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Thanks for all the encouraging feedback everyone! My friend, Miru, and I were extremely happy to see people enjoy this story enough to review, favorite, and follow it!
Updates might be slower since we haven't finished chapter three, but we finished chapter four. We tend to skip around chapters while writing so please bear with us until we let out another chapter. Also school and work has been hectic so we're extremely sorry in advance.
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Chapter Two: The Test
The next morning Sakura waited for her team on the bridge, as she was the first to get there, while consuming a small apple. She had left early that morning as both her parents had come home late the night before and she didn't want to wake them for something as trivial as to inform them about her team's practice, even though Inner had whispered Our first practice, after graduating the academy with the highest scores and being placed on a team with a world renowned Jounin in the back of her mind. Next to arrive was a silent Sasuke and shortly after, a hyper Naruto, slightly miffed that he couldn't beat Sasuke in coming to the bridge first. She offered both boys a small apple with a, "We need to keep our energy up, who knows what he'll have us do. Besides, you can just chuck the cores away, they're biodegradable afterall so it wouldn't even be littering." Naruto accepted the small fruit with a cheer and Sasuke did as as well, although he only did so when Sakura started forward with a certain look in her eye that said 'don't-make-me-cram-this-down-your-throat-because-you-know-I-will' and with a forced reluctance he took the offering. After eating they're treats the newly dubbed Team 7 waited for their cryptic teacher. For five hours. Five. Hours.
When the man finally got to their allotted meeting place, Naruto shouted an obvious, "YOU'RE LATE!" with a jabbing index finger pointed at their sensei. Said sensei's only response was, "Mah, I came across a black cat and you know bad luck they are, so i had to go around the long way to avoid it and ran across an old woman who needed my help getting across the street so I had to stop to help." as he nonchalantly smiled as though he were only late 10 minutes and not the 5 hours he had actually been. The death glares he received were scathing and promised murder.
As they, reluctantly, followed their sensei into the woods to training ground number 7, he announced to them what they would be doing. It would be a survival exercise that would determined if they were truly ready to be genin of Konohagakure. He had two bells, and try would have to fight him to get those bells, if none of them had a bell by the end of the day, all three of them would be returning to the academy. When Naruto pointed out that there were only two bells, their teacher just smiled and said, "Correct. So either one of you goes back, or all of you go back." With that, their test began. They all disappeared quickly and masked their chakra. If Naruto was the old Naruto, he would've jumped straight at Kakashi. However, his time with Sakura and Sasuke taught him to fight more intelligently.
"Good, rule number one. Hide your presence." Kakashi commented as he slightly expected Naruto to attack him head on based on his profile.
"So what will we do Sakura-chan?" Naruto whispered, already teaming up with her.
"Find our duck butt and form a plan. There's no way we can beat him alone." She said analyzing their still sensei.
"But he couldn't even dodge a eraser." He pouted.
"I doubt he could've made jounin if he actually couldn't have dodged that. Even if he was incompetent, he's still a Jounin and not even fifteen Genin would beat one Jounin let alone just three Genin." Sakura dryly told Naruto.
"You are correct." A voice behind them made them jump and whirl around. It was Kakashi with an orange book.
"What the hell! When did you get here!?" Naruto yelled out while pulling out a kunai.
"About a minute ago." Kakashi said while turning a page in his book.
Naruto and Sakura circled around him cautiously as he continued to nonchalantly read his novel.
"Why are you reading?" Naruto yelled at Kakashi.
"To catch up on my reading of course."
"What the hell are you reading anyways?" Sakura curiously looked at the orange book.
"You're too young to know right now." He answered.
"It's porn isn't it." Naruto flatly said as he looked slightly disgusted. Sakura looked at them in disbelief before adopting a similar disgusted expression.
"It is not porn, it is erotic literature." Kakashi looked up at them and seemed slightly offended that they considered Icha Icha Paradise mere porn. Both looked at him with varying degrees of disgust and disappointment. Sasuke, who was hiding in a tree near them, also looked at Kakashi with slight disgust. Great, a pervert for a sensei they all thought.
