Author's Note: Here in this chapter I will address something that most HP/Naruto crossover writers address when a ninja team first arrives at Hogwarts but I chose not to: the wizards freaking out over ninjutsu. In my stories, the ninja walk on walls and hold the elements in their hands but the students never find this extraordinary when they witness it.
I caught a lot of heat for "glossing over the issue" because Hermione didn't investigate, nobody ever questioned it, etc. However, I would like to point out that the students are learning all kinds of new magic every day because they're at school. I seriously doubt any parents took time to teach their children transfiguration or potions beyond what was useful at home. For example, McGonagall transforming into a cat always get applause and awe? Apparently the students have never seen that before even though to us, the readers, it's completely normal by the time we get to the end of the series. Part of going to school is being introduced to other types of magic out there, even if it's just in passing. So these people show up from a far away country and do different "magic"…not exactly a shocker. For all they know this is completely normal in another part of the world. And Hermione, knowing from Harry and her own experiences that the guards are very secretive, wouldn't find it surprising to not be able to dig up any information about it.
However, our Naruto friends are meeting adult wizards who believe that they have seen it all or at least have heard of it all. So yes, they're going to be a little more shocked than the teenagers at Hogwarts.
And…go!
Chapter 10: The Ninja's Turn
The next morning was bright and sunny. The blue sky and white clouds that could be observed via the enchanted ceiling promised a perfect day in which to view a showcase performance.
Kakashi was chatting with the Stone ninja when Harry walked up to him. He nodded to Harry and finished the conversation with the grinning ninja.
"What's up?" Harry asked when they were alone.
"I was wondering if you would be willing to assist with our demonstration today?" Kakashi said, pocketing his hands nonchalantly.
Harry nodded despite Hermione's words from the night before ringing in his ears. Helping with the demonstration wasn't going to bring any trouble, he hoped. "Sure, anything. What do you have in mind?"
"We need to make it clear that we can defend ourselves against spells. For that I'll need a few spell-casters."
Harry nodded thoughtfully. "'Course. Your people won't overreact?" He side glanced at the Sand ninja who were watching the exchange carefully. It wasn't that Harry was afraid, and Kakashi knew it, but the retaliation on both sides could be brutal.
Kakashi nodded. "We all discussed it last night. Professor Jones has offered to help as well. Apparently he's one of the more skilled wizards here."
Harry smiled at the mention of the quirky headmaster. "I like him, but it's strange not having Dumbledore here."
"I know what you mean."
Harry made a few more comments before they parted. The wizard went to talk to Hermione and Cedric about the plan, while Kakashi returned to his fellow Leaf ninja.
After breakfast the civilians and magical delegates trooped down to the green grounds. The ninja plus Professor Jones and Harry Potter were already there.
The delegates spread out in a line on the grass facing the lake and the loitering ninja. Guy rolled up to the group and smiled. He turned so that he, too, was facing his fellow ninja and began speaking once everyone was assembled. "Alright, now we're going to start with a bit of sparring between ourselves. Or rather, between the Hokage and his students."
The majority of the ninja meandered off to the sides to leave the present members of Team Seven some room. Sakura cracked her knuckles. Naruto grinned. Kakashi eye-smiled. "Remember what we talked about," Kakashi said for the sake of the spectators. Some of the wizards were looking nervous.
"Don't hit the buildings," Naruto recited.
"Don't damage the forest," Sakura repeated back.
"And," Kakashi raised a finger, "avoid the spectators." Sakura nodded. Naruto turned and waved at the magical audience. Some had their wands out and stood in defensive positions, others waved back hesitantly. Draco was speaking very fast and reassuringly to a frowning Greyford.
Kakashi took a defensive stance and Guy called, "begin!"
What followed was, to the ninja, a low intensity spar between a sensei and his students. It reminded Naruto of the second bell-test but all three of them had grown since then.
Kakashi had warned them about tearing up the ground; they weren't there to make that kind of impression. Sakura only cracked the ground a little bit when Kakashi dodged one of her kicks. Naruto kept things non-lethal and threw clone after clone at his sensei. They hedged into different weapons, redirected each other, and moved through their own crowd as if in a choreographed dance. The Hokage dodged and weaved, saving his chakra for later.
"Advanced transfiguration? Very impressive."
"He came make duplicates of himself?"
"So many!"
"Did that person just transfigure into a log? Why would he want to be a log?"
