A/n: Warning for a small non-friendly writing to Sakura. I'm sorry.


Obito's single eye flashed red. "Then we need to get serious, right?"

Kakashi resisted the urge to fondly rolled his eyes.

"Need to get those two out of the game first," Kakashi sighed but slowly straightened his forehead protector, revealing his own sharingan. "They will ruin our test if we let them loose."

"What? You scared of kids, Kakashi?"

"We do this test for a purpose, Obito."

"Yeah, yeah," Obito shrugged. "Whatever you say, senpai."

Kakashi stared thoughtfully at the sand pile for a moment, weighing his decision. Gaara and Naruto could be really good at hiding when they wanted to—he has had first-hand experiences from all those hide-and-seek game the kids have roped him in when they were much younger. Plus, Gaara's all-rounder abilities and Naruto's raw offensive power were both highly effective and troublesome when they were put together.

To remain standing idly right here was just like offering themselves on silver platters to those kids. At this rate, it might be good to find the other kids first instead of waiting for the jinchuuriki brothers to appear. Other than the jinchuuriki, neither of the kids have ever worked together. They would be easy victims. Kakashi and Obito could still achieve the objectives of this test then.

"Change of plan," Kakashi suddenly said. "Let's split up and get rid of the rest first. They are not as compatible as Naruto and Gaara, so they will be alone and easier to take out."

Obito went silent for a brief moment before he broke to a huge grin.

"I can't believe that we are seriously ganging up on our 12 years old students."

"Just get your ass moving, Obito."

With that, both jounins separated ways to hunt for their students.

Unknown to them, just a few metres beneath the sad wet lump of sand, three of their students were huddled underground, listening on them. Taiko knelt in the centre of the underground cavity, holding up the shape with full concentration. On his sides, Naruto and Gaara shared a similar mischievous grin to each other, emitting a creepy demonic aura that low-key terrified their perfectly normal friend.

Shinobi rules 101 : Always gather intel on your opponent and mission before doing anything.

They were the Hokage's sons. Lessons on military strategies and shinobi principles were drilled into their head the moment they approached Minato to train them. Cranky hungry as he was, Naruto did not forget his lessons. Plus, they grew up having Kakashi as their semi-permanent babysitter-slash-guard-slash-trainer. They have learnt through the hardest way that when it came to dealing with S-ranked shinobi like the silver-haired jounin, they'd need to have enough intel and strategies to have the slightest chance of success.

Thus, they sought a hiding place and strategized their next move.

Taiko found them by pure coincidence. The shy boy has thought that the brothers were hiding after an assault, hence, being a good teammate he was, Taiko literally cracked the Earth open and dragged them into this underground cavity to hide with him.

It was an undeniably a good hiding spot.

"I knew it," Naruto smirked, cackling mischievously. "Kakashi-no-nii—"

"—sensei," Gaara corrected, double-checking the seal papers on their little cavity, nodding in satisfaction when he was sure that the barrier seals were still working. "He is our sensei now."

Naruto scowled but didn't retort. Gaara grinned at him.

"Ano…," Taiko said with a voice so soft it was barely audible. "What is that all about?"

"Kakashi is a troll," Naruto said, as if that would explain anything. "He is a gigantic troll that enjoys messing with other people."

"Um, okay…?"

Taiko still looked clueless, thus, Gaara added, "When Kakashi does weird things, they usually have an unexpected twist. This whole thing of failing two of us might have been a charade," he explained, keeping his voice soft just in case the jounins could sense them even with the barrier up. "Genin teams usually work in a three-man formation with a jounin instructor. It is illogical to send one of us back to the academy because then the team will be short-staffed afterwards."

"So you're saying that their instruction is purposely misleading us to turn against each other?" Taiko asked, shuddering a bit. "That's so mean of them! They break apart our team and had us against each other right on the first second."

Gaara and Naruto had a light bulb moment after hearing Taiko's words.

"Team!" They exclaimed in unison.

"Uh…?"

"Taiko, you're a genius," Naruto beamed, slapping the smaller boy on his back.

