies. Puppies he can handle. How much harder can a kid be?
Eh. Not that much harder actually. Naruto needs a bath more often and different food but after a few days of Naruto curled up against his back with his noose tucked behind Kakashi’s jaw either in bed at night or when Kakashi carries him home after training Kakashi relaxes into having Naruto around calling him shishou and wearing Kakashi’s old clothes he’d found in a box upstairs.
The first time Naruto trots home after wearing his mask and head scarf to cover his blond hair smelling sad and happy at the same time explaining that everyone had been super nice to him today but only because they didn’t know it was him that Kakashi feels ashamed he’d never been there for Naruto before. Naruto never goes out without his mask on anymore but Kakashi never calls him on it.
Apprentice or no Kakashi is still a ninja in high demand and though it surprises some he takes Naruto with him. Typically the young ninja takes care of the camp learning helpful tips and tricks about tracking and camping and covering his tracks. It takes surprisingly little to refine Naruto’s keep away and running speed and while Kakashi knows more deadly traps Naruto’s surprisingly adept. Teaching Naruto Fuinjitsu was as easy as breathing and Kakashi is completely unsurprised when Naruto outpaces him having to write to Jiraiya for more advanced work.
And so it goes quite well for two years...until Sasuke is ready to graduate and the Council start pressuring the Hokage to have him put under Kakashi for training.
Kakashi is completely resistant to the idea. He likes the little fighting family he has. He has a vague plan to put Naruto up for the chunin exams with his two youngest ninken as a three man team. Reluctantly Kakashi takes the student files to look over supposedly to pick a third team member.
Naruto comes home from doing an ongoing C-rank courtier mission he takes each week taking a sealed shipment back and forth through a bandit infested road aided by Guruko and Uhei and lays himself over Kakashi’s back in what had fast become his favorite way to cuddle with his Shishou. He pulled down his mask and tucked his nose behind Kakashi’s jaw and gently nuzzled the older ninja before relaxing his full weight on him.
“Have a good run?”
“Boring. They don’t even try to stop me anymore.”
“Hn.”
“Whatcha looking at? Hey I know them.”
Kakashi sighed. “The Council wants me to take on Sasuke Uchiha as a student because of the Sharigan. I’m supposed to be looking for a third.”
“Sasuke’s a bastard. He’s arrogant and rude and honestly I don’t like him. He’d make the shittiest teammate.”
“Hn.” Kakashi grunted in agreement. Sasuke’s profile might as well have a giant sign that screamed does not play well with others. “What about the rest?”
Naruto didn’t bother to move from laying on Kakashi’s back as he reached over to flip through the files.
“Kiba’s cool. He’s kind of a jerk but like...in a funny way? He’d fit in over here really well. Akumaru’s really cool too. I think he’s smarter than Kiba but that’s no surprise. I think Pakkun is smarter than both of us.”
“Tsume’s son. The point of a team is to diversify. Another dog ninja would be reduntant with us. Although Inuzukas are the ultimate team builders so he would be a good match for Sasuke.”
“Shino. Bug guy. Really quiet. Really smart. Really...focused. And hey he’s also almost wearing a mask.”
“Bull refuses to work with Aburame. He doesn’t like the way the bugs crawl in the folds of his skin.”
“Yeah he’s always really insistent about his flea bath. Hmmm Hinata-chan. She’s nice but really, really, super-duper shy. She almost never speaks above a whisper and she’d turn red every time I talked to her. Still she’s smart and really talented. She’s like the only one in our class that I can remember consistently kicking Sasuke’s ass. She’s also the only girl in class who wasn’t a fangirl.”
“You sure she wasn’t a fan girl.”
“Yeah. I never noticed her going ga-ga over anyone like the other girls.”
“Hn.” Kakashi smirked as he shuffled the folders for the next two girls.
“Ino and Sakura-chan.” Naruto sighed. “They were really good friends. Sakura’s like second generation so still kind of treated like a civilian but Ino took her under her wing. Ino’s got a really strong perrsonailty while Sakura was kind of shy and sweet then about a year before I graduated they both went ga-ga over Sasuke and just decided not to be friends any more. It was so weird. Suddenly one day they were rivals and calling each other names when the day before they were sharing hair barrettes and cooing over who had the cutest lunchbox...I had a crush on Sakura but she made it pretty clear that’s never gonna happen.”
“Uh while that’s interesting...”
“Oh Ino’s got good over all skills. Pretty average for a clan kid but I heard her bragging at being really good at her family technique. She’s was also always really good at those kunoichi classes, flower arranging and stuff. We talk plants at her family’s shop sometimes. She knows a lot about toxic and poisonous plants as well as flower languages. She’s a huge gossip too which I mean that’s really just another name for information gatherer I guess.”
