Naruto nodded in excitement as he heard the plan. From the day before, as well as recent events, he knew that Kakshi had some sort of attachment to the book. Sakura's plan was great, and he was sure that it would all work out and they'd get the bells.
Sakura smiled at Naruto and looked down at the book in her hands. Kakashi was still fighting off the clones, so they had a few more seconds before he could even think about the book. Joining his hands together, Naruto made several more clones appear, and all of them went to join in the fight against Kakashi. Naruto then made a different handsign and used the Henge to transform into Sakura. The plan was too good not to fail, and if it did, they still had time to make a new one.
The real Sakura smirked and handed to book to Naruto before transforming into Naruto. The real Naruto nodded to the Real Sakura, and the young woman (who now appeared to be a man) left the trees to join the clones.
Only seconds had passed before most of the clones disappeared, and only three were left, not including Sakura. She had been keeping further away from Kahashi than the other clones did, as she did not want to risk getting hit and breaking the Henge. Soon after, 'Sakura' walked out onto the field with the book in 'her' hands. Naruto had been told to read a specific passage near the end of the book, as Sakura somehow knew how far their Jonin instructor had gotten through the book.
'Sakura's sudden appearance had forced Kakashi to look over to the young woman, examining her for a short moment before widening his eyes. There was no doubt about her having his book, with its unmistakable bright orange color, and the title in large font right on the front. He was so focused on her having the book that one of the Naruto clones had actually landed a punch on him, but the clone was brought out of existence a second later by a quick jab. The silver haired Jonin continued to split his focus between 'Sakura' and the clones, but quickly brought down two more clones as he saw 'Sakura' opening the book and flipping pages so that 'she' was near the end of the book. He knew exactly what she was going to do, so he didn't bother with the last clone as he attempted to move over to 'Sakura' to keep her from reading.
Unfortunately for him, the real Sakura had anticipated his movements and began to run after him as soon as he moved away from her, reaching an arm out to grab the bells while all of his focus was on the book.
It seemed like it happened only in an instant, as Kakashi suddenly tackled 'Sakura' and grabbed the book from 'her' hands, using his weight to keep her down, and one hand over her mouth while the other held the book. "Don't spoil it! If you tell me what happens to the two of them, it'll all be ruined!" His cool façade was broken as he talked about the book, as his voice was angry but also worried at the same time.
Only then did he notice that the bells didn't jingle when he ceased moving, forcing him to look at where he had the bells. Much to his surprise, 'Naruto' had both of them in his hands, and was smirking confidently at Kakashi. After hearing a 'poof', Kakshi turned back to 'Sakura' to find out that it was Naruto he was sitting on top of. The Jonin looked back at 'Naruto' and saw him be consumed by a puff of smoke, only for the real Sakura to emerge with both of the bells in her hand.
"Got the bells Kakashi sensei! And I want Naruto have the other one!" She said triumphantly as walked over to her partner and sensei. Kakashi stood up with a surprised look on his face and gave them one of his eye-smiles, happy that they were able to get the bells with a certainly unique plan.
"Good job for the both of you. You worked together with a well thought out plan and got the bells. Unfortunately Sasuke wasn't able assist in the plan, but you both pass." All three og the Genin gasped in surprise at this, and Sasuke shouted furiously.
"WHY DIDN'T I PASS?! I'M FAR BETTER THEN THOSE TWO, AND I'M AN UCHIHA! I DESERVE TO PASS MORE THAN THEY DO!" It was obvious that he wasn't happy with not passing, and glared daggers at Kakashi when he turned to look at the seething boy.
"I'm sorry Sasuke, but I don't think that you're ready to be a genin. When nothing was happening, you revealed your position, as well as came out of hiding and fought me rather than finding a new hiding spot. To make it worse, your attitude right now isn't helping doing you any favors at the moment either." He said calmly as he pulled Sasuke out of the ground, keeping his guard up since he was expecting Sasuke to attempt to attack him.
