I LOVE Officer Not Down. The Sandaime is such a funny little guy, I love him in this fic. It should also be said that I think about the final battle with Pein in VAPORS at least once a week and have for several years. Your writing is imprinted on my brain
THANK YOU SO MUCH. I was thinking about that one recently, actually, for reasons related to what I'm writing now. it is honestly so exciting that what I write can touch people and affect them and I dont even know about itttttt. until they tell me. I appreciate that. (Heart Emoji)
TW: graphic imagery concerning what Tsunade might like to do to the most irritating dirt man in the nation.
Kakashi laced his hands behind his back and avoided eye contact with his military leader. She did not, he noticed, seem very happy with him.
“If I could kill you, I would,” Tsunade-sama said bluntly. “It is an affront to my dignity that I had to learn about the internet in the first place. And now I have to know that strange children all over the world are sending you death threats for being mean to Maito Gai. I want to pull your intestines out via your asshole and stuff them down your throat.”
Ah, well, he gave himself a pat on the back for reading the air on that one.
“I can’t believe all this ludicrous mess.” Her nose wrenched up into a snarl that made her, rather fetchingly, resemble a blonde bulldog. “If it’s any consolation, I am ending this social media experiment and I am smashing Sakura’s phone with a paperweight when she comes in next.”
A faint “WHAT” echoed out from the hallway. Both of them ignored it.
“But you.” Tsunade-sama folded her hands on her desktop and leaned forward at him. “I don’t want to look at your stupid face.”
He pointed at his mask.
“You can’t possibly cover up enough of your face for it not to piss me off. I’d be angry at you if you were in the secret ANBU closet over there.” She jerked a mocking finger at her protection detail. “So I am sending you away on a mission.”
That didn’t really sound like a punishment. He went on missions all the time.
“You’re going to the North Pole for a year, to take twice daily salinity tests of some godforsaken hole or another that had an endangered fish in it.”
Kakashi took that in. “Had?”
“Yes, it’s dead now. But this stupid shit was requested, and paid for, and I hate you.” His Hokage gave him a sharkish smile. “You’d better get a good parka.”
Kakashi put his hands on his thighs and gave her a deep bow. “I understand. Will I be going alone?”
“No.”
shit.
Kakashi stopped the optimism that had been building.
Tsunade-sama gave him a look that implied she knew he would have enjoyed a solo posting. “You’ll have a civilian partner who changes bimonthly. You’re expected to be responsible for their well–being, of course. The scientific institute for the fish expects it.” It was said with perfect innocence. There was not a chance in hell it was the truth.
“The scientific institute for the extinct fish,” Kakashi clarified. “Which definitely exists.”
“What?” Tsuade’s eyebrows went up in mock disbelief. “Surely you don’t think I’m using my own money to send you away.”
He thought about the price for a year long mission for a jounin. “No,” he had to admit. “You’re too poor.” He dodged her paperweight.. He did not dodge the follow-up inkan. Kakashi rubbed the dent in his forehead and looked up at her ceiling from his new home on the carpet.
“Next,” she called. “Sakura, get your pointy ass in here.”
His wretched student stepped over him on her way to stand in front of the desk with clasped hands, vibrating with her desire to plead her case.
“Hand me your phone and my paperweight. It’s embedded in the wall back there.”
“But Shishou, please–”
Kakashi made himself scarce before electronics started flying.
It wasn’t that bad at the North Pole, he decided to believe, when he finally arrived there a few weeks later. Sure, it was cold enough that he had to warm his hands between turning book pages. But the fish society had made a 3m by 3m cement building for him to live in for the duration of the stay, and even provided a tank of allegedly clean drinking water. The never ending daylight was giving him nightmares about slowly rotating to death in a microwave, but aside from that, it was pretty livable until his civilian coworker showed up.
