Note: This chapter was edited on January 11, 2006. Some previous content that came before and after the chapter has been removed and replaced.
I'm going to try to keep the changes restricted to spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors. I will also change the internal thoughts of characters over to italics as I have done in later chapters.
Since When Was Boredom The First Step To Love?
Chapter one-Challenge accepted
By Riyo-sama Beta read
by Silverone
Hatake Kakashi was flat out bored. His team didn't have any missions, they had already ended training for the day (much to the annoyance of his genin students, since he had arrived late as usual and ended their training at noon), and even Icha Icha Paradise couldn't occupy him like it usually did. He would have tried sparring with Gai if it weren't for the fact that he was on a mission that day. Lucky Bastard! The thought hadn't appealed that much anyways.
The silver haired jounin, with his one visible eye, was scanning the streets from his vantage point on the roof of a building which he was occupying, trying to find something interesting.
He soon noticed a familiar head of spiky blond hair, walking next to a young man with brown hair up in a ponytail and a horizontal scar across his nose, wearing the common chunin/jounin uniform. The first was his student, Uzumaki Naruto. The second he didn't know personally, only from his student's descriptions (and some rather discreet snooping on his part). Umino Iruka was a chunin instructor at the academy and had also taught all three of his current students.
Suddenly, the sight of the chunin instructor gave him an idea for how he could cure himself of his boredom and better acquaint himself with his student's former instructor, effectively killing two birds with one stone. A smirk came to his face as he started to hop down the rooftops to where his student and the young teacher were.
(Going back a bit in time.)
"Iruka-sensei!", cried Naruto as he came bounding into the empty classroom and launched himself at his former instructor in a full-scale flying-tackle glomp that knocked Iruka out of his chair. Sitting up with Naruto clinging to his waist, Iruka was too surprised to be upset about the papers he was grading that had gone flying in all directions. "Naruto, why are you here? I thought you would still be working on missions or training. It's only noon."
Naruto finally let go of Iruka and let the man stand up, and then gave an exasperated sigh. "Kakashi-sensei didn't come until eight, and there were no missions. Then he said that we could stop training for the day. I was going to train more on my own, but I got hungry. Iruka-sensei, will you buy me ramen?" The first part was said with a very annoyed look and tone of voice, but the last sentence was said happily and with a hopeful look at the brown haired chunin.
Iruka looked at his smiling and expectant former student and then at the mess of papers that he had temporarily forgotten. He looked at Naruto and then smiled. "I'll buy you ramen, but only if you help me clean up this mess." Naruto noticed the papers that were laying everywhere for the first time and laughed sheepishly.
After having spent a good ten minutes picking up all the papers (Naruto spent at least three minutes trying to get a single one that had some how gotten underneath the classroom cabinets and was too far back for Naruto's short, little arms to reach, so Iruka had to get it out himself), Iruka locked them away in his desk (promising himself to come back and finish grading them later), grabbed his wallet, and headed out for the Ichiruka with Naruto.
Once outside the academy, the hyperactive genin went into a long rant on Kakashi-sensei's faults (and good points), how he would beat Sasuke, become Hokage, and get Sakura-chan to like him.
(Back to the present moment.)
They were half-way to the ramen stand when Naruto started to run out of steam. Iruka was listening with a smile and nodded at appropriate intervals. Suddenly a voice from above said, "Yo! Naruto, Iruka-sensei." Both Iruka and Naruto looked up to see the masked, silver haired jounin who was sitting up on the roof above them, a hand casually raised in the air in greeting and his single visible eye closed and curved into a smile.
"Oi, Kakashi-sensei, what are you doing up there?", asked Naruto, sounding rather annoyed (he still hadn't forgiven Kakashi for showing up late again and ending training so early, on top of there being no missions). Kakashi hopped down and landed in front of the two with ease before replying.
"Just thought I'd drop in and keep you company.", he said in an off-handed manner.
"…, Kakashi-sensei, you're bored, aren't you?", Naruto said while giving Kakashi a flat stare. Kakashi sweat dropped. Bull's-eye.
"What gave you that idea?", asked Kakashi.
Naruto was still staring flatly, "You don't usually hang out with me, and you don't know Iruka-sensei." Kakashi looked thoughtful for a moment.
"Hmm, there's a first time for everything, and I can get to know Iruka-sensei if I spend time with you." Naruto seemed satisfied with this answer so he let itdrop.
Kakashi then turned to Iruka and said with a trace of humor in his voice, "Don't you have classes to teach sensei?" Iruka's eye twitched.
"There were no classes today, I was grading papers. And Kakashi-sensei, if you are bored you could simply try training your students for more than just four hours." Iruka stressed the word sensei as if to emphasis the fact that he was in a position of authority and should be more responsible.
"Oh, but it would be much more boring to do nothing but train all day when the weather is so nice." Kakashi smiled brightly, and Iruka just stared at him in disbelief.
At this point, Naruto pulled on Iruka's sleeve, "Iruka-sensei, I'm hungry. Can we go eat ramen now?"
Kakashi had an amused glint in his eye, "mmm, can I have ramen too if I promise to behave, sensei?" Iruka glared at him with annoyance, but it only got him a happy face from Kakashi, so he sighed in defeat and said yes.
He didn't know why he was so irritated at the man. It wasn't so much the jounin's much complained of lateness or his slacking off from teaching. For some reason he felt the uneasy certainty that the jounin was planning some sort of mischief. He had experienced this feeling many times before, and always just before Naruto pulled one of his pranks. He knew the feeling wasn't coming from Naruto, because the feeling hadn't come until Kakashi showed up. It then hit him that the reason it irritated him so much was because while he knew what Naruto was capable of doing, he didn't have a clue as to what Kakashi might do. He decided that he would just have to get through the situation as best he could, and pushed it to the back of his mind.
