Chapter Three:
Kakashi conceals his chakra and hides atop a tree not too far from the training grounds. He makes himself comfortable and pulls out his beloved icha icha series. "Maa, a few chapters won't hurt," he tells himself, already opening the book to his favourite page.
It's about thirty minutes later that Kakashi has to forcibly pull himself out of the main character's inner monologue. It's a shame that his pups have begun to fight, Kakashi was rather enjoying being lazy.
"Congratulations," Naruto praises Sasuke, "you've summoned air."
Sasuke is quick to defend himself. "Oh, like you can do better, dead last?"
"Well maybe if you'd let me actually try instead of hogging the scroll all to your lonesome━ "
Sasuke swiftly grabs Naruto by the front of his orange jacket, lips pulled back into a snarl. Naruto flinches at first, blue eyes wide, but then he quickly schools his expression, snarling back at Sasuke in a way that has his fangs flashing dangerously in the sunlight.
"Get off," Naruto hisses, full of venom.
Sasuke's brows furrow and then he's gritting his teeth in frustration and releasing Naruto with a shove.
"Are you two done?" Sakura asks, tone unimpressed. "Because I'd like for us to try together. No offense, Naruto," the girl says, flickering her gaze to the blonde, "but if Sasuke, the top student of our class, can't summon a ninken by himself, what makes you think you can?"
"That's right," Sasuke smirks, looking smug, "after all, you can't even make a basic clone."
A tick mark appears just above Naruto's jawline. The boy bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from lashing out. "Fine,'' he says, "let's summon a ninken. Together."
They do not summon a ninken, not even by combining their chakras.
It's getting late and the once blue sky is slowly turning into soft shades of pink and orange. Long gone is the overbearing heat from the day, now it's just a soft warmth that comes with a gentle breeze.
Sakura wipes the sweet from her brow. "I'm low on chakra,'' she says.
Sasuke nods stiffly, agreeing. He can't quite come to the terms of not being able to do something.
"Fuck it," Naruto curses. He goes through the hand signs, smears whatever blood he has left on his thumb along the scroll and then places one hand over Sakura's and the other over Sasuke's. "I've had enough of waiting. I want to get stronger."
"Naruto, what are you…" Sakura's words die in her throat, green eyes widening in wonder when she sees chakra flickering all around Naruto. There's a swirl of orange amongst all the blue and then there's a cloud of smoke exploding from within the scroll, stopping her from seeing anything else.
The three genins close their eyes, so close to the impact. Slowly but surely, the smoke clears out and when the genins open their eyes once more, it's to the sight of three large canines, much bigger than your average dogs, with rows of sharp pointy teeth and dangerous golden eyes━
"Oh my god," Sakura's mouth falls open in shock.
"Naruto," Sasuke's hand trembles underneath the blonde’s, "you idiot."
"I'm sorry," Naruto quickly apologises, raising his shoulders to his cheeks, "I didn't mean to do anything wrong━"
There's a swirl of leaves behind the three kids and a hand softly touches the top of Naruto's head, stopping him from further talking. Kakashi smiles, "yo," he greets.
The three canines incline their heads. "Kakashi,'' the wolf in the middle rumbles deeply, flickering his black tail behind him, "did you summon us?"
"No," Kakashi shakes his head, "you know I already have a pack of my own to summon in case of emergencies."
"Aww,'' the wolf on the left whines, brown ears falling flat onto his head, "rejected by the mighty Kakashi once again."
"Then who summoned us?" The wolf on the right asks, curiously sniffing the air with her white snout.
"Maa," Kakashi can't help but feel a swell of pride, "my three pups did, of course."
The wolves stare down at the genin children with heavy, scrutinising gazes. After a moment, the black wolf questions, "what have you summoned us for, pups?"
"W-well," Naruto stutters, stiffly moving from underneath Kakashi's touch. He settles onto his knees and hesitantly sniffs the air, whiskered cheeks turning pink. "We've been trying to summon ninken all day, you know?" He says. "And it wasn't working, like at all. I want to get stronger, so I just… used some of my other chakra and," Naruto pauses, looking guilty, "I didn't hurt any of you, did I?"
