[Fan Fiction] The Infamous
Title: The Infamous
Author: stfusparks
Summary: Team 7 had never been interviewed for a very good reason.
Rating: T
Prompt: History
In the peaceful village of Konoha, today was an extremely important date for an everyday normal civilian named Daisuke.
Despite the fact that he lived in one of the most prosperous shinobi villages of his time, it was rare for civilians like him to catch glimpses of the ninjas that their village was so famous for. For obvious security measures, the civilian district was kept completely separated from the shinobi area; the only ninjas Daisuke ever got to see were the guards who regularly patrolled the streets, who were boring (and probably quite low ranked as well).
However, that didn't mean that the civilians weren't aware of the talented shinobi of their own village. The Legendary Sannin were quite a hit, and most of the clans were quite famous too, such as the Hyuuga clan and the Uchiha clan (primarily for their good looks).
The citizens of Konoha definitely took pride in their protectors.
Now it happened to be that Daisuke worked for the biggest newspaper company in Konoha as a journalist. His own column usually specialized in interviews with the 'famous' people of the village, but most of the time his subjects consisted of boring people such as the owner of the most successful restaurant in Konoha or the winner of the annual pie-eating contest at the culture festival.
This time, he was tasked with the big responsibility of interviewing the members of the notorious Team 7.
The entire situation was nothing short of baffling. Daisuke's column was usually quite small and situated in the back pages of the newspaper, yet his boss had offered to bump his column to the front page if he managed to go through with the interview with success. He briefly wondered why his boss was willing to go to such lengths; instead of bumping Daisuke's entire column, he could have very well assigned this task to one of the bigger writers for their newspaper.
Not that he was complaining. The pay raise was going to be good and the bonus was certainly welcome.
He'd be lying though if he said that he wasn't intimidated in the least. There were various rumors about the extremely unique members of the abnormally large team; he briefly looked down at the file in his hands, filled with general notes about the interview and the members.
It wasn't going to be easy either, that was for sure. Their leader was the infamous Copy-nin Kakashi, who had been famous as a child prodigy in his teen years (not that he wasn't considered a prodigy anymore). Uzumaki Naruto was known as the container of the Kyuubi, the famous nine-tailed beast that had destroyed Konoha all those years ago. Daisuke had no idea of what to expect from a jinchuuriki, but he was quite positive that someone with a dark demon locked up inside of him couldn't be all too pleasant.
On the other hand, Uchiha Sasuke was the sole member of the Uchiha Massacre who was also known as the only missing-nin to have ever been pardoned. He had returned to Konoha almost a year ago; he now lived alone in the Uchiha compound, and the revival of the Uchiha clan still seemed to be far away as the bachelor decided to stay away from most of the female population who lusted after him.
Despite the fact that Sasuke kept to himself most of the time, it was Sai who was the most mysterious member out of them all. As a previous member of Root, there were no records of his existence prior to his addition to Team 7.
Haruno Sakura, the only female member of the team, was most well-known as the best medic-nin of their generation, also being the pupil of the Godaime Tsunade. She was rumored to one day surpass the woman in both skill and power; other than that, she seemed to come from a completely normal background.
No biggie, really. Just interviewing perhaps some of the most powerful shinobi of their generation. These people were probably going to go down in Konoha's history, alongside the Legendary Sannin. Some people also seemed to have baptized the three original members of Team 7 as the new and enhanced version of the sannin, seeing that each of them had been trained under the original at one point in their life.
Daisuke's hands were slightly sweating as he sat alone on the couch of a very lavish room, no doubt a move from his boss to accommodate the stars of the day. He wondered what kind of people he would be dealing with; they were famous for their powers, not their personalities. He had no idea of what to expect.
He immediately stiffened when he heard several faint voices coming from the hallway. He rapidly dabbed at his damp forehead with a handkerchief before sitting up straight, hoping he looked presentable enough.
"-not putting up with any of your bullshit today. You three better act civil or I swear to god I'll make sure you can't walk straight for an entire week."
"Whadda ya mean, Sakura-chan? We always act civil!"
"Does this mean I'm not allowed to talk about the size of Naruto-kun's penis?"
"Hn."
The door slammed open, revealing four of the most powerful shinobi of the Fire Country. Daisuke shot them a pleasant smile, hoping that all his signs of nervousness had been wiped away from his face. He stood up, finding himself face-to-face with four extremely unique individuals.
"Ah, you must be Team 7," he politely greeted them with a curt bow. "Thank you for lending me your time today."
The sole female member of the team shot him a radiant smile, which considerably relaxed him. Maybe these people weren't as scary as he thought they'd be- after all, ninjas were people too.
"Oh I assure you, it's our pleasure," the petite pink haired girl whom he recognized as Haruno Sakura answered, waving a nonchalant hand in the air. "I'm Haruno Sakura by the way, it's awfully nice to meet you."
Daisuke felt his chest lighten, the tension rapidly leaving his shoulders. Perhaps he was beginning to understand why such a big portion of the male population in Konoha was smitten over the girl.
"Likewise. Why don't you take a seat?" he offered, motioning towards the luxurious couch across from him. The four members shuffled into the room one by one, each taking a seat. The journalist looked around at his surroundings, feeling a little bit confused before looking back at them. "Er- aren't we missing someone?"
"Kakashi-sensei is always late," the blond boy piped up cheerfully, with a lopsided grin on his face. "Don't mind him, he'll never change. He's usually a couple of hours late, but he probably won't take too long today 'cause he knows it's pretty important and stuff."
