Following their bout of hysterics, Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke left the roof by walking down the side of the building. "Well, we're done with introductions…Why don't we get you out of your lethally orange jumpsuit, Naruto?" Sakura said.
"Sure, I need a whole new wardrobe anyway. My closet is full of these things," Naruto replied tugging on the hem of his jacket. "You need to get out of that dress too; those white circles just paint a target on you. Sasuke could also use a change, couldn't you, Sasuke?"
"Hn,"
There was a collective sweatdrop from Naruto and Sakura, "We'll take that as a 'yes'," the pink-haired girl said. "We really need to re-learn how to speak Uchiha," she whispered to Naruto, causing him to cough to cover a laugh. Sasuke gave them the stink-eye, well aware they were talking about him.
They decided to go to Higurashi Shinobi Outfitters and Quality Weapons, run by Tenten's family. Sasuke knew that this time he'd probably never end up with Orochimaru's Kusuanagi no Tsurugi and the chokutou he pilfered from his family armory wasn't made for channeling chakra; it was beginning to chip and fall apart from all his lightning training. So he'd decided to either buy or commission a new sword from the shop if he couldn't find what he wanted in stock.
Two hours later Naruto came out of the changing room clad in his outfit of choice, holding several sets to replace the orange monstrosities in his closet. The blond moved toward the register to pay. He wore a v-neck black tank-top with a hood attached to the back collar and the Uzumaki swirl emblazoned in burnt orange on the lower back, covered by a chain mesh shirt ¾ sleeve shirt. The hood hung over the back of the mesh shirt falling to just between his shoulder blades. He also exchanged the blue fabric on his hitai-ate for black with long tails, similar to what he had acquired on his training trip with Jiraiya. The blond switched his orange crop pants for the standard issue cargo style in black, wrapped at the ankle with grey bandages. His blue ninja sandals were replaced with black shin-high combat boots fitted with non-reflective steel toe caps. Finally he finished off his look with standard wrist length fingerless gloves with non-reflective metal guards on the back etched with his clan's swirl. Naruto's shuriken and kunai pouches were attached at his leg and waist with the same grey bandages, and he carried two chakra conductive, double edged tantou sheathed in and x-shape just above the Uzumaki swirl on his lower back, so the grips were held at an angle from each hip for easy access.
Naruto's sleeveless shirt was pretty much skintight, so when he moved the shirt rode up an inch or two showing a strip of tanned, toned flesh and a part of his seal through the mesh. As they all finished paying for their clothes and weapons and moved out onto the street and began to walk in the direction of the Uchiha Compound, Sakura teased him mercilessly about emulating Sai.
However Naruto had ammunition to return fire. Sakura's new outfit was black and extremely dark red, close to a deep garnet color. Her new outfit consisted of a black mock-turtleneck tanktop that cut off two or three inches below her growing bust-line, showing the bottom half of her ribcage and all of her toned stomach. The black fabric didn't cover her shoulders at all but cut an angle across her collar bones from her neck to just below her armpits.
This was covered – barely – by a cap sleeve, deep-garnet colored, hooded, tunic-length jacket that attached with one hook across her chest emphasizing it. The black tank and jacket didn't meet over her shoulders, exposing a triangle of creamy skin between the jacket and the tank. She wore a mid thigh length black apron skirt similar to the light pink one Naruto had seen her in after he returned from his training trip, with tight leggings (in the same garnet color as her jacket) that ended just below her knees. On her feet were heeled shinobi sandals in the same fashion as Tsunade's. Instead of wearing her hitai-ate she had the metal plate clipped onto her skirt just left of center at the hem. Her med-pouch was attached to her thigh at the side split in her skirt with black bandages.
Instead of kunai, shuriken and senbon pouches she had Naruto create modified storage seals on her new elbow length, padded knuckle, black gloves, so she didn't have to reach for her weapons. For the last piece of her transformation she pulled her hair up in a bun, tied with the red cloth Ino had once given her as a sign of their friendship, letting two long pieces of pink hair frame her face.
"You shouldn't be talking, Sakura! Your new outfit shows way more stomach than mine, are you sure you never envied Sai's fashion sense?" The blond bit back.
"Hn," agreed Sasuke, nodding with a smirk.
