AN: This chapter has been revised and tweaked on August 2016
Hinata lashed at the air with an open palm before pivoting on the balls of her feet to attack again, finishing a set of strikes on her imagined opponent. Satisfied with her performance, she reset her stance and went through the motions of a second kata. Each step squeaked on the hardwood floor, one of the only sounds in the empty room.
She would usually be doing harder training than this, but her father had advised her to save her energy for the survival test tomorrow. As soon as he knew that Kakashi Hatake was her sensei, he cancelled their daily training session, which he never did unless there was an unexpected meeting requiring him. She didn't question his decision, but she did wonder why he was so adamant about her resting for what she assumed was a simple drill. Was there more to Kakashi than what first met the eye?
Hinata switched from open palm thrusts to just the tips of her two fingers as she switched to a newer set of movements, though her main goal was her speed this time.
During the introductions, it was hard to get a solid read on him beyond simple surface details, and an elite ninja can give any first impression they feel if they choose to be deceptive, so that was most likely meaningless. Even his physical appearance gave nothing away. He dressed like the average ninja that was a Chunin or higher, except for the face mask and tilted headband. It was possible that he was disfigured in some way, or that he had a medical condition that required it, but he could also be hiding a kekkai genkai or technique that involved either his mouth, eyes, or both. But what kind of eye based bloodline manifested in only one eye? Other than that, Kakashi had no extra weapon holsters or visible non-standard supplies on his person.
She heard the door slide open before closing again, followed by light footsteps that stopped at the raised edge of the dojo. Hinata ignored whoever it was and continued, hands blurring faster as she contemplated what she could do to get more information. If she could find a long enough time to use the Byakugan on him…
She finished her forms with a pinpoint jab meant for the center of the torso, giving a short but powerful yell at the end that echoed off the wooden walls. She fell out of her stance and focused on her breathing as the adrenaline wore off. The clink of ceramic on wood reminded her to finally check on the other person in the room, Hanabi.
Her seven year old sister had brought in a tea set on a platter, and was in the middle of filling two cups while sitting on her knees, just like she was being trained to do. The sheer amount of concentration she was delegating to the task brought a slight smile to Hinata's face. She crossed the distance between them in a few steps and helped steady the teapot in Hanabi's grip. Hanabi made a disgruntled sound, but gave in and allowed it.
"Why can't I serve tea as well as you can?" she asked as Hinata sat across from her, glaring at the platter between them. Hinata studied the set before picking up one of the cups. They had multiple tea sets, but this one was the one she liked to use the most. The teapot's side had a sunrise painted on it, and each of the cups had a different image on it as well. Hinata always used the one with the smaller sun on it, and their father used the fire decorated cup. The other cup on the platter, the one with a set of exploding fireworks, was Hanabi's.
"I think your tea tastes perfectly fine." she said, taking a sip.
"No, not the brewing. I mean the ceremony part." Hinata sighed and set the cup down.
"How many weeks have you practiced it?"
"Um... two?" Hanabi rubbed the back of her neck.
"Hanabi, I've been performing tea ceremonies for six years. You may have set your goals too high. Besides, I had help from Mother at the beginning."
"…I guess you're right. But still, I've been repeating the steps since this morning, and I haven't gotten better at all."
"Hm…" Hinata stood up, taking the platter with her. "How about we do something else instead? You want to enter the Academy in a few months, right? I can teach you how to use shuriken correctly."
"But what about the tea?"
"When you train too long in one subject, it stops being effective. You have to take breaks and work on something else before you continue practicing, or you're wasting your own time," she explained, walking over to one of the doors. "Why don't you get my weapons holster and wait in the backyard while I return this to the kitchen?" Hanabi instantly brightened, standing as well.
"You're letting me use the real ones?"
"Blunted knives are built differently than the standard sharpened knives. Throwing only the practice ones will just hinder you later by building bad habits," she said, only to realize that Hanabi had already left through the opposite door. Hinata shook her head and walked into the connected hallway, entering the central part of the compound. Hanabi tried hard to act mature, but she tended to slip back into a seven year old as soon as she got too excited.
