MINI RANT SO READERS CAN UNDERSTAND THE STORY:
I don't understand why Kakashi allowed for Sakura to keep hitting and demeaning Naruto. Isn't that physical abuse or something? And Sakura and Sasuke to demean Naruto through what I see as practically verbal abuse? I thought Kakashi would have stopped them because IT LITERALLY SAYS IN THE NARUTO WIKI: "An abuse of one's teammates is the only thing that can makes Kakashi cast aside his normally stoic demeanor, causing him to attack without mercy or his usual sense of sportsmanship." Which means he should have totally kicked their asses for that because they were a team. I would have. I claim that as abuse and here is where it takes me.
This is AU, some OOC and I do not own Naruto.
Please review.
He watched them during the test, serious watching. They were all hiding quite well for now, including Naruto. The blond had even taken off his favorite orange jacket top and hid it, showing a worn and slightly too big, dark blue mottled shirt. Naruto was actually pretty thin under the bulky jacket. He believed Naruto didn't have any regular shorts on under the thick orange pants, which was why he didn't hide them as well. However, the first thing Naruto had done afterwards was sneak to an area thick with mud and blot his pants with it, giving him a better chance at hiding. Interested, Kakashi went to check on the other brats.
Naruto had listened as hard as he could without enhancing his hearing with chakra and barely heard his silver haired sensei's footsteps. He'd finished with his pants which ensured he might have a better chance. 'What's the deal with two bells? He couldn't have been serious. Jiji wouldn't allow two man cells - it's not possible. All genin teams he's done paperwork on - and I've been allowed to look at - show that there are only three man cells until chunin. What the hell's he testing us on then?' The blond thought hard as he flickered through the trees to a quick hiding space, fingering a kunai.
As he sat to catch his breath among thick branches in an oak, he thought harder. 'And he wants us to fight him...to come with the intent to kill. As a jounin, he'd slaughter us. But...as a complete cell...' He trailed off, eyes wide. 'Holy shit! They are not fucking serious! It's teamwork?! Kami! Those people will never work with me! Especially Sasuke-teme! And Sakura-chan hates me!' With a low huff, he focused on his hearing, settling chakra into his ears.
"Sasuke-kun! Sasuke-kun! Where are you?!" The faint sounds of Sakura-chan's voice sounded from north of his position, around three miles. Then, he listened for Sasuke-teme. He hardly heard the teme's breathing north-west of him, about half a mile from Sakura-chan. And Kakashi-sensei's footsteps were close to them. Immediantly creating four clones, he said,
"1A and 1B, attack Kakashi-sensei - intent to kill. 1C, scout out the area around Sakura-chan. 1D, do the same for the teme. Do not attempt contact with either classmate. Keep out of sight but watch and if Kakashi-sensei finds them, instantly dispel." The blond clones nodded swiftly and then shot towards the trio. Naruto had picked up various things from being in jiji's office, including the way he talked to his jounin, chunin and ANBU on a daily basis. It was short, to the point and commanding. Taking a calming breath, he decided to circle around to Sasuke-teme's area.
Jumping to the ground, he was running the instant he hit the ground. Around a quarter of a mile away from Sasuke, he heard the clashing of kunai and he gained the memories of 1A and 1B. They had fought hard and nearly nicked the jounin more times then he could count. A stray kunai had cut Kakashi-sensei's flak jacket, but hadn't gone deeper than his shirt. A shuriken had made a nick on the man's temple. Dirt and a footprint now covered Kakashi-sensei while his 1A clone had taken kunai and shuriken to the chest, throat and head after showing his true intent to aim for the vitals.
1B clone had been pulled up to his neck in the dirt by his sensei grabbing his calf and yanking down - a strange earth jutsu called Headhunter and a kunai had gone through his forehead to end it. Naruto ran harder, forcing more chakra into his legs. 'Screw Sasuke. I'll grab Sakura and then get him.' He summoned twelve clones. "Immediantly - intent to kill. Find jounin-sensei Kakashi and buy time. Slow him down as long as you can!" He snapped. "Keep them away from Sakura, Sasuke and I!"
