.

Chapter 5

.

Mama's hunched over her desk (a new one now, having replaced the one she had the other day; Uzume would ask what happened to it, but given the new window in the Hokage's office, she's got a pretty good idea). She's scribbling away on a sheet of paper, muttering things that are probably not fit for the ears of an under-ten, but Uzume's grown up with the woman. She knows exactly what kind of language she should expect to be hearing when she's officially a ninja of Konoha. Speaking of…

She turns, eyeing the headband that's on the Third Hokage's desk. Her eyes filter up to the man himself, doing her level best to lift one eye brow in question but it's just no good. Mama can do it, but Uzume sure can't. It's such a crying shame; she hadn't been able to pull the sceptical expression in her other memories either. It sucks.

"I can really be a shinobi?" Not to say she wasn't technically one already. Mama had told her two years ago she was technically a shinobi of the Leaf, registered as her apprentice. But she'd never gotten a headband. Not like this.

"You're getting a jōnin, no team, just an apprenticeship to one jōnin, and if anything goes wrong. We. Are. Gone," Mama grunts, staring up from her sheet of paper, gaze heavy and directed solely at the Third. In response, the Third hands another small pillar of documents over, patting the top as Mama tries to set him on fire with the power of her glare alone.

"I'm sure you'll have plenty to change once you're in charge, Tsunade-chan."

Mama huffs, snatching the sheet from the top as Uzume experiences her first instance of not-movement-induced whiplash.

"Once you're- Mama! Are you gonna become Hokage!?"

.

.

Inoichi is laughing at him. Chōza too. The latter stings, quite frankly, he'd thought they were cool, that they'd back each other. Hell, even Shikaku is smirking at him. With a whine, Sarutobi Kōji drops his head into his hands and tries not to embarrass himself too much. It's quarter to ten in the morning, there's a ten-minute window left before he's expected to report in at the Hokage Tower and he is lamenting the choices that have led him to his current position in life. AKA, very recently booted out of ANBU and freshly appointed a jōnin sensei.

"It can't be that bad, surely."

"You can tell you've never had a genin team, Inoichi," Chōza grunts, downing his own liquor, very pointedly ignoring the current time. But hey, most jōnin are told their getting little runts in the evening, not first thing in the morning as their ANBU mask is ripped away from them for 'brighter pastures, you'll enjoy being a jōnin sensei, I promise'. Ha.

Now, the Ino-Shika-Chō trio may be two years older than him, but Kōji had served on the front lines alongside them during the Third War; it's not exactly a kind of bond you just shrug off after the whole thing is over and done with. Which means, upon learning he was going to be getting his very own apprentice, he'd gone straight to The Tiger Seal to drown his sorrows. Only, he can't drown them yet because he's got to meet his new responsibility in twelve minutes.

"Well, Kōji's not got a genin team, he's just got the one. Hey, it's not the latest Uchiha Prodigy, is it?"

Kōji shakes his head, longingly eyeing the half-drunk tumbler that Shikaku is nursing.

"Worse. It's Tsunade-neechan's daughter."

"I wasn't aware Tsunade-hime had a child," Chōza grunts, eyebrows up as he looks to Shikaku for confirmation. He always does that, just to double check things. Kōji can't exactly blame him, he'd be doing the same thing if he weren't already aware of the situation. While he'd been out on a mission (his last ANBU mission for some time, it turns out), he'd still heard that his dad had hosted Tsunade for dinner. Tsunade, her student, and her child.

Kōji had been thirteen when she left the village; he'd had enough time to form a bond with each of the Sannin; he'd been on Jiraiya's genin team (for all that they'd lasted a year before the Second War tore them apart), Tsunade-neechan had become his big sister and- and that's it.

There are only two Sannin he wants to think about right now.

"She does. Kato Uzume, professional wild thing and now my responsibility."

Chōza winces, clicking his second glass against Kōji's sensible cup of tea, downing it without a break to breathe.

"I can see the problem. A parent who can beat the shit out of you if you influence her wrong," Shikaku muses, rubbing at his chin before shaking his head. "Too troublesome."

"I had more years left in ANBU," Kōji whines, pout firm on his lips. It has absolutely nothing to do with his beautiful fiancée having just joined the Hokage's most elite. Well, maybe a little bit.

A quick glance to the clock; five minutes until his meeting.

"Well, guess I gotta get going. Eight O'clock tonight?"

