To Be Lost On The Road To Life

Awareness

"There, all healed."

Obito grunted, rolling his shoulders and sighing in relief at the few pops the action incited. He turned to Rin with a grateful smile, and she beamed back.

"That was a good try, but you won't ever beat me at this rate, Obito." The Uchiha turned to Kakashi, who had the same impassive look as usual. "Just because you have your Sharingan, now, and you're somewhat stronger than you were before, that doesn't mean you can shirk on training. You're too slow, and your reaction time is awful."

The time-traveler rolled his eyes. It was difficult enough to forcefully slow himself down and hold back his reactions (which usually entailed killing his assailant) which was what he had been doing, but of course, Kakashi just had to add his "constructive criticism." And it wasn't helping, either.

Especially since Obito had this strange feeling that his teammate was actually weaker this time around than he had been previously... Of course, that could be attributed to the fact that Obito knew the extent of Kakashi's future strength and was subconsciously overlapping the two—and there was a rather obvious dichotomy there.

Part of him wanted to show his teammate his true strength if only to ensure that the Hatake was powerful enough for the Kannabi Bridge mission, but at the same time, he felt it was an unnecessary risk.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Kakashi-sensei."

Kakashi's face twisted at the new honorific. "... Ugh. Don't... Don't say that. It's really weird." Obito was about to call out to him again, if only to see the boy flustered further, but the silver-haired Chūnin turned to the side with a furrowed brow. "Speaking of which... This is strange. Where is Minato-sensei?"

Obito shrugged, not particularly worried, even though the blonde was almost half an hour late. "Not sure, but considering he's a Hokage candidate now, he's probably talking to Hokage-sama about some political stuff."

"Yeah, but," Rin began, looking towards the Hokage Tower. "... Sensei has always been good about letting us know whenever he thought he wasn't going to be here..."

"And that's something I would like to keep consistent after today, if I can help it."

Two of the three Chūnin yelped as they jumped back in surprise, while the third (convincingly) feigned shock. Minato smiled at the three of them as he waved a small hello in their direction.

"Good morning, you three." His eyes roamed their slightly dirtied clothes briefly as his grin widened. "I see you've taken the initiative to begin training. Well done."

"Hmph. We're Chūnin, we know not to waste valuable training time doing nothing," Kakashi stated matter-of-factly.

Minato nodded. "Of course. Now, I have some news for you three, but I'll have to be brief."

Rin's eyes widened. "Has... Has the next Hokage already been chosen?"

The blonde blinked a few times before chuckling amusedly. "Haha, no, not quite, Rin. I actually haven't gone to the Hokage Tower for my meeting yet—" Obito inwardly thought, 'knew it,' "—as I wanted to come let you guys know. I won't be able to supervise you guys today, so I've brought in a temporary substitute that has kindly volunteered to supervise your training for the day."

Obito had about a second after recognizing a rather familiar chakra signature at the edge of the clearing before it Shunshin'd before them, setting Kakashi on edge and startling Rin. The latter almost immediately broke into a huge smile.

"Tsunade-shishou!" The brunette cheered, and Obito turned to her so quickly he might've given himself whiplash. 'Shishou'? And exactly when had Tsunade become Rin's shishou? "You're our temporary teacher?"