Zombie Cat Science
Alt titles: Zombie Chakra Science or Black Cat Science.
9Kenneled
Having no parents, Sasuke and Naruto ended up mainly getting yelled at by their teachers and by the Hokage.
Kakashi had to admit he had felt a twinge of interest when he had finally reached the trouble makers, who had made good time and speed as well as setting a misleading trail, a fake goal destination (if originally intended as the real goal), traps, and disguises. They'd made a serious mistake in breaking ranks and panicking the moment they spotted 'danger' in the form of Kiba's mother and her dog, but, otherwise his judgment was that they would potentially make very good ninja one day. It had taken a lot of team work to pull off this immense expedition, and he pointed this out to Sarutobi.
"All of those kids are quite something," he mused aloud.
"Good, because if they get through the Academy, I'm having you teach a team of them."
"The Uchiha and Uzumaki brats?" As the only other person here in the village with the Sharingan besides Sasuke, there were not many other options as perfect for that team as him.
"The same," the Hokage stated. "What's your opinion of them so far?"
"I honestly might not mind them on a scouting team right now, though they could stand to train in the Academy a bit more; if that had been actual combat they would not have held up well at all, although in this instance they did the correct thing by surrendering. The Uchiha boy was not what I was expecting; he seemed to have a sense of humor," That was contrary to what he'd heard previously, that the boy had totally lost his sense of humor after the incident. Perhaps hanging around Naruto had lightened him up a little. "Although he didn't seem to care about his comrades getting caught as much as I'd like, and originally wanted to set off alone, so I find myself wondering if it was all the Nara boy's work in getting the team to function."
"Do we know why they did this?"
"Ah, children will be children. This is a mischievous bunch, and I think once a couple started the rest wanted to go too just out of peer pressure."
"I meant the instigators."
"Well, you know Naruto better than I do. You speak with the boy, don't you?"
"I do. I believe he did it out of loneliness and insecurity, not wanting to be left behind. Besides his role in getting others to join in and helping evade a bit, he wasn't much of a planner behind this. No, from the accounts of all the children, Sasuke Uchiha was the clear leader who made the final decisions, and Shikamaru Nara played the adviser."
"I don't know why he did it. I suspect it wasn't his original plan, and he simply modified it into a fun outing when he realized he couldn't escape the other children. It isn't normal for a child to want to take off entirely on their own. Most would be overjoyed to have their friends come along." Kakashi mused.
"Indeed." The Kage smoked his pipe. "Well, why don't we ask him? Send in Sasuke."
The door opened, and Sasuke came in, a trace of uncertainty in his eyes. He had a fairly emotionless but calculatingly intelligent expression otherwise, a bit eerily reminiscent of Itachi. He soon looked straight at Kakashi with interest, like he was trying to peer straight through the mask.
"Sasuke, why did you run away?" the Hokage asked.
The boy stuck his hands in his new pockets. All the children were sporting new clothing they'd acquired over the trip. He'd still chosen to wear his characteristic shade of blue. "It was too quiet here." The admission was quiet itself, and a bit strange. But it was chillingly easy to guess what was meant. An empty compound full of old nightmares was not the most comforting place for a child. "I felt like I was going to suffocate if I didn't do something different."
"So it wasn't to chase after Itachi?"
The boy lowered his gaze to glare at the floor. "No. I might have if I had seen him."
"You'd have just abandoned your comrades there?" It was a bit of a strange term to use, friends would have been more appropriate, but it was hard not to think like a ninja when you were one.
The boy was a bit taken back, and gave pause. "Ah, I, I guess not."
"Don't do it again, Sasuke. You may be an Academy student now, but such actions in the future can get you branded a missing nin. You wouldn't like the consequences of that. It's much more severe than a mere scolding. As it is, I'm having you scrub Academy floors and walls with your fellow troublemakers."
"Yes sir." His face revealed nothing, his tone polite. It was difficult to tell if he was feeling resentful or relieved his punishment wasn't worse, or if he was simply apathetic. Then the smallest beginnings of a frown twitched on to his face. Not happy, at least. Good, he shouldn't be happy about a punishment, but this boy would have to be watched carefully. He wasn't showing himself the epitome of trustworthiness.
"You are relieved."
Sasuke bowed and quickly made his way out, clearly not eager to stay.
"Well, as terrifying as it was, it did seem the children had a great deal of fun. Somehow Naruto got himself dubbed Hokage of Wave for a day."
"Kids. Too cute at this age." Kakashi shook his head. "And too mischievous."
.
.
