Naruto-Sensei and the Bell Test
I do not own Naruto, but I take full responsibility for what you are about to read. I'm sure its obvious which Shot this one is related to.
Naruto walked into the training ground at the exact time he had promised to be there, and not a second earlier or later. While it was true being early to an ambush was the best way to avoid it, he found himself curious as to whether his potential students were clever enough to set a trap. As he took a look at them, he noticed the Uchiha had an impassive look on his face, while the Haruno was staring at said boy with stars in her eyes. The Kurama, on the other hand, upon seeing the young jounin enter, took a deliberate bite out of an apple she had been holding in her hand.
"Yakumo," the jounin asked, an amused smile on his face, "Can you tell me what I said you shouldn't do?"
"You said that we probably shouldn't eat, as we'd throw up," Yakumo said, taking another bite out of her apple.
"So why are you eating now?" he asked, watching a look of sadistic glee spread across the girl's face.
"Well," she responded in an innocent tone of voice, "Considering that you were the one that had told us to not eat for a test that only one in three teams have ever passed, it'd take an idiot to not realize that a test like that meant that we'd definitely need to eat to at least have some energy to use for the test, and that your command was just another part of the test."
"Very good, Yakumo," Naruto grinned, looking at his two other potential students, who looked rather embarrassed by what their teammate said, "Did either of you realize that?"
Their growling stomachs answered that question for them. Shaking his head in amusement, Naruto moved on to the test, "Now,, as you can see, I have two bells in my kunai pouch. You each need to have had a bell in order to pass the test, and if you have not had a bell before the timer I'm going to set goes off, you go back to the Academy, you do not pass go, and you do not collect 200 ryu. You just fail. End of story, thank you for coming to watch. However, to make things a bit more fair on you, I'm going to let you head out and plan whatever devious schemes you dark little minds can conjure up. Also, yes, Yakumo, I'm going to take the camera off."
The girl's smile widened as she thought of what she would do now. As Naruto began to set the timer, the trio headed off in separate directions, causing Naruto to chuckle to himself as he removed the camera that was over his eye. If they didn't work together, their individual movements would be very amusing indeed.
Unsurprisingly, it was the Uchiha who moved first as he threw several shuriken and kunai at Naruto, who simply sidestepped them with very little effort. This was followed by the Grand Fireball attack that the Uchiha had so much pride in before their numbers were reduced. Using the Hiraishin, Naruto moved closer to the Uchiha, planning on seeing what he could do.
The Uchiha did not disappoint Naruto. He was skilled at the Academy's taijutsu style, but Naruto had sparred with Gai when Kakashi was supposedly sick. As a result, each of his attacks were blocked, though Naruto didn't bother actually attacking the boy yet, wanting to see if the Uchiha could improvise.
"You're skilled," Naruto commented, "But you're not getting anywhere with standard attacks. What are you going to do about that?"
He was pleased to see the Uchiha pull out a pair of kunai to try and render Naruto's blocks ineffective, which was a good idea, if Naruto wasn't wearing bracers that could handle the force of most attacks to his arms. Getting bored, Naruto blocked a downward swing that Sasuke attempted to break his own pattern with and pulled the Uchiha's arm as he moved behind the boy, allowing the Uchiha's own momentum to propel him into the trees nearby.
The Haruno, whose parents Naruto had once had a mission with and who Naruto had absolutely nothing negative to say about, had charged at him with a kunai once Sasuke flew into the tree. She was supposedly one of the smarter students at the Academy, yet her charge was a blind one, which he easily repelled, knocking the kunai out of her hand with practiced ease. To Naruto's surprise, it was at this point that Yakumo arrived behind Sakura, attempting eye contact with him to put under with a genjutsu. Smirking at the Haruno as he began to move to put his back the Kurama, Naruto said, "You're good at the theoretical if your file is accurate. So you know that your attempt to attack me this way is doomed to fail. You need to pay more attention."
With that bit of advice, he tossed a kunai over his shoulder and vanished in a yellow flash, putting the Haruno into the genjutsu the Kurama had been preparing as he appeared behind the genjutsu user, pressing a kunai to her back as he kept his own pressed against the tree behind her.
"Now, Yakumo, you need to watch where you're aiming," he chided, putting another kunai to her throat.
"I was aiming for her," Yakumo said bluntly, "When I tried to get her to work with me, she was all for it, but when the Uchiha said he didn't need any help, she backed out of the plan. We need to work as a team if we want to at least get the bells from you."
"Alright," Naruto said, noticing that she attempted to get the others to work with her, releasing her before pushing her away, "Why don't you show me what Kurenai's taught you, then."