“Sakura-chan is really smart. Hands down the smartest girl in the class. She reads a lot and sometimes I thought maybe she’d memorized the textbook. The teachers always had really high praise for her chakra control too. Apparently it was perfect and that’s really rare but her stamina, fighting, throwing, all that is really horrible. I asked Ino once if she was sick or something but Ino just said Sakura was on a diet.”
Kakashi frowned. “So no to Sakura, Maybe to Ino and Hinata although I’m leaning towards Hinata. I have zero desire to deal with a fangirl.”
He pulled out the next two boys.
“Choji’s cool. He’s really chill and laid back...unless you make fun of his weight. He also hits like a truck. He’s kind of like Ino. Good all around but not amazing at any one thing. I know he’s really advanced in his family’s jutsu though. He’d beat Sasuke too sometimes.”
“Shikamaru’s both cool and nice. He’s...he’s the only person in the whole class besides Hinata to always be consistently nice to me. Choji and Shino would sometimes ignore me or Kiba would make some kind of dig. Sasuke’s an asshole but Shikamaru was always nice. If I had to point to one kid in the village as a friend it’d be Shikamaru. The first day after classes when I graduated he hunted me down to find out what happened to me ‘cause he was worried. He played it off but it was still nice. Since then he usually finds me once or twice a week just to say hi and check on me... He’s good over all on skills when he can be bothered to show them. He’s also hands down the smartest person I know. Maybe even smarter than you Shishou he’s just super-mega lazy. He doesn’t brag but Choji mentioned once that Shikamaru didn’t have to go home ‘cause he’d already got his family jutsu down as far as his dad was willing to teach until he reached, like chunin, at least. People don’t tend to notice but a lot of the time when he’s laying on the grass cloudwatching he’s also using his family jutsu to play connect the dots with the cloud shadows. Sometimes we sit on Hokage Mountain and he’d let me watch him.”
“Hmmm...”
“Well what do you think?”
“I think if I have to take two other students I’d rather take Shikamaru and Hinata... but I know Shikamaru is slotted to create a new Ino-Shika-Cho team-”
“That’s dumb.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Sure the combo works but it’s expected right? Everyone knows what to expect if you run into a Ino-Shika-Cho team. It’s literally in their bingo book entries. It’s predictable. I’m positive almost every nation has already figured out a way to counter it. It probably only still works because the current team are all really strong jounins on their own. But even a bandit team is gonna be clued in if they see Choji to know that somewhere Ino’s vulnerable somewhere and to avoid any shadows. Putting such a known combo in play as genins after their dads have been abusing the combo for years is just asking for trouble.”
“That is a very good point.”
Naruto blushed. “Thank you Shishou.”
“Now make that arguement in front of the Hokage.”
“Heh.”
“Do we have to take Sasuke? I mean he doesn’t even have the Sharigan right?”
“...he doesn’t.”
“Well can’t you just be like a known point of contact if he does develop it? I mean other ninjas come to you for training in jutsu all the time.”
“True.” Ninjas did come to Kakashi to get clarification on jutsu’s he might know or to know in more detail what to expect when going somewhere.
“So?”
“So go take a bath and I’ll see if the Hokage has time to meet with us today.”
“Okay.”
“Naruto?”
The blond stopped in the doorway pulling his sweaty shirt the rest of the way off. He turned in question.
“Are you okay with getting some human people added to our team?”
Naruto shrugged. “Hokage says we gotta right? What’s a few more?” He paused. “But they’ll just be teammates right? I’m still your only deshi?”
“You’ll always be my only deshi Naruto. I promise.”
The boy ninja’s smile was so bright it almost seemed to glow in the dark.
I need some Rhodey and Tony feels guys. I’m trying to hammer through a chapter here but the words aren’t coming!! Please help. @rayshippouuchiha, my goddess among mortals, any ideas? You are the master of this brotp, please bestow some of your wisdom upon this poor, unimaginative writer.
1. relationship status: desperately searching for cheap wireless earbuds.
2. Favorite color: either a deep wine red, ocean blue, or baby yellow. Depends on how I’m feeling, pretty much.
3. Lipstick or chap-stick: Hmm. I’m going to have to say Christina Moss’s Organic Chap-stick for chap-stick. But for Lipstick? I guess one of Burt’s Bees lip sticks. (I’ve used it so much the label’s faded off, sorry.)
4. Last Song: The Beauty of Existence, or Colder Weather
5. Last Movie: Dangal
6. Top 3 Shows: Kaichou wa Maid-Sama, Bleach, Akatsuki no Yona/Naruto.
7. Top 3 Ships: Hoo boy. (pre-AoU)Steve/Tony. Tony/Bucky/Steve, and Bucky/Tony.