The compound was defined by two main parts, the Main and Cadet sections. The Main building was where all main branch members of the Hyuga Clan stayed, and it was placed in the center of the grounds. The Cadet building was bigger in length and snaked around the Main building, acting like a protective wall of stone and wood. People could freely walk between the two sections, but had permanent rooms based on their clan rank.
Walking through the cadet branch halls always earned her a myriad of looks from the older children and adults, from apprehensive to resentful. They looked away as soon as they thought she noticed. The younger children were more curious and stared openly, still innocent of what tension separated the two branches.
The Main building was an entirely different atmosphere. The looks were approving and slightly prideful instead, as if they had personally sculpted her into what she was now. And in a sense, they had. She squeezed the platter slightly harder than was strictly necessary at that realization, though she wasn't sure why. If being strong was what she wanted, then what did it matter how she got there?
Sasuke stood on a wooden dock, jutting out into a huge, circular lake. The sun was setting now, and the evening light made the faintly steaming water look like liquid fire. The lake was in the back of the Uchiha District of Konoha, a private section of land for his clan's use. Though now he only visited it for training.
Tomorrow was the moment of truth, the day he'd see how he fared against a real ninja. If he passed the test, it would only be a matter of time before he could get his revenge. He looked into the water, dark eyes turning the same red in his reflection. He glared and backed up a few steps from the edge in preparation. Just one more time and he'd call it a night.
Sasuke's eyes shut as his mind turned inward, grabbing at the chakra he had left. He directed it to his lungs and held it there, rushing through the hand signs now burned into his memory. Horse, Tiger, Snake, Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse, Tiger. At the last one, he took a deep breath and let the chakra flow to his mouth before letting it go, aiming for the center of the lake. As soon as his breath hit the air, it ignited in a stream, curling in to form a growing fireball over the water. The steam intensified as the fireball continued to burn in place and expand, until Sasuke let it die. Satisfied, he turned his back on the boiling lake to start the walk back to his house. His technique could be better, but it would do for now. And once he got a proper teacher…
The training ground was silent when Naruto arrived, the sun barely visible above the trees. He hated getting up early, especially after he had spent a chunk of the night attacking a training bag in anticipation for today. He yawned as he walked into the neat clearing. In the area's center were three wooden posts in a row, standing about a foot taller than his own height. The rest of the training ground was a thick forest, with a small pond in the distance.
Hinata was near the tree line, reading a small scroll, while Sasuke was sitting against one of the posts as he sharpened a knife with a stone. He looked up from his work to see Naruto, and made a dismissive grunting sound before continuing his own work. Naruto gritted his teeth and sat as far away from Sasuke as possible. He'd prove that he could be just as "mature" as that smug jerk.
And so they waited for the test to start, none of them bothering to break the silence. Three hours after the planned meeting time, Kakashi finally showed up.
"You're late!" Naruto yelled, standing up and pointing at him. Sasuke stood up as well, and after a moment of hesitation, tucked his knife away. Hinata had switched from reading to meditation about an hour ago, but didn't seem too bothered by the long wait.
"Yes, I'm aware of the concept," Kakashi said. Ignoring his student's outrage, Kakashi took out an alarm clock, cranked the gear inside it, and placed in on top of one of the posts. "Anyway, this clock is set to ring at noon, around…3 hours from now." He pulled out a couple of silver bells from one of his pockets and held them up by a red string.
"Your test is to get one of these bells from me before time runs out. If someone doesn't get one, they don't pass, and I get to tie them to a stump and eat their own lunch in front of them." Kakashi tied the bells to his pants belt loop. "Oh, and did I mention I brought some nice bento boxes for later? Hope you guys aren't too hungry to wait." Sasuke glared at him.
"Telling us not to eat, and then making us sit here to further waste our time and energy...You set us up."
"Well spotted. And for the record, I only suggested you shouldn't eat breakfast. A ninja must see underneath the underneath, Sasuke. Letting others lead you by the nose blindly will get you killed." Sasuke could just tell by the way Kakashi spoke that he was taunting them.
"Kakashi-sensei, there are only two bells," Hinata said.
