Lessons of Experience
Chapter 8: The Virtues of Attentiveness
By: BukkakeNoJutsu
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Disclaimer: Uzumaki Naruto is now my intellectual property, but today is Opposites Day so it doesn't really count.
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Because of San, Uzumaki Naruto experienced a great many firsts. His first experience of being disemboweled, his first memory of sparring with a collapsed lung, and his first time being stabbed in the eyes and crying blood were all some of the more memorable milestones of Naruto's training with the old man.
Naruto was experiencing another historic first. Today was the day he was supposed to find out his team assignments and here he was, struggling with his very first hangover.
Judged by the standards of its kind, it was a beauty. By the young blonde's standards, it sucked quite badly.
While the knife injuries Naruto received were extremely painful but relatively quick to heal, the hangover lingered and ached with no end in sight.
With his head pounding like a kettledrum, Naruto gulped down a liter of tap water for his parched mouth and made his way, red-eyed and irritable, to the academy.
Entering the sparsely populated classroom wearing his new black and orange outfit, a graduation gift from San, and his knives, Naruto cut a striking figure. With his actions from the previous day as well, the blonde boy was a major topic of discussion among his peers.
Yamanaka Ino walked up to the boy intent on saying something disparaging as a result his treatment of Uchiha Sasuke in the final exam. Naruto shot her such a witheringly dismissive glare that she, quite wisely, clamped up immediately. Perhaps her family's latent psychic gifts had given her a premonition of a severe ass kicking in her immediate future. Nevertheless, she walked away spooked, but perfectly intact.
Unlike the blonde girl, the pink-haired Haruno Sakura was not as easily cowed, and went to give the blonde a piece of her mind for humiliating her crush publicly. She paid no heed to his bloodshot eyes or his anxious fingers twitching towards holstered knives. She let loose a righteous tirade from her young mouth in hopes of impressing the object of her affections.
On any other day, Uzumaki Naruto would have stood there and taken his lumps good-naturedly.
Naruto had, at one point in time, a major crush on the studious girl, but training with San had given him a ridiculously low tolerance for bullshit. Over the past year, Naruto found that being treated like trash by someone you liked was bullshit of the highest order. Even so, the young genin still had a bit of a soft spot for the Haruno girl.
"…Nobody likes you, Naruto. You can't compare to Sasuke. You don't even have a cla—urkgh!"
The basic fact the Uzumaki Naruto was not a cheery morning person was seriously compounded by a severe hangover, and the insults heaped upon him from the Haruno girl.
Uzumaki Naruto was not going to play nice today.
Haruno Sakura was interrupted not just in mid sentence, but mid-word. She was wholly unprepared as Naruto smoothly; even lazily, finger flicked her in the throat, hard.
She gagged and flinched away from him. When Sakura recovered enough to try to make a single protest, he flicked her throat even more viciously, leaving her coughing painfully and teary-eyed.
She managed to regain her composure and tried to glare at him, but he had already walked past her, blissfully ignoring her as he made his way to his seat as if she didn't matter. Sakura's pride almost stung more than her throat did.
Clearly, Uzumaki Naruto was in a rare mood today, and not one to be fucked with.
Unfortunately, his jounin-sensei-to-be did not get that memo.
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Hatake Kakashi made his way to meet his new genin team for the first and probably last time.
Beforehand, he and the other jounin instructors had been given some basic reports about the capabilities of their prospective students.
As is common much of the time with paperwork, the reports given to Kakashi were woefully out of date. As one more interested in the contents of his favorite book series rather than in the latest gossip of Konoha, the jounin had absolutely no clue about the incidents that occurred the other day. He was expecting an Uchiha headcase, a bookworm, and a class clown of dubious ability. The one-eyed nin was also expecting to fail them easily.
Any experienced ninja, including Kakashi himself, could tell you that expectations can kill.
Had this been any kind of mission outside of the village, the experienced jounin would have double and even triple checked his information sources, but the expectations of failing another genin team blunted his normally sharp senses.
Kakashi arrived to meet his team over two hours late.
The jounin had pushed open the slightly ajar door to the classroom, and narrowly avoided a brick that had been balancing between the door and doorframe.
Kakashi faced his students; a sullen Uchiha, a pink-haired kunoichi, and a sorely disappointed blonde. They looked hungry and irate. The tired blonde looked particularly angry for some reason.
Kakashi tactlessly spoke his mind, "I think I hate you all already."
The near-miss with the brick sparked Kakashi's ego. He was planning to test them tomorrow, and let them enjoy another day of being genin, but no longer. He would test them now, and get it over and done with.
"Meet me on the roof," the masked ninja spoke before vanishing.
Hunger and inexperience made the rest of Team 7 slower to follow Kakashi, yet they still arrived dutifully.
With all of them reunited on the roof, Kakashi suggested an obligatory icebreaker.
"How about we go around in a circle and share some information about ourselves like your name, likes, dislikes, and your goals for the future? You first."
The senior shinobi pointed to the pink-haired girl.