"Well, you have no room to talk Mr. I'm-so-hot-let-me-show-off-all-my-ripped-stomach-muscles-to-my-fangirls-and-opponents-maybe-they'll-faint-and-I-won't-have-to-deal-with-them!" Sakura started in on Sasuke, "What was with that extremely obvious bit of fashion fan-service we saw in that base in Kusa!? Did Orochimaru give it to you? Was he just exercising his pedophiliac tendencies or did you choose is yourself?"
Sasuke flushed, pink tinting his aristocratic cheekbones, whether in embarrassment or indignant rage, Naruto wasn't sure.
"And that purple ass-bow, did you really have to, Sasuke?! That's like declaring that you're Orochi-teme's bitch! Did he molest you with that disgustingly prehensile and extendable tongue of his?" Sakura continued, ending in a babying tone.
Sakura latched on to Sasuke and continued to coo over him, lamenting that her brother had been molested by the pedophiliac snake bastard, petting at his hair and telling him that it would all be alright. As this went on Sasuke's face continued to get more and more red 'til he looked like he was about to explode when Naruto finally intervened. Pulling Sakura off Sasuke by lifting her up by her waist and placing her on the ground several feet from the primed Sasuke-bomb, he spoke.
"That's enough Sakura, I think we've antagonized the Teme enough for one day. He won't work well with us on the bell test tomorrow if he's too annoyed at us to even look us in the face without activating his sharingan and wishing he could slice us into little pieces with his new chakra conductive chokutou."
Sasuke, whose new outfit consisted of a dark blue standard-issue mock-turtleneck, arm-guards in the same design as the one he wore in the past-future for the chuunin-exams except white on black instead of black on white, and standard issue blue shinobi pants wrapped at the ankles with the standard white bandages, and blue shinobi sandals, wore the most simplistic clothing. He had his hitai-ate tied around his neck replacing the usual high collars of the Uchiha clan. He also had the Uchiha uchiwa on both his shoulders and across his back instead of the standard issue red swirl of the Uzumaki. He did, however, keep a necklace of the Uzumaki swirl under his tank, against his chest to remind him of all he and Naruto had gone through to cement their relationship as sworn brothers. He equipped his new chokutou at the backside of his waist in a standard issue sheath that doubled as a belt upon which he attached his shuriken pouch. His kunai pouch was bound to his thigh with the usual white bandages.
Sasuke 'hn'd' derisively, and took a deep breath letting the blood recede from his face. He glared at Sakura for a minute or two until she apologized, then let out a frustrated sigh and mentally smacked himself for asking the two to stay the night with him before the bell-test the next morning.
He tuned out the conversation between Naruto and Sakura and concentrated on getting home as fast as possible. At least Naruto's a better cook than both Sakura and I, Sasuke thought, reminding himself that he'd get some good food out of his patience with their poking fun at him.
Apparently when Jiraiya found out that Naruto had been living on Ichiraku Ramen, instant ramen, and the infrequent baskets of vegetables Kakashi used to bring him, the toad-sage insisted that Naruto learn how to cook.
It turned out that despite his years of not cooking, Naruto had his mother's talent in the kitchen that few could match; a week ago Naruto had promised to cook the dinner before the bell test and make a large breakfast bentou to take to the training field so they could eat while waiting for Kakashi. It just so happened, however, that Sasuke's place had the best kitchen – and the most room letting them each have their own room instead of having to cram into Naruto's tiny apartment or trying to convince Sakura's parents to let two almost teenage boys spend the night in her room.
After a delicious dinner, courtesy of Naruto (and Sasuke's kitchen), pre-setting Sasuke's state-of-the-art rice cooker – imported from Yuki no Kuni – to have the rice finish cooking two hours before they would have to leave to the training ground, and preparing all the ingredients for tomorrow's bentou, the three of them gathered in Sasuke's sitting room to plan for the next day's test.
The next morning, Kakashi arrived at training ground 7 extra late, just a half-hour before noon; almost 5 hours after the appointed meeting time. He was more than irritated with these brats and they were going to taste his ire!
The itching powder had washed out with just a plain shower, but the orange in his hair hadn't faded a bit, and he couldn't manage to cover it with a genjutstu; every time he tried, the genjutsu fizzled and he couldn't figure out why! He'd already been asked about his 'youthfully bright hair' when he'd been accosted by Gai at on his way to the memorial stone that morning, teased by Asuma on his way to his team, and covertly snickered at by several of the office-nin in the hokage tower when he begged the Hokage to allow him to fail this team.
When he greeted his 'team' with his usual eye-smile and bad excuses – that didn't really manage to conceal his killing-intent at all – he was expecting a shout of outrage, and a scream of "Liar!" from his louder students.
