THE WOUND'S STILL BLEEDING

© 2018; soheresaberry

Summary;

Kakashi is a girl, she really is, despite her wrong body and her less-than-delicate attitude.

Epilogue

Where The End Takes Place

Naruto is twelve when he graduates from the Academy and is made Genin. Iruka-sensei, who cares about him and is not like the other teachers —who sneered, snarled, wanted him gone— was hurt in the process, what with Mizuki being a traitor and Iruka-sensei defending him against the pale-haired Chunin.

Naruto has known about the Kyuubi since he was eight and entered at the Academy. His mom told him, and she was the one who held it before him, so she knows what she's talking about when she says he's not a monster.

(His brother and two sisters don't think he's a monster either, and he's ever so thankful for having them, even if he doesn't always show it. And two of them —Tobi-nii and Kashi-nee, the nicknames he gave them when he was like, three years old— gave him Ryū, his little brother-cousin-family, who doesn't think he's a monster either.)

He ends up in Team 7 with that stuck-up Uchiha, Sasuke —who is Itachi's little brother, the friend of Shisui who is friends with Tobi-nii— and a pretty girl whose name is Haruno Sakura. He likes her, he really does, but she's mean, sometimes. Especially when he's fighting with Sasuke.

(He holds the shiver when his mother looks at them and laughs, saying oh, this is how Obito and Kakashi started, too.)

When the instructors have all arrived —and what a shame that Rin is already a sensei, because he would have loved to have her as a Jōnin-sensei, no matter what her students say about her being a devil in disguise, his nee-chan is awesome, not more than his mother, but still— they stay behind when their Jōnin-sensei is late.

He's having a bad feeling about this.

When, seventeen minutes later, the door opens, he looks at it hoping that it won't be who he thinks is it.

Praying definitely pays off, because instead of Kashi-nee —oh, the horror— it's Tobi-nii who appears in the Academy class.

"Ah, sorry, sorry!" he says, sheepish as he can be. "There was an old lady, and one always has to help them, you know?"

His Jōnin-sensei is Tobi-nii.

Obito-sensei now, he supposes.

Still, it's awesome. Because even though it's not a joy to train with him —it always leaves him exhausted— it's better than having a training session with Kashi-nee. The slave driver has even him with chakra exhaustion and muscle aching for days, if not weeks.

No, better Tobi-nii, he's reasonable, he doesn't have Hell Training, and is generally laid back and sociable, a word which his nee-chan doesn't seem to know. If not for Ryū, Naruto would have serious doubts about her being able to even hold a child. And anyway, that's only her son and him. The rest are, and he's quoting, 'evil pups from the gates of hell'.

(He learns later, Obito-sensei does have Hell Training, all of the Team 7 do. Minato, his father, was the one who started the whole thing. And now is a Team 7 thing. Which means that, probably, Sasuke and Sakura and he are going to have a version themselves, and he doesn't know what he fears the most, the Team Minato's version, or what his teammates, with their sadistic tendencies, will come up with.)

(Naruto successfully ignores the fact that he's a terror in the village regarding his pranks, how he cackles after them, and how much glee it provokes in him to have those villagers trembling for when's his next prank.)

They meet at the roof of the Academy, and they introduce themselves.

(Sasuke's goal is to surpass his brother, Sakura's to marry Sasuke —which, ew— and his is to become Hokage. Duh.)

(Obito, they learn, is next in line to be Hokage. Uh. Who knew.)

(In truth, Obito's not Hokage because he's spent years recuperating from the coma, and there's still opposition to an Uchiha being Hokage. And there are issues —like the whole thing with Danzo and his brainwashed minions, or the disaster with Orochimaru, or the rocky alliance with Suna— so he can't take The Hat yet. He will, he just has to wait.)

The next day —we're doing a test to determine whether or not are you ready to be a shinobi, or in Sakura's case, a kunoichi, Obito-sensei said, maybe think about what you've learnt in the Academy, yeah?— they face The Bells Test™ and pass. Not at first, but they pass either way.

They're Team 7 now.

And he's Naruto, but now he's Naruto and Sakura and Sasuke because they're a team.

And they're going to turn the world upside down.

Believe it.

(And they do, and it's awesome, and Obito is sure their goal is to make his hair as white as Kakashi's —it's not white, it's silver you idiotic moron!, yeah, right.)

(For her part, his partner only cackles from the distance and prays she's not ever taken away from ANBU and forced to be Jōnin-sensei in the privacy of her thoughts.)