Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters used within the story.
Bell Test.
Pass
Chapter 4
I arrived at the training ground about half an hour after the stipulated time given by Kakashi-almost-sensei.
Sure I knew that he would arrive three hours late or maybe even longer, but he probably did that as a test of patience for the three of us.
As soon as I entered within Izumi's line of sight, her unfocused eyes morphed into a glare. "You're late!"
"Is Kakashi-sensei here?" I asked blandly. Couldn't she not shout in the morning? Granted I also woke up usually at 6 am for stretching exercises before entering the academy, but that didn't mean I wanted to put up with loud noises.
"No he isn't, but-"
"Then I'm not late." I cut her off mid-sentence. "Look, he's not here which means as long as I arrive before him, then I'm not late." Sound logic if I do say so myself.
She didn't have any rebuttal to that, so she decided to settle for a scowl and petulantly turned her head towards the side.
I decided to sit down and rest my back on one of the unoccupied wooden posts. Torune lazed on the post adjacent to mine, his goggles covering his eyes.
Once I settled down, I decided I had to come up with a plan to succeed in the bell test and pass it with a decent impression on Kakashi. Our team as a unit had to show proper and well-oiled teamwork to a certain extent.
Convincing Torune would be easy. The guy was friendly enough, had a decent head on his shoulders, and seemed to be willing to be the best possible teammate judging by his attitude in the academy. Izumi would be an entirely different matter. Not only did she hate me, but she was also a hothead. Her impulsiveness could lead to the total destruction of any plan the three of us constructed.
Or maybe was I being too pessimistic about this? I mean she did have the highest grades with near flawless taijutsu by academy standards, so she might succeed in not being too much of a nuisance.
Man, I sound like a horrible person just thinking those words I thought to myself with a grimace. Perhaps I was being too cynical and the girl would perform exceptionally.
But how would I get her to agree with me? That was the hardest part. She and I were not on the best terms - an understatement - but with the right words and the correct amount of manipulation... Aha! That should work.
I clapped my hands alerting both of them. "Alright so, we know that since this is a test like sensei informed us yesterday, we need to come up with a plan to defeat him in battle."
Torune frowned, or at least that's what I thought his facial expression meant. With those goggles covering up nearly his entire face, you could barely see his nose. "Yes, I think that would be a good idea. Since he's a Jonin, working together would be our best option to take him down in a direct confrontation." Man, this guy sounded way too mature for his age.
I nodded. "Exactly, so just as I said, we need to come up with a way to beat him or whatever target he wants us to capture."
Izumi tilted her head to the side and eyed me questioningly. "A target? As in he'll ask us to perform some type of mock mission?"
Woah, did she just talk to me without being angry? Maybe, I was wrong about her. Perhaps I'm just a pessimistic asshole.
I nodded, slightly happy at the fact that she got my message so quickly. Looks like that top kunoichi position wasn't a waste on her. "Mhmm, you got it. So each of us will discuss our strengths and weaknesses in order to come up with a strategy right now or on the fly."
Izumi nodded excitedly. "Yes, that sounds great! You and I- hey wait a minute! Why would I want to work with you?!" There it was, the animosity I hoped to crush. I needed to nip this issue before it got far too out of control for both my liking and the team's benefit.
Now the manipulation begins. I cocked my head to the side, my expression turning the slightest bit hurt. "But, I want to work with you," I whined slightly.
Now that truly flabbergasted her. I wasn't sure what shocked her more, the tone of my voice or the sentence I had just uttered out loud. "But why?" she questioned me, her face the picture of disbelief. "I thought you... you hated me!"
I sighed and shook my head 'sadly'. "No, I never did. I just ignored you, but I never hated you." Time for the nail in the head. "I think you'd be a valuable team member, maybe even better than me." I gave Izumi the sincerest smile I could physically muster.
Her face turned from utter bafflement to an expression of what could be said as genuine happiness. "Oh okay. Fine, I guess I'll work with you. Maybe you aren't so bad after all."