"Cha, if you don't mind if girls want to be fangirls... um, well, Sasuke, can we cuddle with you and hang out? You said we should get consent, so pleaaasseeee?"
Ino and Sakura ganged up me during my mandatory chores. I eyed them warily. "Well, err..." They gave me big puppy eyes and I blushed, deeply confused why they were showing this much interest in me. But maybe if I let them hang around with me, they'd see how boring and normal I am? Well, normal within bounds, I still could shoot fire out of my mouth. "Fine. But not too loud."
I half regretted it when they started fighting over me. "Yesss! Alright, I'm taking his right arm!" "No, I want his right arm!" I hoped they didn't end up suggesting I should be severed in half so they'd each get a portion like in the so called wisdom of Solomon. They might very well do that.
"Girls, gals. Don't ruin your friendship over me. No boy is worth that." Honestly. Stop. I'm not even interested. There was also a small twitch in my brain of 'eww, cooties', even though I knew it was completely irrational and childish to react that way, especially as I had been in a female body before and even had identified as one in one life time. Of course, I'd also sort of identified as male in another life time, so... it made it all rather strange. At this point I kind of preferred to think of myself as genderless.
"Eh? That's so sweet! Don't worry, this won't ruin our friendship!"
"Yeah, we like fighting, we're ninja!"
Well, I guess this isn't so bad then, I thought to myself, two girls snuggling up right next to me when I flopped down on the grass to rest a bit. As long as it isn't causing any harm. This is actually rather nice and warm.
Although when they yelled at each other, it was kind of like punishment for being nice to them. Ughhhh. I caught Iruka staring at me and sent him a dirty glare, daring him to laugh at the Uchiha human sandwich trapped between two girls.
He laughed at me fearlessly. That man had nerve.
...alright, back to giving the cold shoulder it was. This was getting out of my comfort zone. Seriously. I had rather liked fan-girls in my first world; I'd loved fan fiction after all. I don't think I'd ever even consider marrying someone who wasn't a fan girl, if I ever wanted to marry. But... These kids felt like an author's poor understanding worked into a parody, rather like J.K Rowling seemed to think most fan fiction writing 'girls' were interested in a jerk like Draco Malfoy rather than often being grown adult women who had taken her poorly fleshed out character and created elaborate plots and dramas around him, or people (including gay men, who write fanfic too) seeking out expression that mainstream media would never give them. Romance for the sake of romance often wasn't very good, but as a subplot I could enjoy it even if I didn't ship the characters involved in any way, the same way I can watch movies about couples I personally find ugly but still root to get together. Some yaio fan fiction was surprisingly good, when, like my favorite straight fan fiction, it didn't take over the entire story.
On the other hand, some women really were taught to obsess over nothing but boys, and I'd had the exasperation of encountering a few on occasion, but that made so little sense in a world where girls trained to be ninja. I'd even had fan girls of sorts in my previous life, over the internet, although for the love of the gods I couldn't fathom why the hell they wanted to roleplay sex with me so much (on the flip side, I'd had one guy tell me he wanted to roleplay fighting with me because my fighting 'was like sex'. Really weird if flattering?) or why they asked me out with out ever having seen my face (on very rare occasions, but it had happened). My lack of fathoming being due to being ace, I suppose.
"You two know there is no such thing as love at first sight, right? Right?" I tried to tell them.
10Imposter Insert
Time passed and we kids all grew before the adults even knew what hit them.
I mastered summoning a few small snakes, but, distracted with training, only communicated infrequently, mostly checking on how the experiments were going. He told me he had some interesting ones on the side he'd like to show me one day, and assured that the main one he had in mind involved all volunteer humans. That was encouraging. Since I knew he had to be getting volunteers from somewhere, I poked him into revealing he was the leader of his own band of ninjas, and told him I was glad he got to be his own Hokage of sorts, since that was one of his dreams. Briefly, I wondered to myself if he wanted power or knowledge more.
He called me sentimental. Most likely, my unusual and dangerous pen pal meant it as an insult. I told him it was just me being a purring cat.
Sakura changed a bit, becoming more interested in strength training than before; I noticed her weight lifting on occasion, and she developed some nice muscles. Our relationship became a bit frostier, not that it was ever incredibly warm on my part: she made the mistake of trying to tell me orphans are selfish and that's why Naruto is annoying.
I was well ready to graduate early, but decided to stay on so I could go on the same time as some of the other students I'd gone on the adventure with. It seemed a shame if after that we didn't even get to be on a team together.
But one day, on the day of graduation, Naruto started acting... strangely. He woke up one day acting confused while I was making breakfast: "What am I doing in your house, teme?"