Without much surprise, Sasuke did just that and attempted to make handsigns, but was stopped as Kakashi grabbed both of his hands and spread them apart, keeping Sasuke from making any more handsigns. "I should talk to the Hokage about disabling your chakra, but you're the last Uchiha and we need you. I'll make sure you're sent back to the academy where you can learn more about being a GOOD ninja." Kakashi said coldly as he bashed Sasuke's head with his own, causing the young nin to pass out and fall to the floor as Kakashi let go of his hands.
Sakura looked at her sensei with a look of surprise, and a little bit of fear. She was scared because she had just seriously thrown things out of the timeline that she knew of, and she was only trying to make them pass, not have Sasuke get sent back to the academy. With a little shakiness in her voice, she looked at her sensei. "Kakashi sensei… Without Sasuke, we can't be a three man cell.. does that mean that we'll have to go back as well?"
She had honestly not expected all of this, and her reaction was somewhat genuine. Her sensei chuckled lightly and shook his head, looking at her and the now standing Naruto. "No, you two have passed, and you're now official genin of Konoha. You weren't the only class to graduate this year, and I'm sure that there's a class that didn't have an even amount of passing people. Take the rest of the day off, and I'll inform the hokage about our situation." He said to them, earning a nod from the two conscious people on the field.
Kakashi then grabbed Sasuke and carried him over his shoulders, planning to go to the hospital as well.
"So.." Naruto dragged on; bring Sakura's attention over to him. "Do you wanna…. Hang out..? Since we're all done for the day?" This was about the time where Sakura would either hit him or yell at him for asking to hand out with her or go on a date with her, but much to his surprise, she nodded with a small smile.
"Sure! I don't have anything planned, and we need something to do while Kakashi-sensei finds us a new teammate for us! What do you want to do?" Sakura had truly surprised the boy by agreeing to hang out with him, and even more so because she allowed him to pick what they were going to do. She knew that he would avoid his house for the time being, so instead be offered to go to the one place where he was always welcome.
"Let's go to Ichiraku's! After passing out test, we should celebrate with some ramen!" He practically jumped in happiness as Sakura sighed with a small smile. She should have seen it coming, but thought nothing about it until it was too late. However, she couldn't have taken him anywhere since he was still hated by the village at the moment, so Ichiraku's was really the only option.
Sakura followed Naruto to the ramen stand with a small smile, happy to be doing something with the future love of her life. She was still a little shocked by everything that had just happened, but she just wanted to spend some time with Naruto at the moment. Sitting down at the stools at the stand, Naruto and Sakura didn't have much time before Teuchi noticed the two of them. "Hey Naruto! Good to see you. I take it something good happened today?"
Naruto nodded, much to the delight of the older man. Said man laughed to himself and smiled wider at his two customers. As he looked at Sakura, he realized that he had not seen her before, and he knew that he would remember her pink hair if she had ever eaten there before. "I assume you're on the same team with Naruto?" Teuchi asked her, receiving a nod from her. The older man smiled again and began to cook ramen. "What'll you two have?" He asked them.
Naruto was quick to respond, as he asked to start off with two bowls of Miso. Sakura simply ordered one bowl of Miso, and the two sat in silence as Teuchi cooked their food for them.
Technically, Naruto could count this as a date between him and Sakura, but didn't want to push his luck any further than he already had, so he simply kept quiet.
Sakura was also quiet, as it had been so long since she had seen him, and she wanted to tell him so many things that she couldn't say during her own time. She would have liked to have gone back to the day that he returned to Konoha with Jiraiya, but she wanted as much time with him as possible, so she went back to the start instead.
While the two sat awkwardly, Ayame walked out to see the two of them, and giggled at them, making them look over to the teenaged woman. "Hi Naruto-kun. Who's this?" In truth, Ayame actually knew about Sakura because of all the times that Naruto had talked about her, but wanted to act like she had no idea who she was just to see how they would react to the question.
Naruto smiled at Ayame and motioned to Sakura. "This is Sakura-chan, Ayame-nee." He said happily, getting the woman to smirk slightly at Naruto.
