Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its related content.

A/N: THIS IS A DOUBLE UPDATE. If you only got the notification for one chapter— read the previous one first. Do NOT read this chapter before reading "The Apprenticeship." Earlier chapters have also been revised with some superficial changes; feel free to reread those at your discretion, though nothing has changed content-wise.

Chapter 4
Shikaku — The Chūnin Exams (Age 6)

If there was any one idea Nara Shikaku believed in with all his heart, any statement he swore by, any claim he would risk his life affirming, it was the idea that the Hatake Clan were the most troublesome family in all of the Elemental Nations.

Having grown up with Yamanaka Inoichi, this was a serious accusation to make. Inoichi had been the most intolerable pre-teen Shikaku had ever encountered. He didn't understand how a clan of mind-readers, hardened interrogators, and professional psychologists could consist of so many drama queens, but their genin years spoke for themselves. Chūnin had been spotty at best. Things were only beginning to mellow out now that they'd all reached jōnin. Shikaku knew troublesome more intimately than anyone sans perhaps Inoichi's current poor bastard of a significant other, whoever that might be; he couldn't keep track anymore. Still, his visceral understanding of what "pain in the ass" meant only further proved his point. For any clan to be worse than the Yamanaka was a problem indeed. How could people keep up with them? It was exhausting.

Case in point: Hatake Sakumo. The White Fang. A living legend, the current Assistant Jōnin Commander, a shinobi the other Hidden Villages had learned to both fear and respect. Even mentioning his name in Suna could still cause diplomatic incidents, Shikaku had heard, despite the armistice between Wind and Fire. Unfortunately, the name Hatake Sakumo carried a much different meaning in his home village. He was not the White Fang in Konoha. He was a notorious mother hen. An incessant worrywart. The most protective parent Shikaku had ever seen, with a child most of the population would sooner call terrifying than precious. Currently, he was also the bane of Shikaku's very existence.

Hatake Sakumo's promotion to Assistant Jōnin Commander was a turn of events unexpected by everyone sans maybe Orochimaru of the Sannin and his own son. It wasn't one Shikaku had ever anticipated. That wasn't to say it was underserved— quite the opposite. More, it wasn't an outcome that could have been achieved through normal circumstances. Only something as monumental as the incident with councilman Shimura could have messed with the status quo enough to warrant the appointment of an Assistant Jōnin Commander in the first place. Aunt Kaname had been doing a fine job on her own.

So, Hatake Sakumo had rocked the boat. He'd ushered in a new hierarchy with reckless abandon, or maybe with the rabid fervor of a worrywart parent. The two were interchangeable here. Shikaku could deal with that. Konoha's ranking system had been in dire need of a review, anyway, and one could never go wrong with elevating Black Ops standards. Abolishment of unsavory experimentation was a good thing. Less tolerable were the new Assistant Commander's other decisions.

Decisions like conspiring with aunt Kaname to name Shikaku as his replacement Assistant Commander should the spot be left open. Mere weeks before Kaname announced her planned retirement in two years time, and, oh yeah, Sakumo's own planned promotion to Jōnin Commander.

His life had become a neverending runaround of politics, gofer duty, and paperwork. His clearance may have gone up a whole two levels — and he may have gotten all the dirt on the Shimura-Hatake scandal that the jōnin in the lounge were still gagging for — but the paperwork. The constant back and forth of council meetings. Unending, hellish discussions on ethics, spanning hours of his day. He hadn't gotten to go relax with the deer in weeks. Weeks. The deer lived in his backyard! Responsibility of this caliber wasn't something he'd planned for this early on, and he was suffering for it. He'd rather spend his days taking care of Inoichi's screaming cousins again. At least then he didn't have to put in so much goddamn effort.

Predictably, when offered the chance to proctor the Chūnin Exams, instead of sit in on yet more political meetings, he'd jumped on it. With frantic enthusiasm. Now, watching Hatake Sakumo's kid speak with his jōnin sensei from across the room, Shikaku realized he should have known better. Kakashi's eyes zeroed in on him with pinpoint accuracy. His stance all but radiated suffering. Really, the Hatake were just so troublesome.