"You've been living here for years now dobe, hello? Is this a stupid prank?" I said, not feeling particularly humorous on that morning, especially as he'd gone straight back to the old insults. I wondered if maybe he was angry I was making my favorite food of rice balls instead of ramen. It was a little weird, because rice balls had never been my favorite food in my old life; at least part of me was clearly Sasuke. I had also never been quite so prone to spewing insults. I supposed that was Sasuke too. The grumpiness, though, wasn't too different from the old me.
"Ah, let's say it is, why am I living with you again?"
"Because you were lonely and I am an extremely merciful person who suffers your stupid jokes uncomplaining?" I raised an eyebrow at him. "Did I make you angry?"
"You called me dobe again. You think you're so much better than me."
"Okay, so you are angry at me," I said, baffled. Naruto usually wasn't the angry eternal grudge holding type. I wasn't feeling like a peacemaker, and he wasn't going to tell me what got him in this mood, so I stuck my tongue out. "Yes, I am totally better than you. You waste your time with idiotic jutsu like the Sexy No Jutsu, and I waste my time actually studying. If you want to change that or show me wrong, then prove it today at graduation."
"Ah, you'll see, I'll wipe the floor with you!" he stalked out the door, and I stared in shock. I had meant prove it by studying, not fighting. What had gotten into him? Why was he so aggressive today?
But it didn't stop there. He started getting just plain, well, spiteful and mean, to the point where I wondered if a nine tail fox demon was influencing him. When we met up with the rest of the class and he saw girls giggling, he said: "You fangirls are annoying, screechy monkeys! You could do so much better than him, the cold jerk, and your stalking makes you look like creepy pervert bitches." Okay, I had been kind of cold lately, but, they were the ones harassing me, not the other way around! And he didn't need to talk about the girls like that; they were my problem, not his, and being mild annoyances to me didn't warrant verbal abuse. Well, okay, sometimes I lost my temper and snap at Naruto for being annoying, but mostly I tried to just poke fun at the flaws in his statements or be just as childish back at him. Speaking of him being childish at me, he turned and spat insult toward me: "Your hair looks like a duck's ass, duckbutt."
Wow, real mature. "Stop being such a dobe, you're embarrassing yourself," I hissed at him, trying to get him to take a hint for his own good. Seriously, this wasn't making him any friends here. I understood it sucked being a child and being fifty times more impulsive and emotions like boredom hitting you harder than as an adult, but, shut up Naruto.
It came to the point that, unusually, I was relieved when I thought he hadn't graduated because he couldn't clone. I didn't want to be on a team with him when he was acting like this...
.
.
Until, to my horror, he walked in with a grin, and we were assigned to the same damn team.
Naruto's prank was mildly malicious, although funny. He dumped pink glitter and glue on our sensei in a bucket, which surprised me; I'd thought for certain he wouldn't get hit by it.
"My first impression of you all... I hate you. Meet me on the roof." The silver haired masked ninja poofed away without even introducing himself.
We headed up there, sat down, and he asked us to introduce ourselves. Easy enough.
"It's traditional with a new jonin sensei to state your dreams, likes, hobbies, that sort of thing."
"I'm Sasuke Uchiha, twelve years old going on to twenty. I like science, my hobbies are science, I dislike bad psuedo-science and discrimination against women and the poor and really against anyone who can potentially do science. My dream is to be a fire breathing tiger." I said in an absolute monotone, trying to sound as droll as possible like I was incredibly bored to be here. Which I was. I managed to surprise everyone there.
"You don't really want to be a fire breathing tiger, do you Sasuke?" Sakura said, wide eyed. Unused to my humor, I guess she took it seriously.
Naruto looked a mixture of pissed and confused.
"No. My actual dream is to kill a certain person." If there was one thing I really wanted to do, I decided, it was to bring that sick bastard Itachi down. He'd killed little kids and old grandparents for no good damn reason. Not even for science. That pissed me off. Someone like that? They weren't going to be satisfied with one thing, they were going to go on to hurt other people. I wanted to stop him. Then, thinking about it a bit, I decided maybe, since I'd reincarnated into this life and though it hadn't been my intention ended up as the last of a powerful clan who many had depended on, I had some obligation here. "I suppose also to revive my clan."
"Ahh, and how you planning to do that? You gonna get yourself a harem?" Naruto was still being an ass.
"I was thinking cloning or resurrecting them from the dead might work," I said thoughtfully, taking it quite seriously and ignoring his stupidity. "I'm not sure which is easier, but with resurrection you open a big can of worms like, do you have an obligation to bring everyone who ever died ever back? It's a big pain. So probably I won't do that one. Now, cloning in theory is quite simple, in detail it gets really complicated."