The Ino-Shika-Chō trio offer him their affirmatives and Kōji leaves them at the bar. He daren't drink anything before the meeting, despite it being a jōnin tradition at this point. The last thing he wants is Tsunade-neechan smelling it on him and then punting him into the sun. This way, he might be able to beg a miracle hangover cure off her in the morning.

.

Dad's behind his desk, as normal. The second desk in the room is empty and, from the way the chūnin at the desk are heavily recommending to avoid the hospital for the next few hours, he can guess just where the female Sannin has ventured off to. It does leave him looking down at the little pipsqueak that is going to be his student for the foreseeable future.

Kato Uzume stares back at him with her mother's eyes in a delicate, heart-shaped face, pouty little lips pressing together as she returns his inspection. There's good muscle tone in her arms, her clothing is sensible, hair pulled back in some kind of twisting ponytail where he can't see the band, hidden behind the spiral her hair forms.

"Hokage-sama."

"Kōji," Dad returns, a proud smile on his face as he looks on him. It's nice, the kind of expression a father should look at his son with. He just wishes there was some of that pride directed Asuma's way. But he can't stick his nose into his brother's relationship with their father without one of them giving him the cold shoulder. So, Kōji ignores it. For now.

"As you know, the latest batch of academy graduates will be assigned to their respective jōnins tomorrow. With Uzume-chan, we are at an odd number and, as she has experience working with an adult, you will be taking her on as an apprentice."

"Understood." Dipping his head, Kōji turns to inspect the new genin once again, taking note of the forehead protector, the metal near the same width as her skull. Uzume stares back at him, grin wide and posture relaxed. At least she doesn't seem like she'll be too much trouble. "Well, I suppose we should go get to know each other then, right?" Kōji muses, watching the little girl bounce forwards, covering the few feet of distance between them.

"That sounds great! Kaa-chan said she'd want to speak with you at the end of the day about some things-" Uzume waves the air before her, as if batting the metaphorical things aside for later consideration. "-but she was really happy when Hokage-sama said you were gonna be my sensei! It's nice to meet you! I'm Kato Uzume, please take care of me!" Two thumbs up. Kōji's getting flashbacks to his first meeting with Chōza's team, specifically the one in green. Great.

"Sarutobi Kōji. Come on then, Kid. Let's get going."

.

He takes her to the First Training Ground. While they're technically not a team, they do have their assigned genin training ground every morning, unless they're out on a mission. They walk in a comfortable silence, Uzume taking in their surroundings and Kōji taking her in. She moves fluidly, good confidence in her body for a genin. Undoubtedly, Tsunade-neechan has trained her, she'll probably have a few surprises that she can pull off that the average genin wouldn't manage. She's smart enough to achieve the rank of genin at nine during peace times too, so he should probably expect her to be good.

Skipping across the stepping stones that bisect the river (the one that runs through the first five training grounds, one after another), Kōji turns to watch Uzume. He's pleasantly surprised when she walks across the river instead. Relatively shaky; she's probably only just started water walking, but still. Good chakra control then.

Kōji takes a seat on the ground, legs crossed and pats the space beside him, grinning at Uzume as she eagerly drops into the same position as him.

"Alright then, Squirt. Let's hear it. Likes, dislikes, dreams. And, seeing as all the other jōnin will get a fancy academy folder of what their squad can do, tell me how you'd rate your own abilities."

"Okay! I like Shizune-nee and my new friends, Shisui and Itachi! I also really like baking because I get to experiment with different food colouring and it makes things look really interesting!" Yes, Kōji can imagine.

Completely ignoring his dubious look, Uzume-chan steamrolls on. "I hate cabbage and needles. I can't watch a needle go in my skin but don't tell Mama that or she'll probably try to get me desensitized." Here, she does pause, looking up at him with huge, bright eyes. "You really, really can't tell Mama. Finally, my is to become Hokage so I can keep my precious people safe! Just like my Tou-san wanted to!"

Oh, yeah. He can see how that'd been a punch in the stomach for Tsunade-neechan.

"That's a good dream, Uzume-chan. My dream is to be a strong shinobi and have a child who can look up to me and think I'm a strong dad. I like origami and I don't like potatoes."

"Wha! No potatoes at all? Not even chips?!"

"Nope!"

.

Instead of letting Uzume reel off what she knows, the jutsu she can do and how good she is at taijutsu, they decide on a spar. Though he does ask her to rate her abilities before they get started. She'd claimed to be fair at taijutsu, not so great at genjutsu, but declared she'd already started learning one of her elemental affinities; earth jutsus. She's also interested in learning how to use a sword.

