The Gennin Test

Sasuke and Naruto both had the same thought that morning: sleep in. They knew Kakashi was going to be late, so they sure weren't going to bother to be on time. Besides… they'd already set up their traps.

Flashback:

"We can take him--it's just Kakashi, ne?"

"Just Kakashi? Are you crazy? He's a Jounin--he was in ANBU, Naruto! We're twelve--there's no way we can take him!"

Naruto grinned, "Think about what you just said, teme."

"Kakashi was in ANBU?"

"No--we're twelve." Naruto's grin broadened, "Think about it--how did he react to us last time?"

"Naruto--"

"We're Gennin. There's no way he's going to start out taking us seriously. Our bodies may not be up to where we want them, yet, but…"

"But we can still plan with the best of them," Sasuke finished. "What are you thinking?"

"Well…"

Sasuke had to admit, it was a good idea. Absolutely outrageous, but likely effective.

All they needed now was to get Sakura to work with them--and, if Sasuke was the one to ask, that was as good as done.

They met at the bridge (where Sakura was waiting) about half an hour before they expected Kakashi to show up.

"You're late!" she yelled, irked to no end.

"Sakura. Kakashi won't be here for another half-hour."

"Huh?" she turned to Sasuke, who had taken to leaning casually against a tree. "How do you know, Sasuke-kun?"

"Hn." Sasuke grunted noncommittally and noticed that his chakra was flaring… though not nearly as much as Naruto's. He ignored Sakura's attempts to get his attention in favor of trying to reign his chakra back under control, slightly puzzled at the unusual difficulty in doing so.

Naruto was having the same problem. Fuzzy? He directed inwards at his tenant.

I was uncertain that this would happen, the fox admitted. Although I was aware of the possibility… your future chakra potential is fusing with your present potential, which will more than double your personal reserves. My own reserves will simply double, as my potential has not changed. I do not know if the seal will be able to handle the strain.

Naruto frowned, Why now? We got back yesterday.

Yes, but it had taken all the chakra we had, so our reserves were completely dry. You were not feeling the effects of chakra exhaustion because your present reserves were untouched… I doubt your coils will be able to handle the strain once your chakra builds up so much.

Which means?

It could kill you, kit. Grumpy, too… you will need to find a way to seal it off.

Kuso.

He needed to talk to Sasuke, soon. Although, with the 'test' with Kakashi coming up… they could use up a lot of the extra chakra…

Hm. Kakashi's hair was still… bright.

The Jounin scowled down at Naruto upon his arrival, "Undo this," he growled as Sasuke smirked behind his back.

"Nah, don't think I will," Naruto chirped cheerfully. "Well… not 'till after the test, anyway… It's some kind of combat-thing, right? The hair will make you easier to spot!"

The kid had a point. An extremely irritating point, but a point none the less. "Fine," he led them off into the trees, "Your test is… to get these bells from me." He held up two bells, then tied them to a belt-loop, "If you get a bell, you pass. If not… you get to spend lunch tied up to one of those posts and you will have failed the test."

"Ano… Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura spoke up, "There are only two bells."

Kakashi's visible eye crinkled up in a smile, "Exactly. One of you will fail this test."

Neither of the boys made any sort of sound, waiting the explanation out. Kakashi wasn't going to give them one--they had to figure this out on their own.

"The alarm is set to go off at noon. If you don't have a bell by then, you fail. You must come at me with the intent to kill or you won't stand a chance."

"Is that all?" Sasuke sounded bored.

Sakura shut her mouth, probably having intended to say something about the dangers of asking students to come at teachers with deadly force.

Kakashi smirked behind his mask--no way were any of these gaki going to be able to pull this off. "Begin!"

The Gennin scattered, leaving an orange-clad blond standing in front of the Jounin, who looked a little put off. "You're an odd one…"

"The only thing odd here is your hair!" Naruto glared, then realized that didn't have the insult-value it had the first time around… not with Kakashi's current hairstyle sporting Naruto-prank influence.

Kakashi growled and Naruto charged, prompting the Jounin to pull out… his book. "A lesson in Taijutsu," Kakashi stated, blocking each clumsy strike with ease while Naruto apparently grew more and more frustrated. "Never let your opponent get behind you."

Kakashi was surprised to find the blond facing him, but landed a solid blow nonetheless… and was shocked when the Naruto he was facing puffed into smoke.

A Kage Bunshin? When did he--where's the real one?

xxxx

"Your clone keeping him busy?" Sasuke asked softly as they went looking for Sakura.