“Hey,” she said, and pointed her phone at him. “What did you think about Gai-sensei’s petition to have you recalled to Konoha and given a gold award for being the coolest guy ever instead of a punishment for being the most unpopular man alive?”
Hm, well, that one didn’t require a lot of contemplation. His immediate reaction was that he did not want to get involved. He had learnt this lesson already.
He moved to placate the problem with a winsome smile. “Excuse me.” Kakashi took a step towards the door. She was blocking it. Hm. Knocking her over would read poorly on camera. He leaned over and picked up the toolbox. “I have to check the salinity of where the fish were.”
“You can do it later.” The camera was obviously still rolling. “He wants you back. Your comment?”
It was a terrible trap. There was no way to win. Kakashi weighed his odds of taking the phoe from the civilian and genjutsu-ing her subscribers to believe nothing had ever happened, but he didn’t know if it would work via the screen.
‘Trying and failing would be a P.R. disaster. Tsunade-sama would peel my face off and staple it to my ass. I have to find another way.’
He went out the window. He felt the heat of the camera on his back as he sprinted across the tundra, but there was no way he was getting involved in that clownery again.
Tenten let the video end. No one spoke for several seconds.
Eventually, Lee cleared his throat. “That was not a flattering depiction of Sakura-chan.” He was cagey about it.
She didn’t bother telling him, “that’s because she behaved badly.” He already knew. He was just a bit too partial to want to admit it.
Neji twisted his mouth to the side, not happy. “This Sukea must be Kakashi-san,” he said. “No one else would have stolen Haruno’s phone and recorded such embarrassing moments.”
Tenten coughed into her hand. She wondered if Sakura knew, yet, that the video of her haplessly and pathetically chasing her teacher had been posted on Kakashi-sensei's account and then reposted by her own verified diplomatic account. Tenten put her hand over her mouth. It was horrible. It was very funny. It was making the rounds online as the antithesis to Gai-Sensei’s Good Dad Energy reputation.
‘They’re right, but this is brutal.’
“Putting Kakashi-sensei’s face on the Mama and kid Sakura barged into was a nice touch.” Ino chomped on a slice of apple. She was the only genin who was undisturbed by the social media carnage unfolding. The other members of team 10 had their heads in their hands. “If she hadn’t been so distracted, she would have noticed that both of them had his head on a different body. It was grotesque.” She ate another piece of fruit. It was almost like she wanted Sakura to be humiliated online.
Tenten shuddered. She didn’t want to remember what Kakashi-sensei’s head looked like on a toddler's body. “At least Sakura-san didn’t hurt a real civilian,” she said optimistically. “That would have been a disciplinary case.”
Ino snickered. “Ah, Forehead,” she said, which was total nonsense but no one wanted to respond to her. “Anyway, she’s doomed.” The Yamanaka girl leaned against the wall of the mission office and tilted her face not quite far enough to the side.
‘She’s smiling.’
Tenten felt a shudder go up her spine. Creepy. She wanted to get out of this interaction.
Their teachers were at the front of the room talking. Tenten stole a glance at their backs.
Gai-sensei definitely didn’t know that Kakashi-sense looked like a jerk online yet. She wanted to spare him–
“Gai-sensei!” Lee yelped.
“Oh, no,” Shikamaru said quietly. He looked up through his fingers. “This is a pain.”
Lee was already at Gai-sensei’s elbow, gesticulating wildly.
Tenten sighed and looked at the ceiling.
Gai-sensei shouted in surprise and hit halfway to the ceiling. He kicked his feet together in the air and then he disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Neji cleared a bit of imaginary dirt out from underneath his nails. “I suppose he is off to help Kakashi-sensei fix his online reputation.” He said it with perfect, cool neutrality.
Shikamaru responded to it on face value, but the sounds of his voice faded away. Tenten stared at her teammate, fascinated.
‘He wants us to follow.’
Neji didn’t usually care about… people. He tolerated people watching and gossip in his vicinity. He endured human beings. But he was interested now. He couldn’t say that because it would undermine his apathetic reputation.
