Naruto stood in a clearing with his two team mates. It was early morning, the dew still thick, and the air heavy with a wet chill. Even the creatures of the forest were barely up, the very beginnings of bird song filtering in through the branches with the coming sunlight. Yet together with the familiar scent of oak and grass there was something else. There was a corpse.
Sakura and Sasuke froze as they watched Naruto squat down and begin poking it with a stick.
"Wow, I mean I knew you'd snap and kill someone one day." Naruto said. "But literally within a week of graduating? Even I'm surprised."
The body had dug a furrow in the turf, tearing up clumps of grass and leaving the toes buried in the soft earth. On the other end, the head, or what was left of it, was lying in a mulched pile at the centre of a corona of blood, brain, and tufts of silver hair. It had been a fantastic kunai shot, hitting the back of the man's skull in mid-air from almost two dozen meters away.
"So, now that we've killed our instructor…. I guess we technically pass?" Naruto said and began rummaging through the various pouches and pockets on the rapidly cooling body in search of the bell.
Sakura could only gape like a fish, her face white tinged green, and her limbs hanging slack by her sides. Sasuke on the other hand remained frozen, as if all higher brain function had ceased and he was in a standing coma.
"I can't believe it…" Sasuke muttered under his breath.
For a moment a wide grin threatened to split his face in half along with a gust of giddiness that would have left him hopping from one foot to the other. It passed quickly though as reality reasserted itself. There was simply no way it could be so easy, even if every fibre in the Uchiha's body wanted to believe it was. If he could kill an elite Jounin, he could kill his brother. It was obvious then that he hadn't killed an elite Jounin.
"Kukushi, no!"
The three cadets whipped their heads around to see Kakashi rushing over to the corpse, again somehow materialising from the shadows.
"You killed Kukushi!" the man groaned.
"What…" Naruto said.
The three of them looked at the corpse, at Kakashi, then back to the corpse. Sakura scrambled behind a nearby bush and began to throw up the contents of her stomach, a stream of vomit pouring out of the small hole in her mask like a running tap.
"You mean that's not you?" Naruto said.
Kakashi looked at him with his eyebrow raised.
"Okay, that was a stupid question." Naruto admitted. "Then who the hell is this guy?"
"He's Kukushi." Kakashi replied.
Naruto and Sasuke waited for the man to elaborate, before they remembered that he never did.
"So… Sasuke just murdered your twin brother?" Naruto said.
Sasuke gulped, his feet slowly tracking towards the edge of the clearing even as his knees almost knocked together. He hadn't considered the man having a brother, he thought there was only one man with that kind of hair in the village.
"Well, just goes to show you the importance of confirming your targets." Kakashi said.
A smile had started to creep up on the man's face. Sasuke stopped as that visage came to rest on him. He had been embroiled in his thoughts, of escaping Kakashi, the village, the irony of becoming a missing-nin at the age of thirteen.
"And not getting caught in genjutsu." Kakashi continued. "Guess that's another twenty points."
For Sasuke, his mind came to a halt as it chewed on those words. Then, like a physical blow, the world came snapping back, as if reality itself had been stretched sideways like a rubber band. When it settled Sasuke found he couldn't move anything below his neck. He screamed.
"Oi, shut the hell up, you'll make me go deaf."
Sasuke turned his head, which he found he could do, and saw a familiar disk of porcelain with the words Not AN BU Yellow printed on its surface.
"Oh…" escaped from his lips.
"Yeah… we're buried up to the neck." Naruto said. "Beats me how he did it though."
"Do you know where we are?" Sasuke asked.
"Nah, but we must be pretty far out, haven't seen or heard anyone at all." Naruto replied. "He must've lured us out here with that genjustsu."
An awkward silence passed between the two. It was already getting dark, another day gone, and the trio were no closer to retrieving the bell. There was no telling how long it would take them to escape from their current predicament either.
"Great, just fucking great." Sasuke snapped. "I grit my teeth and put up with you and the useless bitch and I'm still going to end up fucking enlisted because the instructor is an asshole who gives us an impossible test."