"Or you could just get married," Sakura pointed out.
"That would probably be the logical thing to do," I admitted. "Easiest way, certainly."
"Nah, Sasuke's probably gay. He strikes me as totally effeminate, and that's why he doesn't look twice at girls!" Naruto took another immature dig at me.
"HE IS NOT GAY!" Sakura smacked Naruto in the head.
Homophobes. The both of them. Although maybe Sakura just couldn't bare to think of me being gay because that meant she'd have to turn herself into a man to have me. That made sense. It was certainly more comforting than she shouted I wasn't gay because I was too 'cool' and 'masculine' to be gay. Which is shit, by the way. Being feminine has nothing to do with being attracted to men. Any femme lesbian knows that. Plenty of masculine, sports loving men only go for other men.
That said, I had no idea if I was gay, bisexual, or none of that. It seemed that if I wasn't ace like last time, I was at the least a very late bloomer. Or maybe I just was not attracted to anyone around here and was very finicky. That was possible, they really weren't appealing to me. Cold blooded mindlessly loyal adults, and idealistic little kids? Yeah, no thank you, no one here I find even mildly interesting. I supposed I might be a gray ace or demisexual, meaning I'd only experience lust when I met someone I really found fascinating on a romantic level.
"Well, that was... interesting. Maybe a touch disturbing," our sensei said. He kills people for a living and he's calling me disturbing? Hypocrite. "Next?"
"What about you, sensei? We barely know anything about you."
"My name is Kakashi Hatake, I'm 28 years old, and my hobbies, I have lots of, likes and dislikes are none of your business. My dreams, I haven't really thought about them."
"So you don't have any dreams and you can't think of any hobbies, that's nice." I was feeling quite pithy today. He gave me a barely perceptible look, brows slightly knitted downward.
"We barely learned anything at all!" exclaimed Sakura. "Well, I guess I'm next. My name is Sakura Haruno, I'm - " She glanced at me. "a big fan of Sasuke! My hobby is... hanging out with Sasuke!" She giggled like she'd planned to say something else. Guh. Well, she was a bit more plain spoken than she used to be. Naruto made a move like he wanted to hit her for squealing and I was horrified. At him, not her. "My dream is to be a strong ninja." Well, that was something new, and quite nice. Maybe I'd had some affect on her then.
Naruto looked really surprised and taken back. "I guess you might be not completely useless, then."
"Hey! If anyone is useless, it's you, deadlast!" Sakura shouted. "And last, what I dislike... is Naruto!"
"You forgot your hobbies of clothes, training and camping," I added. She did have an existence beyond me, thankfully.
"Oh, yeah. Well, those too!"
"Next," Kakashi said, looking tired of the bickering. I didn't blame him.
"Alright, last but not least! Naruto Uzumaki, I like fighting, pranking, and training, my dislikes -" My heart stopped. What happened to his love of ramen?
"Ramen." I interrupted.
"Huh?"
"You forgot you love ramen." I said, concerned. "It's literately your favorite thing ever, isn't it?"
He seemed at a loss for a moment, as if baffled why I would care. "Maybe the old, idiotic me would have ranted about how much they love ramen and how their least favorite thing is waiting for ramen to cook, but this is the new me!" Alright, only Naruto would have known what his least favorite thing had been, so it had to still be him, right? I'd been getting worried. He was so out of character.
Like someone else had inserted their self into him.
"Now, where was I? Oh yes! I dislike a certain dog," he looked at Kakashi with zero subtlety, "fangirls -" he spoke, "Hey!" Sakura interrupted. "- and the current Hokage. My goal is to become as powerful as possible and show this village how messed up it really is."
Kakashi now glared at him as did the rest of us. "Excuse me? You love the Hokage! And the village! What's up with you?" I was near shouting now, standing up and towering over him, ready to throttle him for his weird behavior. "What's gotten into you lately? You've been acting completely unlike yourself."
"The old Naruto was a moron," he said coldly.
"The current Naruto is a moron!" I shouted. "The old Naruto at least had a heart! You're just plain vicious!" Sakura nodded her head in agreement with me.
"You're one to talk, duckbutt!"
"Woah, guys, take it easy now," Kakashi played mediator. "What's this all about, really? Friendship squabble? Did someone say something to you? Was it Mizuki who upset you?" Mizuki, the teacher? That must have been around graduation... the timing would fit pretty well.
"I've realized this village hates me," Naruto said, scowling.