The clones shot off as fast as they could, determined looks on their faces. Naruto had the clones around Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme dispel. Adding more chakra, Naruto could smell Sakura's flower perfume she wore for Sasuke. He caught sight of Sakura's pink hair and snapped, "Sakura!" She whirled around, surprised as he skidded to a halt beside her.
"Naruto! Have you seen -"
"-I'm going to get him next! We have to go - now! Kakashi-sensei's coming and we need to grab the teme! Come on!" The pink haired girl glared at him, her green eyes suspicious.
"Is this just a plot to try and kiss me? You know I like Sasuke-kun! And he's not a teme, you baka!" He winced as she slapped him on the back of his head hard.
"I'm not! I swear! Just please! I'm going to find Sasuke-teme next!" He winced again as his headache throbbed, she wacked him again at calling Sasuke a teme and he got three clone memories. The clones were getting thrashed hard and Kakashi-sensei was starting to frown through his mask at the clones that were still fighting and aiming to kill. Which was NOT good. "Just come on!" Naruto barked, gripping her wrist and jogging fast. She yelped as she was dragged along.
"NARUTO! LET ME GO YOU BAKA! I'LL FIND SASUKE-KUN MYSELF! LET GO NOW!" She wriggled and Naruto ran faster, now tracking the teme by scent. 'Damn! Kakashi-sensei is kicking the clones asses! I'll need to send more. The teme should be here in about ten feet.' Dropping Sakura who dizzily wobbled for a second before hitting him again, Naruto narrowed his eyes shakily as six clones memories appeared.
"Sasuke! Come out! I know why we're doing this!" He called. Then, the blond turned and created thirty clones. Sakura gaped in surprise and was about to start yelling when Sasuke came out of the bushes. Ignoring him, Naruto barked, "Buy time for us from Kakashi-sensei! Stall for as long as possible any way possible!" The clones brought out kunai and raced back the way that Naruto and Sakura had just come. Sakura squealed,
"Sasuke-kun!" She ran up to the black haired, dark eyed Uchiha and looked at him with wide eyes. "Are you alright, Sasuke-kun?!" Naruto turned to them.
"Dobe. How did you do that?" Sasuke asked sharply, clearly interested - and ignoring Sakura-chan. Shaking his head, Naruto said,
"I can't tell you. You'd have to ask Jiji - the Hokage." He clarified. Sasuke snorted.
"As if you would get something from the Hokage, dobe. You can't even get a passing grade. Now tell me." A kunai sailed past his ear, nicking it. Naruto held back his slightly shocked gaze. 'Did he just try to brain me?' Naruto narrowed his eyes.
"I'm serious. You'd have to ask the Hokage. I'm not allowed to tell." Sakura glared, angered apparently at the fact he wouldn't talk.
"You're lying! Tell Sasuke-kun, Naruto! You're too dumb to get anything that important from the Hokage!" Naruto hissed as clones by the fives died. Kakashi-sensei was getting closer.
"We don't have time for this! I know why we're doing this test, you damn teme! Why won't you just listen?!" Sakura gave an enraged shriek at Naruto's name calling and slapped him before punching him in the head, making him stagger. Sasuke sneered at him.
"As if you would know, dobe. You're worthless. You probably cheated. Even that mutt Kiba is smarter than you, dobe." He flicked another kunai at him and it sliced Naruto's shoulder. Naruto ignored it. Being beaten by the villagers was a hell of a lot worse than a simple slash.
"Shut up! I know what it is! It's teamwork! Do you ever see two man cells in Konoha? No! It -" A shuriken hit him in the arm, blood welling onto his arm and dripping onto the ground. Surprised, Naruto clutched his arm and narrowed his eyes, pulling the shuriken from his arm as Sasuke talked.
