Disclaimer: Naruto is a Shonen Jump publication written by Masashi Kishimoto. I am neither Shonen Jump nor Masashi Kishimoto. If that doesn't say it all, I pity you for your lack of perceptive prowess, and strongly advise that you not pursue the way of the ninja.
~V~
- Chapter Ten -
"When a Plan Comes Together"
~V~
Hinata could see clearly through the blaze, however, and as Naruto had predicted, Kakashi escaped by way of Substitution—the only effective way to dodge such a widespread attack while in midair. She saw him make the switch and even managed to track his escape to a nearby tree, thankfully on the side of the practice field opposite her own position.
She could have let the others know where he was... but Naruto had insisted that she remain in hiding until the final phase kicked in. Her part would be small, he'd told her, but vital. Perhaps not the sort of glorious in-the-spotlight, action-packed combat role most young ninja envisioned when they were still greenhorns fresh from the Academy, but Hinata was not "most young ninja." She knew she wasn't as good at taijutsu or ninjutsu as the other two, and she only knew how to execute the most basic of low-level genjutsu techniques.
This was one thing Naruto had taught her during their lessons, however: not all ninja had to be powerhouse blackbelt champions. In fact, he'd told her, in the shinobi world it was often the more subtle, roundabout ninja who played the most vital roles in completing missions. The heavy-handed approach was necessary, too, but wouldn't be possible without the "softer" arts holding it up and helping it along from the shadows.
Hinata wasn't actually supposed to help the two boys out at this stage—she was supposed to follow at a moderate distance, keeping Naruto's Substitution log close at hand while she did. But as she looked on, she saw Kakashi execute a Jutsu that nearly sent her into a panic—it might completely topple their whole plan!
It was essential that she remain in hiding, but she also had to warn Naruto and Sasuke, or the plan wouldn't go any further than it already had. Making her decision in a heartbeat, Hinata's hands formed the signs for the Art of the Doppelganger, and she created a single illusory copy of herself. It set off, moving silently across the branches—making its way around the field to a tree on the other side, so it wouldn't broadcast the direction of her hiding place.
Hinata's true role in this fight would begin when Kakashi dodged the second Fireball.
~V~
Well, Naruto thought, either Kakashi has transformed into a charred lump of spent firewood, or he did exactly what we expected him to.
Naruto looked left, right, and up; behind him, Sasuke came to a landing and did the same, searching in the other direction.
This was the sole blind spot in the entire plan: the gap between the Substitution escape and Kakashi's return to the battlefield. It was a blind spot left in the plan on purpose. If the second phase of Naruto's scheme were to work, the Jonin would need to be fooled into thinking they'd only thought so far ahead as the first Fireball Jutsu. It would also be a helpful bonus if Kakashi believed the two boys to have forged an alliance apart from Hinata, although Naruto knew it was probably hoping for a little too much from a ninja with so much more experience than him. There were a few conditions that would need to be met before the second phase could begin, but Naruto had stressed that this was the part where the three would need to adapt on the fly if necessary.
"That... wasn't bad."
Kakashi stepped out from hiding—and the two boys could clearly see the dirt shift under his footsteps, meaning it wasn't a Doppelganger. Naruto couldn't believe their luck—he'd been expecting a surprise attack.
"That wasn't bad at all," Kakashi said. "Quite well thought-out. But you'll need to do better than that if you want to take these bells."
"What was that you were saying about stepping out of hiding to converse with the enemy?" Naruto responded dryly. Kakashi chuckled in response.
"Well, I'm not the one who has to get the drop on the other team," Kakashi said. "Although after that display, I guess I can forget about finishing chapter twelve before lunch. Such is life..."
Naruto glanced at the clock. Good: they still had a healthy dose of time left.
"N-Naruto-kun!"
Naruto's head snapped to the side, where he saw Hinata crouched on a low branch above. He hadn't heard her approach at all.
"That's not his real body!" Hinata said frantically. "He's still sneaking around in the trees to the East! That clone is—"
Kakashi had snapped off a single shuriken with such deadly accuracy that it flew straight through "Hinata's" forehead. The ordinary, smoke-and-mirrors Doppelganger she had sent with her warning was extinguished in a small poof of smoke before she could complete it.