"No," the black wolf rumbles, leaning forward to gently bury his snout into Naruto's yellow hair. He smells of salt water and Kakashi's scent; lighting scorching the earth, fresh and strong. "You did nothing wrong. We're fine." He reassures.
"Oh," Naruto releases a sigh, relieved. The wolf retreats. "That's good."
The brown wolf sniffs in Sasuke's general direction and then buries his nose between his paws. "Summoning one of us should have been enough," he muffles, looking at Naruto, "but you had the balls to summon all three of us. Man," he sighs, "you really had me thinking Kakashi was finally summoning me."
Naruto frowns. "Are you seriously whining right now?"
The brown wolf sticks out his tongue childishly.
Naruto sticks his own right back at him.
Sakura slowly raises her hand, she feels like she's back at the academy, being asked a question she's unsure of knowing the answer to. "I think," she starts, glancing at Naruto, "that might have been an accident. Naruto was holding both mine and Sasuke's hands over the summoning scroll when he focused his chakra into it."
"Yeah," Sasuke nods, looking irritated. "He summoned you by himself."
"Interesting," the white wolf murmurs, sounding pleasantly surprised. Her white tail pats at Sakura's pale knees. "You summoned us for your pack. That's wonderful."
Blinking, Naruto asks, "What's pack?"
"Kakashi," the black wolf growls, annoyed, "have you not taught these pups anything?"
"Maa," the man in question rubs the back of neck, smiling, "I must have forgotten to tell them." He didn't forget. He, in fact, chose not to tell them. The less his pups knew before signing the ninken scroll, the better.
"Doesn't really make a difference now, does it?" The brown wolf snorts. "They've already signed the scroll and managed to summon us. There's no way they can back out of becoming a pack now."
"Kakashi -Sensei," Sakura calls, sickly sweet, smiling innocently up at the man. She pulls out a kunai and it glints menacingly between her fingers. "What are they saying?"
Sasuke moves into position beside the girl, eyes narrowed into a glare. From the other side, Naruto cracks his knuckles loudly.
Sensing danger, Kakashi raises his hands in mock surrender. "Now, now," he says, "there's no need to get angry. Sensei only manipulated you so that you'd get━"
He doesn't get to finish his sentence. Suddenly, he's on the ground, blinking up at the sky and then Sakura comes into view, green eyes dark with anger. She raises her kunai into the air ━ Kakashi doesn't believe she'll hurt him, but she does look somewhat feral right now ━ and slashes it downwards, just to the side of his face and into the ground beside him. Kami.
"Sakura-chan,'' he chastises, "you nearly gave your sensei a heart attack right now."
"Good," Naruto says, coming into view beside the pink haired girl. His grip is tight on Kakashi's left arm. "Next time she won't be missing."
"That's right," Sasuke voices from the right. "Next time will be your last."
"You're so adorable when you're bonding," Kakashi coos, feeling warmth spread across his chest. "Like a real pack."
"Knock it off,'' Sakura's face twists in irritation. She hauls Kakashi up by his jounin vest and questions him like a criminal, "what is a pack? How do I get out of said pack? And why the hell did you manipulate us into becoming a pack?"
"Maa," Kakashi says, letting Sakura shake him. "You said you wanted to become strong and this is one of the quickest ways to do so. Bonding with ninken and then with each other will give you strength like no other."
Sasuke calls him out, quicker than lightning. "He's not telling us the full truth. I can tell. Look at his dumb, smug face."
"He does look really smug," Naruto says, eyeing Kakashi with suspicion. Quietly, he adds, "and dumb."
Sakura, growing more irritated by the second, leans her head back.
Panicking, Kakashi tries to save himself. "No, no, Sakura-chan, there's no need━"
The pink haired girl quickly brings her head down to smack against Kakashi's own. "Ow!" The jounin yelps, seeing a bright light flash behind his eyelid. Or maybe that's his life. He isn't quite sure.
Sakura drops him to the ground. Satisfied, she wipes her hands together, getting rid of imaginary dust.
"Kiba was right," Naruto mutters, "our sensei really is a loser."
"Hn." Sasuke agrees.
•••
1511 words//unedited
just wanna thank everyone for the lovely comments!
p.s i'll try to update this fic as frequently as i can :)
i am, however, vvvv bad at time management and only write when the good green yummies appear 💚
anyways, until next time ! 🍃