She turned quickly, hoping to get him instantly, only to miss him in a flash of yellow.
"You'll have to do better than that," he called out, appearing next to the barely conscious Uchiha across the field, who was in no shape to fight at the moment. Turning towards him again, she tried to throw kunai to pin him to the tree behind him, but the weapon fell halfway to him as he vanished next to the Haruno, who was still under the genjutsu Kurama had tailored specifically for her. As she turned to him, he once again vanished before appearing next to her.
"Now, I'm going to give you a free shot," he said, turning to face her, "I want to see your genjutsu firsthand, so make any illusion you want and show it to me."
The Kurama thought for a moment before deciding which one she was going to use. She was curious as to how her mild electrocution illusion would react with her potential sensei. After a few moments of looking him in the eyes to show her power, she was surprised to see him vanish in a puff of smoke. Suddenly, while her teammates began to regain their ability to move, she found herself with a kunai to her throat again as she heard the blond's voice say, "Remarkable, truly remarkable, but you focus too much on genjutsu. Should it fail, you need to be able to defend yourself physically if you can't rely on your teammates You need to work on that. Sakura!"
"Hai, sensei?" she responded, wondering why she was being called.
"Your teammate is in danger," he said sharply, "An enemy nin has a kunai to her throat. What are you going to do?"
"This!" Sakura shouted, throwing her kunai at the blond's elbow, only for him to tilt Yakumo towards the kunai, much to the girl's horror before he moved their positions and blocked it with his bracer.
"Congratulations, you've killed your teammate," he said harshly, still not releasing his hold on Yakumo, "Sasuke, what do you do?"
In response, Sasuke rushed towards him, evidently planning on a direct assault. In response, Naruto pressed the tip of the kunai to Yakumo's throat, barely avoiding drawing blood, which was enough to make the Uchiha pause his attack.
"You've just killed your teammate," Naruto said as the timer went off, "Now, I want both of you to think of something very carefully: Your attacks have failed, so what do you do now?"
"But the timer went off," Sakura protested, "You don't need to trap Yakumo anymore."
"In the field of battle, there is no timer," Naruto chastised, his tone dark, "There's no timeouts, no breaks, no do-overs. There's only the here and now. Now, an enemy nin has a kunai to your teammate's throat. Do what you can to fix this situation before the enemy nin decides that he no longer needs a living hostage."
Sasuke grabbed Sakura and pulled her into the bushes, evidently working on a strategy. Naruto stood there, kunai pressed to Yakumo's throat. Minutes later, Sakura leapt out of the bushes, trying her previous tactic of throwing a kunai at him. He did the same maneuver as last time, only to wind up with several shuriken and kunai embedded in his shoulders and arms from behind. He then disappeared in a puff of smoke, revealing Sasuke sitting in the tree behind Yakumo, a smirk on his face as he said, "Looks like 'Lord Emo' and 'The Fangirl' just saved your life."
Clapping suddenly began right next to Sasuke, causing the last loyal Uchiha to fall from the tree to land right next to Yakumo, who helped him to his feet as Sakura moved up to the group. Naruto leapt from the branch he was sitting on to land in front of the trio, replacing his camera over his eye. Smiling cheerfully, he said, "Team Seven, you pass!"
"What?" was the chorus of the trio before him, who were clearly confused by his words.
"The objective of the test is to determine whether you're capable of acting as a team," Naruto explained, "As a friend of mine says, 'In the ninja world, those who break the rules are trash, that's true, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.' Yakumo attempted to plan with you only for pride to prevent you two from working with her. When she was threatened, however, you two worked to get her out of danger, though it took a bit of prompting to get you two to work together, but once you did, you managed to solve the problem. Sorry about the scratch by the way, Yakumo, I needed to make a point. You each have your issues in training and in personality types, but I plan to work on those with each of you individually, as well as with you as a team. Shadow Clones will help me with the one on one, while your teamwork exercises will be the key of your training. Sasuke, you will be focused on taijutsu, with some ninjutsu thrown into the mix, but you're ahead of your teammates in that field, so the central focus will be taijutsu. Sakura, you have the control to be a skilled medic, but that doesn't mean that you get to slack off in your combat skills, as you will need to work on those to, but first, you need to work on getting stronger. Yakumo, you need to work on ninjutsu, with a good amount of focus on building up your strength for taijutsu before we get to work on that field. You will meet me here tomorrow at the exact time you arrived today. Have I made myself clear?"
"Hai, sensei," the trio said in unison.
"Good," he smiled, "Team Seven, you are dismissed!"
Smiling as his students left, Naruto felt satisfied. He wasn't sure how things would work with this trio, but he was certain that he could forge them into a team that would become the stuff of legends.
