Elemental
Chapter Two
AN: yo.
Disclaimer: I have not, nor will I ever, own Naruto or Inuyasha.
"Sorry I'm late!"
Two glares turned on him, an annoyed gaze, and an amused laugh was given. He smiled, but didn't offer any explanations. "Alright, so I had this planned before, but I decided to make a few interesting tweaks to this. While before I was going to test your teamwork with each other, I decided to see your level on your skills." he smiled at them.
"So then what are we supposed to do?" Naruto asked. Kakashi's smile widened. "Excellent question, Naruto. I'm going to have you retrieve something." Sakura blanched. "Hidden in the surrounding forest are three bells. If you retrieve one, you pass. However, don't think that it'll be as easy as it seems. I've set up a few traps for you around the perimeter. Along with that, I'll be hunting you." they all shivered at the way he said the word.
"Sensei...what do you mean by 'hunting', and there are four of us, so shouldn't there be four bells?" Sakura asked. "Oh good, this team isn't as dumb as my last ones!" exclaimed Kakashi. The four looked at each other, unsure whether to take that as a compliment or not. "To answer your questions though, if you pass the test, you're going to have to expect that you're going to be hunted at all times, so I'll offer you a bit of experience of what that will be like. As for the three bells," he gave them a smirk. "One of you will not pass this test. You'll go back to the academy."
They all straightened up. "You'll have until noon to collect a bell." they tensed. "You start...NOW!" they all ran in separate directions, masking their chakras to the best of their abilities to buy some time to search for a bell. Kakashi straightened up and took out an orange book. 'Hm...Naruto is by the river, Sasuke is in the forest, Sakura not to far behind, and Kagome is 100 meters to my left. None of them are close yet. Oh well.' He placed a timer on a stump and set it to start.
He quickly made the tiger seal, murmuring "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu" under his breath. Immediately, 3 life-like clones came into existence beside him. "You, go follow Kagome, don't attack unless noticed, otherwise just observe," the clone nodded and jumped into the forest, heading in the direction of Kagome. "You two, follow Sakura and Sasuke. See if they'll work together. If not, disarm them if you can." The two clones gave him a salute and ran in the direction of the two. Kakashi turned in the direction of Naruto's chakra and cracked his neck.
Quickly, he bit his thumb, making a few hand seals and placing his hand on the bark of the tree next him. Three puffs of smoke were made, and when cleared revealed three ninken. The first was the largest of the three, a dark brown bull-dog with a spike collar. "Bull, I want you to tail Sasuke and if he happens upon a bell, keep him occupied before I get there." Kakashi ordered. Bull nodded and gave a gruff 'woof' before beginning his walk to the Uchiha.
Kakashi turned to the next dog. He greatly resembled a greyhound, but his fur was more of a reddish coppery brown, and his nuzzle and paws were white. "Uhei, you'll follow Sakura. However, I don't want you to engage with her in combat. We're gonna put that brain of hers to work." Uhei blinked and gave a doggy smirk. "Alright, boss. Got just the thing in store for her!" he cackled as he made a sprint to Sakura. The final dog waited patiently, shaking his head.
The last dog was the smallest of the three. He was a gray, white, and had a mohawk. "Shiba, you are gonna tail Kagome. I want you to observe her, to test her skill level so to say." Shiba didn't waste time in talking and just nodded, dashing to her chakra signal. Kakashi sighed and started to make his way towards Naruto. "One down, three more to go."
Rustle rustle. "Hm, could it be here?" rustle rustle. "Damn it, it's not there. What about over here?" the spiky blond-haired male huffed and collapsed to the ground, musing up his hair with one of his hands. "Why is this so hard? Damn it, I bet Sasuke already has one!" he quickly stood up, walking towards the closet tree towards him, and kicked it.
Pain spread to his toe and he yelped, hopping on one foot as he grabbed it with both hands. He glared at the tree and pouted, mumbling things among the lines of "stupid tree" and "if only I had a match". A gleam from the leaves caught his eyes, and he watched a breeze fly in, making something fall from the branch and onto the ground. He squinted and grinned. It was a bell!
He dove for it, snatching it in his hands. He jumped up and hopped from foot to foot, a wide grin on his face. "Haha! I did it, I did it!" he began to make his way back to where their meeting spot was. "Man, wait till I show Sakura this! She'll be so impressed by me, and not that teme!" So focused in his planning of impressing his crush, he didn't notice the suspiciously large root in the ground in front of him, nor the large pile of leaves either.
His foot got caught in the root, causing him to fall forward and the bell to fly out of his hands. Naruto braced his hands in front of him, planning to catch himself on the leaves, only for them to give way and to fall in a 30 ft deep hole. The bell landed safely on the other side of it. "What the heck?!" Naruto shouted, rubbing his head as he peered at the opening above.