“Let’s go.” Tenten grabbed him. She could take one for the team. “I have to know how this goes!” She dragged him out the door and shot off a wave to Team 10. Ino smirked knowingly at them as they went.
‘She doesn’t know anything. She’s just trying to psyche me out.’
Tenten crushed down the fear that Ino knew she was being nice to her teammate. It was too mortifying to be true, so it just wasn’t!
They chased Gai-sensei down the Main Street and up a series of alleys before he began scaling a building.
“My Rival!” Gai sensei roared. Tenten realized that she ought to be recording and scrambled to get her phone out. “Eternal Rival! Your Cool Demeanor has gone too far! I, Maito Gai!”
(Break for a pose)
“Must intercede for the honor of your most youthful teammate!” Gai-sensei knocked on Kakashi-sensei’s window. She could faintly see the man sit up in bed and put a book down. He shuffled closer. “Come out and rehearse a heartfelt apology with me!”
Kakashi slid open the window. He leaned out. He looked at Gai, and then Tenten with bored disdain. “…Nah.” Then he shut the window.
Gai-sensei gaped.
Kakashi tilted his head at him mockingly.
‘He’s playing hard to get again,’ Tenten thought. She sighed. ‘He loves those coy games way too much for such an old guy.’
“Rival! Your jocular nature can go too far and impact the sensitive heart of a young woman blooming into her peak form!”
Kakashi tapped his ear like he couldn’t hear, midway through this moving speech. Gai-sensei got a bit louder. His face was red with the force of his passion.
Kakashi nodded slightly, twice. Then he reached out one arm to either side of the window and closed the curtain.
Sakura held her breath for a millisecond and then scolded herself for it. She and Sukea crept closer to the special training ground. Sukea narrowed his dark grey eyes and stuck his tongue out slightly. She stole a glance at him and wondered if he was a chuunin or a jounin. He was wearing a flak jacket from the Second Shinobi World War, so… probably a jounin, right? On the other hand, Sakura had worked in the tower for months now and not seen him come in to meet with Tsunade-sama once. Former ANBU or not, that wasn’t impressive. Sukea was probably kind of a loser.
‘Whatever. I don’t care about his career trajectory. That’s between him and his mom. I just need a photo for social media that will make Team 9 look like dorks.’
They closed about half the distance at a battlefield creep. Sakura’s heart was pounding so hard it was a wonder that Kakashi-sensei didn’t hear it! He had horrible dog ears. But he was concentrating and the sound of the river must have shielded their creeping steps.
Sukea readied his camera. Sakura went still. Kakashi-sensei was shaking his wrists out and chakra was building in the air. The surface of the river lifted. In her last glance at her teacher she thought she saw his head move.
‘Wait! Did he glance over at–’
The water obscured Kakashi-sensei. Mist and spray roiled out and up. Sakura put a hand up against the flood-
And was bowled over by a slapping wave. Water was everywhere, ice cold and full of twigs and leaves and random river trash. She shrieked and got dirty river water painfully up her nose. The next second was a disorienting and long moment of sliding backwards on her butt on the grass.
The water crashed out harmlessly and settled into a traveling puddle coating the entirety of the training ground.
Shell-shocked, Sakura sat there. She tilted her head forward and breathed hard to get some of the stinky water out of her nose in a sad little stream. She shifted and squelched.
No. No way. She discreetly checked.
...There was mud in her underwear. She looked down at her legs and saw they were brown from polished toenails up to her thighs. Betrayed, she lifted her head to see the faint figure of her genin teacher give her a peace sign, giggle, and then book it in the opposite direction.
“Oh, dear.” Sukea fussed with his camera, giving it a checkover for water. He had protected it with his body. “I don’t think I got a shot. I guess we have to give up-”
Sakura roared. She didn’t even think about grabbing Sukea’s arm and bodily forcing him to run with her. They were going to get that rotten bastard, even if it meant she was going to copy Sasori and puppet him into acting right.
