Chapter Five - "The Unnatural Combat"

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The actual plays the titles correspond to don't really have much to do with the plot, but the titles give a fairly decent description.

I've gotten some nice feedback on the Hinata bash. Neat. It's all entirely like what happens in canon, just a very different viewpoint of things from somebody who absolutely loathes that kind of personality and person.

I'm a bit disappointed though nobody has yet commented on my biting wit on some parts yet - such as the 'alternate universe' Itachi comment at the beginning of last chapter, Kakashi's comment about Sakura's blushing, the 'spymaster' Jiraiya's inability to actually, you know, gather information, etc. You'll see a few lines in this chapter as well.

Again, please Review!

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Crickets chirped and cardinals cheeped as the fading blue-black of night harkened the coming of dawn. In one training ground in the Village Hidden in the Leaves, a plains area with clumps of trees, with part of the perimeter made up by a river, there stood two young teenagers just coming into adulthood. Unfortunately for the both of them, they had dragged themselves out of bed at an ungodly time one hour earlier, and neither were in the mood to do anything.

"Cha! Where are those two!" Sakura shouted in righteous fury, letting some of her anger loose by punching the air, before collapsing against a tree. "Naruto-baka I could expect it of, but Kakashi-sensei should've been here half an hour ago!" Briefly, her stomach rumbled, and she put her arms in front of her knees to chase off some of the hunger.

Sasuke let out a brief "Hn" in agreement. However, unlike Sakura, he actually had common sense, and had thought to eat a breakfast beforehand; albeit a light one, expecting Kakashi to show up on time. He had asked his mother Mikoto what she knew of Kakashi. She didn't know much about him personally, but had told him the story of Uchiha Obito and how he had, with half of his body crushed, had given up his remaining Sharingan eye to his teammate, who only a half hour earlier lost his own left eye in a sword swipe from an Iwa-nin. So his teacher had the Sharingan in his left eye socket. Now he was beginning to understand why Hatake Kakashi was chosen to be his teacher - although he had had the Sharingan for over half a year now, the few remaining adults left in the Uchiha Clan who had the Sharingan either had never been in the ninja force or long retired, working in the Military Police Force now.

But that didn't explain why Hatake was so late. Slowly, however, Sasuke had begun to recall the previous day, in which Kakashi had offered no excuse for why he had been so late when he showed up, and dodged answering Naruto's question. Chronic laziness, perhaps? Sasuke certainly didn't hope so. It wouldn't do well if his sensei never taught him anything just because he didn't feel like it. That beside, his sanity couldn't tolerate a couple of hours of Sakura thinking he was even going to give her a chance, EVER, before Kakashi showed up, every day. Seriously, did that girl ever shut up?

He had stretched earlier before coming here, but at the rate that Kakashi was taking, his muscles would probably cool down before the grey-haired Sharingan-wielder got here. Naruto must've been fairly perceptive and asked around a bit if he wasn't here yet; either that, or he decided to drop out, which Sasuke prayed he didn't. Sighing, the onyx-eyed Uchiha dropped down, and began his stretching with his legs, while assigning a top priority to his mental list - if Kakashi turned out to be chronically late, he should buy earplugs for whenever he came early so he wouldn't have to hear Sakura.

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Naruto surveyed his two teammates. They were leagues below him, but he had never gotten this far by underestimating the greatest enemy of them all - the village of Konoha. So far, Sakura was living up to his impressions by alternating between doing nothing and trying to talk Sasuke's ear off (with the occasional cursing at their tardy sensei and Naruto himself).

Sasuke, however little Naruto thought of him, was still a good shinobi, if a little too arrogant, aggressive and prone to rushing into situations. He had a good physique, above average chakra reserves, and a recently activated bloodline that he didn't depend too much on (unlike the Hyuga, which, if Naruto thought about it, was worth a thought if the Akatsuki ever resorted to chemical or biological warfare). Most importantly, aside from being prone to hastiness, Sasuke had a good head on his shoulders.

Most importantly, Sasuke was the prodigal child of the Uchiha, somebody who large swaths of Konoha had placed their hopes on as the shining beacon of the future generation. Every mission C-Class and above that Sasuke completed would bolster his reputation. Every spar he had that was publically shown would spread rumours of his increasing skill. With each passing day, his prestige would become greater and greater. Eight months from now, the pressure would be on Kakashi to put Team 7 in the Chunin Exams when it came to Konoha. Naruto might be weak to the public eye right now, but he would slowly but surely let out his skill, bit by bit, so that Kakashi would feel more assured over putting his team in the exams.

