"That's odd," Kakashi said as he approached Shikamaru. "Green, black and blue aren't the colors of the sky."

"It's just a song," Shikamaru said dancing backwards as Kakashi approached. He wasn't giving any other indication that he was enjoying the song on his face, but Shikamaru did notice that Kakashi's left hand was tapping out the beat on his thigh.

"Are you using it as a signal? Or to cover something?" Kakashi asked, reading him carefully. Fog continued to billow in and build up, getting denser and denser. Shikamaru made a few quick final adjustments, and double checked that everything was where it needed to because he was going to have to go through it all quickly.

Kakashi glanced back over at Choji.

"You're really OK with being tied to a post without any lunch?" He said to Choji speculatively as he walked by him, replacing his book in a pouch and putting his hands in his pockets.

"Yep!" Choji said, still mostly obscured behind the post.

"Oh really, and what do you have there behind that pole I wonder?"

Kakashi made to walk in Choji's direction.

Shikamaru made an exaggerated show out of taking a kunai out of his pocket. He clicked it loudly against the other kunai throwing knives in there and Kakashi stopped walking.

He didn't even looking Shikamaru's direction at all, but instead just said-

"Don't bother. I know that you're just a Bunshin, a clone. Not real and with no exposed eye with the car on it picking Shikamaru up in his peripheral vision.

Shikamaru shivered a bit from his hiding position. It was all going perfectly of course, exactly as he'd intended. Reaffirming the target's bad priors, or ideas they didn't even know they had, was critical for this operation, but still-

That eye is damn scary, he thought. At least the information he'd collected on it seemed to be accurate. Let's hope the rest of it is as well without any serious surprises, he thought.

More and more fog rolled in, and Shikamaru's clone walked closer to Kakashi, one of its hands behind its back. The fog had largely filled out the space around the logs, including up to head height. And that had taken forever too, and way too much effort, he thought. Troublesome and a pain in the ass.

Kakashi was frowning and looking over at Choji again. Shikamaru was out of time. He had to stop being lazy and get this done now. It was the perfect time for it.

He took a breath and turned his head heavenward, imagining the clouds, even though, he couldn't see them. He let out a breath and began the plan.

Suddenly, a second Shikamaru appeared next to Kakashi and a little behind him. The figure was indistinct and a strange repetitive pattern of sound could be heard coming from that direction.

Kakashi leapt backwards instinctively as the figure reached out its hand for the bells.

"What?" Kakashi said in confusion, looking over at the figure in the fog. "But you're not-"

Keep it up, Shikamaru thought to himself as three more Shikamarus appeared, all behind Kakashi between him and the lake. All three only barely distinct in the fog. They all ran at Kakashi, forcing him away from the lake and toward the forest

Kakashi tossed some throwing stars, hitting all three dead center in their chest.

The stars went right through them and hit the ground behind them with no reaction from the Shikamarus at all.

"You're not Ninja Bunshin Clones," He said, backing up closer and closer. "Otherwise you would vanish when I hit you with something."

"But what are you then? A low-level genin shouldn't know any ninjutsu techniques I'm not familiar with."

He backed away from the images, and another one of them appeared suddenly behind him, causing Kakashi to slash at it with his kunai knife. It vanished and then appeared behind him on the other side.

"Sorry about the lethal force," Kakashi said, swiping at it again and hitting nothing. He leapt to a nearby tree now that he'd been pushed to the edge of the forest. He was fully above of the fog and looked down at the figures moving in the clouded area below. "But you are challenging me more than I anticipated."

Shikamaru took a breath. Not bad so far. He had to move this to end game quickly though as Kakashi surveyed the field below him. He hadn't figured it out yet. Little disturbances in the ground were catching his eye, but Shikamaru was sure he hadn't figured out their significance yet.

Traditional bias really did give you the most amazing cover if you knew how to hide in it.

But it wouldn't last forever. Not against someone like Kakashi.

"Were you digging in the ground before the training? Kakashi asked. "Well, I admit I'm impressed. I don't know how someone of your level knows a Hidden Mist Ninjutsu technique. Or a Bunshin clone technique I've never seen before. Or are they real clones that are just dodging my attacks? And if so, why is it that I can't see their life energy, their chakra?"

Another copy of Shikamaru appeared right behind Kakashi.

