"This won't hold for more than a few days. They'll figure out soon enough that the Will of Fire's just a story I keep telling them."
Tonbo stood on a rooftop, watching his three genin comb the streets below for a missing cat.
They'd taken to the mission with real fire in their eyes, but he'd have put money on that lasting only so long — a few more days of grinding D-rank work, and they'd start to sour on it the way Naruto's own generation eventually had. Not that he wanted to run them ragged. It simply wasn't his choice yet. Missions from the Land of Fire and its neighbors had thinned out considerably since the Fourth's death, and only in the last year, with the Third steady again in the seat, had things started easing. There wasn't much available, and even less suited to a fresh team like his.
Well. He'd just have to keep them entertained with lessons in the meantime.
As their captain, he took a cut of whatever the team earned — thirty percent — so keeping them motivated wasn't purely charity. When their enthusiasm eventually flagged, he had a small stockpile of rewards ready to prop it back up.
Not that the thirty percent had anything to do with it, of course.
Still, easy work. Watch three genin chase a cat around Konoha, collect a modest cut for the trouble — practically a landlord's income, if landlords got to feel this smug about it.
Below, the search wasn't going well.
"Where in the Village did that cat get to?" Mibu Shinobu lifted a barrel and peered inside. Empty.
"There's no way a cat's hiding in there. Focus," Iruka said, more than a little tired of watching him check.
Their mission was to find an elderly noblewoman's cat, supposedly her companion for decades and prone to wandering off whenever the mood struck it. They'd been at it half the day, with nothing to show for it but a scattering of droppings on nearby rooftops and one badly startled pigeon. Iruka was starting to wonder if the animal existed at all, or if some bored client had simply invented an errand to keep three genin busy.
"Captain! You're sure this cat's actually real?" he called up.
Tonbo tapped his own temple. "Use what you learned at the Academy. Tracking skills don't disappear the day you graduate. If a cat gives you this much trouble, how are you going to manage against actual enemy shinobi?"
That landed harder than he'd expected. Top students, all three of them — the jab stung, and it showed. They dug back through every scrap of intelligence training they'd ever had, determined to prove him wrong.
Tonbo shook his head, mildly disappointed. After the training ground test, he'd hoped for more — their teamwork in a fight had clearly outstripped Naruto's generation at the same age. But it seemed only the combat side of their education had actually taken. Everything else lagged well behind.
He pulled out paper and pen and jotted down notes: strengths, weaknesses, a few ideas for where to push each of them next. Having taken the role of captain, he intended to do it properly — not the way Kakashi would one day coast through training Naruto and Sakura, teaching Sasuke little beyond Chidori and leaving the basics for later, according to the future Tonbo dimly remembered. He'd learned from that example, if only by contrast, and meant to do better by the three of them than that. A subordinate too obviously exceptional made his superiors nervous; one too obscure got overlooked entirely and left to stagnate. Somewhere in the middle ground between those two extremes was where a captain actually earned his keep, year after year, without ever drawing the wrong kind of attention.
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By afternoon, the three finally ran the cat down, piecing together its habits and the owner's scattered details with real ingenuity. They came back filthy, and pleased with themselves, and lined up in front of him expecting praise.
Tonbo sighed.
He'd briefly considered simply implanting the relevant memories in them and skipping the lesson entirely, but held off. Not everyone could carry borrowed memory the way he could; for most people it was only a burden. What a person earned through their own effort was the only thing that ever truly belonged to them.
The three watched his sigh and their smiles fell away.
"Did we do that badly, Captain?" Iruka asked, glancing at the sinking sun and running back through the day with growing embarrassment. Maybe they had been slower than they should've.
The other two looked equally deflated, having hoped for something closer to applause.
"No. You did well," Tonbo said, refusing to let the mood curdle further.
"Really?"
If anything, that answer left them more unsettled — they knew well enough, on reflection, whether they'd earned it.
"For a first cat hunt, the start was rough, but you pulled it together using what the Academy actually taught you. Mibu Shinobu's instincts, Iruka's analysis, Tessen Togekei's follow-through — all solid."
Tonbo gave them a thumbs-up. It didn't lift their spirits much.
"What's wrong now?"
"It just took us so long," Iruka said. "If we can't find a cat quickly, how are we supposed to track down actual enemy shinobi?"
Tonbo cuffed each of them lightly on the head. "It's your first mission, brats. Nobody expects you flying yet. You know Kakashi, the Copy Ninja?"
"The one who graduated at six?" the three asked in unison.
"That's him. First mission out of the Academy, he did the exact same job you just did."
Their eyes brightened.
"Cat included. Took him about as long as it took you. Which means you're right about where he was."
Their eyes brightened further.
"There's one thing he never managed that you three already have." Tonbo paused for effect.
He had no idea whether any of it was true, but a captain's job occasionally included a little creative license — and if he ever got caught, well, learning to spot a lie was also useful training. He pressed on.
"What's that?" Iruka asked, unable to wait.
"The Will of Fire. Kakashi took half a day because he did it alone — didn't trust his team, didn't lean on anyone. So whatever he had, it wasn't as strong as what the three of you already carry. Remember that. Working with your companions beats going it alone, every time."
That did it. Whatever fatigue had settled over them burned off instantly at the idea that a jōnin like Kakashi came up short against them in anything.
"How do you know so much about him, Captain?" Tessen Togekei asked.
"We were classmates. I know him better than most."
"How old are you, exactly?" Mibu Shinobu cut in, suddenly curious. The other two studied him properly for the first time, as if reconsidering.
They'd assumed he was older, given his height and his bearing, and his introduction back on the first day hadn't left much room for questions. Now the doubt had crept in.
"About two and a half years older than the three of you."
"So we should be calling you 'big brother'?"
"You'll call me Captain."
"Did you do D-rank work too, your first time out?"
"Not exactly. I was on a Third Shinobi World War battlefield within half a year of graduating, and I earned my keep there." Tonbo wagged a finger at them.
"Amazing," they murmured, thoroughly impressed.