Undone
Chapter 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Everything belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.
"Go home. Change."
Those were the first words that Kakashi had spoken to Naruto as the blond arrived last into the training ground the next day.
"What? Why?" the blond exclaimed loudly, his eyes widening as Kakashi jabbed a finger at his bright orange jumpsuit.
"Because wearing bright orange or bright red to a battle is like having a death wish," Sasuke snorted, glancing at Naruto's jumpsuit and Sakura's dress.
Naruto scowled, crossing his arms across his chest and glaring at the Uchiha. "And what do you have to say, Mr. Duckbutt? Your hair can be seen from a mile away!"
Sasuke returned with a loud hn and a murderous glare. "It's better than having bright yellow hair and an orange jumpsuit that just screams at the opponent."
Naruto rolled his eyes. "My hair has nothing to do with this, teme. It's not my fault that my parents had good looks."
Kakashi sighed at this, holding up a hand and stopping the argument.
"Sasuke's fine. Naruto, why don't you try arguing less and following directions more? Sakura's already gone home," he said evenly, pointing to the place where Sakura had been standing only a minute ago.
Naruto groaned. "For real? I thought genin were allowed to wear whatever they wanted on their missions."
Kakashi turned around, fixing his gaze on the blond. "You're a shinobi now. At least look the part. I want you to come back within five minutes, with that hideous jumpsuit replaced with something more reasonable."
Naruto sent a pointed glare in Sasuke's direction. "What about him?"
Kakashi reached out, clamping a hand on the blond genin's shoulder. "Like I said before, Sasuke's fine. Stop trying to look for excuses. I know that you have a set of gray fatigues in your closet. That will do."
Naruto sucked in a breath, squirming out of Kakashi's grip and blinking. "How the hell do you know what I have in my closet, you creepy old freak?"
Kakashi shrugged before giving the blond an eye-smile. "I have my ways."
Naruto took one look at the man's smile, saw Sakura running back to the training ground, and immediately decided to head back to his dingy apartment.
Naruto returned four minutes later, panting as he dashed into the training ground with the gray fatigues on. He had also added a set of black arm protectors that he had dug out of the bottom of his closet.
Kakashi nodded approvingly before turning to look at Sakura.
The female genin had replaced her red dress with a black, long-sleeved top and a light pink apron-skirt with black shorts underneath.
Funny, the outfit reminded him of Rin...
He quickly pushed the thought out of his mind as he stood back, an amused look appearing in his eyes and he noticed the immediate differences.
The jōnin clapped, a smirk appearing behind his mask.
"Good job on the first part, my little genin!" he chuckled as he pulled a scroll out of his vest, unrolling it before setting the scroll on the ground. With that, he produced a pen from his kunai pouch, crossing off something that had been written on the piece of paper.
The man twirled the pen in his hand, casting his gaze over the three.
"Now, for the training to finally begin. Keep this is mind, by the time you're through all of these, you will be exhausted. Then again, you can always give up halfway through," he said, giving them another eye-smile, "and be sent back to the Academy," he added cheerfully.
Sakura shuddered.
Naruto had to admit, the training was brutal. The jōnin had started off by making them do push-ups, crunches, and chin-ups, not stopping until each genin gave up. Sasuke lasted the longest.
After that, they ran ten laps around the training ground.
The three genin had protested as soon as Kakashi got through the push-ups, but the man had replied by saying that he had a colleague who would make his genin run laps around the entire village.
That shut them up.
After giving his three students a thirty-minute break, the jōnin moved on to chakra exercises. They basically went over Academy-level ninjutsu like Henge, Kawarimi, and Bunshin. Of course, Sasuke and Sakura aced this part. Naruto was left feeling rather discouraged as he continuously failed to produce an effective Bunshin.
Kakashi had jotted something down onto his scroll before raising his head, sending a rather apathetic look in his blond student's direction.
"I thought that you knew how to perform a Kage Bunshin. Why don't you try that?"
Naruto nodded at this, smiling as he formed the seal, yelling out: "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
Two perfect clones appeared around the blond, one on either side.
Sakura reached out and tentatively poked the clone on the right with her finger. "It's solid."
"That's the beauty of a Kage Bunshin," Kakashi said, satisfied with Naruto's performance. "I suppose there's really no point in having you practice the regular Bunshin if you can already do this."
That wasn't true. A Shadow Clone took nearly twice as much chakra as a regular one. Then again, Naruto's massive reserves meant that this didn't apply to him.