Daisuke nodded, trying to look as understanding as possible as he tried to guess which one of the three the blonde was. None of his profiles seemed to fit in with the bubbly young boy enthusiastically sitting in front of him- perhaps this boy was the one who had been a part of Root."
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, by the way!" the blonde exclaimed again, making Daisuke jump in surprise. "I'll be the Hokage one day, so make sure to write that into your article!"
They settled into an awkward silence, broken only by the sounds of Daisuke shuffling through the papers on his lap. This was the much feared Uzumaki Naruto? The boy who held a terrifying demon within him?
"Does this mean we're famous now?" the pale faced raven haired boy piped up, with a polite smile plastered onto his face. Daisuke automatically assumed him to be Sai, because while this boy was pretty good-looking as well, the one who sat in the far corner next to Sakura was the one who looked like he could be a supermodel instead of a shinobi. There was no doubt that the latter was the much coveted Uchiha Sasuke.
Daisuke tried to find an appropriate answer in his head. "Yes, I suppose you are," he slowly answered, choosing his words his words carefully. "Your team is extremely well known in Konoha. Civilians usually don't have a chance to meet you in person, so the public is restless for first-hand information."
Sai seemed to be satisfied with his answer. He leaned back into the sofa with a polite nod.
Daisuke quickly made a mental assessment of the people sitting in front of him.
Team 7 was completely unpredictable. While the Uchiha was every bit as handsome as the rumors said, Naruto, on the other hand was the complete opposite of what Daisuke had imagined him to be. Sai, whom Daisuke had to admit held a certain resemblance to Sasuke, was much paler in contrast and sat still with a big smile that made the journalist feel a little too uncomfortable. Not to mention Sakura, who was known to be capable of destroying mountains with a single finger, was actually quite petite in size as opposed to the buff and tall woman he had pictured in his head.
Daisuke carefully pulled out his tape recorder and switched it on, setting it gently on the crystal coffee table in front of him. He took a deep breath, reading over his general notes for the interview. The central focus for his column this week was the history of the Legendary Team 7- the public already had an idea of what they were capable of now, but they craved for information on what had shaped them into who they were today.
"So," he finally started, deciding to initiate the interview with one of the basic questions. "People want to know - how did it all begin?"
There was a strange silence between the four.
"Well," Sakura started slowly, looking thoughtful. "At the beginning it was just Sasuke-kun, Naruto and me. We were all in the same class at the Academy you see, and it was pure chance that Iruka-sensei placed us into a team together."
"Yeah, I don't know what the hell the old man was thinking!" Naruto added loudly. "I mean Sasuke-teme and I absolutely hated each other's guts. Putting us in a team together at the time was the worst idea ever-though I guess it turned out to be okay in the end, 'cause we're all really good friends now."
"Maybe Iruka-sensei put us in a team together because he knew that it would turn out to be okay, Naruto," Sakura dryly commented, and the blonde immediately shut his mouth. "Anyways," she continued, shooting Daisuke another one of her dashing smiles. "Kakashi-sensei was assigned to look over our team, and you could say that it all kind of started there."
"They were the most uncooperative little brats that I'd never met in my life,” a new friendly voice added, and the five people in the room whirled around to face the newest addition to the conversation.
Hatake Kakashi was calmly seated on the open windowsill, nearly giving Daisuke a heart attack. Were all ninja so stealthy?
"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura cried out, looking mortified. "This is an interview for the front page! You can't say things like that!"
"Why not?" Sai chimed in, tilting his head to the side in curiosity. "Lying to people is bad, isn't it?"
Sakura let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm not telling him to lie, Sai. What I'm saying is that we should be careful with what we say, especially when we're getting interviewed by the biggest newspaper in Konoha. Do you really want people who respect us to read about how we were uncooperative little brats?"
Sai looked thoughtful for a moment, before shrugging his shoulders. Sakura looked like she was about to say something that wasn't so polite, before shaking her head and settling back into her seat between Naruto and Sasuke, a little more glumly than before.
"Ah, Kakashi-san," Daisuke nervously said, feeling suddenly extremely intimidated by the sudden presence in the room. "Why don't you take a seat on the couch along with your students?"
Kakashi's only visible eye crinkled, signaling a smile under his mysterious mask. "Thank you Daisuke-san, but I quite like where I am right now."
Daisuke nodded, not understanding at all. He turned back to the four shinobi seated on the couch, who were visibly more tense than before.
"Tell me a little about each of your backgrounds," Daisuke decided to continue with his interview, hoping to end this meeting as quickly as possible. He was beginning to realize why he had been offered so much to do this interview; there was no one else who was crazy enough to do so. "How did your backgrounds shape you into who you are today?"
The air became noticeably heavier.
"Erm," Sakura spoke up again, looking like she was trying extremely hard to come up with a suitable answer. "I come from a perfectly normal civilian family. My father is a merchant and my mother is a housewife- I'm actually the first person to become a kunoichi in my family. They weren't too approving at first of course, but I think that's only helped me become as strong as I am today. I had to train without the encouragement of my parents, and even if it doesn't sound like much it really means the world when you're a child." She shot a nervous glance at the rest of her teammates. "And as for them-"
"Traitor-kun is the only survivor of the Uchiha Massacre," Sai amiably continued for her. "His brother slaughtered his entire clan and Traitor-kun spent the rest of his teenage years seeking revenge against his only living family member. When he did, he found out that his brother didn't kill his family out of bloodlust but because of Konoha, but by then it was too late and-"
"That's enough Sai," Sakura cut him off, and Daisuke nervously noticed that Sasuke's hand had twitched several times over the course of the ink-master's discussion. "I don't think you should be the one talking about Sasuke-kun's family background. He'll talk about it when he's comfortable doing so."
