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When Kakashi made his statement about those who abandoned their teammates were worse than scum, Naruto immediately rewrote his world view. His jounin-sensei was saying that his team was the most important thing to him and he was allowed to do anything to stay together.
Sakura nodded along, glad she had found a sensei who agreed with her views.
Sasuke looked at Sakura and Naruto and tried to ignore the sense of foreboding at the complete acceptance on their faces.
**
Haku was the first. He had only wanted to talk with his enemy, though if Zabuza asked, he wouldn't have been able to say why. Finding out his enemy had their own precious people to protect would only make the killing of them worse. Haku could not avoid killing his enemy, not if Zabuza wished it, but he could psychologically flay himself in his misplaced guilt.
"And what would you do to protect your precious people?" he asked the boy in front of him. He was blond and had a bright smile, one which almost hurt to look at.
"Well, they're my team so they're the most important thing. I would die to protect them." His words were innocent and naive and his tone stayed light, even with what he said next. "I would kill to protect them too. If any of my enemies succeeded in taking my teammates away from me, I would not stop until I hunted them down to the ends of the Earth and taken away their precious people one by one. And then I would kill them by gouging out their eyes and slicing them open until their guts fell on the floor."
The smile remained the same but Haku's creeping sense of dread made it appear even creepier.
"Ah, don't worry, Miss!" The boy hastened to reassure Haku. "I would only do this to people who hurt my team. You're perfectly safe from me."
Haku died on the bridge a few days later, quick and easy. His last thought was that he was glad he had gone to his death protecting Zabuza and wondered if the boy with the bright grin would ever do the same for his precious people.
There was the small thought that was glad his death was so quick and he hadn't suffered under the boy's hands.
**
Gaara was the second. He had no concept of team and the only person he had counted as family had tried to kill him, while at the same time as admitting that he lied about everything. But then he saw the pink-haired girl's look at him when he enquired after the Uchiha's name. His mother sat up and noticed too.
What was it? He asked his mother, hoping she would be in an explaining kind of mood rather than a bloodthirsty one. He was more than happy to prove his existence, but right now he wanted answers.
That is a warning, his mother said quietly. She sounded intrigued. That is a gaze of someone who knows exactly what it's like to kill in defense of what's theirs.
Gaara didn't understand, he rarely did when his mother talked about something outside of killing or blood, but he followed the pink-haired girl until she disappeared in front of his eyes. And then she was right in front of him, slipping past his sand armour. He put his hand up to enclose her in his sand coffin but halted, for once admitting to himself that he wanted something more than killing.
"What's your name?"
"Haruno Sakura," the girl answered. "And you are Gaara of the Sand. Why are you following me?"
"I want to know... why you looked at me like that earlier." The words were forced out past a dry throat, something which he hadn't experienced since he left Suna's dry climate and come to this wet and green place.
"Because I saw the way you looked at Sasuke. You wanted to take him from me." The girl's, Sakura's, voice was soft but Gaara had heard enough threats in his time to recognise it for what it was. "He's mine and if you try to hurt him, if you try to take him, I will hurt you."
The sand rose up then and crashed down on Sakura, but she was gone as if she had never been. Clone or genjutsu, Gaara wasn't sure, but she wasn't there now.
His mother was quiet in his head and he headed back down to where his own team were sleeping. Temari and Kankuro would not welcome his presence, they would look at him with those awful eyes, but he knew them. They were predictable, to some extent, and right now he wanted the familiar.
He would kill that girl but not before taking her teammates from her.
**
Orochimaru was the third. He had tracked the young Uchiha boy into the Forest of Death, his heart pounding in his excitement. Soon, his plans would be put into place and he would be one step closer to the Sharingan. With his power and knowledge and the superior bloodline limit, he would be all powerful. The Uchiha's teammates were nothing special, the pink-haired girl kept coming at him with a kunai, as if that would do anything.
He might have been more on his guard if he had seen Hatake Kakashi handing that kunai to his female student with the warning, 'only for something you want to die a painful death'. Then again, he probably would have still underestimated them.
Sakura and Naruto had already identified each other as of the same mind and Sasuke had resigned himself to being part and parcel of team-family-mine to both of them. Their overprotectiveness didn't stop them from sparring with him until he could almost see his improvement, so he let it slide. And when the three of them went up against the Grass nin, he had fought until he was exhausted and had almost missed the head stretching out on an impossibly long neck, aiming for his throat.
At least until Sakura stabbed a kunai into the face of it. The woman screamed and her skin, for lack of a better word, melted.
