“[Shinobi Fighting Lessons #2 Genjutsu]”
Kakashi looked at the unconscious Sakura and could only shake his head.
‘This one needs a lot of training before she can get useful. Let’s find Sasuke next and see what the “Last Uchiha” can do.’
After a few more minutes of walking, he reached a clearing and found Sasuke standing in the middle of it with both of his hands inside his weapon holsters. Kakashi quickly glanced around and found quite a few traps strewn all over the clearing.
‘Pretty good trap making skills. A normal chunin would probably have trouble finding all of them.’
“Sasuke-kun, it seems like Yuna bought you quite a bit of time to prepare.”
Sasuke glanced at Kakashi’s belt and sneered when he saw that there were still three bells on it.
“As expected, that idiot failed. No matter how much chakra she has, she will always be inferior to an Uchiha like me.”
Kakashi, of course, had already replaced the bell Yuna stole with a new one to trick his students.
“Well, for that to be true you would actually have to get a bell from me, no?”
Truth be told, Kakashi wasn’t worried about Sasuke stealing a bell from him. Yuna hid her true skills very well and launched her surprise attack at the perfect moment. With Sasuke’s personality, it is pretty much impossible that he had hidden any skills during his time at the academy, so Kakashi knew exactly what he was capable of. His skills were somewhere between genin and chunin, but considering he had almost no experience in real combat he was probably around high genin in strength.
Sasuke moved his hands and tossed Shuriken all over the clearing, activating multiple traps simultaneously. Seeing every shuriken flawlessly activate a trap, Kakashi nodded in approval.
‘As expected, Uchihas have always been pretty much peerless in the use of shuriken and Sasuke seems to have inherited that talent.’
Despite the massive amounts of weapons flying at him, Kakashi’s pose was still rather casual. Dozens of weapons hit him simultaneously, but the moment he hit the ground, his body turned into a wooden log.
‘Activating all of that was a waste, a single substitute, and all that effort is wasted.’
Sasuke, however, seems to have predicted that Kakashi would substitute himself and was already going through hand seals for his next move. He took a big breath and then exhaled a fireball towards Kakashi’s new position.
“[Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu]”
‘Well, this probably would have been more impressive, if I hadn’t fought that chakra monster called Yuna a few minutes ago.’
Kakashi went through his own hand seals and sank into the ground to dodge the fireball.
After his fireball faded, Sasuke started to look around for Kakashi, but couldn’t find him.
‘Where is he hiding, I don’t feel like I got him with that.’
Before Sasuke could think about the situation properly, two arms shot out of the ground grabbed his legs, and pulled him up to his neck into the ground.
“[Shinobi Fighting Lessons #3 Ninjutsu]”
“[Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu]”
“Well, that wasn’t too bad but still not enough.”
Before Sasuke could say anything, Kakashi left to find Naruto.
‘Maybe leaving him for last was a bad idea? Oh well, let’s see what he’s got.’
A few moments later, he reached another clearing, this time, with Naruto standing inside of it. To Kakashi’s surprise, he couldn’t detect a single trap.
‘He didn’t prepare any traps? No, that should be impossible, my instincts are telling me that something is off about the whole clearing.’
“Hello, Kakashi-sensei…”
Naruto stopped for a moment and glanced at Kakashi’s belt to check for bells.
“…did you take out a new bell after nee-san got one?”
Kakashi crossed eyes with Naruto for a moment and could only shake his head.
‘Absolute trust and not a single smidgen of doubt or jealousy, huh? Just how did these two turn out like that?’
Kakashi took off one of the bells and put it away in his pocket.
“Correct, she got one. However, she also told me that you are the one to figure out the purpose of the test, so why are you still going solo?”
Naruto could only give Kakashi a wry smile as an answer.
“Sasuke said that he doesn’t need help from someone like me, while Sakura only cared about Sasuke from the start. Sorry, Kakashi-sensei, but I have my own pride as well. I asked both of them for help and they both denied my request, so rather than disgrace myself by further asking, I might as well take things into my own hands.”
Kakashi nodded in agreement. Working together with people that don’t like you but are willing to cooperate, is a completely different matter from working together with people that don’t like you and don’t want to cooperate, either.
“Well, Kakashi-sensei, I wonder if you can keep a secret for me?”
Although he felt that question was rather weird, he decided to still answer truthfully.
“That depends on who you want me to keep this secret from.”
“Everyone except the Hokage.”
Kakashi ponders for a while and then agrees. As long as the Hokage is allowed to know about it, then it was fine.
“Alright, I agree, what is your sec…”
Kakashi stopped talking when he felt an oppressive chakra leak out of Naruto.
‘You have got to be joking.’