"Uh, that's fine, we can just skip over to the next question," Daisuke quickly said, catching on to the fact that family background wasn't exactly an ice-breaker subject for any of the members of Team 7. He quickly looked down at his paper, scanning over the rest of his notes. "Tell me about your chuunin exams; your first big step into the ninja world as a team."
Sakura's expression immediately darkened, making Daisuke's manhood slightly shrink. She had appeared to be the only normal member of the team, but he was quickly beginning to realize that none of them were sane at all, and that scared him very, very much.
Naruto, on the other hand, seemed all too eager to share. "We were the best team ever!" he exclaimed, flailing his arms around in an exaggerated manner. "We were totally kicking everyone's asses, it was a total piece of cake! We were sent to the Forest of Death and we were looking for the remaining scroll when-"
"Naruto, we aren't allowed to talk about the details of that part of the Chuunin exams," Sakura interrupted him tensely.
"Oh, right." The blonde looked a little disappointed as his shoulders dropped. "Well we ran into a little bit of trouble but in the end, I think it brought us closer together as a team."
"Really?" Sai inquired. "Wasn't that when Traitor-kun first came into contact with Orochimaru, triggering him to abandon the village a short time later?"
"Sai, shut up."
Daisuke was not liking the way this interview was coming along, not at all. He quickly turned towards the gray haired man still sitting at the window, hoping to change the subject.
"Kakashi-san, were you proud of your pupils as their teacher?" he asked rapidly, hoping to distract the pink haired girl who was staring at Sai with an extremely unpleasant look on her face.
Kakashi looked up from his inappropriate book for a second, with a thoughtful face; he seemingly did not notice the look of horror on Daisuke's face when the journalist realized what the man was reading in public. "Not really," he finally answered with another kind crinkle of the eye. "None of them passed, and they were all being complete brats about it."
"Kakashi-sensei!"
"Not you Sakura-chan. You did well."
"After that, Traitor-kun left Konoha and became a missing-nin," Sai continued nonchalantly. "I heard Hag begged him to stay but he completely ignored her love confession and knocked her out, leaving her on a bench in the middle of the night."
Sasuke and Sakura both visibly stiffened at his words.
"Sai," Sakura snarled in a low, threatening voice. "How many times do I have to tell you that anything we say here is going on the front page of the newspaper?"
The said man promptly shut up, not at her words but at the twitch of her first.
"Anyways, tell me how your team came to earn the nickname of the second generation of the Legendary Sannin," Daisuke continued. He was no longer worried about conducting a good interview; all he wanted to do was to get the hell out of this room as quickly as possible.
"Well, Sasuke-teme left Konoha to go train with Orochimaru," Naruto answered, rubbing his chin. "After he left, of course I had to train in order to drag his sorry ass back, so I left to train with Ero-sennin for two years. Sakura-chan was the only one who stayed in Konoha, but she started training under Baa-chan." He paused for a moment. "We didn't really plan it or anything, but I guess it just sorta happened."
Daisuke nodded understandingly, relieved at having reached a subject that wasn't paper thin for the team. "And would you say you improved your skills the most during those two years?"
"You bet!" Naruto exclaimed with a large grin. "Especially Sakura-chan, you should've seen how much she changed after those two years! I think she was the one who changed the most during that time- I mean you should totally see what she can do with a single punch on the battlefield." He stopped, bright cerulean eyes looking thoughtful. "Actually, nevermind. There wouldn't be a battlefield left to look at."
For some reason, Daisuke didn't really want to see what the petite girl could do with a single punch.
"And I understand that Sai joined you after the two year break?"
Sai was all too happy to elaborate. "I worked in the Root division under Danzou before joining Team 7," he answered, with completely honest (along with his creepy fake smile). "I was trained to let go of all my emotions, and according to Hag, that's the reason for my lack of social abilities. I was sent to replace Traitor-kun on Team 7 by Danzou; my main mission was to betray them and offer Danzou's alliance to Orochimaru for the destruction of Konoha, but Naruto's loyalty to the traitor made me change my mind."
There was an awkward silence.
"Right," Daisuke curtly said, at a complete loss for words. He cleared his thoughts for a moment, before quickly changing the subject. "And so tell me how Team 7 finally became complete," he directed the question towards the Uchiha, who had remained quiet throughout the entire thing. "I understand you've been back for almost a year now."
"It's going to be a year next week!" Naruto beamed, as Sasuke showed no signs of wanting to answer the question. "Well the teme was being a stubborn bastard as always. He kept on avoiding us and he even tried to kill us more than once, can you believe it?" His bright blue eyes shone with disbelief. "There was a point when he wanted to destroy the village as well, but I was able to beat some sense into him. Then he agreed to come back peacefully and we were able to sort things out with Baa-chan and the council. he got a pretty light sentence and got to bring his clan to justice, so you could say it was a happy ending dattebayo!"
The expression on Sasuke's face seemed to indicated that he wasn't too happy, but Daisuke wasn't going to point that out. He wondered how the hell he was going to rephrase that in order to make it printable for the front page; he was quite sure that Konoha's population wouldn't appreciate hearing about how Uchiha Sasuke had once planned on destroying the village.
"So tell me about how your relationship has developed over the years," Daisuke continued, dreading to say the next part out loud; his boss had insisted on this question, saying that most of their readers would be extremely interested in a little bit of juicy gossip. "It's a known fact that you had quite the love triangle going on during your genin days, but tell me how it has developed now that you've grown up."