As they get going, he can see why Dad pushed him out of ANBU and into being her jōnin sensei. She quick, with sharp eyes that look him over whenever they're not moving. It's the same problem he'd had at her age; too many options, too many ways to deal with a problem and then you dither, trying to figure out which one to use. It's slowing her reactions because she's too busy thinking. At least he knows what they'll work on first.

Kōji goes low, snapping his leg out and Uzume jumps up and over it, running through a series of hand-seals as she starts a cartwheel. Earth Release: Tearing Earth Turning Palm comes racing towards him, tearing up the ground as it stretching out from where his little genin has slammed her hand down, flipping away from her start point. Not many people with earth affinities are known for being agile. They're more a 'plant your feet and don't move' type. That's how Kōji himself is. Still, it's unexpected, they can probably develop that, though it will require him to step out of his own mindset. Still, promising.

There's potential here.

He slips under the ground, hand coming up to catch Uzume's ankle and snap her under the earth. He surfaces just before her in a low crouch, smiling down at her flushed face. She's wiggling about, already reaching out with her own earth-tinted chakra to begin softening the edges of her cave. Give it another minute and she'll be out and ready to go again.

A minute of inactivity on the battlefield would get you killed though.

"That's enough for now, Uzume-chan," Kōji declares, tweaking her nose and watching her cheek redden that little bit more.

"You're amazing, Kōji-sensei! And you're earth-natured like me too! That's perfect, we're gonna work so well together!" She keeps wiggling as she shouts, shimmying her shoulders free of the earth. Heh. Positive attitude. That's nice to see. And if she wants to talk him up like that, well, he'll just have to bring her with him the net time Ichika's upset with him.

"You're good with your earth jutsus; the fact you don't stick around when you use them won't be something most are used to facing. But you leave your right side open a lot when you're using taijutsu. That's the first thing we'll be fixing. And tomorrow, we'll go get you measured up for a sword."

Uzume breaks out into more excited chatter, still determinedly wiggling free of the hole he's put her in. What do you know, this jōnin sensei thing isn't actually so bad. Uzume seems like a very willing, attentive student. What had he been worried about?

.

They call it a day, agree to meet at the same place tomorrow, eight thirty sharp.

Kōji goes home, eats, even tidies the apartment to earn brownie points with Ichika before she gets home. Then, he goes to meet Tsunade-neechan.

He talks to Tsunade-neechan.

He realises exactly why this jōnin business may be a very difficult job. Especially as Uzume's jōnin sensei.

.

Two hours post-Tsunade-neechan talk, the Ino-Shika-Chō trio find him once again in The Tiger Seal, the same seat he'd been occupying twelve hours ago. The only difference is the slight dusting of dirt along his jōnin uniform and the heavy liquor held in one hand.

"Youch," Chōza grunts, taking a seat of his own, bottle clinking against the coaster as he sets it down, "she that bad?"

It takes Kōji a moment to realise what the other's asking him, blinking slowly in the dim lighting of the bar before he shakes his head.

"Nah, Uzume-chan's great. Cute little thing an' all. It's…" he trails off, utterly unable to put it into words. Because how do you explain you're being entrusted to look after a near-defenceless-against-missing-nin child who may or may not have the legendary bloodline that made the First Hokage a god among shinobi? All without actually admitting to the trio that she might have the Mokuton, that is? Well, he can't. He can't explain just why this is fucked six ways to Sunday. So, instead, Kōji takes another swig of his bottle, secure in the fact Tsunade-neechan had pushed him a vial of her miracle hangover cure after explaining the situation to him. He is going to get shit-faced tonight. He's going to make sure the Ino-Shika-Chō trio end up shit-faced too, and then he's gonna grab whatever D-rank is closest to one of their clan compounds in the morning and work Uzume up to her loudest volume level. Because all three of those bastards are now snickering at him and they should suffer for it.

"How'd Ichika take your new jōnin status?" Inoichi asks after he's stopped laughing at him, pressing the neck of his bottle to the rim of his glass, pouring himself a second helping. Kōji watches the fluid move for a moment, letting the visual remind him that he'll have to find some water jutsus to teach Uzume, or at least someone proficient in using water releases. He's got an earth affinity himself, but his other is wind and he chose to teach himself fire release, given that it works well with wind techniques. He can only help his cute little student out with one of her affinities.

"I haven't had chance to tell her; she had a mission this morning. Isn't expected back for another hour." And she'll probably be a bit unhappy when he crawls in, sloshed out his head, in three hours. She'll understand though. Might even be jealous that he's got his own cute little genin. Maybe.