The whispers sparked up throughout the crowd as the fight went on. Then a louder voice called out above the rest. "So they can brawl, big deal," a brunette witch said. She watched with the rest as the spar edged to the nearby lake. She scoffed, "are they going to go swimming next?" She immediately ate her words when Kakashi seamlessly stepped out onto the water, continuing to dodge and twist away from his students' attacks as if he were on solid ground.
"Merlin's beard," a wizard gasped. Several other exclamations followed as wizards and witches gasped at the sight of the ninja walking on the surface of the lake.
"Haven't seen a charm like that in ten years!"
"And without a wand as well?"
Sakura and Naruto carefully followed Kakashi's tactical retreat, expecting a trap in the lake. They weren't disappointed but the trap wasn't what they had expected. Kakashi rolled out of the way and back onto the grass just as the giant squid made an appearance. Sakura cried out, recoiling. She jumped so high and so fast to get away that she might have cleared a Quidditch goal post if it had been nearby.
Naruto, mid-retreat, began counting the creature's grasping appendages. He nodded, satisfied, and called out, "it's a squid Sakura!"
"I know that you idiot!"
Naruto jumped to avoid a stretching tentacle and sprinted back onto the grass where Kakashi was waiting.
After another minute of trading blows, Guy changed things up. "The rest of the ninja may join. Team Seven verses all." Sakura and Naruto immediately moved into an old formation with Kakashi.
The waiting ninja grinned in anticipation. Swords were withdrawn from their sheaths, hands stretched and flashed through signs, and pulses spiked. A Mist kunoichi twiddled her thumbs nervously. She turned to one of her comrades. "Are you sure we should be fighting with the Hokage? It just seems wrong."
The shinobi next to her smirked. "Come on, it's just a friendly spar. Besides, how often are we going to be offered a chance to fight with a kage? And the Copy Ninja too! Let's give it our all!" He loosened his sword in its sheath.
"Begin," Guy called.
Projectiles of all shapes and sizes were launched at the trio. Kakashi's hands blurred before he placed his palms on the earth. A wall rose up between his team and the advancing ninja. Some moved to flank the wall while others attempted to crash through the barrier with jutsu of their own.
Those flanking the wall on the left hand side were surprised to encounter the Hokage concealed within the wall itself. Bursting out of the stone, Kakashi put his taijutsu to use. Kakashi held that side off while Sakura crushed the ground the right hand flankers were standing on. They hopped away and regrouped as Naruto's clone finished gathering nature energy.
"He chose the middle of a fight as the time to meditate? Strange person," said one witch.
"He conjured a wall without a wand?" Another said.
"What did he do with his hands just now? I couldn't make it out." The whispers of the magical community continued as the fighting intensified.
When Naruto's yellow eyes opened, Guy called out, "rule change, Hokage versus all!" Naruto and Sakura looked up eagerly and the ninja who had fled from Naruto's sage mode rallied. Kakashi managed to shoot his rival an exasperated look before vanishing in a swirl of leaves. Guy just chuckled. "It's nothing you can't handle Kakashi."
"Where'd he go," an irritated Stone ninja shouted. The wizards couldn't help but mentally echo the question. It was like he had apparated but without a single sound. There was a brief search while Sakura attempted to shout down her fellow ninja.
"He's probably hiding so he can pick us o-" Sakura's speech ended in a screech when she was suddenly buried up to her neck in the earth she'd recently been standing on.
"Below," shouted a Mist ninja, who began saturating the ground with the nearby water. He began doing signs for a jutsu to turn the earth into quicksand.
"Hinata, you want to help us out here?" Naruto called. Kakashi must have been suppressing his chakra to an extreme degree. He couldn't sense him at all.
Hinata was standing guard over the wizards, her bloodline trait activated, in case something got out of hand. She smirked at her husband but shook her head.
"He's not using genjutsu," Kurenai called out after feeling out the entire area. Ebisu ran up to Sakura and pressed her out of the ground with his own earth jutsu before the Mist ninja finished his signs.
"A ninja must see through deception," Naruto recited. His yellow eyes were drawn to the spectating foreigners and he stopped, doing a double-take. Then his eyes narrowed. "Guy-sensei, does that Draco Malfoy guy have a twin?"
The wizards jumped back, thunderstruck. There was a Draco Malfoy standing next to the British Minister of Magic. There was also another Draco Malfoy, nonchalantly carrying on a conversation with Luna.
"I'll kill him," Sakura threatened, wiping the dirt off of her arms. Ebisu smirked over at the second Draco. "How long do you think he's been over there?" She glanced to her right to see Naruto was charging up a rasengan next to her. There was a grin on his face. Sakura's eyes popped, thoughts of vengeance forgotten. "What are you doing? We're supposed to be sparring!"