They sprinted. Sukea huffed a little but he kept pace. Kakashi-sensei was just baaarely visible. He scrabbled over the fence and into the adjacent training ground. Sakura cocked her fist back and smashed her way through it to save time. Wood flew. Sukea yelped. She barreled on with the power of her fury. “Kakashi-sensei!” she howled. A flock of birds took flight. “Stop running!”
“No thanks!” His voice carried back to her faintly. She dug into her reserves and somehow found she could run even faster. Mud splattered up to her face.
Kakashi-sensei hopped the other fence. Sakura busted through 2 seconds later and looked around wildly for him, irritated by all the wood splinters in the air and screams. “Stop complaining!” She dodged a mother and toddler duo and caught sight of a man disappearing down an alley on the right side of the street.
“Sakura!”
Sukea sounded panicked. “Wait! It’s 3:00! You have to stop!”
Sakura sprinted into the alley and immediately had to leap up to avoid killing a small child holding his mother’s hand. “Why are you here!” She shrieked. She nearly kicked him in the gut in her dodge.
The toddler gaped up at her. He was drooling onto his blue uniform smock.
“Oh, my!” Shocked, the mother picked up her kid and looked at Sakura as if she was a dangerous criminal. “Pay attention!”
“Whatever, lady,” Sakura said, too focused to feel human guilt. She skipped around the woman and into the human crush of the midday preschool released crowd. Kakashi-sensei had disappeared in the crowd of mothers picking up toddlers from preschool. Sakura pushed her way through viciously, making liberal use of elbows. He had done this on purpose! He knew about the preschool crush and he had used it against her!
Sukea was on the rooftops, running adjacent to her. “Sakura-san!” He sounded harried. “I think that it’s time to give up.”
“Never!” She broke through the crowd. “I can get him before he gets to the shopping street!”
“You’ll never make it!” Sukea howled. “It’s the start of the daily meat discount! Don’t be a fool! He must be disguised by now!”
Sakura pumped her arms that much harder and exploded out onto the open air market. “Where are you?” She shouted. There? No. Up there? Was it this guy? She yanked the hat off an old man and then tossed it back in his face. Was it her? She was way too ugly to be a real person! Sakura lunged at the takoyaki lady and got hit in the face with a ladle for her trouble.
I have written a fic for the Akatsuki OC challenge.... I am eager to deploy it... but the hour is not yet nigh. it's pretty far away, actually. Days away.
Maito Gai had stayed up very late last night to record long video diaries on his account that were aimed directly at individual young people who had asked him for life advice. They were circulating widely under captions like “this is my new father”. There was a famcam edit of him in a Digital Crown as if he was a GirlPop star, layered with some old folks’ home ballad promising that the singer would survive. The caption was a screenshot as Gai apparently said some schlock about how to recognize when you were your own enemy and getting in the way of your success.
‘That’s so dumb. The real enemy is Kumo, stupid. He knows that. He’s just lying to all these civilians and they’re eating it up.’
But he was glowing. He was blowing up. He was sickeningly sincere in his waterfall of feelings. And she had, of course, been sent a link by Tenten, Lee, and freaking Neji, who didn’t even follow her online. That one hurt.
Sakura was shaking with anger. She went back to the other account she had checked this morning and restarted the one miserable, lonely clip it had uploaded. Maybe it would be less bad than she thought. Maybe she’d just had a little oopsie stroke and misremembered what she had just watched. She crossed her fingers and prayed it was just a stroke and not a bad video.
Kakashi-sensei was standing on the top of the Hokage mountain. He gave the camera a peace sign. Then he flipped it to spend 10 seconds focusing on what was apparently his favorite of the fourth hokage’s hair spikes. He covered 80 percent of the camera with his thumb and kept recording the sky for a long time. There was no audio. Kakashi-sensei probably didn’t know that.