I almost performed a victory dance. It was so easy to convince her to work as a team and I hadn't even used my ultimate kill hatred with talk-no-jutsu on her. She'd do just fine as a team member. "Likewise," I replied with a slight smile.
"I feel like a third wheel right now," our other team member replied a bit blandly.
I smirked at him. "Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you," I replied amusedly, to which the boy gave me a smile in return.
I clapped both of their shoulders. "Now, I believe we were discussing our strengths and weaknesses?"
Xxx-WiT-xxX
Kakashi-sensei arrived at the training ground at the training almost 3 hours after the time he had prescribed. "Sorry, I'm late. I had to dodge a green beast on my way here and I got lost in the Spring time of Youth." The man said with an eye-smile as if that wasn't the most ridiculous excuse on the planet. Seriously green beast? Spring time of Youth? Her sensei was late by more than 3 hours and THAT was his excuse?
Izumi was sorely tempted to yell at him for being late, but her good teammate Sasuke- and she couldn't believe that she had just called him a good teammate - had convinced her that his entire ruse was to get them tired and unfocused for the test that he was about to bless them with.
She stared at the pocky stick offered to her. "Didn't he tell us not to eat?" She questioned her black-haired friend.
Sasuke shook his head and then began to explain his reason for giving the stick to her, "I believe that everything he does until he passes us... is a test. Remember how he projected his aura on us yesterday?"
Izumi nodded remembering the oppressive feeling of her sensei's chakra on her. She had been frozen, forced to obey and pay heed to the man's every word with no control over her voluntary muscles.
Sasuke continued speaking, "That was a test of our resolve, to check if we were ready to face his challenge head-on or we would run away tails tucked between our legs and quit the shinobi program." The boy paused for a second to think before speaking once again. "Let me give you another example. Why is he late by not one, not two, but three hours?"
It was Torune who replied to him, face morphed into an expression of intense concentration. "It is a test of our patience and also, should any one of us eat, we'd be hungry by the time he arrived at the training ground."
The Uchiha nodded with a smile. She still found it very baffling that he could even smile considering he maintained a stone face throughout the academy. "Not only that but also hunger makes us not think straight. This is a test of our minds, if we could see beneath the layers of deception."
Izumi nodded, the imaginary pieces of the puzzle connecting within her brain. It made so much sense now.
"Remember something. Always look underneath the underneath. Take nothing at face value. Find loopholes within the rules of his test and take complete advantage of it."
Izumi took the offered pocky stick and bit it.
She'd taken the advice to heart and tried her best to not show anger on her face for now.
Silence permeated the air for a few seconds. Kakashi-sensei's eyes opened after the atmosphere had gotten a bit too awkward. "No screaming that 'you're late?'" The man asked the three of them. His lone eye swiveled towards her almost as he expected an angry outburst from her. Izumi huffed slightly. Yes, she may have anger management issues and she may be a little impulsive, but she wasn't that bad.
"Can we get this over already, I'm starting to get bored," the voice of Sasuke Uchiha interrupted the staring contest between her and her sensei.
"Maa... so arrogant Sasuke. Very well," Kakashi-sensei shook his head in mock disappointment. He straightened up slightly and pulled out two bells from his pocket. "These are two bells... your job is to capture both of them. The ones who obtain the bells will remain as a genin, the one who doesn't will be sent straight back to the academy like the losers they are. Understood?" When none of the three responded to him, each trying to figure out the meaning of his words, his voice grew three octaves deeper, "Understood."
Izumi nodded seriously. Her new sensei's attitude could change from a laidback yet infuriating person to a much more scary and intimidating beast. Apparently, she was the bipolar one.
"Good," the man's attitude once again turned cheerful. He proceeded to take out an alarm clock and place it on a log, about ten meters away from his original position. Fast she thought when the man disappeared and appeared in a blur after placing the device. "Once this timer goes off, and you haven't obtained a bell, you will pack up your things and leave, no questions asked." He clapped his hands signaling them to get prepared. "The test will begin when I say 'Ready, start'."
