In the morning, Team Seven gathered around the table in the kitchen while Tsunami, Tazuna’s daughter, busied herself with preparing food. Anko was mildly surprised. She sent a few Shadow Clones to survey the surroundings and saw how poor the people in the area were. She didn’t expect to be served normal food in Tazuna’s home. She briefly wondered where Tsunami got the ingredients.
Kakashi still looked a bit drained but that was expected. Healing a hole through his gut so fast must have taken a toll on his body but Anko would rather him suffer for the next day and be ready to fight afterward than give him prolonged and comfortable medical care.
“So… what are we gonna do?” Naruto asked, waiting for food.
The man was giving Naruto a subtle stink eye while the whiskered boy was grinning like a loon. ‘Must have enacted his revenge for all the physical drills.’ Anko thought with pride swelling in her chest.
Kakashi suddenly eye-smiled, unnerving his three young charges at the sudden flip of his mood. “Why… we are going to train, of course!”
Hearing that, Anko couldn’t help but give Kakashi a deadpan look. She wasn’t very satisfied with how Kakashi was leading the team. Teamwork drills and physical exercises were important but not THAT important.
Individual combat capability was what really mattered no matter whether Konoha focused on teamwork. Three weaklings working together would not be able to beat one strong ninja no matter how good their teamwork was. If Anko didn’t train Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata during their free time, they would have been hopeless and useless right about now. Three months being a team and Kakashi didn’t even try teaching them Tree Walking yet. Anko knew that Asuma, for example, went straight for Water Walking in the second week of his tutelage.
Sure, Kakashi was their jonin instructor, not their mother. It was expected of the genins that they will train by themselves but Kakashi should still have asked and tried to help in this regard. The man, however, was too used to teaching ANBU.
“Oh? You are finally going to stop being a dick and start doing your job?” Anko sweetly asked, making Kakashi slightly flinch. “Now? When their lives are already on the line?”
They had a deal when the Team training started. Kakashi didn’t want Anko to interfere with his tutelage and she reluctantly obeyed. After all, she was just an assistant while he was the team leader. She could possibly beat him every time he decided he wouldn’t let her have her way so she took the wait and see approach. And boy wasn’t she impressed!
“That’s harsh, Anko-chan.” Kakashi replied in a shaken tone, “I was focusing on teamwork and…”
“And you are an inept idiot who is too prideful to admit your shortcomings as a teacher.” Anko rolled her eyes, giving him a harsh tongue-lashing. “Our team is not ANBU who are already competent ninja needing just the final polishing and can visit various secret libraries of Konoha anytime they want and learn whatever they want. They are amateurs who just started out-“
Anko had to suppress her smirk at Naruto’s pout, Sasuke’s scowl, and Hinata’s lowering of her head. Her students were not exactly weak. They could fight against chunins but they had no real-life experience, hence, amateurs. Not that the trio would dispute her claim. She long ago beat defiance out of them.
“- and physical exercises are good and all but they are still children. Unless they work out twenty-four-seven every day, their bodies simply won’t match the capabilities of an adult ninja. That’s why you are supposed to teach them chakra control first, so they can somewhat level the playing field by enhancing their bodies with chakra.” Anko flatly finished.
“Well, then I guess it’s a good thing I intend to teach them Water Walking, no?” Kakashi flippantly replied. He was secretly quite ashamed now that Anko told him to his face his faults. In ANBU, he was one of the best instructors but… ‘She is right.’ He sighed, ‘These kids are not ANBU recruits who already have years of active duty behind themselves. Maybe I was blinded by their competence?’
“We already know that.” Sasuke grumbled, unimpressed at Kakashi’s attitude. Honestly! If he didn’t get tutelage from Anko, who didn’t even HAVE TO teach them anything since it wasn’t technically her job, he would probably contemplate defection right about now.
“Eh, er… what?” Kakashi slowly blinked. He knew the kids already mastered Tree Walking. They regularly used it during spars and their 3D maneuvering was something even Kakashi had to praise.