"So, this is Sakura." She said, looking at the rosette. "So, are you two just hanging out, or on a date?" She said, getting Naruto to laugh nervously, hoping that Sakura wouldn't get mad because she had suggested that they were on a date. Surprised once again, Sakura simply shook her head and smiled.
"Nope. We're just celebrating because we passed our genin test!" She said happily, getting Teuchi to look at the three of them just as he was finishing their meals.
"Genin test? I thought you took that yesterday?" He asked them, unsure if he heard wrong or something else. Sakura shook her head once more at the aged man and watched as he put their bowls of Ramen down at the counter. While Naruto scarfed down his food, Sakura answered his question.
"This was a different test. The one yesterday was to see who had the possibility of becoming a genin, while this one was meant to see if they actually could serve in the shinobi corps." She told Ayame and Teuchi, who both nodded at her and watched as she ate her food as well. Since it wasn't yet time for lunch, the streets were fairly quiet, and Naruto and Sakura were currently the only people that were eating at the ramen stand.
"But the teme failed the test, so Kakashi-sensei is getting us a new teammate. " Naruto told them with a stuffed mouth, getting Sakura to scowl at him.
"Naruto! Don't talk with your mouth full, it's gross and we can't understand you." She scolded him, getting him to gulp down the ramen in his mouth, as well as not at him with a small frown. "Yes Sakura-chan." He said quietly to her, getting her to frown as well.
Sakura sighed a little as she heard him, knowing that she was being a bit hard on him for simply talking with his mouth full. She needed to be patient with him, and even though she was good with waiting, this was Naruto that she was talking about and she would need to wait a bit longer than she would normally.
"Sorry Naruto, but just don't do that, okay? It isn't polite, and we can understand you better when you aren't eating food." She said to him, getting him to nod at her once more as he finished off his second bowl of Ramen.
Decided to hopefully change topics for the better, Teuchi looked at the two genin curiously and leaned up against the counter. "So, your other teammate wasn't able to pass this new test, but you two were? What happened to make him fail?" He asked the two of them, unsure of what had happened for such a thing to take place.
Naruto sighed lightly as he pushed his two bowls away from him and looked at the man who he almost considered a grandfather. "Well, the point of the test was to work together, and since me and Sakura-chan worked together to get the bells, we had a better chance of passing." He told them, pausing to let the information sink in, as well as to allow Sakura to tell the rest of the story.
"Sasuke was the first to give out his position, and he also ran into the open field to try to get the bells on his own. He was too confident in himself and he allowed himself to be incapacitated. After me and Naruto got the bells, he got mad at all of us and I'm pretty sure that he was about to burn us all with one of his Katon Justu. I still can't believe that it turned out like this…" She said the last part quietly to herself as she knew that she had just thrown so many things out of the balance. Teuchi and Ayame nodded, but looked at Sakura and Naruto in surprise. They had not expected the last Uchiha out of all people to be sent back to the academy, and they also didn't know that said person would act out so badly after failing a test.
Sakura couldn't believe it later. She believed that she had been told that Kakashi picked Sasuke because he wanted to honor a past friend of his, but from how Kakashi acted only a little while ago, the information she had gotten seemed to have betrayed the truth.
She wanted to talk about her thoughts with Naruto, but she was afraid that she'd slip up somewhere along the way and make him suspicious about what was going on with her. Wanting to avoid that situation, Sakura found a suitable topic to replace the one they were just talking about. "So Naruto… Do you think that we could train together when we're not with Kakashi-sensei? I'm not really the best that I could be at the moment, and I want to be on par with you and whoever is teamed up with us."
Ta...Da..? This chapter was overall alright for me, but I want to make it clear that Sasuke will not be on a team with Naruto and Sakura for the time being. This may change in the future, but at the same time there's a possibility that he will not be welcomed back to the team with open arms.
About the part where I kicked him off and hinted at the upcoming arrival of a new Genin, I'm really not trying to just shoehorn in a character here. I'm giving you all the option to tell me if you'd like for me to find a way to bring a canon character to team seven, or if you'd like for me to bring in an OC.
I understand that some of you might not be happy with this, but for what I have planned for this, Sasuke cannot be a part of team seven.
That's all for now!