"Really? Oh, would you look at that, I left the third one at home. Can't go back and get it unless you want to wait even longer. I guess only two of you can pass now." If they could see Kakashi's face, he'd probably be grinning at his own sadism. "At least this'll weed out the worst of you three." Naruto could tell his two teammates were thinking of him now, to his annoyance.
"I earned this headband fair and square, and I'll prove it if I have to! Your stupid bells are mine!" he yelled, clenching his fist.
"I hope you keep that attitude, because you need to come at me with the intent to kill if you want to get anywhere near"- Kakashi paused as an explosion of smoke went off, and he jumped out of the dark cloud to a now empty clearing. "Hm. Smart kids."
"Hey, are we going to fight or what?" Kakashi turned around to see Naruto standing out in the open.
"Shouldn't you be off plotting?"
"Only a coward hides from a fight! I'll show you exactly how I became a ninja!" he said, getting into a fighting stance. If he could beat a chunin by himself, a jounin was no problem, right? Naruto rushed through a set of hand signs, ending in a cross shape. In a burst of energy, four perfect clones stood around him.
Sasuke observed the challenge as he hid in the branches of a tree. He'd never admit it, but he was curious to see how it would turn out. Naruto would probably get crushed in about a minute, but the fight could reveal something about Kakashi's skills. What kind of hand sign was a cross anyway? Did he just make it up on the spot to make his clones look cooler?
"Alright, have it your way then. The first part of the test is Taijutsu," Kakashi said. At least he got to witness Naruto's most recently learned technique. It wasn't every day that a genin passed an exam by learning the Shadow Clone technique.
The four clones charged together and left the real one behind, circling Kakashi before throwing themselves at him with all the tactical skills of an ox. It was a sloppy assault. He ducked a high kick and blocked another. With a single well timed backhand, a third clone tumbled away with a bruised cheek. It rolled to a stop and burst into smoke, leaving nothing behind.
"Wait, they're completely solid?" Sasuke frowned and watched closer. What kind of move was that? The dead last in school could barely make illusionary clones a few days ago. This was…actually impressive. Another clone received a chop to the neck that dispelled it, leaving two left to fight. The remaining clones backed off and pulled out parrying kunai for their second round.
From even farther away than Sasuke, Hinata monitored the fight with her Byakugan, focusing more on the clones and how they worked. They may have fooled her once, but she was determined to figure them out now.
When they were created, Naruto's chakra was evenly cut between them, something that would greatly weaken a ninja after just one clone. The clones themselves were also made of raw, shaped chakra, with nothing physical used as a medium like water and earth clones. It'd be a dangerous technique in the hands of an already skilled person, multiplying their force in an instant. Even if Naruto couldn't use it to its fullest potential, she still wondered how he acquired it at all. He didn't ever seem the type to study beyond what was mandatory.
Kakashi grabbed one clone's weapon and stabbed the other with it, then kicked the first one in the temple. They staggered away and disappeared, only for a fifth person to jump out the obscuring smoke, fist cocked back for a wild haymaker. Kakashi's single eye widened for a split second, and then he caught Naruto by the wrist and swung him in the opposite direction. Naruto landed feet first and threw himself forward, finally getting a solid punch in. Kakashi exploded to reveal a neatly cut log in his place. Something tightened around his foot, and he was yanked into the air and left to hang by the ankle.
"Interesting jutsu, but you need to work on your hand to hand skills," Kakashi came into view as he slowly spun on the rope tied to a tree branch, the blood rushing to his head. "And this is why you never let the opponent get behind you."
"You...you just caught me off guard!"
"Well, you'll have to try a little harder if you want a bell." He began to walk away, and Naruto flailed at the end of the rope.
"Get back here, I'm not done yet!"
"Oh, I think you are." Kakashi teleported away. Sasuke shook his head and moved on from the clearing as well, wanting to keep track of the jounin he was hunting. Naruto crossed his arms and stayed there, thinking of a way to get back down.
"Do you plan on escaping from that rope trap at any point?" He opened his eyes to see from his perspective, an upside-down Hinata below him, looking up.
"Uh…yeah, I'm just…lowering his guard before I strike again!" he laughed as he revolved in midair. She sighed and pulled out a kunai. "Woah, wait! What are you doing with that?"