The man paused for dramatic effect. "Ready, start!"
Izumi disappeared into the trees along with her two teammates. She had already figured out a way to bend the rules towards her team's favor, but it wasn't a way to get the bells, but rather a delay tactic. Still, they needed whatever advantage they could get to pass the man's test.
But sensei said that only two of us would pass, she frowned. That wasn't good, she didn't want herself to lose and get relegated to an academy student. She knew she want as strong as either of her teammates and wouldn't do as well as them in the shinobi program, but that didn't mean she wanted to fail.
Decisions, decisions...
Xxx-WiT-xxX
"Take nothing at face value."
Those words were what his teammate had uttered to him, Torune Aburame reflected.
He reiterated his would-be sensei's words in his head each time, yet unable to come up with a proper explanation for the hidden meaning of the man's test. His adoptive father often commented that he would be placed in a team of three genin and one jonin. It was the law and he had never seen fresh out of the academy graduates put in a team with less than four members.
That made him think. There were two bells and only two of them would supposedly be allowed to pass which meant that the law would be broken. An argument could be made that ninjas broke the law constantly, but they weren't fully-fledged ninjas yet according to Kakashi-sensei.
There was no way any of them would be able to obtain the bells single-handedly from the masked man, he was a Jonin and his power level far exceeded theirs. The man could snap all of their spines within a blink of an eye and none of them would be able to lift a finger.
Perhaps if we work together he mused we could have a chance against him. That meant, however, that only two of them would pass which would leave a bad taste in his mouth. But once again, his father's comments about team placements repeated in his head. Sasuke's words too...
"Look underneath the underneath."
Torune's eyes widened when he realized what this meant. His new sensei was trying to separate them, force them to abandon whatever camaraderie they had built within the past few hours. Maybe he had observed them talking and chose this test specifically to force him and his teammates against each other, mistrusting each other to the point where they would be at one another's throats.
Everything was a... "Diversion tactic," he breathed out loud. It all made sense now.
"A diversion tactic?" The voice of Izumi Hirai broke him out of his thoughts. He nearly jumped at how close she was to him, the Aburame training program preventing him from embarrassing himself.
He nodded seriously at her, eyes narrowed. "He is trying to pit us against each other so we break whatever trust we have built so far. I do not think I have seen a genin team with only 2 genin unless one of the team members is illegible for training or is deceased. This means that even if the two of us obtained the bells from him, it would be useless since we would fail either way. This is why I believe we should work together to accomplish the intended task."
"Exactly," Uchiha Sasuke appeared right next to him. This time Torune did jump ever so slightly and scowled at his teammate. Judging by the amused smile Sasuke wore, he knew perfectly well what he had just done. "I believe altering our plan that we had discussed to suit the test should work."
Izumi nodded, "Yes, and I also figured out a way to bend the rules to our favor!" She smiled widely, the words coming out as a shout-whisper if such a thing existed.
Torune inclined his head to the side asking her to continue speaking and she relented. "Well, it isn't going to get us the bells, but it will give us enough time to increase our chances of getting it. Remember how sensei said that the test wasn't over until the timer goes off?" And yes, the Aburame remembered those words loud and clear. Where was she going with this? "I think that both of you should fight him as a distraction while I set the timer a little ahead. That way we'll get more time to plan on the fly." She bobbed her head up and down excitedly, obviously proud of her little plan. "How does that sound?"
Sasuke nodded. "Sounds good, but won't he figure out that something fishy is going on?"
Izumi nodded accepting the criticism albeit with a little annoyance, "Yes, he will. But we need all the advantages we can get."
Torune saw no problem with this plan. "I agree, Sasuke and I should be able to distract him for a sufficiently long time for you to enact your strategy."
The Uchiha stared at him for a few seconds before nodding, "Very well, we'll do our best we can to give you as much time to do your work." Sasuke smirked, "And I have an almost perfect way to do this..."
Torune and Izumi leaned in, intent on listening to whatever their third teammate had to say.