"Tch," Naruto said, as the two boys tensed. "Never heard of a solid clone before... but there it is, I guess."
"Hm. So she's working with you, too," Kakashi's Shadow Clone said. "That's interesting. Have the three of you settled the matter of who's going to stab who in the back when you get the bells?"
"Oh, stuff it up your dried-up old dirt road," Naruto said. "Sasuke! Go after the real one!"
"Right." And Sasuke was off. Kakashi moved to intercept, but Naruto moved first.
"Ah-ah, you're playing with me," Naruto said, twirling his kunai around one finger. "I hope for your sake that the 'real' you knows Sasuke's coming, because if he doesn't... well, let's just say that my friend over there is almost good enough for all three of us."
"Hm," said the Shadow Clone. "We'll see..."
~V~
Sasuke moved from tree to tree, hiding behind each in turn and peeking 'round for the real Kakashi. He gave a small start when a nearby bush rustled.
"S-Sasuke-kun!" whispered Hinata, peeking out. The veins of her Byakugan were fully active. "He's circling around to Naruto-kun in the tr—"
Hinata broke off and scrambled backward out of the bush, narrowly escaping a hard, somersaulting axe-kick from Sasuke. She stumbled backwards into a small clearing just behind her.
"S-Sasuke-kun!" whispered Hinata. "What are you—!"
"You can cut the act, sensei," Sasuke said. He hopped over the brush and kicked off of the tree next to it, springing toward "Hinata." A flick of Sasuke's wrist sent a shuriken spinning through the air, its speed enhanced by Sasuke's own—"
Her timid eyes glinting with a sudden fierceness, "Hinata" twisted to the side, narrowly avoiding a throwing star to the face. And then, the transformation was released, and Kakashi stood at the ready, his formerly lazy eye now a stern one.
"Well done, Sasuke," he congratulated. "So, what gave me away?"
"You want me to tell you, so you don't make the same mistake twice?" Sasuke smirked. "Not happening, sorry."
Kakashi grinned beneath his mask. And then Sasuke was in motion, and he found out exactly what Naruto had meant when he'd said the Uchiha was almost good enough for all three of them.
~V~
Naruto was putting on a good game-face, but the fact of the matter was that the plan couldn't go ahead until Naruto regrouped with Sasuke, and it certainly wouldn't work with this flesh-and-blood "super-doppelganger" thing around to mess it up. How shall I do this...?
Kakashi's Shadow Clone stood there calmly, waiting for Naruto to make the first move. It looked almost bored, but Naruto wasn't gullible enough to believe it or hotheaded enough to let it get to him. Instead, Naruto kept twirling the kunai in one hand. With the other, he reached into his supply pack.
Kakashi moved too fast for Naruto to track, but when you create a deliberate opening for your enemy, it's easy to guess where they'll strike. Naruto twirled to the right, catching his kunai by the handle and sending a reverse-grip stab at the place he'd rightly anticipated the Shadow Clone would appear.
He only narrowly managed to slip out of position before the clone could take hold of his left wrist from behind, but the clone easily caught his right before Naruto could stab him with it. The red-haired boy answered with a knee toward Kakashi's gut—
And then Kakashi's clone was flipping Naruto right on over its shoulders judo-style.
All of the wind exploded from his lungs as he impacted the ground with more force than Sasuke had ever managed to slam him down with in any of their sparring matches, but he'd gotten what he wanted just the same. He hadn't expected an opening quite so fortunate, but...
Before Naruto had even cleared his head of the pain, a massive burst of heat erupted in the air above him. Naruto's custom-made incendiary seal, which he had stuck on the back of the clone's vest like an atomic "Kick Me" sign with a stupidly short countdown, flared to life in a single, glorious burst of victory. Squinting against the sudden wave of heat and brightness, Naruto grinned through the pain as the Shadow Clone was dispersed by the blast.
"Right, then. That takes care of that..."