“We already know that. Anko taught us when we were still in the academy.” Naruto poutingly whined and averted his gaze, slouching a bit more in his seat in a show of petty protest.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kakashi furrowed his eyebrows at Anko.
“I wanted to see how long would it take you to finally take interest in your genin’s capabilities and act as a responsible instructor.” She casually shrugged. “You practically demanded I didn’t interfere in your teaching methods so I wanted to see them for myself.” Kakashi let out an awkward laugh at the pointed look of his assistant teacher.
It wasn’t that Kakashi didn’t teach the kids anything useful. He did. He gave them plenty of useful information and advice during the D-ranks and team training. One just had to look a bit deeper into the meaning of his bored lazy drawl in-between the giggling induced by reading his smut while answering the questions of his genin.
Again, the problem was the man expected the genin to act like veteran ninjas wanting to join ANBU. The team drills were incredibly useful. Anko couldn’t dispute that. They had to be done and showed the three munchkins their individual weaknesses and faults when fighting as one unit. Some of the things Kakashi taught them during these team drills was straight-out ANBU material. The problem was, Kakashi was too focused on it as if he was training skilled ANBU recruits to make a proper team out of them.
Slumping his shoulders, Kakashi let out a long-suffering sigh, lamenting why he couldn’t just stay in the comfort of the ANBU division. “Fine…” He said almost whinily, “Is there anything I can help them with?” He asked, inwardly complaining that Anko was taking all the fun from being a teacher from him.
Anko chuckled, and leaned forward, patting Kakashi’s head as if he was a kid, “Good boy.” She cheerily praised, making Kakashi even more annoyed, “I am not too versatile with ninjutsu and you are the guy who is said to have copied thousands of techniques.” Anko stated and Kakashi instantly understood even before she continued. ” Both Hinata and Sasuke’s main nature is lightning and I don’t have even one lightning Jutsu. Naruto is wind-natured so that is a huge problem as well. I started them on the leaf exercise for their natures but that was as far as I went in their elemental training. As you most likely already saw during spars, they know some useful Earth and Fire techniques but I am sure you will know a whole lot more of these than me and can probably give them sound advice on how to improve in this regard.” Anko listed, straightening one finger on her hand every time she made each point. “There is a lot you CAN help them with. If you are finally done moping around, just pick one thing and start teaching.”
“Okay, I will think about it during breakfast.” Kakashi relented, returning to his book while he could.
Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata threw Anko a grateful look. They were weary of not improving at the fast pace as before since they became genins. Anko also told them she could not teach them as much as before since that was Kakashi’s ‘privilege’ now. For three months, their rate of progress slowed to almost a halt and every single one of them hated it.
Anko smirked in return. She knew their feelings but this was necessary. The kiddies were far too advanced for their age and had everything handed to them on a silver platter by her. They needed to experience what it was like for other genins. For those who didn’t have a teacher hellbent on making them strong. She would rather slow their progress for a few months and then make their lives hell on Earth to catch up than make them grow arrogant and think they will always get what they want.
Kakashi showed to be a bit disinterested in their personal prowess so the kids naturally went back to Anko, asking for more spanking. She had to deal with a lot of whining, complaints, and dissatisfaction when she refused to advance their training.
Anko was pleasantly surprised though. The kids got the message. Hinata focused more on her Gentle Fist and started studying from her clan libraries. Naruto used his shadow clones to improve his somewhat passable-but-still-nothing-extra chakra control. And Sasuke finally started to improve his skills with genjutsu now that there was no juicy ninjutsu or taijutsu lesson just waiting to be delivered for the great last Uchiha.
‘Sometimes I feel as if I was babysitting kids, rather than training killers.’ Anko sighed, her cheek twitching as Kakashi again started to perversely giggle, his nose buried in his book.
“The breakfast is ready!” Tsunami suddenly interrupted the impromptu team meeting as she carried a pot onto the table.
