Cap8:)

"And I'm Shikamaru Nara. I like the weather here. I dislike it when people are ridiculously late and waste others' time." Kakashi's grin underneath his mask grew even wider at that. "As for hobbies, I like to read and play board games with my dad. And I don't know what I want to do in the future, either, but I suppose it'll be like my dad, too."

"Well, excellent," Kakashi clapped his hands together. "You have your own distinct interests and personalities. Now, I've got some good news and some bad news."

"Bad news first! Always bad news first!" Ino exclaimed.

"Right. Well, I have to tell you that of the twenty-seven that made it out of the Academy, only nine actually become Genin – at the discretion of their Jonin instructor, who is to give them all a second exam."

"What?" Ino shrieked. God, she was loud. "Then what was the final exam for?"

Kakashi leaned his head on his hand. "That was to sort out the kids who actually had a chance of passing. Basic skills and such. I get to decide if I want you as my students or not."

"When you say nine out of twenty-seven," Shikamaru asked, "do you mean nine out of twenty-seven, or three teams of three out of nine teams of three? Because I distinctly remember Iruka-sensei complaining that he had spent an inordinate amount of effort trying to balance all the teams out, and that there was no way he was going to do any of that again, so…"

And there went the whole premise of his test.

Damn, that kid was inconveniently clever. Stupid Naras.

He chose to respond to that statement with one of his so-called "infuriating" half-smiles.

"Oi, sensei! What's the good news, then?" Naruto yelled.

"Oh, that? You won't have to take that test until tomorrow. 5 A.M. at Training Ground 3. Don't eat breakfast; you'll throw up. Sweet dreams, everyone!"

And he popped out of their sight, the indignant screams of the Yamanaka girl still ringing in his sensitive ears.

He so loved getting people angry.

Training Ground 3, at approximately 5:00 A.M.

...give or take a few hours

"And whoever doesn't get a bell simply has to go back to the Academy. Simple as that."

Naruto and Ino looked horrified, but I knew better. I knew he was bluffing. It was against the rules to break up a team once it had been formed. A team passed and failed together; that was how Konoha operated. Either he passed us all and took us as his students, or he failed us all.

Now, I didn't know how much leverage my father had over someone like Kakashi Hatake, even if he was the Jonin Commander, because from his many stories over the dinner table, that was a man who seemed to dance to his own tune. So perhaps he might just fail us all, and damn the consequences – the Nara and the Yamanaka were rather minor clans compared to the big four, and, according to my dad, while Kakashi Hatake wasn't powerful enough to change tradition dating back to the time of the Shodaime all on his own, he had had enough standing as an individual at the age of thirteen to face down even the whole Uchiha clan in its entirety before they were all massacred a few years back.

I supposed it made sense. The Uchiha wouldn't have given up one of their precious eyes without a fight. I'm not sure how he got it – Dad wouldn't tell me, because it was "his story to tell, not mine" – but I at least knew that he had one. Ninja weren't especially creative with names, and it didn't take a genius to figure out the reason behind the whole "Sharingan no Kakashi" or "Kakashi the Copy-Nin" shebang. One thing was for sure – if he passed the three of us, it wouldn't be because of our last names.

I doubted he'd stoop to using the Sharingan for three Genin, though. Even if we were good. There were certain perks that came from having the Jonin Commander for your father, and knowing the good gossip about everyone that mattered was one of them. According to him, Kakashi Hatake had a rather massive reputation, but his supposedly infamous combat skills only made up about a tenth of it.

"So what's the rest of it?" I had asked him.

His only answer had been to shake his head pityingly at me and say nothing more.

Which only meant that I'd have to go to the next best source for dirt – Ino. Ino, at least, had had better luck with her own dad, mainly because, like Ino, Inoichi Yamanaka was the central hub of gossip in his own generation. And Ino's dad, unlike mine, had been all too willing to complain about this Kakashi Hatake person.

"Oh, that guy? He's the biggest troll I've ever met and…yep, that about sums it up."

Well, maybe not.

But at least we now knew that we were dealing with a head case for a prospective Jonin sensei. (Something I already learned from my parents' argument six years ago.)

I didn't know how I felt about that. My future teacher being completely insane, I mean.

Looking at the man standing in front of us now, still grinning with his one visible eye even though he was several hours late, I didn't doubt it. Five in the morning, my ass. "I was chasing after a rabbit for my breakfast cereal" – yeah, right. What a liar. I shouldn't have expected any different from him.

We did have time to eat a nice breakfast, while waiting for him, though. So at least we hadn't fallen for that particular lie. Starving shinobi were poor shinobi and thus I thanked Kami that I was born in a land where the climate and soil was good enough that we didn't have to import any of our food.

Maybe he had done it on purpose? To give us a chance to scout out the terrain of the training ground while he was absent? We had done that. But…was he really the type to do that? I guess they had to setsome restrictions on how Jonin tested Genin…though how closely those rules were followed was a mystery to me. Kakashi Hatake didn't seem like the type to follow the rules. He didn't seem like the type to be merciful just for the hell of it, either.

Once again, the not knowing why he was late bothered me more than him actually being late, and that was saying something, because I take after my mother when it comes to my opinion on wasting time.

He shook the bells at us tauntingly, and, as if in agreement, his little red alarm clock also tittered mockingly. "Well?"

Time waits for no one. It just moves on, a wealth that once is lost can't be earned back, my mother had always said.

He was probably late just because he wanted to see if he could rile us up. Judging from Naruto's and Ino's still-furious expressions (and mine, too), he had been very successful in that, because all three of us hated him already.

I stared at him again, trying to get any sort of reading from him. About half of what he had just told us wasn't true, and the other half was a total lie. I knew that. There wasn't much else I could discern from him, other than the fact that he really was completely batty (something already established multiple times in the past day). His clothes were too baggy for me to determine his body type and possible fighting style (whether or not this was on purpose or just laziness and a general "I don't care what other people think" attitude on this part was also unknown to me), and his blank expression was so carefully crafted beneath his rage-inducing attitude that I might as well have been trying to create a psychological profile of a brick wall.

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