Sakura narrowed her eyes. "I thought this interview was going to be about our history as ninjas."
"Of course," Daisuke quickly answered, sweating as he wondered how he could feel so threatened by such a tiny woman. "People want to know about your relationship because they want to know how you developed your dynamics as a team."
"Go figure," Sakura snorted, looking unamused. "I guess people like Ino-pig would be dying to read about gossip like this."
"Don't mind her," Sai politely said. "Hag is just bitter because she doesn't want to talk about her failed attempt at seducing Traitor-kun."
Sakura turned bright red. "That's not true!" she quickly retorted, whirling around to look at Daisuke with a horrified expression on her face. "I never tried to seduce Sasuke-kun and that's all in the past, so don't pay attention to anything he has to say."
"Many women in Konoha are jealous of your standing as the only female member of Team 7. Are you in a relationship with any of your teammates?"
"O-of course not!" Sakura spluttered. "Even though we don't seem like it right now, we're a highly professional ninja team. I would never put our teamwork to risk by dating any of my teammates. Though things may have been a little hectic in the past, they're all brothers to me now."
Sai cocked his head to the side. "Didn't we go on a date once, Hag?"
At that moment, something extremely peculiar happened. Naruto snapped his head towards the pink haired girl with wide eyes, but this was not the part that caught Daisuke's attention. It was the way Sasuke's eyes ever so slightly looked over towards their only female member; it was the first time Daisuke was seeing any sort of response on behalf of the Uchiha.
This could be interesting.
"Sai, just because two people go out for dinner doesn't mean it's a date," Sakura hotly replied. "I go out to eat Ichiraku with Naruto all the time, but it doesn't mean that we're dating now, does it?"
"I understand," Sai answered seriously with a nod. "So in what way can I turn a dinner appointment into a date?"
There was another moment of silence.
"This is completely stupid," Sasuke finally muttered, speaking for the first time since he had entered the room. "I'm not wasting any more of my time with these idiots."
"But we're getting interviewed for the Konoha Times!" Naruto argued. "Don't you want to become famous?"
"I could care less about being famous," Sasuke snapped back, starting to get to his feet.
"You're both going to sit here until this interview is over," Sakura snarled with a pointed glare. Both boys obediently shut their mouths and sat back down, looking away. "Anyways Daisuke-san," she continued a pleasant smile taking over her features again. "I assure you that whatever love triangles we had in the past are completely over. Naruto here is happily dating Hinata-chan, the Hyuuga heiress. As for our other members, Kakashi-sensei is too old to date and will probably die as a lonely old man. Sai is too socially retarded and is basically the anti-sex when he opens his mouth, so he'll probably die alone too. Sasuke-kun also seems to be apathetic to both the female and male sex so he'll probably be alone for the rest of his life."
There was another stunned silence.
"Sasuke-san, you're the only remaining member of the Uchiha clan. Do you have any plans on reviving your clan in the future?"
Sasuke glared at him, and for a moment Daisuke swore he saw a flash of red. He wasn't sure of what it was or if it was even real, but he felt extremely, extremely disturbed.
"It's none of your business," the Uchiha muttered, looking away again.
"Well, I guess we can put an end to this interview," Daisuke quickly said, gathering his things. "Thank you again for your time." He technically had a couple more questions to ask, but he couldn't care less anymore. He didn't even mind if he didn't get front page and if his pay raise and bonus were cancelled; he was scared for his life.
One by one, the members of Team 7 got up and started to exit the room, with Sakura, Naruto and Sai politely saying their goodbyes. Kakashi had already disappeared without a word before they had even stepped out of the room, and Sasuke didn't even spare a glance at the journalist who was sweating buckets now.
As soon as the door shut closed behind them, Daisuke immediately let out a sigh of relief. He was glad that he was a civilian and not a shinobi; he was never getting mixed up with ninjas again if that was what all of them were like. He had barely spent a little more than half an hour with these people, yet he had already deduced that they were very clearly insane.
"-n't you think it's a little hypocritical?"
"Huh?"
There were two voices coming from the hallway; Daisuke immediately recognized them as Sakura and Sasuke. Their other two teammates seemed to have left already. The journalist made a mental note to tell his boss about these paper thin walls, every single word could be clearly heard.
"You don't want to be in a relationship with any of your teammates because it would disrupt our teamwork? You were singing quite a different tune awhile back.”
Sasuke sounded extremely skeptical; Daisuke listened in awe as he heard the longest sentence the Uchiha had spoken throughout the entire day.
There was an exasperated sigh.
"Sasuke-kun, that was when we were genins."
"You clearly said you loved me when you were trying to bring me back, and that was less than two years ago."
"I was naive, alright? Can't we put all of this in the past? I mean-"
"Dinner."
"... what?"
"Let's have dinner."
"Uh, okay?"
"And don't even think about comparing this dinner to the one you had with Sai."
"... Sasuke-kun, is this your way of asking me out on a date?"
"..."
"You know, there are nicer ways you could ask."
"Just follow me before I change my mind."
The conversation ended, their footsteps rapidly fading away.
Daisuke sighed. The interview had turned out to be a huge disaster, and sure he still had extremely juicy gossip on the couple but his recorder had been off; if the two denied what he printed, there would be no way to prove it.
“I think you and I can make each other both very happy.”
He whirled around to see the silver haired man sitting on the couch, trademark eye wrinkle in place. Kakashi gingerly held up a picture of what seemed to be a younger version of Naruto and Sasuke... kissing?
“I'm willing to sell this to you if the price is right,” he happily chirped.