Naruto's face fell. "He has at least two different ways to counter this! Not to mention the ones we don't know about." Naruto protested.
"And what happened last time? Or the time before?" Sakura countered.
"Oh, right," Naruto said. Technically that had been different but he saw her point and let the rasengan fizzle out.
By the time they looked back the fake Draco had already disappeared.
"You know," Kakashi said. The two whirled around to see their teacher standing behind them. They also saw several ninja moving to flank him but, based on the smile in his eyes, he was aware of that. "You really shouldn't let your guard down."
Sakura smirked. "Now!"
Everyone threw all of their jutsu at once. Wind scythes, water bullets, earthen pillars, fire balls, lightning streams, and kunai from all countries flew toward the Hokage. Meanwhile, a Stone ninja had manipulated the earth to capture Kakashi's feet.
"Now what?" Naruto asked, grinning when Kakashi could no longer move.
Kakashi eye-smiled. "I've been meaning to try this anyway." He once again grasped his Hokage cloak and used it to cover himself.
Sakura cursed as the jutsu and kunai that hit the cloak rebounded, firing in all directions. She ducked, covering her head from the worst of the storm of attacks. Naruto just let them brush past him, a frown on his face. He made a grab for the cloak. Sakura looked up just as he laid his hands on it and called out a belated warning against it.
Naruto's hand grasped the material, using it to anchor his sensei in place to prevent his escape. Kakashi simply reached up and released the clasp, leaving the garment in Naruto's hands. He'd pulverized the earth jutsu sometime before and slipped away.
"Naruto!" Sakura protested, curling her hands in anger.
"What?! He was cheating using that as a shield and he knows it," Naruto protested.
"Idiot," Sakura said, "the cloak limited his range of vision and motion. It was a blind spot we could have exploited."
"Oh," Naruto said even as he barely avoided a kick from Kakashi. The unplanned-for move threw him off balance and Kakashi sent his student to the ground with a punch. Sakura charged in but Kakashi twisted away.
The other ninja joined in and what followed was a display of taijutsu that even Lee would have been proud to see. Kakashi used their numbers and confidence against them, making trades of blows work to his advantage. The use of multiple substitutions at once made several confused ninja punch their even more confused friends.
Eventually, Guy called the match, leaving many of the ninja panting. Still, their reaction to the Hokage's taijutsu was nothing compared to the reaction of the magical community. As a whole they were stupefied by the sight. Even Harry, who had probably seen the most of the guards' skill when they were originally at Hogwarts, was flabbergasted. That plus the fact in the back of his mind that, this was just a spar, fun practice. A real battle would be even more destructive. The idea made him shudder.
While Naruto returned Kakashi's cloak to him, Guy turned to the shocked wizards. His excited voice boomed out, "your turn! Throw something at them." He waved an energetic arm in invitation.
There was complete silence for several long moments. The wind blew across the field, ruffling the grass. The ninja quickly adjusted their guard but they need not have moved so fast. Most of the wizards were acting as if they'd been stunned and no one reached for their wand.
Still, after several moments, a witch grasped her wand firmly and carefully sent a leg-binding charm at a ninja across the green from her. The ninja she'd chosen as a target happened to be an earth-style user. He pulled up a slab of earth and blocked the spell. The earthen wall barely cracked when the charm made contact.
The wizards grew bolder, grasping their wands and considering spells to try. Suddenly a voice rang out. "Expeliarmus!"
Hermione gasped in horror. She shouted out in vain, "no! Don't try to disarm them!"
It was too late. The spell flew at the group of ninja. The individual the spell had been aimed at dodged, as did the kunoichi behind him. However, the third ninja in the line of fire had been replacing weapons in his pouch toward the back of the crowd and didn't sense the spell coming in time. It smacked him in the back, making him blink in surprise. Suddenly every single one of his projectiles, from sebon to swords, flew from their various pouches and hiding places. The cornucopia of pointy objects arched in the air and fell toward the unfortunate wizard. With the speed that they were falling it would have been easy, even with the sheer number, for a ninja to dodge if not catch or deflect the ones that would have hit. For a wizard however, it was impossible.
In his shock the wizard forgot the shield spell and just stood there, frozen with fear. Almost faster than sight, Hinata ran in front of the ill-fated wizard and fell into a familiar stance. Her arms turned and flexed in a weave before her and then it was over. A forest of metal lay in front of her as she stood calmly before the petrified wizard. Her pearl eyes turned and looked at the man. She smiled shyly and asked if he was alright. The wizard fainted. His friends hurried forward and brought him around momentarily.
