Chapter 10: Can You See Me Now?

Instead of arriving on time with her new-old teammates, Naruto pretended to be sleeping when Itachi told Sasuke to wake her up. Even going so far as to smack him with her arm when she rolled over, the older Uchiha told his brother to go ahead and that he'd try to get her up himself.

It wasn't until her front door shut and the angry footsteps faded that the blonde launched herself from under the covers and threw her favorite sleeping hat at Itachi, unable to resist doing a little dance in excitement. Words falling out of her mouth a mile a minute on how she'd get revenge for the thousand years of pain and show off her moves, the Uchiha tiredly watched her jump off her bed and with another toss of the hat to the back of her head, stopping her from eating instant ramen for breakfast.

Despite his attempts at convincing Sasuke to have at least a few bites before leaving, breakfast went otherwise untouched until the Uzumaki inhaled it within a minute and a half, immediately throwing open the storage closet afterward to begin digging for the leftover balloons from their previous birthday parties. "Just make sure you don't reveal too many of your advancements. I know you want to catch him off guard, but he'll start asking questions if you can suddenly perform the rasengan," Itachi said affectionately as he too continued preparing for his day. Less paint filled compared to the new Team 7 but nonetheless busy.

"I'll be making hambagu tonight for dinner, to celebrate. What time did it end last time around?" He asked from his room, knowing he was going to have to remind her to put everything back, since she wasn't exactly on a time limit like him to be ready this morning.

"Uhhh, about 1pm? I don't think I'mma be tied to the pole for long this time though!" She cried back happily followed by a shout of gotcha when finding the balloons, her footsteps wandering closer to his door to shout at. "By the way, where are the leftover nails from fixin' up the lobby?"

Pausing in his gathering of files on the Police Academy's own graduating class, he took a moment to register her words and wonder why before deciding he didn't want to know and answering.

While she left to prepare for gifting chaos and most likely punishment for Kakashi as he had no idea what the nails were for, he stepped over the mess she had already made with a sigh. Taking a moment to brew a single cup of tea to put in his traveling cup, he re-gathered his files and slipped his sandals on. Not bothering to lock it since she'll be back in before she leaves, Itachi walked over to her wide-open one to watch her for a moment. Clones were preparing boards with nails crookedly sticking out already against her bed, some were filling balloons with paint, and the original was practicing a speech about teamwork to another, who nodded along enthusiastically, throwing their voice around to pretend to be Sakura or Sasuke to figure out how to squish arguments before they even begin.

Catching the attention of a clone who quickly threw themselves in front of balloons and stuck their tongue out, screeching no peaking, he raised an eyebrow. "Good luck then, Naruto-chan." Before turning on his heel and being relieved he was not her teacher.

Arriving behind her two teammates just as there was a poof of smoke and a swirl of leaves, Naruto threw a hand out and screeched with Sakura.

"YOU'RE LATE!"

Standing there amused, Kakashi probably was expecting to hear the trio begin squabbling with him, looking for an excuse and being displeased with his half-assed one. Instead, Sakura and Sasuke turned to Naruto with confused expressions as the blonde stood there grinning. "You were late too, Naruto-baka, don't you dare yell at him!" The pinkette scolded loudly, smacking her fist into her free hand as she began to stalk toward the dead last.

Unable to stop the laugh while she quickly ran behind their teacher, their sensei lazily protected her and got down to business.

Tuning out the speech, Naruto only kept an eye on her teammates for the cues to respond, too excited to focus for anything except the moment to repeat her practiced lines out loud. Faintly watching Kakashi pull out the two bells that reminded her so much of the two last tests Old Naruto had done, it was an odd sense of deja vu. Tunneling vision for a moment, a frequent feeling that only felt stronger as Sakura gasped and looked desperately to Sasuke, it suddenly ended and felt wrong this time as Kakashi announced only two of the students would pass this time, the Uchiha only looking pleased as he peaked at the blonde out of the corner of his eye.

It was different, but then Naruto cocked her head and raised her hand dramatically, waving it back and forth.