Naruto, hundreds of Narutos, bared their teeth at the enemy nin. "He's our teammate." His voice was full of bloody promise. "Die."
Orochimaru, beyond rage at this point as his pain fed his humiliation, was still relatively smart. He could feel the injury getting worse by the second (what was on that kunai?) and he decided retreating to try another day was far more important than taking advantage of the opportunity. He mourned the loss of such a chance but there would be others, he was certain of that.
The clones followed him.
**
Itachi was going to be the fourth but he, after hearing some strange rumours about Orochimaru missing a face, had done his research. Sasuke's teammates sounded far more unbalanced than Itachi would like but they seemed almost fanatically devoted to keeping Sasuke alive so what could he do but approve?
In gratitude, he didn't put their sensei in a coma. It meant he received a troublesome stab wound to the thigh, but when he crept back into the village later than night, he found Sasuke and his teammates had taken over Kakashi's apartment, curled up like dogs on their sensei's bed. Kakashi slept the sleep of the injured, Itachi hadn't let him get away with the stabbing, but one of his ninken raised their head so Itachi didn't dare get closer.
His little brother was safe. Itachi would work to safeguard his home from outside threats and he would trust in Sasuke's teammates to do the same for internal ones.
Although, maybe Kakashi needed a few hints to keep his guard up even in the village.
**
Sasuke knew his team were strange.
Sakura liked to talk to herself about things more disturbing than Sasuke's nightmares (and that was saying a lot) as she sharpened her kunai. One special weapon, the same one she had plunged into Orochimaru's face, she handled with loving attention. When she caught him watching her, she would give him what passed for a smile and he would be able to fool himself into thinking she was a normal girl just for a second.
She liked to stroke her fingers through his hair when she thought he was asleep and he let her. He told himself that this was probably the most normal thing about her and he wanted to encourage it, but mostly he had vague memories of his mother doing this when he was very small. It was comforting and when he fell asleep to it, he didn't dream.
Naruto became almost feral at times. Sasuke would think he was part Inuzuka if it wasn't for the red eyes that came with it. Naruto would lose his voice and become almost territorial of his teammates. Sakura allowed it with a smile and Sasuke followed her lead. He watched and he listened and he kept Naruto's changes to himself.
When Naruto could speak, he was Sasuke's rival. Always willing for a spar, always willing to improve right along with Sasuke. And when they weren't training, Naruto got Sasuke cheerful little gifts. The little frog clock, the duck figurine which had made Naruto laugh hysterically when he had given it to Sasuke, the blanket that was softer than anything Sasuke could hope to buy. He acted as if he resented the gifts but slowly they started to clutter up his apartment so everywhere he went, he was reminded of his team.
Kakashi was their sensei. Powerful, lazy and more than a little weird. Still, when compared to Sasuke's teammates, he was used to think Kakashi was delightfully normal. At least, until he realised that Kakashi knew about Naruto and Sakura's weird behaviour and not only allowed it, but encouraged it.
"You're just as weird as they are, you know," Sasuke told Kakashi one day. Naruto and Sakura were sparring on the water, helping to build up their chakra control. Naruto had the greater chakra reserves but every time he lost concentration, he would plunge into the water, leaving Sakura to laugh every single time.
"Hmmm?" Kakashi turned another page of his book but Sasuke knew he was listening. The ninjutsu Kakashi was teaching him was designed to work as a fire stream, but also when put together with Naruto's wind jutsus, turned into a deadly firestorm. Sasuke couldn't wait to try it out.
"You know what they're like and you encourage them." Sasuke nodded his head at his teammates. Kakashi slowly raised his head to watch Naruto and Sakura chase each other around the river. They were supposed to be sparring, though it seemed to have turned into more of a game.
"I lost my team," Kakashi said. Four little words and Sasuke's understanding of his sensei shifted. Many things, many idiosyncrasies made sense now. "Obito, Rin, Minato-sensei. And then I was alone. Until I found three students, all of which know what it is to be alone and would do anything not to be that again. Naruto and Sakura do it slightly differently to how I would do it, or how you would do it, but they have the same goal in mind."
Sasuke looked at his sensei and nodded, not wanting to say anything else. When their training was finished and Sasuke was left with Sakura and Naruto, he watched Kakashi wander off. "Kakashi-sensei lost his team," Sasuke said quietly and his teammates froze. "All of them, including his sensei."
Sakura and Naruto's head turned slowly to look at where their sensei had disappeared. "He's ours," Sakura said quietly.
"Time to go and get him," Naruto echoed in that strange way the two of them had. For once, Sasuke was in complete agreement.