Chapter 12: Reluctant Assistance

It was a beautiful day. Not too hot, not too cold, just the right amount of sun and a nice comforting breeze. By all means, taking an early morning walk with my best friend should have been quite pleasant, if not for two things.

One, I had far too little coffee—and by that I mean none—in my system, thanks to a certain trolling clone encounter. Two, Naruto was far too excited for my zombie-like state to handle. "I hope our test is as cool as yours was! Do you think I can trick Kakashi with the Oiroke as well? Just imagine the look on his face!"

I wiggled my hand back and forth in a so-so manner. "It might work. Not so much if your sensei's test is combat-oriented though," I argued. Which I know it is.

Naruto was no doubt piecing together some plan to catch his teacher by surprise as we spoke. Not that it would matter much in the end. Naruto was essentially like a little brother to Kakashi. He'd undoubtedly pass his team if they were anywhere close to halfway decent.

Wait, they have their test… why is Naruto still next to me?

Even as we got closer and closer to training ground three, Naruto never left my side.

"Aren't you supposed to meet your own team?" I mused, "Not that I don't appreciate the company, but your teammates might get worried."

"I am going to where my teammates are," he responded.

Did Kakashi just tell them to meet without checking if the training ground was free?

I quickened my pace with Naruto lagging behind, and stumbled into view of a distraught girl and grumpy boy sitting in the grass and staring in opposite directions. As he noticed our arrival, Sasuke's face momentarily lit up before being replaced by his customary scowl. "About time you showed up, dumbass."

"Oi who you calling dumb?" Naruto snapped, "At least I wasn't stupid enough to show up even earlier than we had to!"

Sakura watched their discourse with a pout. "Did either of you two have anything to eat?" I asked, taking a seat on the ground next to her. "I brought extra because I figured Akuma would oversleep and skip breakfast."

Temptation danced in Sakura's eyes as I held up a ration bar, but she quickly squashed it down with pure force of will. "No," she grumped, giving Naruto and me a pointed look, "I don't want to get puke on my outfit."

"{Someone's hangry}," I mumbled. Sasuke on the other hand muttered thanks and gladly took my offer.

"Sasuke?" Sakura gaped, "What are you doing?"

"It's not like we're forced to eat this right now," Sasuke reasoned.

Sakura couldn't quite argue with that logic. Seeing her downcast expression I held out another ration. "Take it. I packed more than enough," I offered.

"Thanks, Satoya… Sorry about acting rude earlier." Her apology seemed aimed at Sasuke rather than myself, but I didn't prod.

"Don't sweat it. You're not you when you're hungry," I replied, chuckling to myself at the memory of that stupid commercial. "At least you didn't turn into a tiger or something."

Sakura looked confused, but Yuu showed up just in time to stop her from questioning my antics. "He consistently utters nonsensical phrases like that. I advise you to ignore it."

"Hey! They're not nonsensical, you uncultured swine!" I said with a pout.

Yuu gave Sakura a glance that communicated 'you see what I mean?' and she raised her chin in understanding. They were bullying me!

Luckily I sensed a familiar presence nearing our clearing. "Akuma! You gotta help me defend against these harsh condemnations!"

She was wearing the same battle getup as during yesterday's test, and also carrying a lengthy wrapped package in her arms. "Whatever Satoya is talking about, I'm sure he's wrong."

I stuck out my tongue. "What are you carrying?"

"Something special for Yuu," she said, sticking her tongue out just the same. She unwrapped the package, and unsheathed a smooth, dark blade. Engraved along its edge was a trio of wolves overlayed like an animation of leaping toward prey.

"It's chakra conductive," she explained. "I already have mine here too." She tapped the blade at her side, which was wrapped in a far nicer sheath than her old training sword.

Yuu's eyes glazed over. "Goodness, it's beautiful. How could I ever repay you?"

"No worries. Dad insisted you deserve it for all the good business he got over the years."