Daisuke grinned; he was definitely getting his promotion.
Author: stfusparks
Summary: Team 7 had never been interviewed for a very good reason.
Rating: T
Prompt: History
In the peaceful village of Konoha, today was an extremely important date for an everyday normal civilian named Daisuke.
Despite the fact that he lived in one of the most prosperous shinobi villages of his time, it was rare for civilians like him to catch glimpses of the ninjas that their village was so famous for. For obvious security measures, the civilian district was kept completely separated from the shinobi area; the only ninjas Daisuke ever got to see were the guards who regularly patrolled the streets, who were boring (and probably quite low ranked as well).
However, that didn't mean that the civilians weren't aware of the talented shinobi of their own village. The Legendary Sannin were quite a hit, and most of the clans were quite famous too, such as the Hyuuga clan and the Uchiha clan (primarily for their good looks).
The citizens of Konoha definitely took pride in their protectors.
Now it happened to be that Daisuke worked for the biggest newspaper company in Konoha as a journalist. His own column usually specialized in interviews with the 'famous' people of the village, but most of the time his subjects consisted of boring people such as the owner of the most successful restaurant in Konoha or the winner of the annual pie-eating contest at the culture festival.
This time, he was tasked with the big responsibility of interviewing the members of the notorious Team 7.
The entire situation was nothing short of baffling. Daisuke's column was usually quite small and situated in the back pages of the newspaper, yet his boss had offered to bump his column to the front page if he managed to go through with the interview with success. He briefly wondered why his boss was willing to go to such lengths; instead of bumping Daisuke's entire column, he could have very well assigned this task to one of the bigger writers for their newspaper.
Not that he was complaining. The pay raise was going to be good and the bonus was certainly welcome.
He'd be lying though if he said that he wasn't intimidated in the least. There were various rumors about the extremely unique members of the abnormally large team; he briefly looked down at the file in his hands, filled with general notes about the interview and the members.
It wasn't going to be easy either, that was for sure. Their leader was the infamous Copy-nin Kakashi, who had been famous as a child prodigy in his teen years (not that he wasn't considered a prodigy anymore). Uzumaki Naruto was known as the container of the Kyuubi, the famous nine-tailed beast that had destroyed Konoha all those years ago. Daisuke had no idea of what to expect from a jinchuuriki, but he was quite positive that someone with a dark demon locked up inside of him couldn't be all too pleasant.
On the other hand, Uchiha Sasuke was the sole member of the Uchiha Massacre who was also known as the only missing-nin to have ever been pardoned. He had returned to Konoha almost a year ago; he now lived alone in the Uchiha compound, and the revival of the Uchiha clan still seemed to be far away as the bachelor decided to stay away from most of the female population who lusted after him.
Despite the fact that Sasuke kept to himself most of the time, it was Sai who was the most mysterious member out of them all. As a previous member of Root, there were no records of his existence prior to his addition to Team 7.
Haruno Sakura, the only female member of the team, was most well-known as the best medic-nin of their generation, also being the pupil of the Godaime Tsunade. She was rumored to one day surpass the woman in both skill and power; other than that, she seemed to come from a completely normal background.
No biggie, really. Just interviewing perhaps some of the most powerful shinobi of their generation. These people were probably going to go down in Konoha's history, alongside the Legendary Sannin. Some people also seemed to have baptized the three original members of Team 7 as the new and enhanced version of the sannin, seeing that each of them had been trained under the original at one point in their life.
Daisuke's hands were slightly sweating as he sat alone on the couch of a very lavish room, no doubt a move from his boss to accommodate the stars of the day. He wondered what kind of people he would be dealing with; they were famous for their powers, not their personalities. He had no idea of what to expect.
He immediately stiffened when he heard several faint voices coming from the hallway. He rapidly dabbed at his damp forehead with a handkerchief before sitting up straight, hoping he looked presentable enough.
"-not putting up with any of your bullshit today. You three better act civil or I swear to god I'll make sure you can't walk straight for an entire week."
"Whadda ya mean, Sakura-chan? We always act civil!"
"Does this mean I'm not allowed to talk about the size of Naruto-kun's penis?"
"Hn."
The door slammed open, revealing four of the most powerful shinobi of the Fire Country. Daisuke shot them a pleasant smile, hoping that all his signs of nervousness had been wiped away from his face. He stood up, finding himself face-to-face with four extremely unique individuals.
"Ah, you must be Team 7," he politely greeted them with a curt bow. "Thank you for lending me your time today."
The sole female member of the team shot him a radiant smile, which considerably relaxed him. Maybe these people weren't as scary as he thought they'd be- after all, ninjas were people too.
"Oh I assure you, it's our pleasure," the petite pink haired girl whom he recognized as Haruno Sakura answered, waving a nonchalant hand in the air. "I'm Haruno Sakura by the way, it's awfully nice to meet you."
Daisuke felt his chest lighten, the tension rapidly leaving his shoulders. Perhaps he was beginning to understand why such a big portion of the male population in Konoha was smitten over the girl.
"Likewise. Why don't you take a seat?" he offered, motioning towards the luxurious couch across from him. The four members shuffled into the room one by one, each taking a seat. The journalist looked around at his surroundings, feeling a little bit confused before looking back at them. "Er- aren't we missing someone?"
"Kakashi-sensei is always late," the blond boy piped up cheerfully, with a lopsided grin on his face. "Don't mind him, he'll never change. He's usually a couple of hours late, but he probably won't take too long today 'cause he knows it's pretty important and stuff."