"What about yourself, Sensei? Shouldn't you go first?" interrupted the lone female of Team 7.
The jounin shrugged carelessly.
"Whatever. My name is Hatake Kakashi. My likes and dislikes are classified and I don't have a dream for the future."
The three genin blinked in surprise at the uninformative introduction.
The jounin then pointed to Sasuke, hoping that the dark-haired boy would not want to question his methods and simply get on with it.
"Uchiha Sasuke. I don't really have a dream, but an ambition to one day revive my clan and to kill a certain man."
"Figures," thought Kakashi as he pointed towards the girl.
"I'm Haruno Sakura. What I like…" she trailed off to gaze at the Uchiha.
"What I dislike…" with a frown Sakura turned to glare at Naruto, who simply flicked a finger towards her, causing her to flinch involuntarily.
"My dream is to…" she shyly glanced towards Sasuke again with a blush.
Kakashi held in a sigh. With how obsessed the girl was over the last Uchiha left in Konohagakure, she'd be lucky to be killed in action immediately, instead of captured alive and tortured. It would be best if she failed immediately. The efforts needed to prepare her mentally and physically would break her.
The jounin then gestured towards the blonde to start.
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I like ramen and training. What I dislike…" Naruto paused to think a moment.
He considered all the things that San had taught him.
"…I hate people who take things for granted. My dream is to become the best hokage ever."
"Interesting," thought Kakashi.
"Alright then, meet me at training ground fourteen in ten minutes."
With that the older ninja vanished again.
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Hatake Kakashi reflected on his first impressions of his team. If they didn't pull something spectacular out of their asses, they would fail, and fail horribly. It really wouldn't be entirely their fault anyways. Konoha's relative prosperity and compassionate nature stunted the practical skills and values necessary to thrive on the battlefield. Growing up as a genin during a time of war, Kakashi knew that times had changed drastically.
Now, academy students oft ignored the practical values of teamwork and harsh training for the popularized conception of ninjas. Kakashi largely failed his prospective students because they focused solely on themselves and flashy jutsus. In his previous experience as an ANBU commander, the jounin knew that these types of ninja were a pain in the ass to deal with, and, much of the time, a liability during missions.
The trio of genin arrived at the training ground. Kakashi stared at the recent academy graduates noticing some hints of nervousness and anticipation.
"You have one more test to complete before you officially become genin. The failure rate of this test is 66. If you fail, you get sent back to the academy."
"What the hell? Aren't we genin already?" exclaimed an annoyed Naruto, voicing his teammates frustrations outright.
Kakashi sighed out loud.
"The academy exams only test for those with the potential to become genin. Of the 27 academy graduates, only about 9 will become genin. This is the final cut."
The jounin pulled out two small bells from the equipment pouch on his hip.
"The test is simple, whoever gets a bell from me graduates, but there are two bells and three of you. At best, one of you will still fail and get sent back to the academy."
"We're genin. How are we supposed to face down a jounin? " asked Haruno Sakura nervously.
Kakashi smirked through his mask.
"That's not my problem. I only have one bit of advice for you all. Come at me with everything you've got: jutsus, weapons, dirty tricks, or whatever. You'll need every last bit."
"Are you fucking serious?" asked Naruto disbelieving, almost quivering with anticipation.
Mistaking the blonde's incredulity for fear, Kakashi calmly stated, "Come at me with intent to kill otherwise you'll fail. Prepare yourselves!"
With that, Kakashi stepped a few paces backwards facing his new team.
"Begin!"
Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke quickly dashed off in opposite directions to find cover and to come up with their own sound tactical plans. They knew in their hearts that it would be downright suicidal for a genin to try to take on a jounin in a straight fight.
Naruto just stood his ground, not believing his luck.
The jounin seemed unsurprised that Naruto did not go into hiding, and even had the gall to take out a small orange book and start reading. The grown man was giggling girlishly, not even paying the slightest attention to the blonde.
The young whiskered boy knew that he was probably outgunned and outclassed. His opponent was a jounin, with probably more strength, speed, reach, experience, and jutsus then he himself had. On paper, the odds were horribly stacked against him.
Those were the same kinds of odds that San had been training him to thrive against. Naruto knew deep down in his soul that the jounin was not be as precise as himself or as bloodthirsty or lethal as the old man.
In comparison to the old man, this Kakashi asshole would be a cakewalk.
Naruto calmly walked up to the jounin, drawing one of his knives out from a sheath.
It was time to give his team leader an appetizer for the feast to come.
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Hatake Kakashi was enjoying the start of a particularly juicy passage from his favorite book series. The perky pigtailed blonde Naruko was about to be comforted by the older, more experienced dark-haired Yukie. For the one-eyed jounin, scenes like these elevated hot girl-on-girl action to an art form.
He lazily waited for the telltale warning signs of a clumsy genin approaching while savoring one of his favorite pastimes.
Kakashi's personal reflections on art were rudely interrupted.
As if by magic, the black blade of a knife appeared through the palm of his left hand, the hand whose fingers held and promptly dropped the Icha Icha volume.