"Yes, Naruto?" The jonin sighed slowly.

"Then how is 33.3% of the class going to pass?" Dropping her hand with a slap on her leg and squinting at the team, she pouted as her fingers flicked out random numbers. "Class of 30, everyone is teams of 3, I ain't that good at math but if everyone doing the same test, it's still an even number."

The other girl slowly eased out of her fearful and nervous stance of shock and furrowed her brow, their teacher's moved as though he was sighing though there was no noise after a painfully long silent pause.

"It is an option to keep the two bells for yourself," he added.

"That's kinda dumb," Naruto scoffed and crossed her arms, walking up to Kakashi and wishing she was tall enough to get into his face properly. "I've seen genin teams cleanin' up the Uchiha grounds and there's always 3! Why you guys choosin' balanced teams like us just to throw us with some other kids when we pass? 'Cause right now, I'm the dead last, Sakura's the best kunoichi and the bastard over there is the best shinobi in class! I thought we were balanced like Iruka-sensei said?"

There was a sharp gleam in his perfectly lazy eye and she didn't hide her fox-like grin from him.

"I believe," he started lowly, standing up a little straighter. "We will start.. now."

And then the clearing was empty of two very confused genins and a smartass of one, in Kakashi's unspoken opinion.

She was trying to give away the answer to the test, and he shouldn't have been surprised.

Watching from her original hiding spot, however, not that anyone knew, the anticipation was killing Naruto, yet she refused to move until he was in his own original spot and his shoulders slouched again in a combination of laziness. Trying not to bounce in place too much on her tree branch, she quickly kawarimi'd herself with a log further in the forest and masked her chakra completely, using her natural chakra-less tree-climbing ability to scale a tree and run before finally standing on watch for her teacher if he followed her, face turning red from holding her breath too long.

In the clear, it was obviously time to begin.

She wanted revenge for the original fight and she was gonna get it.

Rolling up her sleeves to reveal hand-drawn storage seals from this morning, she spiked her chakra high and summoned as many clones as possible to fill this area, no longer needing to shout orders as almost all dropped to the ground and began the run to Kakashi's position with loud battle cries, a large chunk masking their own chakras as much as possible in the trees to sneak their way forward. Shooting forward at the end of the 200 running to him, memories were being received of him having pulled out his book, dispelling clone after clone with ease when she let out her own howl to be echoed by her copies.

"Take that, Bakashi-sensei!" A clone shouted as it unsealed a paint balloon and shot it into his chest, coating his book as he quickly scowled behind his mask, almost not dodging in time as another clone had summoned a board with nails and used it as a bat to his head, disappearing in his own classic kawarimi for another clone to pop in the trees after it threw another balloon on his head, telling her and her copies exactly where he went.

Kicking off each other or simply turning in place, a line of clones dispelling themselves as they tried to catch him with paint until there was nothing, the original Naruto quickly pulled out a kunai and turned in place just as Sakura shouted, "Move, Naruto!"

On his knees behind her as he quickly flashed his fingers through the jutsu that had her blood boiling, she instead channeled her chakra to her knife and swiped at his fingers, shouting her own threat at him. "I'll cut your fingers off before you shove them up my ass!"

He dropped his hands in time to the ground and kicked himself forward sideways, aiming a kick to her stomach for her to duck beneath to the ground with him, shouting her thanks to her pink teammate in the same breath, swiping the kunai again at his arms this time with a grunt. Her clones quickly returned to smash balloons against him, aiming for his eyes for the rest on the ground to attack with their boards and nails, her teacher disappeared in another kawarimi and the surge of memories revealed him much closer than the last few times.

"Kunais!" She shouted to the clones, them quickly dropping their weapons and pulling out the knives, each channeled their wind chakra into the bushes he was hiding in.

Instead of replacing himself with another log, the jonin jumped up out of the bush, missing the majority of the kunai and simply catching one in its throw, finally landing on a tree branch.

All the clones paused with their breaths held as Kakashi suddenly lifted his headband, gazing at the kunai closely.