Kakashi really wanted to cry after he saw what happened in front of him. Naruto’s nails grew larger, his facial features more savage and his eyes turned red. A single tail of red chakra appeared while a cloak of red bubbling chakra covered his body.
“Hehe, Kakashi-sensei, what do you think about my secret? By the way, no need to worry about the chakra leaking and alarming the village. I spent the time nee-san bought me to put up a sealing array that prevents chakra leakage. So how about we have some fun?”
Seeing a rather familiar-looking grin on Naruto’s face, Kakashi could only resign to his fate.
‘Fourth, are you seeing this? Both your children are monsters. One more abnormal than the other.’
Naruto charged forward on his four limbs, jumped, and threw a powerful punch at Kakashi. Kakashi decided to dodge this one and since the ground around the impact point of the punch was obliterated, he concluded that this was a good decision. He quickly pulled down his headband to reveal his Sharingan and to his relief, he could see Naruto’s movement properly. Or that was at least what he thought, until the red chakra, cloaking Naruto, started to move independently from Naruto’s body without any prior indications.
After a few minutes of back and forth, Naruto stopped his assault and stood back up.
“Haha, what nee-san said is true, fighting a strong opponent is really fun.”
Kakashi really wanted to curse Yuna for installing that kind of idea into Naruto but could see it was already too late. Naruto was already too far gone.
“How about we kick it up a notch, Kakashi-sensei? Can’t have all my work go to waste, after all”
Kakashi didn’t even bother to pretend that he was in control of the situation when he answered.
“I would rather not.”
Unfortunately for him, Naruto didn’t care about his opinion and clapped his hands together to gather chakra.
“[Uzumaki Style: Absolute Control Sealing Array] activate!”
Kakashi’s eyes turned lifeless when he saw the massive number of seals that started shining all over the clearing.
‘I see, so I am still dreaming. I think right about now would be a rather good moment to wake up.’
Unfortunately, he didn’t wake up but instead saw a massive number of Kunai, Shuriken, and, for some reason, cakes being hurled at him. His Sharingan started spinning like crazy as he started to fend off the endless assault of weapons, pastry, and Naruto himself.
In a distant clearing, a clock rang an alarm, signaling that the test was over. Yuna was currently lazing around in said clearing, while happily munching on some dried fish. Recently she has started to enjoy this rather unusual snack, that was imported from the Land of Water. A few moments later, Sasuke and Sakura appeared in the clearing. Sasuke seems to be covered up to the neck in dirt like his whole body had been buried in it, while Sakura looked like she spent the last few hours with her face pushed into the grass.
‘What the hell did Kakashi do to these two?’
“Yo, did you enjoy yourself?”
Sakura was just about to explode into a rant when Kakashi came walking out of the jungle closely followed by Naruto. On the first look, Naruto’s condition seemed to be much worse than Kakashi, but Yuna’s experienced eyes could clearly tell what was going on.
‘Both of them are pretty spent, huh? But, while Kakashi plays it cool, Naruto doesn’t bother about that and shows how exhausted he really is. Well, this is the consequence of allowing someone with high mastery over seals and obscene amounts of chakra to properly prepare the battlefield.’
As soon as Naruto saw Yuna, his face lit up with a smile and he started running towards her. Kakashi almost coughed out some blood when he saw that Naruto had already recovered enough stamina to run.
‘That damn monster. He has been continuously attacking me relentlessly for the last 40 minutes and seems to already be good to go again.
“Nee-san, I almost got one of the bells a few times.”
Seeing Naruto’s eyes that radiated excitement, how could Yuna not know that he wanted to be praised?
“Haha, good job, Naruto. Even for me, getting a bell wasn’t easy.”
“”YOU GOT A BELL!?””
Sasuke and Sakura seemed to actually be in sync for once. Sakura will probably be rather happy about that when she thinks about it later today. Before the situation could escalate, Kakashi quickly intervened.
“Yuna did indeed get one of the bells, but that isn’t really of importance. She wasn’t part of this team from the beginning, so it doesn’t really matter. You still don’t understand what this test was all about.”
Kakashi glanced at Naruto in order to not make him spill the beans, but could see that Naruto already understood the situation.
‘Despite not seeming very bright on the first look, he is very quick-witted and good at reading the mood. Whoever trained Naruto knew exactly what she was doing.’
Kakashi gave Yuna another glance and noticed that she was absentmindedly munching on some snack, while apparently not even being aware of her surroundings.
‘My instincts are telling me that Yuna’s role in all of this is much bigger than she shows to the outside. To what degree was today manipulated by her? Did she only have some fun fighting a strong opponent and consequently gave Naruto more time to prepare or does the rabbit hole go much deeper than this?’
“What the test was about? Wasn’t it about stealing the bells from you, Kakashi-sensei?”