Team Seven, enthusiastically leaned in to peek at the sword, which Yuu smugly showed off. I, of course, already knew Akuma had been making it for him. My own chakra ingots were waiting for me at the forge.

Nibbling away at her ration bar, Sakura asked, "How does chakra metal differ from steel?"

"It's alloyed with a special metal," Akuma explained. "Though this batch was specially enriched somehow. According to dad, the Land of Snow came up with some new technique."

Uranium enrichment. When I first heard about it I felt very off put. Thinking about it some more, I figured if there were any real danger of going nuclear in the near future, it would have come up in canon.

Sakura chewed over the explanation. "Really? Why does that change how it works?" She was about to take another bite of her food, when someone snatched it out of her hand.

"Tsk tsk tsk. What did I say about breakfast?" Kakashi said, having popped up out of nowhere. "And here I thought you respected your dear teacher."

"And you three," Kakashi said to my team. "Try as I might, I was not able to convince the Hokage to hand me the real best team." He winked. "Also, I believe your sensei is off on the other side of the forest. You couldn't have possibly gone to the wrong spot, could you?"

"Kakashi-san," Hayate said, disabling his invisibility. "Please don't lure my genin away."

Why do people keep appearing out of nowhere? Are all jonin poised to show off to their students?

"Good morning, team" Hayate then said to us. "I'm glad to see you all here on time. In case you were curious, we're sharing ground three since many senseis are running their tests today."

I supposed with how dangerous some of the other practice areas were it made sense. Who in their right mind would train in the forest of death?

"And here I thought you were about to petition for a swap," Kakashi said, glumly kicking at a cone on the ground.

Hayate scratched his chin. "Maybe I should. See how you like it when they toss charcoal dust at you," he chided. "Team five, let's head out. It's better to stay far away from Hatake shenanigans."

He didn't wait for our affirmation before hopping off into the forest. My friends and I wished team seven good luck before dashing after him.

Hayate finally stopped when we reached the far end. "This should be enough distance," he said. "First and foremost, a piece of advice. Cooperation is the path to victory, and I will not tolerate squabbling. Not between you three, nor between teams. I am glad to see you all getting along."

"Yes, Sensei," We collectively answered.

"Good. Regarding the subject of teamwork, We'll be doing a whole lot of team building drills today, and for the foreseeable future. This team will not be trained purely for frontal combat. As I am an infiltration and investigation specialist, that will also be our team's primary focus."

Intel gathering? Seriously? That was such a redshirt occupation! 'Why don't I check out this Akatsuki base? Oh shit Zetsu ate me!' No way was I going to let him give us nothing but teamwork and scouting. We only had three months until the chunin exams in July, where everything went to shit. I would not die a pathetic off-screen death.

Like, getting eaten by a huge snake. Or like that guy who peeped on Kabuto before the chunin invasion and got sliced ap—

My heart fluttered and eyes widened in recognition. Hayate Gekko. A chunin exam proctor murdered before the invasion. Fuck. It was the Shisui situation all over again.

"Satoya, did you even hear what I just told you?" asked Hayate, "Is something wrong?"

"You.." are going to die. "I.." don't know what to say. "Are you planning to proctor for the chunin exams?" I burst out.

Hayate looked momentarily bewildered, but Akuma started shouting before he answered. "Infiltration? A blademaster doesn't hide!"

Yuu gaped in affront and began arguing with Akuma while I struggled to find my voice. Hayate wavered between a bemused smile and exasperated frown.

"Yuu has the right idea. We are not Samurai, Akuma. We are ninja," Hayate said. "We are covert. We do not fight fair. We evaluate our opponent's strengths and weaknesses. We strike with deadly precision. We give no quarter. Even the Seven Swordsmen of Kiri focus on stealth with their silent killing techniques."

"You can't be serious, Sensei? Ninja aren't covert, they blast each other with loud, hugely destructive jutsu on a daily basis," Akuma contended, "The fourth Hokage faced off against an entire army! You can hardly tell me that counts as a discreet manoeuvre."

