Naruto Primer: Team Kakashi
April?
Out of all the potential genins Kakashi had received in his lifetime, he had never passed a single one. Then, all of a sudden, he finally got a group that he was able to pass because they demonstrated during the test the one thing he valued most; looking underneath the underneath.
However, now that he had begun to train them and such, he was starting to wonder if maybe he should base his passing standard on something else. After all, the competition he had just had with his fellow teachers had just humiliated him and proved that his group was good at coming in at number two. The only event they had managed to win at was the cooking one, and Kakashi knew very well that their win was not genuine.
"Listen up, team." Said Kakashi as he paced in front of Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura who were all sitting attentively. "Here I was thinking that I had a superior team. But the only thing you managed to excel at was cooking, and it was only because you cheated."
"We didn't cheat!" said Sakura immediately.
"I told you the plan was stupid!!" yelled Naruto.
"You all just settle for being Number Two." Kakashi continued as if they hadn't said anything in their defense. "You came in second in the triathlon, second in the brain event, second in the dancing event… you WOULD have come in second in the cooking one if you hadn't cheated…"
"It wasn't cheating!" Sakura insisted.
"But the thing I was most disappointed in was your disqualification in the three-legged race." Kakashi finished. "You could have won that."
"It was all Sasuke's fault!" Naruto insisted.
"Psht." Said Sasuke.
"So let's start with the triathlon and figure out what we did wrong in that." Kakashi said. "All right, Naruto, you did the swimming event. You did a good job swimming but you started too fast so you got tired towards the end. Especially that leg from the water to the start of the biking area. You have to learn to pace yourself better."
"All right!" said Naruto, looking determined.
"Sakura, you did the biking event." Kakashi continued. "There's not much to evaluate from that. To put it simply, you're not very good at biking. You tried your hardest but it just wasn't good enough."
"…I know…" said Sakura.
"Finally, Sasuke finished it off with the foot race." Kakashi said. "I can see that your position was a bit difficult since Lee had such a commanding lead on you but, frankly, I think that if you had tried harder, you would have been able to beat him."
"You're right!" said Sasuke, getting all inferior. "If I had just gone faster then we could have won!"
"Moving on," said Kakashi, unfazed. "I found it a bit ludicrous that you three lost the Brain competition when your questions were simply knowledge of each other's birthdays. Come on… April? Whose birthday is in April? Honestly."
"How were we supposed to know something as random as that?" said Sakura.
"It wasn't random." Said Naruto, crossing his arms. "No one knew MY birthday."
"No, we just didn't know your half birthday!" Sakura said.
"Don't bother, Sakura." Said Kakashi. "It was obvious that neither of you even knew how old Naruto was. If you're going to be a successful team, you have to open up to each other more."
"Well at least we didn't pass on a question before it was even asked." Sasuke said.
"Good point, but we're talking about THIS team." Said Kakashi. "During the three-legged race…" Kakashi sighed and shook his head. "I could go on forever. What exactly happened?"
"Sasuke DEMANDED to race with me right then and there!" Naruto said.
"Sasuke, is this true?" said Kakashi.
Sasuke chose to not dignify that with an answer.
Kakashi figured it was pointless to try and probe him. "Well, obviously you both know that that was definitely the wrong place and the wrong time to try to prove that you're better than each other."
"I don't need to prove I'm better than Naruto, I AM." Said Sasuke.
Kakashi stared at Sasuke for a moment. "Right…" he said, just to humor him for a while. "Let's move on to the cooking contest. Considering you were able to use your skills to help you win…I guess we don't have to dive deeper into that one."
"It was such a stupid plan." Said Naruto.
"Will you stop saying that?" said Sakura in an annoyed tone.
"Finally, the dancing competition." Kakashi said. "Because you two were unwilling to cling to each other tightly, you were easily separated…by a dog. I'm going to assume you knew that a link by only a mere hand would be severed easier than the bond between Hinata and Kiba had."
"I knew that but Sakura refused to hug me like Hinata was hugging Kiba!" Naruto announced.
"Now that we have discussed the events, I hope you know what I am going to base our training around for today." Kakashi said.
"Aww…" the three of them moaned.
"Our first training exercise will be based around the triathlon and the three-legged race." Kakashi said. "Considering Naruto and Sasuke were fairly successful for their events, they will merely be attached to each other at the wrist and the ankles until I say otherwise. As for you, Sakura, you will be biking until I say otherwise."