"You know that you don't have to shout out the jutsu names, don't you?" Kakashi asked after that thought, breaking the silence and turning to give Naruto a disapproving look. "All the name does is help you concentrate. You can whisper it and still create a bunch of Bunshin. If you think hard enough, you wouldn't even have to."
Naruto frowned. "But-"
Kakashi held up a hand. "Your Academy instructors said that for you to remember the jutsu names."
Naruto blinked. "You mean Iruka-sensei was lying?"
Kakashi waved away the blond's question dismissively, turning to glance at the sky on top of them.
"There are a lot of things that your Academy instructors didn't teach you yet. And everybody has their own way of doing things."
The blond was left to ponder Kakashi's words as the man looked back at his students, clapping his hands to get their attention. "Class is dismissed. Make sure to get enough sleep and eat a good breakfast. I'm not guaranteeing that tomorrow's training won't kill you, especially if it's on an empty stomach."
Slowly but surely, the three genin of Team 7 steadily improved over the next two weeks.
Kakashi was strict and harsh, and he definitely wasn't as lenient and forgiving as their instructors in the Academy, but his training was efficient.
The three genin soon figured out that none of the other teachers were like this.
Of the three genin teams that passed, Kakashi seemed to be the strictest teacher. Ino had stopped Sakura when she walked by the flower shop, and had begun to brag about her jōnin-sensei, Sarutobi Asuma.
"He seems a lot nicer than your teacher, Forehead," the blond had said, a hand on her hip as Sakura stood outside the shop with her arms crossed.
"At least we learn things, Pig," Sakura retorted with a jerk of her head, turning to the side and walking away.
Despite her words, Sakura knew pretty darn well that Kakashi was a lot harsher than the others. Her thoughts were only confirmed when Chōji let it slip that Asuma had talked about the weather when he first met his genin.
"He just lit his cigarette, commented on the good weather, and started smoking," the Akimichi had said with a grin after Sakura asked.
The girl only sighed, hanging her head and glancing down at the ground with a frown on her face.
Now that she thought about it, Kakashi was pretty darn... mean. Maybe even a little cruel.
She was pretty sure that jōnin weren't allowed to throw kunai and fire minor ninjutsu attacks at his students while they ran laps around the training ground.
When Naruto protested, Kakashi had retorted with, "Will enemies give you time to run away before they start attacking you?"
The blond's glum reply had been "No," and he had immediately turned back to his laps after wiping the sweat out of his face.
He was pretty sure that they were now the fastest of their class, especially since Kakashi would chase them around the training ground, dishing out pushups and more laps if he caught up to them.
Sasuke was just peeved.
Most of the time, Kakashi's training methods were just bizarre.
The aforementioned kunai throwing was definitely illegal, and if Sakura's parents found out, well, Kakashi was going to find himself in a pretty dire situation.
Scratch that. Even the Hokage would blow his top if he found out about things like that.
And just like that, in his own weird way, Kakashi managed to slowly bring Team 7 closer together. He gave them a common enemy.
Him.
"When will we do real training?" Naruto had asked one time after Kakashi declared training over, having just made them run ten laps around Training Ground Three.
"When I decide that you have mastered the basics of acting civil towards each other," the jōnin had replied mildly before shunshining away.
This seemed to have taught Naruto and Sasuke a lesson.
From then on, they began to help each other out during training. It seemed that they both wanted to begin learning actual skills and jutsu very badly.
When Sakura can't do enough pushups, both of the boys would do extra to help her meet the requirements. When Naruto failed to properly perform a basic Kawarimi, Sasuke and Sakura would do extra to help make it up for him. As for Sasuke, he was perfect in every area, save for still being a little prickly during certain times.
Kakashi had decided that they were ready.
They were ready for individual training. Their chakra control, physical strength, and speed were now greater than most of their classmates. Kakashi had drilled the basics straight into them. They can now learn more advanced jutsu without problem since their bodies were strong enough to channel more chakra.
"I've decided to have you guys do actual training starting from today, as you two like to call it," Kakashi said evenly, casting his gaze in the direction of Naruto and Sasuke, who had both perked up at the words 'actual training'.
"Now, let's see," Kakashi murmured, pulling a scroll out of his vest and unrolling it on the green grass.
"Sakura, I'm going to send you over to the hospital. Please report to Miss Oyone every other day for your medical ninjutsu training," the jōnin said simply, taking out a pen and checking off her name. "You will go over the basics of medical ninjutsu with her and study the different aspects of begin a kunoichi with her for the next month."