It was an impossibly precise stab sliding between the metacarpals, barely jarring the bones, but then Uzumaki Naruto twisted and tore his knife free from between the knuckles of Kakashi's middle and index fingers.
It was part of Naruto's brutal training that had taught him when to be exacting, like a surgeon with a scalpel, and when to be crude and vicious. Kakashi was now reaping the benefits of San's training with the young jinchuuriki.
The jounin almost felt like crying, it was this wounded left hand that he used most to fully savor the Icha Icha experience in private, but now the older nin had bigger worries at the moment. With his left hand entirely useless, the jounin was prevented from using most of his formidable jutsu library. Kakashi hastily wrapped a bandage around his torn up left hand. He had to come up with something, anything.
Naruto smiled eerily, much like San would.
Kakashi was panicking as a result of him misjudging the situation quite badly.
Now the blonde was almost toying with him. The boy sometimes used a precise amount of chakra channeled through his knives to throw off the jounin's sense of distance and safety off the deep end. The blades lengthened or shortened according to the blonde's whims. It was nature manipulation similar to what Sarutobi Asuma was capable of with his trench knives. The idea of that type of manipulation in the hands of a rookie genin was frightening. The fact that the boy used the technique sparingly, made things even worse. Kakashi felt like a fool as he backpedaled wildly, hoping to dodge strikes that might not have even been there in the first place.
Growing increasingly desperate and increasingly bloodied, Kakashi lifted up his hitai-ite and exposed his sole Sharingan eye.
A fully matured, Sharingan eye possessed the ability to discern the most likely movements an opponent would make in the future. Some referred to it as a limited type of precognition, but it was a best a refined form of educated guessing. If one compared an opponent's attack to a story in a book, the Uchihas were then very good at reading an opponent's movements at the onset and then accurately guessing what would happen at the very end.
If you mentioned that observation to San, the old man would laugh and call it utter bullshit. He might even say something like, "That's nice in theory and all, but I'm not going to rely on a single strike, or two, or three, or a dozen. I'm going to kill you regardless of how you move or how good you can guess."
San and Naruto's killing art was, at its core, ruthlessly opportunistic. If their opponent moved, or if they didn't, or if they tried to counter or evade all didn't matter at the end. Their methodology was not concerned about pulling off perfect textbook techniques. It was about killing and not getting touched in return.
Focusing his single red eye on the whiskered boy, Kakashi realized his mistake. Instead of seeing a single path the genin would take, the jounin saw dozens. A hundred phantom Uzumaki Narutos filled his vision, wounding him in myriad ways. It was a much different feeling than that of an overt sense of raw killing intent. That, at least, was something Hatake Kakashi had much experience dealing with.
This was something else, something ghastly and alien, as if the boy quietly held an enormous untapped potential for extreme violence.
Naruto wordlessly pulled out a small amount of folded explosive tags. Kakashi cringed as he saw the genin quickly attach three a piece to the handles of each of his knives. It was a sinister tactic attaching extra explosives to those knives, Kakashi realized. Not only would the blast radius of each explosion be much bigger, but also the knives would be turned into deadly bits of shrapnel.
Kakashi prepared himself to use the shushin technique at the very first sign the blonde would let loose his knives.
He didn't.
Naruto held onto his knives, closing the distance, and dodging the wounded jounin's frenzied counters, often by a hair's breadth.
Kakashi noticed Naruto's smirk growing wider, before feeling a faint twinge of chakra in the air.
The blonde boy exploded, and the world went dark for Hatake Kakashi.
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As he watched the explosion destroy his kage bunshin and knock out the jounin, Naruto felt that he had taken San's advice from the other day to heart. The old man told Naruto that in terms of force, some jobs needed a scalpel while others required a hammer. In this case, it was something highly explosive.
Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke ran into the clearing caused by the massive detonation.
"What happened?" asked the stunned girl.
Naruto smiled and shrugged.
"I cheated with the help of half a dozen explosive tags."
The other two genin just gaped. Gaping, for Uchiha Sasuke, involved a slight opening of the mouth unrelated to a scowl or grimace. It was an unusual sight.
Naruto snapped his fingers in recollection.
"Oh yeah, before I forget. Consider this a peace offering."
The blonde tossed them each a bell. Even Sasuke was caught off guard by the gesture.
"Why?" asked the dark-haired boy, his anger receding.
"It's simple. If we're going to depend on each other as a team, we could at least try to get along."
"What about a bell for yourself?" inquired Sakura.
The blonde laughed out loud.
"I have something much better in mind."
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When Hatake Kakashi finally came to, he was badly singed, but the tear through his left hand and his other injuries were miraculously gone.
The one-eyed jounin looked around and noticed the three genin watching over him. Both Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke had a bell in their hands.
"So, do we pass?" asked a bemused Uzumaki Naruto.
In the blonde's hands was Kakashi's orange Icha Icha volume with an explosive tag tucked into it, like a bookmark.
Kakashi could only nod dumbly.
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End Chapter 8
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C&C welcome