AN: Note that I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any of the characters from either Anime. This work is a fanfiction written out of my love for the series and not in any attempt to make a profit.
Proofread by: Me, but hopefully not for much longer. It seems that my two proofreaders are getting back on track, and I've found a third one that will get on it as soon as they're caught up with the story so far.
Chapter 25: The way to get strong
Sakura almost immediately felt that something was wrong. However, she struggled with putting her finger on what exactly it was that seemed out of place until Inner pointed it out to her.
"Her teammates, they don't seem worried at all." Inner noticed, making Sakura look over to see Gaara looking as bored as ever, while his teammate instead seemed excited for some reason, his face sporting a smug-looking grin. Sakura realized that he was confident that his teammate, Temari wasn't done for yet.
Turning back towards the fight, Sakura did so just in time to witness the cloud of smoke forcefully disperse as the strongest wind yet blew it all away, while sending Sasuke flying backward as well as Temari appeared with her fan now opened up all the way, revealing three purple circles. "Congratulations, you've made me use the third star, now you'll lose." She promises him, before waving the fan in front of her body, seemingly disappearing as it passes by in front of her, before disappearing itself. However, unlike the spectators, Sasuke had seen exactly where she had gone, his Sharingan letting him see through her little trick.
Admittedly, it is a great example of an exit strategy, but with the observant and unreasonably fast gaze of the Uchiha, it was little more than a brief distraction. Without even having to look, Sasuke knew she was above him. Turning to look right at her, he launched another set of four shuriken at her, managing to catch her by surprise this time, resulting in his shuriken striking his intended target, her open fan. However, despite its appearance the shuriken merely bounced off with a metallic clang as they hit, suggesting it was made of sterner stuff than mere paper or papyrus. At the very least, he had forced her down onto the ground again as the impacts against her fan had ruined her balance and forced her to jump back down.
"You're going to regret doing that. Wind Scythe Jutsu!" She announced, before swinging her fan at him once more, creating a big gale that lifted Sasuke into the air. Sasuke could feel the twister biting into him from all sides, cutting into him and covering him in plenty of wounds while ruining his clothes. Once the jutsu finally died down, Sasuke barely managed to avoid being hit by Temari using her fan as a club.
Twisting out of the way, Sasuke managed to land in a crouch next to Temari, letting out a low hiss of pain from his many wounds, before deciding to go all in. He was taking a huge risk, but he couldn't let himself be defeated here, not like this. Forming a rapid set of seals, Sasuke performed a jutsu he hadn't tried ever before but had seen in use enough times to have copied it down to near perfection. Forming the hand signs for sheep, snake, and tiger, he finished it with Naruto's favorite hand sign for clones, before calling the technique out. "Shadow clone jutsu!"
Temari couldn't react in time to the sudden appearance of additional Sasuke's appearing on both her right and left from small explosions of smoke. Temari barely had the time to raise her weapon as all three Sasukes attacked her from multiple directions, overwhelming her as they were all right next to her. Sasuke finished it with a well-timed uppercut to her jaw, sending Temari flying, landing unconscious a small distance away, with her weapon clattering to the ground. Panting heavily from exertion, Sasuke dismissed his clones while Hayate checked on Temari and announced Sasuke the winner.
With some satisfaction, Sakura saw Temari's teammates scowling, before the one with face markings decided to go down and get Temari off the floor, while Sasuke came over to Sakura with a small, confident smile on his face, looking terrible.
"Sasuke, are you alright?" Sakura asked Sasuke as she rushed over to meet him half-way, checking on his injuries, worried.
"I'm fine, it's nothing new or particularly bad. I just need to get patched up." He told her, continuing to move towards the stairs.
"In that case, we're already two for two. Do you think we'll all end up passing onto the third exam?" Sakura asked as they neared the stairs and began walking up them and onto the balcony.
"I'm certain that we should all be able to become Chūnin. Naruto is the only one I worry about." He told her, making Sakura blush slightly at the indirect compliment.
"Score!" Inner cheered happily before the moment was interrupted by Naruto ambushing them at the top of the stairs.
"What the heck Sasuke? You stole my move! You used it before me, now everyone is going to think I'm the one copying you!" Naruto complained accusingly from where he stood with his arms crossed with an annoyed expression on his face.
"Naruto! It's not your move. Besides, you should be happy for Sasuke." Sakura interrupted, hoping to break up the fight before it began by taking Sasuke's side to stop Naruto in his tracks. Much to her relief, it worked, as Naruto immediately began grinning at her instead.