"Just hold still," she said, lining up her throw.
"No really, I don't need you to"- the rope snapped as the kunai sliced through it, and he fell on his back with a hard thud. "Ow, what's wrong with you?!" Naruto sat up, only slightly worse for wear.
"If you stayed like that for too long, you would have had a red out," she said. "And then possibly died." He blinked a few times as he processed the thought.
"...That's a joke, right?" Hinata was amazed by his obviousness, but decided not to comment on it. She turned around to leave as well.
"There's no point in you trying to beat Kakashi-sensei again, so don't bother. He might do something worse to you next time." She knew it wasn't the kindest way to tell someone to leave, but she wanted it to stick. Maybe, just maybe, he'd listen to reason and stay out of this.
Naruto stared after her, and then rushed to his feet again, cutting the loop of rope from around his ankle and stumbling to catch up.
"Hey, are you still angry about that whole clone thing in the woods?" he asked. Hinata switched to running, but Naruto kept up with her.
"No, now stop following me around."
"I can walk wherever I want. And besides, I want another shot at him." She gave him a withering look before reactivating her Byakugan. Nevermind being reasonable then, she would never persuade him to stay away. He was far too stubborn.
After a few more minutes of running through the woods, she crouched down behind a bush. Naruto followed suit with a tree trunk and peeked around it. Kakashi stood with his back to them a few meters ahead, reading a pocket sized book. Hinata stayed silent as she pulled a handful of shuriken out of her pouch, and crept around him for a better angle.
Kakashi looked up just as the weapons shot out of the underbrush, and he moved to the side, letting them stab a tree instead. Another group of projectiles arced towards him, driving him across the field to avoid them. He heard jingling in the middle of a dodge, and his head turned to catch Hinata making a grab for the bells. He twisted out of her reach and backed off, forcing her to re-balance herself after her over extension.
"Ah, that was pretty close, but now that you've lost the element of surprise, what will you do next? Run away and try again later?" After some deliberation, she took up a gentle fist stance, focusing her enhanced sight on him. "I'll take that as a no then." It was an interesting reaction for a supposedly pragmatic thinker though. What did she have against retreating? "I guess I'll test you on genjutsu next." He flipped through a set of hand signs so quickly that she could hardly catch them, and a storm of leaves obscured her vision. Hinata dispelled the obvious illusion, only to notice that Kakashi had disappeared again. Another scan of the area confirmed that he was nowhere nearby.
"Was it only a distraction?" Before she could even think about why Kakashi would bother with a weak genjutsu just to run off, she was forced to duck under a swing from Naruto. She lashed out at his exposed rib-cage and knocked him aside."What was that for?" Naruto completely ignored her question in favor of picking himself off the ground and running at her again.
"I'm gonna get those bells from you if it kills me!" he yelled, readying another punch. Hinata jumped to the side, and he turned on a dime and came after her again. Hinata blocked with her forearm and dropped low. She swept his legs out from under him with a kick, but he rolled back and landed in a crouch.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Five clones appeared and wasted no time in surrounding her, trying a variety of kicks and punches to knock her down. Knowing they were fakes, Hinata started using chakra backed palm strikes to dispel them. Father always emphasized how dangerous the Gentle Fist was to the body, so she tried not to use the technique on someone she had no intention to hurt. Clones were a different story, however.
She tagged the last one in the arm, but he turned out to be very real, and Naruto full-body tackled her to the ground.
"Get off me!" She squirmed to slip out from under his weight, but he kept his grip in her.
"No, I caught you fair and square! That means I pass the test, right?"
"For the last time, I don't have any bells!" What possessed him into thinking she had them? This was ridiculous. In a burst of strength, Hinata knocked him off her, leaving them both short of breath and on the ground.
The air grew unnaturally warm, and they both looked up to see a large fireball careening at them. Naruto scrambled out of the way and Hinata threw herself to the side just in time to watch it smash into the dirt, making a burning crater before it went out. Sasuke emerged from the leftover steam to face them, holding a kunai in a reverse grip.