Xxx-WiT-xxX
Kakashi raised a lazy brow and rubbed the back of his head.
"Shinobi should fundamentally know how to hide their presence." He thought to himself.
For genin, the three of them had hidden themselves exceptionally well. They seemed to have ended in the same place too. Perhaps this team had some hope left in them and would work together instead of being at each other's throats.
Kakashi pulled out an Icha-Icha tactics book and flicked one of the pages, giggling amusedly. It's not like the three fresh out of the academy genin were a threat to him. He could defeat them with his hands tied behind his back, eyes blindfolded. The white-haired shinobi pervertedly giggled once again and turned another page of his book. Truly Jiraiya-sama was a blessing from God himself if there ever existed such a thing.
A few minutes passed, still no sound, and not one of the 'prodigious' genin had approached him yet. Another surprise he frowned.
The girl was just the most interesting of the three and constantly baffled him with her lack of outbursts. When he arrived three hours late, he had expected her to give him a berating for being late, but she didn't react how he predicted her to. The only reason he knew she was angry at his tardy habits was the scowl that marred her face, an expression that made her look adorable instead of angry. It seemed that the only kunoichi of the team wasn't so hopeless after all.
Finally... finally four kunai appeared towards his position, three of them headed straight for him and one off course. He grabbed one of them mid-air and deflected the two that flew in his directions. Not for a second did his eyes divert from his book. Oh Haruka, you naughty girl...
Another barrage of weapons appeared, this time shuriken instead of kunai, fifteen of them. Kakashi prepared to deflect them once again, but to his surprise, one of the shurikens proofed into smoke revealing Sasuke Uchiha. The boy slammed his right leg onto Kakashi's left shoulder and aimed a kunai for Kakashi's book. How funny... he thought, he's going for my literature instead of the bells. But the boy wouldn't get the bells if he aimed like this. When Sasuke realized his ploy failed he jumped away using Kakashi as a bounce pad and once again engaged in a taijutsu battle. Kakashi dodged, ducked, and weaved through each of the well-placed strikes (for a 8-year-old,) his eye still fixed on his book and one hand behind his back. Maybe he was having too much fun frustrating the genin and making them feel hopeless.
Kakashi's lone eye widened when he felt another presence next to his right leg, he tilted his head to find out that the Aburame had somehow managed to get near the bells, the kid's hand slightly grazed one of the bells. The former ANBU Captain performed a seal-less kawarimi to get away from the children.
His eyes narrowed slightly. How had they gotten the drop on him? He should've been able to hear the kid coming, so how?
Kakashi observed the littered shuriken on the field. He counted only thirteen, which meant that one of them had been the Aburame. He most likely used his kikaichu to throw the shuriken at me Kakashi thought, a little impressed. Looks like he'd have to get a little serious. His Icha-Icha could wait while he humbled his juniors.
The white-haired man shut his book with a snap and both of the boys tensed. The girl, Izumi appeared by them with a defensive stance. Sasuke's Sharingan was now on, eyes staring holes into him, observing Kakashi's every movement. Cute Kakashi thought with amusement, he's too slow to react to my speed, those eyes won't be of any help.
"Well, I suppose you did well for a bunch of snot-nosed brats," that comment got a glare from the only kunoichi of the team, "but you still haven't gotten the bells. Besides even if you three fought me now and took the bells from me, only two of you will pass." To his surprise that remark did not deter any one of the three. If anything, they looked more determined and ready to work with each other, judging by the determined expressions on their faces, which meant...
They have seen through my test Kakashi thought. Now he was truly impressed with this team, their tactics, and whatever teamwork they had developed in a span of a few minutes was nothing to scoff at. They weren't some high-level chunin with record-level planning. For their age, the three had performed exceptionally well and he would pass them.
Still, he wouldn't let them know now. He had to roughen them a bit for his vindictive amusement of course.
Kakashi blurred and landed directly behind the Aburame kid. A swift blow at the kid's neck and he was out like a light. The Hokage had warned him about the kid's poisonous kikaichu that could risk infecting him, but the Copy-ninja had prepared a genjutsu during his ANBU days that could contain the Aburame clan's bugs. One of his teammates being from the insect clan had helped him in that regard.