As Sakura watched it for the second time, the view counter ticked up to 3. Her eye twitched.
‘He’s not even trying. I specifically requested effort.’
There was no way she could repost this. She would make Konoha look like a bunch of dorks in front of the other nations.
“Okay.” Sakura pushed her chair back and kicked it in a circle. She put her hands up in her hair and bunched everything up at the top of her head. “I have to kill him and hire an impersonator who can take direction,” she decided. “That’s the only way to shut up Team 9.”
It was wishful thinking, of course. Anyone who might do a good job impersonating him was probably still out of the village chasing Kiri no Kisame from hole to hole.
If she couldn’t kill him, she would have to hunt him down personally and oversee his social media presence. Sakura cracked all of her knuckles. Her bad energy seeped all around the room and rose up in whorls, tinting the walls grey. She barely remembered to shove her phone in her pocket before she set out to fix everything.
He wasn’t at his apartment this time. That figured. Sakura stomped back to the admin tower and demanded to know his assignment for the day.
“He’s not on shift,” Yamakawa said. He tried to shoo her out.
‘You can’t tell me you have no idea how to track down a jounin in village.’
She planted her feet and narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m terribly sorry,” she lied sweetly. “Only, I was supposed to give him something.” She dug a toe into the ground. The admin stared at her, not charmed in the slightest. “Can you give me any idea how to find him?” She dropped the act and went businesslike about it. He obviously wanted Sakura to leave.
Sakura watched him measure how much he disliked her against how much he wanted her gone. Win! Yamakawa-san pointed to the green filing cabinet. “Check if he’s reserved a workspace or requested personnel.”
He had. Kakashi-sensei had reserved special training grounds 5 for the morning. Sakura reread it, positively baffled. Kakashi-sensei was up early training?
‘It doesn’t seem right. But I’ve never seen him exercise…. And I’ve never seen him in the morning. I guess it must be true.’
Wait. It wasn’t a regular reservation. Sakura dashed to the reference materials to figure out usage what STG5 was designated for.
It wasn't a taijutsu field, that was for sure. It was for B rank or higher ninjutsu, and it featured a large allotment of water that made it suitable for safely practicing either water or fire.
‘I bet he’s practicing the water dragon he stole from Zabuza.’ A thrill ran up Sakura’s spine. ‘That’s outright cool! If I can secretly record his practice, he’ll blow Gai-sensei’s kicking videos out of the water.’
She took note of the address and hustled there. Sakura stopped at the gate and peered in, holding her breath. She could see him. Kakashi-sensei was a distant figure on the lake, doing some kind of drill.
“This is perfect!” Sakura had to whisper, but she was too excited to say nothing at all. She dug in her pocket and felt her face freeze. She looked again. She turned her pockets inside out and then started looking in her hip pouch. ‘This can’t be happening! I could swear that I got it. I really thought I brought the phone!’
She looked up to stare at Kakashi-sensei again. Failure reared its ugly head. Failure looked an awful lot like losing to a team of undeniable dweebs.
“Excuse me.” A man on the street edged around her.
Sakura let him pass and glanced at his back, still thinking of where her phone might be.
Wait. Just. One. Minute! She knew him!
‘I’m saved!’
“Excuse me!” Sakura rushed over to tug the adult’s sleeve for his attention. “Do you remember me? I’m Sakura.”
He opened his mouth; obviously to say no.
She barreled on. “‘My teammates and I met you last autumn, you helped us take photos of my teacher.” Sakura gave Sukea the photographer a winsome grin. “Would you mind helping me out?” She clasped her hands together in prayer. She was so adorable that he had to help her. If he didn't, she would kill him with her mind.
“Well…” Sukea sucked in air though his teeth. “I have somewhere to be, but I guess it isn’t that urgent.”
She appeared over his bed with hollowed eyes and gritted yellow teeth.