'Finally, he's noticing me!' The original thought happily, her heart beating out of her chest suddenly. It was a damn honor to have him reveal his secret weapon as a choice before the Wave mission, and she couldn't resist her teasing grin. "What's the matter, sensei? You never seen a kunai before?"

Instead he hummed, lowering his headband again as he crouched in his spot, resting his orange mask on a pink-painted gloved hand, he boredly called out to her, "You know, you're kind of weird."

"Ha!" She shouted as her actual clones began to laugh, even those still hiding in the trees snickering loudly to echo almost creepily from the forest around Team 7. "The only thing weird here is your haircut!"

"Good one, boss!"

"Can't forget about his mask though," another called out. "I bet he usin' it to hide buck teeth."

"Or just how scared he is! Copy-cat ninja, more like scaredy-cat ninja!"

Opening her arms and taking a few steps forward to his tree, he didn't move an inch as her clones kept laughing and joking behind her. "C'mon, I know I'm not alone but it shouldn't be this hard to beat a genin alone." She emphasized, eyes pointedly looking at Sakura and Sasuke's hiding spots.

But not even seeing their bushes or leaves twitch from them figuring out her purpose, she huffed as her copies began to egg him on, driving her point further.

Finally he stood, his lone eye closing for a long moment before he nodded.

"First lesson: Taijutsu." He called out, pulling out his own kunai while she mocked him, distorting her voice to repeat his words. Suddenly, he disappeared from the tree to reappear in the center of her clones and the speed of their memories made her head hurt, quickly summoning more clones as the ones in the trees joined the fray, yelling at her nearest copy for its matches as she aimed and ran through the hand signs, refusing to allow him to only use taijutsu in her part of the test.

"Air bullets!"

Though a lot of clones dodged or jumped over the bullets, some still popped from being hit as Kakashi zig-zagged closer to her, taking many more with him as she prepared her kunai again.

Missing his kick and meeting his own kunai with hers, she grinned at him as they fought for power.

"Aren't you supposed to be the dead last?" He questioned.

"Why, ya worried?" She scoffed at him, pulling back her knife to drop to the ground and kick him in his leg, he only grabbed her by the ankle and suddenly she was dangling with her jacket falling around her.

"Aa, no. Just wondering how strong Sasuke is then," he shrugged before they disappeared in a shunshin, him spinning her outward quickly before she could dig her fingers into the grass or grab him, feeling the panic as he let go and she quickly went flying again into the river.

Sinking with defeat and bitterness as he took care of the last of her clones, he pulled out another copy of Icha Icha without her paint, merrily walking into the forest to look for her teammates.

Holding her breath and crossing her arms, at least she could say she wasn't completely embarrassed this time, even lasting longer than Old Naruto. Wondering if he'd at least check if she'd float back up, she watched the surface and couldn't stop the pain in her chest that no, he didn't as a scream muffled by the flowing water barely reached her ears.

Swimming back to shore and scratching her long spikes free from being flat on her head, Naruto crossed her arms again and stubbornly sat on the riverbank as she could hear the clanging of Sasuke's turn. Pouting that Kakashi wasn't impressed, she at least planned to find Sasuke's head this time so she could tell Itachi in great detail what he looked like and how she used it to get him to work with her.

When the sounds of battle finally ended, the blonde begrudgingly picked herself up and searched for her neighbor's chakra signature, she couldn't resist the grin.

Walking around loudly and pausing in front of Sasuke's head sticking out of the ground, even through her injured pride Naruto had to muffle her laughs. Despite the extra training he'd been getting underneath his brother, his battle only lasted an extra two minutes compared to before and he still ended up buried in the dirt, scowling at her with a dark look.

Trying to wave off her laughter and failing, she jumped in place at the sound of a loud gasp, Naruto and Sasuke turning together to see Sakura dirtied and shaking, a shaky hand covering her mouth as the other pointed in horror until her large eyes rolled back into her head and she fell backward.

"Well, shit," Naruto mumbled under her breath, still grinning while she got to work digging up the poor attempt to bury someone alive when the alarm rang.

Posted 12/17/2022