I felt at a loss. "Not everyone hates you, Naruto, the Hokage being one of the ones who loves you. And you knew people hated you before but you never let it get you down! You wanted to be Hokage!" This sounded an awful lot like a small child throwing a temper tantrum, and I started to cool my anger. A little upset kid I could deal with, I suppose I should have expected him to blow up and get all upset some time, right? Just I would have thought it wouldn't be when he should be all happy and excited over graduation! Whatever Mizuki said must have been quite vicious. "What did Mizuki say to you? I'm sure it's not true, whatever bullshit it is."
"Enough of this nonsense." Naruto folded his arms. "I want the test, the real test."
"Real test?"
"Heh, that's right," Kakashi bobbed his head, eager to get on to something more suitable for his skills than childhood melodramas. "You still have yet to face the true test that decides whether or not I'll accept you as my students. And I must say, you lot? None of you seem ready to be ninja. This test has a 66% failure rate, and you look like fails to me."
"I'll prove you wrong," Naruto vowed.
"Tomorrow at 7'o sharp, training ground 7, don't be late. Oh, and don't eat breakfast, you'll just throw up." Kakashi then vanished in smoke.
"You should ignore what he said and eat breakfast. Oh, and come late," Naruto said. I stared at him distrustfully, and he smiled aggressively at me. Sakura looked at him uneasily, and he disappeared away in his own poof of smoke. I had mixed feelings. He had talked far too knowingly, but with him acting like a shit, I had no reason to trust any word he said.
"Let's just have a small meal that will digest quickly," I suggested to Sakura. "I had been planning on that anyway."
"Ah, okay, that sounds smart!" she giggled. I knew there was a brain under there, but, it was hard to believe it when she giggled... although, that was my own sexism speaking wasn't it? Giggling and intelligence had nothing to do with one another, there was no reason one couldn't giggle and be girly if they wanted to, it wouldn't destroy your brain cells.
I giggled with her just as an experiment, and she stared at me. "Ah, you can't giggle! You're a boy!"
I gave her a skeptical look. "Oh really?" Well, who was being sexist now?
"Yes, it's totally uncool!"
So. I finally had the secret weapon to get rid of my fan girls! I just had to giggle inanely at them and turn their own behavior right back at them! "Maybe I should do it all the time, then."
"Aww, Sasuke, you're so mean!" she exclaimed, realizing I was just planning on it to annoy her. Most twelve year old girls are actually pretty sweet under proper guidance, or at least the ones I remembered babysitting from my old life were, so I relented.
"Hey, boys are allowed to giggle if they want, okay? But I won't copycat giggle to mock you if that bothers you." I wish I could tell her I couldn't be in a relationship with her for at least, oh, another near decade at least, because I viewed her as a little girl I had to look after. Not to be insulting, or cruel, but just because I had actually been an adult if very briefly and had years more of experience and she really was a little girl. Although I did admit I didn't always act like an adult, my child brain acting impulsively from time to time even though I should know better, physically I could not actually help that until I grew some more.
"Thanks."
.
.
That morning, Kakashi watched, unbeknown to them, as they came on to the field. He noted Naruto setting traps with interest. He has already assumed it will be a combat exercise. Not a bad assumption considering we're ninja, but, it's not going to help him much, heh.
I'm concerned about his behavioral changes, but the other two actually seem to be getting along well. I'm a little surprised, boys Sasuke's age usually act like girls have cooties, especially girls who seem so obsessed with boys. He doesn't respond to her flirtations though, which is normal. Sasuke occasionally shows an unusual maturity, when he isn't making flat, terrible jokes. He says them so bluntly I'm not sure his team mates even realize he is joking. Got a bit of a mouth on him. Although what was that about cloning? A joke too? Although it was absurd, it seems quite likely some of his flat statements weren't jokes; according to the Academy he does like science.
I don't think this team has a hope of passing. It seemed like Naruto and Sasuke were once friends, and the girl likes Sasuke, so they might have cooperated around Sasuke as the leader. But the girl hates Naruto and Naruto hates Sasuke, there's no bonds here, no way it's going to work out unless my pounding knocks sense into them. They don't seem mature enough to put differences aside for the sake of a mission, though I hope I'm wrong. Sometimes, most of the time, you don't get to pick your team and your mission. You have to do it, even if it's unpleasant to you.
There's no cherry picking as a ninja.
"We're on time, it's been ten minutes, but he isn't here yet. Could the test be to go look for him?" Sasuke suggested, frowning.
"Oh, maybe!" Sakura said. "If we do go looking for him we should leave a note in case he arrives with us gone."