~V~
Not far away, the real Kakashi's tired facade nearly slipped as the memory of his dispersed Shadow Clone returned to him. Which surprised him more, he couldn't quite say himself: that the clone had been defeated so swiftly, or that it hadn't even had time to register the source of the killing blow before it got him. Did Hinata know Fire Style Jutsu as well? It was a vague possibility, with her family's chakra control training, but...
The peg fit through the hole just as Kakashi caught a flying kick from Sasuke, blocking it with one arm and grasping his shin with the other. Sasuke, without missing a beat, turned this predicament into an opportunity to swing at Kakashi's face. With the arm he'd first blocked the kick with, Kakashi caught Sasuke's fist—
—and Sasuke kicked with the other leg, a high sweeping kick at Kakashi's skull. The masked Jonin blocked it with a twist of the same arm he still held the fist in. For a brief instant the two were entangled, both of Kakashi's arms tied up with three of Sasuke's limbs as the boy half-floating nearly upside-down—
Sasuke smirked, and with his remaining free hand, made a grab for the bells.
This kid—!
And Kakashi had released Sasuke, almost throwing him, although Kakashi put far more energy into the burst of chakra that propelled his own body backward. Skidding to a halt, Kakashi felt the grin beneath his mask returning.
He's not bad. For a novice, he's amazing. And that Naruto... using my clone's throw move to attach a bomb tag to its back, almost as if he'd planned it all along. And these three kids, despite the test, they're all...
Sasuke, if he was disappointed about having missed his shot at the bells, didn't show it. He was still smirking, and the two stared each other down for a full minute before they heard the sound of someone's approach in the trees above.
~V~
"Are you okay, Naruto-kun?" Hinata said, holding out a hand to pull her crush to his feet.
"The only thing that hurts is my pride," said Naruto. A grunt, and then: "And my spine."
Hinata smiled, and helped him up. "Sasuke is keeping Kakashi-sensei busy, straight in that direction." She pointed into the trees. "It looks like there's enough room over there for... well... you know." Hinata blushed, and Naruto grinned impishly.
"Just don't let it fluster you when it happens," Naruto said, and he was off. Hinata followed, lugging the Substitution log along with her.
~V~
Naruto's arrival was announced by his kunai, which Kakashi skipped lightly backward to avoid. It speared itself in the dirt at his feet. Naruto, surreptitiously glancing around the area, nodded internally to himself. Yes, there was enough room to finish this up here without lighting the forest on fire.
Naruto came to a landing on Sasuke's right-hand side, assuming a basic defensive stance.
"Glad you decided to show up," Sasuke said.
"Ah, don't worry. I know you're hopeless without me," Naruto replied. Sasuke gave a light snort of feigned derision.
Kakashi took a few steps forward, wondering when it the elusive third member of their squad would make an appearance in the flesh. Was her role simply to watch with her Byakugan, sending messages to her comrades by way of Doppelganger? She couldn't be too far away, then. But there was one sure way to—
Before his train of thought stopped at that particular station, Naruto charged forward in front of Sasuke, who followed close behind. Naruto's hands flicked through a small set of basic signs—
And from the blind spot directly behind him, Sasuke's second Fireball Jutsu erupted, swallowing up Naruto, Kakashi, and the entirety of the small clearing.
~V~
The log on the ground next to Hinata was almost instantly replaced by the red-haired boy who'd masterminded the plan. Naruto took a deep breath, nodded at Hinata, and launched into another set of textbook hand-signs.
~V~
Where will he be...? Sasuke thought as the power behind his Fireball technique wound down, and the inferno faded into a wisp and then to nothing. His eyes widened when the only thing he saw remaining on the charred patch of land in front of him was the Substitution log left behind by Naruto. There was absolutely no trace of Kakashi at all.
Left? Right? Behind? Above? Sasuke thought frantically, glancing and twisting around as he sped through the mental checklist.
"SASUKE! BELOW YOU!"
At Hinata's warning cry, Sasuke backflipped out of the way just in time to evade the hand that burst from the dirt to snatch at his ankle.
This hand was swiftly followed by an arm, a head and shoulders, torso, and legs: Kakashi Hatake sprung from the Earth and nimbly skipped to his feet.