With that, he whipped out a bike and two pairs of handcuffs from behind his back. In one, swift motion, he handcuffed Naruto and Sasuke together so that not only were they a three-legged monster, but they were three-ARMED monster as well!!
"I'd rather run a hundred laps…" complained Naruto.
"What a good idea!" said Kakashi. "You two have to run a hundred laps together and then report to me when you're done."
"Naruto, this is all your fault." Said Sasuke. "Did you notice that the only event our team won in was the only one you didn't participate in?"
"Your mom, Sasuke!" said Naruto. "Your mom!!"
"I said RUN!" yelled Kakashi. "And make sure you get to know each other because I'm going to quiz you when you get back!" With that, they ran off before Kakashi killed them. Kakashi turned around to tell Sakura her task but saw her trying to tiptoe off. "As for you," he said. "You will bike a hundred laps alongside them getting to know them. More than just Sasuke though."
"Oh…am I going to get quizzed too?" Sakura whined.
"Yes." Said Kakashi.
Sakura took the bike and left while moaning to herself.
Kakashi then took this opportunity to do all the things he could never do because he was training the tykes or having a party with his jounin friends. That included his physical, a dentist appointment, he checked his vision and hearing and visited his mom and long lost brother, Babashi.
Then, after all that stuff happened, he went back to where he started to find all his pupils standing there looking tired and irritated. "Hey, I thought I told you to go until I said stop!" he said.
"No, you told us a hundred laps." Said Sasuke.
"Where have you been this whole time?!" demanded Sakura.
"All kinds of places." Kakashi replied. "I went to the eye doctor's and he said that I might need glasses. I guess gouging out my own eye and replacing it with someone else's wasn't one of my greatest ideas. But anyway, we have to continue the training!"
"CONTINUE?!" yelled Naruto.
"Yeah, don't think you're done." Said Kakashi as he unlocked the handcuffs between Naruto and Sasuke. "I told you I was going to quiz you on how well you knew each other. So let's get started. Naruto, go and get that shuriken over there."
"Uh…okay." Said Naruto as he frolicked over to the shuriken that was lying there innocently. As soon as he was within a step of it, a rope wound around his leg and launched him up into the air so that he was dangling by an ankle hanging from a tree by the rope. "HEY!!" he yelled. "THAT WAS A TRAP!! THAT WASN'T FAIR AT ALL!!"
"I wouldn't have fallen for that." Said Sasuke.
"It doesn't matter if he fell for it." said Kakashi. "He was SUPPOSED to. It was just my creative method of getting him up there."
"Well it's a good thing you didn't ask me then." Sasuke said.
"It's your turn Sakura." Said Kakashi, ignoring Sasuke.
"Um…if you want me to go anywhere, you can just tell me instead of thinking up a creative sort of way of doing it…" Sakura said nervously.
"No, I'm going to ask you to climb that tree and then shimmy down that rope and cling onto Naruto." Kakashi said.
"YAY!" cheered Naruto.
"No!!" gasped Sakura, except they were both at the same time.
"Yes, you must." Kakashi demanded. After only a bit of complaining, Kakashi finally got her to climb the tree and then grab onto Naruto. "Good. That's perfect. Just hang on there for a minute."
Kakashi chuckled to himself about the funny he just made.
"Is Sasuke going to have to come up here and cling to me?" Sakura asked all-too-hopefully.
"No, not yet at least." Kakashi said. "You two must remain in that awkward position until Sasuke is able to answer two questions about you both. Meaning he must answer a total of four questions."
"No problem!" said Naruto. "I think I pretty much said everything about my self in the world while we were running!"
"Me too!" said Sakura.
"Let's hope you were listening!" said Kakashi to Sasuke.
"Of course I was listening." Sasuke fehed.
"Then we'll start out with an easy one." Kakashi said. "When is Naruto's birthday?"
"Oh, that's easy." Said Sasuke. "October 10th."
"Right!" said Kakashi. "Sorry I don't have a confetti ball to rain down upon you for getting the question right but my approval should be rewarding enough."
"This is great!" said Sakura to Naruto. "We won't have to stay up here very long at all!"
"Aw man…" sniffed Naruto.
"The next question is about Sakura." Kakashi said. "And in case you haven't noticed, the questions are more straight forward than my usual ones that force you to look underneath the underneath."
"I HAVE noticed." Sasuke said, slightly offended that Kakashi thought he didn't notice.