"Good idea."
Initiative. Kakashi liked that.
"I have some weak sensor ability, but it's nothing reliable, I'd have to be quite close. He wouldn't know about that anyway, so the test can't be relying on that. Maybe he left clues?" Interesting. A sensor was always useful.
"Oh, what if it's a genjutsu and this isn't the real training ground? Kai!" Sakura shouted, putting her hands together.
Now this was entertainment! Letting them get all worked up and paranoid about what the test was. Very funny. Naruto didn't seem the slightest bit flustered, though, and he seemed to have no desire to go join his team mates. It was almost like he already knew what the test was.
It didn't take too long for Sakura and Sasuke to get bored and wander off the grounds, looking about and scanning around for him. Kakashi watched them in amusement, safely hidden from a distance, though at one point he got a little too close, hiding on top of a building when he saw Sasuke straighten and turn to run straight in his direction. He quickly retreated, but this became a fun new game for him.
Taunt and tease the wanna-be genin.
He would slip just barely into what he deduced was Sasuke's sensor range, then slip out, watching the little kiddies scramble about frantically.
Ah, so cute. Well, he had his fill of this after awhile and appeared in the training grounds, patiently reading his book. When Naruto spotted him, he was bizarrely shocked. "Ack! You're early?"
"Early? So you've heard about my lateness, hmm?"
Sakura and Sasuke hurried over not much later, having been periodically checking back. "Ah, sensei you're finally here!"
"You're late," he said dispassionately.
"You were late too! Hypocrite. And we were on time, we just went looking for you!" said Sakura.
"Well, points for initiative if not for brains. You're meant to wait for a superior to give official orders," he scolded.
"So looking for you wasn't the test? Dang." Sakura folded her arms in disappointment.
"This will be a test of your skills as a ninja. I want you to come at me with the intent to kill, to retrieve these two bells. Anyone without a bell will be tied to a stump and not given any..." he mentally checked the time. "breakfast."
"I already had a big bad breakfast! I'm stuffed, haha!" Naruto taunted. "I refuse to fall for your stupid tricks!"
"Ooh, is that so? I'll enjoy making you throw up then," Kakashi grinned nastily, although they couldn't see it under his mask. He'd been planning on messing with them no matter what they did, eat breakfast or not. Paranoia was useful in a ninja.
"You'll try! Shadow Clone Jutsu!" A hundred Naruto suddenly popped into existence.
"The dogs with the biggest bark have the wimpiest bite," Kakashi dismissed him. "I also didn't say start." He quickly banished the shadow clones and thumped the real Naruto to the ground, who looked surprised.
"Sensei, you forgot a bell, there's three of us," Sakura said. Sasuke was quiet.
"No, I didn't forget."
"But that means one of us will fail for certain!"
"Correct. In fact, all three of you could fail. And if you fail... you'll be going straight back to the Academy! Now, begin!"
The kids all leaped away to hide. He knew where they all were despite their best efforts. Naruto seemed to be quite confident he wouldn't be caught, seeming more self assured than all of them. He decided to go after the little tantrum throwing brat first.
"Ready for pain?" He thrashed his cute little student to the ground. "First major skill of a ninja, taijutsu!"
"Ga! Impossible, I've trained with shadow clones and weights, how are you so fast?"
"Baka. Shadow clones can't increase your physical strength or speed; only training with your real body can do that! If you think a short period of training with weights can make your level match that of a jonin's, you're a fool!"
"Grr! Forbidden Double Suicide Explosion Jutsu!" Naruto sent his clones toward him doing what definitely appeared to be a forbidden, lethal jutsu. His cute little genin really was trying to kill him, hmm. How feisty.
He substituted himself with another clone, and watched in amusement as one clone exploded and took out the second clone. "Naah, you're a mean little fellow, aren't you? Still all bark, though." He pulled out his book, just to infuriate Naruto. The boy took the bait and ran at him punching wildly.
"Vomit Hurler no Jutsu!" Kakashi yelled, and spun and sloshed the boy around many times before dropping him to the ground queasy. It wasn't a real jutsu, but he thought he'd just found a new favorite tactic.
"I'll destroy your stupid book!" To his surprise, he felt the book getting yanked on. Chakra lines? He didn't know Naruto knew how to do that. This one was full of little surprises. The book flew right out of his hand, and he let it for a moment, just to see what Naruto would do. After all, it wasn't like he couldn't get another book. "Trade me the bells for the book!"