The Uchiha's eyes seemed to widen in shock before he vanished in a seal-less Body-flicker with his teammate too. So the child hadn't just thought about himself and took his remaining teammate along with him.
Kakashi was starting to like this team even more considering it was far better coordinated than his own. Which only meant more trolling.
He formed a shadow clone to keep the Aburame's kikaichu in control. The clone saluted him and Kakashi vanished, landing directly in front of the Uchiha. The 8-year-old was whispering something heatedly at the brown-haired girl before he had appeared in front of him, kicking the girl away from the kid just hard enough to knock her out without serious damage. They were ninja, they'd have to get used to this pain if they wanted to succeed in the shinobi world.
"Maa... Sasuke-kun, it looks like you're alone." He made sure to punctuate the 'kun' suffix just to further annoy the already frazzled child. "How about this, I give you one of the bells and you alone pass. I'll make you my apprentice. Sounds good?" He goaded the boy. This was the last and final test, to see if the Uchiha was truly better adjusted than Itachi and wouldn't live a life of complete isolation. He needed to make sure that the child wouldn't be a failure like Kakashi when he grew up and wouldn't drown in his own self-loathing. Of course, this test alone wasn't enough to determine that fact, but it was a starting point.
Despite the fact that both of his teammates were down, useless, and completely unhelpful, the kid replied with an instant, "No" further solidifying Kakashi's resolve on passing the team. He'd beat down the arrogance in time, but for now, the three had done well.
Kakashi blurred once again and chopped the Uchiha on the neck.
Xxx-WiT-xxX
I woke up with a groan, my head spinning along with an ear-splitting headache. Fuck. What in the seven heavens happened?
Once my brain was able to catch up properly and form coherent thoughts, I sat up straight to take in the environment. Looking in front of me, I found Kakashi standing with an amused smile, or at least what I hoped was amusement. You could only tell his emotions based on his one eye that peaked between the headband and mask.
Ah right. This is the guy beat the shit out of the three of us and refused to elaborate.
And I thought I was an asshole.
Another groan besides me alerted me to my third teammate, Izumi waking up from her own Kakashi beat up. "W-what happ-ppened?" She rasped out. Her eyes swiveled towards me and widened in concern. "Sasuke?! Are you ok?"
Ok, wow she was worried about me. Interesting change from today morning.
Before I could reassure her that I was doing fine, her eyes turned to find our sensei who stood there the whole time watching us with a deadpan expression. "You!" She exclaimed seething in hatred, eyes lit with apprehension, yet determination.
"Well, now that you're all awake," huh, so Torune apparently woke up before me. "I suppose I should give my final verdict." The air suddenly grew a lot colder and the feeling of nervousness multiplied ten-fold. "You all...
The three of us leaned back as Kakashi's face seemed to move closer and closer with every passing second. Lightning flashed before our eyes, the clouds darkened, thunder sounded in the distance...
... Pass!" He exclaimed with an eye-smile. Just like that the oppressive atmosphere and the visual storm genjutsu disappeared before our eyes. The man's demeanor was now lazy, but cheerful.
"From tomorrow, Team 6 starts their first mission as a unit!" Kakashi-now-sensei said with a thumbs up. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a report to give." He then disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Silence lingered in the training ground for a few minutes.
"Can anyone tell me what the fuck just happened?" And, WOAH - was that Aburame Torune swearing? It seems the end was nigh.
I sighed and got up. "Well... Kakashi just passed us. Your deduction was right, the bells were a diversion tactic and the whole test was based on teamwork." My meta knowledge helped too. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a shower and sleep for the next few hours."
Refusing to elaborate, I disappeared in a seal-less Body-flicker.
Xxx-WiT-xxX
"Mom, I'm back," the voice of her daughter reached her ears.