Sakura seemed to relax slightly at this. This was okay. Chakra control was her forte. So was memorizing stuff. It seemed to be a pretty good thing for her to do.
But what was she doing the other days?
"Every other day you'll have a training session with Yūhi Kurenai, the jōnin-sensei of Team 8," Kakashi added, as if hearing her thoughts. "She's a genjutsu specialist. It seems that placing a genjutsu-type like you with her will be a good idea."
And you need a strong female figure in your life, Kakashi added quietly in his mind.
Now there was a light smile on the female genin's face. Medical ninjutsu and genjutsu. Support and offense. Now she would finally be useful.
Kakashi turned to look at her. "Well? Training starts today."
Sakura gave a quick nod and turned to smile at Naruto and Sasuke.
"Well, see you. I hope we all improve by the end of the month," she said with a wave before running out of the training ground.
The two boys were left slightly puzzled as Sakura left, running with speed that she definitely hadn't possessed when they were first assigned to Kakashi as genin.
"She'll be fine," Kakashi said without looking up from his scroll. "Sakura's strong and her chakra control is excellent. I don't see a problem with having a medic on the team."
Naruto gave a rather relieved sigh. At least Kakashi didn't take her to somebody like the guy who made his genin team run laps around the entire village.
"As for Sasuke," Kakashi trailed off, tracing a finger on the paper. "You seem to be good in every area."
Sasuke was taken aback slightly with Kakashi's comment. Was the man actually... complimenting him? Kakashi never even dished out words of support. He definitely never acknowledged any of Sasuke's skills before.
Is the world going to end? Is this why he's being so nice? Naruto thought rather frantically in his mind, turning to send a worried glance to Sasuke.
Sasuke seemed to feel the same away. The Uchiha's eyes said something along the lines of "I have no idea what's going on, but I think Kakashi's off his rocker."
"Are you interested in kenjutsu?" Kakashi asked suddenly, turning to look at Sasuke.
"Kenjutsu?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow, hiding his confusion perfectly.
"I feel like you'll be good at it," Kakashi replied slowly, raising his eyebrow too.
Sasuke thought about this. He had had a few days of training with a sword when he was younger. He had finally gotten strong enough to hold a tantō in his hand. Then...
I'll kill him. I swear, Sasuke thought furiously as the memory of what had happened years ago crossed his mind again.
"Well?" Kakashi asked again, his voice sounding slightly impatient.
"I'll do it," Sasuke replied quickly. Anything to get stronger. Anything to kill him.
Kakashi nodded, taking his pen and checking off Sasuke's name. Kenjutsu is good. Chidori can wait.
"It seems that Hayate's out on a mission right now," Kakashi mused, turning to look at the Hokage Tower.
"That's the kenjutsu specialist of our village," Kakashi added as he saw the puzzled look on Naruto's face.
"I guess Genma will do, then," Kakashi muttered, mostly to himself as he looked away from the Hokage Tower. "I'll tell him to meet up with you here once every day," he added, turning to look at Sasuke.
The Uchiha nodded, an unreadable look on his face.
"Now go find yourself a weapon," Kakashi commanded, gesturing vaguely back at the village. "I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't offer you a weapon himself."
Sasuke nodded again, turning to glance briefly at Naruto before heading out of the training ground.
Kakashi turned to look at Naruto as soon as Sasuke disappeared.
"You, Naruto, are going to be with me."
The blond blinked. Him? With Kakashi?
Why am I always the one with rotten luck?
Kakashi had held out one hand while Naruto panicked, seeming to be concentrating his chakra in his hand.
"Rasengan," he said simply as a glowing ball of blue chakra formed in his hand, spinning so fast that Naruto couldn't tell which direction it was going.
"I'm teaching you this," Kakashi said simply, turning to face one of the trees.
He then ran up, thrusting the ball of chakra into the trunk.
The tree snapped, falling to the ground with a loud boom.
"Cool!" Naruto exclaimed, all feelings of apprehension gone now. "That's what I'm going to learn?"
"There's a lot of training behind it," Kakashi added, dusting off his hands as he turned to look back at Naruto. "I hope you don't get frustrated and give up halfway through."
"Of course I won't!" Naruto exclaimed, grinning excitedly. "I'm going to become Hokage, after all!"
Author's Notes
I feel rather good about this chapter. This is my second take at writing it, since I took down the last one.
I hope it's not as crappy as the last one.
Team 7 is finally showing improvement! Yay!