"What the hell, Sasuke?" Naruto yelled. "You almost killed me!"
"Move faster next time. Now get out of here, I'm fighting Kakashi now." Sasuke glared at her. Hinata still had no idea why everyone was suddenly out for her blood, but if Sasuke thought that he could just take her out of this competition… She glared back, and her Byakugan activated. He moved first, and she waited until he closed the distance between them. It quickly turned into one of their many academy matches, except this time there was no one to hold them back.
Sasuke's knife passed a little too close to her face for comfort, and she caught his wrist and twisted until he dropped it. Hinata bent over backwards to dodge the right hook from his free hand that followed, and she was forced to let him go. He barely sidestepped a direct palm strike to the shoulder, one that definitely would have made his entire arm useless if it connected. It was a series of close scrapes and near misses, right up until Naruto joined in with his far less predictable street brawler style.
Their duel transformed into a vicious three way brawl. Bruised and winded, Hinata had finally plugged enough of Naruto's chakra network to prevent him from standing, not that it stopped him from struggling to get up anyway. Sasuke was bleeding from the mouth from a wild kick to the jaw had caught him. Too low on chakra to keep her Byakugan going any longer, Hinata let it fade away. And that's when she felt a tap to the back of her neck, and she blacked out.
"I think that's enough infighting for now." Kakashi caught her as she slumped to the ground, and the other two looked as if they were waking from a dream, their eyes clearing up.
"What the- I thought we were fighting?" Naruto got to his feet and looked around as he snapped out of his trance. "Is this another trick?" Sasuke wiped away the red that was about to drip down his neck before speaking.
"It was an illusion, wasn't it?" He felt like a fool for not even noticing, too caught up in the rush of battle to even question his surroundings.
"Yes, and the fact that you both went with it so easily was rather disappointing. With a single technique, I essentially turned you into my own tools to use against your teammate. Now imagine if this was a real mission." He shifted Hinata into his arms, with no response from her.
"I could have easily killed her instead, and then killed the both of you while you were still reeling. And by the time others came to investigate what happened, I could set the scene to look like one of you turned traitor and tried to off the others." Naruto's outrage dissipated as Kakashi talked, and he wondered if he really could be manipulated to that degree. Sasuke tensed at the word traitor and looked at the ground with dark eyes.
"That's the reality of being a ninja. We don't play fair, and if you don't adapt to it… you die." In the distance, the alarm clock rang.
"Get me down from this thing!" Hinata winced at the sound and woke up again, her back resting on what she identified as one of the wooden training logs. She blinked a few times to clear her blurry vision as she sat up, still sore from whatever had hit her. The sun was high in the sky now, telling her it was already noon. The blue and tan shape next to her ended up being Sasuke. He glanced at her for only a moment, but his frustration was easy to read.
"Quiet, Naruto." Hinata turned and looked up to see her other teammate tied to the middle post, just high enough that his feet were left dangling in the air as he kicked. His arms were restrained at his sides, making it impossible to break free on his own. "Good, you're up." Her attention was drawn to Kakashi standing before the three of them. "Now that we're all conscious, I'm going to debrief you on the survival exercise-which you failed, by the way." Hinata felt herself burn with shame, but said nothing. There was nothing she could add that would make it any better.
"First of all, let me explain to you the meaning of this test. I am a Jounin, an elite ninja. You three are fresh genin. No matter how tough you thought you were in the Academy, none of you can take me on alone. I assure you it is completely impossible. In fact, the distance between you three and myself is so great, that it's as equally impossible for Naruto to have gotten a bell alone than the both of you getting one," he said. Sasuke frowned even deeper, and Hinata looked at her lap.
"But Kakashi-sensei, then how were we supposed to get the bells at all?" Naruto asked.
"Teamwork." He let that sink into them before continuing.
"..Oh."
"You are assigned to teams so you can work together, not fight over mission objectives. If you want to be ninja, you have to learn to get along with your comrades. You don't have to like your teammate as a person, but you must at least respect and trust them. They're the only people you can rely on when you're out in the field. And judging by what I've seen today, I ought to send all three of you back to school for another semester…" Kakashi's tone was colder than it had ever been before, not a hint of joking left. Sasuke was boring holes into the dirt with his glare, probably stewing over the humiliation of repeating the Academy. Hinata was visibly shaken before she caught herself and tried to cover it up. Considering how her clan praised her skill, it didn't surprise him that she reacted that way. And Naruto was of course yelling his head off about how incredibly unfair it was.