And if Sasuke were to do well in the Chunin Exam finals, only to have his light snuffed out shortly thereafter? Naruto smirked. Morale would drop. People would riot, demand revenge. If there was nothing they could turn their revenge on, then they would turn inwardly, destroy themselves. A freak training accident, perhaps? Or maybe an aneurysm bursting that no medic-nin managed to catch during a standard catch-up? Dear Mikoto-hime would be distraught, and the senior members of the MPF, seeing their pride and joy die a meaningless death, would begin to go home early, skim over their documents, and lose all passion for their work, allowing corruption to seep in and weaken Konoha. Thus was one of the many things that Naruto could manipulate and do from within in Konoha.

Suddenly, Naruto sensed an incoming chakra presence. That would be Kakashi-sensei, likely to be here within the next ten minutes. Naruto didn't wish to be later than his sensei (after all, he could always taunt Sakura about how he was actually early in relevance to their sensei), so he got up and started walking towards the duo.

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"Naruto-baka! Why are you so LATE?!" Sakura yelled out at the yellow-haired boy. Sakura was peeved. First, she had gotten up at 3am in the morning, needing to do her hair and her nails up before coming over here, without even eating breakfast. Then, she had walked over here, dreading the survival training Kakashi-sensei had talked about...only for him not to even be there. On top of that, that idiot Naruto wasn't present either! Even worse, Sasuke kept rejecting her pleas for a date with him, and wouldn't listen to her while she tried to initiate a conversation with him by talking about every subject she could think of, starting off with the relevant (talking about the team schematics) to the irrelevant (what she had for supper last night).

"Hmmm...Kakashi-sensei isn't here yet, Haruno," Naruto replied blandly, looking over his shoulder to emphasise the lack of the older man. "I think that instead of me being late, you're merely early."

Sakura couldn't take it anymore. She was hungry, she was exhausted, her true love was rejecting her over and over again, and now she had to deal with a smartass! Her flames of fury lit up again, she managed to find the energy to send a punch soaring at Naruto, who merely caught her fist in his hand again.

Thus did Kakashi Hatake walk into a scene that was a repeat of the one he first witnessed the day before. "Hmmm..." he said, frustrated, "Third impressions...I don't like you."

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After Sakura had freed her hand from Naruto's grasp, Kakashi took them over to three wooden poles in the middle of the field. Placing three brown bags and an alarm clock on top of the poles, the last Hatake turned around and faced his three possible students. "Alright, this clock is set for noon. Now," Here, he grabbed two bells from his vest pocket and attached them by a string to his belt, "The point of this test is for each of you to retrieve a bell from me by that time." He added an eye-smile for extra caution - unnerving graduates even before he got down to the real details was always fun.

"But sensei, there's only two bells!" Ah, the pink-haired brains of the team spoke. Seriously, this was the smartest kunoichi in the academy? Supposedly, she was really good at her tests, but Kakashi knew quite well that most of it depended on memorization than anything else. When she was actually able to apply knowledge to real-life situations, then he would be impressed; a better person would have instead of observing it, gone off to probe the situation and ask a question, such as 'Why are there only two bells for a team of three?'

"That's quite simple," Kakashi responded. "Whoever gets a bell will fully become a genin. Whoever doesn't will be sent back to the academy!" The crestfallen look on the kunoichi's face was enough to amuse him, and he had had enough of his own fangirls back in his day that he could imagine the thoughts running through her head. 'I can't fail or else Sasuke will never realize his true love in me!' Looking over at Naruto and Sasuke, he saw two determined expressions plastered on their faces, lit by the fires that had been fanned by years of hard work. 'I won't lose!'

Hmm, Kakashi thought, even if they will be troublesome students, they should still be good to work with. It was too bad that he now had no option whatsoever to fail this team. The night before, the Sandaime Hokage had called him into his office, and given him some disturbing news.

*Flashback - The Night Before, Hokage's Office*

"Orochimaru has what?!" Kakashi was plastered by the news that Sarutobi had just delivered.

"Indeed," Sarutobi said grim-faced, taking out his pipe, and extinguishing it - now wasn't the time for sinful old habits. "You may have heard that Mizuki, who was Umino Iruka's classroom assistant, was recently caught trying to steal the Forbidden Scroll. Once we started interrogating him, we learned that Orochimaru is planning on invading Konoha during the Chunin Exams, using his Oto Village along with Iwa." Here, he leaned inwards on his desk, chin on his hands. "As such, I am ordering the new jonin-senseis to be a lot more lenient with their personal genin exams. We normally only fail about 30% of new teams, but about half that total is still workable. Eight months from now we will need our strength. More importantly, however, we need to have a strong showing at the Chunin exam finals to prove after the battle that we are still very strong, and have lots of talent."