The unfortunate thing about an eye-smile is that it impairs your vision, especially when you only have one 100 percent usable eye; what it doesn't impare, though, are a ninja's danger sense. The normally silver-haired jounin wasn't feeling any of the anger and KI he expected to be directed at him. Kakashi opened his eye, not changing his happy looking countenance, but not lowering his KI, either, finally taking in the sight of his students' new outfits and attitudes.
To say Kakashi was shocked was like saying that the Sandaime enjoys a smoke every now and then…yeah, a massive understatement. The three genin were standing in front of the jounin not at all annoyed, irritated or otherwise upset. Sakura was standing hand on hip, weight shifted to the right, smiling at him in what seemed like an indulging fashion, as if she expected his tardy behavior. Her new outfit showed of her developing figure nicely, but he saw a lack of weapons pouches and was curious as to what she would do without them. He was beginning to speculate about what could have changed between yesterday afternoon and this morning. This question was firmly cemented in his brain when he took in Sasuke and Naruto who were to her left – Sasuke smirking, and Naruto leaning on him with an arm resting on one of Sasuke's shoulders, wearing a sunny smile. He also noticed their new weaponry and clothing, idly wondering if they could use them at all or if they were just for show.
What he didn't notice was the one thing that was congruous in all three outfits, a single scuffed looking black stud in each of his students' left earlobe. Even if he had noticed, there was no doubt he wouldn't have realized its true use anyway. But his ignorance would cause his humiliation at the hands of his 'genin.' Kakashi came back to attention and placed the alarm clock on the stump next to him.
"Okay, it's set for noon," he said, still expecting some sort of exclamation of incredulity, but receiving an indulging expression from his students instead. Kakashi realized he was probably missing something but put it out of his mind – not even trying to look underneath the underneath – still going on their introductions from the day before and their Academy records.
Instead he continued, "Here are two bells, your job is to take them from me. You can even use kunai and shuriken." The Hatake paused here expecting some sort of response, other than the small smiles, smirk and nods he was getting, but pushed on. "Those who don't get a bell by noon will get tied to one of these training posts and won't receive lunch. I'll also eat right in front of you."
He held up the bells, "There are only two bells, so one of you will definitely be tied to a stump. And the person who doesn't manage to take a bell fails, so at least one of you will be sent back to the Academy. You won't succeed unless you come at me with the intent to kill, so use all those fancy weapons you brought with you, kay?" He eye-smiled again. Rather than the shouts of outrage he expected, he just got a small chuckle, snicker, or 'hn' from each of his students respectively. The Copy-nin was getting really confused, but the bell test had never failed him before.
It was now 20 minutes to noon, "And, start!" All three students disappeared in different directions.
When the trio each reached their spots in the forest, with a good view of the clearing in which Kahashi was standing, they each channeled a small pulse of chakra into the earring their sensei failed to notice. "Naruto here, do you copy?" came across the mental link created by the miniscule seals etched onto the stud.
"Roger," responded two 'voices.'
"Plan Ka-1 is a go, I repeat Ka-1 is a go!" came the mental command from Naruto.
"Order received,"
"Hn, on it,"
Naruto created a shadow clone and had it go engage Kakashi in a primarily taijutsu and kenjutsu battle, during which the clone surprised Kakashi with Naruto's expertise with Asuma's Hien chakra flow technique using his double edged tantou. In Kakashi's shocked state the Naruto clone was able to herd the jounin toward Sasuke's position where they had set a ninja-wire trap while waiting for Kakashi to arrive, allowing the raven to set it off.
The now orange-haired jounin finally noticed that he was being pushed toward an ambush and kawarimi'd with one of the log sections scattered around the training ground just in time to see the log get sliced into pieces by the sharp wires. He sweat-dropped at the close call and watched in shock as Naruto's clone dispersed in a puff of chakra smoke.
"Plan Ka-1 is a bust, regroup for Ka-2, I repeat regroup for Ka-2," came Sasuke's voice over the link.
"Roger!" responded Sakura.
"Already in place and ready for action, teme!"
"Hn, Usuratonkachi. On my way,"
After nearly getting shredded by the trap and not realizing Sasuke was in the tree where the trap had been set off, he decided to pursue Sakura hoping to take her out quickly. The three younger shinobi had been expecting this, so Naruto had a clone henge'd as Sakura underneath the tree he was situated in, acting as a decoy for Sakura to catch Kakashi in a genjutsu for just enough time to allow Sasuke to get the paralytic sedative seal Naruto and Sakura had created together on the jounin. Naruto and Sakura were standing as back up, the blond with more seals, and Sakura with senbon coated in mild poisons that would do the same thing as the seals if all else failed.