Two blue sandals appeared in his vision, and he could faintly see the outline of spiky silver hair. He growled to himself, no way was he gonna let Kakashi destroy his chance to gloat! He crouched down, ready to spring out of the hole. He released his momentum, but instead of going up like he planned, he stayed right where he was. "Huh?" was all he could get out as he tried to move his legs.
Kakashi leaned over the edge and smiled down at him. "Earth Release: Sticky Mud Trap." He ignored the obscenities the teen shouted at him, walked around the hole, and picked up the bell, trying it to his waist. He gave a mocking wave to the red-faced boy as he went to find his next victim.
"Sasuke...Sasuke where are you?" Sakura whined quietly to herself. She'd been following him since the challenge started, and she'd just lost him. She was hoping that maybe they could work together to find two bells. That way, they could stay on the same team. But the moment she had gotten the courage to shout out to him, he had vanished. Now, here she was, wandering aimlessly in the forest.
In the shadows, Uhei watched, already sighing at the girl. She'd be easy. He stripped himself of his Konoha attire, to make it seem like he was a real dog. "This will be boring." He growled to himself before putting on a 'friendly' look and wagging his tail, trotting up to the pink haired girl. "Woof!" Sakura jumped in surprise and whirled around, kunai poised in hand and ready to be flung at the threat.
She quickly registered that the only 'threat' was the dog and released her death grip on the kunai. She crouched halfway down and placed her hands on her knees, smiling. "Aw, aren't you a little cutie? What are you doing all the way out here?" Uhei internally snorted. With his great eyesight he saw one of the Kakashi clones creep up behind her.
"Sakura."
The girl jumped up and screamed, whirling around only to find an empty space. She turned around again to look at the dog only for the blood to drain from her face. "Sa...Sakura..." came the breathless groan from the body. She stared at Sasuke, who had tens of kunai and shuriken embedded in his back. "Sakura...help me..." Panic rose in Sakura and her throat and she fell to her knees, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as she passed out on the ground.
'Sasuke' poofed and turned back into Uhei, and the clone Kakashi came out from the foliage. "That was kinda pathetic." Clone Kakashi stated before poofing into nonexistence. Uhei nodded and broke into a run to report his results to Kakashi, severely disappointed that the girl wasn't a challenge for him. Then again, this was the first taste of freedom he'd gotten in months. Beggars couldn't be choosers.
Sasuke was getting more and more frustrated. The moment Kakashi had told them the challenge started, he'd made a clone and sent it off in a direction, while he went to a separate one. He'd been tailing Kagome for the past thirty minutes and so far she had done nothing! He was starting to regret his decision of following her when she finally spoke.
"You know, I never knew the Uchiha's were the stalking type," she pursed her lips, her blue eyes coming up to glare at him in the branches. "Or is it just you?" Sasuke bristled at the obvious insult and jumped down front the tree, landing in front of her with just a foot between them. He had no idea why she got under his skin the way she did, since if it were any other girl he would've brushed the insult off. But coming from her, of all girls, was entirely different.
"At least I'm not sitting like a waiting duck just waiting to be shot at." He bit back, glaring at her. She smirked. "No, you're sitting there like a goose waiting for the hunter to find the bigger and fatter prey." His eyes widened as he registered what she just said. "Did you just call me fat?" He spoke evenly, though his tone revealed what he was really feeling.
"If the shoe fits, wear it." she smirked.
In the bushes, Shiba and the Kakashi clone, who had let the other clone poof away after he found both Sasuke and Kagome together, stared at the arguing dark-haired children, dumbfounded. Both of their clans were known for being expressionless and never letting their emotions show, yet, here they both were, in a heated argument nonetheless.
"You look like a homeless mutt!" Sasuke growled, getting into her face. Kagome got into his face as well. "Well the back of your head looks like a chicken's ass!" she snarled. Onyx clashed with blue, and Sasuke could literally feel the heat between them. It was a different kind of feeling when he argued with her..similar to when he argued with Naruto, but a lot more...pleasurable?
In that moment, he realized how close their faces were. Up close like this he could see how her lips were pulled into an angry pout, her cheeks blown out and red from her anger. Her eyes, he realized, were in fact a midnight blue, and he could easily count the freckles scattered across her nose if he so wished. His eyes lowered to her lips, and she didn't seem to notice.
Now that he began to think about it, she was the only girl who hadn't proclaimed her love for him. Hell, she hated him with a fiery passion, he was sure of it. He narrowed his eyes; he'd seen her hanging out with the dobe more than a few times on occasion. Anger and jealousy flared up at the thought of the dobe having something he didn't. He took one more look at her lips before he planted his own on hers in a harsh kiss.