"Sakura! I knew it, as things are going, we're all going to become Chūnin!" He stated with a cheerful chuckle.
"We still have to pass the third exam, Naruto, and you haven't even passed the preliminaries yet." Kakashi pointed out from behind Naruto, before looking down at Sasuke. "And you should be more considerate of your own well being. I've warned you that the shadow clones take an enormous amount of chakra. You could have ended up killing yourself." He told Sasuke sternly.
"I had no choice." Sasuke simply answers, glaring at Kakashi for a moment, before Kakashi decided to drop it and break the staring contest.
"Fine, it seems things turned out well this time, but you should still practice caution, much like Naruto here should." Kakashi relented, before turning back toa dress Naruto. "If I recall, you nearly exhausted your chakra out in the forest Naruto. Recovering chakra should be your priority, I wouldn't recommend using any shadow clones during your fight."
"As if! This is going to be a piece of cake. I can definitely use more shadow clones by now, so don't worry, believe it!" Naruto promised, confident he could do it, just like his teammates had.
"Well then, don't disappoint us," Sasuke told him before their attention was drawn to Hayate again, who announced the next fight to be Rock Lee versus Yoroi Akadō.
"Well then, unfortunately, I have to go back. I was allowed to take a short break to see Sasuke's match, but Kakashi is expecting me back now. Good luck Naruto!" Sakura explained to her teammates while giving Kakashi's clone a quick wave, before making her way back to the room where Kakashi had tidied up slightly, the relevant files spread out evenly spaced out on the table while he was reading his orange little book
"Welcome back Sakura. Glad to see you back, now we can get started on what will happen next, concerning the examination you will have to go through at the hospital." Kakashi informed her, putting his book away before gesturing for her to sit. Sakura took a moment to glance at the television and found to her shock that the battle that had just begun as she left had already concluded and that Lee seemed to be the victor if his silent cheering on the TV was anything to go by.
"That was quick," Sakura commented surprised, prompting Kakashi to look up at the screen.
"I am not surprised. Lee is pretty much Guy's child double. Considering the things he's been telling me about Lee and his training, I wouldn't be surprised if Lee ended up as strong, or even stronger than him in the end." Kakashi revealed although it was merely a suspicion since despite having bragged to Kakashi about Lee, Guy had never outright given away anything truly significant about what level Lee was currently at. Kakashi's guess was entirely based on what he knew about Guy himself, rather than what he knew about Lee, and he knew that Guy wouldn't half-ass the training of someone who reminded him of his own younger self.
"Is Guy strong then?" Sakura asks, growing curious from her Sensei's assessment. Kakashi pauses for a moment, thinking his response over for a bit before answering.
"He is my self proclaimed rival. At first, when he began challenging me, I didn't really bat an eye. I kept winning, but as time went on, he began winning some of our competitions. It made me realize that I was losing my touch. Even now, we're nearly tied in wins and losses. I have to actually put real effort into some of our competitions." Kakashi explains, before realizing what he had said and decided he shouldn't have mentioned that. "Just… don't tell Guy I said that." He added, thankfully getting an amused nod from a giggling Sakura.
"This is your chance! We have blackmail, pressure him to teach us properly!" Inner suddenly intervened, startling Sakura with the urgency in her voice before she immediately agreed.
"Really? Right, sure." Sakura agreed. "Sure, I'll keep it secret, on one condition," Sakura told him, making Kakashi suddenly still before narrowing his eyes while looking at her. "Begin teaching us properly!" She demanded, pointing at him dramatically, surprising Kakashi as he was blindsided by the simple, yet complicated demand.
"You… think I'm not teaching you three properly? Despite how well you three seem to be doing? You wound me Sakura." Kakashi complained, acting hurt while secretly considering Sakura's accusation and request. He had been waiting for this confrontation after all but had expected it from Naruto or Sasuke before Sakura. Although he supposed with how the second exam had gone, he shouldn't have been that surprised.
"I'm not kidding! All you've taught us is how to act as a team and give us a few pointers. Besides teaching us the wall climbing technique, you haven't really taught us any ninjutsu or genjutsu. At most, we've learned some taijutsu from observing you." Sakura explained her grief with his teachings, prompted by Inner.
"Ah, I see. So that's the issue then? I suppose that I might have been somewhat negligent in that department. However, I am a strong believer that well-practiced basics are the foundation for a shinobi. To become Chūnin, mastering the basics should be enough, and you three already know more than just the basics as it is, am I wrong?" Kakashi asked her, curious as to how she would continue to push the issue.