Had I only watched the anime, I would have agreed with her statements. The Naruto show wasn't about silent assassins, it was about superpowered warriors knocking each other senseless. The ninja thing was purely aesthetic. The real version, however…

"The stories you've heard are just that: Stories. Embellished tales of our most elite warriors. A large part of the ninja population never makes it to that level. They can use one, maybe two widely destructive jutsu before they're spent," Hayate explained. "Even the tale of Minato Namikaze's grand victory actually took place over multiple days. He used the grand forest's terrain to his advantage, picking off groups of invaders one by one in a series of ambushes."

"Not that I wish to give Akuma any more ammunition," Yuu started, "but large scale strategic combat nevertheless played an important role back then, did it not?"

For a fleeting moment I felt Hayate's signature hiccup. The moment passed, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, open warfare happened on occasion. Most of it, however? Surgical strikes, sabotage, ambushes, assassination... We used every dirty trick in the book. We protected Konoha's citizens by any means.

Long, drawn out fights are left to the elite of the elite, but not your average ninja. The few missions wherein one openly shows themselves are usually guard and escort duty."

On the one hand I agreed with him. On the other hand, I knew what kind of crap awaited our future. We couldn't assume we'd dodge all dangers.

Hayate noticed my struggle. "I understand you may find this upsetting, but shinobi cannot simply seek out danger. Those that survive the longest are the ones that best evade detection."

Honestly, I hadn't given this point enough consideration in the past. I'd always compared myself to Naruto in terms of raw might, but that was hardly fair. Naruto was probably the least stealthy ninja of all time. In addition to being a Jinchuuriki—essentially a beacon of chakra to anyone with even the slightest sensing ability—canon Naruto was also kind of a loudmouth idiot.

Meanwhile all the show's unmentioned no-names were busy surviving in their own, covert way. I already knew Naruto could deal with the big bads of this world. Why should I attain the power to stand up against them, if I could just silently nudge things along?

Because that's lame as hell!

Beyond that knee jerk response, there was also the possibility things went wrong. Take Hayate as an example of how well stealth did as a long term strategy. If I ever came face to face with a Bijuu, S-rank missing nin, or a resurrected Madara, I won't allow myself to just keel over and die like fodder!

"I don't have much faith in that strategy, sensei," I announced. "There are all sorts of cataclysmic forces in our world. Any kind of planning goes out the window if we ever stumble into them. We need to be capable fighters, even if as a last resort."

"You bring up valid points," Hayate said.—Wait really?—"Limiting you three to my own area of expertise would be short sighted. I seem to have forgotten that my own teacher had not only imparted his wisdom, but helped us forge our own path."

"So you're not mad at us?" Akuma asked in disbelief at his sudden 180.

He gave something between a chuckle and cough. "Why would I be angry? You allowed me the opportunity to be a better teacher," he responded. "How about this; At the end of the day each of you tell me something you wish to learn. I will do my best to procure materials for tomorrow and teach you the basics. However, let me warn you that it may require a lot of self study if it's a topic I know little about."

Three civilians got a legitimately devoted teacher for our team? I'm impressed.

There was no way Konoha's bureaucratic body had expected Hayate Gekko to be competent. Why in the world would they give team seven Kakashi of all people and then give a bunch of randos to Hayate?

Although critiquing Kakashi in this world by what his manga counterpart did is hardly fair. Maybe he'll be a great teacher this time around.

Akuma spoke up beside me, "Alright sensei, you better be ready to teach me everything you know about Kenjutsu!" Her eyes shone with the flames of determination. Literally. I feel like I might catch fire from standing too close. "I wanna be able to use this chakra metal to its utmost potential!"

Hayate only laughed. "I like your conviction. Let's first see how you do in today's exercises. We'll start with five laps around the grounds to warm up. Make sure to smile as you run past your classmates!"

I'd hoped for something more exciting, but after his earlier concession I had no complaints.

Lap one had been innocent enough. Each of us cheekily smiled and waved as we passed by Sasuke who'd been buried in the ground up to his neck and Naruto who was tied up in a tree.