"I...see" was all Kakashi had to say, eye downcast. Brightening up slightly, he ventured a question forth. "What happened to Mizuki?"

Sarutobi looked peeved at the mention of the treacherous schoolteacher. "Mizuki was a grunt, it seemed. How he even was trusted with the knowledge of the invasion when he would do something as hazardous as steal the Forbidden Scroll is beyond me. What scares me is that if it weren't for me barging in on Naruto when he was in the process of stealing the Scroll, however, we wouldn't have known it was gone until I went to check up on it. That's another thing you should know - your third pupil knows the Kage Bunshin now. We interrogated Mizuki for about a week, then executed him and burned the corpse."

"Very well." Kakashi said. "However, my genin team looks to be extremely dysfunctional. Breaking Sasuke out of his revenge shtick will take a great deal of my time alone. However, the Haruno girl will also need to lose her fangirl obsession, and dealing with Uzumaki will be its own problem in itself with how to approach and train him."

Sarutobi grabbed for the phantom sensation of the pipe in his mouth, only to restrain his hand. He would need to get back to his personal training grounds to get back in shape for his inevitable showdown with Orochimaru. His eyes narrowed. "You don't need to worry much about Naruto. Just make sure that he has enough to survive the Chunin Exams and we'll take it from there on out. If there's any other questions?" Kakashi shook his head. "Dismissed!"

"Hai, Hokage-sama!" Kakashi responded, left hand at his chest, palm down in a salute, before he left the room.

*Flashback end*

So that was the way of things. Normally by now he would have driven a wedge so far in between the teammate potentials that they would be completely averse to working apart. He was still trying, but not to the same extent - they would pass anyways, so it wouldn't do for them to be disgruntled by burning bridges during this genin test.

"Now, if there's nothing else," Kakashi eye-smiled, "When I say go, come at me with everything you've got, as if you're intending to kill me."

Sakura gasped, and quickly started chattering again. "But Kakashi-sensei, it might be dangerous! We could hurt you!"

"Right..." was all Kakashi had to say. She thinks that she, a newly graduated genin, could hurt an elite Jonin who's been doing this for twenty years? "In any case...go!"

Immediately, two clouds of dust formed around the plains, leaving Kakashi and his blond genin behind. "Hmm..." Kakashi observed, "You're a little off."

Contrary to his expectations, Kakashi's goading didn't provoke Naruto in the slightest, as the blonde was quick to retort, "The only thing that's off here is your hair color. What are you, sixty years old with that grey hair?" Smirking a bit at the tic that appeared on Kakahi's forehead and his instinctual reply of "It's silver!", Naruto continued on, "Besides, I highly doubt that you don't know where Sasuke and Sakura are. Sasuke's hiding in the bushes three'o'clock of me about thirty meters distance, while Sakura is six'o'clock of me." Ignoring Kakashi's slight gaping at how good at sensing his comrades the 'dead last' was, Naruto proceeded to lay down his conclusions. "If I, a newly graduated genin can sense them, then I'm sure you, a jonin, can. So there's no real point in trying to hide."

Interesting kid, to have figured that all out, thought Kakashi. He heard the rustle of leaves to the side as Sasuke moved spots, having been outed by Naruto. "Well then, why aren't you hiding? I heard you could escape from ANBU at the height of your pranks."

Naruto shook his head. "I know full well that the only reason I managed to keep ahead of them for hours on end was because they couldn't attack or cripple me."

Enjoying the little verbal wargame they had going on, Kakashi retorted, "Then what are you planning on doing? By the same token, you, a newly graduated genin, don't stand a chance against me in a straight-up taijutsu fight, if that's what you're planning on." Inwardly, Kakashi was beginning to analyze the situation. How had Naruto been put in as the dead last if he was this perceptive? From what he read of Naruto's file, he began to piece together the situation: Naruto probably had hidden some of his skill, though it looked like he was still not quite as strong as Sasuke. He had probably failed the genin test simply because of his inability to use a regular Bunshin rather than any overall lack of talent.

"That's quite simple...there's more to this test than what you're letting on, isn't there?"

Kakashi allowed his one eye to widen ever so slightly, before narrowing it again. "And what makes you so sure about that?"

"Why, that's simple," Naruto said, baring his white teeth, his fangs in particular. "No two-man genin team has ever been formed from the get-go unless there isn't enough genin to form a three-man team. It means that we will have to WORK TOGETHER!"