"Hey, stop looking at me like that! Don't you guys have to get the bells from me? After all, you only have till the afternoon." Kakashi looked at them. They totally forgot about the test for a moment since they were busy judging Kakashi. Sasuke chose this moment to leap out of the tree and deliver a axe kick to Kakashi.
"Rule number two, taijutsu." Kakashi dodged before grabbing the leg and throwing Sasuke into a tree.
"Sasuke!"
"Teme!"
Sasuke coughed a bit before launching an array of kunai before yelling, "Stay back!" To Naruto and Sakura.
"Let us fucking help!" Naruto yelled as he witness Sasuke get pushed back again by Kakashi.
"You all will only hold me back." Sasuke spat out as he used Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu.
That's impossible, he isn't supposed to have enough chakra to use it! Kakashi thought as he weaves through the fireballs.
"Lesson three, ninjutsu." Kakashi disappeared underground causing all of them to look around for him.
"Where is he?" Naruto exclaimed as he searched around. Suddenly, hands shot up and dragged Sasuke underground leaving only his head visible.
Naruto smothered a laugh before creating several kage bunshins and having them attack Kakashi.
"Need help there Sasuke?" Sakura crouched next to Sasuke's head with a slight smile. He grunted in annoyance.
"I'm not letting you out till you cooperate with us."
"You will only hold me back."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence duckbutt. He's a jounin, what makes you think one genin will defeat him? We have better chances together." Sakura glared at him before looking at Naruto struggling to distract Kakashi.
"There's only two bells." Sasuke regarded her coolly.
"We'll worry about that later, how about we kick his ass first?" She smiled. Sasuke reluctantly nodded and Sakura began to dig him out. As she almost completely dug him out, she suddenly screamed incoherently and clutched at her face. Sasuke looked on in panic wondering what happened before turning to see Naruto land next to him face first with all his clones dispelled.
"Lesson number four, genjutsu." Kakashi commented as he looked at his orange book.
"What did you do to her!" Naruto yelled as he cradled Sakura. Sasuke was struggling to free his legs as his arms were freed by Sakura.
"I just showed her, her worst nightmares." He nonchalantly answered. Sasuke and Naruto looked furious. They knew that she had her own issues like them, but she was more fragile compared to them. Right on cue, they saw her cry and whimper their names and her parent's names. That was the fucking last straw. They may have grown more distant after the massacre, but nobody fucked with them. Ever. The boys were literally seeing red as Naruto gently put Sakura down before hauling Sasuke out of the hole. They looked at each other before launching themselves at Kakashi with ferocity. Naruto created several bunshins that attacked Kakashi. Kakashi quickly got rid of them with his kunai. That turned out to be the plan as the smoke from dispelling them hid the fireballs that Sasuke spat out. Kakashi leapt out of the way as he tried to avoid all the fireballs. He unfortunately got grazed by one, making his uniform smolder.
They're stronger than I thought. I didn't expect them to react to violently to me putting Sakura under a genjutsu. Then again I didn't expect them to work together at all. Kakashi thought as he parried with a kunai against Sasuke and Naruto. Suddenly, he felt a hard punch land on his gut making him 'oof'. Who was that? He turned around to see a panting, pissed as hell, Sakura.
"I need to properly thank you for putting me in that genjutsu." Sakura said acidly as Naruto and Sasuke looked at her in relief, though Sasuke hid it better.
"I didn't expect you to get out of it so fast." Kakashi said while rubbing his stomach. Man, she packs a punch for a twelve year old girl.
"Oh, I did and you're going to pay for that sensei." Sakura cracked her knuckles threateningly in a sugar sweet voice. The boys felt a slight chill run down their backs as they felt a large amount of killing intent ooze out of her.
"Shouldn't you be focused on retrieving the bells?" Kakashi asked a bit nervously. I should not be intimidated by some genin, let alone one with pink hair.
"The boys can have the bells, I can take the test again, Naruto needs to pass to become Hokage, who knows if he'll pass the second time around, and Sasuke needs to pass to move forward and become stronger, he's wanted this since before we were in the academy and he deserves it. Besides, my main goal right now is to kick your ass." She got out as she swung her fists at him with all her might, eventually clipping his side and an unfortunate tree behind him that now sported a lovely crack.