"Oh, no, anything but my book!" Kakashi exclaimed with fake horror. Naruto seemed to buy it as real though. Then Kakashi laughed. "Not a bad tactic, I'll admit, trying to make a trade. But it would help more if that was my real book."
"Huh?" Naruto blinked. Kakashi stabbed himself, and he and his shadow clone book disappeared. The real Kakashi would find this quite interesting.
.
.
I, Neko also these days called Sasuke, was having quite a fight with Kakashi. He seemed to blink like something had caught his attention, and I used that moment of distraction to try and touch a bell. No go.
I'd wanted to hide, hang back and watch him fight one of the others to gauge his strength and possible weaknesses, but he'd come at me pretty quickly.
This whole test seemed kind of screwy, but, we'd been taught to obey our teachers and accept screwy, unfair tests. Most school systems were like that. Arguing just got you in trouble. I was of the crowd that generally thought that if most students didn't get a question, it was often the fault of the teacher and study materials, not the students. Therefore, I thought of our teachers as being kind of shitty. The lateness rather reinforced that. They didn't want a lot of graduates to become ninja, they wanted to fuck with us and get a large minority to majority to leave. A rank wouldn't have as much prestige if a lot of people could get it, after all. This took it to new lows, though, bragging of how many failed and then deliberately making it so some would fail without fail with every test? What bullshit.
I was finding myself second guessing now, though. I'd assumed he'd be testing us by fighting deliberately at our appropriate level and seeing if we could match it, but he wasn't. He was holding back, sure, but only in the sense that he wasn't trying to kill us.
"Mm, your style reminds me of Shishui," he said, after I repeatedly vanished for the fifth time, flash-stepping and substituting like crazy to try and disorient him and get him at an unguarded angle, occasionally throwing fireballs at him. It was a style of fighting that came naturally to me, so if he recognized it maybe it was partially genetic. I also enjoyed the Uchiha interceptor taijutsu style, countering other people's moves and preventing them from pulling off their planned attack was exactly my sort of style.
"I don't remember him super well," I admitted. Like a lot of people, my memories of early childhood became less clear as time went on, with a few traumatic memories or especially happy moments staying crystal clear. Mine were mostly traumatic. "You knew other Uchiha?"
"I did," he said, not committing to any specific names. He took advantage of my distraction to knock me to the ground. "Ah, don't reminisce in the middle of a fight." Kakashi scolded like he had already decided to begin teaching. "Also, you need to work on your real speed and use less substitution. Substitution doesn't work as well in high tier combat, or against sensors, or anyone with a knack for prediction. Both it and flash-stepping make you waste time on a hand-sign you could be using on other jutsu."
I leaped away, backing off and deciding to go look for Sakura.
"Running away?" he quipped, appearing in front of me and aiming a kick.
"A tactical retreat," I countered.
Finally spotting her, I was disappointed she seemed to be crying at something unreal. "Sakura, snap out of the genjutsu! For crying out loud, I thought you were good at those." Okay, that might have been nicer. Eh, hopefully it didn't damage her self esteem too much and would just make her fight harder. I wasn't always good at spur of the moment socializing. Actually, I could be very terrible, especially in grumpy mornings. I hate mornings. Like this one.
"H-huh? Sasuke? You're alive?" It was like she couldn't see me.
"Of course I'm alive." Although Kakashi's next punch made it feel like I was going to die. Oww. He was continuing his flurry of attacks against me. I didn't have a lot more fire in me, only one big one and I wanted to save it.
"Kai!" She dispelled it. "Oh, I see you now! I feel so stupid."
"It's alright, theory is different from practice."
"Oh, what are you two jabbering together about?" Kakashi pretended like he couldn't hear perfectly. "Are you perhaps thinking of working together?" He stopped attacking for a second.
"Sakura, he's not defending at a genin level, except in restriction of lethal attacks, that means none of us alone can take him. We'll have to work together." I just ignored him. "Where's Naruto?"
"I don't know."
"Wait," I paused. "I have an idea actually, let me test it." I'd been keeping half an eye on sensei the whole time and the other eye on Sakura to speak to her, but now I turned toward him. He looked bored, even his mild curiosity looked bored.
I picked up a pair of pebbles. "Substitution!" I tried to switch them with the bells, but no luck. The exertion left me panting. "Ah, I guess they're too small for me. Weird." One would think bigger objects would be more difficult, but... maybe it was just objects different from yourself, and substituting things that weren't you was twice as hard as normal. Or perhaps because it was attached to Kakashi's belt and likely had some of his chakra mingling around it?
"Nice try. You're the first one to do so, so kudos."
Abruptly, there was a roar.
What the hell was that?