"Can you still move us underground, Taiko?" Gaara asked, honestly a bit concerned to see the trembles of Taiko's skinny arms. "We need to find and regroup with everyone without being caught by them."

"I'm sorry…," Taiko mumbled, looking down at his own shaky hands. "I only have enough chakra to keep us under here for the next 5 minutes."

There was a beat of silence. Taiko hung his head low, ashamed that he couldn't even do much when these two have organized a faux assault to gain intel for their collective benefits.

"If it is chakra that you need, you can have some of mine," Naruto offered, extending his glowing palm towards the boy. "Seriously. We need to work in a team to get through this test."

"Naruto, we are not to use the bijuu's power," Gaara reminded, eyeing Naruto's glowing palm pointedly.

"Kurama's chakra is red," Naruto grinned, wriggling his palm—the glowing chakra was blue. "This is mine. Tou-chan said that I naturally have large chakra reserves like the rest of Uzumaki clan," his grin grew mischievous, as he shared his chakra with Taiko—the relief on the smaller boy's face was evident, even in the dim lighting. "So, I'm not breaking the rule, and he can't fail me."

"Thank you, Naruto-kun," Taiko breathed out in relief, hands moving fluidly in a series of hand signs and all of sudden, their little cavity enlarged to a size that could fit their remaining friends. "I'm ready when you are, Gaara-kun."

Gaara nodded and closed his left eye, connecting his optic nerve to his third eye outside. He moved his third eye around, seeking for the rest of their team and ended up finding Sasuke and Sakura first. The young Uchiha was in a clearing not far from their current location. Sasuke was literally neck deep in the ground, being mocked and taunted by Kakashi while Sakura was hiding nearby, looking like she was stalking the perfect chance to attack their sensei.

Gaara's palm made contact with his face when the pink-haired girl easily fell into Kakashi's genjutsu.

Sakura screamed before she fell unconscious next to Sasuke's head.

"For real…?" the red-headed jinchuuriki muttered in disbelief.

Gaara waited until Kakashi left before double-checking the surroundings. Once he confirmed that neither of the jounins was around, he turned towards Taiko and Naruto.

"Sasuke and Sakura are in a clearing 300 metres northwest from us," he directed, before returning to his search his last remaining teammate.

Taiko moved their cavity towards the rest of Team 7—performing strange katas that Gaara had never seen before as they moved underground—Naruto's glowing hand remained in contact with his shoulders. Gaara sent his third eye all over the training ground in his search for Akane, only to wince when he found her.

The only kunoichi in his team was thrown brutally to a tree by their own teacher, looking like she just went through hell and back.

There went Obito's nice guy image—straight outta the metaphorical window.

Thankfully, Kakashi was nowhere to be seen.

Gaara barely heard the Earth cracked open when Sasuke and Sakura fell ungraciously into their underground cavity. He had his focus on the battle between his teammate and their teacher, taking note of Obito's leisure smile and Akane's struggle to protect herself from their teacher's continuous giant fireballs attack. Obito moved fluidly, his sharingan was activated and the jounin looked like he was hardly breaking any sweat.

On the other end, Akane staggered onto her shaky legs in the middle of the tiny stream. Her clothes were both singed and drenched, one of her twin braids was untied—hiding her face from view as she hung her head in defeat.

Obito commented on Gaara trying to kill them, but yet the sensei himself was brutal.

"Akane is in trouble," Gaara said, successfully silencing whatever silly argument Sasuke was having with Naruto. "Obito-sensei had her cornered. They are at the stream."

"Crap," Naruto cussed.

"Language," Sakura chided.

"We need to hurry," Gaara urged, cutting off whatever Naruto had as a retort to the pink-haired kunoichi.

"They are at a stream?" Taiko piped in, though he didn't stop performing the katas that moved their little makeshift bunker towards the other side of the ground where Akane and Obito were. "Then, we don't have to worry much."

"Ehhh?" Sakura questioned. "Why would you say that?"