"Good questions, Kakashi-sensei" Shikamaru whispered, close enough to be whispering right into his ear. Close enough that Kakashi should've felt breath on the back of his neck. The copy looked oddly flat and indistinct,and Kakashi spun around kicking at the spot, but by the time he did, the copy had vanished and Kakashi simply kicked the tree, showering bark fragments everywhere.

Kakashi leapt to another tree branch nearby.

"All of your copies that don't vanish immediately are only in that one location down by the river, and none of them have any substance. And even now they are backing away back into the fog, out of sight. It couldn't be that you have traps down there that you dug in the dirt beforehand, could it?" Kakashi said.

"You won't lure me, Shikamaru. You need to work as a team to-"

The clones suddenly appeared once again, all of them holding a single shuriken throwing star. They threw at the same time and then vanished back into the fog.

Kakashi barely even looked in that direction as the stars kept coming up towards his position. "You only used illusions so that nothing down there would set off any traps," Kakashi said. "I already told you, you won't lure me with fake-"

A few of the stars impacted with the tree Kakashi was on, and he immediately knocked away the remaining ones that came anywhere close to him with his own knife and then dodged more of them, leaping from the tree to the ground right at the edge of the forest.

"So you are willing to participate yourself," Kakashi said. "But again, you'll have to come out to have any chance of getting a bell. I won't just go where you want me to go, sorry."

But that's what you are doing, Shikamaru said. Just a little more. He just had to hope Kakashi didn't venture outside of the fog too much more, that was always a risk.

"That's OK, Kakashi-sensei" Shikamaru said, once again appearing right next to him in the fog, though this time it was within his field of vision. It was still a hazy figure though, as if it were a reflection in a disturbed water pool.

Kakashi leapt away again, not even bothering to lash out at the image.

"OK, that's enough of that," Kakashi said. He held up two fingers in his right hand and said-

"Kai! Illusion release!"

Right, Shikamaru thought. That's a technique for releasing Genjutsu illusions. Sorry teacher, but this is a different kind of illusion entirely.

"OK, so this isn't a Genjutsu ninja illusion," Kakashi said. He peered into the fog.

"At this point, it seems you know that I can see through much of the fog with my Sharingan eye, though not all of it. You must be pretty far back there. I'll tell you again, this won't work. You need more than just you. Abandon your rivalry with Naruto if you want to pass."

The Jonin's eyes turned to look at one of the Shikamaru copies which was just standing a few feet away from him, not doing anything.

"You are still a clone," Kakashi said, looking at him with his special eye. "Why are you following me around? It's kind of annoying you know."

The copy nodded, and then suddenly leapt high in the air above the fog, flashing the sunlight with a mirror in one hand.

"Interesting," Kakashi said.

There was movement in the fog, and Kakashi turned his eyes back in that direction. The copies were all running right at Kakashi now, close enough to be just visible in the fog. A lot of them moved in confusing patterns, many appearing to move right through eachother, or for their feet to be off the ground and just running in place in the free air.

But they were coming.

"You won't convince me to move this time. I won't let you maneuver me," Kakashi said. A clone came flying at him from the left, and Kakashi merely moved up a hand to block, and the Shikamaru copy passed right through his arm.

This happened again with Copy 2, and again with Copies 3 and 4, each time Kakashi moved to block punch or a kick, and the copies would just pass right through him.

"You're trying to distract me," Kakashi said, and turned his gaze back into the forest to check if any attacks were coming in that direction. He tossed shuriken at the two remaining copies almost like an afterthought. The shuriken also passed right through the copies.

He didn't expecting them to hit anything, Shikamaru thought.

Thunk thunk!

"What? Kakashi said, his eyes widening. It sounded like the shuriken had hit a block of wood, close, and not a person or empty air. "A chakra signature?" He said suddenly, whipping back around too late to dodge a fist slamming into his side.

He staggered backward, grunting as his body collided with a large rock at the tree line.

NOW!

Shikamaru thought. The music suddenly tripled in volume and Shikamaru rushed to enact his one and only gambit.

Kakashi lashed out with his fist, and there was the sound of splintering wood."How can you be immaterial to attacks just like the rest, but have a chakra signature? But not disappear when hit with an attack like a Shadow Clone? Where did you get those techniques Shikamaru? As a genin?"

Kakashi began weaving signs for Ninjutsu faster than Shikamaru could follow by far.. "Maybe a little fire will help clear things up," He said.

Note-Still a little raw, but I don't think I'd ever post it otherwise. I'll try to come back at some point to clean it up a bit.

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