Welcome to Chapter 2. There's an obscure reference at the end of the first scene in this chapter; anybody who gets it gets a cookie. A big cookie. Anyway, this is the longest chapter of the three completed so far. Yes, I'm working ahead of time, because I'm going on vacation soon and want to be able to update steadily. Chapters in the future of this fic should be longer. I've tried to dumb down Naruto's narration a little, but that effort has been largely unsuccessful. I apologize for that. Also, we've got a bit more action this chapter, and then a short break before the major action kicks in.

I do not own Naruto. I only own the contents of this story, including Tokaigakure.

Chapter 2

Fake It

I yelled and slammed my fist into the wooden training dummy. Again and again, over and over, I pounded it. All my anger at the Fox, all my anger at Sasuke, all my anger at any villager who had ever hurt me, ever insulted me, was all targeted at that dummy. It was the Kyuubi, it was Sasuke, it was Orochimaru. Its blank face featured every pair of eyes to ever look at me with hate, and every mouth to ever call me a demon, a monster, a beast. With one last roar, I pulled back my left hand – my normal hand – and slammed it into the dummy's featureless head. I was rewarded with a crack, and it sounded more like wood than knucklebones. I pulled my hand back to look – there was a crack in the wood, and the cracks were filled with my blood. I checked the raw cuts on my knuckles, but the Fox was already healing them with a flash of red chakra and a wisp of steam that smelled like blood and sulfur. Stupid Fox.

"Hey there, Naruto. Sorry I was late. I was getting some groceries, and a flock of-"

"Kakashi-sensei?"

"Yes, Naruto?"

"I'm not in the mood to call you out, so just save the cheesy excuse for a day when Sakura's here too."

"Okay then." Kakashi-sensei nervously fingered the porn book in his back pocket before looking at the dummy. "I see you've been doing some taijutsu to warm up while you waited for me."

"Just releasing some anger," I said. Since Operation Rescue That Jerk Sasuke, Kakashi-sensei has been training me and Sakura more and more frequently. I think it's mostly guilt because the one student he picked to focus on was the one he lost, but hey; he's a really good teacher (when he actually bothers to teach you), so it's fine. "What should I practice today?"

"That depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On how badly you hurt your hand." Kakashi pointed to my right hand. To cover up the new paw-like features, I had covered it in bandages.

"I didn't hurt my hand," I said defensively.

"Then why the bandages?"

"I… maybe I think they look cool. Neji and Chouji wear bandages."

"You've never worn them before," Kakashi pressed.

"Maybe I just started caring about fashion," I said defensively. It was a mistake: Kakashi saw the weakness, and he pressed it.

"Right. My student who wears orange Day-Glo on ninja missions started caring about fashion." It was a verbal battle, I was on the defensive, and Kakashi was every bit the opponent he was physically.

I gulped. "What do you care if I care about fashion? It doesn't matter to you; get off my back!" I could still force this… maybe. It would be suspicious, but every question I answered otherwise would make it more suspicious, and I didn't see any other way out.

To my relief, he backed off. "Alright, alright. It's a touchy subject." Kakashi gave me a look the next instant, though; a look that left no doubt in my mind that he knew something was wrong. "How about we practice close combat? For every three-man-squad of ninja, you'll almost always find at least one close combat specialist, and you'll have to know how to fight them."

I nodded, and decided to act extra-loud so he'd think everything was normal. "I'm warning you, Kakashi-sensei, I've come a long way since that bell test!"

"Let's see how far you've come. I'll limit myself to taijutsu, close-combat weapons, and evasive ninjutsu. No genjutsu, and nothing like fire jutsu. You don't have to hold back. Ready?"

I had already charged forward with a kunai out. Kakashi-sensei dashed forward, slid cleanly under my slash, and delivered a strong elbow hit to my gut. I gritted my teeth and slashed at him, but he jumped away. "You'll need to do better than that, Naruto. Lee can move as fast as I just did without even taking his weights off. You need to anticipate my moves almost before I've begun. Now, here I come again!" I threw the kunai at Kakashi-sensei. He spun to avoid it and caught it as it flew by before dashing at me again, this time with a slight curve from the left. He drove a punch with his off-hand into my gut…

And was surprised to see the shadow clone burst in a puff of smoke. He hadn't noticed me create it while he spun to grab the kunai! I (the real me) leapt from behind the handy cloud of smoke my clone had created and slashed downward with the kunai. He blocked with the one he had just grabbed, but I expected that and rolled forward in mid-air, drop-kicking at his face. Kakashi-sensei threw up his free hand to block the double kick, but it knocked us apart and I managed to land on his feet. "How was that, sensei?" I asked confidently.

"Not bad…" he said. "That kick would have broken my nose or cheekbone if I hadn't blocked, and it almost broke my arm to block it, which would have been worse for me. Of course…" he yanked back with his 'empty' hand, and I was suddenly pulled back onto my ass and elbows. "There is the matter of the wire I got your ankles tangled in as you spun to kick me."

"Dammit, Kakashi-sensei…" I muttered.

"You're improving, Naruto. Six months ago I would have been able to do all this to you while reading my book. Now I can honestly say I don't feel safe reading while I spar with you." I sighed. Kakashi-sensei was one of the strongest Jounin in the village, so I decided I could actually take that as a compliment from him.

"Planning to spend all day lying on your butt, Naruto?" a girl's voice asked. I turned to see Ino snickering and Chouji eating something… potato chips, judging by the noise. "I didn't know you were physically capable of sitting still that long."