To Kakashi’s surprise, Naruto was the first one to push the conversation forward.
‘If he wasn’t looking incredibly bored right now, I might even think that the question was genuine. His eyes are occasionally glancing at Sakura and Sasuke while almost screaming: “Figure it out already!”, so that is probably not the case.’
Since Naruto wants to push the conversation forward, Kakashi, naturally, wouldn’t stop Naruto.
“Of course, it wasn’t. As genin fresh from the academy, it is pretty much impossible for you to steal those bells from me. Yuna’s case was rather… unique… so that doesn’t count. The true goal was for you to work together as a team despite being pitted against each other.”
Kakashi couldn’t help but cringe a little when he said it was impossible for a genin to steal the bells when Yuna actually did it and Naruto almost did it a few times. Kakashi wasn’t exactly a normal jonin, after all. The people inside Konoha that could go toe to toe with him could probably be counted on one hand.
Naruto was, yet again, the one to push the situation forward.
“If we were supposed to fight as a team, then why weren’t there enough bells for each of us?”
“That was, of course, to disrupt your teamwork. You will be working together as a team for a long time now and if something this simple already stops you from working together you might as well stop being a shinobi right here and now. You are unfit for that occupation.”
Kakashi could immediately feel resentment oozing out of Sasuke after he said that. Sasuke took out a kunai and charged at Kakashi.
“I WILL NOT BE STOPPED HERE!!!”
Kakashi could only shake his head after seeing such a reckless charge. Anger might improve someone’s chance of victory in certain situations, but reckless anger is never a good thing. The moment Sasuke got into the range of Kakashi’s arms, he was on the ground with his face pressed into the dirt and Kakashi’s foot on his head.
“It seems like you truly don’t understand how outclassed you are.”
“DON’T STEP ON SASUKE-KUN!!!”
While Sakura was screeching and Sasuke was dumbfounded by how easily he was subdued, Naruto’s face became solemn. He knew that Kakashi had acknowledged playing by Naruto’s rules when he entered the clearing that was stuffed to the brim with his seals, but just now, he realized how much of a handicap Kakashi actually gave him. Yuna, meanwhile, didn’t care about the situation at all. She knew more or less how strong Kakashi was and didn’t think he and her would ever have a fight against each other where they would reveal all their trump cards, so she lost most of her interest in him.
“Remember these words well. In my opinion, there is nothing more important than to follow them: Those who break the rules and codes of the ninja are called trash, but those who don’t care for their comrades are lower than trash.”
To everyone’s surprise, as soon as Kakashi said those words boisterous laughter echoed through the battlefield.
“Gahahaha, good, very good! That is exactly how it is. Those that choose to abandon people that trusted them are nothing but trash. F* the rules, F* common sense. Only by trusting those you consider close can you live a truly happy life.”
After giving her small speech, everyone was giving Yuna weird looks for that sudden outburst but decided to ignore her a few moments later. The only one slightly affected seemed to be Kakashi who recovered after a few seconds.
“A-Anyway, I will give you a second chance. Yuna has already passed and won’t participate in this one. Naruto and Sasuke, you two will be allowed to eat something, while Sakura gets tied to a pole without getting any food. She was the worst in the first part of the test after all.”
Afterward, Kakashi swiftly tied Sakura to one of the poles that were present on the training ground and then left the four people alone. Kakashi was currently crouching in one of the trees and observing the situation. He immediately noticed that Yuna was missing and wondered where she went.
‘Weird, I am pretty sure she…’
“So, Kakashi, do you think Sasuke will see through this?”
Although Kakashi almost involuntarily changed the color of his underwear, he still played it cool.
“I am pretty sure he will. I dropped like half a dozen hints on how important teamwork is after all.”
“You sure are optimistic.”
While Naruto and Sasuke were eating, the atmosphere grew more and more awkward by the moment. From an outsider’s perspective, it was rather obvious that Naruto wanted nothing more than to give Sakura some food to finally end this farce, but it was rather obvious that he wanted Sasuke to be the one who initiated it to strengthen the teamwork of this group.
It took Sasuke quite a while to finally realize that they were supposed to work as a team and that Sakura would pretty much be useless if she was starving during the whole fight. He finally came to the conclusion that he would have to give her some food, for her to be useful and as soon as he did, Naruto pitched in as well to share some of his food.
“Sasuke actually managed to figure it out, huh?”
Kakashi was probably even more surprised than Yuna but decided to play it cool.
“Of course, he did.”
Yuna didn’t bother to expose Kakashi and allowed him to play the role of the “knowledgeable sensei”.
Next, Kakashi appeared in front of the newly formed Team Seven, told them that they have passed, and then explained to them the importance of teamwork yet again.
Tomorrow they would finally start their first official shinobi mission.