Daisuke nodded, trying to look as understanding as possible as he tried to guess which one of the three the blonde was. None of his profiles seemed to fit in with the bubbly young boy enthusiastically sitting in front of him- perhaps this boy was the one who had been a part of Root."
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, by the way!" the blonde exclaimed again, making Daisuke jump in surprise. "I'll be the Hokage one day, so make sure to write that into your article!"
They settled into an awkward silence, broken only by the sounds of Daisuke shuffling through the papers on his lap. This was the much feared Uzumaki Naruto? The boy who held a terrifying demon within him?
"Does this mean we're famous now?" the pale faced raven haired boy piped up, with a polite smile plastered onto his face. Daisuke automatically assumed him to be Sai, because while this boy was pretty good-looking as well, the one who sat in the far corner next to Sakura was the one who looked like he could be a supermodel instead of a shinobi. There was no doubt that the latter was the much coveted Uchiha Sasuke.
Daisuke tried to find an appropriate answer in his head. "Yes, I suppose you are," he slowly answered, choosing his words his words carefully. "Your team is extremely well known in Konoha. Civilians usually don't have a chance to meet you in person, so the public is restless for first-hand information."
Sai seemed to be satisfied with his answer. He leaned back into the sofa with a polite nod.
Daisuke quickly made a mental assessment of the people sitting in front of him.
Team 7 was completely unpredictable. While the Uchiha was every bit as handsome as the rumors said, Naruto, on the other hand was the complete opposite of what Daisuke had imagined him to be. Sai, whom Daisuke had to admit held a certain resemblance to Sasuke, was much paler in contrast and sat still with a big smile that made the journalist feel a little too uncomfortable. Not to mention Sakura, who was known to be capable of destroying mountains with a single finger, was actually quite petite in size as opposed to the buff and tall woman he had pictured in his head.
Daisuke carefully pulled out his tape recorder and switched it on, setting it gently on the crystal coffee table in front of him. He took a deep breath, reading over his general notes for the interview. The central focus for his column this week was the history of the Legendary Team 7- the public already had an idea of what they were capable of now, but they craved for information on what had shaped them into who they were today.
"So," he finally started, deciding to initiate the interview with one of the basic questions. "People want to know - how did it all begin?"
There was a strange silence between the four.
"Well," Sakura started slowly, looking thoughtful. "At the beginning it was just Sasuke-kun, Naruto and me. We were all in the same class at the Academy you see, and it was pure chance that Iruka-sensei placed us into a team together."
"Yeah, I don't know what the hell the old man was thinking!" Naruto added loudly. "I mean Sasuke-teme and I absolutely hated each other's guts. Putting us in a team together at the time was the worst idea ever-though I guess it turned out to be okay in the end, 'cause we're all really good friends now."
"Maybe Iruka-sensei put us in a team together because he knew that it would turn out to be okay, Naruto," Sakura dryly commented, and the blonde immediately shut his mouth. "Anyways," she continued, shooting Daisuke another one of her dashing smiles. "Kakashi-sensei was assigned to look over our team, and you could say that it all kind of started there."
"They were the most uncooperative little brats that I'd never met in my life,” a new friendly voice added, and the five people in the room whirled around to face the newest addition to the conversation.
Hatake Kakashi was calmly seated on the open windowsill, nearly giving Daisuke a heart attack. Were all ninja so stealthy?
"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura cried out, looking mortified. "This is an interview for the front page! You can't say things like that!"
"Why not?" Sai chimed in, tilting his head to the side in curiosity. "Lying to people is bad, isn't it?"
Sakura let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm not telling him to lie, Sai. What I'm saying is that we should be careful with what we say, especially when we're getting interviewed by the biggest newspaper in Konoha. Do you really want people who respect us to read about how we were uncooperative little brats?"
Sai looked thoughtful for a moment, before shrugging his shoulders. Sakura looked like she was about to say something that wasn't so polite, before shaking her head and settling back into her seat between Naruto and Sasuke, a little more glumly than before.
"Ah, Kakashi-san," Daisuke nervously said, feeling suddenly extremely intimidated by the sudden presence in the room. "Why don't you take a seat on the couch along with your students?"
Kakashi's only visible eye crinkled, signaling a smile under his mysterious mask. "Thank you Daisuke-san, but I quite like where I am right now."
Daisuke nodded, not understanding at all. He turned back to the four shinobi seated on the couch, who were visibly more tense than before.
"Tell me a little about each of your backgrounds," Daisuke decided to continue with his interview, hoping to end this meeting as quickly as possible. He was beginning to realize why he had been offered so much to do this interview; there was no one else who was crazy enough to do so. "How did your backgrounds shape you into who you are today?"
The air became noticeably heavier.
"Erm," Sakura spoke up again, looking like she was trying extremely hard to come up with a suitable answer. "I come from a perfectly normal civilian family. My father is a merchant and my mother is a housewife- I'm actually the first person to become a kunoichi in my family. They weren't too approving at first of course, but I think that's only helped me become as strong as I am today. I had to train without the encouragement of my parents, and even if it doesn't sound like much it really means the world when you're a child." She shot a nervous glance at the rest of her teammates. "And as for them-"
"Traitor-kun is the only survivor of the Uchiha Massacre," Sai amiably continued for her. "His brother slaughtered his entire clan and Traitor-kun spent the rest of his teenage years seeking revenge against his only living family member. When he did, he found out that his brother didn't kill his family out of bloodlust but because of Konoha, but by then it was too late and-"
"That's enough Sai," Sakura cut him off, and Daisuke nervously noticed that Sasuke's hand had twitched several times over the course of the ink-master's discussion. "I don't think you should be the one talking about Sasuke-kun's family background. He'll talk about it when he's comfortable doing so."