It went downhill on our second lap, when Hayate, who'd been jogging with us until that point, poofed out of existence. I was so surprised by the sound that I almost didn't see the wooden kunai sailing at me from the treeline. Barely dodging out of the way, I stumbled over my own feet and face-planted into the dirt.

I should have expected it, really. Hayate had such a sneaky skill set, being a prankster was only natural. In my defence I was extremely sleep-deprived, and had been quite tired. Not-so thankfully, getting pelted by blunted wood throwing knives mere moments later got me moving real quick. The remaining four laps were spent dodging and weaving the incoming ranged assault as we sprinted to complete our run.

When we finally collapsed into the clearing, we were rewarded by a bucket of ice water dumped over our prone bodies. Hayate went on to explain it had been a lesson about never letting our guard down, even in what one considered friendly territory.

In my opinion he'd just wanted revenge for our surprise attack yesterday.

We continued with more ordinary team-building exercises all following the same basic premise. We were given a simple objective to complete, like reach the top of a tree or gather a mcguffin from the forest, and Hayate would engage to make things difficult. Half the time we had to give up on the objective completely and retreat back to our starting positions, which had been deemed 'friendly territory'.

Hayate was happy to still try the occasional prank, reminding us multiple times that "nowhere is truly safe."

"Sensei," Akuma growled, leaves sticking to her clothes and face, "You suck."

Hayate had the gall to look dejected when he heard that. "Even if you might not agree, I'm doing this for your own good. It is of utmost importance to accurately assess the potential danger on any mission. To know when calling it off entirely is the smartest move, and to learn how to escape mostly unscathed."

I would have glowered at him, but my eyelids felt far too heavy to open.

"Take Satoya, for example," our sensei began, "sleep deprived, and chose to show up nonetheless. For any halfway dangerous mission, a lack of energy is potentially deadly."

"Why are you so tired, Satoya?" Yuu asked, "Did something trouble you last night?"

"No, actually—" My body jolted to awareness and my mind was subsumed by a wave of exhaustion, followed by half-forgotten memories of a conversation earlier this morning. My clone must have dissipated.

I glanced at Yuu, still waiting for me to finish my response. "Right, sorry. I learned the shadow clone technique yesterday. The one I left back at home to sleep some more just popped."

Hayate's eyes bulged when I finished my explanation. "Satoya. Don't keep a clone active for too long, you could easily harm yourself," he warned.

"You mean because of the compounded exhaustion?" I asked.

"No. While it is a well-known associated risk, the true danger lies in the technique's memory transferral," he explained, much to my surprise. "For one, a clone's personality can deviate over time, causing severe dissociations in the user when they finally dispel. Beyond that, regularly attempting multiple mentally taxing tasks at the same time can endanger your mental stability. Those that have done so for multiple weeks, let alone months or years, all wound up completely burnt out, comatose, or worse."

Damn. There go my munchkining plans.

"Okay sensei, I promise not to abuse the technique," I meekly replied and Hayate relaxed his shoulders.

I was sure there must still be some way to abuse the ability though, it'd just take some extra work. I spent the rest of our break silently contemplating the underlying cause for mental damage and how I could circumvent it. Extensive testing would need to be done, and that would likely require some more help from my foxy friend.

Thankfully the afternoon had been more interesting than running around like headless chickens. Hayate taught us various strategies of how to deal with opponents who were faster and stronger than us, and also how to push our advantages when we knew to be the superior force.

I had newfound respect for the poor fight choreographers who had a single character battle a horde of opponents in movies. It turned out that a group of people attacking a single target without getting in each other's way was a lot harder than I'd assumed. Besides that, Hayate also gave each of us one-on-one coaching via shadow clones, improving any gaps he saw in our fighting styles, specifically the way we employed Kenjutsu—I personally still didn't like swords very much.

As the day drew to a close, Hayate finally called us up and asked the promised question, "Beyond Kenjutsu, what do you three wish to learn more about?"