"Earth Style," he said. "Groundhog Decapitation Jutsu." Grinning lazily through his mask, he looked to the Uchiha and added: "You would be neck-deep in dirt and rock right now, if it hadn't been for your friend over there."
"We're a team," said a stern, yet soft, female voice. Hinata stepped around from a nearby tree, extracting from her backpack a large, folded blade. "You can't tear us apart with a couple of tiny bells, sensei."
Hinata unfolded the Fuma Shuriken and poised herself to throw it.
"How touching," said Kakashi, seeming unimpressed. "But one of you is still bound for the chopping block... assuming you even manage to get the bells at all."
Without another word, Hinata spun around and flung the shuriken—easily longer than her own torso was tall—through the air... but it was not aimed at Kakashi.
As the shuriken cut a harmless path through the air several feet to Kakashi's left, Sasuke sprinted into its path, snatching it out of the air without breaking stride, and then with a slight change of direction, ran straight up the nearest tree.
He's familiar with tree-walking already—?
He ran only a few steps before a burst of chakra through his feet blew a small crater in the bark, and Sasuke, not altogether unlike Kakashi had earlier, shot into the air like a rocket. He flew outward and upward, throwing the shuriken directly at Kakashi's midsection.
The speed of his throw and the speed of his chakra-boosted tree-jump were almost enough to undercut Kakashi's reaction time.
Almost.
But what actually did undercut his reaction time was what happened just before Kakashi made a move to block the projectile. The Fuma Shuriken burst into smoke mere feet away from Kakashi, and momentarily shocked by what emerged, Kakashi failed to register the truth in time to completely avoid it.
A thrown Fuma Shuriken had, in an instant, become an inhumanly fast flying tackle that sent both the victim and the perpetrator sprawling to the ground in a scrambling heap. Kakashi's vision was obscured by a mess of untamed red hair as their struggle snapped Naruto's hair-tie. A brief jingle of bells met Kakashi's ear—
—and Kakashi sent Naruto tumbling with an awkward, rolling backward kick.
Quickly checking himself over to ensure that the bells were still attached to his belt and that none of those infernal bomb tags had been slipped onto his person, Kakashi leapt to his feet in time to assume a defensive stance before the Hyuga and Uchiha had a chance to dogpile him.
"That," Kakashi said, no longer feigning disinterest, "was brilliant. You almost had them—"
His eyes found Naruto, who lay on his back on the ground some yards away. In his hand was a little orange hardcover book, open.
What? Kakashi thought, eyes widening. When did he—my supply satchel—
Naruto jumped to his feet in the same full-body whip-crack motion as before, eyes skimming the pages of the book. He wore a lopsided grin as he turned toward Kakashi.
Kakashi's hand instinctively fumbled at the cover of his satchel, but he froze as Naruto began to read aloud from the book.
No, Kakashi thought, feeling an uncomfortable sensation well up in his stomach. He wouldn't. He is! He's—
"'Does it feel good, Takeshi?' said Aika, eyes glittering as her finger slid lightly up his shaft—"
I don't believe it, he's actually reading that out loud!
Naruto was really hamming it up, as well—he even managed to make the girl's voice sound weirdly alluring.
"—'M-me too!' said Kaoru. 'I want to lick Takeshi's cock, too!' 'Hmph!' huffed Aika. 'You think you can give him the same pleasure I can? You were a virgin until five minutes ago!'"
Sasuke's and Hinata's eyes never left Kakashi, though Hinata was obviously fighting back her own discomfort. Kakashi, on the other hand—his face was the picture of horror and embarrassment. Well, what do you know, Sasuke mused. The man has a bit of shame on hand, after all.
"—'I can so,' Kaoru insisted childishly. Nudging Aika aside, she wrapped her dainty little fingers around Takeshi's engorged member, and the next thing he knew, he was in ecstacy as the two girls—huh," Naruto broke off, quirking his head to one side. "Kinky."
Naruto snapped the book shut and threw it with all the speed and precision of a kunai knife, directly at Kakashi's face.
~V~
The plan would not have worked had Naruto not memorized and "read out" a portion of what Hinata had read out to him with her Byakugan. The fact of the matter was, the bundle of twigs snugly bound together with steel wire in the rough size and shape of a certain little orange book... could only be held by the Art of Transformation while in direct contact with Naruto's body. The moment he threw it, it was a bundle of twigs again.