Out of the trees burst Naruto, looking like an absolute monster. He had a few tails of monstrous orange chakra waving behind him, glowing energy all around him, and even Kakashi looked a bit wigged out. "Well, that wasn't supposed to have happened." Or, actually, he sounded more embarrassed than frightened.
We were left in the dust as Kakashi and the fox tailed Naruto did furious battle, his raw energy knocking whole trees to the ground. He cast great gales of wind in an elemental jutsu of all things; I didn't even know he knew any, he certainly hadn't before. He struck at the ground and left great gashes like he had claws. This seemed to have enhanced his speed quite a bit, as Kakashi wasn't just playing around anymore.
Naruto... he was like an absolute demon. Fire jutsu, water jutsu, wind jutsu, where had he learned all of these all of a sudden? He actually managed to knock Kakashi down for a moment with a lucky blow, and the bells were knocked off.
He picked them up, tossed them at us, and gave a grin totally devoid of friendliness. "Hey, dumb-asses. This is a test of team work, right-o? Well, I give these bells to you two, so that covers the team work. We pass."
Kakashi pulled down his mask slightly, revealing his second eye, and...
The Sharingan? Wait, we weren't related, were we? No, he wouldn't have it in one eye, and if he was related, he'd have adopted me, right?
He seemed to look into Naruto's eyes, and the tails of chakra dissipated. The boy groaned, rubbing his forehead. "Hey, what gives?"
"You fail." His voice was quite cold.
"I'll destroy your book if you refuse to pass us!"
"I can buy a new one." Kakashi was unflappable. "Despite knowing the point of the exercise, you completely botched it. You completely ignored your team mates, even as they were considering working with you. I'm quite disappointed in you, but as it is, I have other concerns. According to everyone, you haven't been acting like yourself. I'm going to have you checked out by a specialist. If something has been affecting you, I might just give you a second chance if I'm feeling generous."
I felt deeply worried. What was wrong with Naruto? "This is just a guess, but, would that something be related to the Kyuubi?"
He gave me a surprised look. "Yes, possibly."
"Kyuubi?" Sakura seemed quite lost.
"Since you guessed it, Naruto is the container of the Kyuubi. This is a top ranked secret upon the pain of death, don't tell anyone," Kakashi ordered. "Now, fox boy, come with me." He grabbed Naruto and disappeared.
I sighed, feeling ashamed I hadn't seen the signs sooner. Although to be fair, I've never seen demonic possession before if that's what this is.
"So, want to go get shaved flavored ice?" Sakura asked.
I shrugged silently, but followed. If we were going back to the Academy, it wasn't like I had anything better to do. Although I couldn't help but feel this system needed serious reform, if one jerk could ruin it for everyone else...
Although, if this test was about team work, then it just proved what I knew all along. Tests aren't about what you know, but about your ability to read what your teacher wants to hear.
.
.
end of chapter notes (light spoilers): Hmm, say did Anko get abandoned by Orochi before or after he left Konoha? Experimenting on students and losing nine of them seems kind of a no-no, but it was the other human experiments that got him caught and forced him to flee.
Also, have you read some of the really terrible fanfics out there, like a God Kage fanfic that somehow got 200 reviews? I proudly admit I got inspiration from there... for my villain insert who takes over Naruto. He's kind of a gigantic spiteful dumb ass. In that fic he boldly admits he hates Hokages, his teacher, and that he's been talking to the Kyuubi, which should be well enough to get him into an interrogation room or locked away to be examined for a weakening seal! He also completely misunderstands the team work exercise.
Although, this whole thing, it reeallyyy just makes me want to give up on reviews. I see people putting nice time and effort into fics and getting one tenth the attention that massive mary sue god!Naruto spite-fics do.
Although, you guys are super sweet! ;) Kinda makes me wish I hadn't prewritten a whole buncha chapters so I could respond to your requests more easily. Still, to those who dislike the Sasuke-inserting, I have a big reason for Neko being Sasuke for a long while at least: it means I don't have to knock anyone off any teams and can have interaction with Sakura and Naruto, plus it avoids redundancy of having two angsty 'family sucks' people who hang around Orochimaru. Neko won't be super avenger-y, they just don't have it in them, but the brooding over family? They were going to do that anyway, because, well, they've been neglected in several life times by this point. That really makes you uneasy around people.
Also, you may have noticed I occasionally follow Kakashi's viewpoint. I find him interesting, even if I don't understand him as much as I'd like. I think he could potentially get along fairly well with Neko, and you'll see why next chapter-ish.
:P And good gods it is Spring and the weather is BOILING hot already.