"Hey, you take that back!" Naruto shouted. "We're not the ones on negative two hundred points."
"You're actually keeping track of that?" Sasuke spat back. "Pay attention Naruto, we have one more day to get that bell and your happy go lucky bullshit isn't getting us anywhere."
"Why are you such an ass anyway Sasuke?" Naruto growled. "Seriously, you weren't always such a self-absorbed prick."
The words hung in the air between them as Sasuke's eyes bored into Naruto. Then, if he could have, Sasuke would have slumped his shoulders as he let out a long sigh.
"There's only one thing I want. Anything else doesn't matter." Sasuke said. "So I swear, if you hold me back…"
"Yeah, yeah, and that's why you're a sad sack of shit." Naruto said.
The conversation would have continued but was interrupted by a thick stench wafting over them. The two turned their heads to see the source of the smell. Across from both of them was their last member, buried like they were, but with her head slumped forward in a slowly growing puddle of vomit.
"You don't think she'd drown do you?" Naruto said.
It was morning on the last day of the test and the three cadets were seated in a ramen bar called Ichiraku's. Of the three of them, only one was making any attempt to eat. Naruto, using all his ingenuity, was slurping up individual noodles and broth with a straw. They still hadn't figured out the trick with the masks.
Sakura was slumped over the table with her hands on her head, trying to squeeze the killer headache out of her skull. She was moaning softly and every now and again would lift her head just slightly and let it drop with a quiet thud of ceramic on wood. Each time she did Sasuke's fists tightened just a little more. They were resting on top of the table, thumbs tucked in and almost dislocating from the force of his fingers wrapped around them. His mask had a deep crack running from his jaw to just above his eyebrow.
"So guys, what's the plan?" Naruto said between slurps.
There was a particularly loud thump from Sakura and a pop of a cracking joint from Sasuke.
"Naruto…" Sakura said. "Why are you in such a good mood?"
Naruto laughed and rubbed the back of his head, the straw in his hand dribbling ramen broth onto his uniform.
"Well… I didn't get hit by the flash bang or the log trap." Naruto said.
Sakura scowled behind her mask. She hadn't even realised but now that she thought about it Naruto had somehow managed to come away unscathed from most of the depredations the Taisa had thought up during the week. It was infuriating actually. Naruto was meant to be the worst of them but he was currently having the best of it.
"And I'm really glad I'm not you right now." Naruto continued. "I mean in the last week you've stepped into almost every trap, not to mention how many times you were throwing up or knocked unconscious. Talk about a shitty week."
Blood rushed to Sakura's face and the only sign of it you could see was her quickly reddening neck. It only got worse when she heard Sasuke grunt in agreement.
"You're such an ass Naruto." She said. "I'm mean sure I haven't been too good but I don't think that's any reason to bring it up and rub my face in it just because you somehow managed to do better."
Her tone had gone from angry to flustered remarkably quick and it left Naruto with a bewildered look. She seemed to have somehow escaped the need to breathe as her rant rapidly continued. Naruto turned his head to Sasuke in search of support only to receive the barest of shrugs.
"But Sakura," Naruto interjected into the middle of her rant. "I was just answering your question."
"And that's the problem you insensitive idiot!" She said.
She was about to continue when Sasuke suddenly shot up from his seat and put his hand on her shoulder. The sudden physical contact from the boy stopped Sakura with her mouth hanging open and she slowly looked up at the boy only to find he was gazing elsewhere.
"Shut the hell up and get on your feet, both of you." Sasuke said. "Kakashi just walked past. We're going to get that bell."
He sprinted out of the ramen bar Sakura in tow. Naruto, however, took a second to pull out his wallet in a panic before throwing a random assortment of coins and bills onto the table and sprinting out himself.
The seven days had come to an end. Not once had they come close to retrieving the bell. They hadn't even had a glimpse of it once since the first day. They hadn't even managed to physically touch the Jounin at all.
The final mad hours had been a chase through the streets and forests of Konoha, running after the barest flickers of the man's shadows in the branches of the trees. That had been the cruellest thing, giving them a sliver of hope that they might get to attempt taking it from the man, even if it was doomed to failure.