If Kakashi hadn't been so dumbfounded at the time, or if he hadn't been distracted from checking his supply pack for the genuine article, he would have had enough time and clarity of thought to dodge or deflect the makeshift projectile. As it was, he'd reflexively snatched a hand up to catch it before his brain had caught up to the fact that it wasn't really his copy of Icha Icha Paradise.
What happened when his exposed thumb came in contact with the sealing tag affixed to the underside of this unassuming bundle of twigs is not unlike the sensation one experiences when they stick a fork in an electric socket: Kakashi's entire body jerked involuntarily, the seal instantly jolting him with a brief but intense electric shock. In that vulnerable moment, while his body could not respond in time to prevent it, Hinata Hyuga pounced.
One muffled jingling sound later, and the Hyuga girl hop-skipped one, two, three steps back from Kakashi, who could only stare in numb disbelief (feeling literal numbness in his left hand) at Naruto, who's face was a blank... except for the small curve of a barely-perceptible, victorious smirk at the corner of his lips.
~V~
Hinata held up the bells for all to see, her own mouth slightly agape. She couldn't believe it. They'd actually done it. It had actually worked.
She looked up, first to Naruto, then to Sasuke, both of whom wore victorious, but strained, smirks that didn't quite reach their eyes. The two boys made their way to Hinata, seeming for all the world as though they'd forgotten Kakashi Hatake was even on the same planet as them.
The Jonin's mind was piecing together the scheme these three had concocted, and as the finer points became clear to him, he found himself resisting the urge to laugh. That first frontal assault Naruto made, he thought. It was mostly just a ploy so he could get a closer look at my book, wasn't it? It was, he was sure of it. That they had executed an impressive try at the bells in the process of that just made it all the more brilliant. And there was no doubt they had intended this last trick since the beginning. Hinata keeping her supply pack on her where the others had not—they had come up with the Fuma Shuriken ploy before they'd even known the specifics of the test. As for the "book" Naruto had "stolen," the only point at which he'd had time to memorize any of its contents would have been before he'd made his first move, while still in hiding and in direct contact with Hinata.
Come to that... when the three of them had moved to set their supply packs down in the first place, had even that simply been a cover so they could make plans out of earshot?
Kakashi watched the three without a word, wondering how this last bit would play out. He could just tell them... hell, it had been decided from the moment Hinata's Doppelganger had alerted the boys to the truth of his Shadow Clone, but...
The words of the Third Hokage floated to the surface in Kakashi's mind: There's a reason I advised Iruka to assign this particular set of Genin to your cell, you see...
Kakashi brushed his right hand through his hair, which still stood a bit more on end than usual, and flexed the partially-numb fingers of his right hand in an unconscious effort to restore full feeling to them. The three children now stood together in a circle, not saying a word.
Then, Hinata smiled, and held out both bells—one to Naruto, and the other to Sasuke.
~V~
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said Naruto, pushing the bell on offer back toward the girl. "Back up, Hina-chan. I'm not going to take that bell from you after the hell you went through trying to graduate this year." Neither had Sasuke taken his bell, though he seemed less reluctant than Naruto.
"It's only because of you that I've made it as far as I have, Naruto-kun... you and Sasuke," she added, holding the second bell out still further toward the raven-haired boy, who slowly reached out and took it.
"I'm not taking the bell," Naruto said. It was a childish, stubborn proclamation, and he folded his arms across his chest as he he said it.
"Take it!" Hinata said. "It was your plan in the first place!"
"It was you that made the plan possible at all," Naruto countered.
"It was you two who were out there actually fighting him!"
"It was you who saved our butts by warning us before Kakashi could get the upper hand."
"You were the one who had the idea to transform into a shuriken!"
"You threw me," Naruto said, with a grin and a wink. Hinata's cheeks went pink.
"N-Naruto-kun, you only barely graduated at all," she said sadly. "And you had to try three times to do it! Three!"
"Well, I shouldn't have any problem graduating a second time, then," Naruto said. "Keep the bell, or I'm throwing the damn thing in the lake, Hina-chan."
