Bad-ass Ninja Cloaks

"You're late!" Sakura and Naruto yelled in perfect synchronicity. The two gennin, who had previously been slumped on the floor, had leapt to their feet and were pointing their fingers at Kakashi accusingly.

He had told the three to meet at training ground three at 6am. Of course, he had no intention of being there that early, but if they hadn't figured out that he was always going to be late by now then he wasn't about to tell them.

Now, what excuse should he use today...

"My favourite flavour of pop-tarts was discontinued, so I had to stage a rally."

"Pop tarts? What are-"

"Anyway." Kakashi interrupted, cutting off Naruto's question. "I have a special training exercise for you three today." With any luck, this would make them forget that it was four hours past the meeting time.

He smiled as Naruto blanched. Sakura swayed, and even Sasuke looked a bit more pale than normal. "No, don't worry, it won't be like last time," he consoled. "That was just a one off. Anyway, I have something for all of you."

Naruto perked up a bit at this. "What is it, what is it?"

Kakashi pulled a package from somewhere behind him, and, using a kunai, sliced the brown paper packaging apart. He tossed a bundle of cloth to each respective gennin.

"This," he said, as they unravelled the bundles, "is what we're going to be training with today."

"Cloaks?" Naruto questioned. "I mean, they're awesome and all, but how are cloaks going to help make us stronger?" Sakura nodded at this, and even Sasuke was shooting him the teach-me-a-new-jutsu-or-I'll-go-all-emo-on-you patented Uchiha glare. Kakashi smiled at him, his eye curving. Sasuke intensified his glare in return.

"These aren't just any cloaks," Kakashi explained.

"No?" Sakura asked. "They look pretty average to me." She held up the offending piece of cloth, and looked at it carefully. Hers was a dark pink colour, while Sasuke's was (predictably) black, and Naruto's was royal blue. At Kakashi's affronted gaze, she backtracked her words. "They're really nice, though, sensei. Are they ours?"

"Yep. They're all yours to keep." Naruto punched the air, and swung the cloak around his shoulders.

"However," he went on, more serious now. "They are definitely not average. These are Shinobi Cloaks." Sasuke snorted. "A crucial part of every ninja's training is to master the use of the cloak. While at first it may just look like an ordinary garment, these could mean the difference between your life or death during battle."

He had their attention now...apart from Sasuke, who still looked sceptical. "Seriously. You are all aware of what killing intent is, aren't you? A good example is what Sasuke us sending me right now."

"This is useless," the gennin in question retorted. "I'm going to do some real training."

Damn it. His next move would be risky, but this was important training and he didn't want the last Uchiha to miss out on it. "If I recall correctly, Sasuke, your brother was particularly good at this. He got in down pat in no time."

"Don't mention him in front of me," Sasuke growled.

"Anyway, as I was saying, killing intent is a useful skill to be able to manipulate. While killing intent is generally a natural thing that cannot be controlled, we have found that it can be intensified or decreased using body language." He looked pointedly at the gennin. "For example, take Naruto's position right now. His stance is relaxed and open, he is meeting my eyes, and he's smiling. In a combat situation, the opponent would likely strike at Naruto first, seeing as he looks more relaxed than, say, Sakura." He turned to the kunoichi. "While your body language isn't as closed as Sasuke's, an opponent will be less likely to attack you than Naruto. This is because you're leaning forwards slightly, and keeping your body relatively still. These are signs of attentiveness. If you are facing off a ninja, they are more likely to strike at the one who isn't paying attention than the one who is. Catching people off guard can be the decider for a battle."

At this, Naruto looked a little guilty and straightened up. "Sasuke right now is the perfect example of closed body language. Instead of holding his cloak to the side like you, Sakura, he's holding it in front of his body while crossing his arms. His shoulders are also slightly tensed. To an attacker, Sasuke would seem more on guard and defensive, but in a situation such as this it just shows that he's bored."

"So you can read people's minds by looking at them, Kakashi sensei?" Said jounin sighed. "Awesome! Why didn't they teach us this in the academy?"

"They did," Sasuke replied in monotone.

"Oh," Naruto said sheepishly.

Sakura spoke up, ignoring the two boys. "But what does this have to do with the cloaks?"

At once, Kakashi shifted. Whereas he had been slouched amiably before, now he towered over the gennin. Naruto stepped back and tripped, landing on his backside hard, and Sakura let out a little squeak. Sasuke shifted a bit but didn't move. Kakashi relaxed again. "Just by itself, aggressive body language and killing intent won't be affect on more seasoned shinobi. Because of that, props are used to make yourself seem more imposing."

"Imposing?"

"Scary," Sakura explained to a confused Naruto.

"Oh! So that time Sasuke freaked out when you were facing Zabuza, he was scared-"

"Shut up, dobe," Sasuke threatened. "I was not scared. And who was the one who froze up when we were attacked by the demon brothers? You were useless."

"And you weren't useless when you were defeated by Haku? Who managed to beat him, teme?"