"What is Sakura's favorite color?" Kakashi asked.
"That one's easy too." Sasuke said. "Sakura's favorite color whatever MY favorite color is."
Kakashi paused and waited for Sasuke to continue. Finally, when it looked as though he wasn't going to, he tried, "Would you…elaborate?"
"Every time I heard Naruto ask Sakura a question on what her favorite of something or least favorite of something, it would always match mine." Sasuke began. "I figured that this was not coincidental and that Sakura actually knew everything about me and was just saying those things so she would think that I would be more interested in her just because we had the same interests."
Sakura turned red.
"And…the color?" Kakashi asked.
"Yellow." Sasuke replied.
"YELLOW?!" Naruto gasped as if he was offended.
"Yes." Said Sasuke. "You have a problem with yellow?"
"I was expecting something like black…or dark blue… but YELLOW?!"
"Yes. I am also partial to orange and red and other summer colors."
"That is something I did not know about you." Said Naruto.
"I knew!" Sakura announced.
"It looks like this training exercise was beneficial after all!" Kakashi said. "But now we must move on to the next question which will be about Naruto! But I'm sure you already knew that. Okay, here's the question; how many shuriken does Naruto own?"
"Uh…" Sasuke started. "Well, he said that he just bought a new one… but I don't know how many he had before that…"
"How did you come across enough money to buy a new one?" Sakura asked Naruto.
"Well…um…Kiba loaned me the money?" Naruto tried.
"I didn't know you were good friends with Kiba." Sakura said skeptically.
"That's what this training is all for, isn't it?" laughed Naruto.
"Not really." Said Kakashi. "While I do care if you get to know other people, the point of THIS particular training is to get to know your teammates."
"Oh." Said Naruto.
"So am I correct in assuming that you have no idea how many shuriken Naruto owns?" Kakashi asked. Sasuke nodded. "It's very important that you know how many weapons your teammate has just in case they run out. You need to know BEFORE your enemy."
"Come on, Sasuke!" Sakura cheered as she continued to latch onto Naruto unhappily. "Just two more questions! Answer them quickly, please!"
"Um…ten?" Sasuke tried.
"No." Kakashi replied.
"Fifteen?" Sasuke guessed.
"No."
"Twenty?"
"No."
"How about you say higher or lower?"
"No."
"I have no idea how many shuriken he has. It never really came up in our discussion."
"Then we'll have to move to a new question!" Kakashi declared. "It doesn't matter to me since I could ask questions all day. It's all a matter of how long Sakura can hold onto Naruto."
"All the blood is rushing to my head!" Naruto complained.
Two hours later…
"Okay, you only have to get one more right." Said Kakashi. "So that makes three you've gotten right and…er…about sixty-four that you've gotten wrong."
"They're way too specific." Sasuke said. "I'd rather it if you just asked a question that I would have to look underneath the underneath to answer. I'm good at that."
"That's why I'm asking you this type of question." Kakashi said.
"I think Naruto passed out." Said Sakura, waving her hand in front of Naruto's face. "All the blood rushed to his head."
"Okay, from now on, if you get a question wrong then…uh…you have to run a hundred laps." Kakashi said.
"Will we have to stay up here while he does that?" Sakura called.
"Well obviously." Said Kakashi.
"Then hurry up and ask the question!" said Sakura impatiently.
"Hm…" said Kakashi, scratching his chin. "Oh! What color are Naruto's eyes?"
"…I don't know, he always has them closed…" Sasuke said.
"Sasuke!!" whined Sakura.
"Hang on, let me think." Sasuke said. "Er…um…is this a trick question? Does he have some sort of weird advanced bloodline that I never noticed before? Like…are they purple with green stripes or something? Sometimes? Um…"
"Sasuke, I'll give you a hint." Said Kakashi. "…No."
"Okay, so it's something natural." Said Sasuke, thinkin' hard. "I guess I'm going to take a shot in the dark. He's got blond hair, so I'll go with blue eyes."
"Is that your final answer?" said Kakashi.
"…Um…" Sasuke stuttered. "Uh…yeah…?"
"Then you are…" Kakashi said, going for the dramatic pause. "CORRECT!! HURRAY!" He looked at Sakura. "You can get down now."
"Finally!" she said, jumping down from the tree and just LEAVING Naruto there.
Kakashi gave her a hard stare. "Haven't you learned ANYTHING?" he asked sternly.
"What?" she said obliviously.