"All right, that's it! No more Mr. Nice Guy!" Naruto let loose a war cry, grabbed the shuriken with both hands and gave it a good, hard tug.
Said shuriken remained lodged in the tree. It glinted in the afternoon sun and stubbornly refused to move.
It was mocking him.
Naruto growled at the offending object. He braced one foot against the tree trunk and pulled, then promptly landed on his back amid a cloud of dust.
The shuriken sat there innocently and sparkled once again.
Oh, now it was definitely mocking him.
"YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" Naruto exploded. "GET THE FUCK"—tug—"OUT OF THAT TREE" —heave—"OR I WILL FUCKING"—pull—"BREAK YOU!"
"Why the hell," Sasuke said slowly, "can you not pull that thing out when you put it in the tree?"
"Why the hell are you here?" Naruto snarked back. "And I so can pull it out!"
"You can't pull out," Sasuke sniggered.
"Watch me, bastard!"
"You can't pull out," Sasuke repeated in the tone one uses when talking to a particularly slow friend.
"What are you going on about?"
If Sasuke was a normal shinobi, he would have been grinning from ear to ear. But Sasuke was an emotionless mannequin with a metal pole up his ass, so he finished the rest of his sentence in a deadpan voice. "You can't pull out 'cause you don't have anything to stick it into."
Naruto struggled with the shuriken before Sasuke's words finally clicked, and then he lost his grip and ended up on the ground again. "Did you just... make a penis joke?"
Sasuke smirked.
"You... you did!" Naruto flailed. "Who are you and what have you done to Sasuke?"
"I, at least, can stick it in something."
"GROSS!" Naruto shrieked. "I don't want to know what you've been doing with Sakura-chan! Bad mental images! Bad! Go screw yourself, bastard!"
"Hn. No. Thank you."
"And you!" Naruto pointed wildly at the shuriken, still firmly embedded in the tree trunk. "Go screw yourself too! I never liked you anyway!"
"Talking to inanimate objects, now?"
"Like you can get it out!"
Sasuke bristled. His man-pride cried out in pain, but because he was an emotionless mannequin with a metal pole up his ass, he simply stalked over to the shuriken and said, "Watch me, then, idiot."
He grasped the metal edges and tugged. His hand came away empty.
Sasuke scowled, re-adjusted his grip, and heaved, but his fingers slipped and he fell over backwards.
Naruto cackled hysterically.
Sasuke felt his man-pride shrivel and die. Attempting to preserve some semblance of dignity, he unleashed a vicious comeback, one that would leave Naruto gaping in shock at his supreme wit.
"Go fuck yourself."
"...Really? That the best you got?"
Sasuke sniffed haughtily. "I have more important things to do."
"Oh hey," Naruto said, the beginnings of a grin creeping up his face, "I bet Lee can do this. Damn right, Sasuke, I'm getting Bushy-Brows here so he can finally beat you at something!"
"The freak will never beat me at anything!"
"Wanna bet? LEE! GET YOUR BUTT HERE!"
"Why don't you try looking for him instead of screaming like the retard you are?"
"Shut up, Sas-gay, you lost the right to speak after you epically failed at pulling that shuriken out!"
"You couldn't do it either!"
"Bastard! LEE!"
As if summoned by Kami-sama, a blur of green spandex arrived. Lee, in all his skin-tight glory, saluted at Naruto. "Yes, Naruto-kun?"
"Sasuke challenges you to—OOF!"
Sasuke, with a speed born with desperation, had tackled Naruto and shoved a fist into his mouth. "It's nothing," the raven-haired shinobi growled, grimly hanging on to the blond as he bucked and thrashed.
"Geroff mmmph!" Naruto cried as Sasuke sat on top of him, his fist still firmly planted in Naruto's mouth.
"Hell no," Sasuke retorted and turned to Lee. "It's nothing, Naruto being an idiot like always—GAH!"
There was a surprisingly girlish shriek (that Sasuke would deny ever came from him) and Sasuke released Naruto. "Did you just lick me?"
Naruto crowed in victory.
"You just gave me rabies!" Sasuke furiously rubbed his saliva-coated hand against a tree trunk.
"I do not have rabies, you douche! But anyway, LEE!" Naruto gestured at the green-clad ninja. "Sasukechallengesyoutopullthatshurikenoutofthetree!"
He managed to finish a split second before Sasuke dove back in for another tackle.
Lee, obviously used to bouts of weirdness, was unfazed by the display in front of him. "I accept your challenge, Uchiha-san!"
Lee grabbed and pulled, but the shuriken did not move. This scene went on for several minutes, at the end of which Naruto was greatly disappointed and Sasuke (secretly) relieved that Lee had not beaten him, but because he was an emotionless mannequin with a metal pole up his ass, all he gave Naruto was a smirk and an "I told you so."
"Sasuke-san, I yield!" Lee cried, panting with the effort. "This is beyond either of us! I will get Gai-sensei!"
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Sasuke cried, but he was too late, because Lee had cupped his hands around his mouth and belted out Gai-sensei's name for the world to hear.
Said sensei arrived with a speed that (secretly) impressed Sasuke.
"You called, my Beloved Student?" Gai somehow managed to convey capital letters through his speech.
"Yes, sensei! We have been trying and failing to get that shuriken out of the tree, but I know you can do it!" Lee positively sparkled as he turned to Naruto and Sasuke. "Never fear, Gai-sensei can do anything!"
Gai laughed. "I'm sure you know what to do about your failure, Lee!"
"A hundred laps around the training field, sensei!" Lee sparkled brighter with joy.
"He's a masochist," Naruto whispered in half-awe, half-horror.
"Good, Lee! I am proud of your motivation!"
