"Overall," a young man's voice spoke, "they were pretty good. Miura is especially clever, they developed the plan the kids eventually used against me."
"Oh yeah?" Minato inquired, "How'd that go against our young tempest?"
"Oh my god, Minato," Kannin said with a chuckle, "you have to stop that. I never chose that name you know!"
"Oh, but Iwa and Kumo are so good at giving nicknames, don't you think?" Minato said between laughs.
"It's just not fair, Minato" Kannin replied, "yours is much better than mine. I mean how pretentious is 'Konoha's Tempest' compared to 'Konoha's Yellow Flash'? But back to the real question," Kannin continued, "their plan was rather thin and haphazard by my standards, but for kids right out of the academy, it was rather ingenious. Simple transformation jutsu and clones, some earth digging, and a little distraction for a three-pronged attack against an immobile enemy."
"Not bad," Minato said with an impressed look on his face, "How do you think they'll fare on missions?"
"I think I'm going to do a bit of training with them to get them up to speed before going on any missions," Kannin confessed, "but they're probably some of the better graduates this year, yeah?"
"Yeah," Minato huffed, "they're good, but between you and me, this years graduates were a bit of a dud in the brains department, but they're tenacious, which makes up for it in my mind."
"I gathered," Kannin replied, "Personally I'm excited for when that Uchiha kid enters the academy, he's a real brainiac."
"Itachi? That one?" Minato questioned absentmindedly,
"Yeah, Itachi," Kannin chuckled, "I caught him a few weeks ago training in the Uchiha compound. The kid has better shuriken skills than my team does combined, and he's what, four years old?"
"My goodness, Kannin," Minato said, almost with exasperation, "what was he doing?"
"I saw him use kunai deflections and fire-shurikenjutsu, if you'd believe that."
"Man," Minato sighed, "and I thought I was a genius"
"Don't sell yourself short, honey" Kushina said as she brought over the large pot of soup from the stove, "We all thought you were a genius too. What fools does that make us?"
Completely distracted by the possibility of food, Kannin looked over at Kushina and asked, "Ooh, what did you make?"
"It's soup!" Kushina proclaimed with a big smile plastered on her face, "Deer soup."
Now, Kannin was a terrible sensor-nin, but he swore he felt Minato's spirit dampen palpably when Kushina said soup. He looked over at the Hokage and saw him obviously forcing a smile for his wife's 'food,' and he pitied the man a little, but Kannin wasn't really worried. There were a number of weeks on the front with Kumo where he got by just on soldier pills, the taste of which still lingered on his tongue. Soldier pills seemed to be scientifically engineered to be the worst-tasting material known to man. It was bitter, salty, and reeked of rotten fish--so whatever Kushina had made couldn't be worse.
Kushina poured everyone a portion and sat down
"Let's eat!" she exclaimed with glee
Kannin put spoon to broth and took a sip.
He almost threw up instantly. In fact he did choke a little.
'Unbelievable,' the Uzumaki thought, 'I found something worse than soldier pills.'
The taste was...mysterious. The deer added a certain rottenness to the flavor, which was enhanced by what must have been pounds of salt and a whole host of burnt spices, which even in their base form would've clashed, but now even more so.
'They should hire her to make poisons for the war,' Kannin thought cynically, 'Not even Chiyo could defend against this sort of bioweaponry...'
He glanced at Minato across the table, and saw the mighty fourth Hokage choking down spoonfuls of this concoction. Kannin made a silent prayer for them both, and he too began forcing down the soup sip by sip.
-
Dinner with the Hokage couple was nice. Minato had invited Kannin over to congratulate him on his first day with his team. He eagerly asked all sorts of questions about their jutsus, demeanor, age, appearance, what missions they were going on, etc. Kannin thought his excitement might be due to something like cabin fever; the Hokage can't really go on missions that much after all. He especially understood that Minato missed his own team. Each time Kannin mentioned one of his students, he could tell that Minato was trying to match them to his own kids back then. Miura was obviously Kakashi, Ozu was Obito, and Araki was Rin.
As the night went on, it seemed like Minato's analogy had backfired. The more they talked about Kannin's team, the more Minato's spirit dampened, as he came back to the reality of what had happened to his team. Kannin decided to put it aside for the time being; Minato was his friend, and he didn't want to cause the young Hokage any more distress than usual.
What surprised Kannin was the end of the night when the couple told him that Kushina was pregnant. Kannin knew that it was bound to happen around this time from his memory of the series, but it still took him by surprise. While he congratulated the two with a smile and well-wishes, inwardly he began to think rather quickly.
'This officially puts us on a clock,' he mused while walking home after leaving the two to their business, 'I don't recall the exact date of Naruto's birth, but I do know that Jinchuuriki pregnancies last 10 months on average rather than 9, which should put it either in late September or October. I have a little over nine months to prepare, which isn't a lot. With my team on missions, and my natural plateau in learning ability now that I'm getting older, I won't be able to master Flying Raijin in time. It's still my most valuable asset to learn though, I certainly won't be able to learn Sage Mode or my Kekkei Tota in time. '
Kannin sighed thinking about all this as he walked back to his apartment, and his breath created a foggy burst of air visible in the faint moonlight. He took the moment to look at the moon itself and really take in its features--the dusty white color, the pock-marked surface, and the unforgiving and yet gentle light it shone on Konoha.
"I think I'll have to split myself again," he muttered out loud, "I'll have to thank Nidaime if I ever meet his resurrected form for creating the Shadow Clone Jutsu. I'll have one go on missions with the kids, one work on Flying Raijin, and two work on Sage Mode."
After kicking a rock off the sidewalk, he stopped speaking to himself and hurried home. It was nice and warm inside.
-
The next morning Kannin did something he should have done a long time ago, had the war not interrupted his life so drastically: he got a copy of the Bingo Book, so that he could read up on the missing-nin and notable shinobi active currently, and a list of mission postings to choose from.
Kannin himself was probably an A Rank shinobi, give or take. Even though his arsenal was formidable, there were still a number of weaknesses in his toolkit, most of which happened to do with his sustainability. After dividing himself into 4 his power would also take a substantial hit purely on his chakra output. He needed to choose missions that were both stimulating and educational for the kids, but also without the risk of escalating to something beyond his ability to handle on his own. His experience in Uzushiogakure came to mind, and whether or not he would be able to handle such a twist in mission parameters.
The D Rank missions were rather quaint. There was a cat which needed to be caught and returned to its owner, there were also a couple of pest control missions which didn't appetize Kannin much.
While Kannin was a bit disappointed that he couldn't jump into the action right away, he knew small missions like these were what built up the fundamental skills of shinobi: hunting, capture, stealth, and so on. He decided to pick a handful of these missions for the kids to go on in the next few weeks just to get them used to working together and hone their minds.