(Flashback chapter)
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- "Kakashi niisan, will you please make me your apprentice?"

A nine year old Inochi pleaded to Kakashi with all the courage she could muster. She remembered quite clearly how she ignored Kakashi's offer to teach her for the chunin exams when she was just promoted to genin. Not long after that did she realise that she actually needed guidance over tricks and that only learning new jutsus won't cut it.

-"Oh my, what did I just hear? Is that the great Inochi Nohara begging me to be her sensei?" Kakashi spared Inochi no conscience. He loved breaking the "know it all" facade of Inochi. "I am such a hypocrite" Kakashi chuckled as he reminisced how he himself used to be like that.

Inochi said nothing in return. She felt humiliated but also dumb at the same time. Seeing her like that Kakashi sighed and patted her head,

- "I am letting you off the hook only this time. Its good that you realised before it was too late". "Anyways, let"s start tomorrow, 5 am. You still have to report for genin missions"

-"Thank you so much oniisan!" Inochi's eyes lit up. She knew that Kakashi would eventually take her under his wing but she did not believe that it would be this easy to persuade him. " Rin-neesan would have been so happy to see us get together so well". 

Kakashi and Inochi weren't this close before. To be honest, Inochi hated Kakashi. But she still had to see him a lot of times as he was her sister's team-mate.

-"ahh you think Rin would be happy? I bet she would be surprised to see you beg in front of me" Kakashi let out a chuckle.

Rin always tried to persuade Inochi to be more friendly with Kakashi. Instead Inochi became even more restless when she found out Obito, who she had a preference for, hated Kakashi too. 

-"Maybe. But I am completely sure that Obito niisan would be crying right now" Inochi laughed while imagining how Obito's crying face would look like. Kakashi nodded in agreement. Almost everytime they talked, Rin's and Obito's names were mentioned. Both of them, who started to bond over their loss, couldn't spend a week reminiscing about their lost loved ones. They were inseparable now. Both agreed just after the nine tail's attack that the other was the only one left who could understand each other's pain and thus confided in everything. They both swore to themselves to protect the other from whatever may come in the future. 

-" Inochi its time for your reporting" Kakashi broke the silence. "Just come tomorrow at 5 am for training".

-"Ok" Inochi was too lost in thoughts to say anything more.

Inochi completed her genin mission with her team and returned to her apartment, which she only got a few months ago before adopting Naruto. Taking responsibility for a four year old jinchuriki was not an easy task, but Inochi still agreed to it as she did not want to live alone in her new apartment.

- "So, did something interesting happen today?" Naruto asked while eating ramen as dinner. Most of the days when Inochi would come back late, Naruto would make instant ramen for dinner. Inochi would always leave packed food for him but he would still go for ramen which he had announced to Inochi , the day he started living under her roof,  as his favourite food.

-"How did you even learn the word 'interesting'?" Inochi said as she continued unfolding the futon.

-"You always said 'interesting' while looking at the mission reports that you sneaked into the house. So I finally decided to look up the word in the dictionary. It was pretty hard to find it, but I atlast did it"

-"Wait what!?" Inochi was visibly shocked. She came closer to Naruto and whispered "How did you know they were mission reports?"

-"Haha, I overheard you and your team-mate's conversation the other day when you two were planning to sneak out the mission reports." Naruto said proudly.

-"Wow. It's great that you were able to eavesdrop without either of us finding out but it is still wrong.  Naruto, eavesdropping is never okay. Just for that, I won't be narrating any missions to you today."

Naruto continued whining but Inochi was deep into thought. Basically, she was surprised. Firstly that her four year old brother looked up a dictionary and found the meaning of a word correctly. And second, he was able to eavesdrop perfectly, something that even chunnins aren't able to, especially not against sharingan bearers.

Inochi had been making Naruto follow a strict training schedule from just after a month she took him in. More than ninjutsus, she was training him in basic taijutsu. She wanted him to be strong enough to defend himself from the villagers just in case she passed chunnin exams in the first try and was given long term missions that would require Naruto to live by himself. She also taught him basic survival skills which would be enough for him to live by himself.