"As if! Until my Kekkei Genkai awoke, I likely wouldn't have made this far, and by extension, neither would Sasuke or Naruto! We would have failed because of me!" She exclaimed, angered by his claim, only to see Kakashi shake his head sadly.
"And that would be my fault? Sakura, I'm sure that by now, you're aware, but you are the one who needs to take the initiative. I am glad to see that you want more guidance, but as it is, you shouldn't be blaming me. Unlike the boys, you have a rather small pool of chakra. This stems from a lack of Physical Energy within you. The only one capable of rectifying this is you, not I, or any technique I could teach you." Kakashi told her, making Sakura feel miserable as she knew he was right. She understood what Kakashi meant now. She wasn't ready. If she wanted his support in the form of techniques and be taught new jutsu, she'd have to prove that she wanted to, and was able to improve.
"Bullshit. He should have told us this sooner so we could learn this before the exam and get our shit together. We could have died!" Inner still groused, upset, and resentful as she didn't appreciate the blame being laid out at their feet.
"But he is right. We do need to shape up. We already realized this Inner, you were the one who first brought it up." Sakura pointed out, only to receive the feeling of annoyed mirth from Inner as she responded.
"Yeah, and now the eternally late slacker is lecturing us on it? Hypocrite much?" She retorted harshly. Sakura had to admit that she had a point, but in the end, her Sensei was still right. Sighing, Inner then gave up. "Yeah, fine, whatever. This isn't worth arguing over. Just promise him we will do better and ask him to teach us something useful at the very least." She decided, before turning their attention towards the television, curious as to who was fighting at the moment, only to see Naruto battling one of Karin's teammates, on the screen.
"Yes, I'm aware of it, Kakashi. I do intend to step up my physical training after this, but I still wish you would teach us some useful techniques or something. After all, you did ask me to keep quiet about what you said earlier." Sakura pointed out, prompting her Sensei to let out a sigh.
"I suppose I did. Alright, I believe that you've come to see your weaknesses. As long as you're serious about this, I'll take things to the next level for you three, but I'll be expecting results once you're done with your examination at the hospital, which we still need to discuss. However, before that, I think we're both interested in how things are going for Naruto." Kakashi responded, nodding towards the television where Sakura could see Naruto obviously playing with his opponent, taunting him and dodging his blade while aggravating him, making her wonder what she had missed, and why Naruto didn't simply finish things quickly with his clones. After all, his opponent wasn't using any ninjutsu so far, so Naruto should easily have been able to take him out with numbers.
"What's he doing? Naruto should be able to finish this quickly." Sakura asked, speaking her thoughts out loud.
"Perhaps he used up too much chakra to make any clones?" Inner proposed while Kakashi shrugged.
"I'm not certain, but it looks like he has some kind of vendetta against his opponent, the way he is taunting him." Kakashi pointed out, making Sakura immediately realize what was up. Naruto's opponent was one of Karin's teammates, one who Karin had been assigned to in order to make sure they passed the exam. One of the two who likely saw her as nothing more than a tool. Naruto simply couldn't stand for that and had probably confronted his opponent about it and decided to be a pest against him on Karin's behalf.
"I would just beat them to a pulp and be done with it," Inner told Sakura bluntly, making her smile.
"Of course, both of us would." Sakura agreed.
AN: I will admit, this chapter was a bit of a bore to write. While given ample time to write it, I was having difficulties, as I wanted to change things up severely from how they went in the end. A few examples would be Sasuke's fight and Sakura's demand of Kakashi. I entertained the idea of having Sasuke lose, but with the many ideas I got for how he could end up winning, I had to give him the victory in the end. An alternative version of this chapter would have had Sasuke destroy Temari's fan. However, after some additional research, I found that my method to do so was unlikely to be canon-compliant, so I had to scrap it. As for Sakura's demand of Kakashi, originally I had a more humorous request in mind, where Inner prompted Sakura to demand that Kakashi reveal his face. However, at this time in canon, it wouldn't make too much sense, as that "issue" has yet to be brought up enough to be at the forefront of their minds, and their current priorities would be more in line with what I ended up writing in the end. Although, I will admit that I had fun writing Kakashinas the big troll he is while contemplating if he should reveal his real face to Sakura, likely driving her teammates insane over it or to show her the mask under his mask. Either way, it is no longer important, and I will instead look forward to that moment later on in the story.