Akuma spoke up first. "I'd like some ranged firepower for when people won't fight fair,"—she squinted at Yuu and me—"Also I wanna learn how you do that awesome move with the afterimages you showed us."

He nodded, glancing at me next. "I guess for now it'd be smart to improve my sensory abilities. The better I can parse chakra, the easier it will be to learn other skills in the future."

Yuu stated his wish last. "Fuuinjutsu. I believe sealing techniques will greatly benefit my ability to ensnare and ambush opponents. They will also serve as a secondary avenue of protection should stealth fail to do the job."

I rushed home as soon as we were dismissed for the day, nearly getting caught on a clothing line as I leapt to the rooftops. Thankfully, dashing from place to place was an accepted method of travel, especially with my newly minted headband.

My mind buzzed in annoyance as I ran. I'd gone through all that effort to learn Kage Bunshin. I'd patiently waited for years and years until the graduation ceremony. All for naught. I had to find Naruto. and figure out how he could possibly spend so many years summoning hundreds of clones without melting his brain.

I knocked on his door as soon as I arrived. "Oi, Naruto. I have important info concerning your super awesome technique!"

He didn't answer. Where could he have gone? I knew Kakashi must have passed them around noon when they ate lunch. He should have been home by now…

He's probably hanging out with Kiba again.

I felt a pang of jealousy. What am I, his mom? I reminded myself Naruto had his own social life and I shouldn't intrude. After having cooked and eaten dinner for one, I decided there was no reason I needed to wait for him to show up when there was science to be had.

By the time the sun started setting, I'd made a series of findings. The shadow clone technique, while an extremely versatile ability, was not quite the cheat I'd hoped it would be. While I could indeed recall events like this morning's discussion with 'Satsuka' from both viewpoints, my mind literally could not sequentially differentiate between the two.

I knew what events transpired, as well as what feelings both my clone and myself had felt at the time. Delving any deeper into the memory was severely disorienting, and attempting to forcibly separate my viewpoints into two distinct segments gave me the mother of all headaches.

Things got even stranger when it came to memorisation. I could not for the life of me study two things at the same time. Haying my clone read a passage from one book while reading a different passage myself led to some ridiculous results.

Take the paragraph, "Rukia storage in pilot sensory memory haven and short-term faction generally The Outcasts has a strictly limited construction lift capacity. By contrast, she spends most of the total capacity of abandoned free store established in larger quantities of ship."

Total nonsense, and yet my brain utterly insisted that this was the passage—yes, singular—that I spent five minutes committing to memory.

These effects may not have been enough to cause eventual insanity, but I could see how filling your long term memory with nonsensical mish mash probably wasn't the brightest idea. Hayate's warnings about keeping clones active for too long might have held some merit.

My next avenue of research would be muscle memory, but that required some long term testing. For now I would content myself questioning Naruto. Whenever the scamp comes home, that is. I decided to practice facial expression in the mirror for a bit and brush up on my art for the remainder of my time until he arrived.

It was long dark by the time he finally knocked on my front door. "Hiya Sato!" he said, casually opening my fridge to get a glass of milk without a care in the world.

"Young man, do you have any idea how late it is?"

"Uhh, late?" he tried. "I passed Kakashi's test!"

I couldn't let out a short breath of relief from finally hearing those words. "He kept you busy until now?" I questioned. "Don't think I didn't notice that abrupt topic shift."

"Actually, Kakashi invited us out to dinner. I was at Kiba's in the afternoon though, his team passed easy peasy."

"Kakashi invited you out?" Nope, I wouldn't question it. "Why did that take so long?"

"He showed up super late!" Naruto said. "And then he gave a dumb excuse about needing to hide from a leafy green beast or something."

Now there's the Kakashi I know and love. Then again, the prospect of dealing with Gai in this universe scares even me.

"So what'd you do all day?" Naruto continued, sensing I had something to talk about.

"Just some training. I actually learned quite the unfortunate tidbit about shadow clones," I said, and proceeded to repeat Hayate's warning about the Kage Bunshin as best I remembered.