"Enough!" Kakashi thundered, sending out enough killing intent to give a rabbit a heart attack. He smiled imperceptibly under his mask when they stopped straight away. "Once you've mastered the Shinobi Cloak technique, you can gain the advantage in battle by looking cooler and more threatening. Some confrontations never make it past this stage - when ninja are experienced enough, some opponents will back down when facing what seems to be a much more powerful individual then themselves."

"So this technique is used more to avert confrontations than gain the advantage in them?" Sakura queried.

Kakashi wished that all of his students were as clever as she was cough Naruto cough. "Yes, but it can be used for both. A good example of this would be when-"

"Can we just get on with it already?" Sasuke interrupted. Kakashi blinked.

"Sure."

The three fastened their cloaks and stood expectantly. "Well, what now?" Sakura asked, after no one moved.

Kakashi sighed. He had been hoping that they would just figure it out so he could read. "Firstly, you want to get used to walking with it. There's only a light breeze today, but that should be enough for now. Try walking against the breeze first. The idea is to make the cloak billow. After that, we'll try something harder."

"Easy!" Naruto cried. "I'll get this down in no time, and then when I'm hokage I can have a super cool cloak like the fourth!" He spun around to walk against the breeze but caught the edge of his cloak under his foot. "Owww," he moaned from the floor.

Sasuke smirked, and turned to walk against the breeze himself. Sakura watched in adoration as the pitch black cloak billowed out behind him majestically. "You're the greatest, Sasuke-kun!" she yelled.

"Hn."

As Naruto yelled something about not being beaten etc etc, Sakura tried it, and found it surprisingly easy. Taking pity on the blonde, she told him all he had to do was walk.

Kakashi watched them with pride. It wasn't often that they showed such teamwork...Naruto picked up his pace until he was caught up to Sasuke, and then stepped on the edge of his cloak, causing the boy to stumble. Before they could start arguing again, Kakashi shunshined over to them.

"Well done, all of you. Now, try walking against the breeze." He pulled out his book, knowing that this would take slightly longer.

Sure enough, several minutes later a frustrated Sakura stormed up to him. "This is useless!" she fumed. "The cloaks just keep on hitting the back of our legs!"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Try walking a bit faster if that happens." Sure enough, the breeze had started picking up. "It's important to match your pace to the movement of the air around you. The stronger the wind, the faster you go."

"However," he said, shifting slightly, "When you're walking against the breeze, don't move too fast. It ruins the dramatic effect."

"Right," Kakashi said. "Now we're moving on to cloak manipulation while fighting."

They had been at it for most of the day already. After a while, Kakashi had fetched Asuma to create some stronger winds for them. They had worked on movement only, but now it was time for some battle techniques.

"It's incredibly easy to lose control of your cloak while fighting," Kakashi explained. "Most of this can only be practised by yourself because you have to match your movements to your particular taijutsu style, but I'll show you the basics. Watch closely." He moved until he was standing in front of Naruto. "First off is the kick. You have to be careful that the cloak doesn't obstruct the kick in any way, or it will lose all of it's impact and you'll look like an idiot." He slowly moved his leg, showing them what direction it should take to avoid getting tangled in the cloth. Sakura, demonstrate on Naruto."

"Wait, wha-"

Sakura kicked Naruto right in the chest. "Owww," he complained, for the second time that day. "Sakura-chaaan! That hurt!"

"Good job," Kakashi said. Everyone ignored Naruto. "While it's important that the cloak doesn't obstruct you, you also have to work to make it look cool. If you come at an opponent from the side before kicking them and then spin before your leg makes contact, your cloak should whirl around your body like so." Kakashi kicked Naruto this time. "Once you've gotten the basic movements down, you need to work on transitions between moves as well. Every move needs to be fluent so the cloak flows. Even just one wrong movement could mean you messing up and looking like an idiot, but if you get it down perfectly, you will be seen as a more impressive foe. As far as I know, weaker shinobi have made names for themselves just by their cloak control."

He waved a hand dismissively and took his book out of his pocket. "Anyway, practice this for a while and then you're free to go. We'll be working on making it billow while standing on and falling from high places tomorrow, but meet here first so I can review your progress. Later."

He raised his hand in farewell before disappearing in a poof of smoke and leaves. The three gennin turned back to practice again.

"So, Naruto," Iruka asked over a bowl of Ichiraku's ramen that evening, "How has your training been going?"

"It's awesome!" Naruto exclaimed. "Kakashi-sensei's been teaching us how to use bad-ass ninja cloaks to scare people! And he said that tomorrow he's going to push us off the hokage monument tomorrow so we can make it look cool in mid-air." Iruka started at that, almost choking on his ramen.

"Pushing you off of the hokage monument!" Naruto nodded, slurping up more ramen.

"And I'm gonna have better cloak skills than anybody, even the fourth! And then if I look cooler than him I'll have to be made hokage!"

A/N - This was a spur of the moment idea, but I really enjoyed writing it so I may turn this into a series of one-shots. I felt that there wasn't enough Team 7 training in the anime (and I was really disappointed when we didn't get to see Naruto's training trip with Jiraiya). I'll try to make these humorous if I can, so if you have any cool ideas then review and I might write it :D

Or, you know, review anyway. I would like that.