She was never stern with Naruto. He closely resembled both of his parents ,Minato and Kushina, who died during the nine tail's attack. Both of them were pretty close to Inochi but they became even special when they took in her and Rin after their parents were killed in a fight. Even though the time spent with them was a mere year, Inochi still vividly remembered the warmth both of them had and wanted to share that with Naruto. 

The next morning, Inochi was standing near Kakashi's bed clearly fuming. Out of excitement she headed out at 4:45 am and its been half an hour but Kakashi was still out cold with his porno book over his face. It was clear that he was reading that book till late and forgot about what he and Inochi talked about yesterday.

Inochi started tapping on the nightstand. She wanted to see how many taps it would take to wake Kakashi.

Tap....tap.....tap.... No response.
Tap..tap..tap..tap.. No response still.
Tap.tap.tap.tap.tap.tap.tap.... still no response.

Inochi got annoyed herself and banged on the nightstand. Kakashi finally woke up to the loud noise but disappeared in smoke.

"Ahh SHIT". Inochi realised her mistake and turned back to realise that Kakashi was already standing there, completely ready, with a kunai in his hand pointing at her neck.

- "First lesson today, don't ever underestimate the opposite person, whether it be an opponent or a team mate."

This was her first time training under Kakashi and she realised just on the first day that he wasn't as lazy as he seemed.

- "Its good you are dedicated to this position." Inochi was annoyed at this early morning "lesson". Clearly her excitement faded out by then and she was already feeling sleepy.

-"Hey! call me sensei from now on. And I know you are not a morning person, but you have to let go of that attitude if you want me to continue teaching you." Kakashi mocked Inochi. He knew more than a scolding, it was spite that riled up Inochi the most. Soon Inochi gave in to his negotiations and agreed to call him Kakashi sensei.

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Kakashi trained her for few months till her chuunin exams. Besides her, Itachi was the only one among the current genins who were allowed to take the exam, although his was a few days ago. She had a tough time but nevertheless passed the exams with flying colours.

Inochi and Kakashi went out to Ichiraku the day after to celebrate her graduation where they heard a familiar voice

-"Inochi-chan. How do you do? I couldn't congratulate you before but congrats on passing the chuuninn exams." Shisui Uchiha approached Inochi and went in for a high five.

-"Oh good morning Shisui-san. Thank you for helping me back then." Shisui was one of the moderators of the chuunin exams. He helped Inochi in a simple task and from there Inochi started becoming familiar to Shisui.

-" Oh so you must be Shisui Uchiha. Inochi kept talking about you since the chuunin exams ended." Kakashi chimed in.

It was a weird time in Konoha. the hidden leaf was full of child progidies but none of them had correct guidance. Itachi, Shisui and Kakashi, all of them pretty much trained themselves which was also the reason for the lack of data on them. The only data the village stored was solely based on the missions completed by them, which did not serve much as these three were seldom given individual missions.  

However one of the leaf officials had a keen eye on these child progidies; Shimura Danzo. It was clear that he only chose the best of the best, which made him pretty untouchable in the hidden leaf. This is why, even after quite a few mistakes, the Hokage never reprimanded him. 

- "And you must be Hatake Kakashi." Shisui wasn't yet recruited in the ANBU but Kakashi did overhear Danzo talking about him. It piqued Kakashi"s interest and thus he started monitoring Shisui from then on, till he got the offer from Danzo.

Inochi never had any idea about the ANBU. She was sometimes confused seeing Kakashi wearing a different uniform than the jounin level, but never questioned it. She wasn't always like this. As a child she was always curious, asking even the smallest of questions that she found interesting. Many times she followed genin teams to observe what their missions looked like. Following someone stealthily came naturally to her. But this skill soon opened a path to her biggest nightmare. 

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(Note: Inochi is 10, Kakashi is 17 and Shisui is 13 in this flashback chapter during her chunin exams)

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