Naruto looked outraged that his most prized jutsu could endanger himself. "Seriously? That can't be true. Shouldn't I have noticed? At least a little bit?"

"Maybe you should have, maybe not. Have you used them for anything mentally strenuous?", I responded. "What about when you used a hundred at once?"

Naruto tapped his finger against the kitchen counter. "The first time, when I fought Mizuki and they all poofed, it felt really weird for a bit. Like everything was moving away from me?"

"You mean dizzy?" I asked.

"No, like the world wasn't spinning or anything. It felt more like I was scattered all over the place. When I tried to remember what happened before I dispelled them, it got worse. My memory of the fight was all muddled and… fractured?"

Was it possible this universe simply adhered to different rules? Were plot-holes in the original show patched out, leaving Naruto doomed to eventual self destruction?

"And what about now? What happens if you try to remember your fight with Mizuki?" I asked, dreading the worst.

"It's more separate now. I can still remember the fight from many angles, but it's not as weird. It used to feel like it happened all at once, but now it's one after another."

His fight was a few days ago now, maybe the mind coped after a while. That shouldn't be too hard to test. I petitioned Naruto to create a clone and hold a conversation with himself.

"So, what are we supposed to talk about?" Naruto questioned his clone.

"Don't look at me boss, what do I know?" the clone responded.

"The topic isn't important anyway," I said. "Just engage with him for a bit and warn me when you're about to dispel."

After a moment's deliberation, Naruto and his clone began to play rock paper scissors. It was quite amusing to witness his incredible luck facing off against itself. They managed ten draws in a row, strategizing for more and more time between each round, until eventually Naruto was too fed up to continue and punched his clone in the face.

"Wait!", I yelped a second too late, "Dammit, now I can't try and piece together what happens."

Naruto ashamedly scratched the back of his head. "Sorry, I forgot."

"Nevermind," I sighed, "We can always try again. What do you remember?"

"I remember the conversation and getting annoyed at never winning," he stated, "And I remember punching my clone and getting punched…"

I raise an eyebrow in askance. "Are the memories merged together? Do you feel anything strange?"

Naruto shook his head. "Nope, seems normal. Well, besides having done only one of those things. That's actually pretty cool!"

"{The fuck?}" I mouthed on reflex. "No weird double-up memories? Totally normal?"

Naruto nodded in affirmation. Did it just come down to practice? Was Naruto's mind better at compartmentalising because he'd spammed out so many clones? That went against the exact thing Hayate warned me about though…

"Why would it affect you differently than me?" I questioned, not expecting an answer.

"Cause I'm awesome!" Naruto gleefully exclaimed. "Else I'd never get to be Hokage!"

As much as I liked to pretend otherwise, I didn't sincerely believe there was such a thing as protagonist powers in this world. Whatever advantage Naruto had must have been logically sound.

"Can you repeat what you did and warn me about dispelling this time?" It was for the best if I more closely analysed the technique anyway. Introspection only went so far when your mind was getting assaulted by a flood of fresh memories.

Naruto summoned another clone, and after a short repeat of last time's events—how does he manage so many draws?—it was dispelled. The clone's chakra signal disappeared on one side, and immediately reappeared on the other—Higher dimensional travel?—After the jump, it seemed like Naruto's chakra pathway desynced from his body for a brief period, and I noted the chakra in his head getting slightly denser during that time.

I took a seat on the couch. "One more time. I swear it's the last."

I motioned for Naruto to sit down on the floor in front of me and placed my palms on his temple. The moment he dispelled his clone, I pulsed my chakra to increase the fidelity of my senses. Even with his gigantic reserves, I barely managed to catch what seemed to be an ephemeral duplicate network. It appeared to be kept in suspense by foreign energy, unlike any chakra I'd felt before.

When I tried honing in on the strange signal, my consciousness was assaulted by monstrous intent. I flinched back and damn near bit my tongue.

"Naruto, I think the Kyuubi has been helping you."