"Ino..." I muttered. Sometimes, Ino was nice enough, and other times… as Sakura put it, she was a pig (in personality; I wouldn't deny that she was good-looking). "What are you doing here on Team 7's training ground?"

"Lady Tsunade wants to see us," Ino answered. "So you'll have to excuse us, Kakashi-sensei," she said with a pandering smile only slightly different from the flirtatious one she gave the likes of Sasuke and Neji.

"That's fine," Kakashi-sensei answered calmly. "Naruto's on a mission… Sakura's training with Tsunade all day today… guess there's nothing left to do but catch up on my reading." If Ino knew my sensei half as well as I did, she wouldn't have looked at me questioning when I shuddered at the mention of Kakashi-sensei's reading. It was weird enough that my sensei was such a porn addict, and then pervy sage turns out to be writing those books… who can blame me for being creeped out?

As we headed out, I turned back to wave goodbye and saw suspicion in his eye. I cursed under my breath… Kakashi was still wondering about my hand. As if on cue, Ino piped up, "Hey, Naruto, what's with your hand?"

"I just felt like bandaging it today, alright?!" I snapped.

Chouji chimed in. Kind of impressive how he could properly talk, look at me, hop from rooftop to rooftop, and eat potato chips simultaneously. "Well, you don't have to get defensive-"

"I'M NOT GETTING DEFENSIVE!"

--

It wasn't long before I stood in the Hokage's tower, with Ino and Chouji flanking me. Grandma Tsunade peered out at us from behind the usual mountain range of paperwork. Shizune stood at her side, with Tonton clutched to her chest. This was the usual scene lately for receiving missions, plus or minus another person at Tsunade's side and with varying ninja on my side of the desk.

"I have a mission for you three," she began. I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off. "It has nothing to do with Sasuke, Naruto, but I need you on this mission, so don't bother." I huffed and closed it again, crossing my arms and looking at an interesting spot on the wall. "Anyway, you three know of the Land of Steel, correct?"

"It's a small, relatively young country," Ino said. Drawing a blank, she looked behind my back to Chouji for support.

"It doesn't have many natural resources," he continued, "so it's mainly known for… I don't know, we normally rely on Shikamaru to know this stuff. I do remember that they only recently started a ninja village."

"Correct, and that hole in your knowledge is 'technology', by the way. The Land of Steel imports resources for industry and technology to make money (which I think would be obvious by the nation's name)." Tsunade leaned back in her chair. "But that's not what's important, because I'm not sending you three there. Their new hidden village is what matters. They've applied to be part of the next Chuunin Exams, and there's a test for getting in, so they've sent a few representatives here."

"What kind of test, exactly?" I asked. "It's always tests when ninja villages get together. Don't you ever just have a game of cards?" Ino began to snicker, and I could tell Chouji was grinning behind me.

"Yeah, I wish," Tsunade muttered.

"They send a Genin to the ninja village that hosted the previous Chuunin Exams," Shizune explained. "At least two Kages have to be there as witnesses, and the host village tests the Genin. Not as big as the Chuunin Exams, just a single battle."

"Tokaigakure is the Land of Steel's ninja village," Tsunade continued. "The village leader and his chosen Genin – no doubt, the best in the village – arrive later today. He's supposed to fight three of our Genin tomorrow. In case you haven't figured it out, that's you three."

"Three-on-one sounds a little unfair, even if it's their best Genin," Ino said.

"It's very unfair, but there's a rule about these things, where first he fights one of you, then if he can handle that, he fights two, then all three. Whether he beats you all or none of you doesn't matter – it's the judging of the village leaders that matters. Nobody's ever been rejected before, so they'll get in unless he's just pathetic. This is, to be honest, just an exciting formality."

"Exciting as an exciting formality sounds," I sighed, "can I sit this one out? I need to train for next time I'm up against Orochimaru and his goons." Really, I just didn't want to be fighting in front of everybody while the Fox was trying to take over me, but I could hardly say that, could I?

"No, Naruto," Tsunade said forcefully. "I need you paired with Ino and Chouji here. Besides, there's no better training than a live opponent in a situation where people probably won't be seriously hurt."

"What about Shikamaru? He's actually part of their team."

"He's got a Chuunin-level strategy and tactics lecture tomorrow."

"He's taking a Chuunin-level lecture?" Honestly, Shikamaru's strategy and tactics already seemed above Chuunin level. Weren't they the only reason he became Chuunin in the first place?

"He's teaching a Chuunin-level lecture," Tsunade said with a smirk.

"What about Sakura? Really, Grandma Tsunade, I think I need to sit this one out."

"First of all… DON'T CALL ME GRANDMA! Sakura's attending Shikamaru's lecture. I figure we need to get rebuilding Team 7. You've got no idea how strategy works, and we don't know who your third team member is even going to be, but Sakura's bright enough that she can grasp Shikamaru's lessons, so she's learning them for your team. That means you're Ino and Chouji's teammate today. It counts as a B-ranked mission for you three. GET OVER IT!"

"Yes, ma'am," I muttered with a sigh.

"What's with you, Naruto?" Ino asked. "Normally you love a good fight."

"Don't worry, Naruto," Chouji said, slapping me on the back good-naturedly. "It'll be fun. Then we'll go out for barbecue – whoever knocks this guy out is the one who won't have to pay."

I faked a smile and looked up at them. "Sounds good!"

End of Chapter

Ooh, plot development. By the way, this Genin from Tokai? The only significant OC in this fic. He'll be of importance... mostly from Chapters 3 to 7. Another big cookie for anybody who figures out what Tokaigakure.