~V~
Kakashi blinked in disbelief.
Incredible, he thought. So all this time... they've been working together all this time, with no hesitation whatsoever, and with nearly flawless teamwork... and... they never figured it out?
Hinata slowly pulled back the hand with the bell in it. "Naruto-kun..." she whispered.
"Guys," Kakashi said, but the three ignored him.
"Hina-chan, I didn't bust my ass helping you graduate just so I could watch you fail here and get shipped back to school," Naruto said. "I'm not taking your bell, and that's final."
"Naruto-kun... thank you..."
Oh, gods above, her eyes are tearing up, Kakashi thought. "Um, guys?"
They ignored him again.
Sasuke was frowning, looking down at his own bell. The look on his face, Kakashi noted, was that of a man struggling with himself.
Naruto grinned a foxy grin at Hinata and Sasuke. "It's fine. I'll have that stupid Doppelganger technique mastered by the time Graduation comes 'round again, so passing next time'll be a snap!"
"Um... guys..." Kakashi said, a bit louder this time. And of course, they ignored him.
"Naruto-kun, I don't want to leave you behind!" Hinata said, blinking hard.
Naruto raised his hands in a calm down gesture. "Hey, hey, don't you start getting all leaky on me now—"
Kakashi opened his mouth to interject more loudly, but Sasuke then did something that made Kakashi close his mouth. The raven-haired prodigy was holding out his own bell to Naruto. Rather than looking his friend in the eye, Sasuke was averting his own. A sour and awkward frown dominated his face. Kakashi hadn't thought Sasuke the type to do selfless things... and apparently, neither had Sasuke himself.
"I'm not taking your bell, either," Naruto deadpanned.
"Just take it," mumbled Sasuke. "Rookie of the Year, remember? I'll be a Genin again before you know it."
"Sasuke..."
"You two had enough trouble getting through Graduation the first time. Just take it."
Naruto opened his mouth, then closed it again, seeming undecided, but before this heartwarming scene could go any further, Kakashi cleared his throat... loudly.
"Hey, guys."
The three turned sour faces on the masked man as he strolled over their little gathering.
"Keep your nose plugged, sensei, we'll be done in a minute," said Naruto.
"But that's the thing, you three... you all pass."
The three sour frowns fell from their faces, replaced by blankness and incomprehension.
"Er... come again?" Naruto said.
Underneath Kakashi's mask, they could see the outline of a wide smile.
He looked at Hinata: "You."
He looked at Sasuke: "All."
He looked at Naruto: "Pass!"
The three junior ninja gaped at the man as he turned and beckoned them to follow him back to the practice field proper.
~V~
"Um... Kakashi-sensei?" Hinata said as they reached the place where the alarm clock sat. It still hadn't rung yet—in fact, they had a good ten minutes to spare.
"Yes?" Kakashi replied, no longer sounding either stern, bored, or lazy. On the contrary, he seemed happier than he'd been in their presence since they'd met him the day before.
"W-why do all of us pass?"
Kakashi reached around the back of the clock, hitting the switch that would deactivate the alarm bells. Then, casually, he turned around, looking all three of them in the eye one after another.
"Think hard," he said. "There's a reason I set the test up the way I did. What do you think that reason is?"
Sasuke and Hinata remained silent. They looked to each other, then to Naruto, who had closed his eyes. Eyebrows furrowed just a little, and a thoughtful frown on his face, he began slowly: "The bells... were supposed to turn us against each other..."
Kakashi nodded. Naruto opened his eyes.
"This wasn't about splitting us up," he said. "It was about seeing if we could overcome our individual interests..."
"...and work as a team for the good of all," Kakashi finished. Sasuke's eyes widened in realization, and Hinata let out a quiet. "...Oh!"
"A ninja uncovers the secrets within secrets," Naruto murmured, quoting the old adage that had been drilled into their heads from the moment they'd set foot into the Academy.
"Yes," Kakashi said. "The point of this exercise was to test your ability to work as a team."
"So if we'd made our own individual grabs for the bells," Sasuke said, "we would have failed, whether we got our hands on one or not?"