"-Teamwork? A team will only slow me down. It makes you weak. Although I doubt you can get any weaker." The dark haired Uchiha mocked coldly, Sakura smirking at him. He ignored them as he felt the rest of his clones die. 'Shit!' He pushed down the urge to summon some clones to kick the teme's ass. 'It's about teamwork.' He stressed to himself.
"Kakashi-sensei's coming!" Sakura instantly looked around, a worried expression on her face. Her green eyes flitted to Sasuke, who seemed to be listening sharply to something. Then the Uchiha nodded.
"Sasuke-kun? What -"
"Go hide somewhere. I don't care. I'm getting a bell. I'm not failing because of a dobe too stupid to understand the meaning 'Get the bell and attack with killing intent'." Sakura nodded, sneered at him and ran to hide. Sasuke turned and went to his own place. Naruto watched in hopelessness as his supposed team left him. 'I'm never going to be Hokage.' He grimaced, but decided to hide and watch.
He enhanced his ears and nose after swathing himself in branches. Using a kunai, Naruto cut up the long bottom of his slightly-too-long shirt to wrap up his arm and dab at his ear. His head was throbbing but slowly going away. He knew his cut would go away soon, but he still needed it to be wrapped up in case of infection. Sakura's breathing was quiet but the teme's was even quieter. Kakashi-sensei was here.
Naruto was instantly alert, watching the closest movements carefully. Suddenly, there was a heavier presence near Sakura. Naruto was up and sprinting toward her as fast as he could. He heard a loud scream in front of him and he was there, Sakura fainting onto the dirt and leaves. He listened and then lunged forward in a steep roll as a kunai hit the place he was standing before. Cursing, he flung two kunai back in the direction it came from.
"Naruto-kun. Trying to kill me with clones is not funny." The man sounded very slightly annoyed. Very slightly annoyed, but annoyed still. He inwardly cringed.
"Hey! I needed a distraction! And you said intent to kill! You said it!" Naruto grumbled back, hoping the silver haired jounin wasn't going to bet the absolute shit out of him too badly. Suddenly, there was a faint rumble under the ground and he realized it felt familiar. 'Where...my clone! That Headhunter jutsu!' He went to jump when a wire wrapped around his leg from the ground to keep him stuck and then a second later, Kakashi-sensei grabbed his leg and yanked him up to his neck in dirt. Growling under his breath in anger and a bit of pain as his cut arm was jolted, he looked up at the jounin.
"I know what I said, Naruto-kun. But sending thirty or forty clones in a huge group is a pain. Telling them to stall in any damned way possible is even more difficult and a bit ridiculous. They were doing the craziest things, including trying to set pranks, blind me and actually aiming for my vitals." The blond looked down at the dirt. He'd gone too far in telling the clones that, but he'd felt the instinct of being hunted - the same instinct he felt when on the streets of Konoha on his birthdays when the villagers were trying to tear him apart and this time it was double because of his classmates. He'd done the worst thing a shinobi could do: panic.
Naruto set his lips and stared at the ground while Kakashi stared at him. He wouldn't apologize, but he was going to get better at not panicking in a spar situation. "I'll be back." The jonin said, before disappearing in a swirl of leaves. There was a dull groan and Sakura sat up, clutching her head tightly, her pink hair messy and woven with twigs.
"S-Sasuke-kun..." She whispered, before she began frantically looking around. When her eyes settled on him, she looked confused. "Naruto? What are you doing here? Where's Sasuke-kun?" Naruto shrugged or tried to at least.
"I don't know where the Uchiha is. All I heard was you wailing and I ran over and you had fainted, Sakura-chan. The teme wasn't anywhere near here." She glared at him, tossing a rock at his head which sliced his forehead.
"DON'T CALL HIM A TEME, YOU DOBE! HE'S WORTH A HUNDRED OF YOU!" Sakura snapped, getting up and stomping angrily at him. Naruto winced. She was going to kick him. 'Fuck. I'm actually going to have a concussion this time.' Sakura lashed out and Naruto cringed, waiting for the hit. With her strength, it was going to be painful. Suddenly, he felt a breeze blow by him, but no pain.