"Good luck with that one," Shikaku drawls, stubbing out the lit end of his cigarette in the table's ash-tray. "Are you sure you want to get married? Wives are-"

"Troublesome," all four of them state at the same time, though they're a lot chirpier than Shikaku's lazy drawl. Chōza laughs, throwing one of his meaty arms across the Nara head's shoulders, reeling the other in.

"Some of us actively try to keep our wives happy, Shika," Inoichi mutters, smile not even half-hidden behind his glass. "Speaking of, bring your cute little genin by the shop some time, Kōji. I need to bring Noriko around to letting Ino-chan become a shinobi."

Bring Noriko around-

"Wait, your wife does know that Ino-chan's the heir, right?" Kōji asks, one finger pointed towards the Yamanaka head, the other curled alongside its brethren around his third bottle of the night. He takes three gulps before lowering the neck of the bottle. "There's no way she's not gonna be a shinobi."

"I know. But I know Noriko was hoping for a boy, then a girl that she could raise as a proper lady like herself."

"Then give her another little girl," Chōza grunts, eagerly accepting his order of bar food that the waitress delivers. Kōji snaps pleading dark eyes towards the man but they'd been a lot more effective when he'd been a teenaged baby-face. Puppy eyes just aren't cute once you're past twenty-five. It's a shame. Fortunately, he'd managed to catch Ichika's interest before he out grew them though.

"One kid is quite enough, thank you. Ino-chan's gorgeous but, by the Sage, can she scream."

.

.

"What on earth is that."

Spoon half-raised to his mouth, Itachi pauses, dark eyes flickering up to meet his father's gaze.

Team assignments are tomorrow and his father had gotten the night off in order to celebrate, even if he had technically graduated two days ago. Sasuke, at two-years old, is too young to truly understand the significance of the milestone Itachi has found himself at. He does, however, understand that he gets to eat a little bit more than normal and stay up a little bit later than his usual bedtime which has made him quite happy indeed. As expected of a toddler, he'd tired quickly and now sits, half-dozing in Itachi's lap. Itachi himself, well, he's sitting up to their low table, eating desert.

"It's chocolate orange cake," Itachi informs his father, angling his spoon to better cut into his 'door-wedge' of a slice, as mother had described it. It's his second piece, a treat for his early graduation. Uzume had delivered it in the afternoon, a bruise blooming on one of her forearms she'd extended to present him with a neatly wrapped box. The cake had been inside. Bright red icing on the top and a lopsided Sharingan design worked into the surface. There'd been one tome too many, four black specks around the pupil.

Itachi loved it anyway. That it tastes wonderful makes it even better. Shisui was right; Uzume is a brilliant friend to have. They can talk on similar topics of interest and she bakes. He'll have to thank his best friend for introducing them.

"Uzume-chan made it," his mother announces, retaking her seat at the table, presenting his father with a shallow cup of sake, her own balanced neatly on a saucer. "It's quite delicious; she must have done a lot of baking on the road with Tsunade-hime."

His father grunts, cutting himself a small slice and Itachi hides his smile behind his spoon. After all, the less his father eats, the more he'll have leftover tomorrow to share with Shisui and Izumi.

"Take careful note of your teammates, Itachi. I expect a report on their capabilities after your first meeting tomorrow."

"Yes, Tou-san."

"He knows his father wanted him to be on the same team as Uzume; it's understandable why. Despite carrying a different family name, she will technically be the Senju heir, will inherit the estates, jutsus and artefacts once Tsunade-hime deems her old enough. The credibility that would have come with being placed on the same team as her has slipped through his father's fingers and Itachi's aware his father is, upset by this. That she hasn't been placed on a team with any others is probably the only reason he has not taken it as a slight against the Uchiha Clan.

Despite how much liquor they drink together, Itachi likes it when Tsunade-hime comes over. His father always seems a little less stressed after their talks, though he himself is unsure of what they discuss, what the contents of their meetings include. Still, the calming atmosphere that follows is welcomed.

"Anymore and you'll be sick, Itachi."

Sheepishly, Itachi lowers the knife back onto the plate, even as he looks longingly towards the half-cake remaining.

"Okay, Kaa-chan."

.

The next day, after their initial team assessment, Itachi sits beside Tenma Izumo, and Shinko Inari and opens his bento.

There's a slice of cake inside.

Mother is instantly his favourite person for the rest of the week.

.

Update 2! And yes, Sarutobi Koji is Konohamaru's father.

Tsume
xxx