As if the last two words were a trigger, several kunai flew down out of a nearby tree at Kakashi. The scarecrow-like man immediately performed a Kawarimi with a nearby log to dodge the kunai, only to have to fend off the sudden appearance of three Narutos. Looking over, Kakashi couldn't see Naruto where he was originally standing, so he couldn't use any fatal moves if one of the three Narutos was the real one. Even more annoyingly, Naruto appeared to have experimented with the Kage Bunshin, and the two or three Bunshins were chakra reinforced to the point that a single non-fatal hit wouldn't destroy it.

He had been caught off guard by the sudden ambush from two fronts, too, and slowly but surely he was being herded back. With a swift kick to the solar plexus, he finally managed to cause a Kage Bunshin to disperse up in smoke, only to hear a cry of "Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu" from behind him. Sidestepping another attack, his eye widened as he saw Sasuke, Sharingan eyes activated, coming up on him with the seals for the Uchiha Clan's signature technique formed, as the black-haired avenger breathed out a ball of fire. Interesting, a genin who has enough chakra to use that attack. Of course, it wasn't as if a genin couldn't have that much chakra - he himself had been barely older than Sasuke was now when he had first managed to use his own Chidori, and of course Naruto seemed to be a chakra tank, a likely side effect of having the Kyuubi no Kitsune sealed in his navel. He certainly wasn't going to think anything absurd like 'Impossible! A genin shouldn't have that much chakra!' in response to a basic Katon jutsu.

Thinking fast, Kakashi grabbed one of what he was positive were both Naruto Kage Bunshins and threw it into the path of the fireball, causing it to vanish in smoke. Sasuke continued his charge straight forward while the lone Kage Bunshin tried to double-team Kakashi, and the two boys alternated kicks and punches at their sensei - it was mainly Sasuke who did the work, as he was the real deal and had the Sharingan, but the Kage Bunshin helped distract the silver-haired older man a bit. Kakashi had had enough by now, but was pleased at the coordinated show of teamwork. Grabbing both boys by their ankle, he threw them back to grab some breathing room. As he expected, the Naruto he threw dispersed in smoke, but another one leaped down from a nearby tree - this one was probably the real one.

The two orphans began to bend their knees, ready for another charge into the fray, but Kakashi held his hands up in a universal peace gesture, and ended the fight. "Mah, mah, the fight's over. Sakura, you can come out now," Peering into two separate pairs of eyes with his lone normal eye, he began to explain, as a pinkette came out of the background to huddle into the group. "As you guessed earlier, Naruto, the test was that of teamwork. You could also say that it was also looking underneath the underneath to realize that you needed to use teamwork, and then putting it into action. But let me ask you, how did you put the plan together?"

Naruto was the one to speak up first. "I'm an orphan by birth," Here, both Kakashi and Sasuke had slight flinches - while one had been orphaned at a young age, he at least knew who his parents were, and had known the both of them for some time, while the other felt like he had been completely orphaned some days as a result of losing both his father as well as a large portion of his family; this was in comparison to Naruto who had professed that he never knew who his parents were, "That tends to make me a street rat at times, and as a street rat I know how important information is. You use the same test over and over again, eventually someone is going to get it."

Ah, so that explains how he seemed to know to ask whether I was going to be late, Kakashi thought to himself. "And what about you, Sasuke?"

Sasuke was standing up, so he kept his arms down as opposed to moving into a brooding pose. "People can consider me arrogant, but I can listen to logic. The dobe over there sent one of his clones over to me while distracting Sakura and explained it to me, and it made sense. You actually using the test he described just confirmed that we would have to work together."

Kakashi just eye-smiled in response. Well, at least they can work together if it comes down to the wire. "Speaking of Sakura, why didn't you bring her into the fold?"

Naruto spoke up again. "Sometimes, the best teamwork somebody can do is just to sit out. Sakura is too obsessed over the teme and hates my guts too much to be able to work effectively, and she lacks the stamina to do much of anything."

Sakura didn't take well to what Naruto said, and she readied her fist to punch him, only for him to dodge. Kakashi just sweatdropped. Buuut, there's still a lot of work to be done here. "Well then, your relations still need to be ironed out, but I'm glad to say that Team 7 is now official. We'll be meeting here every weekday at 7am and doing some exercises, and then doing a couple of missions after lunch, after which we'll call it a day. I'll be bringing you each individual material that I expect you to read on the weekends, and on Saturday I'll privately tutor each of you in areas I think you need, and alternate between team members each Saturday. That said, who had breakfast today?" Seeing Naruto and Sasuke both raise their hands, Kakashi eye-smiled. "In that case, Sakura, I'll give you one of the bentos, while I take the other."