Haruna Hirai was a chunin once upon a time. She had aspired to reach Jonin by the time she reached the age of 30 and live a happy and fruitful life with her both her children. But then of course her husband had to die during the ending of the Third Shinobi War, in some skirmishes near the border of the Fire Country and The Land of Grass. She had resigned immediately after that wanting to solely focus on caring for her son and daughter. She didn't want either of them to become shinobi, to become cold-hearted and battle-hardened warriors that saw death in every nook and cranny. The single mother wished for her children to grow and live a prosperous life, away from shinobi.
But of course, once again her expectations had been subverted with her daughter insisting on becoming a ninja. So, she enrolled her eldest into the academy hoping in some corner of her heart, that precious Izumi wouldn't do well in the academy and instead lose interest because of her failures. As morbid as it sounded, she didn't want her daughter to die on the battlefield and remain as another name on a memorial stone, nothing more, nothing less. Chasing glory as a shinobi was dangerous. Many failed, with only a few succeeding. There was a reason why there weren't a lot of S-ranks in the unforgiving world filled with military-trained assassins.
Then, once again, her hope had been discarded, tossed out of the window when her daughter had reached the top spot for the position of kunoichi, besting nearly all her classmates barring the Aburame and Uchiha. So... Haruna had given up.
She stopped asking her daughter to quit the shinobi program when she saw just how happy Izumi sounded when describing the things she learned at the academy. Instead she indulged her eldest with smiles and comments about how good Izumi did at school with smiles on her face, albeit shaky. But despite all that, she still worried over her daughter and she would never stop worrying. Haruna was a mother first and foremost before everything else.
At least her younger son hadn't chosen that path. One less person to worry too much about.
"Well come back Izumi," she smiled sincerely at her daughter.
"Thanks Mom!" Her eldest yelled back at her. The girl then proceeded to take off her shoes at the doorstep and sad down at the kitchen table. "When's Yugao-nee coming?" Her daughter questioned with an excited gleam in her eyes.
Yugao, although not blood related, was like a sister to Izumi. Her husband had died saving the woman's life, and the purple haired ANBU had felt sorry for her. Haruna replied to her by saying it wasn't her fault and that she didn't need to comfort her over her husband's death, but Yugao had only looked even guiltier after that she had uttered those words. Since then, the woman arrived daily or at the very least whenever she had time to. She re-payed Haruna by teaching her daughter a few shinobi tricks that could save her life. Often times, the woman payed the bills of her house when she didn't have enough money to pay the landlord, and managed whatever she could when Haruna spiraled into depression.
Haruna couldn't be more thankful for that.
"She won't be over today, but she might come tomorrow. Keep an eye out." She paused momentarily. Was she forgetting something?
"Mom, I passed the test Kakashi-sensei gave us!" Her daughter yelled with an exuberant smile on her face. Ah, that's what she was forgetting. I'm getting old Haruna thought sullenly.
"Well congratulations, Izumi. I'm sure Yugao-nee would be proud. Why don't you tell me the details?" She prodded her eldest. Although she wouldn't say it, she was very interested to know what had occurred during the test.
As her daughter described the rather devious scheme given by Kakashi, her team mates planning, the clever plans they executed, one question stood out...
"You said you worked with Sasuke?" Her daughter nodded beaming the whole time, before she froze once she had realized the direction of this conversation.
"Umm... we'll he isn't that bad..." Izumi refused to look anywhere but her eyes. At the narrowed gaze of Haruna, she relented. "Fine... you were right, I guess he is a decent person after all."
Haruna nodded with a satisfied smile and at that moment her youngest son, Kaito Hirai came barging through his room door. "Izumi-nee!" He yelled with a huge smile on his face and hugged her daughter.
"Kaito! I missed you!" Her daughter smiled at him, equally big in size.
As the exchange of dialogue continued between the two siblings, Haruna smiled at the both of them. She only hoped that those days would last longer and her daughter wouldn't succumb to the rigors and dangers of the shinobi world.
Xxx-WiT-xxX
Kakashi stared at the memorial stone, more specifically the three names embedded onto it.
