Title: Stop…Restart It – Naruto
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi
Chapter: 17
Word Count: 1496
Warnings: Language and bullshittery
AN: OOoh a new chapter! I'm done for this week and I'll be back next week with a new chapter of my new story: Shifting Tides!
Check it out. It's a Miraculous Ladybug/Bleach fic so enjoy this chapter!
Staring at the three, Naruto perched on a post while Sasuke leant against one post and Sakura was tied to the other. Kakashi had originally thought that Naruto would be the one stuck on a post, but he had been pleasantly surprised when that hadn't been the case. He had watched the blond try to reach out, but seeing as it wasn't life and death, he had decided that letting them humiliate themselves had been the better idea.
It was a rather mature idea and was seeming to work for at least one of his students. "Well, that was...bad," Kakashi drawled, shaking his head with an amused snort. "And I've seen some disasters in my time. Lived a few. You're all lucky that this is just a test, but…" he trailed off and smirked behind his mask, the three students watching him carefully. "If you really want to, I can give you a chance at getting the bells once more. But after lunch. Naruto, Sasuke, here you go, lunch," he said, holding up the bentos that he had put to the side. "Sakura, since you ruined your positions, twice, you are stuck to the post. With no lunch. Enjoy."
With that, he tossed the two bentos to the males before strolling off towards the woods, perching on a branch to watch his three students, wondering what they would do next. Naruto opened the bento and peeked in before wrinkling his nose and jumping down from the post. "Here, you can have this, Sakura," he said, holding it up before eyeing her and sighing. "Look, how about I help you eat?" he asked.
"Yeah, that...thanks," Sakura breathed, blinking at Naruto as he helped her eat a few bites of the food, taking the time that she chewed to pull out a scroll and unravel it, tracing a chakra laced finger around a seal, the cloud from the unsealing clearing and leaving behind another bento for himself.
"So...why are you so willing to feed her?" Sasuke asked, eating his own bento as he watched Naruto fed Sakura between eating his own well made food.
"Because, no matter how much you two drive me up a wall, I can't exactly leave her to starve, now can I?" Naruto asked, raising an eyebrow as he snorted.
"But you're breaking the rules by feeding me," Sakura said, Naruto snorting once more and shaking his head.
"Look, this is as good of a time for me to tell you what my tutor told me. Genin are put into a three man team so that they can get used to working in a team," Naruto said, Sasuke and Sakura staring at him in surprise. "Genin will become chunnin eventually and chunnin work in a three or more man team. They have to have a solid base of how to work in such teams, so that base starts in a genin team. Thus why all genin's are placed on a three man team," he said, repeating what his tutor had told him, smiling slightly to himself. "Even when you make it to the higher levels, such as tokubetsu jonin, jonin and ANBU, they have to know how to work with a team on occasion so it carries throughout the nin's life."
"You are quite correct, Naruto. Your tutor has helped you with quiet a lot hasn't he?" Kakashi chuckled, smiling when Naruto took the chance to shove a bite of food into Sakura's gaping mouth, forcing her to chew.
"He says that I have the brain but I was never taught how to best use it to my advantage," Naruto stated as he ate another bite. "Then he muttered about all of the teachers but Iruka-san being little bastards not worth his time but still wanting to slice them in half." He paused and snickered softly. "He still doesn't beat Iruka-san's threat of bronzing balls while they're still attached though."
"Iruka-sensei said that?" Sakura squeaked as soon as she had swallowed, her green eyes wide in shock. Naruto nodded his head and chuckled in amusement.
"Oh yeah. He was muttering it while we were writing a report," Naruto said, shrugging with an amused look on his face. "Though if you really piss him off as I found out, he can get damn inventive. I think Ibiki could get some ideas from him for interrogation purposes," he continued, staring at them with a smile. "I find it fun to watch him cow those who come into the mission room and don't have their reports done just right," he drawled, smirking.
"Why are you in the mission room?" Sasuke asked, staring at Naruto as he finished his bento and sealed the empty box away once more.
"My tutor wants me to learn all I can about the various positions that are available to each Nin. There's not just missions to do, but there's teaching, desk jobs, and various diplomatic positions. I'm learning about the various jobs of what most nins call the desk nins," Naruto explained, smiling slightly to himself. "So I was following Iruka around when I wasn't training or off for the day. I learned quite a bit and have been offered the chance to work in the mission office as an errand boy once I become an official genin," he continued.
"Why were you offered that?" Sakura asked, sounding a little unhappy about the fact that he had been offered such a position and not the others.
"Because it means that I have a little extra money in my pocket, that's why I was offered. It means that I will end up working more hours outside of the training that I'll do with you along with the missions," Naruto stated, shaking his head with a snort. "Because I don't have parents to fall back on much less a family fortune to help me laze around and train all I want. So having this secondary job is gonna be a good thing for me."
"It will be as long as it doesn't cut into your time with us much less your training with your tutor," Kakashi drawled, Naruto smiling brightly.
"We have it figured out pretty much. As long as we're let go before five, I'll be fine," Naruto said, shrugging. "I need to be there by then and I would like to shower and change before heading in. No need to smell like I've been training all day even though I will have been."
"Wait...you two are sounding like we passed!" Sakura cried out, Naruto slapping his face with his hand lightly, groaning and once more wondering who he had to thank for getting stuck with her and Sasuke.
"You did. When Naruto fed Sakura, he passed for all of you in the first place, but when you finally were willing to listen, you passed again. The whole point of the test was to see just how well you would work as a team, how willing you would be to listen and work with each person even under dire circumstances, like hunger."
"I see," Sasuke hummed, closing the bento box and putting it to the side before looking at his teammates. "So, we must learn to work with others and put aside our own desires?"
"Exactly," Kakashi drawled, coming to stand before the three. "Those who can not work with their teammates are liable to get their teammates killed. I don't care how smart or strong or incredible you are, if you get a teammate killed, you are a pathetic shinobi and should not be allowed to continue your career. Those who abandon their teammates are even worse. They are scum and never welcomed by another shinobi of this village ever again."
"It's not a pretty sight, being labeled an abandoner," Naruto sighed, shaking his head as he flipped out a kunai and sliced Sakura's ropes, freeing her and watching her catch herself on her feet with a scowl. "Much less a traitor. Because traitors can get other's killed and that's never welcomed in a village where your life depends on your friends and allies. When do we start?" Naruto asked.
"Not tomorrow but Monday. I want you all to rest and relax, train a bit, think about what you have heard today and just why you are now a nin. I want better answers to my questions then the ones that I got yesterday, I hope you know," Kakashi drawled, watching Naruto smirk and bound off, making him chuckle. "Such a surprise."
Sasuke stood and headed off, thinking about what they had been told, Sakura following after for a short time, deep in thought of just why she was a shinobi. Her own father wasn't one, neither was her mother though her grandmother had been one before she had left to marry her grandfather.
Really, she felt as if she had forgotten just why she had become a kunochi in all of the craze in following after Sasuke. And that unsettled her.