Sasuke and Naruto looked at her in shock and slight fear.
"Sakura-chan..." Naruto whispered while Sasuke continued to look at her quietly. Was she really willing to sacrifice her chance to be a ninja for them? They wondered. They decided to join in after seeing Kakashi land a solid kick on her.
"There's no way I'm letting you not pass us all! We're in this together!" Naruto launched himself at Kakashi to distract him enough for Sasuke to land a roundhouse kick to his gut.
"I will destroy you." Sasuke glared as he got ready another fireball jutsu. Kakashi quickly used kawarami and replaced himself with a log.
"All right, all right. You guys pass." He exclaimed as he dodged more attacks.
"Why?! We didn't get the bells!" Sakura yelled as she aimed a hard punch at Kakashi.
"This test was about teamwork. You had passed when you all decided to work together to take me down. You were the only ones to do so." Kakashi said before he poofed to the other side of the field.
"Liar! I don't believe anything you say!" Naruto said before sending a bunshins at Kakashi with Sasuke following up with Fuuma shuriken. This continued on for a good twenty minutes as Kakashi furtively tried to convince them that he was actually telling the truth. When he finally managed to convince them, he was actually pretty tired. Man, I'm getting too old for this. He thought while lamenting about time wasted not reading Icha Icha Paradise. They do have potential though. Maybe they could be the team we should've been Obito. Hmmmm, I'm still getting revenge for this though.
Days passed by, after the bell test with Kakashi 'training' them, more like sadistically torturing them. They may have gotten stronger, however, most of their tasks were slightly meaningless and tedious as Kakashi wore them down as their sensei. They did bond more through this though, as they plotted ways to kill their sensei several times together at Sasuke 's or Sakura's house. Days turned into weeks as four months flew by and they had gone through utter hell with all the D rank missions. With the dreaded Tora missions, picking up groceries, walking dogs, running errands, babysitting, and being used as pack mules; Team 7 were ready to snap.
Team 7 was in the Hokage's office after yet another D rank mission. In order to qualify to take the Chuunin exams, ninjas only needed to take eight D rank and two C rank missions. If a ninja wants to take more, they could, but many generally avoided those missions like the plague, especially missions involving Tora. Tora was the hell beast that the Daimyo's wife owned. Almost every ninja in Konoha had to suffer from Tora's claws at one point. It was like a right of passage of sorts, and also the cause of nightmares for ninja of all ranks as they remembered the horror of that hellion. Even Anbu were wary of that cat as they remembered their genin days. No one was spared from its claws, even the Hokage and Elder Council sported some sort of emotional or physical scar from the beast. Many inwardly thought that if there was a war, they could just ship that cat out and they would probably win from that alone. Which is why Kakashi was a sadistic asshole since he sent his team on twenty four D rank missions.
"Today, let's see, I think there's a mission to retrieve Tor -" the Hokage was cut off with Naruto crying, "NO! Not another Tora mission! No more weeding, babysitting, retrieving that demon cat. NOOOO. Please jii-san, give us a C rank."
"Now Naruto, do not be rude to the Hokage-" Iruka began before being cut off by a slightly pale Sakura, "Please Hokage-sama, we can't take this for much longer."
"It can't be that ba-" Iruka was cut off again, but by Sasuke this time.
"Please."
They all looked at him in shock.
"How many have you all done?" Iruka asked cautiously eying the rapidly paling kids. Naruto seemed to shrink into himself as he remembered those horrible, horrible missions. Sakura tried to answer only to choke back a sob. Sasuke decided to forge on and answer,"twenty-four D ranks sir." This caused everyone in the room but Kakashi to pale and stutter,"t-twenty-four!?" Some looked vaguely faint at the thought of such a horrible thing.
"Approved." The Sandaime quickly said as he looked at them with pity and horror. They genin sighed in relief until they saw that their charge was a drunk man. Why us? They inwardly lamented.
We managed to get chapter two done because of everyone's encouragement and we really appreciate how supportive everyone has been!
Next chapter will feature our lovely band of genin and Zabuza with Haku
Hopefully it'll be released in a week or so... Till next time!