Opening his eyes from their scrunched position, he turned to look at what had happened. He gaped openly. It was Kakashi-sensei. He had his back to Naruto, tightly gripping Sakura-chan's leg in a very painful way. At least, it looked painful because her face was wrinkled and she whimpered a tiny bit, and looked very, very close to losing her balance - or maybe her leg.
"I don't approve of teammates abusing each other, Haruno-san." And Naruto wanted to curl up in the hole. Kakashi-sensei sounded like ice and darkness. He sounded cold. And he radiated something - something that made his instincts scream to hide. He realized it was true KI - Killing Intent, that their sensei was leaking and it was all directed at Sakura-chan. She had sweat drip down her forehead and she was trembling heavily, breathing heavily too. "This test is over." The jounin said, slamming Sakura-chan onto the ground where she coughed and huddled, eyes wide.
Then, Naruto flinched as Kakashi walked over to him and got him from the earth jutsu, inspecting him with an icy gray eye. KI was useful against enemies but right now it was just downright scary. Naruto rubbed his wounded arm and the silver haired jounin tossed him a roll of bandages and antiseptic ointment. He barely caught what was tossed to him, eyes wide with shock. 'Did he just...?' Still leaking that horrible KI, Kakashi walked out of the small clearing. 'He probably went to find Sasuke-teme.' Naruto thought, before taking off his makeshift bandage and wiping down his gash with the ointment.
He ignored the faint sting and unrolled a strip of bandage, wrapping his arm loosely. There was the sound of metal and then fire and earth and then there was cursing and then a black haired blur crashed heavily through a tree branch, spraying bark and leaves. Sakura's head snapped up and she looked like she wanted to run to him, but she ended up scooting over a couple of paces before stopping and whimpering again as she caught sight of their silver haired jounin sensei. Glancing at Sasuke, Naruto noted there were kunai in his shoulder and leg and dirt around various bleeding cuts and slashes.
Sasuke had a gash on his temple and a black eye. It was almost funny if he hadn't remembered he'd gotten beat up by Kakashi and that could've happened to him. The teme huffed, wheezing as he got up and half snarled at Kakashi-sensei who flickered out KI at the Uchiha. Sasuke froze, eyes wide as he felt the icy pressure and staggered back, nearly falling on his ass. "Sasuke." The gray eyed Uchiha glared at him. "The test is over. Attempt to attack me and you will be attacking a jounin - which brings out harsh penalties, even if you are the 'last' of your Clan."
"Tch." Sasuke spat a bit of blood on the ground, but remained where he was. Naruto's lips twitched. 'At last the bastard isn't getting special treatment.' He thought as Kakashi narrowed his eye at Sasuke and Sakura. Naruto watched all of them carefully.
"Do you know that the abuse of teammates is something that I don't tolerate?" Kakashi asked them coldly, still staring at the pink haired girl and black haired boy. Sasuke sneered and stood straight. Sakura glanced up at him, green eyes still holding a hint of fear.
"What are you talking about? And they are not my teammates."
"Good. Because you aren't training with them anyways. Neither is Sakura-san training. You never passed my test and you abused your teammate who tried to help you and because you rejected his help, he spent precious chakra trying to stall me when he didn't need to. You both are going to go be tossed out of the shinobi program." Both named kids stared wide eyed at the jounin. Sakura nearly started to cry and looked like she wanted to start screaming, but apparently thought better of it and hid her face in her hands.
On the other hand, Sasuke's face grew dark and wildly angry. He spat more blood and yanked a kunai out of his shoulder, hefting it in his hand.
"Who are you to tell me no? The council will be angry if you don't. You could get - " Naruto glowered at the Uchiha, not listening to the black haired boy's rant. 'He's a prick and a crybaby. Doesn't he know that the Hokage makes the decisions?' Sasuke-teme had apparently stopped part of his temper tantrum to breathe and was starting his rant again and was also getting ready to throw the kunai. Kakashi-sensei just looked bored.