"Not anymore. He dispelled it a few minutes ago."

According to the scream that tore through the woods not long after they'd started out, Kakashi had beaten them to finding her.

Naruto made a handseal and sent a dozen clones in that direction, with instructions to henge if they found him.

"Looks like Kakashi beat us to it."

Sasuke winced, "I can't believe you're actually doing that…"

Naruto suddenly looked a lot more serious than Sasuke was accustomed to, "It doesn't matter how stupid or low you think a jutsu is, Sasuke. If it's effective, use it. We're shinobi, not samurai. Use every advantage. It's saved my life more than once, and it will at least distract Kakashi, if not temporarily incapacitate. I expect you to do the same if necessary."

It was then that Sasuke remembered their respective positions--it was so simple to just fall into being kids again, to pretend the war had just been a bad dream… but Naruto was Hokage and Sasuke was ANBU Captain. "Yes, sir."

"Good," Naruto started heading in the direction the clones had gone, Sasuke trailing behind.

"We'll have to get Kakashi first--then we can find Sakura. Three of my clones found her--one dispelled to send the message. They'll look after her for now."

"And Sasuke?" He sensed the other's attention shift to him, "Use as much chakra as you can. I'll explain later. Kakashi's here."

xxxx

Sakura had been easy to find and defeat, a simple Genjutsu putting her under. Naruto and Sasuke had been harder to find, but were working together, much to Kakashi's surprise.

He listened in on their conversation and was shocked at the tone Naruto took. He sounded much older than his twelve years when he ordered Sasuke to use every advantage.

And Sasuke… what the hell was going on?

He felt a faint glimmer of pride when Naruto said his clones had found Sakura and would take care of her… and was immensely surprised that Naruto had sensed him.

Or maybe he'd just seen the hair.

He jumped out of his tree to confront the boys and started feeling distinctly uneasy when Naruto gave a downright evil grin.

"Taiju Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Kakashi blanched when literally thousands of Narutos poofed into existence and preformed the basic seal for henge.

"Harem no Jutsu!"

The Jounin's visible eye popped when he was suddenly surrounded by nearly naked girls, all of them throwing themselves at him in a dogpile formation.

He didn't notice when one of the henged clones grabbed the bells, or when another grabbed his book, but suddenly they all became Narutos again and a voice from what seemed to be quite far away shouted.

"Sasuke! Now!"

And a massive fireball blew the clones away, showing Naruto and Sasuke, perfectly fine, vanishing is Sakura's direction.

Kakashi got over his shock at having been molested by female Narutos and followed, arriving just in time to see a puff of smoke between the two bells in Naruto's hands.

There was a third bell, the only difference being the faint chakra sense about the obviously henged object.

Naruto set the bells in front of him and started flashing through handseals that Kakashi hadn't seen before--and the chakra sense vanished.

Naruto snatched up the bells, turned his back, and shuffled them with quite a bit of soft ringing, then handed one to Sasuke, one to Sakura, and kept the third.

Kakashi stared--how the hell had he done that?

With no way to tell which was false, Kakashi had no choice but to pass all three--a perfect example of teamwork between the boys having allowed the Gennin to gather their objective… even if Naruto had used a jutsu that by all rights should be illegal.

"You all… pass." Kakashi eye-smiled, and turned his attention to Naruto, "What did you use for the third bell? I could have simply failed you all for attempting to deceive a teacher."

"Ah-ah-ah, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto waggled a finger admonishingly, "Check your pockets!"

Puzzled, he did as he was told… and came up one perverted novel short.

His visible eye widened. "You didn't."

"Yup!" Naruto chirped cheerily, "I figured you'd be willing to pass whoever held the book just so Sasuke wouldn't torch it!"

Three too-fast-to-follow handseals later, and Naruto was throwing the book at Kakashi--when the Jounin caught it, his hair poofed back to its original color.

"Fixed you hair, just like I promised, sensei!"

Kakashi blinked, then sighed. "Get some rest. You'll have your first real mission tomorrow."

Naruto didn't jump for joy as both Kakashi and Sakura expected, instead heaving a sigh and flopping back onto the ground. "How troublesome…" he muttered, too low for those further away to hear.

Sasuke walked into Naruto's field of vision, raising an eyebrow. "You're acting like Shikamaru."

There was a brief pause before Naruto jumped up, sputtering indignantly, then sighed again, rubbing the back of his head. "I kinda did, huh?"