"—...ve to rely on your wits, here," Namikaze was lecturing as he approached, a glance of acknowledgement providing him with lukewarm comfort. "They'll be bigger, stronger, and better trained than you. Use your brain."

"That's fine," the four foot nothing menace dismissed. "Psychological warfare is the easier part of being a shinobi, anyway. Hello, Shikaku-san."

"Brat," Shikaku allowed. That wasn't disturbing at all. "What do you want?"

Kakashi looked far too pleased with the easy acquiescence. Shikaku couldn't bring himself to care. His methods for dealing with the youngest Hatake were to approach it like ripping off a very large, sticky band-aid: quick and painful, but worth the momentary misery. It was better to bend over backwards to the whims of a tiny psychic six year-old than suffer the humiliation of being manipulated by him. Shikaku may be a lazy, no-good bastard, but he wasn't stupid.

"Nothing," was the simple reply, which he didn't trust whatsoever. "Just to say hello."

"Sure," he drawled back, suspicious. "In that case, you can go join the other examinees. We'll be starting soon."

To Shikaku's bewilderment, Kakashi did, sparing them each a bow before wandering off. He was left feeling a bit as though a rug had been pulled out from beneath his feet, or maybe like he'd set off an exploding tag and gotten a benign puff of smoke instead. Next to him, Namikaze hummed.

"Do you think he'll be alright?" The jōnin sensei murmured with concern. "He's so young, and his team…"

Right. The Chūnin Exams could only be entered in three man teams. Kakashi must have been assigned a temporary one, in order to proceed. That has to be a disaster. Shikaku opened his mouth — to offer platitudes, maybe a bland observation that if Kakashi could make even some of the T&I members blubber nonsense, he could certainly handle some genin, in many, creative ways — but he was cut off by a noise of frustration from the blond.

"I just worry. You know him better than most of the other jōnin, Shikaku-san, working with Captain Hatake and all, so I'm sure you know how… sensitive he can be, about his abilities. If the other contestants do or say something to upset him… it's a shinobi's job, but he's very young, and I don't want him to go overboard—"

A feeling of foreboding overtook him. Alarmed, Shikaku's eyes darted around the exam area, searching for the telltale puff of silver hair. Kakashi's gaze met his first, smug and knowing. His team was giving him a wide berth. He didn't even seem aware of the distance. The brat was all but radiating glee.

"—doesn't need a team, but I'm sure we'll be assigned one eventually, and—"

Really, Shikaku was sure of it now. There was nobody quite so troublesome as the Hatake Clan. Not even his gossip-mongering, pushover, drama-queen former classmates. Nothing was worth the mortified horror of knowing you'd been manipulated into socializing by a six year-old. He resisted the urge to snort. Namikaze had nothing to worry about. Psychological warfare indeed.

(He was not surprised, when at the end of the month, Hatake Kakashi became the youngest chūnin in village history.)

A/N: Ugh… I had a bunch of notes typed up, before, but a lot has changed since then. First of all, new readers: welcome! Old readers: hello again! I did not post a preview here like I did for AO3, so it's likely nobody here knew, but I fractured two bones in my dominant hand last winter and was stuck in a cast for five months. I have since then developed arthritis. Between that and a new job, I have not had much time to even think about writing. Thank you so much for your patience while I got myself back into a decent spot. I know it has been a long time.

WRT this chapter: hopefully the unexpected narrator was an nice change. I've always seen Shikaku as a more "get it over with quickly so you can goof off later" sort of Nara, and I figured it would be interesting to see what a total outsider as intelligent as him thought of Kakashi. His new role in Sakumo's life also provided some insight. Seriously, what happened with Danzō?

Finally— this is still a drabble series. I am a long-winded person by nature, so this may not seem drabble-y to you all, but it very much is for me. I'd like to keep chapters below 2,000 words each (although these last few have exceeded it). Beyond that, it means I am also playing somewhat fast and loose with the story. Major points are planned, enough so that I have an idea of what I want to do up to chapter 15, but details are… fuzzy. Let me know if anything is directly contradictory as a result. I will see you all next chapter, with "The White Fang."