And so the discussion about the team went on for the next couple of hours. Despite the friction between the teammates, Kakashi thought he had a lot of potential to work with, and was sure that his team would be able to go far. Little did he know that this four-man iteration of Team 7 would only last three months.

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As night fell, Naruto looked at two missives on his desk that he had recently received through the communications network that was the lifeblood of the Akatsuki. One was long and detailed, a list of things that Yahiko-sama requested him to do during his time on the genin team of Hatake Kakashi. The other was a single line long, in response to his reports on Sasuke's mental instability.

You have my permission to kill my brother if he defects.

It was signed 'Uchiha Itachi, Prince of the Ravens'.

Naruto kicked back in his chair, and let out a sigh. Itachi certainly hadn't made it quite that easy when he joined the organization - he had demanded that they let Sasuke live through whatever actions they made against the Leaf. It was something they had complied with, as the services of the elder son of Fugaku were invaluable. However, Itachi was still a man of the clan, and he valued honour and integrity above all else. If Sasuke betrayed his sworn loyalty to the Leaf, then he in effect forsook the honour of the Uchiha, and so Naruto or another Akatsuki member could hunt him down.

What tickled his funny bone was that some members of Konoha's council actually were planning for something similar to happen. Akatsuki had a mole so deep in the council that they would never realize there was a spy until it was too late, but what he reported was disturbing: when the genin team placements were originally reported, parts of the council protested, but later backed off. It was not due to their unwillingness to displease the Sandaime Hokage. No, rather, somebody there knew of the Mangekyou Sharingan and what it required to activate it, and had managed to obtain classified reports of the Uchiha Massacre, where Itachi had told Sasuke all about the Mangekyou, and what it required.

So, Naruto was being set-up with the Team 7 assignment. He was to become the revenge-driven psychopath's closest friend, and then within a year or two, he might be 'accidentally' killed by friendly fire on a mission, or perhaps even disappear. Thus would the Kyuubi brat disappear underneath the dirty rug that hid all of Konoha's dark secrets.

Naruto gritted his teeth. He had endured hatred from this village for twelve years. He wouldn't let them bring him down. It would be who would bring Konoha down in the end.

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I'm not a big fan of having a major in-universe change and not having it really affect anything; that's why Sasuke actually HAS the Sharingan now, because the small handful of Uchiha adults with Sharingan living affects that.

A lot of the early chapters are hilarious when I'm rereading them, particularly Kakashi's "Impossible! A genin shouldn't have that much chakra!" to Sasuke's Katon: Gokakkyou, and 220 chapters later, while still a genin, Sasuke manages to do three Chidoris in a day.

Genin bell test was painful to write (that section took like four days while everything else I got done the first day), and it's probably a pain to read as well I'm betting. Kakashi gave up the test fairly quickly as a result of two things - one, he was ordered to pass the team by the Sandaime, and he saw that Sasuke and Naruto were able to put things aside for a common goal, with the friction between the two being the biggest possible detriment for the team. Two, again I didn't like writing this very much, so I tried ending it as quickly as possible.

While I'm trying to write Naruto's teammates in a negative light for Naruto's views, I'm not going to actually bash them. Sasuke listens to Naruto over the test because it makes sense - he's not going to ignore logic just like that. As for Sakura, well, I'll write her how I want because she pretty much IS useless until Part II.

Regarding Itachi's signature - I like to think that summoners get to actually have some sort of fancy title, like Jiraiya's 'Toad Sage' title as a sage of the toads.

And now, out of eighteen members of the Akatsuki Konoha, we know who or of who nine are: Naruto, Kabuto, Izumo and Kotetsu (Izumo's appearance is described in Chapter 2, and there's no way I would split apart the comic relief duo), Mizuki, a Hyuga branch member (mentioned in chapter 3), an adult Uchiha (mentioned in chapter 4), a male adult Yamanaka (the blond mentioned in chapter 2), and a member of Konoha's council.

In a non-story related issue, I came up with a recent idea that I'm NOT adding onto my idea list: what if Konohamaru was the one who the Kyuubi was sealed into? If the Yondaime does the sealing, the Sandaime is more likely to raise him since Ko' will actually be blood related. If the Sandaime does the sealing, then we know at least Asuma is alive out of the Sarutobis (though we have no info on Ko's parents or Sandaime's wife).

Don't forget, please review! I'm getting a bit of acceleration here with reviews, but it's always heartening to get more and more reviews per chapter as time passes on. I have a general idea of events and some specifics here and there, but if you have any ideas, feel free to submit them.