Now the three cadets under Hatake Kakashi were laid out on their backs, heaving for breath, their limbs weighed with fatigue and the mocking smile of their tormentor peering down at them. It had been exactly one hundred and sixty eight hours since the start of the test and as soon as that moment had come to pass the three of them had collapsed. It was a mix of relief and shame. It was finally over but they had failed.
"Well. That was pathetic." Kakashi said.
All Naruto could taste was grit in his mouth. He could feel it between his toes too, and everywhere else. He was coated in dirt, stray twigs, and even a sprinkling of ash from a close call with a fire trap. Sakura had already passed out, the exertion too much for her poor constitution, and Sasuke was trying his best to get on his feet as futile as that was.
"This test was rigged. You never even tested our combat skills. You wanted us to fail." Sasuke managed to say between gasps of air.
Kakashi chuckled as he leaned against a tree. His form was almost languid, not betraying even a hint that he had been leaping through the trees for several hours, not even his clothes betrayed the smallest scuff or stain.
"And I didn't have to. If that's all you're good at you would be better off joining the Daimyo's armies. Ninety percent of a Shinobi's success does not depend on combat skills." Kakashi said.
Naruto twisted his brows in thought and Sasuke managed to roll onto all fours before spitting out a glob of thick mucus tinged with streaks of blood. It was clinging to the edges of the hole in his mask in long strings and after a second of trying to dislodge them Sasuke just wiped it on his sleeve.
"Bullshit." Sasuke retorted. "What good is a shinobi that can't fight?"
"Now, that's not what I said at all." Kakashi replied. "For example, do you know why I'm considered an S-rank shinobi?"
Sasuke looked taken aback and scowled at what seemed to him a patronising question. There wasn't a single Uchiha who hadn't at least heard of this man.
"You're Sharingan Kakashi, known for over a thousand techniques." Sasuke said. "You're one of the most powerful shinobi alive. That's all that matters."
"Wrong." Kakashi said. "My raw combat power is nowhere near S-rank level."
Sasuke threw an acidic look at the Jounin and grimaced.
"A proper shinobi should be able to change a dressing, plan an invasion, forage for food, navigate a ship, design fortifications, write a formal letter, balance an account, draw a seal, set a bone, code, decode, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, co-operate, act alone, solve equations, analyse new problems, saddle a horse, infiltrate a city, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialisation is for Tokubetsu Jounin." Kakashi said, chuckling at his own little joke.
Naruto by this point had caught his breath and drained his canteen.
"But that's insane." Naruto said. "Nobody can do all that, in fact I can't think of anyone in Konoha who can, except maybe the Hokage."
Kakashi raised his visible brow.
"Why do you think I'm S-rank?" he said. "I have a perfect mission record, no scrub outs and no KIA's. Not every obstacle can be killed."
Kakashi gave it a moment to sink in.
"And I'll be training you three to that standard which, in my opinion, should be what every shinobi is held to, but that's neither here nor there." Kakashi said.
"But I thought we failed your test?" Naruto said.
"Oh, no, I was just testing your resolve. You three are surprisingly the first not to quit by day five." Kakashi said. "I have no interest in training cadets who'll drop out before I'm finished."
A wide smile broke out on Naruto's face. Even Sasuke couldn't help the sneaking grin. Sakura was still out cold.
"No tricks right?" Naruto asked.
"No tricks," Kakashi replied, "from this point on that would be counter-productive. Instead I expect you three to meet me bright and early tomorrow morning at training ground seventeen. Our schedule will be as follows. From six to ten will be physical conditioning followed by one hour for breakfast. From eleven to two will be classroom instruction followed by one hour for lunch. From three to eight we will be working on practical skills. This will continue for five days of the week. The weekend will be reserved for various live exercises, assessment, or extra training days. Understood?"
Naruto and Sasuke nodded.
"Good," Kakashi said, "Oh, and don't forget Pink here. Fill her in when she wakes up. Team NANBU dismissed."
Then he disappeared in a flurry of leaves.