‘Good lord,’ thought Kakashi, barely awake, ‘what a scary face.’
He had to run back what Sakura-chan said to parse it. He blinked at her meaning. “Ah, I don’t know that I want to become an international personality,” he demurred. He sat up in bed and scratched the back of his head. “I don’t have the uh… what do you call it…”
“The personality,” Sakura-chan said, with no care for his tender feelings. “I know. You’re atrocious and no one will be inspired by the real you. That’s why I wrote this plan.” She tossed a bulging binder on his gut.
Kakashi wheezed helplessly. When he clawed the hateful plastic up to his face and opened it, Kakashi felt his heart sink. “This, ah.” He cleared his throat. “It’s a lot, Sakura-chan,” he said delicately. He flipped a few pages. There were mood boards.
‘Not a chance, kid.’
“You have to.” She hissed the order at him. “You’re embarrassing me in front of the other nations.”
“Ah,” he said, not sure where that was coming from. “It can’t be the first time.” She’d get used to it or whatever.
Sakura dug into the zip pocket of her top and unfolded a shiny brochure emblazoned with Gai’s face, bulging and glistening upper body, and some words or whatever. He was busy looking at biceps and half heard - “turns out that feelings sell. So now you have to have them.” Kakashi looked at the fan print some more. Not the words, of course. The trapezius muscle.
‘Nice,’ he thought with feeling.
“It’s not nice!” Sakura reached a shriek. Kakashi clutched his covers in fear. “Team 9 is rubbing it in my face every time we meet.” Her face was actually quite ugly when she sneered, he thought. Like a storybook gremlin. “Lee said it’s statistically relevant proof that Gai-sensei is cooler than you.”
“Lee said that?” Kakashi wondered aloud. “I didn’t know the kid could, like, read. Much less do maths.” Then he suddenly paid full attention to Sakura because she had her hands wrapped in the collar of his nightshirt and was mildly strangling him.
“Sensei,” she said. She said it from very close. Her breath was minty.
“Yes?”
“I am going to record you performing impressive feats. And you are going to say some things that sound cool.” She shook him. “Inspirational, even.”
“And it doesn’t matter to you that this is entirely fake?” He checked. “You want me to construct a personality for the online? To make you look cooler in front of your friends?”
“Finally, he gets it.” Sakura muttered that and let him fall. “Read that,” she said. “It’s your storyline, new opinions, and recording plans. Post the first video today and I’ll repost it.” She tossed a phone on the bed next to him, made the “I’m watching you” gesture, and was gone with the flap of a curtain.
In the pleasant silence that followed her window departure, Kakashi flipped through the binder. “Is she well?” He wondered aloud. He scratched at the back of his head. “Maaa… The most important thing is that you believe in yourself,” he read flatly. Total crap. The most important thing was being born talented. Kakashi snorted and tossed the binder away. “She cribbed that from Naruto.”
Sakura-chan’s notes fell off the bed and landed in a mess on his floor boards. He kicked it under the bed on his way out of the room.
He did take the phone, though. He could do something with that and it was free.
“I’m scared,” a commenter wrote. “He’s too wholesome.”
“Yeah, milkshake duck rule. Whatever is wrong with him must be SO bad.”
“SHUT YOUR MOUTH,” Tenten typed back, teeth gritted in a feral display of aggression. “Gai-sensei is the perfect mentor and he has no skeletons in his closet.” She hit send aggressively and huffed her bangs off of her face. How dare they insinuate that! Gai-sensei had never done anything wrong or held a bad opinion. She fumed about it. Her face burnt red with rage.
Her male teammates were all looking at her.
“Tenten-chan,” Gai-sensei said gingerly. He pressed his hands together in a prayer gesture. “Perhaps you are overly stressed. While I appreciate your management and participation in my mentorship of the world’s youth, it may be time to refocus our energies to personal betterment.”