Taiko tipped his head back to smile at them. "Akane's father and sister trained her since she was young. Their family is heavily-oriented on suiton jutsu. She may not be strong like the three of you—" he nodded towards Naruto, Gaara and Sasuke before resuming, "—but she is pretty good. If she has water, she is fine."

True to Taiko's words, Gaara's third eye saw Akane weaving hand signs behind the cover of her hair, and all sudden there was a wall of water rushing towards Obito like a mini-tsunami, successfully knocking the man off guard. Gaara saw Akane countered Obito's responding fireball with a jet of water that streamed out of her mouth before she beat a hasty retreat while Obito was distracted.

Gaara directed Taiko towards their last teammate—the shy boy was barely able to pull her underground into their bunker without being seen or heard—when Obito came trudging towards them.

"Oh,my kawaii genins~" Obito sang—from Gaara's third-eye view, he was literally skipping his merry way in his search for them—his voice sounded so close somewhere above them. "Come out, come out, wherever you are, sweethearts~"

Gaara shuddered. That was scary.

They remained silent for a moment as Gaara's third eye kept watch on Obito until the jounin was far enough from them. Sure, Gaara has had the insight to bring the barrier seals he recreated from his reading, but he has no idea how long it could retain its power to hide their chakra from the teachers' sharingan.

It was when he brought down his hand that all six of them let out a sigh of relief.

"You look like hell," Naruto commented, doing a once-over on Akane's state and promptly shuddered.

"Our sensei is strong," Akane huffed, ripping the lower half of her skirts to be the makeshift bandage for her bleeding leg. "But what are you all doing together? I thought this is an individual test?"

"That is what I have been saying," Sasuke echoed, almost looking like he was pouting from the dim-lighting if the cavity. "This is an individual test."

"These three kidnapped us," Sakura accused, pointing towards Naruto, Gaara and Taiko.

"We saved you," Naruto scowled. "The sensei are going to use you as hostages to lure the rest of us out."

Sasuke scowled while Sakura pointedly looked away.

Naruto let out a long sigh of exasperation. Meanwhile, Gaara considered bashing their heads together with his sand.

"Fine, if you're not going to thank me and Gaara, at least show some gratefulness to Taiko," the blonde jinchuuriki said, nodding towards Taiko who were still working hard maintaining their hiding spot. "He is the one that has been doing the hard work to get everyone together."

"Eh, no! It's because of your chakra that I'm able to do this, Naruto-kun," Taiko denied vehemently.

"Oh, really?" Sakura muttered. Her voice was laced with doubts as she narrowed her eyes in suspicion at Naruto. "You're using him to pass this test, Naruto?"

Naruto scowled at her, annoyed at her comment, but Gaara's sand wrapped around his wrist—a subtle grounding support for his flaring ego. Naruto used to have a huge crush on Sakura, but after years of being belittled and ridiculed because of his tendency to play harmless pranks on everyone, Naruto was considerably fed-up. He still thought her cute, but every time she belittled him, Naruto didn't have that reserved needs to please a crush. His fiery spirit would instantly defend himself.

Kurama was a wonderful influence on Naruto's confidence and self-preservation. Bless that fox.

"So, what is all of these are about?" Akane asked before Sakura could even open her mouth to question Naruto. "You know that two out of the six of us are going to fail," she huffed, eyes cold and determined. "I'm sorry guys, but those people won't be me."

Naruto and Gaara exchanged a glance, looking eeriely like twins.

"What?" Sasuke scowled.

"We need to unite to beat them both. As a team," Naruto started.

"That's the only way all of us can pass—together, without abandoning anyone," Gaara ended.


A/N: The regrouping. Yesss, they will face the sensei-tachi next chapter and I could stop butchering all of these horrible fight scenes. I'm still considering whether to continue this after that (since this mischievously sadistic Gaara has yet to reunite with Temari and Kankurou), or just end it with epilogues. Maybe. Need to think some more. lol

Thank you for everyone who has been reading, favouriting/following and reviewing up to this point. I really appreciate it!