"You can't take away our headbands! That's…that's crazy!"
"…Fine." The genin looked up at him again. "I'll give you one more chance. If you mess it up, I will fail all three of you." He tossed a pair of bento boxes to them. "You may eat lunch before trying again, but Naruto gets none of it. That's your penalty. Be ready in 15 minutes." Kakashi disappeared in a swirl of leaves.
They sat there in silence, everything Kakashi had just said still hanging over them like a dark cloud. Hinata reached for one of the lunches on the ground and opened it, and Sasuke eventually did the same. They didn't have any time to waste. After draining her chakra reserves with her constant Byakugan use, eating while they had the chance was the smartest thing they could do right now. And considering how much energy they had spent beating each other up, they had to recover as much as possible. Hinata broke her chopsticks apart and picked at the rice. Her appetite was gone after hearing that speech, but she'd force herself to finish it if she had to. A low growl came from behind her, and Naruto looked away from the bento boxes.
"I don't need food anyway, I'll show him…" His stomach growled again, louder this time. "Ugh…" Hinata looked back down at her food and sighed. She couldn't believe she was about to do this.
Naruto wasn't sure how to respond when two bento boxes were unceremoniously shoved in front of his face at the same time. Sasuke and Hinata looked at each other. Had they really come up with the same idea? Sasuke smirked and broke eye contact first.
"Hyuga, don't give him your food, you've both used more chakra than I have." Naruto grinned as it all began to click for him. Maybe he had misjudged them, and Hinata and Sasuke were okay people after- "Besides, he'll eat it all and then you'll starve." His grin turned into a frown.
"Shut up, Sasuke!"
"Your Fire Style Jutsu looked more draining to me," Hinata countered. "My techniques use less chakra." Sasuke rolled his eyes. Did she have to try and beat him at everything, even sharing?
"You do realize that he can't feed himself while tied up, right? Are you going to let him use your own chopsticks?" Both Hinata and Naruto blushed at the thought, and Sasuke took her silence as a personal victory.
"…I can switch the ends around, Uchiha," she said, though she sounded a little less sure of herself. "We can divide the food evenly."
"Whatever you say…" Hidden in the trees, Kakashi watched from a distance as Hinata separated their portions and Sasuke kept lookout. He reached for the bells attached to his pants and deliberately loosened the strings.
Kakashi switched places with a log just as the flames reached him, the wood being incinerated in his stead. The fireball faded and Sasuke had disappeared, only to show up again to deliver a powerful kick in mid-air that took both arms to block. Sasuke flipped backwards onto his feet and threw a set of knives. Kakashi parried them with the metal part of his glove, and Sasuke caught one as he rushed forward again.
"Well, you're pretty aggressive. Are you trying to make up for getting beaten earlier?" he asked. Sasuke ignored his question, throwing everything into the fight. "Nothing less from the Uchiha clan, I suppose." Kakashi shrugged to himself and met his every move. At a distance, Hinata used her Byakugan to keep track of the fight as she followed Naruto.
"Are you sure you can form enough clones for this to work?" she whispered. He nodded before ducking out of sight behind a tree. A burst of smoke could be seen, and Naruto moved to the next spot.
"I did way more at once before today. Making enough to cover the field is easy!" he answered, boasting a bit. She double checked the other traps they had set. So far, they looked completely natural. Their hastily scraped together plan might actually work.
"Let's finish up before Kakashi-sensei becomes serious. We only have a few more to go."
Sasuke forced himself to stand again after being knocked to the ground for the third time. He was already tired, and Kakashi was somehow speeding up. If the other two didn't do their part soon, he was going to be in trouble. Something glittered in the sun at the edge of his peripheral vision, and he ducked the three shuriken he had been expecting.
And there was the signal. Sasuke could freely use the rest of his chakra he'd been conserving, and he wasted no time in doing it.
