VII. In which things are not as they seem.


"So let's go over the plan again-"

"I go first and try to get a bell!"

"And then it's my turn. If Kakashi-sensei has only one bell, I fight with everything I got. If he still has two…. I- I lose easily…"

"I'm sorry about that, Sakura-chan, but we need him to underestimate you if we want the second part of the plan to work."

"Yeah! But that's in case I lose! I will beat him and then I'm sure you'll get the bell too!"

"That's what we accorded, but if you happened to lose-"

"I know, I know! Then you fight him and keep him busy until me and Sakura-chan arrive to spring the trap!"

"But how will we know where you are, Shizuka-chan?"

"There will be fire, you'll just have to follow the smoke."

-o-

Kakashi sidesteps to avoid the fireball and it impacts the bush behind him. The girl just got a look at him and attacked, so serious.

"You seem to be different than the other two, Shizuka-chan". When she took off with them, it too had seemed that they would be different to the usual teams he tested. Then they went after him alone, what a shame.

"I am, and I gave them a chance to work with me. They were stupid enough to reject it. Good riddance."

"And you seem pretty confident too. Let's see if you can back it, uhm? Come at me."

This time he doesn't bother to move and just blocks the kick with his forearm. There's force behind it but not enough. The takes her ankle with the other hand and throws her away. She hits the floor and doesn't lose time getting to her feet again.

Now is his turn to attack. He throws some stars at her, and expecting her to dodge he uses the body flicker technique to appear at her back. She swings her arm backwards to try to stab him in the kidneys. Before it can connect he's already 2 meters away. She turns and with a growl she throws the kunai at his throat. He catches it between two fingers. Vicious, this one.

He spins the kunai by the loop at the handle.

"That was all?"

Instead of answering she tries another kick, he slashes with the kunai and she bends backwards to avoid the cut. He kicks her away. She stands up again and attacks.

It goes the same other two times. Right now she's panting some meters away, nursing her stomach after receiving a punch. He wanted to make this a lesson in ninjutsu, but is fun to see her persist. Also, there's still a lot of time until noon.

"Maybe you are not so different after all. I'll have to bring out my book to read if you're just goin' to continue like that."

She smiles. A group Narutos springs out of the trees and attack him. Oh, so she was buying time. Interesting.

And there's Sakura at the edge of the clearing looking indecisive. After how easy he knocked her out she must not want to risk another fight. Maybe this one is not ready yet and he'll do her a favour sending her back.

He fight continues for a while. Sometimes the Narutos make a grab for the bells and he just kicks them away, he has already dispelled some, but Naruto hasn't made new ones –maybe his stamina does have a limit-. They mostly just get in each other and Shizuka's way. Like right now, she got distracted avoiding collide with a clone and left open her pretty face to a punch. Let's just end this now…

"Shizuka! Kawarimi no ju-" How bad it doesn't work with humans, never mind so far away. His fist connects to Shizuka jaw. A body impacts his hip. The weight of the bells disappears. What.

One of the Narutos is sprinting to where Sakura used to be. Sakura is at his side clutching a bell. The Naruto is holding the other bell in the air. On the floor, Shizuka spits blood and laughs.

"We win," she says. Her smile is bloody but delighted. "You can dispel it now, guys."

After some of clouds of smoke there is only one Naruto next to him with the bell and Sakura is away with the other. What.

-o-

The thing is that Shizuka didn't expect this convoluted plan to actually work. It consisted in fighting Kakashi alone first, in part to not put all their eggs in the same basket, but mostly to make him underestimate them later and to give chance to Sakura and Naruto to exchange places.

Then, the one who performed the Kawarimi had to be far away enough that Kakashi couldn't believe it to work, Naruto was the only one of the three that would pull it, but Kakashi couldn't have believed him to hesitate to fight. So he used a henge to disguise himself as Sakura.

The signal to attempt the kawarimi was when it looked like Kakashi was about to take Shizuka out of the fight, so it could be credible that Naruto-as-Sakura finally interfered.

That Sakura disguised herself as Naruto was, well, she told them it was because Kakashi would probably notice her if she hided, but would not find anything strange with one Naruto clone between many. But in truth, it was so Sakura could participate more in the plan. As she said before, Shizuka wasn't expecting the plan to work. It didn't need to. After all the point of this test isn't actually to get the bells, they just needed that Kakashi saw them work together. She needs to believe in them more.

"So you did."

"You bet we did! We got the bells! You have to pass us!"

"Very well! But now the tree of us need to discuss some things, so… say goodbye to Shizuka-"

(He had to make this more difficult, doesn't he?)

"No," interrupted Sakura. "Shizuka-chan should have my bell. She was the one to put the plan together." Shizuka really needs to believe more in her team, she was hoping they'd do this; what she should have been was completely certain.

"Keep it, Sakura-chan. Remember your dream to surpass Tsunade-hime."

"You deserve it more!"

"I don't, it couldn't have worked without you. I planned it so you two could get the bells. I'm ok with it."

"It's not fair, you are the one who got hurt the most."

"You two got hurt t-" Did Naruto just hit her in the head with his bell?

"Keep that bell Witchy-zuka! You already helped me so I could graduate once. I'm not owing you more." She throws the bell back. The two of them are so good, she feels bad of doing this to them.

"Don't be silly, you don't owe me nothing."

Naruto was about to throw the bell at her again when Kakashi clears his throat to catch their attention.

"It seems that the decision should be mine." Kakashi puts an exaggerated pensive pose. "Who should I choose?"

"Them!" yell the three of them at the same time, pointing at the other two.

"Well, in that case my decision is…. All of you pass!"

Naruto and Sakura actually fall to the floor in shock. She loves them already.


Notes

-I updated because today came out the first mv of Nam WooHyung's solo album.

- I wrote an action scene! I'm proud of myself!

- Part of the interchange between Kakashi and Shizuka at the beginning of the fight is paraphrased from the manga, too.

- I, like Shizuka, wrote the whole henge thing just to make Sakura fight Kakashi. Later Sakura will realise that she actually fought a jounin and won.

-Was it a bit to forced? (yes, it was and I apologise)

- My word processor keep trying to change bell to ball, I still have the random second person thing and I'm generally bad at proof reading, sorry for that too

(-No cats were in this chapter :()