During his inner introspection, he allowed Naruto to pull him the rest of the way to Ichiruka. Naruto resumed his ranting were he had left off with renewed vigor. Kakashi trailed behind with an amused expression on his face (hidden by his mask) from his bubbling student's antics.
Upon arriving at the ramen stand, they sat down with Naruto between them, Kakashi on the left and Iruka on the right. When they had received their bowls of ramen, Naruto immediately began to consume his at an amazing rate. Iruka began eating his at a much more sedate pace, while Kakashi just stared at Naruto for a minute before turning to his own. How does he not choke eating like that? he wondered.
By the time Iruka had finished his bowl, Naruto was on his third. He looked over at Kakashi and noticed that he was finished as well, and looking at him.
"So, do you have anything to do today besides grade papers?" Kakashi's look gave away nothing, and his tone was conversational, but the feeling that he was planning something came back with a vengeance. He had heard a lot about Kakashi from Naruto, enough to worry him, but not enough to let him know what the man might do. The only thing he was sure of was that Kakashi was a skilled fighter. The rumors that floated around about Kakashi didn't really help his imagination either.
"Not really, this is my day off, and I'm trying to catch up on some work that I've had to put off for a while know."
"Ah, why would you want to do something as boring as work when it's such a nice day and when there are much more interesting things to do?" Kakashi was smiling, while Iruka was starting to get annoyed again.
"If I don't do it today, then I'll have twice as much to do tomorrow, plus I'll have less time to work on those papers with classes to teach. Kakashi-sensei, we both seem to have different ideas on how it is best to spend one's day off." Iruka caught a mischievous glint in Kakashi's eye, making him even more suspicious of the jounin.
"Hmm, well why don't we see whose idea is better?"
Iruka answered warily, "And just what idea might that be and how do you propose we test it?"
Kakashi smirked and said, "A match."
Iruka blinked. "A match?"
By now Naruto had finished his sixth bowl of ramen and was now paying attention to the conversation rather intently, looking from one sensei to the other in order to hear what the response would be.
"Yes, a match. The one who wins gets whatever he wants." Kakashi added the last part as an after thought, in case Iruka needed something to entice him.
Iruka, trying to keep the interest out of his voice and failing said, "What kind of match would this be?"
He had the chunin's interest aroused, that was good. "Hmm," he thought about it for a minute, "Tai-jutsu. You can use chakra to strengthen your body, but you can't use gen or nin-jutsu. Shurkiens and kunai are allowed, the first person to score two hits wins." Kakashi seemed to think a little more and added, "And I promise not to use the Sharingan."
Iruka debated, it had been a long time since he fought or sparred with some one for the sake of doing so. Well, not so much just for the fight in this case, since the winner would get something. But it didn't sound like such a bad idea. It also sounded like a rather fair match, but he couldn't help worrying, "I don't know…."
Kakashi gave him a 'you're no fun' look before saying in a teasing voice, "Are the academy sensei's skills not good enough to take me on?" Iruka's eye twitched violently at the implication that his skills were inferior because he was an academy sensei.
"Kakashi-sensei, one cannot properly teach what one has not already mastered himself. If there is a flaw in the sensei's instruction, then the student will have difficulty in properly mastering the technique as well. Flawless instruction comes with flawless mastery of the skills taught." Iruka said all this in a very tight and chilly voice. Naruto was looking at him wide-eyed, having never heard him talk like this before. Kakashi looked unperturbed. He was quite happy actually, he finally managed to press the right button.
"Well, if you're that skilled, why not prove it and have a match with me?" He patiently waited for a response. Iruka seemed to be thinking again.
There was an inner struggle going on in Iruka right then. A grown up voice was saying Don't rise to the bait. He's just a bored and (Kakashi had taken out Icha Icha Paradise at this point) perverted jounin trying to pick a fight for fun. You have to set a good example for Naruto, there are papers to grade, and who knows how many other problems might be caused by this? Another, more childish voice was saying He's challenged you, and even had the nerve to question your abilities as a ninja. You have to avenge your pride! Grind his ass into the ground!
The voices were cut off when he felt a tug on his sleeve. He looked down at Naruto. "Ne, Ne, Iruka-sensei," he whispered, "You can take Kakashi-sensei, you're really good at tai-jutsu. And when you win, you can make Kakashi-sensei buy us ramen!" Naruto beamed at Iruka, and Iruka couldn't help but smile back. Naruto's confidence was always so encouraging.
Kakashi looked up from his book and gave Iruka a questioning glance. Iruka gave him a smile and said, "Challenge accepted."
Kakashi's eye curved up, and he said, "Ah, then I'll give you a chance to prepare, and we can meet at the bridge to decide what to do from there." And with that, Kakashi stood up, formed some hand seals, and disappeared.
Naruto was bouncing with excitement, "I have to go tell Sakura-chan," and he added as an after thought, "and maybe Sasuke." He ran off before Iruka could stop him. Iruka paid for the ramen, and made his way to his house. Just as he reached his front door, it hit him. He had just accepted challenge from none other than Sharingan Kakashi, the copy-ninja himself. Him, a mere chunin academy instructor, up against an elite jounin. He was doomed. Who knew what Kakashi might make him do? Even if his tai-jutsu was good for a chunin, the other man had more fighting experience and probably more stamina too.
He groaned and entered his house. "What have I gotten myself into?"
This is the end of chapter one. As stated before this chapter was edited, I only accept nitpickiness for spelling of Japanese words. But constructive criticism is also welcome. I hope that old readers of this don't mind the changes, and that new readers enjoy this story. Jaa ne!