"Fire Style: Grand Fireball Technique!" Sasuke yelled the jutsu's name to grab Kakashi's attention, then released a monstrous fireball, even larger than his other ones. Kakashi backed away as it carved a flaming trench in the earth to get to him. Sasuke panted and dropped to one knee. He was spent now, but he'd done his part.
"Now!" Kakashi heard Naruto from somewhere hidden, and then the woods around him erupted into a ring of smoke. In place of some of the stones and foliage, there were now shadow clones. The small army charged him from all sides and dog piled him. Hinata helped Sasuke up, watching the one ninja crowd's progress.
"Did he get it?" Sasuke asked. Her Byakugan zeroed in on the bells just in time to see a clone tear them off.
"I think so!" The pile suddenly exploded as Kakashi tore his way out, but one Naruto had something shiny in his hand.
"Ha, we got them! Take that, Kakashi-sensei!" he said, standing up and lifting the bells above his head. The rest of the clones disappeared. Kakashi straightened his flak jacket before looking at them, and for once he seemed genuinely pleased. But then the look in his single visible eye changed.
"Good job Naruto, you pass. But..."
"But what, Sensei?" Naruto asked, his enthusiasm dampened. Sasuke watched the man closely, already suspicious of what he was planning.
"Who are you going to give the other bell to? There's not enough for all three of you."
"Uh..." the training ground was quiet, no one sure what to say. Naruto looked at the bells in his hands and then back at Hinata and Sasuke, still standing at the other end of the field. He had to chose? They hadn't even thought about this possibility.
Sasuke was a huge jerk, always making him look bad in school, and Hinata hadn't even talked to him before yesterday. But... they were both good ninja in the end, and neither of them really deserved to be sent back to the Academy. And when he was tied up, both of the supposedly cold prodigies had risked breaking the rules to help him. Could he really just turn his back on them after what they've done together?
"I choose..." He hesitated, and then dropped both bells on the floor. "Both of them. I can fail myself, right?" It physically pained him to do it after all he had at stake, but he just couldn't be that ruthless. That wasn't the kind of ninja he wanted to be. Kakashi watched him with a new curiosity. He hadn't expected the jinchuriki to sacrifice himself. His file had implied him to be somewhat selfish, but this was a clear contradiction.
"You...you idiot!" Sasuke said, finding his voice again. He sounded more shocked than angry. "Why would you waste your chance like that?" Hinata said nothing, just looking at Naruto as if he had just declared himself to be the daimyo. It made no sense for him to give up being a ninja just to let her and Sasuke pass. He had contributed to the victory as much as they did, and since when did he care about their careers? Shouldn't he focus on himself? Naruto ignored them both, and waited for an answer. Kakashi nodded.
"Your decision is accepted. I'm happy to say…that you all pass! Excellent job, Team Kakashi." He watched a wave of surprise go through all three of them.
"But...but you just said one of us was going to fail!" Naruto sputtered.
"Do you want that to happen?"
"N-no, but still!"
"What was the whole point of this test if you're passing us all anyway?" Sasuke asked. Was this man just toying with them the entire time?
"Well... I think you all proved you could get along nicely, even if you don't all benefit from it. If Naruto had picked one or the other, I would have failed you all for still not understanding teamwork. But today, you're officially Genin." Sasuke let out a sigh, and shook his head as Naruto cheered. He'd normally be annoyed, but if anything deserved celebration, it was probably this. With his promotion no longer on the line, he was one step closer to accomplishing his goals. His clan would be avenged soon.
Hinata watched them with a slight smile before looking down at her own headband. Father would definitely be proud, and after thinking about it, she would have felt the same way regardless of his opinion. Maybe she could handle having two teammates for a while longer.
AN: Next chapter will have some more team interactions, some training, and hopefully the start of missions. Please review if you have something to say about characters, the plot so far, or any questions at all. I promise to respond to every one of them if they're signed! Seriously though, I can't really respond if you don't sign a review, and I'd rather handle that in PMs than in author notes. I don't have an update schedule, but I'll work on this whenever I have the time. PM me if you're concerned about abandonment.