Everyone had iced up to watch the outcome. There was a great release of air as the congregation sighed out the breath they'd been holding. There were a few nervous chuckles from the Mist ninja. Hermione spoke into the silence, "it's unwise to attempt to disarm a ninja. You never know what they could be hiding and you must be prepared to handle the results of your actions." The magicians nodded in understanding, eyeing the loose clothing the foreigners wore with new appreciation.
"But can they only dodge?" A voice called out from the mass of wizards. A few nodded in agreement. They'd been wondering the same thing.
Kakashi cocked an eyebrow and turned to Guy. Guy grinned and said, "Draco, would you mind conjuring some fire for the Hokage?"
Draco frowned at his old friend for a second in confusion. Then realization dawned on his face and he settled for a smug, but still annoyed at being called out, look. Harry almost laughed out loud. He wondered when Guy had learned about Draco's signature move?
The blond wizard flexed his hand and a wand slid into it from up his sleeve. He raised his hands and began muttering very quickly under his breath. The group of wizards as a whole stepped away from Draco in the second it took to cast the spell. With a final twist of his wrist, fire spouted out of Malfoy's wand and greedily rushed into the air. The resulting flames formed into a gargantuan orange dragon. The bulky dragon crouched before the wizards, ready to spring. The crackling fire scorched the nearby air and made many people step back.
The wizards looked horrified when Draco sent the flaming beast toward the assembled ninja. Many cried out or turned away to avoid seeing the destruction. However, the wizards' attention was brought back to their visitors when the sound of rushing water reached their ears.
Towering over Draco's dragon, which was the size of a mansion, was a much leaner dragon made of water pulled from the nearby lake. The wizards watched, eyes popping, as the Fire Shadow himself used water to counter the inferno. Kakashi's water dragon hurtled into the flames, making Draco's dragon implode into a shower of steam. The resulting mist cast a rainbow in the sunlight and wetted the recently dried out air. The water dragon, fully spent in the operation, fell back to the soil running into the lake or soaking the ground.
The ninja stood on their side of the field looking calm, though they'd been shaken by Draco's fire spell. The civilians clapped politely at the impressive display. The wizards just stared. Draco, who'd expected the outcome, put his wand away, satisfied. This was sure to shut some mouths about holding his friends hostage. However, this was not universally true.
First one wizard stepped forward, then another. There were several, maybe twenty in all, who stepped out with fists clenched. Some of them looked pale but the first who had stepped out growled. "That still proves nothing! You have fancy tricks, but so do we. How would you do against an army of wizards, a wave of spells?! You can't dodge forever."
Draco stiffened. He turned toward Guy and whispered, "this was not a part of the plan."
Guy frowned. He had hoped Fredrickson had been alone. Apparently this was not the case. He replied in a calm baritone, "I know. Wait."
Some members of the magical delegation smiled. The bold wizards who had stepped forward gave them courage. Maybe they did still have control of the situation. Other delegates looked uneasy at the unnecessary challenge. The ninja had proved their own strength, why did they continue to push? The civilians from the Elemental Nations looked faithfully toward the Hokage.
The ninja across the grass drew closer together behind Kakashi. They hid their nerves well but Draco had proved that, although less controlled, the wizards could do some incredible things with magic as well. Although the ninja didn't show it, the wizards' spells frightened them. That wizard from before had been able to disarm one of their weapons specialists with just one spell. The spell had even found his concealed weapons. They could dodge and weave but one direct hit and they were done. They had been told that even using an earth style jutsu against such spells may not work, since a strong enough spell could obliterate their walls. Meanwhile the wizards used almost no energy performing magic. It was a lose/lose situation.
The wizard laughed at the ninjas' repositioning. "Do you expect that old man to protect you? Is he going to charm another dragon out of the water? Mr. Malfoy's dragon is impressive but nothing compared to one of our unforgivable curses."
Naruto realized with a start that the wizard was referring to his sensei. His eyes narrowed. He didn't know what an unforgivable curse was, but he didn't like the sound of it. Naruto cast his eyes to Kakashi. His gut was telling him to act, to do something, but Kakashi's lessons about staying calm and assessing the situation were finally starting to sink in. His sensei was far more experienced in this area. He'd wait.
Kakashi lackadaisically reached into his leg pouch and withdrew two kunai that were slightly longer and slimmer than what he normally used. Naruto's eye caught sight of them and he glanced at Sakura. She frowned but said nothing. Kakashi tossed the kunai out almost lazily but the movement was still too fast for the wizards to follow. The kunai landed, one several yards to his right and the other the same distance on his left. They stuck in the ground standing straight up. The handles were covered with paper seals.