This time however, Kakashi was too sure of his victory over the supposed fangirl, he didn't think to watch for the others and was caught in Sakura's genjutsu for just long enough to allow Sasuke to tag him. The last thing the jounin saw before he passed out were his three students standing above him with smirks on their faces holding the bells between them.
Kakashi woke tied to one of the stumps with high grade ninja-wire, hands tied separately wrist over wrist to prevent handseals. Becoming aware of the situation, he sweat-dropped at the scene before him. The three were sitting in front of him eating out of a large 5 tier bentou he had failed to notice earlier, sharing the food around, like the two bentou boxes sitting on the stumps beside him didn't exist.
Naruto was the first to notice Kakashi had woken. "Oh, hey Sensei…lunch?" He offered holding out a tier of the bentou the three of them were eating from.
"Dobe," Sasuke berated from next to the blond, "He's tied up, it's not like he can eat by himself." Sakura then got up and cut Kakashi from the post.
"Ah, thanks," the jounin said to Sakura while nodding at Naruto, accepting the bentou and a pair of chopsticks. The team continued to eat and Kakashi observed the interaction between his new students trying to figure out the dynamic between the three.
It seemed both Sakura and Sasuke deferred to Naruto, but the blond took care to consider both of them before saying anything. It was really odd, considering their introductions the day before. At that point he decided to throw his opinions of the three out the window and try to gather more information before coming to more conclusions.
When he finished eating Kakashi set down the bentou and spoke to his genin, "Have you decided which of you gets a bell?"
Naruto gave him a fox grin that made Kurama proud. "Sasuke and Sakura can have them, I have collateral," the blond said, pulling out the older man's copy of Icha Icha from behind his back. "Sasuke's ready and waiting to burn this little baby to a crisp if you don't pass us all. Although both my teammates argued about keeping a bell, and tried to give theirs to me…Well, I'm me, so if one of us has to go back to the Academy…" he trailed off while gesturing in the direction of his stomach, then continued, "Well, you get the idea." His grin grew as he explained the situation.
While Naruto's grin grew wider, so did Kakashi's uncovered eye. The jounin started sweating as Sasuke started the hand seals for the Katon: Goukakyuu favored by the Uchiha clan.
"Maa, maa," Kakashi calmed holding up his hands in a placating gesture, "It's okay, you all pass! I just wanted to make sure you all understood the point of this test was teamwork! You can put the innocent book down! In fact, you better just give it back to me!"
"I think we should still burn the stupid pervert-book," Sakura mumbled, causing Kakashi to worry for the continued safety of his Icha Icha collection. Naruto eventually handed the book over, but not without making Kakashi sweat a bit more first.
After packing up the tiered bentou, the not-silver-haired-anymore ninja led his students over to the memorial stone and gave his little speech, ending with the creed he'd received from Obito, "Those who disobey the rules are scum, but those who disregard their comrades are worse than scum," He finished.
"So," Kakashi said, "Anyone wanna tell me how you guys managed to communicate without alerting me?" The three younger ninja shared a look, and Naruto shrugged, then nodded. The three brushed their hair aside to expose the stud.
"Okay, what's an earring got to do with it?" Kakashi asked, confused.
Naruto sighed then explained the workings of the seals on the earring. Kakashi was stunned, "Who did you get to do the seal work on the earrings?" he asked.
The blond pouted at him, and Sakura and Sasuke both pointed at the displeased blond. Kakashi's eye widened in surprise as he took in the information. Then he eye-smiled at the trio, "Maa, I have to report your passing to the Hokage, so we'll meet here tomorrow at 0900 for our first day as team 7," he said, turning to walk away. "Oh yeah, Naruto? How do I get this color out of my hair?" The jounin asked turning around to give the blond a good dose of KI along with a blinding eye-smile.
"Ah, that?" The blond rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "It comes out with sake, it's my one of a kind formula, so don't tell anyone else, kay?" He requested. Sakura burst out in laughter and Sasuke snorted in amusement. Kakashi just looked at the blond incredulously before shaking his head in resignation and walking off toward the Hokage tower.
Thank you for joining me again with chapter 4!
One Plot