Namikaze Minato. Uchiha Obito. Nohara Rin.
Two of them died for the sake of the village, one for his life. Sometimes Kakashi wished he was in place of Obito's name, because Obito would have been better than him at handling the deaths of his close members. At least that was what he told himself.
He stared at the memorial stone for a few moments before speaking once again.
"Sensei, Rin, Obito, I've got a team now," his voice was soft and hoarse, filled with sadness. "Their teamwork is better than ours. Each of them are smart for their age. Izumi is like you Rin with a bit of Obito's hot-headed personality." He chuckled painfully, the memories returning once again to the front of his mind. "Torune reminds me of you sensei, calm and collected, prepared for anything. Sasuke, he reminds me of myself, only better adjusted."
Sasuke had his family torn away from him at the tender age of 7. The burden the young child carried was massive, even worse than Kakashi's at his age. The Jonin had heard about the horrifying genjutsu Itachi used on his younger brother.
To see your family killed for more than 72 hours straight... Kakashi felt remorse for the young child. No human being should ever have to witness such a horrific sight. I'm glad Hokage-sama taught him the genjutsu.
But somehow, someway, the child manage to push through all that, and ended up as a better person than Kakashi at his age. He had his own depressive episodes of course, but he had pushed through those bitter experiences, and ended up far better than most people would give the Uchiha credit for.
The child didn't look at his teammates as tools, but rather as equals. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but still far better than mere tools to further his own goals like Kakashi had portrayed during Minato-sensei's bell test.
Instead of planning around his teammates like he had done with Obito and Rin, the 8-year-old planned with his teammates. The Copy-nin didn't have to hear the planning they had done, he had deduced it through the fight that occurred, from their facial expressions to their flaw-filled teamwork. That could be built overtime.
The girl also used a half-decent clever tactic of increasing the time allotted for the test. Changing the timer timings was a nice way of gaining an advantage.
"Maybe I'll give them a chance..." Kakashi uttered those words. Maybe he'd take a team and grow to care for them. Perhaps they would survive. Just one more time...
One chance...
And just maybe, this time he wouldn't have to witness people close to him die again...
Xxx-WiT-xxX
My gaze lingered on the Konoha headband, before returning back to the mesmerizing view of the sunset.
Back in college I had always imagined my life as a software engineer, working in a company in a capitalist environment. I had envisioned getting married, having children, watching them, growing old, and then finally passing our peacefully in my sleep. But as children, everyone imagines themselves as someone prosperous and living a good healthy life, only to be crushed due to the harsh unforgiving world.
But never would I have imagined getting reincarnated as Sasuke Uchiha, one of the children who had a huge burden placed on him as a mere child.
My eyes swiveled back at the Konoha headband.
I lifted it up and stared for a few minutes. Images of Orochimaru, Itachi, Obito, Madara, Zetsu (black and white) fluttered in my mind... so many enemies I had to conquer. To get strong enough to beat them all was my ultimate goal. And then, I'd have my freedom.
I lifted up the headband...
"Whatever..."
I placed the forehead protector on my head...
"It..."
I tied a knot at the back of my head.
"...Takes."
My Sharingan glowed an eerie red in the sunset.
"Whatever it Takes."
Dun, dun, dun! Dramatic cliche (this word has lost all meaning after I watched CinemaSins) exit!
6k plus words, finally. I could've updated this like 3 days ago, but I was too lazy... and I procrastinated. Sorry.
Some wholesome stuff too. Everyone likes wholesomeness.
Hopefully, Kakashi isn't OOC in this.
And no Kakashi, Obito would've been worse than you.
I'm having a lot of fun righting from different POVs. Do ya'll like it too, or would you prefer it if I wrote only from the SI's perspective?
Next update will probably be on Saturday yet again, so... yeah.
Flame Punch: I feel like the Aburame's were really cool ninjas and Torune was the only one close enough to match a 2-3 year gap between his age and Sasuke's. Besides, his backstory was filler anyway, so reality can be whatever I want.