The real Kakashi walked out of the forest onto the scene. His eyes widened in surprise. The two hadn't seemed to notice him yet, so he quietly crept back. He could faintly see the surprise and shock written all over Kagome's face, and so he assumed it was Sasuke who initiated the kiss, which was a surprise in itself. He continue to watch as the scene unfolded.
Kagome felt her insides boil. She felt like her eyes would pop out of her skull. The sensation of Sasuke's lips on hers was weird, in a good way, but she wrote that off on it being shock more than anything else. Sasuke tried to deepen the kiss and she snapped back to Earth. Immediately, disgust overtook her and she pulled away from him, slapping him in the process.
"You," she sputtered, spitting onto the grass. "You fucking bastard!" she wiped her mouth on her hand. Sasuke was on the ground, a hand held to his cheek. His eyebrows were drawn together and he had a slight flush spread across his cheeks. "Why the hell would you do that?!" Kagome demanded, her face cherry red, both from embarrassment and anger.
Kagome glared at the Uchiha who was still on the ground. "I hope you happy, Uchiha." She stomped from the clearing, leaving him alone. Kagome's words seemed to finally register in his mind as his eyes widened a bit in surprise. "Shit."
Kagome's skin sparked in blue and pink flashes. She knew Kakashi was following her, which meant she was close to the bell. She wasn't watching where she was going and was stomping angrily through the forest.
Suddenly she stepped on a twig, which turned out to be a trap. Suddenly kunai and shuriken from all different directions came hurling at her. She didn't have any openings to escape, she realized, so in a last ditch effort to protect herself she threw her hands over her head.
Clangs and clashes met her ears until it was totally silent. Cautiously, she got out of her defensive pose, grinning at the shimmering blue shield around her. "Damn do I love these powers!" she laughed. A twinkle from the corner of her eye caught her attention, and her grin got wider seeing it was a bell. With the shield around her (truthfully she didn't know how to get it down anyway) she walked to the bell, taking it and holding it triumphantly.
Kakashi watched dumbfounded. He knew she had spiritual powers, but he didn't know they were that strong at such a young age. At that moment, the timer rang.
"Other than Kagome, none of you managed to pass this exam." Kakashi admonished. The four genins sat against stumps in front of him. From left to right was Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto and then Kagome. She refused to look at Sasuke and instead focused her attention at the blond at her side and the bell.
"None of you managed to get the purpose of this challenge either." they all remained silent. "The purpose of this was to gain teamwork, to work together to collect the bells. The point of being a team is to work together, and none of you managed to understand that, or even get a bell in the first place." They all flinched under his stare. "I should fail you all right now."
"To be fair, you did say that you weren't testing us on teamwork..." Kagome trailed, grinning at the annoyed glare Kakashi sent her. "I was lying, a good ninja would have seen through it." The grin left her face and she glared right back at him.
They slumped, awaiting his decision. "However, you all have great potential." Kagome peeked from her bangs. "I'm willing you give you another chance after lunch," their stomachs rumbled with hunger, greedy for food. Kakashi took out three bento boxes and handed one to Sakura, Kagome and the other to Sasuke. "The catch is that you cannot share you food with Naruto."
Naruto glared but said nothing. "If I find out that any of you shared your food, you'll be sent sent back to the academy straight away." they all gulped. "Do I make myself clear you two?" Kakashi bent down and glared at them. Sakura nodded hurriedly. Kakashi straightened back up. "Good. See you all in half an hour." He poofed away.
Five minutes past and a loud rumble came from Naruto's stomach. Kagome looked at him, to which he blushed and turned away in embarrassment. She looked at her bento, and then back to Naruto. Using her chopstick, she picked up a dumpling. "Here." Naruto turned, looking at the dumpling in question, along with their other teammates. "But Kakashi said-"
"Who cares? He's not here now, so he wont know. Plus I bet Naruto is hungry, so just eat!" She smiled at him and he blushed even more. "We're teammates, Naruto, which means we take care of each other. I know that if it were me you'd do the same." She grinned at him. He nodded; he would. Kagome scooted close to him so they could both eat.
Sasuke watched on in envy and jealousy.
The wind suddenly picked up and the skies got dark. Lightning flashed all around, and Kakashi appeared in front of them in a blast of light. "I thought I told you not to feed them?!" He shouted above the winds. Naruto glared at him. "We're a team right? Teams stick together don't they!?" He shouted back. Kagome nodded. "Yeah, they look after each other too!"
"Make sure they're safe." Sasuke gruffly chimed in. "And all that includes making sure they're at their best, which also means they're fed." Sakura finished. Kakashi glowered down on them and the lightning in the background flashed even more. "You'd deliberately go against me?!" He shouted. Naruto scowled. "Hell yeah we would! We're a team!"
"A team are you?" Kakashi grunted. The crazy weather suddenly stopped. "Congratulations, you all pass. Welcome to Team 7." he said with a large smile.
Author's Note: ehh.