"Uh, that's fine, we can just skip over to the next question," Daisuke quickly said, catching on to the fact that family background wasn't exactly an ice-breaker subject for any of the members of Team 7. He quickly looked down at his paper, scanning over the rest of his notes. "Tell me about your chuunin exams; your first big step into the ninja world as a team."
Sakura's expression immediately darkened, making Daisuke's manhood slightly shrink. She had appeared to be the only normal member of the team, but he was quickly beginning to realize that none of them were sane at all, and that scared him very, very much.
Naruto, on the other hand, seemed all too eager to share. "We were the best team ever!" he exclaimed, flailing his arms around in an exaggerated manner. "We were totally kicking everyone's asses, it was a total piece of cake! We were sent to the Forest of Death and we were looking for the remaining scroll when-"
"Naruto, we aren't allowed to talk about the details of that part of the Chuunin exams," Sakura interrupted him tensely.
"Oh, right." The blonde looked a little disappointed as his shoulders dropped. "Well we ran into a little bit of trouble but in the end, I think it brought us closer together as a team."
"Really?" Sai inquired. "Wasn't that when Traitor-kun first came into contact with Orochimaru, triggering him to abandon the village a short time later?"
"Sai, shut up."
Daisuke was not liking the way this interview was coming along, not at all. He quickly turned towards the gray haired man still sitting at the window, hoping to change the subject.
"Kakashi-san, were you proud of your pupils as their teacher?" he asked rapidly, hoping to distract the pink haired girl who was staring at Sai with an extremely unpleasant look on her face.
Kakashi looked up from his inappropriate book for a second, with a thoughtful face; he seemingly did not notice the look of horror on Daisuke's face when the journalist realized what the man was reading in public. "Not really," he finally answered with another kind crinkle of the eye. "None of them passed, and they were all being complete brats about it."
"Kakashi-sensei!"
"Not you Sakura-chan. You did well."
"After that, Traitor-kun left Konoha and became a missing-nin," Sai continued nonchalantly. "I heard Hag begged him to stay but he completely ignored her love confession and knocked her out, leaving her on a bench in the middle of the night."
Sasuke and Sakura both visibly stiffened at his words.
"Sai," Sakura snarled in a low, threatening voice. "How many times do I have to tell you that anything we say here is going on the front page of the newspaper?"
The said man promptly shut up, not at her words but at the twitch of her first.
"Anyways, tell me how your team came to earn the nickname of the second generation of the Legendary Sannin," Daisuke continued. He was no longer worried about conducting a good interview; all he wanted to do was to get the hell out of this room as quickly as possible.
"Well, Sasuke-teme left Konoha to go train with Orochimaru," Naruto answered, rubbing his chin. "After he left, of course I had to train in order to drag his sorry ass back, so I left to train with Ero-sennin for two years. Sakura-chan was the only one who stayed in Konoha, but she started training under Baa-chan." He paused for a moment. "We didn't really plan it or anything, but I guess it just sorta happened."
Daisuke nodded understandingly, relieved at having reached a subject that wasn't paper thin for the team. "And would you say you improved your skills the most during those two years?"
"You bet!" Naruto exclaimed with a large grin. "Especially Sakura-chan, you should've seen how much she changed after those two years! I think she was the one who changed the most during that time- I mean you should totally see what she can do with a single punch on the battlefield." He stopped, bright cerulean eyes looking thoughtful. "Actually, nevermind. There wouldn't be a battlefield left to look at."
For some reason, Daisuke didn't really want to see what the petite girl could do with a single punch.
"And I understand that Sai joined you after the two year break?"
Sai was all too happy to elaborate. "I worked in the Root division under Danzou before joining Team 7," he answered, with completely honest (along with his creepy fake smile). "I was trained to let go of all my emotions, and according to Hag, that's the reason for my lack of social abilities. I was sent to replace Traitor-kun on Team 7 by Danzou; my main mission was to betray them and offer Danzou's alliance to Orochimaru for the destruction of Konoha, but Naruto's loyalty to the traitor made me change my mind."
There was an awkward silence.
"Right," Daisuke curtly said, at a complete loss for words. He cleared his thoughts for a moment, before quickly changing the subject. "And so tell me how Team 7 finally became complete," he directed the question towards the Uchiha, who had remained quiet throughout the entire thing. "I understand you've been back for almost a year now."
"It's going to be a year next week!" Naruto beamed, as Sasuke showed no signs of wanting to answer the question. "Well the teme was being a stubborn bastard as always. He kept on avoiding us and he even tried to kill us more than once, can you believe it?" His bright blue eyes shone with disbelief. "There was a point when he wanted to destroy the village as well, but I was able to beat some sense into him. Then he agreed to come back peacefully and we were able to sort things out with Baa-chan and the council. he got a pretty light sentence and got to bring his clan to justice, so you could say it was a happy ending dattebayo!"
The expression on Sasuke's face seemed to indicated that he wasn't too happy, but Daisuke wasn't going to point that out. He wondered how the hell he was going to rephrase that in order to make it printable for the front page; he was quite sure that Konoha's population wouldn't appreciate hearing about how Uchiha Sasuke had once planned on destroying the village.
"So tell me about how your relationship has developed over the years," Daisuke continued, dreading to say the next part out loud; his boss had insisted on this question, saying that most of their readers would be extremely interested in a little bit of juicy gossip. "It's a known fact that you had quite the love triangle going on during your genin days, but tell me how it has developed now that you've grown up."