Finally, Naruto had enough. "Shut the hell up, teme!" The blond grumbled, showing his teeth to the Uchiha. "Who gives a damn what the council says? This isn't a democracy! The Hokage's law and word is final. The council are only advisors - not another section that makes decisions. I thought you were smart, teme? Maybe it's just all the ass-kissing you get finally's got to your brain." Naruto threw his own sneer at the other boy.
The kunai was tossed at him with lightning speed. He went to dodge it - and found he didn't need to. Kakashi-sensei had gotten in front of him and caught the kunai. Sasuke was there instantly, tossing aimed shuriken and kunai at the pair. All of them were deflected and tossed away. Sakura gave a cry as one nearly speared through her head and she took it as a point to get behind a tree to hide.
There was a flick of hand seals and then the rain of weapons stopped with the sound of electricity and screaming. Naruto peered around Kakashi to see what had happened. He stared wide eyed at what he saw. Sasuke was on the ground, writhing as thick wires tied around him and lightning crackled as it flowed around the wires and Sasuke. The point of origin was Kakashi's hands. Naruto watched as the black haired Uchiha received burns that blackened flesh and screamed himself hoarse on the dirt. Kakashi-sensei's eye was blank, as if he didn't care what happened to Sasuke and Naruto realized the jounin might not.
"Kakashi-sensei." He said, looking up at the man. "You need to stop. I think he's going to die. I don't think you want 'Killed the last Uchiha' on your record." At first, he wondered if his sensei had heard him, but then the lightning sputtered and then stopped completely, vanishing in a flicker of light. Naruto gave a faint sigh before turning to look at Sasuke. But in truth, he didn't care. 'The damned teme got what was coming to him.' He glanced around and saw Sakura peering in horror from behind a tree that was littered with weapons.
The pink haired girl had a few scrapes and nicks on her face, probably from trying to see what was going on from her hiding place. She was still faintly pale and her clothes were rumpled and dirty now. Giving a snort, he turned back to his sensei. The silver haired man's eye wasn't as blank but he was still cold seeming and had a finger around a kunai hoop.
"We'll need to take him to the hospital." Kakashi-sensei's voice made him jump. Naruto nodded and went to move forward. If he was carrying the teme, he'd drag 'em. Then, Kakashi-sensei held out an arm and stopped him right in his tracks. Kakashi looked over at where Sakura was huddling. "Haruno. Come here." Very slowly, the girl got up and walked over, her green eyes full of fear. Naruto realized she was scared Kakashi-sensei was going to do the electricity thing to her as well.
"You will be carrying Uchiha back to the village. As he is unconscious, I don't think he will care if you drag him or haul him over your shoulder." She flinched as he spoke and the blond bit his lip. Sakura was physically weak and it would take a while for them to get back. "If you find that you cannot carry him, enhance yourself with chakra and carry him that way." Naruto watched as Sakura trudged over to Sasuke and struggled to lift him onto her shoulders.
She staggered and strained, her face gaining a red tinge to it as they made their way back to the village. It did take a while with Sakura having to learn how to enhance her limbs with chakra to keep up with them. Naruto and Kakashi walked ahead, passing the main gates. As they did so, Kakashi paused and said, "Help the girl carry the Uchiha. Get them to the hospital." The brown haired chunin that was at gate duty gaped before rushing over to Sakura and lifting the teme from her shoulders. "Naruto." The blond looked up at Kakashi, meeting the man's eye quickly. "We'll need to report to the Hokage. Your arm is fine?"
Naruto touched his arm gingerly and loosened the bandages to peer at his arm. The cut was mostly better and hardly hurt at all.
"I'm fine, Kakashi-sensei." The man nodded and Naruto hurried after him as he briskly made his way toward the Hokage's office. Naruto noticed the chunin hauling Sasuke-teme off in the direction of the hospital, Sakura following silently behind the chunin with a sort of blank and somewhat scared and nauseated look.