Hermione squinted but couldn't make out anything scribbled on them. She filed the information away to ask Ebisu about later. The translation spell should have allowed her to read any language but the symbols still looked like gibberish.
Kakashi shrugged as the ninja moved into a tighter formation behind him, staying within the boundaries of the kunai. "Care to try your luck? I think I can manage to block your spells." Sorry Harry, I won't need you for this after all.
The wizard smiled wickedly. He spoke to his companions but his eyes were on Kakashi, "non-lethal of course. We wouldn't want to kill anyone." He glanced around him and the wizards nodded.
Kakashi didn't reply. He simply stood there, stance loose. The ninja behind him were like stone.
Without another moment wasted, the wizards flicked their wands and various spells shot toward the ninja. Kakashi's hands flashed through a series of seals and the kunai that he'd thrown earlier glowed white. "Lightning wall," Kakashi called out and held up his hands palms out. Lightning chakra blossomed from his palms and it flickered between Kakashi's hands as if they were two lightning rods trading bolts. They fed off of each other for a split second before leaping to the kunai on either side of him, creating a net of streaming lightning. The net stretched out protectively in front of the Hokage and his fellow ninja.
The continuous flashing of the bolts lit up the area making even the sunlight seem dim by comparison. The faces the lightning shown on ranged from terrified to awestruck. Even the ninja were surprised that the Hokage had this up his sleeve. Some turned away, unable to keep their eyes on the weave of energy for long. Kakashi's jutsu had sprung to life instantly. Then the first wave of spells hit.
The streaks of red light reached Kakashi and his wall and Harry held his breath. Once their eyes had adjusted the wizards could see that there were gaps between the bolts that were conducted from the kunai to Kakashi's hands and back. At first they thought that they'd just have to keep using spells until one got through. However, when each spell neared the wall the magical energy drew the lightning to it as if it were another conductor. Individual bolts leapt out to receive each spell, absorbing them into the storm before they even reached the main wall.
The wizards each used one spell, two, three, and by the fourth or fifth one they began to catch on to what was happening to their attacks. A few held out, desperately trying different angles or stronger spells but to no avail. One by one they lowered their wands until there was just the wall of lightning left protecting the ninja. Kakashi cancelled the jutsu and slowly lowered his hands to his sides. The kunai on either side of the group were several shades darker than before. However, the nearby grass was surprisingly as green and lush as ever, not looking scorched at all by the intense heat the lightning must have given off.
Kakashi took a deep steadying breath and leveled a challenging glare at the wizards. A silence stretched in the air that had been crackling with electricity a moment before.
Sakura took an intimidating step forward next to her sensei and Naruto followed suit on Kakashi's other side to hide her intention. The medical kunoichi, her movement hidden behind his cloak, reached her hand up and touched Kakashi's elbow.
Without turning, Kakashi quietly said, "I'm alright Sakura, thank you." She felt the knot of worry in her gut release and withdrew her hand. She and Naruto, both relieved, looked out at the thunderstruck wizards. "Now," Kakashi said using his regular volume, "if there is no more doubt about our ability to defend ourselves? I suggest we go inside and continue the negotiations."
The wizards nodded mutely, some grudgingly. Professor Jones watched the Hokage and his students with curious eyes, one eyebrow raised. The British Minister's eyes had practically become slits. If he wasn't cautious of the Elemental Delegation before, he was certainly guarded now.
Author's Note: first off, I need to let you guys know that the next update will not be for a couple of weeks. I could have split this update into two chapters (since it's so long) and given myself more time but that really wouldn't have made sense story-wise. The truth is that I have about a thousand different bits of the next three chapters floating around both in my head and on the page and I need to get everything lined up the way I like.
Don't worry about me quitting this story, it won't happen (unless, you know, something bad happens to me. Then my husband has to get onto my account and post the drabbley notes that I have typed up. Good luck sorting through that mess). If you check out the other stories on my profile you'll see that everything is complete except for "The Kakashi and Mei Conglomeration" and that one is still in-progress because it's a series of short stories and can be added-on to at any time. The point is, I finish my stories.
Anyway, thank you to those that comment, favorite, and follow!
For more magical stories with our favorite Copy-ninja, check out the community: Kakashi at Hogwarts (which I help manage). We don't promise that the stories are good or that the list is complete! We only promise Kakashi at a certain wizarding school…and in some of them he isn't even there for very long...or mentioned by name, but hey, we try!