"Hn."

"Ah, well, I've got to get going, now," Kakashi waved, "Meet me on the bridge at seven!" He vanished in a swirl of leaves.

xxxx

"What is going on, Naruto?" Sasuke hissed as soon as Sakura was out of earshot.

"Not here," Naruto growled right back, "Come on."

Sasuke blinked at the suddenly empty space beside him before channeling chakra into his feet and following Naruto into the forest.

As soon as they stopped, Sasuke folded his arms, "Spill."

Naruto shifted, then sighed. "The fox can explain better than I can. Genjutsu me."

Sasuke eyed him warily, but did as he was told, meeting Naruto and Kyuubi in a mindscape of their collective making.

xxxx

"Yeah, right. Kakashi never passes anyone." The Chuunin who said that was part of the group waiting for the students that passed to be announced.

"Hey, let him bet on that," one of the others said, waving at the skeptic. "It's easy money for the rest of us."

Iruka frowned. He'd seen the Hokage's records and knew what they said was true, but he refused to take back his bet. "I believe that Team 7 has a chance."

Kurenai appeared in a swirl of leaves, grinning broadly. "My team passes!" She sounded quite proud of that fact.

"Hey, you're the second one to pass a team!" One of the betting Chuunin turned to another, "Pay up."

Before Kurenai even got the chance to leave after the Hokage marked down the pass, Kakashi appeared, looking slightly disheveled, though his hair no longer sported neon colors.

Kurenai blinked at him. "Kakashi? What happened to you?"

Kakashi dropped into the nearest chair, "Naruto said he fixed my hair… did he do something else that I haven't seen yet?"

Iruka snickered.

"No," Kurenai eyed him oddly, "I mean… you look beat."

Kakashi closed his eye and gave a long-suffering sigh. "I am beat. Not only did Naruto and Sasuke work together, I was swarmed by over a thousand--and I am not exaggerating--"he glared at one of the disbelieving Chuunins, "Narutos… henged into naked females… then Sasuke katoned the whole lot of them the instant they dropped the henge--with me in the middle. Not only did Naruto get the bells, he picked my pocket and henged a book into a perfect replica of the bell and somehow managed to hide the chakra signature on it so I couldn't tell the difference, just to make sure that all three of them passed together!"

It took several moments for the last part of his woeful tale to get through.

"They passed?"

Kakashi eye-smiled and used his 'happy voice'. "Yup! A wonderful display of loyalty to comrades and ingenious use of horrible jutsus."

Kurenai glared, "Tell me you didn't pass them because of Naruto's pervert-jutsu."

Kakashi shuddered, "No. With all due respect, Hokage-sama… I think you should ban that jutsu."

The Sandaime puffed on his pipe, trying very hard to conceal his amusement at Kakashi's expense as he marked down Team 7 as 'pass'.

xxxx

"Wait. You're telling me that all the chakra we have in the future… came back with us, and is now merging with what we have now?"

The fox nodded at the tiny human that stood before him, slightly amused by his repeating of the obvious, then turned his attention back to his 'host'. "Can I go, now?"

Naruto nodded, shrugging slightly, and the Genjutsu dissipated, leaving Naruto and Sasuke standing in the woods.

Sasuke was frowning.

Not that Sasuke frowning was an unusual expression, but this frown said that something big was bothering the black-haired ANBU Captain.

"Sasuke?"

"From what I understand about the biju," he said slowly, "Each additional tail is a mark of the combined chakra potential of all the tails before. Which means a two-tail is twice as strong as a one-tail, but a three-tail is twice as strong as a two-tail, correct?"

"Yeah… so?" Naruto was missing the point.

"So, dobe, your furball just doubled his power--he's becoming a ten-tail, right?"

Naruto nodded again, "And?"

"Will the seal still hold?"

"According to him, yes. He wasn't sure at first, but it was made without regard to power… a soul-sacrifice is irreversible because, no matter how strong a demon gets, they can't match up with gods."

Sasuke relaxed marginally, then paused.

"Gaara."

"What about Gaara?"

"Didn't Gaara say that the extra seal we put on his tanuki would need to be redone?"

That comment got Naruto's attention, fast, "Kuso!" he spat, "The two-point seal could barely hold back a one-tail!"

"And now Shukaku's got two."

xxxx

So… I'm leaving off here, for a while. Not sure how long of a while, it depends on how long it takes to finish the last of my homework and whether or not I get more. Could be a day, could be a week. Bye!