"Yes," Kakashi said. "In fact, not a single one of the teams produced by your graduating class is being passed or failed on an individual basis. Each and every squad either passes or fails as a team."
He beckoned them to follow him, and walked around the three toward the memorial stone across the way. When he reached it, he stopped, slipped his hands into his pockets, and gazed at it for a long while.
"This stone..." he said at length: it was almost a sigh. "It bears the names of many shinobi, all heroes of our village. But these heroes are special."
"Heroes who gave their lives," said Naruto softly, "in the line of duty... is that right?"
Kakashi nodded. "The names of my closest friends are engraved here," he said.
None of the three Genin knew how to respond to that. When Kakashi turned around, the atmosphere was somber.
"Teamwork," he said, "is the most essential tool in a shinobi's arsenal. And when that tool is forsaken, the results can be disastrous."
Then Kakashi smiled.
"You know," he said, "the three of you are the first Genin I've ever passed."
The three of them gave a start, glancing at each other, taken aback by the sudden mood swing.
"All of the others listened to every word I said, and fell into every trap," Kakashi continued. "None of them had what it takes to be ninja. But from the very start... no, even before that... you three did everything right. Even down to disregarding the warning against eating breakfast, if I'm not mistaken."
Naruto scratched at his whisker marks, a smile breaking out on his face.
"In the ninja world," Kakashi said, "those who disregard the rules and regulations are scum..."
The masked Jonin turned to look back at the memorial stone.
"...However..." he said, "...those who do not care for and support their fellows... are even worse than that."
Hinata was gazing in awe at their new sensei, as if truly seeing the man for the first time. Naruto just kept on grinning and scratching at his whisker-marks, for once in his life at a loss for some snarky taunt or comeback.
Kakashi turned back to his team and gave them a thumbs-up. "This exercise is now concluded!" he declared. "That's all for today, Team Seven. Your duties will commence tomorrow. So," he added, "why don't I treat you all to lunch? You've earned it."
"Sounds good to me," Naruto said, and the other two nodded their agreement.
~V~
That night, at the bar:
"...And on the way back, Naruto says to the others, 'Gotta love it when a plan comes together,'" Kakashi chuckled, "and the other two just give him this look, like, '...Really?' Naruto stares back at them with a dumb look on his face, and then says, 'Oh, I swear to God I didn't mean that!'"
Asuma Sarutobi snorted, tapped the ashes off of his cigarette into the tray on the table, and pulled another deep drag. Kurenai Yuhi shook her head, not sure whether to be amused or exasperated by the means of Team Seven's victory.
Blowing out a gentle stream of smoke, Asuma said: "Sounds like you've got yourself quite the team, Kakashi. I almost envy you. The three scamps I have... let's just say I've got my work cut out for me, and leave it at that."
Kurenai smiled—she knew just which three students Asuma had been assigned—and said, "My team shows a lot of promise. The Inuzuka and Aburame clans have always produced dependable ninja. The Haruno girl—Sakura—doesn't quite measure up yet, but she has potential as a genjutsu-type. I've decided to focus her instruction in that area."
"Raising a second Genjutsu Mistress of Konoha already?" Kakashi said with an air of surprise. "What's this, Kurenai? Feeling your age so soon? But you don't look a day over eighty-five..."
Kurenai, who was in fact no older than Kakashi or Asuma, answered this remark with dignified silence as she sipped her sake.
~V~
Author's Note: I had a devil of a time coming up with a decent scene for Naruto to read from Icha Icha Paradise; smut isn't my thing. In the end I cheesed my way out of writing my own by looking up a hentai scan on Google and changing up some of the names. So if you recognize the dialogue from somewhere, then yes, it's probably ripped straight out of the hentai volume you have stashed in your pillowcase... you sicko. =P
On a serious note, though, I really did have fun writing this chapter. I've been looking forward to the bell test since the beginning for just this reason. I'll be taking a bit of a break from this story before commencing with the next arc, but I may upload a few chapters for It's Like Déjà Vu All Over Again in the meantime if the mood strikes me.
Hope you enjoyed it, and once again, thanks to those of you who've reviewed, favorited, or subscribed to this story!