Sakura narrowed her eyes. "I thought this interview was going to be about our history as ninjas."
"Of course," Daisuke quickly answered, sweating as he wondered how he could feel so threatened by such a tiny woman. "People want to know about your relationship because they want to know how you developed your dynamics as a team."
"Go figure," Sakura snorted, looking unamused. "I guess people like Ino-pig would be dying to read about gossip like this."
"Don't mind her," Sai politely said. "Hag is just bitter because she doesn't want to talk about her failed attempt at seducing Traitor-kun."
Sakura turned bright red. "That's not true!" she quickly retorted, whirling around to look at Daisuke with a horrified expression on her face. "I never tried to seduce Sasuke-kun and that's all in the past, so don't pay attention to anything he has to say."
"Many women in Konoha are jealous of your standing as the only female member of Team 7. Are you in a relationship with any of your teammates?"
"O-of course not!" Sakura spluttered. "Even though we don't seem like it right now, we're a highly professional ninja team. I would never put our teamwork to risk by dating any of my teammates. Though things may have been a little hectic in the past, they're all brothers to me now."
Sai cocked his head to the side. "Didn't we go on a date once, Hag?"
At that moment, something extremely peculiar happened. Naruto snapped his head towards the pink haired girl with wide eyes, but this was not the part that caught Daisuke's attention. It was the way Sasuke's eyes ever so slightly looked over towards their only female member; it was the first time Daisuke was seeing any sort of response on behalf of the Uchiha.
This could be interesting.
"Sai, just because two people go out for dinner doesn't mean it's a date," Sakura hotly replied. "I go out to eat Ichiraku with Naruto all the time, but it doesn't mean that we're dating now, does it?"
"I understand," Sai answered seriously with a nod. "So in what way can I turn a dinner appointment into a date?"
There was another moment of silence.
"This is completely stupid," Sasuke finally muttered, speaking for the first time since he had entered the room. "I'm not wasting any more of my time with these idiots."
"But we're getting interviewed for the Konoha Times!" Naruto argued. "Don't you want to become famous?"
"I could care less about being famous," Sasuke snapped back, starting to get to his feet.
"You're both going to sit here until this interview is over," Sakura snarled with a pointed glare. Both boys obediently shut their mouths and sat back down, looking away. "Anyways Daisuke-san," she continued a pleasant smile taking over her features again. "I assure you that whatever love triangles we had in the past are completely over. Naruto here is happily dating Hinata-chan, the Hyuuga heiress. As for our other members, Kakashi-sensei is too old to date and will probably die as a lonely old man. Sai is too socially retarded and is basically the anti-sex when he opens his mouth, so he'll probably die alone too. Sasuke-kun also seems to be apathetic to both the female and male sex so he'll probably be alone for the rest of his life."
There was another stunned silence.
"Sasuke-san, you're the only remaining member of the Uchiha clan. Do you have any plans on reviving your clan in the future?"
Sasuke glared at him, and for a moment Daisuke swore he saw a flash of red. He wasn't sure of what it was or if it was even real, but he felt extremely, extremely disturbed.
"It's none of your business," the Uchiha muttered, looking away again.
"Well, I guess we can put an end to this interview," Daisuke quickly said, gathering his things. "Thank you again for your time." He technically had a couple more questions to ask, but he couldn't care less anymore. He didn't even mind if he didn't get front page and if his pay raise and bonus were cancelled; he was scared for his life.
One by one, the members of Team 7 got up and started to exit the room, with Sakura, Naruto and Sai politely saying their goodbyes. Kakashi had already disappeared without a word before they had even stepped out of the room, and Sasuke didn't even spare a glance at the journalist who was sweating buckets now.
As soon as the door shut closed behind them, Daisuke immediately let out a sigh of relief. He was glad that he was a civilian and not a shinobi; he was never getting mixed up with ninjas again if that was what all of them were like. He had barely spent a little more than half an hour with these people, yet he had already deduced that they were very clearly insane.
"-n't you think it's a little hypocritical?"
"Huh?"
There were two voices coming from the hallway; Daisuke immediately recognized them as Sakura and Sasuke. Their other two teammates seemed to have left already. The journalist made a mental note to tell his boss about these paper thin walls, every single word could be clearly heard.
"You don't want to be in a relationship with any of your teammates because it would disrupt our teamwork? You were singing quite a different tune awhile back.”
Sasuke sounded extremely skeptical; Daisuke listened in awe as he heard the longest sentence the Uchiha had spoken throughout the entire day.
There was an exasperated sigh.
"Sasuke-kun, that was when we were genins."
"You clearly said you loved me when you were trying to bring me back, and that was less than two years ago."
"I was naive, alright? Can't we put all of this in the past? I mean-"
"Dinner."
"... what?"
"Let's have dinner."
"Uh, okay?"
"And don't even think about comparing this dinner to the one you had with Sai."
"... Sasuke-kun, is this your way of asking me out on a date?"
"..."
"You know, there are nicer ways you could ask."
"Just follow me before I change my mind."
The conversation ended, their footsteps rapidly fading away.
Daisuke sighed. The interview had turned out to be a huge disaster, and sure he still had extremely juicy gossip on the couple but his recorder had been off; if the two denied what he printed, there would be no way to prove it.
“I think you and I can make each other both very happy.”
He whirled around to see the silver haired man sitting on the couch, trademark eye wrinkle in place. Kakashi gingerly held up a picture of what seemed to be a younger version of Naruto and Sasuke... kissing?
“I'm willing to sell this to you if the price is right,” he happily chirped.
Daisuke grinned; he was definitely getting his promotion.