"Gai-sensei!"
"Lee!"
Feeling like he was in the middle of a sick romantic drama, Sasuke watched as sensei and student met each other in a hug and farted out rainbows. Naruto, bless him, stopped Lee and Gai before they could ride off into the sunset together.
"My Student," Gai recovered, wiping the tears from his eyes. "There is no shame in failure! It will take years for you to reach the level of your sensei, but for now, I will show you how it is done!"
Gai reached for the shuriken with a flourish and pulled.
The shuriken stayed.
What followed next was, frankly, a ridiculous scene in which Gai took to embarrassing positions in an effort to retrieve the shuriken. Lee cheered his sensei on, fist-pumping as Gai contorted himself in extremely awkward poses.
Finally Gai slumped down, defeated. "I am sorry, Lee, for I have failed you!"
Lee wailed in despair.
"But!" Gai's eyes lit up, an idea sent to him no doubt by the power of youth. "This is a challenge most worthy of my hip, cool, and trendy rival!"
"What a youthful idea, Gai-sensei!"
"Ten ryō says that he finds Kakashi in an Icha Icha book store," Sasuke muttered.
"Dammit, I was gonna say that..."
Gai returned with a very unwilling Kakashi several minutes later, who claimed that he'd been helping an old woman with her groceries and that Gai had interrupted his good deed.
"Liar!" Naruto shrieked, pointing at the corner of an orange book that was peeping out of Kakashi's flak jacket. "You were reading that pervy book again, sensei!"
"While helping the old woman, yes," Kakashi agreed amiably.
"My Rival!" Gai interrupted, conveying capital letters again. "I challenge you to pull that shuriken out of the tree!"
Kakashi looked suitably unimpressed.
"It's stuck, sensei, we couldn't get it out!" Naruto said.
"Well of course you couldn't," Kakashi said dryly, ignoring the blond's indignant protests. "Sasuke? What about you?"—said ninja in question shifted uncomfortably—"Ah. I see. Keep this up and I might start thinking the Uchiha clan isn't so high and mighty after all."
"Now, now," Gai interjected, "my own student failed to do this!"
"Has he now..." Kakashi gave the shuriken an experimental tug.
"Alas, my trendy rival, I have also tried and failed!"
Kakashi looked dubiously at the shuriken. "Really? Well, that changes things."
"Yeah, sensei, you can do it!" Naruto cheered.
"Ten ryō says he can't," Sasuke mumbled, just loud enough for Kakashi to hear.
Kakashi's mouth twitched almost imperceptibly beneath his mask. The gray-haired jōnin stepped back, made a show of cracking his knuckles, and narrowed his one visible eye dangerously at the target. Gone was the lazy slouch and blasé attitude. The Killing Intent rolled off him in waves and smothered everyone in the vicinity as he raised his arm—
—and flicked the shuriken.
It did not move.
"Well," Kakashi's visible eye curved upward as he smiled and dropped his Killing Intent, "looks like it's really stuck."
Naruto's mouth hung open. Gai and Lee wore identical expressions and comically widened eyes. Sasuke thought this was all very anticlimactic and told Kakashi so.
"Eh," Kakashi said, shrugging nonchalantly. "That old lady probably still needs help with her groceries." He pulled out his orange book and poofed away.
The shuriken became a local legend overnight. Unfortunately, so too did Gai and Kakashi's apparent inability to extract it. Kakashi was suitably irked at this fact, for the great Copy Ninja, the son of the White Fang, had been outdone by a mere shuriken. He spent many days alternatively moping and trying to convince people that he had more important things to do than partake in a childish bet against Gai, and so his attempt with the shuriken had been halfhearted at best.
Naruto spent many days telling everyone otherwise, and because many other jōnin (who shall remain unnamed) thought that Kakashi should be taken down a peg or two, they gladly believed Naruto when he said Kakashi had simply been outdone by a piece of metal.
Eventually, all kinds of ninja tried their hand in pulling out the shuriken. They all failed. Naruto enjoyed going around and telling his friends that he "threw that shuriken and stuck it in the tree, so I must be pretty awesome!"
Lee had finally managed to convince his teammates to try. Neji, in particular, had been tough to convince, but a rousing speech from Naruto had done its job.
(Specifically, this was what had happened:
"Neji," Naruto started seriously, clapping a hand on the other boy's shoulder. One could almost hear the melancholic sound of violins playing in the background as Naruto prepared his heartfelt speech. "We both know you want this. We both know you've lived a sad, deprived childhood, but I KNOW"—here Naruto paused for breath, and the music swelled—"I KNOW you have a heart in there somewhere! Sure, it's cold and black—"
Neji twitched.
"—and it might look like a prune—"
His hands balled into fists.
"—but you have one! And you can have fun! We know you want to have fun with this challenge! So get out there and PULL THAT SHURIKEN OUT, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD!"
Neji blinked, then sulkily agreed and stomped off, muttering something about Naruto being dropped as a baby.
...But that is a story for another time.)
Needless to say, Neji failed.
As he sulked, Tenten walked up to the shuriken and poked it curiously. Then she reached out a hand and pulled it out.
Tenten turned to the crowd, gazing openmouthed before her. "I don't see what the big deal is."
"Tenten," Neji rasped, the first to recover his voice. "I have... severely underestimated you."
Kakashi went off again to mope some more.
"HOW DID YOU DO THAT?" Naruto yelled. "TENTEN, YOU ARE MAGIC!"
"Don't be silly," Tenten said reasonably. She petted the shuriken in the way one would pet a dog. Naruto thought it was somewhat disconcerting.
She cleaned off the shuriken and slipped it into her weapons pouch. "It just needed a little love."