That was crazy talk. She was fine! Tenten made eye contact with her teammates behind Gai-sensei, looking for commiseration.
Lee was grimacing and avoided eye contact. Neji looked right at her with a challenge and nodded.
…Hmm. “You’re right,” Tenten said apologetically. She put the Propaganda Department-funded-phone in her hip pouch and tried to have a normal day. She needed a healthy outlet for her aggression and competitiveness, didn’t she? “...You wanna find Kakashi-sensei?” Tenten suggested. She had loved watching Sakura look vaguely ill with envy when she made content for their public relations initiative. It was a little mean to be pleased that her team was by far superior, but hell, she had eyes.
‘He needs to know how terribly he’s losing at this. Gai-sensei is way more famous than he’ll ever be.’
Neji hid a mean little smile behind his hair.
“An excellent idea!” Gai-sensei rocketed up. “We could enjoy a nice run! Or we could clean the river!”
What they did, exactly, was not as important as the fact that Tenten was going to find an opening to let Kakashi-sensei know what an uninspiring and unpopular worm he was. She rubbed her hands together with glee on the way.
“Tenten-chan?” Lee whispered, in his usual Outside Voice. “You are once again imitating an evil insect.”
She stopped rubbing her hands together and huffed. “Whatever. Let’s find Kakashi-sensei.”
It took them nearly an hour to track the man down. Team 9 held back and let Gai-sensei bulldoze his beloved Eternal Rival down. He tackled the other jounin and had him flailing like a sock in a storm.
Hmm. Tenten lifted her phone and recorded the tail end of the dramatic skid down a sidestreet. The dust trail was pretty photogenic. Gai-sensei was huge and powerful. Kakashi-sensei looked weedy in comparison.
“No,” Neji said in an undertone. She looked at him quizzically. “To manage Gai-sensei’s image, it is important to consider the civilian perspective. They may misconstrue his enthusiasm as aggression.”
“...Good point.” Tenten deleted it with a faint regret. “But do you think recording a Challenge would be a good idea?”
Neji considered it. “You must establish significant context, and explicit consent of the pathetic loser involved.”
“Hey,” said Kakashi-sensei. He suddenly had an arm over both kids’ shoulders. “What pathetic loser would that be?”
Tenten eeped and eeled away, laughing nervously. She hid her phone behind her back.
“You,” Neji said. He raised a disdainful eyebrow. "That should have been apparent."
'I love how diplomatic he is. His best quality.'
Kakashi rubbed his chin through his mask. “I see. That’s what I suspected.” He gave them a saccharine smile. “Perhaps we ought to have some sort of team-on-team competition-”
“Nonsense!” said Gai-sensei. He chuckled darkly. “I would never put you at such a disadvantage in our competitions. My team is, after all, staffed by 3 talented and brilliant chuunin who shine with the power of the very sun.”
Tenten was already recording.
“Sakura-chan is indeed a worthy competitor, but 4 against 2 is simply not sporting!” Gai flexed rapidly, arms alternating up and down. He ended by kissing his left bicep in a cloud of sparkles. “I instead propose that you and I test our mettle against each other.”
Kakashi-sensei put a hand up in her direction when Tenten swung the phone in his direction. “Gai,” he said, “I have to go wash my hair, so-”
He disappeared in a puff of stinky air.
Tenten choked on dog breath. Lee wheezed, face turning violently red. Neji crouched on the ground 10 feet back, hair blown fully out with the force of the speed he had used to evade the stank of Kakashi's wake.
“Rival!” Gai-sensei bellowed. He shook a fist at the sky. “Your irrepressible cool nature has once again taken me by surprise!”
Tenten zoomed in. Kakashi was barely visible as a silhouette sprinting away across red tiled rooftops.
“I am not convinced that he is cool,” Lee said resentfully. "Gai-sensei is much cooler." He didn’t get scolded because Gai-sensei was already running after his rival.
